The House of the Scorpion

by Nancy Farmer

  More and more he wanted to escape. Once the possibility had occurred to him at the oasis, the longing returned until it became a constant ache. He felt trapped like a worm in a nut. Esperanza’s book had opened his eyes to the horrors of the empire El Patrón had built, and he had seen for himself the low, dark dwellings of the eejits that were no better than coffins.

  He could run away through the gray-tinged mountains that ringed the oasis. He could go to Aztlán. Tam Lin had given him a chest full of maps and food for that very reason. Matt was sure of it.

  But he couldn’t leave before Steven and Emilia’s wedding. María would be there, and he couldn’t go without seeing her.

  21

  BLOOD WEDDING

  The mansion seethed with activity. Potted orange trees were dragged in and placed around the perimeter of the salon. The scent of their flowers filled the house. The gardens were planted with jasmine, honeysuckle, and baby’s breath. So many powerful perfumes made Matt queasy. His stomach hadn’t felt right since his swim at the oasis.

  The freezers adjoining the kitchen filled up with ice sculptures. Mermaids, lions, castles, and palm trees swirled with mist when Matt looked inside. They would be placed in bowls of punch for the wedding reception.

  The old curtains and rugs were packed away, and new ones in white, pink, and gold took their place. The walls were repainted, the red tile roofs cleaned and polished. The house began to look like a giant birthday cake covered with frosting.

  Matt skirted around the edge of these festivities. He knew he’d be confined to Celia’s apartment during the party. Big deal, thought Matt, scuffing his shoes along a newly laid stretch of white carpet. He didn’t want to go to the stupid wedding anyway. Everyone had known for years that Steven and Emilia were going to get married. El Patrón had decreed it. He wanted to bind the Alacráns to the powerful political machine Senator Mendoza ruled in the United States. It was simply good luck that Steven and Emilia liked each other. If they hadn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered.

  Benito, Steven’s older brother, had married the daughter of the Nigerian president because Nigeria was one of the richest countries in the world. Benito and Fani, his bride, had loathed each other on sight; but El Patrón liked Nigerian money, so their opinions didn’t count.

  As the day drew near, Matt felt more and more isolated. Celia was too distracted to talk. Tam Lin was shut away with El Patrón, whose health was too poor to allow visits. Matt could have gone to the oasis, but a strange tiredness had come over him. He fell asleep early, only to find his nights disturbed by evil dreams. By day his mouth tasted of metal and his head ached. He made only one brief trip to fetch Esperanza’s book on Opium.

  The house filled up with guests. MacGregor arrived with a new wife—number seven, Matt thought; this one was as young as Emilia. And Felicia consumed so much alcohol that a cloud of whiskey followed her wherever she went. She drifted from one garden party to another, staring at people with bright, feverish eyes until they became uncomfortable and moved away.

  As for MacGregor, he was in fine spirits. He’d had hair transplants. His scalp was a riot of springy red hair just like Tom’s, and he kept patting it as though it might fall out if he didn’t push the roots back in.

  Matt observed everything from behind pillars or wall hangings. He didn’t want anyone to point at him and say, What’s this? Who brought this creature into a place for people?

  On the day of the wedding, a Nigerian hovercraft landed, carrying Benito, Fani, and Steven. Mr. Alacrán greeted them and kissed Fani, who grimaced as though she’d touched something nasty. She had a hard, bitter face, and Benito was beginning to get a potbelly. Steven, on the other hand, was as handsome as a storybook prince.

  Matt disliked him less than the other Alacráns. It was Steven who had carried him away from the little house in the poppies. And if he and Emilia had ignored Matt since, neither had they been cruel.

  Matt watched the milling crowd of guests and recalled their names, business connections, and scandals. He thought he understood the Alacrán empire every bit as well as Steven. For the hundredth time Matt felt the gulf that separated him from humanity. All these people were here to honor Steven. No one would ever honor Matt, nor would he ever marry.

