The Indigo Notebook

by Laura Resau

  Inside, Mamita Luz boils the ortiga, lets it cool, and examines Odelia’s legs. They’re crisscrossed with red welts and scrapes from her father’s stick. How can that man have three daughters when Mamita Luz can’t have children of her own?

  If Wendell hadn’t been adopted, if Faustino had been his father, would his childhood have been like this? In constant fear, running to save himself? Would he have been one of the regulars at Mamita Luz’s house?

  She sits Odelia on a chair, with her little legs resting on another chair, and lays the damp herbs across her skin, murmuring in Quichua. She heats up lemon balm tea and takes fresh, warm rolls from the oven and gives them to the girls. By the time they finish the food, they’re nearly back to their usual selves, playing marbles in the corner with the other kids.

  Mamita Luz turns to me, shaking her head. “Nothing makes me sadder than unwanted children,” she whispers. “I feel helpless.”

  “But you’re doing so much for them. You give them a safe place to come. You treat them like treasures.”

  She sighs and takes out a big bowl and scoops a gourdful of flour from a giant sack. She adds water and a pinch of salt, and begins kneading rhythmically, as though she’s playing a cello, throwing her entire body into the movements. “Sometimes I wonder, if I’d had children of my own and poured all my attention on them, what would have happened to Odelia and her sisters? Where would they have gone? All these years of wishing for our own children, and now, when I’m comforting these girls, I understand. I know that this is where I need to be. And I feel at peace.”

  I nod, thinking how badly Wendell wanted to find his birth parents. Now he’s found his father, who appears to be a creep. I think how badly I wanted a normal family life, and now that it’s within reach, the idea of it makes me want to cry.

  “Here,” Mamita Luz says. “Want to help?”

  I pluck a lump of dough from the bowl and imitate her movements, trying to make my rhythm match hers. It’s tiring. After just a few minutes, my arm muscles feel sore.

  “We visited Faustino last week,” I say.

  “Yes, the girls told us. What happened?”

  “Wendell moved in with him.”

  Her kneading slows and a shadow passes over her face. Her hands rest, buried in the dough. She looks at me, a long, serious gaze. “When one of my children is in danger, I sense it. Even before little Odelia and her sisters came running here today, I felt it. And now I feel it just as strongly. Wendell is in danger.”

  Chapter 23

  I’m determined to protect Wendell. And Gaby’s right, I could use Taita Silvio’s help.

  A half hour later, Taita Silvio comes in, and Odelia leaps into his arms, burying her head in his shoulder. Isabel tells him what happened in a small, serious voice.

  “I’ll talk to your parents later today, once your father’s sober, my daughters.” His face looks pained. “Now, why don’t you stack the firewood? Small pieces in one pile, big pieces in the other. I’m going back out with Zeeta for more wood.”

  The girls begin stacking, and we move away. “I think Wendell’s in trouble,” I whisper. I don’t want to panic the girls.

  “I know,” he says. “Come with me to gather more firewood. We can talk on the way.”

  I grab a head strap and machete. Machetes at our sides, we walk down a path behind his house, along cornfields and past wildflowers and tall grass, heading toward a piece of his property at the base of the Hill of Tunnels. After a fifteen-minute walk, we’re inside the woods, the light dappled through shifting leaves. A few birds flit around. We have to watch our footing on the sloping ground.

  “I try to find dead branches and trees,” Taita Silvio says, scanning the forest. “This was my father’s property, this entire hill. Years ago, I told my brother he could have the hill as long as I could have a small bit of forest on this side to gather firewood.”

  I sense there’s a story behind this, probably related to the fallout Faustino told us about. I wait to see if he’ll tell me more.

  “I’ve been coming to this forest for firewood since I was a boy.”

  “And you saw your star friend?”

  He smiles. “Yes. My star friend. He was always there for me, in the same spot, sometimes hidden by clouds, but always there.”

  I find a fallen log, dry but not rotted, and start chopping.

