Paola Santiago and the River of Tears

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  Pao didn’t slow down until she had almost reached the edge of the cactus field. Dante was lagging behind, peppering her with reasons to be wary—“What if the kidnapper’s there? Or the police? Or something even worse?”—but Pao was undeterred. If there was any chance it was Emma, it was worth the danger.

  The cactus field was yet another place Pao’s mom had told her to stay away from. Pao had never paid much attention to her warnings, or to kids’ whispers about it being haunted, but after the morning she’d just had, she hesitated a little before passing between two massive cacti. (Cactuses? She could never remember which was right.)

  After all, before today she hadn’t believed in shape-shifting slippers or nightmares that decided to bleed into a random Friday morning, either.

  “Look!” Pao said, pointing at the silhouettes of two figures in the distance. They were locked in some kind of wrestling match.

  “You can’t just go running over there!” Dante said when he’d caught up, not even remotely out of breath, while Pao felt like her lungs might burst from the exertion. “We have no idea what—”

  “It could be her, Dante,” Pao interrupted, knowing she must look a little unhinged, but not really caring at the moment. Anything was better than standing around feeling guilty for having no idea what to do.

  If Dante replied, Pao didn’t hear him—she was already charging toward the grappling twosome, passing cactus after cactus, the air growing thicker and hazier as she went deeper into the field.

  This doesn’t make sense, said what was left of Pao’s practical, cause-and-effect–loving brain. Judging from the amount of distance she had to cover relative to her speed, she should have reached them by now. But they seemed just as far away as when she had started out.

  And hadn’t Dante been right beside her only a second ago?

  Before Pao could get her bearings, the haze cleared. The air felt sharp and cool against her face, and her vision returned to normal. Pao could now tell the two figures were girls, not much bigger than she.

  Emma, chanted a hopeful voice in her head. Emma, Emma, Emma.

  When she was only a few yards away from them, Pao ducked behind a cactus to get the lay of the land.

  “Stop!” shouted one of the girls, clearly losing the fight as the other took hold of her hair. “You don’t understand!”

  Her words turned into a screech as the other girl yanked her head back by her long black ponytail. “Do I look new to you? Spin your demon stories somewhere else. I have a job to do.”

  Pao’s disappointment hit her faster than a rocket reentering the atmosphere, all her hope exploding like a volatile fuel tank. These two girls were around her age, but neither of them was Emma.

  “You don’t understand!” said the losing one again, her voice high and shrill as the other girl yanked even harder on her hair. “The third quarter is coming…. The solstice…”

  Pao started when she heard the words third quarter. It was the same thing Dante’s abuela had said. Emma wasn’t here, but that phrase was the only clue Pao had, and if she wanted to find out what it meant, she was going to have to stop hiding behind this cactus.

  At first, the girls were too consumed in their fight to notice her. So, despite her shaking knees and pounding heart, Pao stepped forward and said, “Hey!” Because what else was there to say?

  When the girls turned to face her, though, she had a much bigger problem than what to say. Locked in suspended battle—one with an arm around the other’s neck, one with a fistful of hair—were the last two people Pao had ever expected to see alive, let alone in a cactus field a couple of miles from her apartment:

  Ondina, the snarky girl from her dream…

  And Marisa Martínez, the girl who had allegedly drowned in the Gila River the year before.

  Whether Marisa was a hallucination, a ghost, or a living girl who had returned from wherever it was she had disappeared to, Pao had no idea. But seeing her gave Pao hope.

  She had imagined Emma in a car, with a stranger at the wheel, traveling hundreds of miles before nightfall. But with this other missing girl reappearing less than two miles from home, the terrifying radius began to shrink. What if Emma hadn’t been taken away from Silver Springs?

  What if she was right here in this cactus field just like Marisa?

  “Finally!” said Ondina, her long hair tangled and frizzy with exertion, her black dress twisted, the lace torn. Her dainty boots hadn’t served her well in the fight—one of them was lying on its side a few yards away.

  But her eyes were fierce and intelligent, sparkling with intention as they fixed on Pao’s.

