“Or me.”
Life drew a second card. “EL QUE A BUEN ÁRBOL SE ARRIMA BUENA SOMBRA LE COBIJA.”
Catrina laughed, pointing at the branches overhead. “How fitting! HE WHO APPROACHES A GOOD TREE IS BLANKETED BY GOOD SHADE.”
She placed a black bean on the image of a tree on her tabla. “And so it begins!”
In the blue house, Clara looked up from the chocolate she was diligently stirring. A sudden and invisible weight pressed upon her shoulders. The chocolate became impossibly thick, and she strained to move the molinillo. Just as quickly, the feeling vanished, and the molinillo flew out of her hand, splattering chocolate all over the wall.
As Clara reached for a cloth to clean up the mess, she could not shake the feeling that something important had just transpired.
A noise in the restaurant interrupted her thoughts.
“Hello?” she called out. “Papi?”
She listened closely, but all she could hear was the bubbling mix on the stove.
“Is anyone there?” Clara stepped through the beads that separated the kitchen from the dining room.
Six square tables were draped in plastic tablecloths, with salsas for centerpieces. An old radio tucked behind the counter burst into a lively canción norteña. Clara jumped.
“Sorry, mi hija,” her father said, appearing behind the counter. “I didn’t mean to startle you. This old box was giving me a hard time.” He walked over to an even older TV bolted to a shelf in the corner. The black-and-white image on the screen showed her father’s favorite luchador, El Apache, locked in the grip of another beefy wrestler.
Clara’s father picked up a broom. Stealing glances at the match, he danced from table to table with the broom in his hand. When he swept past Clara, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into his dance.
“¡Buenos días!” he sang, his voice deep, steady, and rich.
“Good morning,” Clara replied.
“Everything okay?”
“I think so.” As her father spun her around, Clara took in the restaurant her parents had opened when she was no more than a year old. It was here that she had learned to eat and speak and walk and dance. It was here that she had learned to play dominoes and viuda negra, the card game favored by all the local widows. It was in this very spot that she had experienced her first artistic inspiration after seeing the distorted reflection of a cicada that had flown into a drinking glass.
The walls were painted with colorful scenes, as vibrant now as they had been ten years ago. On the wall behind the counter, cool blue waves shimmered, tipped with glimmers of gold sun. A fishing boat bobbed in the distance, the men’s heads bent toward each other in a never-ending conversation. Beyond them, a small island glittered: La Isla de las Ranas, named for all the frogs meticulously drawn on the beach.
Another wall looked like a seafood stand at the market: there was a purple octopus tentacle and a rubbery squid, pink shrimp, and mounds of white scallops. On the opposite wall, a fruit stand boasted towers of orange papayas, spiky pineapples, prickly pears, and magueys. There were melons, bananas, and bright green kiwis. Customers said the artwork alone made their mouths water.
Her father grunted and stopped mid-dance.
“Papi? Are you okay?”
He pulled out a chair and sat down, groaning. “My back,” he said. “It’s as rickety as that old radio.” He winked at Clara. “I just need a moment to rest.”
“Here, let me finish for you.” Clara took the broom from him and began sweeping.
She hadn’t gotten far when her father said, “What’s that smell?”
Clara gasped, dropped the broom, and raced back through the beads into the kitchen. The chocolate mix was violently sputtering all over the stove. Curls of black smoke filled the kitchen. She grabbed the molinillo and stirred, but she could already tell the mixture was ruined, the liquid clotted and sticking to the bottom of the pan.
“Ugh!” She lifted the heavy pitcher off the burner.
“What happened?” her father called from the dining room.
“I burned the hot chocolate,” Clara called back. “Again.” She sighed.
“Do you need help?”
“No, Papi. But thanks.”
Clara dumped the ruined chocolate and wiped her hands on a towel. She reached for a small metal tin resting on a shelf next to the stove and pulled out a faded yellow piece of paper. The edges were ragged, and a triangle was missing at the top where it had been folded and the crease had eventually become a tear. This was the famous hot chocolate recipe, written in Abuelita Esperanza’s impeccable penmanship.
Clara read each step twice before meticulously following the instructions, word for word. By the time Juana returned, a new pot of chocolate was bubbling on the stove. It wasn’t even a good approximation of the chocolate her mother made, but Clara knew her mom would easily remedy that.
“It just needs a bit of salt,” Juana said, tasting the new batch and adding some salt. “And perhaps a bit more…”
This and that were added, then a pinch of something else.
“See?” Juana concluded. “You did a great job.”
The result of Juana’s magic touch was a decadent pot of rich and creamy goodness.
Later that afternoon at the family picnic, Juana would tell everyone that Clara had made the hot chocolate. They all complimented her, and when she tried to explain that it was her mother behind the magic, they refused to believe her.
Clara knew they were being kind—that was what family did—but it still made her feel good. And it was this very feeling of ease and self-assurance that ultimately prompted her to agree to a seemingly small request, with unexpected consequences.
