She ran her fingers across the bark of the nearest tree. When she flicked her finger against the surface, it produced a sharp metallic clink. The tree was definitely not made of wood.
“What is this?” she asked.
“Silver, silver, silver!” the frog croaked.
“Silver!” Clara gazed at all the trees around her. There were dozens—hundreds!—of towers of pure silver reaching high up into a lush canopy of green. “That’s incredible.”
She turned her attention to the vines. From afar, they looked green, but on closer inspection it was obvious they were a tight weave of bronze. The leaves on the trees were velvety soft and smelled like rain.
“Wait a minute!” She pulled away. “If Asrean is real and has always been in Chita’s garden, then how come I’ve never seen it? There’s no way Chita would have kept this world to herself.”
“No, no, no.” The frog jumped from leaf to leaf, a spot of orange on green. “A door was opened.”
“A door? What? Why? How?”
The frog jumped onto a leaf at eye level with Clara.
“El Diablo,” the frog said, its voice hushed but heavy.
A cold gust of wind crept up Clara’s back.
“He opened a passage,” the frog added. “Between the worlds.”
A knot unraveled in Clara’s stomach, releasing a sickening sensation through her body. “Who is El Diablo? And why did he open a passage?” She looked around. “And where is Esteban?”
“I know! I know! I know!” the frog said.
“So tell me!” Clara cried.
“First things first,” the frog replied.
“What does that mean?”
“You give me something. I give you help.”
“What?”
“There are rules in a place like this,” the frog croaked. “Nothing is free.”
“But I don’t have anything to give you,” Clara replied.
The frog jumped onto a raindrop-shaped leaf.
“Okay, then. Bye-bye.” Swiftly it sprang onto another leaf and then another, quickly jumping out of sight.
“Wait!” Clara chased after the frog. “Please help me. I’m totally lost here.”
The frog stopped. “You give me something. I give you help.”
“Something like what?” Clara asked, catching her breath.
“What do you have?”
Clara put her hands in her pockets. She pulled out a scrap of paper with a few words cut off—the remains of a grocery list. She held the paper out to the frog.
“No.” The frog jumped to another leaf, and Clara followed it.
“Do you want a paper clip?”
The frog contemplated the twisted piece of shiny metal but passed on that as well.
“Oh!” Clara said. “What about this?” She pulled out the small hard candy she’d offered Esteban earlier. Already that seemed like ages ago.
“Ooh!” the frog sighed. “Pretty, pretty, pretty.”
“It’s a sweet,” Clara said. “You eat it.” She held the candy out to the frog. “Do you want it?”
“Yes, yes, yes.”
Clara unwrapped the candy and set it on the leaf next to the frog.
In one gulp, the frog swallowed the round ball. It belched, and a spray of blue dots blossomed on its orange skin. “Pretty, pretty, pretty!”
“Yes,” Clara replied. “It is pretty. Now can you help me?”
“Yes!” The frog croaked. “Follow me.”
Clara ran after the frog. “Where are you going?”
The spot of orange moved chaotically, leading Clara—jump by jump—to a small clearing.
In the middle of the clearing one tree towered over all the others. An old and rickety ladder, blanketed in moss, rested against the trunk.
“Where did this come from?” Clara asked.
“The hunters,” the frog croaked.
“Hunters? Where are they? Maybe they can help!”
But the frog was already halfway up the ladder.
“Hey!” Clara called out. “Wait up!”
The ladder looked unstable; a few rungs were scattered on the ground, and others were bent at precarious angles.
The frog urged her on. “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
Clara took a breath and put her hand on one of the rungs and her foot on another. As soon as she stepped up, the rung snapped beneath her weight.
“Um…I don’t think it’s sturdy enough,” she told the frog, but it was no longer in sight. All she could see was the ladder disappearing into a massive cluster of branches and leaves overhead.
“Hello?”
The fear in her voice reflected a single thought.
I can’t do it.
Clara released her grip on the ladder and stepped back. There had to be another way.
Seconds ticked by, turning into minutes. The jungle heat seemed to settle more heavily upon her, as did the weight of her indecision.
“See here!” the frog beckoned from a height beyond sight. “Look, look, look! Hurry!”
The frog’s sense of urgency was alarming, and Clara approached the ladder once more. Whether she liked it or not, she was Esteban’s only hope, and this ladder seemed to be the only chance of finding him.
Her hands gripped the mossy wood, and she stepped onto another rung. This time the rung held, and she tentatively began her climb.
The ladder shook and wobbled. More than once a rotted rung collapsed, and Clara had to wrap her arms around the tree to keep from falling. Still, she continued her ascent.
“Don’t look down,” she whispered. “Or to the side.”
She kept her gaze pinned to the rung directly above her hand: one after another until she ran out of rungs and there were only branches.
The orange frog was waiting for her. A wave of relief flooded over her when she spotted the only familiar creature in this jungle.
