Lotería

by Karla Arenas Valenti

  Clara’s heart skipped a beat.

  “There’s something else back there.” Her eyes strained to see into the darkness.

  “It’s nothing,” the spider replied.

  But a thought began to take shape. “Oh no.” Clara’s voice trembled. “Is there another one of you?”

  “Let’s just say you might want to figure out this key thing sooner rather than later,” the spider replied.

  Fear bubbled through Clara’s veins, and blood dripped down her arm. She touched her fingertip to the red stain, then dropped to the ground and quickly drew another key.

  The rustling in the back of the cave grew louder.

  “Touch it!” Clara yelled when she finished her drawing.

  “It doesn’t even look like a key,” the spider said. “It’s just a mess of lines.”

  “I didn’t say I was an expert,” Clara replied.

  “Well, then, I don’t see how this is going to work.” The spider moved closer.

  “Just touch it—please!” Her voice echoed loudly, and it was met by a frenzy of clicks from the back of the cave.

  “How many of you are there?” Clara choked on the words, but the spider didn’t respond. Her arm pulsed with pain.

  Finally, the spider touched the drawing and a new key emerged, but this one was too long.

  “No, no, no…,” Clara cried.

  “You should probably hurry,” the spider said, its voice calm and composed, like a predator waiting for the inevitable to unfold. “The others are far less patient than I am.”

  “Others!” She took a deep breath. I can do this.

  Once again Clara gathered blood on her fingertip. She drew a key, narrower and shorter than the last. Then she drew another, of different length, and then a third, a fourth, a fifth.

  “Touch them all!” she yelled at the spider as the sound of scurrying feet grew closer.

  “I don’t know,” the spider replied, drawing out each word. “I really don’t think you’re very good at this.”

  Clara gritted her teeth. “Enough. You know you want this as much as I do.”

  The spider sighed. “Fine.”

  The keys materialized in a sequence of metallic clangs. The first key was still too long, the second key was too short, but the third key…slipped right in.

  Clara’s hand shook as she turned the key. At first it met with some resistance, but she pushed harder and there was an almost imperceptible click. The metal bars vanished.

  Clara gasped. “It worked!”

  The spider retreated to the back of the cave, and Clara wasted no time in stepping across the threshold. The catacombs erupted in noise as all the creatures became aware of what had just happened; a deafening roar rocked the stones, momentarily stealing Clara’s breath.

  Next to the opening of the spider’s cave, Clara spotted the round keyhole that would close the metal door. Clutching the key tightly, she moved her hand toward the keyhole.

  A promise is a promise.

  No matter what.

  Despite the fact that the spider had wounded her and given her the scare of her life, it had honored its word. She was bound to do the same.

  Clara dropped the key into her pocket and ran as fast as she could.

  A moment later, the spider emerged. Crawling along its back were hundreds of newly hatched spiderlings.

  “What a vibrant place!” Catrina said, scanning the Zócalo, the city’s main plaza, which bustled with the activity of many intersecting lives. On one side of the plaza, the cathedral’s ornately carved wooden door was open, welcoming people to prayer and reflection. The plaza’s other three sides were lined by colorful buildings with elaborate wrought-iron balconies. Bright umbrellas sheltered diners at the restaurants and cafés set around the plaza. The fragrance of café de olla, the traditional ground coffee made in a ceramic pot with cinnamon and raw cane sugar, drifted through the air, momentarily tangling itself with the string of a rouge-red balloon.

  “And yet,” Catrina sighed, “it is equally cast in such sorrow!”

  “The human heart is a delicate thing,” Life replied.

  They were watching Clara’s father, who was speaking with the manager of one of the cafés. Dark circles framed his eyes; his cheeks were sunken, his skin pale. He spoke animatedly as he described his daughter. His eyes begged for news of the girl. The manager shook his head.

  “Lo siento,” he said.

  Life and Death had been following Clara’s father as he scoured the city for his daughter. The rest of her family had stayed in Santa María del Tule and formed a search party.

  Clara’s father had been relentless in his search. The fatigue, hunger, and thirst clearly weighed on him. But it was the possibility of profound loss that made his shoulders sag deeply as he walked to the next café.

  “Love is a powerful force,” Life said.

  “One that is consuming the poor man with grief!” Catrina replied. She turned to her companion. “Surely one cannot choose this kind of suffering!”

  “What do you mean?”

  Catrina explained. “Earlier you said that it was your choice to love me.”

  “It is.” Life smiled.

  “But look at what love can lead to.” They watched Clara’s father exit another café, dejected and clearly heartbroken. “Why would anyone voluntarily agree to such despair!”

  “Do not mistake the consequence for the choice,” Life replied. “His choice was never to suffer—that is the consequence.”

  “And the choice?” Catrina asked.

  “His choice was to love.”

  “More precisely,” Catrina said, “his choice was to love the girl, for she is who lies at the heart of this drama.”

  “So you agree?” Life exclaimed. “He had a choice! He exercised his free will when he chose to love his daughter.” He grinned and turned to his companion. “Just as I choose to love you.”