  A familiar hovercraft landed, and Matt’s heart leapt to his throat. The guests turned toward the landing pad and craned their necks to see the bride. Emilia didn’t disappoint them. She was dressed in a shimmering blue gown, surrounded by a cluster of little girls as attendants. Each carried a basket of rose petals, which she tossed in handfuls at the crowd. Matt thought they made a pretty picture until he realized the little girls were eejits.

  Everyone applauded as the bride was led up the stairs to the salon by Senator Mendoza. But Matt had no eyes for them. The only person he cared about stepped out of the hovercraft without any fanfare at all. No one noticed María slip through the crowd, or that she wasn’t going in the same direction as her sister. Matt understood, though, and he worked his stealthy way around the edge of the crowd to the music room.

  • • •

  Most people shunned the music room. The servants entered only when they cleaned, and Felicia had stopped playing altogether. The room was Matt’s territory and thus tainted.

  He closed the door behind him and went straight to the closet. María was waiting in the secret passage. “At last!” she cried, flinging her arms around him. “Have you missed me?”

  “All the time,” he said, hugging her back. “I thought about you every day. I wanted to write, but I didn’t know how.”

  “I’m in an awful convent,” she said, disengaging herself and flopping down on the floor. “Oh, it’s not too bad. I just don’t fit in. I wanted to do charity work in the town, but the Sisters wouldn’t let me. Imagine! They think they follow the teachings of Saint Francis, but they’d curl up and die rather than wash a beggar’s sores.”

  “I wouldn’t like to wash a beggar’s sores either,” said Matt.

  “That’s because you’re a wolf. You’d gobble him up instead.”

  “I’d find a healthy beggar first,” Matt said.

  “You’re not supposed to eat any of them. Tell me what you’ve been up to. Gosh, the other girls are boring! They don’t do anything but read love comics and eat chocolates.” María snuggled against Matt, and he felt amazingly good. He realized he was happy and that he hadn’t been for a long time.

  “Love comics?” he inquired.

  “Wolves wouldn’t find them interesting. Tell me what you’ve been watching on TV. We aren’t allowed TV unless a show improves our souls.”

  “I don’t have a soul,” Matt said.

  “I think you do,” said María. “I’ve been reading modern church doctrine about ecology. According to recent studies, people think Saint Francis was the first ecologist. They say he preached to animals because they had little souls that could grow into big ones. With work, even a sparrow or cicada could make it into heaven.”

  “Or hell,” said Matt.

  “Don’t be negative.” And then María was off with her new ideas and the arguments she’d had with the morals instructor at the convent. She moved on to how she liked gardening, but hated harvesting the poor little plants, and how she was top in math, but had her grades lowered when she sunbathed naked on the roof.

  She seemed to have stored up months of conversation and couldn’t wait to let it all out. Matt didn’t care. He was content to sit there in the dark with her head leaning against his chest.

  “Oh! But I’ve done all the talking and haven’t let you say a word!” María cried at last. “That’s one of the things I do penance for all the time. Except that no one at the convent listens to me like you do.”

  “I like listening to you,” Matt said.

  “I’m going to shut up now, and you’re going to tell me what you’ve been doing.” She put her arms around him, and he smelled her perfume, a warm and somehow exciting scent of carnations. Matt never wanted to move again.<
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  He told her about the eejit pens and meeting the Farm Patrol and how he had to go to the hospital. María trembled when he told her about El Patrón’s heart attack. “He’s so old,” she murmured. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but he’s too old.”

  “I don’t think his piggyback heart is going to last,” Matt said.

  “He shouldn’t have one at all,” María said.

  “Do you know where he got it?”

  “I—I—” María seemed confused. “I’m not supposed to talk about it, but yes, I do know where he got it! And it’s evil!” She hugged Matt more tightly. He didn’t know what to say. The fears he’d thrust away came back. He wanted to ask María what she meant, but he was afraid of the answer.

