by Various
“What was your daughter’s name?” Buffy asked. Then she could have kicked herself. She didn’t want to know any more about this woman’s personal life than she already did. She had her own to worry about.
“Cecelia,” the shopkeeper answered.
Buffy felt the room give a sudden swoop around her. She stared up at the papercut, still hanging perfectly still.
I should have known better than to ask, she told herself. The girl had already reminded her way too much of Celia for comfort. She didn’t need to know they had almost the same name, too.
“She was just seven years old,” the shopkeeper went on softly.
Not an exact match, Buffy thought. Only close enough to make her scalp tingle, her hair threaten to stand straight up on end. Only way too close to be a coincidence. Her cousin Celia had been eight when she had died. In a hospital. Alone.
And you’ve never even been to her grave.
“All these years, I have waited,” the old woman whispered. Silently, she moved to stand beside Buffy. “I have waited for her spirit, watched for it, prayed. Never has she returned to me. Not once.”
That explains the shrine, Buffy thought. The woman must be trying to draw her daughter’s spirit to her, no matter what the time of year.
“So you put the two of you together in the papercut?”
The old woman’s head jerked toward Buffy as if pulled by a string. “You think that is me with my daughter? You do not look carefully enough. That is not me. It is the thing that keeps her from me. It is the witch. It is the bruja.”
Buffy stared back at the papercut again. At first glance, the scene seemed joyful. Just a young girl being pushed on a swing. But now that Buffy was looking more closely, she noticed things she hadn’t before.
The girl’s head was thrown back, braids streaming out, but now Buffy could see that what she’d taken as an expression of joy on the girl’s face was actually one of pain. Her mouth was open not in a cry of delight, but in a scream. The ends of her braids didn’t fly free. They were tangled in the hands of the figure that stood behind her.
Buffy looked into its face. And found herself looking at something she’d never seen before, but knew she’d recognize anywhere.
Evil.
Let her go! Buffy thought. All she wants is to be with her mother. It’s not fair!
Without realizing it, she took a step forward.
And the papercut moved in the still air.
Drifting back as if to gather momentum, then swaying straight toward Buffy. It arced out over her head, a soft rustle of thin paper, then settled into place once more, motionless as always.
“Aiee!” the shopkeeper wailed. She fell to her knees on the cement floor before the card table. “They are true, the words of the fortuneteller. You have come at last. You are the one. The warrior who will free my daughter.”
Abruptly, Buffy felt cold in the hot, close air at the back of the shop.
I don’t want this! she thought. She didn’t want one more person telling her what to do, what her duty was. She didn’t want one more person to need her. She wanted to be anonymous, to be left alone. And she definitely didn’t want to be responsible for saving anybody’s daughter.
I wouldn’t be any good at it anyway. I couldn’t even save myself.
She set her glass beneath the table. I’ve got to get out of here. But she couldn’t just leave this woman kneeling on the floor.
“Please,” she said, as she knelt down beside the shopkeeper. “Please, get up. I’m sorry, but there’s been some sort of mistake. Are you hurt? Should I get some help?”
“No, no,” the shopkeeper murmured as she let Buffy help her up and lead her to the folding chair. “You are all the help I need. You are the one the fortuneteller told me of. You have come at last. You will fight for my Cecelia.”
Ready for the release of the CD anytime now, Buffy thought. This woman was starting to sound like a broken record.
“I’m not the one,” Buffy said, her voice more forceful this time. She battled back a spurt of guilt. Oh no? She was the Chosen One. And you’re the Slayer, not a Ghostbuster.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”
The old woman looked up at her, her face confused. “But the papercut, it moved,” she protested softly. “It showed my daughter’s spirit was present, if only for a moment. She was here, in this room.”
To Buffy’s dismay, the shopkeeper’s eyes began to fill with tears. “Never, not in all the years since my Cecelia’s death, has such a thing occurred,” the woman went on. “She could not come to me, but she has come to you. Because you are —”
“A tourist,” Buffy broke in.
