by A. C. Wise
THIS IS ESMERALDA, AND SHE HAS NEVER FELT STRONGER OR MORE foolish in her entire life. The sweat and metaphorical dust of the road—a plane journey in reality—sluiced off in the shower, her skin shed and applied anew, she is a warrior.
Five foot six standing flat, she is nearly five nine in platform boots patterned subtly with scales but almost entirely hidden under the gleam of her green, flared, body-hugging jumpsuit. She is a seventies wet dream—low slung gold belt circling her hips, neckline cut practically to meet it, arms bared, dark hair teased into a soft cloud framing her face, and peacock feathers trailing away from the corners of her eyes, which are lined in shimmering beetle-green and gold.
As strong as she is right now, as ready as she is for battle, she can’t shake her nerves. She has the sudden feeling that her whole life has been about playing dress-up—adopting the trappings of her mother’s religion, then slipping into the clothing of rebellion and atheism. In her mother’s neighborhoods, she was too white. In her father’s, too Latina. A whole lifetime of trying to blend, trying to fit in. What if that’s still what she’s doing now?
The other members of the Glitter Squadron are goddesses. Esmeralda is a woman who took a walk on the beach one day and found herself face-to-face with a sea monster, handing an Amazon a high-heeled shoe as a weapon.
Bunny squeezes Esmeralda’s arm, bringing her back. “This is your show. We’ll follow your lead.”
Esmeralda breathes out. Bunny believes in her, and aside from Bunny, she has the most experience on this team. She can do this.
Esmeralda forces herself to put one chunky, glittering heel in front of one chunky glittering toe and keep going until she reaches the church door. She isn’t a girl playing dress-up; she is a member of the best, most bad-ass team in the world. She’s faced eels from outer-space, beach-blanket vampires in bikinis, and wolves in tuxedos. Ghosts should be a piece of carrot cake.
Cold radiates from the wrought-iron handles set in the church’s wooden doors despite the heat of day. There are watchful eyes from some of the buildings surrounding the church, but otherwise the Glitter Squadron is alone.
Esmeralda half expects frost to spread across her palm as she touches the handle. It’s not just the cold, the whole building feels wrong. It doesn’t match the architecture of the streets around it. It looks like it was picked up and dropped here from another place, which in a way, it was. On the plane Eduardo told them about the British lord who built the church, mashing up styles, and filling it with stolen treasures from all around the world.
The illusion of out-of-placeness is only deepened by the construction equipment huddled nearby, even though they’re only tearing up the neighboring lot, not the church itself.
Esmeralda takes a deep breath and yanks open the door. Despite the chill in the handle, the inside of the church is almost warm, humid. It’s also green, like being underwater, and ripples of light play across the walls and the ceiling reflected from some non-existent pool. Drowned; the word drags damp fingers up Esmeralda’s spine.
Her heels echo on the floor; Bunny, Penny, and Starlight follow behind her. She can almost hear the breaths they aren’t taking, the reverent hush. Inside the lack of sound, there’s an eerie sense of a fifth source of held breath.
Esmeralda walks the aisle toward the altar. Statues in niches line the sanctuary, Catholic saints whose names she cannot remember. Where they’ve wept, rust-colored stains mar their cheeks and their robes.
In contrast to the saints, tiles that look like they were uprooted from a mosque are embedded in the floor between the pews. There’s Hebrew writing carved into the walls, and bits of bas-relief sculpture that look like they could be Sumerian.
The effect of all the belief embedded in the objects jumbled into the church makes Esmeralda’s head buzz. Her knees threaten to buckle. Ingrained memory tells her to kneel, to pray.
Esmeralda’s breath catches. The hush, the stone eyes of the saints on her, the painted crucifix—they stir something deep inside her. Her mother’s faith isn’t her own, but there’s still a wanting inside her. Esmeralda wants to believe in something larger than herself. She wants the Glitter Squadron, her chosen family, to fit together with her blood family.
Esmeralda sinks to her knees in front of the communion rail, the wood worn smooth. It stops the trembling in her legs, even though the padding in front of the rail has long since rotted away.
“Are you okay?” Penny is at her side.
