“He died trying. He never found the key. He saved us, but he didn’t…He couldn’t…”
Pao waited as Marisa pulled herself together.
“Franco knew of another opening between worlds, somewhere up north, where the magic wasn’t mala. He believed that our rift had somehow gotten corrupted.”
“By what?” Pao asked, immediately on edge.
“We never got far enough to find out.” Marisa’s gaze grew even more distant for a moment, and then she shook her head. “He asked Naomi and me to go with him to the spot where the field meets the Gila. The most dangerous part of this area. We agreed, of course—we wouldn’t have denied him anything.”
Pao thought Marisa’s eyes sparkled a little when she talked about him. Pao didn’t know much about love (except that what most people called love was actually just an overproduction of the oxytocin hormone in the brain), but she did know a lot about crushes, and it looked like Marisa had had a big one on Franco.
“The only thing we had to go on was a line from an ancient poem he found while he was researching rifts. Franco said the key would ‘reflect the light of the wearer’s soul.’ He was convinced that meant the key was a jewel. But…” Marisa gestured to the jewelry on the handkerchief.
“Wait a minute,” Pao said. “The ‘wearer’…Those were innocent people, right? That’s why you were stealing jewelry from them?”
“We told them what was at stake,” Marisa tried to explain. “Of course, most of them didn’t believe us….”
“And you just expected them to hand over their prized possessions?” Pao asked incredulously, thinking about how much Emma’s ring had meant to her.
“We didn’t have much time for discussion,” Marisa protested. “We had to protect them from the ahogados. Those infernal spirits were always right behind us.”
“And did you?” Pao pressed. “Did you save any of the ‘wearers’?”
Marisa shook her head.
In the silence that fell between them, Pao pictured it—Franco, Marisa, and Naomi thinking they were heroes, preparing to vanquish evil. Instead, they were no better than common thieves, and they’d led the ahogados right to their victims. Pao struggled to remain calm. She needed to hear more about what had happened to Emma.
“Finally, the time came,” Marisa went on. “The river was getting low—Franco said going into the rift when the barrier was weak would be our only chance, and we would have to enter without the key. I tried to talk him out of it, but he believed we could make it through, and we believed in him.”
No doubt about it, Pao thought. MEGA crush on Franco.
“We spent hours searching for the place where we thought the rift would appear. We believed it would open during the third quarter. And we were right. Once we found it, we intended to return to camp and wait for the solstice, when the veil would be thinnest, but they descended on us before we could get away. Hordes of them. We never stood a chance.”
“Ahogados?” Pao asked, not sure she wanted to know.
Marisa nodded. “There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands. The rift opened and they poured out like smoke. We fought, but they never stopped coming. There was no way to escape.”
Pao waited as Marisa regained control of her emotions, pressing her hands against her knees.
“Franco had an Arma del Alma, so he was better off than we were,” the older girl continued at last. “He told us to leave him, but we didn’t want to. Finally, he managed to convince us. We ran, but as soon as we felt it was safe, we hid and looked back. We watched as the ahogados drained his life force. We watched as he…”
Marisa couldn’t go on. She wasn’t crying, exactly, but she covered her mouth with one hand and curled her shoulders inward. Pao almost felt bad for asking her to drag it all up, but she was too busy wondering. Hypothesizing.
“After the ahogados took him, Naomi recovered his things. The ahogados had no use for them.” Marisa waved a hand over the bits of jewelry. “They’re all we have left of him now.”
Naomi’s silver hair, Pao thought. Is that what happens when you fight an ahogada? Your life force is partially drained? And what happened to Franco’s Arma del Alma? If it was such a powerful weapon, why hadn’t it been enough to save him?
But Pao didn’t articulate any of those questions. Instead, she asked, “And then you ate fire? To be the leader?”
“It’s what you do,” Marisa said, before Pao could describe what she’d seen in her dream. “It’s how you tie yourself to the luz—to the cause. He chose me before we left him. My life is connected to the magic of the rift now, no matter where I go. We’re all protected from aging inside the boundaries of camp, but as leader, I’ll be immortal as long as I serve the light.”
