“For what?” Nova says, impatient.
I nudge him in the ribs.
“Impatience will get you killed almost as quickly as fear, boy.”
I wrap my hand around Nova’s wrist. His fingers ball into a fist. His magic pushes against mine. It’s a weird feeling to recognize it.
“Girl,” the duende says to me. “You saw it before.”
I step onto the pier. I get on one knee to look closer. Nova says my name in warning, but I’m not in any danger. Not from this distance at least. I was right. I did see a face in the water before. When I inhale the salty breeze, I’m overcome with a wave of yearning. I have the overwhelming sensation that I might break down and cry, so I take several steps back and blink against the sting in my eyes. I realize the salt in the air isn’t sea spray. They’re tears.
“It’s a river of souls,” I say.
“Takes some travelers ages to figure that out,” the duende says. “Your heart must be calling out for long-lost ones. These souls take the shape of water, tangled forever as one. With each splash and wave, they try to break free.”
One soul leaps from the mass, and a silver hand slaps the pier right at my feet. She pulls herself up with one arm. Her beautiful and ghastly face is covered by a wet tangle of matted hair. She tilts an open mouth to the sky and howls. She breaks a hand off of the undulating mass of souls around her. Her elbows are sharp like spikes, and she digs them into the pier to pull herself farther up, long, pale fingers reaching for me.
I kick, and the rubber of my sole melts when it touches her head. My power is on alert, sensing my despair. It swells in my chest, but something stops the magic from coming forward.
Not yet, a voice whispers.
Oros’s heavy feet run up behind me. With a swing of his golden staff, he knocks the soul back into the mass making its way downstream.
“Why are they like this?” I ask. “I thought souls pass on eventually.”
“You’d think that, girl,” Oros says. He pulls on a golden rope to bring the vessel closer to the pier. “These end up here because they’re unable to let go of their human lives. When they try to harm the living, Lady de la Muerte herself sends them here.”
“Are you trying to tell me that this entire giant river is made up of souls that can’t let go of their…loves?”
“Why is that so hard to believe?” The duende puts a foot on the boat to keep it steady. “You’re seeing it with your own eyes.”
“She’s a hard one to impress,” Nova says.
Oros’s smirk is a terrible, dark thing that makes me want to turn back and jump into the infinite portal that leads to nothing. “What brings you young travelers to the Selva of Ashes?”
Nova and I exchange looks. My whole mouth feels dry. Lie faster, I tell myself.
“We’re hunting for supplies in the Poison Garden,” he says with a smirk.
“All this way? I do hope your dealer is making it worth your while.”
“Listen, old man,” Nova says, “as long as those things don’t touch us and we can get across, I’m good.”
Oros ponders, tapping a black nail on his chin. “Used to be people paid me to cross the Luxaria with a promise of their firstborn or the tears of their first love. Even a little taste of magic. My services are costly, after all.”
Taste of magic?
“Well, we don’t have firstborn children,” Nova says irritably, “or the tears of our first loves.”
“Not yet you don’t,” Oros says, like a warning.
A silver wave rises high into the air. Arms and faces try to pull away from the imprisoned mass, but an invisible force pulls them back down.
“Isn’t it obvious?” the duende says. He smiles, and the gold in his teeth is blinding. When his cloak parts, I get a good look at the reason for his limp. He’s got a gold foot that stops at the middle of his calf.
His eyes fall to the pendant around my neck, the tiny gold crescent moon necklace I’ve worn my whole life. I grab it protectively.
“What’s wrong, girl?” Oros snaps. His patience is running short. “The man who gave you that wasn’t worthy of your love—what’s left of it, at least.”
My father gave this to me when I was five. I was obsessed with the night sky. I’d take my mother’s silver eyeliner and draw stars on my cheeks and a crescent moon on my forehead. Then, on my birthday, my father gave me a tiny box. He told me that I could wear the moon forever.
My father left. I know the truth. I’m not like Lula or Rose or my mother. I don’t believe that he’ll return. And this duende knows, like I do, that every day, some of that love slips away a little at a time.
Suddenly, he’s right in my face. His dark-gold eyes are expectant.
“Hold up, hold up,” Nova says, pulling at his earlobe. El duende turns an irritated glare toward Nova. “My moms gave them to me for my thirteenth birthday.”
He looks back and forth between us, weighing the diamonds on his palm. The duende smiles when they twinkle.
“It is nearly satisfactory,” he says finally. “But she wears a truly remarkable piece, and it’s been so long since I’ve had the opportunity to help lost travelers.” Oros’s eyes fall on my necklace again. He licks his lips with his dark tongue. I wonder what will happen when the rest of him turns to gold and how that happens in the first place.
“Plus,” Nova says, taking off his prex, “my family’s not powerful like hers, but you can feel how long our lineage is.”
“Nova!”
“Stop,” he whispers. “I got this.”
Something about this pleases the creature. Because he’s not a man—he’s a hideous, greedy creature that belongs in this ashen, cold land. It’s a hateful thing, and this is a hateful place.
“We have a deal.” He snatches the prex from Nova’s hand. “Now get onboard.”