Esmeralda nods, neck stiff. It’s a moment before she can get her voice to work, and even so the church tries to swallow it. Cold-damp seeps up through the tiles into her knees. The weight of the space presses down on her.
“I have to do this.”
Doubt flickers in Penny’s eyes, but she steps back. To Esmeralda’s surprise, Starlight kneels beside her, licking her lips, looking frightened as a doe. She gives Esmeralda a tentative smile, and Esmeralda manages one in return. Penny and Bunny hang back.
Esmeralda bows her head, and closes her eyes. She almost wishes for her mother’s rosary, the smooth beads to pass through her hands and calm her. The words of a prayer come to her lips with surprising ease. She shuts out everything—the watery light, the damp chill rising through her, the sense of held breath, waiting.
It’s not as much a prayer as an apology. As the words flow through her, she focuses on memories of sitting next to her mother in an uncomfortable church pew, trying not to fidget in her stiff, itchy Sunday clothes, listening to the priest drone, and wishing to be anywhere else in the world. She tries to remember exactly how her mamá looked—tense walking into the church, but relaxing over the course of the sermon. Her mother’s faith helped her when she had nothing else, starting over again, building a new life for herself and her daughters.
Is it really that different than Esmeralda and the Glitter Squadron hanging out after-hours on Exclusively Lime Green’s roof deck, testing out Sapphire’s latest alcoholic concoctions? Her family, chosen and blood—Esmeralda imagines fitting them together like pieces of a puzzle. The knot of fear inside her loosens. She is big enough to hold both truths inside her and the knowledge calms her, letting her focus on the task at hand.
Esmeralda opens her eyes, rising. Starlight glances at her uncertainly, standing as well. She’s about to speak when the calm is shattered by an unearthly shriek filling the air, followed by a terrible grinding as one of the statues turns on its base. A fresh line of blood runs from between its clasped palms.
Starlight ducks, clapping her hands over her ears at the noise. Penny’s hand goes to her gun, but Esmeralda gestures her back.
“My name is…” She hesitates, taking a deep breath. “I was born Christina Joanne Garcia Layton. My name is Esmeralda. These are my friends. We’re here to help you. We only want to talk.”
The shriek drops to a growl, a terrifying sound Esmeralda feels in her bones. One of the statues falls over with a crash, and Esmeralda jumps. The whole church shudders, stained glass shivering in the windows.
The temperature drops. Water-stained Bibles and hymn books on the edge of decay fly from the back of the pews, pages flapping like torn wings. Esmeralda’s mind races, grasping for anything about demons, exorcism, but all she comes up with is Linda Blair’s head spinning and pea soup.
“Stop it,” Esmeralda shouts. “You can’t scare us off. We’re not going anywhere until you talk to us.”
The wailing stops abruptly. The light shifts, blue-green, warm and cold. A figure appears behind the altar.
Esmeralda bites back a scream. The word drowned pushes into her thoughts again, but the thing looks dried, like a mummy—leathery flesh tied around stick-like bones. Cords of wet hair hang down to its feet, pooling water on the tile floor.
Penny’s 9 mm is out, aimed. “Shit!”
Esmeralda steps forward instead of back, eyes on the thing behind the altar. “No!”
The thing shrieks, fury and pain. The glass in the windows trembles, on the point of shattering. The B
ibles and hymn books thump to the ground all at once.
Esmeralda acts on blind instinct, reaching for the creature’s stick-thin wrist. She expects her hands to sink through the horrid flesh, to have it crumble like dust. But her fingers close. The creature yanks backward, but Esmeralda doesn’t let go. All the statues turn to face her now, eyes weeping sticky, red tears. A sob builds in Esmeralda’s chest, but she tightens her grip.
Images wash over her—not quite words or pictures—but fragments of both. Limbs bound, dark brackish water, and the stumps of trees. A body marked with ritual scarring, and clothed in fine linens and beads, the holy and profane.
Esmeralda steps back, nearly falling. Bunny is there to catch her. The creature sways, wails—not rage this time, but a soft, keening sound.