“Unless the ahogados get you like they got him.”
Marisa nodded soberly. “He’s only been gone three days,” she whispered. “Sometimes I think he’s going to walk out from behind a cactus and take back his rightful place….”
Pao felt guilty again. She had accused Marisa of succumbing to evil, but hadn’t she saved Pao from Ondina? Despite her shady methods of trying to find the key, Marisa was a well-intentioned, grieving girl who had been forced to assume leadership under the most difficult of circumstances.
And what was Pao? Pushy, angry, stubborn—
“You were wise to ask me about Franco,” Marisa said when Pao didn’t reply. “Trusting the wrong people in this world can be the end of you. Your friend is eager, wide-eyed. But you’re discerning, capable. You’d make a fine leader.”
“Thanks,” Pao said, surprised at Marisa’s appraisal, so different from her own. “Just don’t ask me to eat any burning coals, okay?”
Marisa smiled, and in the light of the fire, Pao could see scarring on her lips from the ember.
“Too soon?”
Marisa shook her head. “Franco was just as irreverent as you are.”
The silence that followed was comfortable for a change, but it couldn’t last. There was still so much to be done.
“If Franco wasn’t the one stealing the kids,” Pao asked, “who is?”
Marisa hesitated. “Franco had theories about it. That the rift feeds on children. That their life forces fuel the corrupted Source of magic. I have his memories, but his conclusions weren’t complete. He believed that the ahogados and the Manos and everything else are just soldiers for the ‘general’ inside the void, but he never found out who or what it was. And now—”
“Oh, God,” Pao said, interrupting Marisa, who stopped, looking concerned by the terror on Pao’s face. “Oh, God…”
“What is it?”
“Missing children…” Pao said, and her voice sounded far away to her own ears. “The monsters, the general…”
“Santiago, spit it out!”
Pao gathered her thoughts, the lifetime of tales, the strange things she’d seen today alone. A week ago—even a day ago—she would never have thought she’d be offering this as a viable solution.
“My mom’s stories have all turned out to be true,” Pao said, looking Marisa dead in the eye. “And her scariest one was about a woman who stole children by the river….”
The older girl watched her intently.
“Marisa, I think I know who the general is.”
If they were in a movie, this would’ve been the moment when the soundtrack swelled just before the big reveal.
“I’m listening,” Marisa said.
“I think it’s…La Llorona.”
Instead of climactic movie music, Marisa’s reaction was the sound of a record scratch. Pao had been expecting a dropped jaw, a hand clapped to the forehead, something—anything—to indicate amazement. Instead, Marisa held a hand to her mouth, eyes sparkling, clearly trying not to laugh.
Pao’s cheeks heated up, irritation flaring as the horror of her realization waned. “Oh, so chupacabras and some minor folktale about hairy hands are real, but La freaking Llorona makes you giggle?” She knew how childish and defensive she s
ounded, but she couldn’t help it. “Sorry if my Who’s Who in Fairy Tales That Come to Life manual is outdated.”
She folded her arms, and Marisa lowered her hand.
“I’m sorry,” the older girl said, amusement still playing around the corners of her mouth. “You’re not off track about La Llorona. Most of the local folktales were inspired by creatures from the rift.”
“So she’s real?” Pao asked.
“She was,” Marisa said. “But come on, a sad woman who lost her mind and drowned her kids only to regret it? A ghost who can’t stop crying isn’t exactly a threat. Franco said he dispatched her in his first week as leader. She was nothing more than a nuisance.”
Pao thought this wasn’t a very feminist assessment, but she was too busy being annoyed about every riverside birthday party she’d missed for no reason to say anything.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Marisa said. “It’s an understandable theory for someone who’s been here less than two days. It’s just…the general we’re looking for will have a lot more in his arsenal than the ability to wail really loud at night.”