“I will go, tonight, to visit my daughter’s grave,” the shopkeeper said eagerly, riding right over Buffy’s interruption. “You will see where she is buried. You will know how to free her spirit.”
“No,” Buffy said. “No, I won’t.” What do I have to do to get through to this woman? she wondered. All of a sudden, she felt like Giles. “Look — I really appreciate you helping me when I didn’t feel well, but I’m not who you think I am, and I have to go now.”
The shopkeeper fell silent, her dark eyes searching Buffy’s face, her lips parted ever so slightly. Then she closed them firmly, plucked a handkerchief from a pocket on the front of her dress, and rose to her feet.
“As you wish, senorita,” she said briskly. She wiped her eyes, then turned and led the way toward the front of the shop.
What did mothers do, take special classes in making people feel guilty? Buffy wondered as she followed.
She was on vacation. She’d said thank you for the help. Beginning, middle, and end of story. It wasn’t her fault if it had been a short one.
She snatched several votive candles from a shelf at the front of the shop. “I’d like to buy these,” she said as she thrust them onto the cash register counter.
“As you wish,” the shopkeeper said again. She rang up Buffy’s purchases and slipped them into a paper bag, automatically adding a book of matches. As she handed the bag across the counter to Buffy, their fingers met. Buffy felt the shopkeeper’s tremble.
“Please, senorita, I . . . I will be here until eight o’clock,” she burst out as if she couldn’t help herself. “If you change your mind, you can come back. You can still come with me.”
“No, I can’t,” Buffy said. But by then she’d realized she had a real excuse. “I’m supposed to spend time tonight with my father.”
Telling him all the things she hadn’t been doing.
“I’m sorry about your daughter, honestly I am. But I won’t be back. I can’t help you.”
Before the shopkeeper could say anything more, Buffy stepped out of the shop into the late afternoon glare to find the fortuneteller blocking her path.
“You cannot escape,” the old woman challenged.
I knew it was coming sooner or later, Buffy thought. The good old you-cannot-escape clause. She stepped around the fortuneteller.
“Excuse me,” she said. She was finished spending time explaining her actions. Or their absence.
“You cannot escape. It is your destiny,” the fortuneteller called after her.
Buffy felt something threaten to give way inside her.
“Destinies can be changed,” she snapped over her shoulder. If anybody ought to know, she should. She walked briskly toward the end of Olvera Street. She was almost to the end before she heard the fortuneteller’s parting shot.
“You’ll be back.”
“Only if you promise to hold your breath.”
He isn’t home.
Buffy stepped into the silence of her father’s apartment. She could tell at once that the rooms were empty. The apartment had a different feel when her dad was home.
Maybe he got caught in traffic, just like I did. Buffy worried she’d be late for dinner all the way home. She crossed the living room, heading for the answering machine’s blinking red light.
Please, just say yo
u’re on your way home, Dad.
She hit the playback button. Her father’s voice filled the living room.
“Hey, sport,” he said. He sounds tired, Buffy thought. She could feel her head start to pound. She was almost certain she knew what was coming next.
“Listen, I . . . I’m really sorry, but something’s come up and I have to stay late at the office, so I can’t make dinner tonight, after all. But we’ll go some other night soon, okay? I . . . I think there’s a pizza in the freezer or something. Geez — don’t tell your mother I was a flake about feeding you. I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Buffy could almost feel her father’s frustration.
“I’m not sure how late I’ll be, so don’t wait up or anything. I’m sorry, honey. I’ll — what?” Buffy could hear a voice, talking in the background. “I have to go now, sweetheart,” her father said. “I’ll see you, soon. I — all right, all right, I’m coming.”
The line went dead.
Well, that’s that. So much for getting a second chance.
Except I did get one, she thought suddenly.
She wasn’t dead.