“She’s just a child,” Esmeralda says. “They hurt her. There was some kind of ritual, a binding to keep her body and her soul trapped together as they sacrificed her to make her into a little god.”
She takes a deep shuddering breath and risks another glance at the creature. It regards her with eyeless eyes, pain and fear rolling off it in waves. Esmeralda sorts through the jumble of images and emotions, trying to put them into words.
“They drowned her, and they buried her, and she felt everything. It was like sleeping, only she couldn’t wake up. Her dreams were meant to protect her people, but sometimes she had nightmares.
“People used to leave offerings where she was buried. But they died off or drifted away. They forgot, and she was alone for a very long time until a man dug up her bones, stole her and took her a long way from home. She was afraid. She tried to talk to him, but he thought she was a demon, so he buried her under a church. She slept for such a long time, hiding from the pain, but then there was noise digging into her dreams, waking her up.”
“The bulldozers tearing up the yard,” Starlight says.
Cheeks wet with tears, Esmeralda takes a wobbly step toward the creature. No, the child. She feels hollow and wrung out, frightened, but she goes to the girl and folds the child in her arms. At first the girl recoils, but Esmeralda tightens her grip.
She strokes the damp hair, fighting revulsion and the feeling of bones scarce-wrapped in skin.
She thinks of her nephew, and does the only thing that makes sense to her in this moment—low and sweet, she sings a lullaby. The memory of her mother’s hand brushes her forehead, soothing her fever as a child; the memory of her grandmother, humming the same tune as she cooked, a faraway look in her eyes.
Esmeralda presses her face into the dead stringy hair, ignoring the scent of water and earth and rot, and weeps. “No one is going to hurt you anymore,” she whispers. “You’re safe here. You’re with…family.”
She doesn’t know how much time has passed, but when Esmeralda opens her eyes again, the light in the church has shifted to a pale gold. It no longer looks drowned. Bunny and Starlight have their arms around her, and she’s shaking.
“I’m okay,” she manages, but her throat feels raw.
“You really scared us for a second there,” Bunny says; a hint of moisture dews her perfect lashes, and she blinks it away. Esmeralda smiles.
Her arms are empty, and she feels a brief ache for the space where the bones of the terrible drowned thing nestled against her.
“What happened to—”
“It vanished,” Starlight says.
“She. She has…had a name.” Esmeralda says. “Once.”
The others exchange a glance, but say nothing.
Esmeralda draws herself up. “We need to talk to my uncle and her community and convince them to accept the child as part of their family.”
ESMERALDA SQUINTS AGAINST THE SUNLIGHT; WITH HER EYES HALF-closed, the church looks almost lovely, peaceful, despite its decay. “What did the members of the historic society say?”
“Most of them were surprisingly open to the idea of adopting a ghost child.” Half of Eduardo’s mouth rises in a smile. “They’ve been caring for the church for years, trying to raise enough money to restore it and turn it into a proper museum. If the ghost is part of the church, they’ll care for her too.”
They stand in silence for a moment, looking at the church, and the shadow of construction equipment falling across it. Eduardo will do the best she can for the dead girl, Esmeralda knows that. She only hopes it will be enough.
“When I first moved to Juchitán,” Eduardo says. “I didn’t know anyone. My father didn’t want anything to do with me and I’d resigned myself to the idea that I would never go home again. I starting thinking of myself as a ghost, and thinking of my new home as the City of the Dead.”
Eduardo turns away from the church, and Esmeralda has to hurry to keep up, despite Eduardo’s shorter legs and her longer skirts.
“It’s what I wanted, I was living my life, but it was still lonely. Then I started to get to know people—muxe who had been living here their whole lives, their families, their neighbors and friends. I reached out to people I’d met while traveling, people who felt like they didn’t fit in their communities, weren’t accepted for who they were for whatever reason. I told them this was a place they could call home.”
Eduardo casts a glance at her, and Esmeralda’s heart turns over, thinking of Bunny and the Glitter Squadron. Her uncle built a community, not just one house, but a whole neighborhood of like-minded people finding each other. She wonders about the other people living here, divided between the home of their birth, and the home of their hearts. She wonders if it ever stops hurting.