  Meanwhile, Taita Silvio has found a dead tree. He breaks off branches, talking slowly and thoughtfully. “My star friend was predictable. Not like my father. He was like the girls’ father in some ways, especially toward the end of his life, when we were teenagers. When he was younger, he was a powerful curandero.”

  I slice my machete blade through dead bark. “How could someone hurt his own children? Especially a healer?”

  “Power is a tricky thing, mija. It can lift you up high on its wings and up into the sky where you feel invincible. But sometimes you forget the bigger thing that makes you fly. Without God, without love, you fall. You stop being grateful and humble, and you fall.

  “And when you try to fly again, you forget how. So you drink liquor because for a moment when you drink you feel that you’re flying, but you always fall again. And you drink more and more to try to recapture that, to try to forget your heavy, hard life. And the power leaves you, but still you crave it. You get angry at your family, you hit them, you yell. You cannot bear it. This is what happened to my father.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because I have to say something, although sorry seems too flimsy a word.

  Taita Silvio arranges his pile of wood on the rope, ties the frayed ends together, and heaves the bundle onto his back, secured with his head strap.

  I’m almost done with my pile, my shoulders burning from the effort, bits of bark clinging to my sweaty arms.

  He helps me finish, and adjusts the bundle on my back. “Tell me if it’s more than you can bear, daughter, and I’ll put more on mine.” On the way home, he motions back to the hill. “That’s where my brother and I used to hide from our father. In the tunnels under that hill.”

  I think of what Faustino said, his earliest memory, hiding in a crystal cave. And what the girls said about the devil’s palace inside. “Any devils in there?” I ask.

  He laughs, shifting the wood on his back. “Most of the tunnels are just dark, damp caves. But one of the chambers is special. We crawled through a small hole to get to it. It’s made of crystals, the walls and ceilings and floors. You feel like you’re flying in there. You can forget the rest of the world and feel safe.

  “Usually our father stopped chasing us before the tunnel. But we could find our way to the crystal chamber in the dark. We knew the secret. All right turns, the first right turn every time. We would run through the tunnels and then move the rock aside and scamper in. Even if our father managed to follow us all the way back, he could not touch us in the room. The crystals’ powers were too strong. They made the hole smaller so his big belly couldn’t fit inside. Sometimes my brother and I slept there. We kept candles and matches there in case we had to spend the night. Back then, we were close.”

  I’m itching for my indigo notebook, wanting to write all this down. Instead, I try to remember every little detail. Layla would be enthralled. She’d do anything to be inside a crystal cave.

  I would, too, I realize.

  We pass a fresh spring pouring out of some mossy rocks, making a trickling, gurgling sound. Silvio bends down under all the weight and plucks some watercress. We munch on the tiny, crisp leaves and scoop mouthfuls of water from the spring. He lifts his pant leg and shows me shiny scars up and down the flesh. “I look at what my father did to me and I feel sad. I swear every day that I will stay humble and grateful and always show love to my wife and our children. But my brother, he looks at his scars and feels anger. Our family’s blood has power, but one must learn to master it.”

  “Can Faustino divine the future too?”

  “Who knows. Maybe drinking trago helps him ignore the visions.” He
tosses a pebble into the water, making a small splash and widening rings. “That’s what my father ended up doing, and what I suspect my brother does.”

  Is that what Faustino’s teaching Wendell? To drink himself into oblivion? I pick a handful of watercress and study the tiny leaves.

  “My brother is a man full of anger.” He tosses another pebble into the water. “And this is why he is involved with bad people doing illegal things.”

  I suck in my breath. What am I even doing here? I should be with Wendell. “What things?” I ask warily.

  “We don’t know exactly. Maybe drugs. Whatever it is, it is dangerous for Wendell.”

  My stomach clenches. I shift the firewood bundle and adjust the strap across my forehead, ready to keep walking. “What should we do?”

  “My brother is dead to me. This is the first time I’ve spoken of him in sixteen years.”

  We head back along the path, toward his house. I’m walking fast, despite the twenty-pound load on my back, the strap digging into my forehead. I’ve already wasted valuable time. Silvio is having trouble keeping up. I don’t care. I’m sweating and breathing hard, and suddenly, I’m tired of Silvio’s secrets, furious that he’d let a rift with his brother get in the way of Wendell’s safety.

