“The rift creatures will be back,” she continued, her eyes seeming to pierce all of them at once. “And they will be desperate. But we will be ready. I promise you that.”
Marisa made what looked like a hashtag symbol with two fingers from each hand over her chest. It must have meant something to the assembled Niños, because most of them—the ones without obvious wounds to their hands or arms—imitated the gesture.
“Have your injuries checked out,” she said, her tone a little gentler. “Get some rest. I’ll see you all at sunrise.”
Pao looked at Dante. “I’m not going anywhere until she tells us who—” she began, but Marisa’s voice carried across the tent, interrupting.
“Except you two,” Marisa said, her eyes lasering in on them. “I want a word.”
Pao bristled. She’d imagined striding up to Marisa, demanding answers and not taking no for an answer, but instead, she was being summoned to the front of the classroom. Dante, however, stood up a little straighter, adjusting the chancla so it was visible above his pocket.
They crossed the tent together.
“I want to apologize for being short with you earlier,” Marisa said when they reached her. She gestured for them to sit down and Dante lowered himself to the ground immediately.
Pao looked at Marisa for a moment before complying. She didn’t like taking orders from the older girl, but if she wanted answers, she’d have to pick her battles. Her throat was raw, and the bruises ached terribly, but she held her head high. She had to look strong. For Emma.
Naomi, who had gotten up to usher out the other kids, joined them once the tent was empty, sitting closer to Dante than Pao would have liked.
“As you probably gathered from my speech, you couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time,” Marisa said. “The Niños de la Luz guard the liminal spaces in the world. This area is under our protection, and—”
“Sorry,” Pao interrupted, “but what’s a ‘liminal space’?”
“I apologize,” said Marisa, backtracking without condescension. This definitely wasn’t the same girl she knew from the lunchroom. “A liminal space, in this context, means a place between the world we know and the magical world. The one populated with supernatural beings—spirits, monsters, that sort of thing.”
“So the cactus field is one?” Pao asked. “But there are others?”
“Countless others,” Naomi said. “Each protected by their own soldiers.”
“But this is a critical border,” added Marisa. “The Gila River is the source of a concentrated amount of magical energy. We’re not sure why, but that energy seems to be mostly malevolent.”
Pao gave her a look.
“Er, bad. It’s mostly bad. ‘Dark magic’ would probably be the way you’ve heard it phrased.” She waited until Pao nodded, then continued. “This cactus field is near a rift—an opening between the two worlds. The Niños de la Luz are tasked with protecting the border when it grows weak. This area is most vulnerable during the moon’s third quarter—a time of letting go and forgiveness on this side, and a time when the beings on the other side seem bent on anger and vengeance. The tension between the opposing forces causes the barrier to deteriorate.”
“So you’re saying there will be more monsters,” Dante said, setting his jaw like he was the hero destined to protect them from all things evil. Even though Pao was the one who had saved his butt by remembering the chancla. She wanted to shake him.
Naomi and Marisa exchanged a glance.
“Yes,” Marisa confirmed. “And we are here to stop them during the periods when this world is vulnerable. The rest of the month, the barrier stays closed.”
“But there’s something different about the summer solstice, right?” Pao asked, her voice sounding more accusatory than she’d intended. “Something worse?”
Another shared glance. Another long pause.
“Yes,” Marisa said again. “This time, our job will be much harder.”
Pao opened her mouth to ask another question, but Marisa anticipated it.
“And no, we don’t know what will happen,” she said, her voice taking on a hint of impatience. “Not with any certainty, anyway. But it will be easier for the rift creatures to cross over. We have to be ready for whatever comes, including the ahogados. If they get out into the human realm…”
“What’s with those ahogados, anyway?” Pao asked. “Are they angry?”
“They no longer have human feelings,” said Marisa. “And they’re fed by an evil so deep, they have no mercy.” Her eyes were fixed unflinchingly on Pao’s. “If they come in numbers, I fear we won’t be able to stop them.”
“What will happen then?” Dante asked.
“They’ll start with the town outside the cactus field,” said Marisa.
“And…?” prompted Pao.
“We believe they’ll kill the humans,” said Naomi. “All of them.”
Pao’s sore throat closed up as if the Mano were still gripping it. Dante clenched his jaw tighter, his only reaction, but Pao knew he was thinking about his abuela, just like she was thinking of her mom.
“You’re tourists here,” Marisa said after a moment of stunned silence. “You’re under no obligation to help us. The Niños have battled their way through third quarters for a hundred years. But what we’re seeing now, leading up to the solstice, is like nothing we’ve experienced before.”
She paused long enough to let this sink in, looking between them, her face somber and serious in the torchlight. Pao couldn’t help but admire her, just a little.
“The way you two fought today,” Marisa said, shaking her head in appreciation, “we could use your help. We’d be honored to have you join the Niños de la Luz.”
Another beat of silence followed. Marisa and Naomi had their eyes on Pao, but she looked at Dante. He had leaned forward at the invitation, and she knew he was about to open a rift of his own between them.
