Charlie Hernández & the League of Shadows

by Ryan Calejo

  Ahead of us, in its center, stood an elaborate stone statue: four horses with webbed feet supporting a coffin (I think it was supposed to be the coffin of Saint James) on top of which sat an angel with a bright star in its upraised hand. Hailstones pounded the statue mercilessly, but water still spewed from the horses’ stony mouths, the streams whipping this way and that in the gusty wind. And just beyond it, flanked on one side by the iconic Torre del Reloj (or clocktower), loomed the cathedral.

  Almost there, I told myself. Casi casi.

  “Quickly now!” shouted a familiar voice, and I glanced back to see Queen Joanna charging up the path behind us, her long tiered gown fluttering out behind her like wings. Her hands and feet were moving so fast they blurred, and she caught up with us almost immediately. “Eyes straight ahead, children!” she ordered. “No looking back!”

  But, of course, when someone tells you not to look back . . . well, you can’t really help it. My gaze drifted past her, toward the narrow tile-lined alley, and what I saw froze my blood: Swelling up behind us like a massive foaming tidal wave of blackness was an army of acalicas. There must’ve been thousands of them—no, tens of thousands of those skinny, bald-headed faeries with their pale eyes, toothless grins, and bony skeletal wings that looked like they belonged in some sort of fossil exhibit. The sound of their wings beat in my ears like thunder.

  And as if that weren’t bad enough, El Sombrerón suddenly emerged from the shadows to our left. “Oye, hey, I jus’ wanna talk, okay?” he said, gently strumming his guitarra.

  For some reason, his freakishly calm demeanor made my pulse kick up another notch, and I swung my head around, running even harder now.

  “Do not stop!” Joanna instructed us. “No matter what you see, do not stop until we are through the cathedral doors!”

  “OYE, LADY, YOU THINK I’M MESSIN’ AROUND HERE?” El Sombrerón yelled. “OKAY, THEN—LE’S PLAY!”

  No sooner had he spoken those words than jagged bolts of angry red lightning began spitting down from the sky like artillery fire, hammering into the ground and throwing up huge chunks of scorched stone. Some struck so close I could feel my hair crackle with static. One sizzled into the cobbles directly in our path, leaving my ears buzzing and my eyes burning with the afterimage. It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to scream (honestly, I didn’t even have time to flinch), but I knew it was only a matter of seconds before one of us got deep-fried to a tender crisp.

  With a wild cry, Queen Joanna threw up a hand. Her fingers spread wide and shafts of blinding light shot from between them, forming a bubble of blue energy above us that sparked and flared as it deflected lightning bolt after lightning bolt. Thunder boomed everywhere. The plaza rumbled with its incredible power.

  I ran on blindly. Violet was right on my hip, her hair whipping across my face, her breath rasping in and out, in and out. The queen, meanwhile, was still leading the way, with Juan only a stride or two behind. We were so close now I could see the intricate carvings above the two doors that faced the Platería Square and on the great pillars that both flanked and separated them. In the fiery flickering light of the death bolts, the designs were breathtaking. Not that I had much breath left in me, though.

  “Into the cathedral, niños!” Joanna cried. She flicked her wrist, and the massive iron doors flew open as if punched by an invisible giant fist.

  The instant we stepped inside, the basajaun slammed the doors shut behind us with a reverberating boom! almost as loud as the thunder itself. Then he looped a rusty iron chain around the giant doorknobs, sealing us in. My ears rang in the sudden silence.

  “That’s it?” Violet rasped, hands on her knees, chest heaving. “I mean, you don’t expect that to keep them out, do you?”

  But Joanna had already disappeared into the shadows of the sanctuary. “The cathedral is warded,” she called back. “It’ll buy us some time, though perhaps not enough. Vamos!”

  • • •

  Santiago de Compostela Cathedral was arguably my grandmother’s favorite place in the whole wide world. I could remember her describing it to me in painstaking detail even back when I was still in diapers. She’d go on and on about the soaring vaulted ceilings, the Gothic cloisters, the Pórtico de la Gloria—and especially the high altar with its gold-leaf canopy that covered the crypt and the massive Solomonic columns twined with grape leaves.

