Teresa of the New World

by Sharman Apt Russell

  Almost immediately, she passed the fault line where the slabs of rock had touched each other. The moment of explosive joy was over. The questions would gather again. What Should We Do? Where Should We Go? The energy would build and the tension and the almost-shuddering.

  Teresa plunged, dropped, dove. When the Opata hunter who was still conscious began to scream, she put him to sleep. Then she put the other one to sleep, too, deeper than a knock on the head. She passed through blurs of granite and limestone, layers of sand and silt, veins of copper, veins of gold. She passed them so quickly she couldn’t hear them singing. This time, she thought, it was true. This time, she would succeed. This time, she was really outrunning Plague!

  At last, when she felt she had gone far enough, Teresa slowed and tried to catch her breath. Of course, she had no breath to catch, but it felt as though she did. Her heart raced. She could feel its pounding. She gripped the hands of the two hunters. She had seen Horse run away. She had left Plague behind.

  Very interesting, the earth said.

  Is he coming after us? Teresa asked.

  I don’t think so, the earth said. I think he is quite confused.

  Teresa made a camp in the earth, somewhat like a camp she might make on its surface—only she had no need here for fire or food or water or grass for a bed. Only there were no stars at night, no sun or shade, no breeze, and no real change in the white light of hardened river sand or the purple glow of volcanic rock. She put the two Opata hunters off to the side, a good distance from her and Pomo, where she could still see them. Like Pomo, they seemed to be resting comfortably, their eyes closed, their faces peaceful. After a while, she stopped worrying that they or the boy would sink further into the earth, even though she herself could still go down as far as she wanted.

  Now she had many more days to wait, for she could not bring the Opatas back to their village until they no longer carried the disease. She remembered well what Plague had told her. Four days before the rash appeared, and four days afterward, a person with measles could give the disease away as you give away a shawl or cooking pot. She had done this to Pomo when her stomach and groin were still speckled, a few days after her fever broke. Then Pomo had carried the gift to the hunters. Now she had to be patient until the sarampión raged through their bodies and was finally gone.

  She wondered if she should wake Pomo or let him sleep. She asked the earth.

  Let him sleep, the earth said.

  But I could show him the animals, Teresa argued. He would like the giant creature with his sharp teeth and still-bright eyes. He would like swimming through the forest of kelp. He would . . .

  He does not belong here, the earth interrupted. This is not his power.

  After that, Teresa did not like to leave the boy for long, not knowing what would happen if he woke by accident and found himself alone. Because of this, she explored mostly what was around her camp and did not venture on longer trips, not back to the skeletons in the limestone bed or down to where the earth burned with rivers of fire. Longingly, Teresa thought about those rivers with their glimmering darting schools of fish, red and yellow, gold and green—but she would not risk losing Pomo now. They had gone through too much together. She had exposed the boy to disease, given the horse to Plague, and left Pomo in the desert to die. She would not be so careless again. She would only take short walks, not far from the slab of purple rock.

  Once when she came back from such a walk, Pomo was gone. In the boy’s place, the spotted jaguar lay asleep, his paws twitching. Teresa ran to the big cat. No, she thought sternly. Before her eyes, the animal blurred, shifted, and grew smaller. Pomo reappeared, his dark eyelashes curved against his cheek.

  I thought the jaguar was gone, Teresa complained to the earth.

  Then the boy would be gone, the earth said. They are the same thing.

  After this, she stayed even closer to her camp. She felt the calm and boredom of nothing to do, something she hadn’t known since she was a child watching her mother pick blackberries. She listened to the hardened sand, the memories of a river rushing to sea. She listened to the volcanic rock, its memories long ago as fire. She listened to the crooning of a seashell, and she thought of the wise woman and her necklace of shell with gleams of coral pink. Often, she and the earth told each other stories. Often, she was the one telling the story, all the stories she had heard in her life, all her father’s stories, all the stories in the Governor’s kitchen, all the stories by Fray Tomás and even Plague. After she had exhausted these, she went on to make up new ones—for the earth was insatiable. Tell me more, the earth begged.