  “Listen,” I say, “Faustino told us why you stopped talking to him. Why didn’t you tell us?”

  He wipes some sweat from his cheek. “I didn’t want Wendell to hate his father. I thought his fantasy would be better than the truth.”

  “You were wrong, Silvio.”

  “Perhaps.” He sighs. “You know, as boys, we swore to each other that we would never beat our children. Then he beat Lilia while she was pregnant, before the child had even seen the light of day. That angered me. And scared me. It made me wonder if I was capable of doing the same thing. It made me want to never have children, so I would never have to find out.”

  “Maybe he’s changed now,” I say. “You could at least talk to him.”

  He shakes his head. “You can do it. Talk to Wendell. Tell him to leave.”

  “Wendell needs you. He needs you to teach him how to use his powers for good.”

  Taita Silvio gives me a strange look. “Tell him to come to me and I will teach him. But I will not go near my brother.”

  …

  Alone, I walk up the hill toward Faustino’s house with my bag of stale rolls. It’s overcast, the clouds thick and heavy and gray. Fog engulfs the house, the whole hilltop. I can’t see the outline of the house until I’ve nearly reached it. The dogs greet me with their tongues hanging out, drooling for the bread, which I toss to them.

  By the door, Faustino and Wendell are standing side by side, watching me. They have a similar way of standing, their weight shifted onto the right foot. It’s as though Faustino is Wendell’s shadow. As I come closer, I can make out their faces. The features are nearly the same, but something that holds them together is different. Something hard to put your finger on. The aura, Layla would call it. The energy in Faustino’s face is all suspicion, making his eyes hard and narrowed. Wendell’s energy lights up his face, opening his eyes, softening them.

  “Zeeta!” He gives me a hug. It’s the kind of hug you might give your girlfriend in front of other people. He sneakily presses up against me a tad longer than if, say, he was hugging a friend or a grandmother. It feels good. It feels good to smell his smell after a week apart. Good to hear his lilting voice, touch his skin. I remember dancing with him in the peña. And walking back from the waterfall arm in arm. And lying in the bed next to his and letting our words touch in the darkness.

  “Zeeta,” he says again. “How’s Layla? And Jeff?”

  “Lovebirds,” I say, eyeing Faustino. He’s obviously irritated he can’t understand our conversation. “I was forced to spend a hellish vacation with them at some hacienda.”

  “Oh. I wondered why you hadn’t come. I thought you were mad at me.”

  “Well, maybe I am a little.” Looking down, I stroke under the dogs’ chins. They’re in a blissful daze, not sure what to do with my kindness.

  “Sorry. My cell doesn’t get reception here. My parents are probably mad at me too, for not calling. Hey, have you finished translating the letters yet?”

  “Almost.”

  “Good. I want to give them to Faustino all at once.”

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Z.”

  I look around, at the donkey swatting its tail at a fly, the chickens pecking around the truck’s tires, the dogs sprawled in the dirt. “So, what have you been doing here anyway?”

  “Helping Faustino.”

  “With what?”

  He glances at Faustino, who raises an eyebrow. “His work. God, it feels good to speak English. My head was hurting after so much Spanish. Luckily he has a satellite dish, so I can watch TV in English. Those cheesy Frasier episodes are keeping me sane.” He gives me that sideways smile, tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, and says in a low, secret voice, “I missed you.”

  Before I can answer, Faustino kicks the dogs out of the way and steps between us. “Buenas tardes, señorita.”

  We sit down on the crates, and that’s when I notice, through the fog, a pile of boxes by the door.

  “What’s in the boxes?” I ask Wendell.

  “Teddy bears.”

  I remember the pile of them I saw when I peeked in Faustino’s house last time.

  Wendell opens a box. “Look.”

  Faustino hovers, clearly uncomfortable.

  I pick up a bear. It’s silky smooth.

  “Alpaca fur,” Wendell says proudly. “He sells alpaca-fur bears.”

  “He doesn’t seem like the cuddly type.”

