Paola Santiago and the River of Tears

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  “Well, well, well,” said Ondina, straightening her dress and approaching Pao. “Took you long enough.”

  “You?”

  “Like you’re surprised? You basically came here on my orders.” Ondina rolled her eyes and casually flipped her hair, like they were at a sleepover disagreeing over which movie to watch.

  Ondina looked both more solid and more surreal here. Her skin glowed faintly, her eyes still poison green. Her hair and dress were somehow darker and drew Pao’s eyes hypnotically.

  How had Pao ever thought this was just a girl?

  “Sorry, who are you?” Dante asked.

  “Long story,” Pao and Ondina said together.

  “I’ve been hearing that a lot lately,” Dante said under his breath.

  Pao ignored him and glared at Ondina, who was as unfazed as ever. “Look,” Pao told her, “I don’t know how you got in here, too, but you were right. Dante and I need to find our friend and figure out how to get out of here before the barrier closes.”

  Dante stepped forward. “Yeah, or before one of these psycho ghosts tries to strangle me. Again.”

  “Oh, they won’t do that,” Ondina said, glancing back at the bridge, where another hundred ahogados had begun to gather.

  “Are you kidding me?” Dante asked. “That’s, like, what they do. It’s the only thing they do.”

  “They do what they’re told,” Ondina replied, beckoning over her shoulder with her little finger. The mass of green-eyed ghosts began to move forward.

  “What are you doing?” Pao asked, a chill settling in her stomach.

  Ondina held up a hand. The procession stopped. All but three, who beelined for the kids huddled against the pillar.

  “What are you doing?” Pao repeated, every cell in her body ready to run, to save them. But her limbs were heavy and slow. She couldn’t take a step.

  Ondina didn’t answer.

  Even Dante watched, his eyes strangely unfocused, as the ahogados led the kids into yet another black hole.

  “What’s going to happen to them?” Pao asked, her words as slow as her limbs.

  “We’re taking them to Hogwarts,” Ondina said snottily.

  “You said-d-d…” Pao stuttered, Bruto barely stirring in her arms. “You said you weren’t one of them. You said you wanted to help me.”

  “I’m not one of them,” Ondina said with disdain. “As for the other thing…well, it shouldn’t come as a huge shock to you that it was me I was really trying to help. But don’t worry—it won’t be too bad for you.” She grinned, and on another face, in another setting, it might have been one of those too-cute beauty-pageant smiles.

  Here, it was downright terrifying.

  “How exactly do you two know each other?” Dante asked, and Pao felt guilty. For a moment, she’d almost forgotten he was there.

  She looked at him, feeling her eyes do that I’m sorry thing before she even spoke. How could she tell Dante now about a lifetime of dark, twisted dreams? Dreams that connected her to this girl and this place and all the evil they had been fighting since this started.

  How could she tell him it might be all her fault?

  “As fun as it would be to watch you try to wriggle out of this one, Paola,” said Ondina, “we have an appointment. Let’s go.”

  “A what? What are you talking about?” Pao shook her head a little, trying to focus. Why was she so tired all of a sudden? “I told you…we have to find Emma, and…” She actually yawned. “We have to find Emma and—”

  “The only thing you’re doing,” Ondina interrupted, “is exactly what I say. Just like every other living creature in this bubble.”

  Ondina clapped twice, and something flickered in the eyes of the closest ancient chupacabra. He lowered his head.

  “Climb on,” she said to Pao and Dante. “Or I’ll have to force you to do it at knifepoint, and that’s just so boring, don’t you think?”

  “Knife…what?” Pao knew there was something wrong, but she was so, so tired all of a sudden, and Dante was already hoisting himself up. Stiff-limbed, like he was sleepwalking.

  The sight of him turned robotic made Pao feel sharper, just for a moment. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Oh boy, back to the what questions,” Ondina said, faking a yawn of her own. “And here I thought our relationship had grown.”

  Pao could only stand there. Nothing in her brain seemed to be working.