  “‘Finally’?” Pao echoed, a little delirious.

  “What?” Marisa asked Ondina with a sneer in Pao’s direction. “You think some random tourist who can’t even part her hair straight is going to save you? It’s over for you, ahogada, and I intend to make sure of it.”

  Well, thought Pao, alleged drowning hasn’t made Marisa any nicer.

  Pao reached up to pat her own scalp self-consciously before dropping her hand, disgusted with herself. Sure, she couldn’t quite part her hair perfectly yet, but this wasn’t the school cafeteria. This was a haunted cactus field full of dream girls and ghosts. The rules of middle school survival didn’t apply here.

  Hopefully they didn’t, anyway, because if popularity was part of this bizarre quest, Pao was royally screwed.

  “I’m looking for a girl,” Pao said, pleased that her voice only shook a little. “I mean, another girl. She’s, like, this tall….” She actually held a hand a little above her head, as if these dueling girls were paying attention. “Anyway, I really need to find her, and—”

  “Go home,” Marisa interrupted without even turning around, which was so typical, Pao thought.

  Ondina, distracted by Pao’s arrival, did something even most fifth graders in Silver Springs had known better than to do around Marisa Martínez. She let her guard down for a split second.

  Wham!

  Marisa didn’t let the moment go to waste. She had Ondina on the ground in a flash, her long, pale limbs flailing everywhere as she struggled to right herself. But before she could, there was a long, deadly-looking knife at her throat. Where did that come from? Pao wondered.

  Knowing it was stupid, reckless, and insane, Pao stepped forward before Marisa could use the blade. She got close enough to take it from her.

  “If you touch me,” Marisa growled without looking up, “you will regret it.”

  But Pao was delirious and hungry and really ticked off for about a hundred reasons, and watching Marisa bully someone from beyond the supposed grave was just too much to take.

  “Leave her alone,” Pao said.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing, tourist,” Marisa said. “Step back.”

  “No,” Pao said, shaking her bangs out of her eyes. Her pulse was pounding, and an alarm bell was ringing in her head like, Oh, no, you didn’t just challenge the most vicious girl in school in a haunted cactus field. What in the formerly sane world is wrong with you?

  “Paola,” said Ondina through gritted teeth, her face pressed against the ground as Marisa proceeded to ignore Pao’s historic act of bravery. “There’s not much time….”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard,” Pao said. “What’s the third quarter?” she asked, kicking dust into Marisa’s face. A year ago, that would have been a declaration of war, but this Marisa didn’t seem to mind dirt. “What does that mean?”

  “The…moon…” Ondina forced out before Marisa viciously tightened her grasp and hissed again.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Marisa said to Pao. “She’s an ahogada. She’s trying to lure you in while the barrier is still open.”

  Pao’s mind got snagged on the word ahogada. It sounded familiar, but she was pretty sure it was from a radio commercial for a sandwich place downtown. You know you really want-a/Torta ahogadaaaa…. What did a sandwich have to do with this girl from her dream?

  For the second time today, s
he wished she knew Spanish. Why hadn’t her mom ever made her learn it?

  As Pao was ruminating on sandwiches and languages, Marisa kicked Ondina in the ribs.

  “Hey!” Pao shrieked. “I said, leave her alone! Or else I’ll…I’ll make you…wish you’d left her alone….”

  Okay, it wasn’t her finest moment. But it wasn’t like she’d had a lot of experience standing up to this girl.

  Marisa looked Pao up and down, no spark of recognition in her strangely golden eyes. “I don’t care whether you live or die, presently, but if you don’t shut up, I may develop an interest. Now look away if you don’t want to see a demon get vaporized.”

  Without another word, Marisa, the former queen of the Silver Springs Middle School cafeteria crowd, plunged a foot-long knife into a sentient creature’s chest and smiled.

  Ondina, for her part, didn’t scream. She only winced slightly as the blade moved through her without resistance, causing her outline to shimmer and blur. “I’ll be back,” she said mildly, then closed her eyes and dissolved.

  Pao did her best not to start crying, shaking, or puking, or any of the other things she felt like doing in that moment.