Clara’s cousins had long been searching for the entrance to the Gruta de Oro. They knew that the Golden Grotto, with its solid gold stalagmites and stalactites, was just a myth. But they were no strangers to mysteries-come-true, and so, after the lively picnic lunch, they set off in search of gold.
The cousins took turns listening for whispers in the trees.
“There!”
“No, that way!”
“It’s my turn to lead!”
Through fields of tall grass dotted with flowers and over clear streams speckled with stones, they followed their instincts to a cavern hidden behind a dense curtain of vines and shrubbery.
Behind the vines, and inside the grotto, enormous pillars of wet sediment rose from the ground to a ceiling out of sight. A trick of light tinged them gold. Not exactly the Gruta de Oro, but close enough.
Massive stalactites clung to the ceiling. Drips of water traveled down the solidified cones of mineral, gathering at an impossibly sharp point before plunging to meet the equally sharp stalagmites below.
Over the years the droplets had created ghoulish formations, like monsters slowly melting. Their cries of agony seemed to echo through the cavern as the wind raced to find the exit.
“Whoa!” whispered Esteban, Clara’s youngest cousin. “It is real….”
“Come on—let’s check it out,” said his oldest brother, Manolo.
“I’m not so sure about this.” Clara gripped Esteban’s hand tightly.
“But think of all the gold!” Esteban said.
“It looks pretty slippery,” she replied. “And besides, I don’t think it’s really gold.”
“We’ll be careful.” Esteban urged her on. “Come on. You promised you would go with me.”
The yawning darkness dripped with cold: an accident just waiting to happen.
“Pleeeaaase,” Esteban said. “I know you’re nervous. But you can do it.”
Clara frowned. “Of course I can do it. I’m just worried about…about you.”
Esteban grinned. “Don’t worry about me! As long as we’re together, we’ll be fine.”
&nbs
p; “Are you coming?” Manolo called out. “Riches await!”
The older boys began moving deeper into the cave.
Esteban waited for Clara, one foot poised at the entrance.
Clara sighed. “Fine.” She adjusted the bag slung across her chest. “But we need to be really careful.”
“We will.” Esteban nodded very solemnly.
The ground was slick and uneven, with murky pools of water every few steps. Esteban’s four brothers, Manolo, Victor, Ricardo, and Antonio, moved deftly through the towers of calcified stone, chattering excitedly.
“Do you think we should take a piece home?” Victor asked. His hand was wrapped around a stalagmite, glimmering gold in a slanting beam of sun that had managed to cut through the vines over the entrance. “A bit of gold would go a long way.”
Clara’s family lived meagerly, but they made ends meet with their small restaurant. For Esteban’s family, on the other hand, getting by was a daily struggle. Their father had died a few years earlier, leaving Esteban’s mother a poor widow with five boys, now aged fourteen, thirteen, eleven, ten, and eight.
“No!” Manolo called out. “You’ll curse us. Remember what the legend says!”
“The legend’s not true,” Victor replied. “And anyway, this isn’t real gold.” Still, he moved his hand away.
“Maybe there’s other treasure,” Esteban said. “Real treasure.”
“Clever little brother!”
The next sound Clara heard was a rapid clicking from Ricardo as the boys walked deeper into the cave.
Echolocation is not a skill that most children have, but Esteban and each of his brothers had been born with unique talents. Indeed, all of Clara’s family had what she called “hueli”: abilities that, while not earth-shattering, were definitely remarkable and gave each of them a certain special quality that Clara felt she sorely lacked.
Manolo excelled at woodworking, and had inherited their father’s carpentry business. Victor was a master of prestidigitation, or sleight of hand. He was often hired as a magician for children’s parties, and no matter how closely people watched, they could never quite figure out his tricks.
Ricardo was an echolocator, and Antonio was a brilliant student—a genius, some said. Esteban’s talent was a frighteningly accurate gut instinct that bordered on fortune-telling. Their mother, Chita, was a healer, and people traveled great distances to consult with her.
Even Clara’s father and mother were gifted: one as a musician, the other as a cook.
But the gifts stopped there.
For some reason Clara could never understand, she did not possess a single talent. She was extraordinarily ordinary. In fact, she could not carry a tune, or make a meal to save her life. She had tried gardening but killed everything she planted. She had attempted to care for a stray cat, but the cat left less than a day later. She couldn’t even play a decent game of soccer. If anything, she had an uncanny ability to make mistakes.
“Listen!” Ricardo said.
The children stopped in their tracks. Wind whistled past towers of stone, carrying with it a hundred echoing drips. And something else.
No me olvides, amor….
Clara could vaguely pick out the words.
Nunca estoy lejos de ti.
Tu vida ha sido un dulzor,
Un regalo para mí.
Do not forget me, my love.
I am never far from you.
Your life has been a sweetness,
A gift for me.
“Where is that coming from?” one of the boys asked.
“It sounds like it’s coming from there!” Manolo pointed toward the darkness of the cavern looming ahead.
“But that’s Mami’s voice,” Esteban said, and he was right. It was his mother’s voice—a strange acoustic effect of the particular structure of the cave—accompanied by the faint notes of a guitar. The singing faded, swallowed up by the darkness. But let us not forget their singing, for it will yet play a role in this story.