  “I’m not like the other clones,” he said, more to reassure himself than anything. “El Patrón gave me the best education anyone can have. He bought me musical instruments, computers, anything I wanted. And he’s really pleased when I get an A or play a new piano piece. He says I have genius.”

  María said nothing. She snuggled her face into his chest, and from the dampness, Matt guessed she was crying. Great. What is she crying about? “He wouldn’t bother”—Matt stepped very carefully over this point—“if I wasn’t going to live very long.”

  “That’s true,” she said in a watery voice.

  “Of course it’s true,” said Matt firmly. “I’ve had better schooling than Steven. Someday I can help him run the estate—from behind the scenes, of course. Opium is a big country, and it takes a lot of work to control it. Benito’s too dumb, and Tom is—well, a lot of things. For starters, El Patrón can’t stand the sight of him.”

  María stiffened. “He likes him better than you think.”

  “Tom doesn’t even belong in the family. He’s here only because El Patrón refuses to give things up once he’s laid claim to them.”

  “That’s a lie!” María said hotly. “Tom’s one of the heirs, and he’s not stupid!”

  “I never said he was stupid. Only corrupt.”

  “He’s considered good enough to marry me!” María said.

  “What?” Matt couldn’t believe what he was hearing. María was only a kid. She wouldn’t get married for years and years.

  “Oh, let’s not fight,” María said miserably. “None of us has a choice in the matter. I mean, look at Benito and Fani. Fani said she’d rather drink cyanide than marry Benito, and see how much good it did her. El Patrón gave the order, and her father drugged her until she didn’t know what was happening.”

  Matt was incapable of speech. How could anyone want María to marry Tom? He was such a—such a rotten little pustule! It was unthinkable! He turned on the flashlight he always left in the passage and leaned it against the wall. He could see her pale face in the shadows.

  “Steven and Emilia like each other, and I don’t mind Tom—much. He’s getting more like MacGregor, but I can change him.”

  “You can’t change Tom,” Matt said.

  “Patience and love can do anything,” María said. “Anyhow, the wedding won’t take place for years. Maybe El Patrón will change his mind.” She didn’t sound hopeful.

  Matt’s mind was almost numb with despair. He’d refused to think about the future. He knew on some level that María would have to marry someday. Then he’d never see her again. But it had never in his darkest moments occurred to him that she’d be handed over to that monster.

  “Wait,” he said as an idea came to him. “I have something for you.”

  “A present?” María looked surprised.

  Matt fished A History of Opium from its hiding place. He turned to page 247 and shone the flashlight directly on Esperanza Mendoza’s portrait.

  María gasped. “M-Mother?”

  “You remember what she looked like?”

  “Dada has pictures.” She took the book and stared at the portrait and its accompanying biography as though she’d been turned to stone. “Mother got the Nobel Peace Prize,” she whispered at last.

  “And a lot more,” said Matt.

  “But she n-never came back.” María’s face looked so forlorn, Matt’s heart turned over.

  “She couldn’t, dearest,” said Matt, unconsciously using one of Celia’s words. “She’s utterly and completely opposed to Opium and everything your father stands for. Do you think he’d let her come home? Or that El Patrón would?” In fact, Matt silently realized, El Patrón was capable of ordering her death. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d gotten rid of an enemy.

  “She never even wrote me a letter,” murmured María.

  “Don’t you see? Your father would have destroyed any message she sent. But you can contact her now. Your convent—where is it?”

  “In Aztlán, at the mouth of the Colorado River. It’s in a town called San Luis.”

  “I’ve read your mother’s book,” said Matt, taking A History of Opium from María’s cold hands and laying it on the floor. He held her hands to warm them up. “She says the Aztlános don’t like Opium and would do anything to destroy it. Someone at the convent could send a message to your mother. I’m sure she wants to find you. I’m sure she’ll keep you from marrying Tom.”

  And take you where I’ll never see you again, thought Matt with a lump in his throat. But it didn’t matter. He was going to lose her in any case. The important thing now was to save her.