  “You haven’t won quite yet.” Catrina smiled back. “Let me ask you: Why do you choose to love me and not another?”

  “Because you matter more to me than another. In the same way that his daughter takes precedence in his heart.”

  Catrina nodded. “And how do you decide what takes precedence?”

  Before Life could respond, she went on. “Surely certain things matter to us because of what we have already done and experienced—because of our past. In a way, that makes it inevitable that we should love one over another. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I understand what you are saying,” Life replied. “What’s more, I see no flaws in your reasoning.”

  “And yet…,” Catrina prompted him.

  “I simply cannot accept it as truth.” He shook his head to emphasize the point. “To say that I have no choice in whether or not to love you makes love seem…insignificant.” He paused, gathering his thoughts.

  Catrina waited.

  “I would say,” Life went on, “that the value of my affection for you comes precisely from the fact that it is offered freely. It is a gift, not an obligation.”

  “Perhaps it is a gift,” Catrina replied. “But it is nonetheless inevitable, given our shared past.”

  Life sighed. “I will yet figure this out.”

  “Well, you’d best figure it out soon,” Catrina said. “I suspect the end of this game is near.”

  The friends made their way to one of the many shady trees that lined the plaza. They sat on a bench beneath the tree’s heavy boughs and set up their game.

  Life gathered the few remaining cards and flipped over the top one. “AL PASAR POR EL PANTEÓN, ME ENCONTRÉ UN CALAVERÓN.”

  “AS I PASSED BY THE CEMETERY, I FOUND MYSELF A SKULL.” “I like that one,” Catrina said.

  “Though it seems that neither one of us has the skull,” Life replied. He t
urned over the next card. “UNO, DOS Y TRES, EL SOLDADO P’AL CUARTEL.”

  “ONE, TWO, AND THREE, THE SOLDIER HEADS TO THE FORT.”

  Esteban followed the man in red out of the castle, through the garden, and down a path that ran directly into a waterfall. The water rained down in torrents but parted like curtains when they approached.

  A tunnel appeared, lit by an undulating blue coming from some unseen source. The roar of water behind them merged with the roar of water in front, where another fall parted at their approach.

  The man in red stepped out and, with a flourish of his arm, pointed at a towering rectangular structure.

  “El Mercado Rojo!” he said.

  As its name suggested, the building was entirely red, a deep, dark color that clashed violently with the surrounding vegetation. The market was open to the air, with only a roof that was held up by stone towers on all four corners. Vines draped down, creating a screen of green that made it impossible to see inside. The chatter of hundreds of voices mixed with the clink and clang of objects being moved, feet shuffling, and dresses swishing. The market seemed like a beast alive.

  “Come,” the man in red called out, and Esteban followed him down the path to the market. By the entrance three women sat among large wicker baskets laden with exotic fruits and what looked like insects. One held up a bowl of butterflies.

  “Just one, thank you,” the man said. He plucked a butterfly from the bowl and popped it into his mouth, biting down with a crunch.

  “Ugh!” Esteban groaned.

  The woman laughed and turned to greet another customer. For a minute afterward, the man in red floated a few inches off the ground, gliding smoothly among the many stalls.

  Inside the market, what had initially appeared to be towers in each corner were now seen to be enormous trees, with branches reaching up and spreading in all directions, connecting in a solid platform that formed the roof.

  Everywhere Esteban looked, people were laughing or greeting each other, haggling over wares with vendors at hundreds of market stands.

  The stands were simple enough: tables upon which a colorful cloth was draped. The wares, however, were anything but simple.

  One vendor displayed bubbles of various colors and sizes, which hovered in place above the table. The colors came from smoke swirling inside the bubbles, making them seem alive. The owner used a long pair of tongs to hold one up for an inquiring customer.

  “They’re wish-come-trues,” the man in red explained. “Each one is unique. See the different colors? The blue ones, azulejos, are small wishes, for easy things that are quick to do, like getting a favorite toy. The green ones, verdantes, deal in feelings, yours or someone else’s. The red wishes, fieras, are more volatile; they have some intensity to them and sometimes involve many people.”

  “What about the black ones?” Esteban asked.

  “Those are called negritos. They’re special wishes that help you relive a moment in your past.”

  “And the purple ones?” Esteban pointed at a deep purple sphere hovering between the merchant and his customer as they haggled over the price.

  “Mordas are heavy with evil and misdeeds,” the man in red explained. “They are curses.”

  “Two,” the customer said.

  “Four,” the merchant replied.

  The customer shook his head. “That’s too much.”

  “Not for what you want.”

  The customer narrowed his eyes at the merchant, but the merchant stared back unflinchingly.

  “Fine, three!” the customer conceded.

  “Three it is.”

  The two men shook hands.

  The customer reached into his cloak and pulled out three writhing snakes: a bright green one, a crimson-red one, and a deep yellow snake with a pattern of diamonds running along its skin. He handed them to the merchant, who slipped them into a box at his feet.

  Using the tongs, the merchant placed the purple sphere into a velvet bag. He tugged the strings around the bag and handed it to the customer.