  “What…? She…and you…” She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying not to pass out, but knowing it was a real possibility.

  Panic is just a series of chemicals, Pao told herself. She knew from science class that her brain, assessing danger, had told her glands to produce adrenaline, which in turn was increasing the flow of glucose to her muscles, providing her with the necessary fuel to deal with stress. Now her brain just had to decide the best course of action: fight or flight.

  Pao was going to fight. Despite her best efforts, she swayed on her feet, and Marisa scoffed.

  “Ugh, I do not have time to deal with you right now, whatever you are.” Marisa took a step toward Pao, her long knife extended, a grim look on her annoyingly pretty face. “The good news is, if you’re not a rift creature, this won’t kill you.”

  “Won’t…wh-what?” Pao stuttered. The reflection in the metal blade seemed to swirl like the river itself. It was almost mesmerizing in its beauty. “Oh, God. Um, okay. Please don’t go all psycho mean girl on me,” Pao said, backing up, her voice getting higher with each rambling word. “I know you don’t like me or anything, but you can get in a lot of trouble for stabbing people, and I think you’ve probably pushed your luck in that department enough for one…” She trailed off as Marisa continued to advance.

  It was time for flight. Definitely. Like, right now.

  But because the fear center of her brain was overloaded, it was no longer sending signals to her nerves. She couldn’t move her legs.

  “That’s right. Hold still,” said Marisa. “You won’t remember a thing either way….”

  Pao’s legs figured out what they were supposed to do at last, but they were still shaky, and as she turned to escape, Marisa caught up to her easily.

  When the knife went into Pao’s back—right between two of her ribs—it didn’t feel like metal.

  It felt like water.

  “I can’t believe…you really”—Pao wheezed—“stabbed me! You’re…crazy….” She coughed and sputtered, and there was water in her nose, in her lungs…. She was drowning on dry land. Which was, of course, impossible.

  Help…she tried to say, but instead of words, bubbles left her mouth.

  And then she fell.

  “Pao! Pao!”

  The words were coming from far away, and her ears felt pressurized, like she was at the bottom of the river.

  “Mhhft,” she managed, rolling onto one side. She’d had such a strange dream. The images swirled around behind her still-closed eyelids. The third-quarter moon. Ondina. And Marisa had freaking stabbed her?

  “PAO!”

  “Okay!” she said. “I’m up….”

  There was a noise like a sob-filled laugh, and beside her, something fell to the ground. The ground? Where was she?

  She found it harder than usual to force her eyes open, and when she finally did, a cactus loomed in her vision.

  The rest of the dream came rushing back, and on its heels the realization that it hadn’t been a dream. There was a strange searing pain between her ribs, like Marisa’s water blade was still in her. Marisa had said she wouldn’t remember it….

  Dante had collapsed next to her in relief, but Pao’s stomach was turning to lead. Despite compelling evidence to the contrary, the encounter had been real, and all her previous dreams were somehow connected to it. She wasn’t dead, at least, but being alive wasn’t much of a relief when she was even less sure of what to do than before.

  “I thought you were…” Dante choked out. “I couldn’t find you, and then I did, and then I thought…”

  “Marisa…” Pao said, her voice sounding distant to her own ears. “Marisa Martínez stabbed me….”

  “Pao?” Dante said, his expression turning to one of alarm. “Marisa is—”

  “Dead,” Pao finished for him. “I know. But she was here, Dante. She vaporized some weird girl from my dreams right in front of me, and…and if she was here, then maybe Emma…” She struggled to sit up.

  “Let me help you,” Dante said, scrambling to his feet and hovering beside her.

  “I’m okay,” Pao said, even though nothing had ever been less true. She rose on her own, wincing at the pain between her ribs, feeling her back with trembling fingertips. But there was no wound. Pao pulled up her striped T-shirt without thinking, turning around to look at the spot she was sure a knife had gone into moments before.

  “Whoa!” said Dante, whipping around and covering his eyes.

  “Oh, calm down,” Pao snapped. “I just got stabbed by a dead girl in a haunted cactus field. It’s not like you accidentally walked into the girls’ locker room before gym class.”