  “I have to go,” María said suddenly. “Emilia will be asking for me.”

  “When will I see you again?”

  “The wedding’s tomorrow and I won’t have a second to myself. I’m maid of honor. Will you be able to come?”

  Matt laughed bitterly. “Maybe if I disguised myself as an eejit flower girl.”

  “I know. It’s horrible. I asked Emilia why she couldn’t have real children, and she said they couldn’t be depended on to do the job right.”

  “You know I won’t be invited,” said Matt.

  “Everything’s so unfair.” María sighed. “If I could, I’d skip the wedding and stay with you.”

  Matt was touched by her offer, although he knew there wasn’t a chance of it happening. “I’ll wait for you here,” he said. “Do you want to take the book?”

  “No. I can’t guess what Dada would do if he found it.” She gently kissed him on the cheek, and Matt kissed her back. The feel of her skin stayed on his lips for a long time after she was gone.

  • • •

  It wasn’t a front-row seat, but it was the best he could do. Matt was positioned behind the peephole with a pocket telescope.

  He had hoped to find the machine room deserted, but the place was packed. Every view screen had at least two gorillalike bodyguards watching it. They flicked restlessly from scene to scene and spent a lot of time studying boring places, like the spaces behind pillars or curtains. Matt wondered whether they’d seen him hiding there on other occasions.

  But as the wedding ceremony drew closer, the men’s attention was concentrated on the salon. An altar had been erected, and the priest was prowling back and forth to one side. The eejit choir was lined up like mechanical toys, and someone was sitting at Matt’s piano. Matt adjusted the eyepiece of the telescope. It was awkward to use at a peephole, and his neck was beginning to ache.

  He saw Mr. Ortega. He felt sorry for the dusty little man. He’d gone beyond Mr. Ortega’s skill level long ago, but Matt had covered for him. He feared the music teacher would suffer the same fate as Rosa if El Patrón found out.

  On another screen Matt saw El Patrón sitting in the front row, attended by Tam Lin and Daft Donald looking bunchy in suits.

  Emilia waited in a dressing room. She wore a white gown with a long train embroidered with pearls and carried by the girl eejits. Celia had said the gown had been owned by a Spanish queen three hundred years before. The eejits’ faces reminded Matt of the winged babies perched on pillars throughout the house. Their eyes were as lifeless as marbles.

  María bounced around the room, talking animatedly.
Matt couldn’t hear what she said, but there was no question she was giddy with excitement. That was the difference between her and everyone else, he thought. She was overflowing with life. Everything delighted or devastated or fascinated her. There was no middle ground. Next to her Emilia looked faded, and Fani, who was drinking out of a brandy bottle in the corner, was positively drab.

  The bodyguards turned up the sound. Matt heard the wedding march, and Senator Mendoza took Emilia by the arm. The eejits lifted the train, and María and Fani took their places behind the bride. They left the room with a stately, impressive walk. A whisper passed over the crowd, and the priest signaled everyone to stand.

  Steven waited at the altar with Benito and Tom.

  Tom. For a moment all Matt could see was his lying face. What you saw was not what you got with him. Underneath that angelic exterior was the boy who’d shot a helpless child with a peashooter, who had pulled chairs out from under El Viejo, who’d nailed frogs to the lawn so they could be devoured by herons. You didn’t want to leave anything vulnerable around Tom.

  A bodyguard blocked Matt’s view for a moment. He cursed under his breath.

  The next thing he saw was Emilia approaching the altar on her father’s arm. María had a tight grip on Fani to keep her from swaying. Benito’s wife was almost as loaded as Felicia, who was being held upright by Mr. Alacrán. What a family, thought Matt. The women were alcoholics, Benito was as dumb as a guppy, and Tom was a moral black hole. Steven was okay, though. Even the Alacráns couldn’t strike out 100 percent of the time.

  Now Emilia was given away by her father. Steven placed a ring on her finger and lifted her veil for a kiss. They were married for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death should them part.