  The earth begged for secrets but did not always share its own. Once, waiting next to Pomo, Teresa saw a brown speck in the distance coming toward her, coming closer and growing bigger until she saw that this was a bear swimming through stone just as she swam through stone, its paws moving effortlessly. This bear was much bigger than the black bears she had seen in the mountains while traveling with her father. Its head and shoulders were as massive as a buffalo’s, with a great hump over the neck. Its fur was grizzled silver-gray. Its mouth widened into a kind of grin. Now the bear seemed to see her and veered off, and Teresa felt relieved.

  How many others, Teresa wondered, played in the earth?

  It was hard to keep track of time. Time passed in the usual way—the Opatas became feverish in their sleep, red spots appeared on their chests and arms, the pustules broke open and scabbed shut—but it was hard to remember how the hours were rushing by. There was never a real day and never a real night, just a seamless stretch of glowing stone.

  Finally, at some moment when it was neither day nor night, neither time to eat nor time to sleep, Teresa bent to look at the sleeping hunters. She saw that their skin was clear and unblemished. The scabs had fallen away, leaving only a few scars, here, here, and here. During the earthquake, one of the Opatas had suffered a bloody gash on his head, and that also had healed and left hardly a sign.

  She could take them home now.

  20

  But she did not.

  The earth seemed to approve. They are happy where they are, the earth said.

  Teresa doubted that the hunters were happy, away from their wives and children, from their village of good food and yellow tea, from the long days of walking quickly through the desert with their knives and bows and arrows, alert in the physical world. That’s what made these hunters happy, not lying asleep underground on a slab of purple rock.

  This was true of Pomo, as well. Yes, the boy was safe now. He was protected, as he had been when he slept in the jaguar. But she had not wanted that life for him. Despite the dangers he risked, a small boy at the mercy of disease and Spanish slavers, she had wanted Pomo to have his own life. She had wanted to see him building dams in the stream, spinning a whirligig with a crown of daisies on his head, not lying so still and peaceful, never any trouble to anyone.

  Teresa knew she should take the hunters and Pomo back to the world above where the wind blew and the sun shone and the stars glittered in the evening sky. She should leave herself.

  But she did not.

  Instead, she dithered. She made excuses. It was hard to keep track of time.

  Finally one day or maybe one night, she saw another speck in the distance coming closer toward her. The closer the speck came, the bigger it grew, although this animal was hardly as big as a grizzly bear. Nor did it swerve to the side as it got near but kept coming directly at her, seeming to aim and swoop right for her head. Teresa ducked. The big raven croaked and flapped black wings and settled onto the purple rock where Pomo slept quietly.

  The raven kro-oaked and waddled back and forth in that ungainly way that ravens have when walking instead of flying. Tlok-tlok-tlok. The bird seemed to be scolding, the noise made when a stranger comes into the wrong territory or too close to a nest. Teresa tried to speak to the raven but had no success until, at last, the animal seemed to get hold of herself and calm down.

  What are you doing? the
bird asked. Why are these people still here? Why are you dilly-dallying?

  Teresa was startled and then irritated. Who are you? she snapped back, meaning who are you to scold or tell me what to do?

  The raven gave a hop, hop, next to the sleeping boy. Who am I? You should know. You’ve been looking for me. You’ve been calling out my name.

  I haven’t, Teresa protested even as she tried to think back. Ravens had come to her all her life, of course, for they were naturally curious and common birds, always interested in what humans were doing. A raven had stared down at her from a scraggly pine the day her father met with the Spanish slavers, their armor glinting in the sun. And there had been ravens, as well, by the kitchen door of the Governor’s house and in the garden and in the stables and at all the places where the villagers threw their waste. On her journey with Horse and Pomo, ravens had cried and swooshed trying to drive her away from a prickly pear patch or jojoba bush. Ravens had come to her more than once, but she had never gone looking for them. She had never called out to them.