She could easily read his thoughts on his face. He wanted to say yes. To swing his shiny club and vanquish monsters and have girls feed him stew at the end of a long day of heroic deeds. He wanted it in the same way he wanted to score the winning goal in soccer games and go to parties with cheerleaders in attendance.
In that moment, Pao realized he’d been right about her. It was always going to come back to this: her wanting things to stay the same, and him always wanting to leave her behind.
She turned back to Marisa and Naomi. “We’re not committing to anything right now except rescuing our friend,” Pao said, speaking for Dante, too, and knowing he would hate it. “We asked for information, and you barely gave us the time of day. If you won’t help us save her, we’ll find someone else who will.”
“Pao…” Dante said under his breath, as if they weren’t all sitting right next to one another, “we can’t save Emma if we’re all dead.”
“Of course,” said Marisa, pretending she hadn’t heard Dante. Was that respect Pao now saw in her eyes? “What would you like to know?”
Pao was surprised, but Dante looked at her smugly, even though he had rankled under Marisa’s thumb just a few hours ago.
Pao would deal with him later.
“The kids who disappear from our world…” she said. “The ones you said weren’t lucky enough to end up in the cactus field…Is that where they end up? In the rift?”
Marisa sighed. “We don’t know.” She held up her hands. “And that’s the honest truth. We don’t know where the children get taken.”
“Well, has anyone checked the evil magic rift?”
“It’s not that simple,” Naomi said, her eyes narrowing despite Marisa’s chastising nudge. “And it’s not safe. The Niños protect against the rift—we don’t go gallivanting around inside it, getting ourselves killed.”
But, judging from Naomi’s prickliness, coupled with the look on Marisa’s face, Pao knew they weren’t telling the whole story. Something in that rift was stealing kids, and Pao wasn’t planning to rest until she found out wha
t it was.
“Our friend disappeared two nights ago,” Pao said, looking directly at Marisa. “If you had to guess where she is—if the safety of all your Niños depended on it—what would you say?”
Marisa held Pao’s gaze for a beat before answering.
“I’d say she’s beyond your help,” she replied unflinchingly, “and you should fight for the living.”
Pao and Dante both gasped.
But Pao wasn’t willing to accept it as fact. Not without further exploration and evidence.
“We’ll have to think about it,” she said, getting to her feet.
Pao was halfway to the tent flap before she realized Dante wasn’t behind her. “You coming?” she asked without turning around, trying to sound like she didn’t care one way or the other.
“I’ll be right back,” she heard him say to the older girls, and she couldn’t tamp down the anger that flared in her chest.
“So kind of you to spare a moment of your time,” she snarled when he caught up. “I know you’re in high demand after your little display earlier.”
Sometimes, when Pao got snappy with him, Dante looked like a wounded puppy. It always ended their arguments way sooner. But tonight he wasn’t rolling over.
“Don’t,” he said. “I’m not trying to pick a fight. I just want to know what you’re thinking. Didn’t you hear them? If we don’t help the Niños get through the solstice, everyone in Silver Springs will be in danger.”
“My ears are working just fine!” Pao said, eyes flashing. “It’s my spontaneous cult-joining organ that seems to be malfunctioning.”
“Cult?” Dante echoed, his eyes going wide and incredulous. “They’re heroes, Pao! They’re trying to save our families, our entire town! Maybe even the world!”
“And what about Emma, huh?” Pao asked. “Who’s going to save her?”
Dante looked a little chastised. “We don’t even know where she is,” he said, but the tops of his ears were purple again, and Pao knew she’d hit a nerve. “And you heard what Marisa said—we have to fight for the living. We have to survive if we want to find her.”
“Staying here and playing whack-a-monster with these kids isn’t going to help her!” Pao said. “And if you’d paid attention to how weird they were when I asked about that rift, you’d know exactly where the answers are.”
Dante opened his mouth to argue, but Pao wasn’t done.
“In case you forgot, that’s the reason we’re in here! Not to impress a bunch of girls with our shiny new weapons, but to find our best friend, who needs our help.”
Angry Dante returned in a flash. “You know what I think, Pao?” he asked, though he didn’t wait for an answer. “I think you’re just jealous.”
“Of some meathead wannabe jock with a glorified baseball bat?” Pao said, knowing it was cruel, and wanting it to be. “In your dreams.”
When she stormed off, he didn’t follow. And that was fine with Pao.
Just fine.
Pao was finally alone. As she meandered in the blissfully quiet cactus field, everyone else asleep in the tents far behind her, she wondered what time it was. She couldn’t tell by the position of the moon, because it was obscured by something—stratus clouds, she assumed.
Things in outer space had always mattered more to her than things down on Earth. It was amazing how much her life had changed in the span of a day.
She stalked past cactus after cactus, not at all sure where she was going.
Oh well. If I stray too far, the stupid cactus field will just spit me out right back where I started, she thought bitterly. Probably right in front of stupid heroic Dante flexing his muscles for stupid Naomi.
Pao was exhausted, but her mind still raced. As much as she wanted to kick him in the shins right now, she had to admit that Dante fit in well with the Niños. He was brave and a little foolish. He looked cool with a weapon, and he had that floppy-hair thing going on. Plus, he smiled a lot. Way more than Pao did.