  The customer quickly slipped the velvet bag into his jacket. With a furtive glance at the man in red, he turned and walked away.

  “Let’s keep moving.”

  The man in red led Esteban past a stand that sold upside-down waterfalls (“for going back in time”), a stand with miniature white-capped pine trees (“instant snow makers”), a stand crowded with people hovering over tiny cakes perfectly shaped to look like books (“edible stories”).

  People bargained and traded: a woman gave up her baby’s bonnet; a child, his lollipop. An old man leaned over and whispered something into the ear of a vendor. “A life secret,” the man in red whispered to Esteban. “Those are very valuable, especially the older you get.”

  Esteban’s head spun from the crush of sounds and smells surrounding him. He reached for a table to steady himself, but the man in red swiftly grabbed Esteban’s hand. “What you touch, you buy. These happen to be quite expensive.”

  He motioned at the table where Esteban had almost placed his hand. Rows of little wooden bowls were filled to the brim with a murky bluish liquid.

  “What are they?”

  “Bowls of forgetfulness,” the man replied. “You drink from them and you can permanently forget whatever you wish to erase from your memory.”

  He pointed at a handwritten sign next to the bowls. It was written in a language Esteban couldn’t understand.

  “It states the price,” said the man in red. “Time.”

  “Time?”

  “Days of your life, taken from you.”

  Esteban took a step back.

  “That’s right.” The man in red smiled. “A steep price to pay.”

  Alarmed by his near miss, Esteban stayed close to the man in red, following him to a large and lavishly decorated tent set up in the middle of the market. The tarp was a deep indigo and was made of a material that seemed to shimmer. A flap covered the entrance, and two guards stood on either side. Each was dressed in full body armor and held a silver staff. They watched over a line of people waiting to enter the tent. The man in red walked up to the sentries and announced himself. “He’s expecting us.” The man in red looked at his watch. “In one minute.”

  The guards nodded. “Wait here.”

  They waited where the guards had motioned. Esteban’s stomach bubbled with excitement, his heart fluttered in anticipation.

  “Is my—”

  But his question was cut short when a sharp pain exploded within him, releasing a wave of heat and nausea that forced him to double over.

  The polvorones had done their job, temporarily numbing him to the anxiety steadily growing inside him. But the effect had finally worn off and, with it, the temporary reprieve Esteban had been enjoying, free of all concerns. Now his premonition hit him full on, like a brutal punch in the stomach. It brought the sour taste of bile to his mouth and all his fears to the surface of his skin, blanketing him in prickly goose bumps.

  Clara raced up the slippery ramp, peering into each of the cells as she passed. The two-headed dragon the spider had mentioned was her creation. She was sure of it!

  Tentacles reached for her through the metal bars of cells she passed; bodies slithered in the darkness; claws scraped across stone floors. But none of the chambers seemed big enough to hold her dragon.

  And then she saw it.

  Its feathers were silver. Its scales shimmered black. Its eyes were an icy blue.

  It was exactly as she had sketched in her notebook, identical to the one on El Árbol del Tule. And it was no larger than the palm of her hand.

  Clara approached the small cage hanging from the ceiling. Her dragon fluttered wildly from one side to the other, like a trapped dove.

  “What could El Diablo possibly want with you?”

  In response,
the dragon blew a column of fire so bright it temporarily blinded Clara. A chorus of shrieks and cries ushered forth from all the cells. Deep growls mixed with yowls of pain.

  “Right!” Her eyes adjusted to the darkness once the flame died down.

  There was no way this dragon could save her, but there was no reason she couldn’t save it.

  She pulled the key out of her pocket and inserted it into the keyhole on the cage, hoping it would work. Instantly, the bars vanished.

  “Okay, you’re free,” she told the dragon.

  It flapped its wings in place.

  “Go on,” she urged. “Hurry!”

  But the dragon didn’t flee.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally told it. “I have to go. You should go, too.”

  Clara turned and hurried back down the sloping path, around and around, past all the imprisoned beasts, skidding to a halt at the bottom. As she caught her breath, a whisper of wind brushed her neck. The dragon fluttered at her shoulder, its icy blue eyes peering at her expectantly.

  “That’s fine,” she told the dragon. “You can come with me. But you need to stay close. And be quiet.”

  Hugging the wall, where the shadows were darkest, Clara made her way toward the decaying stone archway to the left. Beyond it she could see the great hall through which the guards had dragged her when they first brought her in. The dragon hovered over her shoulder, keeping pace with her every step.

  Voices echoed off the stone, but she couldn’t tell where they were coming from. She sucked in her breath and waited.

  The sharp click of boots on stone preceded six black-clad soldiers marching in unison. Metal clasps on their shiny boots clinked in synchronicity. They carried identical rifles, with daggers at the tips—bayonets. Their helmets were a deep red that matched the bands wrapped around their upper arms.

  The soldiers hadn’t spotted Clara yet, but they were headed straight toward her. Desperately she sought a place to hide. There was nothing but the jagged wall at her back and wet stone at her feet. She thought about running, but the movement would surely be spotted. At least the shadows provided some cover.