  “I could knock you out first,” Ondina said, “but I’d be doing you a disservice. The view of the palace on the way in is really breathtaking this time of year. Now, please, get on.”

  She said this last part with such authority it seemed to ring in the air. Like a general, Pao thought. Or a lieutenant at least…

  Her eyes were so green….

  It would be so easy to just do what she said….

  “No,” Pao said, still trying to fight, to hold on.

  But to what? She couldn’t remember.

  Pao climbed up the ancient chupacabra’s scaly side one-handed, Bruto’s head hanging strangely over her arm. Already on the back of the twin chupacabra next to her, Dante didn’t look over. He was still staring at Ondina.

  “Very good,” she said, vaulting onto the beast effortlessly to take a seat in front of Pao. She turned with a smirk. “I have a feeling your friend’s the obedient one. You, I need to keep a closer eye on. Now, let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  She clapped again, and the beasts began to move.

  Ondina was right about one thing, Pao thought, her mind sluggish. The view crossing the bridge really is beautiful.

  The palace doors opened with a wave of Ondina’s hand. Inside the green light wasn’t as harsh, though everything glowed with it.

  In Pao’s arms, Bruto slept with his tongue lolling out, and the warm weight of him made Pao even sleepier. Would it be so bad to nod off for just a little while? she wondered. She looked at the mount beside her to see that Dante’s eyelids were closed.

  See? said a calming voice in her head. He’s perfectly safe….

  The front hall was magnificent, with glass walls, green veins running through them like circuitry. It made Pao think of the robotics kit she’d been trying to get her mom to spring for and giggled. A robot castle. How ridiculous.

  Almost as ridiculous as riding through a robot castle on the back of a chupacabra-dragon. A few days ago, Pao was pretty sure she’d been a girl who didn’t believe in folktales or ghosts.

  She giggled again, feeling loopy and disoriented.

  The chupacabras halted at a sweeping glass staircase that disappeared up into the second level. Pao smiled when she pictured the creatures trying to go up the stairs, but she managed to keep her amusement to herself this time. Bruto snorted in her arms, opening his left eye just a crack.

  Beside her, Dante did the same.

  “Time to disembark,” Ondina said, returning to the ground soundlessly once again. She waited as Pao maneuvered her clumsy, heavy legs over to one side of the chupacabra and slid down beside her. With Bruto in her arms, she landed awkwardly, and he spilled onto the ground, yelping indignantly at the rude awakening.

  “Sorry,” Pao said, the words thick in her mouth like oatmeal that had been cooked too long.

  “Leave it to you to bond with one of these things,” Ondina said. “You think you’re so good and pure.”

  “I don’t,” Pao said, recalling her dreams and the way the opening void of the rift had felt like home. Ondina didn’t question her statement, and Pao didn’t elaborate. The thoughts drifted away, replaced by relief when Dante joined them on the ground.

  She didn’t know why, but Pao felt stronger when the two of them were together, and she leaned into his shoulder heavily, forgetting to be embarrassed.

  He leaned into her, too.

  “Adorable as you two lovebirds are, we have places to be,” Ondina snapped, and Pao—despite her exhaustion—couldn’t help but notice that the girl seemed diff
erent than she’d been outside. More nervous, like a kid during a test when the teacher stopped to look over their shoulder.

  When Ondina began climbing the stairs, Pao’s confusion took a back seat to dread. Her legs were heavy as stone, and she could barely keep her eyes open. There were at least a hundred stairs—more, if they continued past the point she could see.

  Which, with her luck, they probably did.

  “Emma…” Pao said, a cold feeling starting to creep into her sleepy haze. “I have to get to Emma.”

  “Sure,” Ondina said, her voice razor-edged. “Now get moving.”

  If Pao had thought she was tired before, it was nothing compared to how she felt when they reached the halfway point of the staircase. Bruto—whose energy didn’t seem affected by their surroundings ever since he woke up—nudged worriedly at Pao’s ankles when she slowed, but he couldn’t help her.

  The places on her body that had burned before, when the key had drained her, now ached, making her want to curl up on the floor right then and there.