“A lot of people living here felt the same way I did when I first moved. We couldn’t go back. Like your ghost.”
“Except she didn’t have a choice,” Esmeralda says.
Eduardo turns, her expression heavy, weighted with memory, but transitioning to a sorrow-touched smile. “We’ll make your ghost feel welcome as best as we can. She can find a new family here the way we all found ours.”
Eduardo reaches out a hand to Esmeralda; her fingers are thick and blunt, her skin rough, but her grip is warm and strong. Esmeralda squeezes back.
“New lives seemed like a good excuse to begin our own new traditions. We started celebrating our deaths and rebirths by holding our own Day of the Dead celebrations whenever someone new joined our community. I think it would be appropriate to hold one tonight, for her, don’t you think?”
Eduardo pauses, her expression a blend of reticence, hope, regret. “If you want to…I mean, I know you’re all very busy and…”
“No, no.” Esmeralda squeezes her uncle’s hand, trying to calm the erratic beat of her heart. “Of course we’ll stay.”
Esmeralda does her best to ignore the echoes of her mother in her uncle’s face.
She looks down, afraid to mention her mother’s name and reopen Eduardo’s old wounds. Eduardo returns the pressure of fingers against her hand, as if reading her thoughts, and Esmeralda feels a rush of gratitude.
“We would love to celebrate with you,” she says, and for the first time since meeting her uncle, Esmeralda allows herself a genuine smile.
THE NIGHT IS WARM BUT NOT HUMID. OF COURSE, THE GLITTER Squadron is dressed to the nines. Bunny wears white, one shoulder bare, her skirt falling in gossamer layers so she looks like a delicate flower turned upside down. She is radiant and the absolute center of attention of the small knot of admirers gathered around her. Esmeralda would expect no less, and the sight makes her smile.
Starlight wears a pink dress with a knee-length skirt and an empire waist sewn with tiny rosebuds. She wears a pink bow, holding her hair in a high ponytail, but from the way she fidgets with the ends, twirling them around and around her fingers, it looks like she wants to pull the strands over her face and hide.
“You look beautiful.” Esmeralda gives Starlight’s arm a reassuring pat. “Go make some new friends. I promise they won’t bite.”
Starlight blushes.
Esmeralda’s smile widens. “I’ll rescue you if you look like you’re in trouble. Now
go.” She gives Starlight a nudge, and reluctantly, Starlight obeys.
Penny is the one that surprises Esmeralda the most, having allowed Eduardo to give her a makeover. She wears an elaborate Chiapas-style dress, thickly embroidered with flowers in silken thread, her copper hair braided into a blossom-studded crown. Esmeralda wonders if the outfit appeals to Penny because the wide skirt provides so many places to hide her weapons.
Music spills over the gathering, and the air is heavy with the scent of food. Candy sugar skulls and marigolds decorate the long table, between plates heaped with tamales and turkey and elaborate braided loaves of egg bread. Everything is lit with colored paper lanterns and candles, giving the whole gathering a soft, surreal glow.
A muxe roughly Eduardo’s age is dressed as Catarina, the queen of the celebration, holding court at one end of the long table. Men and women and muxe fill the rest of the seats, Zapotec and American, people from here and from around the world, gathered by Eduardo on her travels. Children dart around the outskirts of the party. A brief flicker, and Esmeralda thinks she catches sight of her ghost girl running with them, but when she turns her head the glimmer is gone.
After everyone has eaten their fill, the tables are abandoned in favor of an impromptu dance floor, and the musicians step up their playing a notch. Esmeralda watches Bunny whirled onto the dance floor by a succession of partners. Starlight shyly follows a beautiful young man, allowing him to lead her through the steps of a dance. Penny stands on the periphery, arms crossed, watchful, but even she wears the edge of a smile.
Esmeralda joins in a few of the dances, trying to remember the steps her grandmother taught her, getting it hopelessly wrong, and laughing. She dances once with her uncle, and once with Bunny, but always she returns to the edges of the celebration. She’s warm and full of good food, and she can’t remember the last time she felt this comfortable with people she barely knows. Yet her heart still hurts. Surrounded by friends, new and old, she is lonely.