“I don’t like your tone,” McGhee says, his fingers grazing his gun. “You’ll be sorry if you don’t shut up, I’ll tell you that much.” He turns to Noah. “Get out. Now.”
With shaking hands, Noah unbuckles his seat belt. He reaches for the door handle, but McGhee is already there, tearing it open, grabbing Noah by the neck and pulling him out. He’s muttering something like, “Fucking spic lover.”
Noah tumbles into the sand. And shit, Sheriff McGhee looks gleeful. He’s actually happy about his own son falling on rocks. Straight-up venom right there.
But then the sheriff’s gaze falls on my mother. His smile drops as though the sun melts it right off. “Who the hell is that?” he barks.
Mom lifts her head, her hair parting away from her face. “It’s me, settler.” Then she lunges.
He releases Noah, whose hands are pushing his father at the hips. McGhee’s hands, meanwhile, are now on his gun, but Mom kicks him backward before he can whip it out. Thank God.
McGhee scrambles up. “For years I’ve been blamed for this illegal’s death and you’ve just been hiding here, this whole time? Just like the lazy spic you are.”
Dad jumps out just as McGhee pulls Mom down, hard, smashing her face against the rocks. Now the gun is out, and, Jesus, it’s pointed right at my mother. “Don’t you take another step,” he tells my father. “Or I’ll blow her brains to bits.”
“Put the gun down,” I say. My voice is all shards of glass. “Please.”
“Get in the car,” McGhee yells at Dad. He lowers the gun an inch, shifting its angle just a touch, just enough. Because then he’s convulsing, screeching like an owl. He collapses. And Noah stands behind him, taser in hand.
Mom’s up, kicking the gun away, brushing the sand off the blood on her face. Dad’s already on her, hands on her hair, her chin, her back.
Noah lifts his finger from the trigger, and McGhee starts screaming. “You’ll pay for that, you fucking piece of—”
There’s an audible slap as Dad punches McGhee right on the temple. The sheriff’s hands fall limp to the ground.
We say nothing for a moment. Everyone’s breathing heavy.
“Is—is he dead?” Omar asks.
“No. Just knocked him out,” Mom responds. “Noah. Luis. Put him in his car.”
“Should leave him out here to rot?” Dad says, and Noah grunts in agreement.
“Now,” Mom says. And they carry the sheriff away. Like the shit that he is.
152
WHEN WE’RE BACK ON THE road, I can’t stop my hands from trembling. I feel like my skin is trying to run, crawl, be somewhere else. Somewhere where mothers don’t get guns pointed at their heads, where the police actually want us to live, to be safe. I lean into Noah and I want to cry. I want to so bad, but instead, I count the arms of the saguaros outside. Some of them bloom, their white flowers like crowns. Like a thousand bones in the sand and sun.
153
WE’RE ALL SILENT FOR ABOUT ten minutes as we drive farther into nowhere.
“Is everyone okay?” Dad asks. It’s kind of a ridiculous question. ’Cause none of us are. Not at all. But everyone sort of hums back at him in the affirmative. Noah’s tapping on his kneecaps, increasing the speed until his hands blear.
“You okay?” I finally say, even though Dad just asked. I slip a hand into his, slowing them down.
He stares at me before glancing at Mom. “Uh—well. Yeah.” He nods. “Actually, this might be weird timing, but I was wondering if it was okay to ask—what the heck just happened, when you two, like, disappeared?”
“Invisibility mode,” Omar says. He’s still sniffling.
“Yeah, Lena,” Rose says, eyeing us in the rearview mirror. “Scared me half to death with that.”
I wonder if it’s weird that it doesn’t even seem all that weird of an event to me. I’d nearly forgotten it, even. I turn to Mom, who looks worlds better. She smiles lazily at my Dad, who’s touching her hair. “What was that, Mom? You, like, made me… empty.”
She takes a breath. “For a very short period of time, I can become a shadow. I can do it to objects, people.” She glances at Dad. “Knocks the wind out of me, though.”
“You didn’t tell us about that one,” Noah says. “How come?”