  She stumbled, almost losing her footing.

  Bruto licked her hand.

  “I know,” she mumbled, feeling worse than she ever had when her mom woke her for school. “Keep going.”

  She kept climbing.

  Another flight. Then another. Eventually, at the edges of her fuzzy vision, Pao noticed that the weight of her foot caused each step to glow brighter as she trod on it.

  Or was that just delirium setting in?

  It hadn’t been that long since she’d slept, had it? Sure, she’d done some fighting. And there’d been that whole traveling-through-a-dark-portal-between-worlds thing. And the key-turning-her-hair-white thing. Twice. But still, her exhaustion couldn’t be explained, even by everything she’d gone through in the past twenty-four hours.

  She felt like her bones were being leached of their nutrients, making them brittle and achy. Like her brain’s synapses were growing dimmer until it was a struggle to remember who she was, or why she was climbing.

  Bruto nipped at her sneaker heel.

  She climbed anyway.

  Fifty steps, a hundred. There was no doubt about it now—her swimming eyes caught the change in the light when her feet hit the stairs. But what did it mean? What was happening?

  Pao knew, as if it were a distant, historical fact, that she was an inquisitive person. Clever, even. And this was certainly a mystery. But she couldn’t make her brain puzzle it out. Right now, the only thing she cared to know was when she’d be allowed to lie down.

  Dante groaned beside her, his eyes half-closed. She wanted to say something to him, but she forgot what it was before she started to speak. There was nothing but the next step. And the next.

  “Not much farther now,” Ondina said, not seeming tired in the least.

  Emma, Pao thought, and she said it aloud unconsciously. “Emma…”

  “Ugh, has anyone ever told you a one-track mind doesn’t make you a very pleasant traveling companion?”

  The question didn’t seem to require an answer, but Pao, even surrounded by glowing green, barely able to drag one foot past the other, felt like she had indeed been told that many times in her life.

  She just couldn’t remember why. Or by whom.

  The second floor’s main feature was a massive chandelier, hanging in the very center of a large circular landing.

  Seventeen more stairs to go, Pao guessed, closing one eye to see through the haze of exhaustion. Sixteen. Fifteen.

  But she stopped counting at that point, because waiting for them at the top of the stairs were three tall skeletal figures with massive black-feathered wings sprouting out of their backs, and faces twisted in expressions of perpetual pain.

  “What’s this?” Pao asked. “I thought…Emma…”

  Apparently, talking and walking at once was too much for her overtaxed coordination, because Pao slipped on step fourteen (or was it thirteen?) and caught herself with both palms on the sharp edge of a glass stair.

  She could feel the warmth of blood on her hands, and she looked down to find deep cuts in her skin. But there was no red stain on the stair. The creatures at the top screeched hungrily, but Ondina silenced them with a wave of her hand, waiting for Pao to stand.

  A drop of her blood fell, and she watched it as if in slow motion. The tiny bead splashed up at the sides when it landed. But it disappeared before it could pool.

  The glass had absorbed it.

  It’s draining you, said a part of her subconscious that was apparently still thinking clearly. Just like the ahogados. Just like the key….

  But why?

  More of her blood dripped to the floor. The light under the stair went off like fireworks, nearly blinding Pao. Her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t understand…and she always understood.

  Dante will catch me, she thought as she swayed on her feet.

  But he didn’t. When she fell, there was no cushion, only hard glass. She felt it.

  She heard Bruto yelp.

  And then there was nothing at all.

  Pao awoke feeling like her skull had been split in two. She couldn’t open her eyes. They were too heavy.

  “Dante?” she called out before she thought better of it. No one replied. “Bruto?” Her voice came back to her like she was in a small space. Muffled, almost. She forced her eyes open then, and her stomach dropped as she took in her surroundings. She was in a glass cell.

  Dante was gone. So was Ondina. And Bruto was nowhere to be seen.

  “Hello?” she called, sitting up on the smooth glass floor.

  She looked for a door.