  The bird gurgle-croaked. You really don’t recognize me?

  I really don’t, Teresa said.

  At this, the raven lifted one yellow foot and balanced improbably, foot raised. Go on. Take a look.

  Teresa hesitated.

  The raven hopped and hissed. I can’t do this all day!

  Reluctantly, Teresa bent close, thinking that she was no longer a servant in the Governor’s house. She no longer had to do whatever an assistant to an assistant cook told her to do.

  On the raven’s upraised talon, a short white line slashed the yellow skin. A scar angled there like a scar on the palm of a human hand. Teresa felt a tickling at the back of her mind, tickling like a feather.

  The colors were so beautiful, the raven said, gold-green, the fins red, the back scalloped and edged with orange. I was young and wanted to take my prize home.

  You threw the fish into the grass with a scream! Teresa remembered.

  The raven cawed.

  You’re the girl with long black hair swimming through fire. Like wind moves through the branches of a tree. Teresa had said those words so often, to Pomo, to herself.

  The raven preened. I was. I am.

  You burned your hand. You’re a shape-shifter. Again Teresa felt that tickle.

  The raven continued the story Teresa had first heard when she was small.

  After that day—the raven gave another tlok-tlok-tlok—I didn’t go back into the earth for a long time. You can’t just go back and forth. You won’t have the strength. And you can’t stay here much longer, or you will never go back. That’s why you need to take these hunters to their village. You need to take the boy. Give him a good bath!

  Teresa glanced, embarrassed, at Pomo. The boy looked fine—maybe just a little dirty. Maybe his hair did need combing.

  What are you waiting for? the raven asked, but it was not a real question. Krooo-ak! the bird screeched.

  Tlok-tlok-tlok.

  And suddenly, Teresa made the same gesture she had made with the Opata hunters, flapping her arms. Shoo! Shoo! she waved her hands. It was what they did when turkeys and chickens got too close to the kitchen door. Go away, Teresa shouted. I no longer jump when someone gives an order!

  Not even for you, Teresa thought, not even for the girl with long black hair.

  The surprised raven fell back, cawed, and flapped her wings. You know what you saw, the raven called down, circling upward, growing smaller. You know what really happened.

  Brushstrokes in the air. Feathers and fire. The memory of that fever burned Teresa again. The memory of those chills swept through her body. She had seen wonderful things. She had seen the wise woman, the seashell necklace with gleams of coral pink. The wise woman spoke. The wise woman was Plague clouding her thoughts. Plague had tricked her.

  But not only Plague—before then, too. Before Plague, long before, she had tricked herself. She had deliberately forgotten. Buried deep. In the coolness of the adobe house, the wise woman had raised her hand. She had lifted her palm so that Teresa could see the scar from the gold-green, red-orange fish that once burned her. The wise woman had looked straight at her father, but she had held up her hand for Teresa to see. The black-haired girl was the wise woman was a shape-shifter was the raven. Teresa had stared back, the songs of the hill still running in her veins, the coyote pup and the music of flowers. Then she had gone to lean against her father’s leg, her father who was so pleased to have found the Spanish helmet.

  You made your choice, the earth said. You loved your father. You were only a child.

  Come back, come back, Teresa yelled up to the sky of stone.

  She won’t come back now, the earth predicted. You’ve insulted her.

  The black speck reappeared and landed close by.

  So now you do want me, the raven sounded petulant.

  Plague said you were dead! You had the sarampión!

  The bird cocked her head as ravens do, as if trying to see something more clearly. And so you believed him—that trickster? Well, yes, I had the sarampión. He told the truth about that. I was dying, a hair away, and I would have died if I had not shifted into being a raven. I will die if I shift back to human form. How old are you?

  The question was so abrupt. Teresa had to think and count on her fingers. What had happened when?

  The raven continued to talk, as if to herself: it’s never good to be too long an animal. When I started to like the taste of carrion, when I spent whole days searching for grubs, I went into the earth. I knew I could stay myself here.