The frog had crawled onto a thick silver branch, and Clara followed suit, keeping her arms and legs wrapped tightly around the bough. Jump by jump, squirm by squirm, the frog and Clara made their way to the end of the branch.
Once there, Clara was glad she had risked the climb, for she could finally see what she needed to see.
The surrounding jungle was vast and dense, flaunting every imaginable shade of green. In one direction, snowcapped mountains lined the horizon. In another, the trees gave way to a lake reflecting the sky, as clear and flawless as a sheet of glass.
“There!” the frog croaked.
Clara looked toward where the frog was pointing. For a moment she saw only more jungle. Then she noticed what appeared to be a stone structure peeking out from among the treetops.
“Go there,” the frog said, and it leaped off the tree.
“Wait!”
Clara’s request plunged after the frog, getting lost in the foliage below.
“Okay, then,” she whispered, closing her eyes to stop her head from spinning. “I can do this. Esteban needs me.”
With her resolve in place, Clara opened her eyes and made the uneasy descent. She slipped only once, but fortunately it was near the bottom and the soft mossy ground broke her fall.
A sense of direction had never been one of Clara’s strengths, and she was often getting lost in neighborhoods she’d known her whole life. So she took extra time to think about her location and where she needed to go.
The stone structure was directly to the left of the enormous tree. As long as she could keep the tree in her sight, she’d find her way.
“Good,” she whispered, and without giving herself a second to change her mind, she set off toward the stone structure.
Every few steps, Clara would turn to make sure the tree was in sight. The dense foliage threatened to block her view, but she checked her location
time and again, not moving until she knew exactly where she was relative to the tree.
The brush at her feet was a mesh of green that tangled and tripped her up, but still she trudged onward. The heat became stifling, and a desperate thirst fell upon her.
A promise is a promise.
Reciting the words until they became a mantra, Clara made slow but steady progress. A few times she had to backtrack, she tripped more than once, and her fear never left her side. But she pushed on through the endless sea of green until she came upon a web of vines so dense and tightly knit they formed an impenetrable wall.
“Now what?”
And that was when she heard it: Esteban’s voice.
“Is Mami there?”
The words were clear and so close! Clara was certain Esteban was on the other side of the vines. She was about to call out to him when a man’s voice replied.
“Yes,” he said. “She’s been waiting for you.”
Clara did not recognize the voice, but it made every hair on her arms stand on end.
“Come,” the man went on. “It’s just up ahead.”
Clara strained to see through the wall of vines. She thrust her hands into the mesh, tugging the vines aside until she opened a slit big enough to spot her little cousin. A tall man in a red suit held Esteban’s hand. The two walked toward a stone circle atop a hill.
Clara had no idea who the man was or where they were going, but she knew he was lying to Esteban, and every cell in her body vibrated on high alert.
As adrenaline flooded her bloodstream, she tried to widen the opening she had made in the hedge. Briars tore at her clothes, scratching and poking her exposed flesh. But the vines were so tightly intertwined that she had to give up.
Through the gap she saw Esteban and the man cresting the hill.
Next Clara tried to climb the wall, but when she searched for a foothold, the vines became so loose and slack they wouldn’t hold her weight.
“What is going on?” she cried. It was almost as if the vines were enchanted.
Esteban and the man moved farther away, and her heart sank.
Desperately, she called out to him. “Esteban!”
The boy stopped and looked directly at the vines behind which Clara fought to be seen. For a moment she was sure he spotted her. But then the man in red leaned down and whispered something in his ear. Esteban quickly turned away.
Before they walked off, the man looked back. The jungle behind Clara fell silent, and a finger of ice ran up her spine.
The man’s eyes found hers, locking on to them. In that instant her breath fled her body, turning to frost upon contact with the air. Unable to blink, Clara teared up, and for a moment her heart simply stopped beating.
Then the man broke eye contact and walked away. The cacophony of jungle life exploded around her. Clara’s heart raced erratically beneath her shirt, already drenched in sweat.
“Esteban…” The whispered word fell from her lips and shriveled on the ground.
It took a moment for the chill to leave Clara’s body, and longer still for her brain to thaw. She had no idea what was going on, but without a doubt—the man in red was up to no good.
A renewed urgency coursed through her veins as she scanned the wall for an opening. She walked first to the left, testing out different potential gaps, until the wall abruptly dropped off on a sheer cliff. At the bottom, the crowns of enormous trees swayed in a breeze.
She ran back to her starting point and followed the towering vines to the right this time, walking until she found herself on the edge of another cliff, looking down on the very same large trees.
“No!” Clara cried.
She was certain now that some kind of magic was keeping her out.
Or trapping Esteban in.
“But if they got in,” she said, “there must be a way!”
A flutter of feathers popped out from the hedge. A tiny bird cocked its head at Clara and chirped.
She looked back at the bird.
“Can you…”
That’s silly. Birds can’t talk.
“Can I what?” the bird asked.
“You can!” Clara exclaimed.
First the talking frog, now the bird. The strangeness of this world only fed Clara’s growing unease. And yet the frog had been able to help. Perhaps the bird could help, too.