The older boys laughed and resumed their exploration, their voices echoing wildly in the vast space.
“They’re leaving,” Esteban said.
“Wait up!” Clara called out, but the brothers ignored her.
Clara tightened her grip on Esteban’s hand, and they stepped from stone to stone. It was slow progress, and soon the older boys were far ahead and out of sight.
“Where did they go?” Esteban asked.
“I don’t know,” Clara replied, peering into the wet darkness.
Esteban groaned. “They always leave me behind!” He turned to Clara. “What should we do?”
Ricardo’s clicks and snippets of the boys’ conversation ricocheted off the walls. But she couldn’t tell where the sounds were actually coming from.
Her heart sped up as she recognized the familiar pangs of an impossible choice. If she gave in to her fear, she would surely fail Esteban. But if they forged onward into the dark cavern, she was bound to make a mistake and fail them both.
It was an inescapable trap.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t think we should go on.”
“Okay,” Esteban sighed. He dragged his feet behind Clara as they made their way back to the cave entrance.
They found a stone cushioned by moss and warmed by the sun, a seat just big enough for the two of them to sit on while they waited for the older boys to return. Disappointment pulsed off Esteban’s body.
To kill time, they watched butterflies catching sunlight on their wings; they swapped stories about silly neighbors; they made bracelets out of tall grass. When they had run out of riddles, Clara opened her bag.
Once upon a time it had been a birthday gift from her parents, containing a new sketchbook, a set of pencils, a sharpener, and an excellent eraser. Now it held the nubs of pencils, a dulled sharpener, and the worn remainder of a once excellent eraser, along with a few blank pages in her sketchbook.
“Do you want me to draw something?” she asked.
“Yes!”
“Okay, what should I draw?”
“A dragon!”
“You always want dragons.” Clara laughed, but she was already taking out her sketchbook.
“With two heads,” Esteban added.
“Got it.” Clara drew a rough outline. She had to erase it three times before it resembled anything close to a dragon. By then, Esteban had also requested wings. “One with scales and the other with feathers. And a black tongue and a forked tale and claws like a falcon’s!”
“How’s this?” She held up the sketch.
Esteban studied it closely. As he always did, he pointed out small details Clara had added to the drawing: the letter E on one of the scales, a C on one of the feathers, a ring around one of the dragon’s toes. “It’s great! Thank you.”
Clara ripped out the page and handed it to him.
“Hey!” Ricardo called from inside the cave. “Come here—check this out!”
Clara tucked her sketchbook and pencils in her bag.
“Look what we found.”
The boys stood just inside the entrance, and at their feet were a dozen small, delicate ceramic bowls. Some were cracked and missing pieces; others were covered in faint patches of red paint. They all had intricate carvings of swirls and circles, spirals and dots.
“They’re beautiful!” Clara said.
Esteban set down his drawing and picked up one of the bowls.
At that very moment a gust of wild wind brushed past Esteban. For many days this wind had traveled, starting at the peak of a snowcapped volcano and gradually gathering heat as it descended. Unaccustomed to the high temperature, the wind sought refuge in the cool dampness of the cave. As it blew past Esteban, it swept the drawing of the dragon along with it.
Caught u
p in the excitement of discovery, none of the children noticed.
The drawing traveled into the deepest depths of the cave, through a vast network of underground tunnels, finally coming to rest among a distant mass of tangled roots. Those roots, thousands of years old and voracious in their hunger, eagerly devoured the paper and the dragon upon it—an act with devastating consequences for Clara and Esteban.
The following day and six miles away, in the town center of Santa María del Tule, an ancient tree whose roots dug deep into a tunnel quietly completed a small transformation.
With the widest trunk of any tree in the world, El Árbol del Tule was an arboreal behemoth. It had been growing for thousands of years—by some estimates, as many as six millennia—and its canopy could shelter up to five hundred people. At that moment, however, only twelve people were benefiting from its shade: a small tour group and a cluster of local children challenging each other to spot new shapes among the trunk’s elaborate knots and gnarls, many of which resembled animals or mythical creatures.
The tour guide called for everyone to link arms and encircle the tree. He invited the children to join them, a futile task, with fewer than half of the thirty people required to create a full ring around the trunk. The point was made: El Árbol del Tule was massive.
It was during this exercise that one of the children made an interesting observation. On the tree’s trunk, directly at his eye level, a knot of bark had twisted into a creature he had never before seen on this tree.
Born in Santa María del Tule, Esteban had grown up in the tree’s shadow. He knew every nook and cranny, every twist and turn, and definitely every knot and gnarl of this giant. There was no doubt about the matter—the figure on the tree was brand-new.
However, it wasn’t the newness of the shape that took him by surprise; it was what it resembled: an exact replica of the dragon Clara had sketched for him the day before.
Esteban had looked for the drawing after it was swept away, but he never found it, and Clara had promised she’d make him another one. He’d not given it another thought, until now.
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