  Ever since I was little, I’d always dreamed of coming here myself one day. I’d imagined walking down the narrow aisles and taking in all the amazing artistry, the history. You know, just sort of hanging out. But today was definitely not that day.

  Joanna led us through the cathedral at a breakneck pace, flying around corners and under archways, pounding down long hallways and zigzagging her way through forests of stone columns. Honestly, I had no idea how she could tell where she was going. It was so dark in here I couldn’t see so much as a sliver of light. Twice I almost ran headfirst into Juan’s hairy, rock-hard butt cheeks, and once I actually did, smacking my head on a gluteus maximus so dense and muscular it might as well been a hunk of rock. Finally, we came to a tiny room somewhere toward the back of the cathedral, with cobwebs dangling from the ceiling and not a single piece of furniture anywhere on the lumpy stone floors. There was only a basement door, which was crisscrossed with chains and padlocked.

  I thought Juan would have to go all beast-mode to bust through, but then Joanna raised a hand, and suddenly the chains came to life, grinding and clinking until they undid themselves and the padlock snapped off. Juan quickly took hold of a slim metal handle and lifted the door, which groaned like a giant waking from a two-hundred-year nap, then motioned for us to follow. Inside, a narrow stone staircase led down many flights of steps. The walls were made of porous rock, and it was pitch-dark, but I thought I could hear water bubbling close by. The whole place felt ancient and undisturbed.

  When we reached the bottom, we found ourselves in a square-shaped room with low earthen ceilings and a large, square-shaped pool in the middle. The pool itself couldn’t have been more than three feet deep, but the water was such a deep azure color that it looked almost black. And it shimmered . . . as if it had been sprinkled with millions of tiny diamonds. Rippling patterns danced across the walls, making the room feel like it was in constant motion. The pool was the only light down here, but it was more than enough.

  “Welcome to the Basin of Youth,” Joanna said proudly.

  “The what?” I was pretty sure I hadn’t heard that right.

  “The Basin of Youth,” she repeated. “It was built in the early fifteen hundreds by the famed explorer who discovered the legendary fountain in St. Augustine, Florida. He wanted a place where he could bathe in the life-giving waters whenever he returned to Spain.” She knelt at the edge of the pool, skimming her hand along its glassy surface. “As I heard it, more than ten thousand gallons were loaded into huge wooden crates and shipped back across the Atlantic on el San Cristóbal to fill this very pool.”

  “That’s nuts,” Violet murmured. Her gaze was fixed on the pool, her eyes impossibly blue in the glittery play of lights.

  “Actually, it proved to be a most wise decision. Within a few years of its discovery, the limestone walls that encased the Fountain of Youth began to crack, and other sources of water from various subterranean tributaries mingled with the fountain’s water, contaminating it. These waters, however, remain pure to this day.”

  Wow. Now, that was some interesting history. Maybe if stories like that actually found their way into textbooks, my third period wouldn’t be such a snoozefest.

  “But where’s the oracle?” I asked, squinting into the semidarkness. There didn’t seem to be anyone in here but us.

  Joanna’s lips broke into a cunning smile. “Come and see. . . .”

  I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I knelt beside her anyway. As I peered over the edge, I saw my reflection staring back at me, my face rippling in the glassy blue water. This close, the pool looked way deeper,
maybe as many as twenty feet deep. I half expected to see a school of small fish swim by.

  “Okay, so where is he?”

  The witch queen’s eyes shone in the pool. They gleamed like the square-cut emeralds in her crown. “First you must go for a swim.”

  A swim? Was she crazy? The water was probably, like, fifty degrees—if that. And I didn’t see a wet suit lying around anywhere. But just as I opened my mouth to tell that I wasn’t a big fan of hypothermia—or going swimming in jeans, for that matter—I felt one of her hands clamp painfully around the back of my neck. I barely had time to register what was happening before she thrust my head down, dunking me face-first into the pool.

  Instantly, a surge of icy water rushed up my nose, stinging my eyes. Bubbles swirled around me. For half a second, I was too stunned to do anything but just sort of float there, my head and shoulders bobbing in the freezing water.