Nova helps me get on, straddling the pier and the edge of our boat. It moves under my weight and then again when Nova sits in front of me.
Then, Oros unhooks us from the pier and gives us a push with his staff.
“What are you doing?” I shout.
“I do not cross, girl.” He shakes his head. “I cannot cross.”
“You little sh—”
“You said you’d take us!”
He shakes his head in that slow way. The oars start slipping from their metal rings. I grab on to them before they fall into the silver river.
“I said I provide crossing. And I have.” He waddles farther up the pier and waves. “Give the boat a push back if you get to the other side.”
15
Where is my love?
Swimming in the River Luxaria.
Has he forgotten me so?
—Folk song, Book of Cantos
“I’ve never liked duendes.” I curse and grab the oars. “Trickster, lying—”
“Forget him,” Nova says.
“I’d like to tear that old beast to bits.” Empty threats are comforting when you’re sailing across a river of vengeful souls.
The closest to rowing I’ve ever gotten was the rowboats in Central Park. Here, the current is quick, trying to drag us downstream and away from our destination. It takes a few tries, but we sync up our rowing.
“You don’t think this is romantic?” he asks dryly.
I make a face at the back of his head. Our blanket of gray sky turns dark. Out here, the cool wind provides a reprieve from the dense heat created by the Selva.
A crooked, white hand reaches for the side of the boat and threatens to capsize us.
“Ignore it!” Nova tells me. “Row faster!”
How do you ignore fear that makes every muscle in your body freeze? It’s so much easier to give in to fear. I’ve done it. After Aunt Rosaria, I refused to leave the house. After Miluna, after my father, I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I did
n’t have anyone depending on me then. I force myself to push through the burning in my arms. And soon enough, we’re too fast for the ghoulish hand to hold on to, and in a swift push of our oars, it lets go.
“Do you work out?” Nova looks over his shoulder at me.
“Are you kidding me right now?”
He chuckles. His eyes are so bright, like tiny stars gracing his brown skin. It’s hard not to notice how pretty they are. But Nova said it himself. I can’t just go running for something because I think it’s pretty. After seeing my mom hurt so much, I told myself I’d never get fooled. My dad had pretty eyes too. The same stark gray as Lula’s. Me, I got plain brown eyes to match the plain girl I’ve always wanted to be.
Nova turns back around and faces our destination. “Relax, I’m not hitting on you. I’m just impressed that you aren’t tired yet.”
I am tired, but I won’t slow us down.
“If you must know, during the fall semester, I do indoor track, volleyball, and weight lifting.”
“Weight lifting?”
“Don’t seem so surprised. It’s an easy class. The teacher is this old meathead. He looks like a fifty-year-old Ken doll.”
“Gross, you think he’s hot.”
“I do not.” I can feel myself slowing down. Nova’s breath is ragged. I know he’s trying to distract me, to make me laugh so we keep going, and I appreciate that.
“It’s not like I bench two hundred pounds or anything. But I like keeping my legs strong for when I run.”
“What about in the spring?” He looks over his shoulder at me again. A crooked smile appears. “Outdoor track?”
“Yes. And pole-vaulting.”
“Damn, girl. I never would’ve guessed.”
“You can guess all day long. You don’t know a thing about me.”
He sucks his teeth. “I’m just saying. You’re kind of uptight. I shouldn’t be surprised that you like sports where you don’t have any teammates. I would’ve thought you’d spend all your time in the library. But then I saw you in that dress.”
“Don’t try to flatter me, princess.” My voice is hard, but I think my cheeks might be melting off, and I’m glad he isn’t facing me.
“And it just so happens,” he says, “I’m adding another five hundo to our deal.”
“What?” I miss three rowing beats and now we’re scrambling to get back in sync. My voice goes up an octave. “Why?”
“That’s how much my earrings and prex cost.”
“You know,” I say, “I did you a favor. You dress like you’re in an R&B music video.”
“The ladies happen to love it.”
During my party, Mayi and Emma, even Lula, were drooling over him.
“How about,” I suggest, with a smile, “the next beast we come across, I let it eat you?”
He shrugs, sweat dripping between his shoulder blades. That’s when I notice the marks on his back. I’ve been so busy cursing Oros and the skies and staring at the shore we’re rowing toward that I didn’t see what’s right in front of me. Long, violent scars crisscross from his neck to his lower back. I wonder when this happened. I wonder if he would even tell me the truth.
“You could go back to Oros and give him your little moon,” he tells me. “But you wouldn’t, would you? I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Ladybird. If you can’t learn to sacrifice the small things, you’ll never get the thing you’re after.”
I focus on the silver waves that undulate beneath us, the dark shore that starts to take the shape of caves. One step closer to getting to the labyrinth.
As we keep going, every face that I see in the wave fills my heart with more hurt. I regret the choices I made that brought us here. I regret putting my family in danger. I breathe the sorrow in the wind, and its breaks my concentration.
“Alejandra—” the souls call to me, cut off by the wind.
“Alex,” Nova says. “What are you doing?”
I realize I’ve started to lean toward the water. The oar starts to slide through the ring holding it in place. I lunge for it, but filmy, silver hands reach up and grab it. I manage to grip the top of the handle, but they’re so strong.