Mom glances out her window. Outside, the sun pierces my eyes so badly, it hurts. I look back at her.
“I don’t want them to know everything. It will make them do drastic things. And they’re already getting desperate.” She puts her fingertips on my neck. “It’s possible, likely even, that they will see the interview since you put it on social media.”
“Do you think that was enough?” Rose asks. “That white-haired woman’s confession.”
“That woman,” Mom says, drawing out the word slowly. “Her name is Katia. I thought details from her mouth would work, until I remembered…” She bites her lips. “God, I’m such a fool. I don’t know if there’s any records of her anywhere. Birth certificate, social, W-2 forms. If not, we’re in trouble. They’ll just say they don’t know who she is.”
“Should’ve let me beat it out of those assholes,” Dad grumbles.
“That would look worse,” Mom says. “Then they’d say they were tortured into lying. No. We gotta do this a different way.”
“Which way?” I ask.
Mom looks back out the window. “I’m praying on it, m’ija.”
154
AFTER A BIT, ROSE TURNS to a dirt road so infrequently used, it just looks like part of the desert. She slows, the van bouncing over rocks and divots. After about three and a half miles, we see a tin trailer nestled in a spot of Joshua and juniper trees.
“Can’t believe you didn’t sell that piece of crap,” Mom murmurs to my father.
“No one wanted it,” he laughs, but that’s not true. I begged Dad to leave it, to leave everything as it was, because when I turn seventy-five, I’m going to move into it and live just like my grandmother did, with handkerchiefs tied in my hair while wearing long, embroidered dresses, coaxing things to grow in the desert that were never meant to.
Rose pulls up, turning the van off. A cloud of dust pops up as we each get out, the soles of our shoes scraping rocks that point out like teeth.
“Your grandma lives here?” Noah asks, his eyes squinting in the white sunlight.
“Lived. She died last year.”
“Oh,” Noah says, his nose scrunched. “I thought you said she, like, puts freshener in your car. Like she was still actively doing that.”
“She still visits us. She always brings that perfume when she does.”
“Huh.” Noah’s brow stays furrowed when we walk inside Abuela’s house.
Inside, everything is untouched. Braids of garlic and peppers hang over the tiny gas stove. Pillows surround a low round table next to the kitchen—the “dining room.” Bouquets of herbs swing from the living room roof, tied in twine. Candles line every windowsill—Guadalupes, Madre Marias, Jesus Cristos, saints dotted between them.
“Someone’s been here,” Noah says, pointing at the dining table. On its center, a tiny cup holds a little water for the handful of desert sunflower. Mom’s favorite.
“It’s Abuela,” I say. “She put that out for Mom.”
Mom approaches the table, sitting on one of the cushions. She touches the gold petals, and tears river her face. “I miss her. I wish she were here.”
Then I feel Abuela all around us.
Spirit language is different from ours. It’s uncivilized. But I know what she’s saying, and Mom does, too.
I’m here.
155
“OKAY, HERE WE ARE.” MOM’S mixed some of Abuela’s dried comfrey, all boiled up, with cocoa butter, and she rubs it into my neck. I wince. Earlier, in the bathroom, I’d gotten a good look at what that Katia did to me. The spots on each side correspond with her skinny fingers. It makes me hate her. Not that I was fond of her to begin with.
That’s not even your mother, she’d said.<
br />
I watch Mom closely. Everything looks right. Her high cheekbones, her sunset-gold eyes. The lines in her neck, the scars on her knuckles. Even the way she curses Katia as she slathers the foul-smelling balm on my throat.
“Oi,” Rose says, walking in with our gas station bags. “You think we could get that fire pit in the back going again?”
“I don’t know about staying out, Rose. Might not be safe,” Dad says.
“What about the wood-burning stove? I really need to roast these marshmallows, Mr. Martinez. We’ve been through a lot, you know, and I believe stress-eating is in order.”
Dad gives her a long smile. He’s always been fond of Rose, since we were little. “Don’t see why not.” Dad stands. “I’ll see if there’s any wood in the shed. Noah, come. Omar, you too. Help.”
Omar nods. “No problem.”