  Then I realized that the witch had lost her mind, that she was trying to drown me, and my brain kicked into survival mode: I flailed and thrashed, slapping at her hands, prying at her fingers, trying desperately to make her let go—but nothing worked. The witch was viciously strong and viciously determined to hold me under. Her grip tightened. She forced my head down deeper. More water shot up my nose and down the back of my throat. My lungs filled with liquid. I started to choke.

  Somewhere behind me—it sounded like a heck of a ways away—I could hear Violet screaming at the top of her lungs. Screaming, You’re going to kill him! Joanna, however, didn’t seem to care; she wouldn’t let me come up for air.

  My panic turned to terror as black spots began to dance before my vision. The pressure on my chest was agonizing; I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. I had to breathe!

  Just when I thought I was about to pass out, something strange happened: The world around me began to rumble, and suddenly the floor of the pool fell away in a swirl of white tile and black stone. A circular chasm opened before my eyes—a spinning, twisting vortex of blackness and water. I felt myself being pulled toward it. Felt Joanna’s hands let go. And then I was sucked headfirst into the darkness.

  • • •

  Lightning flashed around me. Thunder rolled. Powerful currents tore at my body, slapping at me with their icy fingers. Desperate, I tried to suck in a breath . . . and was surprised to find that I could. My lungs instantly filled with air, with fresh oxygen, and I can’t even begin to describe how great that felt.

  The world began to harmonize around me—sights, sounds, and smells all melting back together. I realized I wasn’t falling anymore. No, I was actually standing. On solid ground. On my own two feet.

  What the—?

  I looked around and saw with a jolt of surprise that I was standing in the middle of a lush tropical jungle. Tall trees rose around me, their trunks fuzzy with moss, their branches draped with vines. A woodcreeper chirped nearby. Dozens of blue-and-green butterflies flitted through the bushes. I heard whooping and gibbering above me and glanced up to see a large gray monkey clinging to the underside of a branch, watching me with its little silver-ringed eyes.

  Coolest. Thing. Ever. My dad would have loved it here.

  I smiled, inhaling deeply for the first time. The air was damp and hot, but ridiculously pure; I couldn’t have been within thirty miles of a city.

  This wasn’t just jungle. . . . This was deep jungle.

  But how the heck had I gotten here?

  “¡¿Oye, quién va ahí?!” shouted a voice. Spanish. Male. “Announce yourself at once, or meet your fate at the point of mi espada!”

  I whirled toward the sound of the voice. Behind me stood a man about my height, with tightly cropped reddish hair and an impeccably styled mustache/goatee combo. He had lean, aristocratic features. Sharp brown eyes. He wore a snug-fitting, waist-length jacket (I think it was called a doublet), loose-fitting hose, and tall black boots. An old-fashioned pistola hung loosely from his belt, and his long, curved sword flashed brilliantly in the fierce tropical sun as he lifted it, grazing the side of my Adam’s apple.

  Dude looked like a fancy pirate. A dangerous fancy pirate.

  “¡Habla!” he commanded. “Speak!”

  I was still a little dazed, but I managed to pick my name out of my brain. “I’m Charlie. Charlie Hernández.”

  “Hmm . . . Charlie.”

  He stretched out my name, so it sounded like “Chhhaaaarrrlieee.”

  “Should I know you?” he asked, making a funny face.

  “I—I don’t think so. . . .”

  Slowly, my gaze drifted past him to a small lake, where a trio of miniature wooden ships floated and bobbed on the turquoise water. They looked like old sailing ships from the 1500s, equipped with everything from solid wood masts to huge white sails with red crosses on them. Whoever built them had obviously taken the time to get every last detail perfect. “Did you make all those yourself?” I asked, pointing past him.

  “Ay, sí, sí, of course!” A big grin split his deeply tanned face, and the pressure suddenly lifted off my throat as he lowered the sword. “They’re my pride and joy. The exact replicas of la Santa María, el Santiago, y el San Cristóbal. ¿Te gustan?”

  Those names definitely rang a bell. “Yeah, they’re awesome. . . .”

  He stuck out a hand. “Ponce. Nice to meet you!”

  “Wait. Ponce? Like, of the de León fame?”

  “Correcta-mundo, muchacho.”