“Nova, I can’t hold it.”
“Let it go!”
The souls pull the oar out of my grasp. On the other side of the vessel, the souls yank the other oar from my grip. The momentum makes me fall backward. My head hits the ledge so hard I’m afraid to open my eyes out of fear of seeing stars. What was it Oros said? If you make it to the other side.
“Take my oars,” Nova tells me.
I step around him to swap seats and start to row. He unzips the backpack and grabs the mace club by the handle. He swings upward and smashes the first hand that tries to climb over the side.
“To your left!” I shout as another soul pushes itself over the side. The spiked head of the club slams into its face, and it flies back into the river.
“Thanks.” He turns to me with a flashing smile that doesn’t last. His eyes widen when he sees something behind me. He jumps over my seat, rocking us precariously. I try not to look back, to focus on rowing, but his screams are distracting.
“It’s like Whac-A-Mole for the dead,” he says, panting more and more with every swing.
There’s no way he can handle every one of them on both ends of the boat.
“Keep them away with your light!”
He looks at his palm. The worry crease on his forehead is deeper than ever. He shakes his head.
“My powers don’t work like that,” he says. “I can’t hold it for long.”
“You have to!”
He stands, holding his inked palms up to the sky. He conjures a light that halos his entire body. It pulses with energy, spreading all around us.
For a while, it works. The light kisses my skin and warms the cold breath coming from the silver river. Then he starts to weaken. He grinds his teeth, like he’s holding on to a great weight. He falters.
And so do I.
My head throbs where I hit it. My thoughts are a messy stream of faces. My family. Oros. The dead of the river. I can’t tell if the voices I hear are in my head or not. Except for his voice. Nova says my name. It’s a desperate thing, and I know if I don’t focus, we’re lost. I row and row and row, despite the fire in my muscles and the pain in head.
“Alejandra.” The voice I heard before comes again, like someone searching for me in a crowd. I can almost see her. It isn’t coming from the river of souls. It’s something else—someone else. When I look up, hoping to see her familiar face, all I see is death.
The skeletal, silver face lunges at me. The boat has come to a slow, painful drag. The withered creatures are pulling apart from their eternal soup and clamoring for us. They cling to the oars as I struggle to row. They cling to the top of the stern and the golden dragon’s head at the bow.
Nova screams my name. With his magic exhausted, he picks up the mace again and swings. I channel the magic inside me, but it’s thinning and weak, and I can’t get ahold of it. What’s the point of being what I am if I can’t use it when I need it to save my life?
The hungry soul bends over the side of the boat, its body a disfigured, warped mass of bone. I can feel the cold of its being, the angry force that keeps it moving. Those deathly hands reach for me, inching closer to my skin. This can’t end before we’ve even started.
My voice is a horse scream and I grab the soul. I hold its skull. It’s like nothing I would have ever thought touching a soul would feel like. The skin on my palms bubbles and burns. When I close my eyes, I see my mother wrapping her arms around me after I burned my hands on the stove. I know that’s impossible, but I feel her now, warm and comforting. And when I open my eyes, I know it’s the memory I needed to channel my magic back from its hiding place.
Power erupts from my chest in a blast o
f fire. I can feel the heat of it on my face. The magic rushes through my veins and lights up my senses. With all my strength, I push the creature back into the river, and it writhes and cries out in the terrible wail of the damned.
Above us, the sky crackles; the lightning looks more like the sparks at the end of fried cables. Rain descends on us, hard and fast. Without oars, the river is an angry rush that starts to push us off our path.
“Alex—help me.”
My red, raw hands tremble. Nova can’t fight them all, and it took so much of my energy just to push one of them away.
“There has to be another way,” I shout.
The winds get stronger now and carry the whisper of my name with them. I can’t see her, but I can feel her spirit in the breeze that wraps around me. She’s been calling me since we got on the river. Aunt Rosaria. I know it’s her. I can’t tell if she’s haunting me or guiding me.
I pull on my magic. I reach out to the wind and grab it. The wind itself latches on to my power. The gust is so strong that our boat is lifted up into the air and away from the silver hands that grasp for us. So strong it nearly knocks me overboard, but Nova holds on to me like an anchor.
“Nova!”
He takes my hand, and I let my power flow, our magics melding together like metals under fire. Up in the air, we’re safe. I wish I could look at us from a distance—a flying, golden boat sailing across the River Luxaria.
“This is amazing!” he shouts over the moaning wind.
I squeeze his hand as we climb higher and higher, and I think there is nothing as wonderful as feeling like you can fly.
“We’re not slowing down.” Panic takes over my sense of triumph. “We’re about to pass the shore!”
I let go of Nova’s hand. The wind cuts out around me, and I fight to rein it back in.
“Just a little longer, Alex,” Nova tells me. “You can land this thing.”
“It isn’t a plane,” I shout.
“We have to jump,” he says.
I shake my head and cling to the sides of the boat. We spin in a funnel of air. Doubt clouds my mind. I had it under control, and now I’ve lost it. The black beach is fast approaching.
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