“Noted,” Pao mumbled, wondering when her cheeks would cool—or if they ever would. She was a scientist. Even if ghosts and monsters were real, Pao had jumped to a premature conclusion, which was so unlike her. This place must be getting to me, she thought.
“So, you were going to ask about your friend…” Marisa prompted when Pao’s humiliated silence had stretched on long enough.
“My friend…” Pao said. “Emma. Right.” She shook her head, vowing to leave this uncharacteristically gullible moment in the past. “Franco tried to take her ring, and you said the ahogados were usually right behind you guys. So does that mean they got her? Is she in the void now?”
“I don’t know,” Marisa said. “If I did, I would tell you. It’s not a bad theory, but there’s no way to find out for sure.”
“No way besides going into the rift ourselves.”
Marisa’s silence was answer enough. She was obviously still haunted by the memory of a boy who had tried to do just that. But Pao couldn’t be bound by Franco’s failures. If there was any chance Emma was still alive, and her Don’t give up on me message in the dream was real, Pao had to know.
“We’ll fight with you,” Pao said decisively as she got to her feet. “If you’ll still have us.”
“Gladly,” Marisa said, rising also. “And thank you.”
“There’s one condition,” Pao said, matching the leader’s determined gaze. “We’ll fight with you until the solstice, but we won’t be joining Los Niños de la Luz. We fight as ourselves—as ‘tourists.’ And in exchange, you tell me everything you know about the rift and the key. My main goal is still to rescue my friend. If I can find a way into the void, I’ll have to take it.”
Marisa nodded. “I understand. A good leader doesn’t leave her people behind.” Her face crumpled when she added, “I shouldn’t have left Franco.” She took a shuddering breath and then said, “You have my support.”
When Marisa extended a hand for her to shake, Pao accepted it.
Finally, she was moving forward.
Pao shook Dante awake. He snorted as he emerged from sleep, and she laughed.
“Shut up,” he said. “What do you want?”
“I want you to take out that fancy club of yours, hero boy. I just told Marisa we’d fight with the Niños de la Luz.” She said the name of the group with as much fake, goofy gravitas as she could.
“For real?” Dante asked, sitting up, his hair flat on one side and sticking out like crazy on the other. This time, Pao smoothed it down for him, smiling when his cheeks flushed.
“For real. But there’s more. I think I know where Emma is. So we fight until we can figure out how to get there, and then we go. Deal?”
“Of course deal!” He got to his feet, and Pao straightened up. They shifted awkwardly for a moment before Dante stepped forward and hugged her tight. “Sorry I said you were jealous.”
“Sorry I called you a meathead.”
When they finally let go, it felt like all was right with the world.
Which was how they should have known something awful was going to happen soon.
As the rest of the Niños woke around them, Pao filled in Dante about most of what Marisa had told her: Franco, the jewelry, and the rift. The way Franco had been drained by the ahogados and Marisa had become the immortal leader of the Niños. She left out the part about La Llorona—she’d dealt with enough embarrassment for one day.
“So you know where Emma is?” Dante asked when she’d finished, and Pao could feel him itching to draw the chancla. “What are we waiting for?”
“Calm down, Superman,” Pao said. “It’s possible to get into the rift on the summer solstice, but it’s still not easy. Franco died when he tried to go in without the key, so—”
“Where do we find this key?” Dante interrupted, and this time he really did pull the slipper out of his pocket, thwacking it against his palm until sparks flew into the sand and he dropped it in surprise.
Pao raised an eyebrow but didn’t say a word as he slid it back into his pocket sheepishly.
“I don’t know yet,” she said, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. “Marisa has Franco’s memories now, but it will take her a while to sift through them, because he lived for so long. She said she’ll tell me if she finds anything useful.”
“Whoa,” Dante said, running his hand over his shaggy head. “The guy you have a crush on dies and you have to eat fire and live forever with his memories? And here I thought we were having a bad week.”