  “He travels around selling them, to Colombia and other countries.”

  “That’s really his job? Selling teddy bears?”

  “They’re pure alpaca fur. Good quality. Some guys he works with are coming by soon to pick up the shipment.”

  I turn the bear over. The stitches are sloppy and the stuffing looks lumpy. The eyes sit unevenly over the crooked nose, between lopsided ears. A very sorry-looking creature. A complete rip-off. I can’t imagine anyone paying more than a few dollars for it.

  Without warning, Faustino grabs the bear. “Maybe you should be on your way. My son and I are expecting visitors soon.”

  Wendell raises an apologetic shoulder. “Wanna meet downtown for dinner tonight?”

  I nod, bewildered. He gives me a hug goodbye, a long, lingering hug, the kind of hug that if She saw, would make her jealous. I breathe in his cinnamon-clove smell. I’m guessing it’s from the soap his mom makes as a hobby. Number six on the list of things he loves about her in his Mother’s Day letter. Apparently, she blends up special scents for him as random presents.

  I want to rest my head there awhile, but instead, I whisper, “I think you’re in danger here.”

  He steps back, half-pushing me away. “What?”

  “Taita Silvio thinks so too. You can’t trust Faustino.”

  He sucks in his cheeks. “He’s my father.”

  “Your father is Dan. And he’s probably sitting all forlorn on your bed playing Nick Drake songs and wishing you’d call.” I can’t help it. My words tumble out. “He loves you. Unlike this loser.”

  Wendell looks away. “Faustino said he’d help me.” His voice is tight, a taut guitar string.

  “You can learn more from Taita Silvio.”

  Wendell stares at a place over my shoulder. Then he turns and walks toward the door.

  “Wendell,” I call after him. “What time do you want to meet downtown?”

  He says nothing.

  “Wendell! Are we still on for dinner?”

  He disappears inside.

  Faustino smiles, leaning against the outside wall. “Adiós, señorita.”

  His beady eyes watch me leave. I feel them, smug and victorious, piercing my back.

  Chapter 24

  As I trud
ge down the hill, the milky-gray dullness of the sky seeps into my pores. I’m abandoning a failed mission, leaving my sort-of-but-not-really-boyfriend in danger, ruining any chance of him being my real live boyfriend, or even a friend for that matter.

  I hear the truck first, and then see it roar through the mist, cloaked in hip-hop salsa that grows louder and closer by the second. I jump off the road, down into the ditch a little ways, barely escaping a wave of mud spray. The driver pokes his head out the window and lets out a shrill whistle. “¡Ay, mamacita linda!” The guy in the passenger seat yells, “¡Que rica bebé!” even though he has no reason to think my butt looks delicious since it’s hidden under my cloak.

  Instead of bolting down the hill, I stand still, indignant. Teddy bear salesmen? No way can I picture these guys selling teddy bears.

  And then it hits me.

  They’re not selling teddy bears. They’re selling what’s hidden inside the teddy bears. From what Gaby’s told me, cocaine is the most likely possibility.

  Up the hill, the dogs are barking at the truck. The music stops and the motor turns off. On a sudden impulse, I head back toward the house. Curiosity? Anger? The promise I’ve made to Wendell’s mother to keep him safe? Whatever it is, it makes me reckless and brave. I have to get Wendell far away from those bears and what’s inside them. If he gets caught mixed up in this—even innocently—he could spend years in jail. I stick to the side of the road, where the foliage and fog hide me.

  From my spot behind a tree trunk, I see the men shake hands with Wendell and Faustino, then survey the boxes by the door. Together, they move the boxes into the back of their truck. I can’t make out their words, low and muffled by the damp air. Afterward, they tromp inside the house.

  Now’s my chance. I run from the bushes, across the clearing to the truck, where I crouch down by the giant tires, my heart pounding. My idea isn’t well formed—I just want to find out what’s really going on. Find out what’s inside the teddy bears, so I can tell Wendell and get him out of here. Wendell doesn’t know what’s inside, does he? But how can he not suspect something? He must be blinded by how badly he wants Faustino to be good.