  Teresa had her answer. Sixteen? she guessed.

  Black wings fluttered and the raven gaped, opening and reopening her beak. That long? the bird squawked. And then sharply: are you ready? It is past time.

  And Teresa knew the wise woman was right. She had to choose again—where to go, who she would be—and, of course, she chose Pomo. She would give him his life and return to her own.

  You’re leaving me, the earth said sadly.

  The world is changing, Teresa replied in the same sad tone, and then shrugged as if to admit she was part of that change.

  You won’t come back soon, the earth said. You won’t have the strength.

  Take the hunters first, the raven suggested. I’ll stay with the boy.

  Teresa arrowed up to the hot desert floor, the limp body of a hunter dangling from each hand, their weight not much more to her than two rabbits. She flew through fields of volcanic rock and beds of limestone. She flew through crystals, the tingle of quartz and feldspar. Briefly she followed a vein of copper with its musical hum. Briefly she passed through a richer ore, softer and more lustrous, the power of gold. Above all things, Andrés Dorantes, Alonso del Castillo, and Cabeza de Vaca had loved gold. They had dreamed of gold that lined the streets of Indian villages, rooms filled with gold bars and gold masks and gold jewelry like Hernán Cortés had seen in the treasure vaults of the great Montezuma. They had talked of the gold they had seen themselves when they were young, in Spanish homes and Spanish palaces, for they had heard this song all their lives. Even Teresa was intrigued by the metal’s promises.

  But she didn’t pause. She flew up and then angled to where the earthquake had thrown the Opatas to the ground and Horse had run away. From here, the two men were less than a day from their village in the thorn forest on the edge of the desert. Plague would not bother them since they no longer carried the gift of sarampión. The Opatas would stumble back to their families, who would surely wonder where they had been and what they had been doing these last few weeks.

  The men would answer, Teresa thought, by shaking their heads and looking at the ground. They would touch the scars on their skin. They would remember the Opata elder from a far-off village and the horse and the boy and the ugly witch with an ugly flattened head and ugly tattoos. They would be bewildered by a jumble of strange images. They would not know what to tell their wives and children.

  When Teresa reached the right p
lace, she heaved the hunters up and out, one by one, so that they cleared the ground and landed roughly. She did not care about being gentle. These men had left Pomo unprotected in the sun to die. She had not forgotten that. Oh, Plague was convincing, Teresa knew. Plague had told them this was for the best. They had no choice. It was the witch who had really killed the boy. Plague was cunning. He had commanded, and they had obeyed. Still, she let the hunters land in a tumble: a few bruises did not trouble her.

  The men’s clothes and water bags lay where they had been stripped off so rapidly before. Teresa waited for the hunters to stir and open their eyes, which they did soon after they were on solid ground, breathing fresh air under a blue sky. It took them minutes more to be fully awake, and Teresa waited for that, too, because she wanted to see them stare with horror at the figure of a girl half-rising from the earth and half-caught in the earth, a girl with four blue marks on each cheek. With difficulty, the hunters scrabbled away as if their legs and arms were not working properly. One of them whimpered. Eventually, Teresa knew, they would be begging for mercy. She nodded, satisfied.

  She went back for Pomo.

  The raven waited by the sleeping boy. Without further discussion, as if the matter had already been decided, the bird flapped her wings and gathered lift for flight. I’m going with you, the bird declared.

  Teresa thought of what the wise woman had said: you couldn’t stay too long as an animal. She remembered how Pomo had disappeared inside the jaguar. Yet the raven couldn’t shift back to being the wise woman dying of sarampión.

  But if you leave the earth, Teresa asked, how will you stay human?

  I have you to help me now, the raven called from above, flying faster so that Teresa knew she would have to hurry to catch up. So that she had to grab Pomo’s hand, without thinking or dilly-dallying a moment longer, following the girl with long black hair, following the wise woman through layers of whispering limestone and sandstone, through the songs of copper and enchantments of gold.