“It’s a sacrifice,” Pao said, and they were quiet for a long minute, not quite meeting each other’s eyes. Pao wondered if he was thinking about crushes, too, then mentally berated herself for being so shallow at a time like this.
And when she wasn’t thinking about Dante and crushes, she was remembering all the things she wasn’t telling him, and that was so much worse.
The secrets between them were growing, multiplying like her mom always said they do. As the hopeful feeling of making progress toward Emma waned, Pao’s worst fear took its place. And she was alone with it.
How could Pao tell Dante she might have corrupted magic in her? Some monster part that was making her constantly angry and sad and giving her these terrible dreams. She couldn’t reveal that all this trouble might be her fault.
Maybe before, she could have. The old friend duo of Dante and Pao had been more resilient. But the new Dante and Pao had weird boy-girl spiderweb cracks in their windshield, caused by magical clubs and Naomis and secrets and loss.
Pao couldn’t risk losing him, too. Especially now, when Emma needed them both.
“You’re still here!” Sal came bounding toward them, tousle-haired and smiling.
Pao was grateful for the interruption.
“Does that mean you’re staying?” he asked.
“For now,” Pao said, smiling. “We heard you guys might need some help fighting monsters.”
Sal surprised Pao by leaping forward and throwing his arms around her. She laughed, squeezing him back. “Thank you!” he said, and Pao had never felt less like a monster herself.
“As cheerful as this little scene is,” Naomi drawled, walking up on the other side, “we haven’t done anything worthy of celebration yet. Sal, cleanup duty.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder to where ten or more Niños were already gathering by the fire.
Pao and Dante started to join them, but Naomi shook her head. “Not you guys. Marisa wants you in the pit.”
“The pit?” Pao asked, not missing the way Dante squared his shoulders and checked obviously for his chancla.
“It’s where we train to fight monsters,” Naomi said, looking Pao up and down. “It should be…fun.”
“Fun for who?” Pao muttered as they followed her to the other side of the mess tent.
“Be nice,” Dante said. But he checked for the chancla again.
; “It’s in your back pocket,” Pao stage-whispered. “Right where you put it after you dropped it.”
“Shut up,” he retorted, blushing. But he didn’t reach for it again.
The pit was exactly what it sounded like—a hole in the ground about six feet deep and the width of a boxing ring. Marisa was standing inside, up against the farthest wall. Pao imagined it must have taken weeks to dig this out, but with the desert dirt packed down so hard, it seemed like it had been here forever.
“Welcome,” said Marisa, somehow looking rested even though Pao guessed the girl hadn’t slept since before the Mano fight. Did eating burning coals make you immortal and immune to the need for basic things? She made a mental note to ask later.
Assuming they survived the day.
“Paola, why don’t you choose a weapon?” Marisa offered, motioning behind her to a blanket on which several were laid out. “Dante, I doubt you’ll find anything better than the one you’re carrying, so you can practice with the Arma del Alma.”
In honor of her recent truce with Dante, Pao decided not to make any more snarky comments.
But it wasn’t easy.
The weapons looked like they’d seen better days: a rusty sword, a warped wooden staff, and a pair of pitted daggers. In all the novels Pao had read, the weapon a character chose somehow reflected their personality. But she didn’t feel particularly drawn to any of these.
Everyone was staring at her, though, so Pao knelt down and tried to pick one, despite the disappointment that was settling in her stomach. Dante got to fight with this fancy legendary club that basically painted the word hero across his back, and Pao was going to be beside him with what, a long stick and a shopping bag?
“Pao?” Naomi said. “We’re kind of burning daylight here.”
“Yeah,” Pao said, picking up the sword, whose tip snagged the corner of the blanket and pulled it back. “Wait, what’s this?”
Under the blanket was a short, fat knife with black duct tape wrapped around its handle. It looked even more worn than the rest of the weapons, but for some reason, Pao could picture herself using it, twisting through a crowd of monsters, stabbing them until green goo covered everything.
Paola Santiago and the River of Tears Page 16