Slowly, not stopping to think about what she was doing, Buffy walked down the hall to her father’s bedroom, pushed the door open and went to stand in front of his dresser. It was there, just the way she’d known it would be.
The last picture of Buffy and Celia together.
It was Celia’s birthday, and she was wearing a frilly party dress. Buffy was dressed as Power Girl. Her dad had taken the picture himself, kneeling down on the floor of the Summers’ living room. The two girls were looking straight into the eye-level camera, their arms around each other. Both faces lit up by ear-splitting grins.
The photograph had been displayed on the mantel, until Celia had died. After that, because anything to do with her cousin only seemed to upset Buffy, her parents had moved the picture to their bedroom. Buffy knew her mother still had a copy of her own, on her dresser. This photo was one of the few things her parents still shared.
How would they feel if they knew that she’d been dead?
How would they feel if she’d never come home from that night she’d faced the Master? A thing they hadn’t known about. Could never know about.
This would be all they’d have.
Memories. Photographs. And no explanations for their daughter’s early death. Just a hole where she had been.
This is a shrine, too, Buffy thought.
My little hero.
It was what her father always called her when she wore her Power Girl outfit.
If I’m such a hero, why couldn’t I save Celia? Buffy wondered. Why couldn’t I save myself, Dad?
Her friends had done that. Risking themselves. Following her when she hadn’t asked them to. Right into the jaws of death.
And if she was such a hero, what was she doing standing here doing nothing?
She couldn’t come to me, but she came to you, the shopkeeper had said.
Buffy wasn’t sure she believed it, but she was beginning to realize it might not matter what she believed. What was important was that this mother needed her. What was important was that, just maybe, she could give this woman what Xander and Angel had given her.
A second chance.
Buffy pivoted on one heel and headed for her own bedroom. There’s no fighting it, she thought. Maybe the fortuneteller had been right after all. Maybe helping this woman and her daughter was a part of Buffy’s destiny. Not just because she was the Slayer. But because she had been given her own second chance.
L. A. is starting to seem a whole lot like Sunnydale, Buffy thought. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
And another night spent in a graveyard.
“No one comes here anymore,” said Mrs. Aragon.
Buffy and the shopkeeper were driving east, into the hills outside the city. Buffy had been surprised to find herself all but in the country as the car began to climb. It was easy to forget there were places like this so close to the city, and that L.A. was surrounded by mountains. Usually, you couldn’t see them because of the smog.
The two hadn’t spoken much on the drive from Olvera Street, though they had introduced themselves. Buffy now knew that the shopkeeper was Mrs. Theresa Aragon. After that, they’d fallen silent as Mrs. Aragon negotiated first the freeway, then side streets, as the sun slipped closer and closer to the horizon.
By the time we get to the graveyard, it will be nearly dark, Buffy thought.
Par for the course.
Mrs. Aragon turned left at the base of a steep hill. “Not much farther now.”
Almost show time, Buffy thought. The trouble was, she didn’t know which program she was watching. What should she expect?
She curved her fingers around the strap of her shoulder bag. Buffy had tried to come prepared. A good Slayer was pretty much like a Girl Scout in that respect. Except for that thing where you had to sell cookies.
Mrs. Aragon made a hairpin turn, the car skidding as the pavement ended, and the back tires fought to find purchase on the steep dirt road. Billows of dust rose up around the car. Buffy rolled up her window. The shopkeeper drove to the top of the hill and parked beside an old adobe church.
“We are here,” said Mrs. Aragon. “The graveyard is over there.” She pointed in front of them. In the fading light, Buffy could see tilting gravestones at the edge of the hill. They vanished over the side. A chain-link fence separated the graveyard from the rest of the hilltop.
“They stopped burying here not long after my Cecelia died. The hillside can be treacherous when it rains.”
Together, Buffy and Mrs. Aragon got out of the car. Buffy followed the shopkeeper to the gate. Its hinges screeched as she pulled it open.