  “Oh snap! I actually go to your middle school!” I said. And when he only stared, I quickly added, “Well, not your school, of course . . . but, uh, the one they named after you. It’s a middle school. Ponce de Leon Middle. It’s in Coral Gables. That’s in Miami. Miami, Florida . . . Oh, and they named a street after you too. Also in Miami.”

  Ponce was giving me a funny look.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Ay, nada. I’m jus’ thinking. . . . So I leave my beautiful home in España, traverse a treacherous and violent sea, overcome starvation, a general lack of supplies, establish the first European settlement in Puerto Rico, and then, as if all that isn’t impressive enough, I discover Florida, and still all you people could think to do in my honor was to name a middle school and a street . . . ?”

  Was I actually being scolded by a five-hundred-year-old explorer? “Well, it’s a pretty nice school, though . . . and a nice street. As far as streets go, anyway.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it, I suppose.” He rubbed his chin with one hairy-knuckled hand, then started mumbling to himself. “A middle school and a street. No lo creo . . . no lo creo para nada.”

  This was obviously a touchy subject for him. But I didn’t have time to try to help him through it. I had my own problems at the moment. “Uh, by the way, I have an itty-bitty question—where the heck am I . . . ? And what are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here? This is my island. I’m el gobernador. The question is, what are you doing here?”

  “I . . . uh, I’m looking for the oracle.”

  “Well, in that case, I have some good news for you, muchacho—you have found him!”

  My eyes bugged. “You’re the oracle?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised. I was an explorer, a sailor, a governor—I named Florida, for the love of the sea! You don’t think I can handle being a part-time diviner?”

  “But . . . wasn’t the only reason you ended up in Florida because you got lost looking for Bimini?”

  He frowned. “What’s your point?”

  “No, nothing. I just didn’t think an oracle would make such a silly mistake. . . .”

  “Ay, sí, so silly. I’d like to see you try to survive thirty long days out at sea with nothing but a map, a compass, and your steely Spanish intuition to guide you. Oh, and a little información for you, amigo: I was looking for the Fountain of Youth—not Bimini—and I found it. All my other missions were simply covers for my life’s one great obsession.”

  Interesting. “So, the fountain actually gave you eternal life
, huh?”

  “Sí, but not exactly how I imagined it would.”

  A flock of blackbirds flew overhead, chirping loudly. I looked up. The sky was crazy bright and cloudless. “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Puerto Rico. Well, spirit Puerto Rico, to be more precise . . . The most beautiful place in all the Land of the Dead!”

  His words took a few seconds to sink in. But when they finally did, my heart slammed against my ribs so hard, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had actually burst out of my chest and gone running off into the trees. “¿La Tierra de los MUERTOS?” I shrieked.

  “Sí. And to think Columbus’s snot-nosed brat of a son—Señor Diego Colón—muscled me out of the governorship all those years ago. Ah, but now we’re both dead, and only one of us is governor of la Isla de Encantamiento. Would you like to guess who?”

  “Espérate,” I said. “Hold up. So I’m currently in the Land of the Dead . . . ?”

  “Sí, señor, you most certainly are.”

  “Are you dead?”

  “Sí, señor, I most certainly am.”

  “Am I?”

  “No, señor, you most certainly are not.” He glanced down at his Spanish longsword, which glinted brilliantly in his hand. “Would you like to be?”

  “Most certainly not. But wait—doesn’t La Mano Peluda control the Land of the Dead?”

  “Much of it, sí. All around my island, beyond the great seas, evil plots and schemes and the fires of war are constantly stoked. But not here . . .”

  I looked around. It was hard to imagine evil being anywhere near a place like this. “Looks like we’re in paradise. . . .”

  “If you look hard enough, muchacho, you can find paradise even in the darkest places.”

  “Wait up. You just told me that the Fountain of Youth gave you eternal life.”

  “And?”

  “And you’re dead.”

  “Ay, sí, gracias for pointing that out, Capitán Obvious. However, if my troops had not been ambushed by the Calusa Indians near Punta Gorda and I myself not been shot in the thigh with a poisoned arrow, I would never have died of natural causes—hence, eternal life. . . .” He got a far-away look in his eyes. “In fact, I’d still be sailing my beautiful Maria around the Caribbean even to this day. . . .”