  There wasn’t one.

  Pao’s heart rate sped up, like she’d just woken from a nightmare. It was a familiar feeling, but this time sleep had been the escape. Her real life was the bad dream.

  She walked to the wall. She could cross the space in four steps. “Help me!” she shouted, pounding on the glass, which swallowed the sound just like it had swallowed her blood.

  Frantic, Pao felt along every smooth, slick wall for a seam. Some kind of hidden panel that could slide open and get her out of here. But there was nothing. She might as well have been inside a snow globe.

  Her heart hammered against her ribs, her breath coming shorter and sharper as she wondered about the amount of air in the space. Would she suffocate soon? They’d learned in science how much oxygen a human being used per minute, but she couldn’t remember now.

  “Help me!” she screamed, louder this time, banging on the seamless wall with both fists.

  Beneath her hands, the wall lit up with the pressure.

  “No,” Pao said, remembering her blood drop on the stair. The wall was feeding off her life force. And if her hypothesis was correct, the more worked up she got, the quicker it would drain her.

  She slid down to the floor and pulled her knees into her chest, trying to make herself smaller, and to slow her pulse and her breathing. But tears slid silently down her cheeks, and where they hit the glass beneath her, it glowed greedily.

  Pao didn’t know how much time she spent sitting there. The light didn’t change in her cell. It could have been an hour, a day, a week. The solstice had probably already ended. The Niños could all be gone by now, victims of the monsters from this place.

  Maybe she would never get out. And neither would Dante. Perhaps Pao’s dreams about her friend’s hand in the river had only been a fantasy, and Emma wasn’t here after all.

  She had seemed so real, though, with her sandy hair and her purple nails.

  Don’t give up on me, Emma had said, and Pao had promised she never would….

  Pao’s desperate memories were interrupted by a red arch appearing in the wall in front of her. It disappeared almost as quickly as it had formed, leaving Ondina inside in the cell, the wall as impenetrable as ever.

  The possibility of a way out acted like a stimulant on Pao, and she felt her brain kick into gear, forming a plan almost without her permission.

  And it
wasn’t half-bad, either, if she did say so herself.

  First, Pao whimpered, like someone had kicked her. Then she curled up tighter to appear weak and scared. Her eyes were open only slits, and she hoped they looked closed.

  “Get up,” Ondina barked. “It’s time. She’s waiting.”

  Who’s waiting? The effort of holding back the question almost ruptured something inside Pao. But there would be an opportunity to get answers later, if she did this right.

  She whimpered again.

  Ondina approached her, shoving her with a neat black boot. “I said, get up!”

  There was no power in the kick, Pao noted. Did that mean Ondina didn’t really want to hurt her?

  “I…can’t…” Pao answered, wheezing and coughing.

  “This is just pathetic,” Ondina said. “And we don’t have time for pathetic.”

  Pao went still, though every muscle in her body screamed at her to get up and run. Wait, she told them, relaxing them one by one. Just a little longer.

  Ondina called her more names, but in the end she had no choice. She bent down and took Pao by the armpits, hauling her to her feet with surprising strength given that they were almost the same height.

  “If I ruin my hair hauling you around this place, you’ll pay for it,” Ondina muttered, but she slung an arm under Pao’s and shouldered most of her weight, walking her toward the spot in the wall where the door had appeared.

  This time, Pao knew what to do. She had to be faster than the light.

  She closed her eyes. A dangerous move for a scientist, but Pao had learned a few things about faith since leaving home. She could feel it in the air when Ondina decided to open the wall, and with the last bit of strength she had, Pao stood on her own two feet, shoved the other girl behind her into the cell, and threw herself through the doorway.

  Passing through the opening chilled her to the bone, and for a moment, Pao worried that she’d miscalculated and the wall would claim her. Suck her dry until she was nothing more than a monster minion.

  At least when I’m an ahogada, I can kill Ondina without feeling bad about it, she thought.

  But then, miraculously, she had made it, and she was still Pao, standing on the circular landing of the second floor.