“I need to get to the other side,” she told the bird. “Do you know how I can do that?”
The bird chirped, then said, “You need to ask the guardians of Las Pozas.”
“Las Pozas? Where can I find it?”
“It’s the kingdom beyond the hedge.”
The bird squeezed itself into a gap in the vines. From within the jumble of greenery it continued, “That’s where the boy is going.”
“And the guardians?” Clara peered into the hedge. “Where are they?”
“I can tell you.” The bird stopped and plucked at a berry.
“Please do!” Clara cried.
“What can you give me in exchange?”
“Give you?” Clara remembered what the frog had said about the rules of Asrean. “Ugh! I gave away my last candy.” She turned out the pockets of her pants.
The bird waddled out of its nook in the vines and stared at Clara before releasing a dismissive tweet. “Silly girl! What would I do with your pockets?”
“I’m not offering you my pockets,” Clara shot back. “I’m just showing you that I don’t have anything to give.”
The bird ducked into the foliage. “Too bad!”
“But I need your help.” Clara followed the bird as it wove through the vines, plucking at berries and insects along the way. “I need to get to my cousin. He’s in trouble.”
“He probably is,” the bird replied. It nibbled on a berry, then added, “Are you good at anything? Can you sing? I’ve always wanted a good song.”
Clara shook her head. “I’m terrible at singing.”
“Pity, pity,” the bird chirped. “Can you dance?”
“No, and I can’t cook or sew or even tell good jokes!” She didn’t wait for the bird to respond. “Please, can’t you just tell me how to get through?” Her voice was loud and laced with anger.
“Chit, chit, chit.” The bird buried itself deeper into the tangle of vines.
Clara briefly lost sight of it, but then the bird suddenly popped back out farther down the wall.
“Can you draw?” the bird asked. “Could you draw me a horn?”
“A horn?”
“Yes!” The bird chirped gaily. “Like a unicorn horn: swirly and covered with diamonds, but instead of being pointy, it bends at the top and ends in a hook with a basket for all my berries.” The bird bowed. “And make it small enough for my head.”
“That sounds really complicated. And besides, how would a drawing fit on your head?”
“Not a drawing,” the bird chirped. “I can make it real!”
“How?” Clara asked.
The bird laughed. “You don’t know anything!”
“I’m not from here—okay?” Clara said. “And I need your help.”
The bird flew to the ground at Clara’s feet. “You draw a unicorn horn. If I like it, it’ll become real, and I will help you.”
“And if you don’t like it?”
“Then I won’t help you.”
Clara considered her options. “The thing is,” she began, “I’m really not such a good drawer….”
“Too bad!” With a flutter of its tail and a flap of wings, the bird caught a breeze. “Bye-bye!”
“Wait!” Clara ran after it. “Come back. I’ll do it! I’ll draw your horn!”
But the bird had left, and Clara’s words drifted aimlessly away.
A sinking feeling overtook her as she realized her
moment of insecurity might have cost Esteban his life.
The din and commotion of the midnight market in downtown Oaxaca City filled the air. Tucked into a corner, Life and Death sat at a stone table with the remnants of a chessboard painted on its surface. For centuries, old men, and more than a few women, had gathered at this and other tables like it to share strategies, stories, and plenty of gossip through the night. Over time, the chessboard surfaces had been worn down from countless elbows and multiple cleanings. Now only a few checkered spots could be seen.
Life had set up their game on one of these surfaces. The circle of glass through which they had a window into Clara’s journey sat on the table between them. Next to it was the deck of remaining cards, facedown.
Life flipped the top card over. “NO TE ARRUGUES, CUERO VIEJO, QUE TE QUIERO PA’ TAMBOR.”
“DON’T YOU WRINKLE, DEAR OLD LEATHER, SINCE I WANT YOU FOR A DRUM.” Catrina studied her board. “Drum…drum…drum.”
Not finding the pictograph, she set her bean to the side of her tabla.
“I, too, am without a drum,” Life said.
The clang of metal on stone echoed through the space as a merchant lost his grip on the pole he was using to support his stand. Two of his fellow merchants rushed to his aid, and soon the stand was up and tightly bound. The three men worked together to set up the remaining stands.
Colorful tarps sheltered tables lined with fantastical alebrijes and ornaments made of flattened tin. There were bowls and vases, platters and plates of black clay; shirts and blouses shared a space with hand-embroidered bags; and everywhere there were baskets of fried crickets.
Big vats of tejate—a creamy drink made out of cacao beans and maize, and dating from prehistoric times—were being stirred with large molinillos. The beverage was served alongside tamales and tortillas, hot off sizzling griddles. Scattered strands of conversation mingled in the air, peppered with whispers and laughter.
An old woman hobbled on a cane to where Life and Death were seated. Draped in scarves and wrinkles, the woman extended her hand.
“For something to eat,” she said.
Life placed some coins in her hand. Enough to feed her for more than a week.
Lotería Page 7