If this were a book, he would definitely be the hero. She would be the grumpy sidekick whose one shockingly convenient skill helped him save the day.
That thought made her even grumpier.
Dante had the club, the grandma to avenge, and the most intimidating girl in camp hanging on his every word. And what did Pao have? The crocheted shopping bag clunked against her sore rib as if to prove a point. She almost laughed at the reminder, shoving her arm inside it up to the elbow and closing her hand around the flashlight.
It looked so juvenile in her palm, with its peeling glow-in-the-dark stickers and its worn brand name on the case: LITTLE TYKES LUNAR LIGHT.
Slowing to a stop, Pao recalled the moment she had first seen it. Her mom had somehow managed to pull off Christmas that year. There had been a little tree with presents under it, and the house had smelled like fresh-baked cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate.
After breakfast, Mom had pulled out a package with a weird stamp and no return address on it, getting quiet before saying it was from Pao’s dad. Pao was so young at the time, she didn’t yet know she should be angry at him for not being there to give it to her in person. She only knew, from what her mom said, that it could be hard for two grown-ups to live together and sometimes it didn’t work, no matter how much you tried or wanted it to.
Pao remembered her dad as someone who read thick books too heavy for her to lift, wrote obsessively in tiny notebooks she wasn’t allowed to touch, and took long walks in the desert after her bedtime.
Sometimes she would watch him from her window as he paced, just a silhouette beneath the starry sky, gesturing like he was talking to the moon.
For a while, that’s where Pao pretended he had gone: to live on the moon, where he would watch her get tucked into bed every night through a long white telescope.
She’d grown out of the daydream but never her obsession with the moon.
That Christmas morning, when Pao had first opened the flashlight and realized it projected an image of the moon, she had made her mom turn off all the lights so she could use the toy right away. The impression of the full moon hadn’t been very bright—the blinds let in some light even when they were all the way closed—but Pao hadn’t cared. The beam had been strong enough to show the craters.
Now, in the cactus field, Pao recognized that the flashlight had seen better days. It was embarrassing and ridiculous compared to Dante’s hero club. She wanted to throw it far away, to hear it crunch satisfyingly against one of the billion-year-old cacti here, to show Señora Mata and her dad and whoever else was watching what she thought of the dumb thing.
Instead, she clicked it on, remembering the way the beam had bent before. This time, it pointed straight ahead, just like it had on the morning she’d first unwrapped it and put in those two shiny new D batteries.
She didn’t think of her dad much anymore, but she felt a strange kinship with him tonight as she paced around the desert alone, working out something in her own convoluted way.
Pao turned 180 degrees, just to see what would happen. The beam of light, faint even in the darkness, bent around her body and pointed back the way she’d come.
I was going the right way. Even though it was nonsensical, the thought comforted her. She turned again so the beam was pointing straight ahead.
Was it her imagination, or did it look a little brighter now?
When she’d first started to understand how the magic flashlight worked, Pao had thought it was like a compass—the beam pointed in a fixed direction even when the “liminal vibes” of the wonky cactus field warped the way forward. Before, it had led her and Dante toward the camp. Now it was pointing away.
To where? Pao wondered, taking a few steps forward.
“Paola!” came a voice from behind her. She hastily shoved the flashlight back into her bag. Dante might like showing off his flashy weapon, but pathetic as the thing was, Pao thought she’d keep the Lunar Light to herself for now.
When she turned, she saw it was Sal who had tracked h
er down. Pao did her best to hide her storm cloud of a mood as she met his eager gaze.
“You’re going to stay with us, right?” he asked, his voice high and breathless.
Pao sighed, the momentary distraction of the flashlight gone. It had been easier to put off Marisa and Naomi. But Sal? With his big I miss my parents eyes and his almost-quivering lip?
“I don’t know,” Pao said. “It’s complicated. I’m looking for someone.”
Sal nodded bravely. “I understand.”
“I’ll do what I can for you, okay?” she said, hoping she could keep her promise.
He nodded again, looking at her bag, then back at her face. “It’s dangerous to go too far from the fire,” he said, and even though Pao’s Spanish was worse than her mom’s cooking, his accent still tugged at her heartstrings. It sounded like home.
“I guess I just got turned around.”
“Camp is this way,” he said, pointing behind them. Away from wherever the flashlight had been leading her.
“Good thing you came along, then,” she said, smiling, and Sal tentatively smiled back.
They had returned to the bonfire before Pao realized how exhausted she really was. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep—not with all the questions spiraling around in her head—but she could lie down for a little while, right?
In the tents all around her, the Niños were curled up on their cots. Some preferred to sleep out in the open, in bedrolls, or sprawled out on blankets. There were even a few hammocks suspended between particularly sturdy cacti. Pao took a sleeping bag from the pile nearby and went as far from the others as she could while still remaining in the protective circle of firelight.
The Niños were a family, she thought as she unrolled the bag. Even Dante seemed to be part of this group now—or on his way. Pao tried not to think about him, or where he might be, but his absence was a physical thing that ached in her chest.
Paola Santiago and the River of Tears Page 14