“Wait a minute,” Buffy said. Mrs. Aragon paused. She looked back at Buffy, her expression expectant.
Now what? Buffy thought.
“I just wanted to say . . . I’ll do my best . . . but . . . We don’t know quite what we’re dealing with here,” she finished somewhat lamely. “So, don’t get your hopes up.”
Very smooth, Summers, she thought. Not to mention sensitive. She’d probably get some sort of Slayer Humanitarian of the Year award.
“Are you finished?” the shopkeeper asked. Buffy nodded. “Then come,” said Mrs. Aragon. She passed through the gate and held it open.
Buffy followed her into the graveyard.
She tripped over a clump of crabgrass almost at once. This is a far cry from the tidy suburban graves of Sunnydale. Buffy’d seen pet cemeteries kept up better than this. And at least they were level. One false step and she was likely to go tumbling down the hillside.
She followed Mrs. Aragon down the slope, picking her way carefully. The graveyard occupied one wide shelf, a terrace to the dead across the face of the hillside. The end of the chain-link fence looked like it extended right out into open air.
No wonder nobody comes here, the Slayer thought.
Mrs. Aragon stopped, then knelt. Buffy moved to stand beside her. In front of them was a round-topped gravestone. Plain. Unadorned.
Cecelia Micaela Aragon the gravestone said. Beloved Daughter.
What do I do now? Buffy wondered. Knock on the stone and say “Let my people go?”
Somehow, she didn’t think so.
Buffy looked at the dates that showed the brief span of Cecelia’s life. 1952–1959. Cecelia Aragon had died more than twenty years before Buffy had been born.
And all this time, her mother has been searching for her spirit. Waiting for a sign.
Buffy felt a strange feeling rise within her: a combination of rage and sorrow. It isn’t right, she thought.
Cecelia and her mother belonged together, even if it was only for the few days of Los Dias de Muertos.
And I’m going to make it happen.
The question was, how?
Buffy was completely on her own here. No backup. No Willow or Giles. She had to make her own rules, her own plan, at least for the moment.
Maybe I’ll learn something from scouting around.
Mrs. Aragon was bowed forward, her face in her hands. Quietly, Buffy slipped from her side. She began to make her way horizontally across the graveyard, lower and lower, moving through the rows of headstones. The lower she went, the older the dates on the headstones became, and the taller the grass. Behind her, the sun went down like a fireball.
So many women and children, Buffy thought. Sadness seemed to hang in the dusty air. High in the trees, cicadas whined.
Buffy stumbled. The vanishing light was beginning to make exploring treacherous. Wait a minute, she thought. She dropped to her knees and let her shoulder bag fall to the ground beside her. A moment later, Buffy had what she was looking for. The votive candles she’d purchased from Mrs. Aragon. The shopkeeper had even tucked a book of matches into the sack, if Buffy remembered right.
She struck a match, lit a candle, then caught a flash of white out of the corner of her eye. The sudden flare of the match had spooked a bird. It streaked through the air, its wings flashing black and white, then alighted on something just outside the fence.
It looks like another grave, the Slayer thought.
Who was buried outside the graveyard?
Sheltering the flame of her candle with one hand, Buffy moved to the chain-link fence and vaulted over. Spooked again, the bird flew off, but now Buffy could see the worn edge of a gravestone barely protruding from the tall grass. Slowly, careful of her footing, Buffy walked toward it.
The name on the stone was completely obscured. Buffy reached down and pulled a handful of grass away. Still, she could see nothing. Irritated now, she set the candle on top of the headstone and reached for the grass with both hands.
The burst of frigid air knocked her over.
Buffy smashed face first into the headstone as a wild wailing filled the air around her. She struggled to turn around, bracing herself against the headstone, one arm flung up to protect her face from the wind.
And saw the bruja, floating in the air before the stone. Hair, wild. Face, distorted. She raised a hand, the finger pointing at the Slayer.
And then she swooped straight toward her.