Noah jerks his head up. “Uh—sure. Okay, Mr. Martinez.” He jumps up, snapping his fingers, and follows them out.
Rose snorts when the door slams shut. “Is Noah always that nervous?”
“Only around Dad,” I respond.
“You make him nervous, too, Sia.” Mom raises an eyebrow.
My cheeks heat up before I can stop them. “That’s ’cause he’s a weird kid.”
“Mm-hmm.” Mom eyes the pink on my cheeks as she wipes her hands on a towel.
“Oh, please,” Rose says, plopping down next to me. “You can’t even call him your boyfriend yet?”
“Well. We—” I groan, putting my hands on my head. “We haven’t even talked about it, okay?”
“But you’ve done a lot more than talking,” Rose responds and I widen my eyes at her, silently telling her to please, kindly, shut it in front of my mother.
“You’re being careful, aren’t you, Sia?” Mom asks, hands on her hips.
I groan again, even louder. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation right now.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“We haven’t—you know—done that, okay? Nothing to be careful over.”
“Good.” Mom wraps up the ointment in Tupperware. “Because you can’t get pregnant until you get your PhD.”
“Dad reminded me of that very thoroughly only last week.”
“Muy bien. Let’s see how the boys are doing, shall we?”
156
“I’M TELLING YOU,” NOAH SAYS, peering inside the ancient oven. “I saw it on, like, this survival in the wilderness site. The fire will burn three hours longer if we build it upside down. Right, Omar?”
Omar shrugs. “I guess? Traps the heat and all. But I dunno why we need it to burn for three hours, though, man. For some marshmallows?”
“Exactly.” Rose scoffs. “It’s going to take three hours just to set it up at the rate you’re going.”
Mom smiles at me over their scuffle. I can’t help it; I grin immediately. She’s perched on one of Abuela’s sun-faded folding chairs, right in front of the biggest window. Her hair’s so close to the color of a distant boulder, it looks as though that rock might be her mother, not Abuela.
I frown for a moment and turn, walking out the door toward Dad, who’s restacking the mess of wood near the shed at the side of the trailer. I can’t even call it firewood, really. It’s just a bunch of branches Abuela picked up on her long evening walks. There’s a ton of it, all twisted and gnarled and pointy, giving Dad a hard time.
“Hey,” I say.
Dad jerks his head up, blinking. “Ah, mamita. You scared me.”
“Sorry.”
I hand him one of the twigs near my feet and clear my throat. “So. It’s been a wild couple of days, hasn’t it?”
Dad grunts something like “Sí” as he snaps one of the branches on his knee. After placing the wood in the rack, he chuckles. “That’s putting it mildly, I think.”
His eyes don’t really go along with his smile. Like he’s witnessed the return of Jesus or something, and it’s been a lot more stressful than everyone thought it’d be.
I clear my throat. “So, Mom. She seems the same to you, right?”
Dad stops mid-stack, but returns to it a split second later. “¿Que quieres decir?”
I shrug. “I mean, like, she acts the same, talks the same, remembers things all the same. Right?”
Now he just looks at me, so still that I can see the smoke of the kitchen fire in his pupils.
“It’s her.” He says it firmly, as though he’s angry. But then his expression softens and he reaches out, pulling me in his arms.
“You shouldn’t be going through all this shit,” he says into my hair. “Dios. You’re only seventeen.”
I don’t know what to say. So I just hug him tight in return, willing my eyes to swallow back more tears than there are stars.
157
I ALMOST RUN INTO NOAH back inside. “Hey,” he says, wrapping his enormous hands around my hips, steadying me. “You alright?”
“I’m fine,” I say, draping my own hands over his. It’s amazing. With how chaotic everything’s been? Noah still makes my breath a little short.
“What are you smiling about?” I ask, reaching up to lightly touch his dimple.
“We’re in a trailer.”
I furrow my brow. “So what?”
“We’re in a trailer, on the run from top secret government officials?” When I give a blank stare, he widens his eyes. “Just like Max! From The X-Files?”
“Oh my God.” I hit his arm lightly. “You are such a nerd!”