  He didn’t turn back. “It’s just…you’re…and it’s…”

  “Yeah, yeah, me girl, you boy, I get it, but right now I need you to look and see if there’s a paranormal stab wound in my back. So can you just press pause on it for a minute, please?”

  It took him a few seconds to approach her, and Pao thought she could feel him steeling himself. She fought the urge to roll her eyes.

  “Well?” she pressed, her arm cramping from holding up her shirt behind her.

  “Nothing,” he said, almost to himself. “There’s nothing there. And can we go back to the ghost-vaporizing part? What is going on here? Are you sure this isn’t all—”

  “My imagination?” Pao challenged him. “Look, I know I’m supposed to be the Dreamer, but I was definitely awake when I saw Marisa.” She hadn’t been sure at the time, but she was now.

  “Pao, you were pretty upset…. Are you sure it was her?”

  She laughed then, even though it burned her throat. “Am I sure…? I’m not sure of anything, Dante! Have you been here for a single second of what’s happened today? Green light, and shape-shifting slippers, and weird mist, and now the ghost of a girl who tormented me in the lunchroom showing up to stab a girl from my dreams…It all sounds ridiculous—don’t you think I know that?”

  Dante’s eyes went wide, and for a moment, Pao remembered the way he had let himself cry earlier. With a complete lack of shame. It had made her want to fix everything.

  “Maybe all this is some bizarre nightmare, or I’m lying in a hospital bed in a coma right now, or we’re all just zeroes and ones in some giant simulation of the human experience that’s decided to malfunction at random.”

  Dante’s face was frozen in a deer-in-the-headlights expression, like he was afraid to interrupt her tirade, and Pao took full advantage of the silence.

  “This is what we have to work with right now, okay? Ghosts and impossible things. I don’t like it any more than you do. But if Marisa could come back after disappearing, then maybe Emma will, too. Your grandma said we could still help her….” She trailed off, hating how crazy she sounded, hating the hope that was welling up in h
er chest. “If there’s any chance we can find Emma in here, don’t you think we should take it?”

  “I don’t know,” Dante said, his gaze finally falling to the ground at their feet. “Pao, maybe we can’t do this. We’re barely even old enough to babysit. You could have died. Maybe it’s time to go back and tell someone what happened. The police or something…”

  Pao laughed again, and this time it didn’t hurt as badly—that was some progress, at least. “Dante, I told that cop we saw a suspicious figure by the river the night Emma disappeared. Remember what he said to me?”

  “Yes,” Dante muttered, still not meeting her eyes.

  “If he thought I was a superstitious brown girl telling ghost stories then, what do you think he’d do if I reported an apartment full of green mist and a dead girl coming back to life to inflict an invisible stab wound?”

  Dante didn’t answer, and Pao could see him battling with the new weight that was settling on them. No one else could help them. Emma was in trouble, and it was up to Pao and Dante alone to save her before it was too late.

  “Your grandma gave us this,” Pao said, picking up the crocheted shopping bag. “And the chancla. I don’t know what to do with any of it, but we have to try, because if we don’t, who will?”

  Pao turned over the bag and let its contents spill out. These will convince Dante, she thought. These magical tools, whatever they were, would energize him and lead them to Emma, and everything would be all right.

  Unfortunately, Pao had overestimated Señora Mata’s gifts.

  On the ground between them lay a small bottle of Florida Water and a toy flashlight. Pao recognized the flashlight as the one she had carried around when she was seven. It was the only present her dad had ever sent her. The plastic case was covered in glow-in-the-dark star stickers, and when she turned it on, the beam projected an image of the full moon.

  To her credit, Pao didn’t even try to hide her embarrassment.

  “This is what we have,” Dante said, his voice quiet now. “This is all we have. Some stinky cologne, an old slipper, and a moon flashlight you stopped playing with in third grade. That’s what’s standing between me and dying, or me and watching you die.” He seemed to steel himself. “I’m not doing this, Pao. I’m going back home. I’ll tell the Lockwoods what happened, they’ll tell the police, and then they’ll have to help.”