“Well, I have it on good authority that you’re into nerds.” He smiles and I flush.
As I walk to the kitchen, his hand in mine, I can’t help but frown a bit. I mean, am I the only one who remembers that episode properly? From the beginning, Max knows too much.
And they kill him.
158
“GOD, I LOVE THE SMELL of burning juniper,” Mom says, poking a marshmallow with a stick.
“It gives the marshmallows an interesting flavor,” Rose muses.
We’re all huddled in the kitchen, having just finished a hearty meal of protein bars and potato chips. Now we’re onto dessert. I drop my juniper stick—I’ve only ever been able to handle maybe two roasted marshmallows in a row, at best—and glance beyond the rose-embroidered curtains. The big rocks on the horizon are pulling the sun down, but there’s still plenty of light. More important, there are no black vehicles in any direction.
I sit back against Noah and he puts an arm around my waist. Dad clears his throat and Noah drops it, sliding his hand to my back. I just roll my eyes.
“Uh, Mrs. Martinez,” Noah says, his voice wobbly. “I’ve got some questions, if you don’t mind.” I give him a sideways glance. Will he and Omar ever let up with the questions?
“Me, too!” Omar says, whipping his notebook out. Noah beams and I roll my eyes. Apparently not.
“Sure.” Mom smiles before popping a charred marshmallow into her mouth.
But then, with all my judgments, I’m the one asking the first one. “Mom, you said the experiments didn’t end after you. That they messed you up. Made you weak. How? What did they do to you?”
Mom swallows. She looks so sad, and I instantly regret saying it. “You don’t have to—”
“No,” she says. “I want you to know.” She nods and closes her eyes. “Uh, well. The first thing that alerted them to something different with me was I didn’t die. My organs didn’t reject the injection. They didn’t stop working, one by one.” Dad reaches over and grabs her hand as she continues. “So the first thing they did was hurt me.”
“Hurt you?” Dad sounds murderous.
“Broke a few bones. Sliced a few knives in. And the next day or next hour, I’d be healed. After that, they threw me out of two stories. Then four. Then seven. Just to see if I’d make it.” Mom shrugs. “I did, barely. And then someone, the ringleader. I forget his name now. It starts with an A.” Mom shudders and I get the feeling that she remembers his name exactly, that she just doesn’t want
to say it. “He got the idea to put me in a warehouse. Huge. They made it up like a jungle.”
“And then?” Omar is at the edge of his seat.
“And then they hunted me.” Mom slides another marshmallow onto the stick. “That was actually clever of them. It’s how they found out about most of what I can do.” She looks at me. “The instinct to survive is so strong. Especially when you’re doing it for who you love.” Mom holds my hand now. “Anyway, that’s the story. And I’m a mess now.”
“We’re going to make them pay,” Dad grumbles.
“No,” Mom says. “We’re going to survive. And we’re going to be better, Luis. You hear? Better.” She glances at Omar. “So, what else did you want to know?”
159
“THE TECHNOLOGY LOOKS LIKE OUR idea of futuristic,” Mom says, leaning back. “But the machinery is…” She chuckles, throwing up her hands like she still can’t believe it. “The spacecraft, it’s almost as though it’s sentient. It connects to the engineer’s motivations, emotions, thoughts.”
“So, it’s organic? Biological?” Noah’s taking notes in his green notebook, just like he was this morning. Like it’s the middle of earth and space class.
“Not necessarily. At least, not that I could recognize. But you do need to share their DNA to control the craft. That’s why I could. That’s one of the reasons they want to make more of me.” She glances at me, at my legs and feet and hands. Dad’s holding her hand in his lap with both of his.
Noah clears his throat. “Your turn, Sabertooth.”
Omar paces, his own notebook in hand. He can only take about two steps back and forth, it’s so cramped, but that doesn’t stop him. “Mrs. Martinez, do you know who killed JFK?”
We all just stare at one another for a good few seconds.
“Right!” Noah jumps in, snapping a couple times. “And who was the Umbrella Man next to JFK? That’s what I’d like to know.”
Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything Page 18