“Man, who cares about Umbrella Man?” Omar’s waving a hand for emphasis. “So he gave the signal, so what? Badge Man’s the one who actually shot him.”
“No, that’s the thing. Umbrella Man’s umbrella had a dart gun in it. That’s how Badge Man was able to shoot him to begin with!”
“Fellas,” Dad grunts. “Stick with the point, please.”
“This is on the point!” Omar raises his eyebrows. “They say Kennedy was about to go public about the alien invasion when he was offed.”
“I don’t know anything about that, boys,” Mom says, smiling. “Sorry.”
“Ah, okay.” Noah can’t hide his disappointment as he glances down at his notes. “So, uhh… why did we spot the craft so frequently before you crashed?”
“Well, my plan was to land it wherever Sia was. Especially in the desert, where I could do it without the risk of hurting anyone. But they hadn’t fixed it properly. They thought they had, but…” She pauses. “That’s the thing. That craft I crashed? It was Katia’s only way back.”
“Hold on,” Rose says, pulling her marshmallow back from the flames. “You’re saying that woman was an alien?”
Mom nods.
“I told you that, Rose,” Omar says. “She’s a Nordic, remember?”
Rose ignores him. “You hear that, Sia? I kicked real alien butt.”
But my mind is elsewhere. “How did you know I was out there? In the desert?”
Mom smiles. “You know how.”
And just like that, my grandmother has a seat between me and Mom, her red rose skirt rippling in the breeze slicing through windows. She’s always been the dramatic one of us.
And now I get why Mom didn’t want to tell Omar how she knew where I was. Aliens, government conspiracies, secret experiments. That’s all unbelievable enough as it is. No need to add meddling dead abuelas to the mix.
160
ABUELA ALWAYS SAID THERE’S A hidden world inside of this one. That the world we normally encounter is the world of the mind, and it’s filled with problems and worries and measurements. But then there’s the world of the body. The world where we remember that we are animals, with our instincts whole and accessible, where our nails are claws, our hair, fur, and our hands and feet, padded paws that touch and walk and crawl.
The world of our animal bodies tends to come when we are on the edges of cliffs. When there’s a clear pathway between us and death and we’ve got nothing of this life left but this moment, this breath, the coppery sand beneath our clawed feet.
But it can also happen at the most simple, everyday moments, too. My grandmother said the mind-world split open every time she pushed out a baby and every time she washed the dishes, her nails in water, the sunlight pouring through her windows like milk.
She also said el mundo oculto comes just before an answered prayer or to warn of danger ahead.
As Mom and Noah continue to talk, with Dad and Rose cracking jokes in between, I notice that the flames of the oven fire are so beautiful. They look like people, dancing, with lilac at their cores. And then I notice that I’m noticing it, that there’s nothing but me and a fire, like maybe I am this fire. And I snap out of it quickly, looking at all the windows.
And there, right in the center of indigo-ink clouds, a couple of blue lights appear.
161
WE’RE ALL GATHERED OUTSIDE NOW, watching the spacecraft get closer and closer, its blue lights like beams in the foggy sky.
“Get inside,” Mom says, standing. “The four of you.” Dad pulls a handgun from his pocket.
“Why do you have that?” I say. “They’ll shoot you first the second they see it. Jesus!”
“No si los consigo primero,” he growls and I roll my eyes.
“Inside,” Mom repeats.
“No!” I roll my heels, deepening into the sand.
“Come on, Sia,” Rose says. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“He’s the one being ridiculous with that gun,” I yell, loudly enough for my father to hear.
“He wants to protect you,” Noah says. His voice is low and on my ear. “Let’s go in. Watch from the windows.”
I groan and stomp toward the house. Omar’s eyes are transfixed on the craft and I don’t think he’s heard a word of anything we’ve said. I grab his arm and drag him in as I mutter, “Watch from the windows. Watch my parents die, sounds like a great idea.”
Inside, Rose, Omar, and Noah press their noses on the glass, but I can’t. Instead, I decide to pray big time. I light all the candles. Saint Teresita, San Juan, La Guadalupe, Mother Maria, Saint Catherine.
“Sia, what are you doing?” Rose asks. “Get over here. The craft, it’s landed.” Noah’s filming it with his cell.
“It’s dark,” I respond and resume my impromptu ceremony. Saint Fatima, another Guadalupe, Saint Peter, Saint Francis of Assisi, another Madre Maria, and Jesus on the cross. I count them as I go, whispering, please, God, and there’s thirty-three in total, the same age of Christ when folks got together to nail his hands and feet to wooden planks.
I never liked that the Church worshipped such a violent act. My grandmother agreed with me, but she said if Christ hadn’t suffered, he wouldn’t know resurrection. And that’s what it’s like for us, too, how every shitty thing to happen to us leads us closer to understanding the point of life on Earth. Or elsewhere, apparently.
“It’s a man,” Rose breathes. “A man’s come out of it.”
“A human man?” I rush over.
Rose shrugs. “He’s hot.”
“Rose!”
“What? Just because I’m probably a lesbian doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the male form.”
“You’re a lesbian?” Noah asks, tearing his eyes away from the window.
“Oh, that’s why you kept shooting me down,” Omar says, nose on the glass. “You should’ve told me!”
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the only reason she wasn’t interested,” I say, snorting.
“Shit, I forgot you two were there,” Rose says. She sounds worried. “I mean, I like boys and girls. I just prefer girls. I mean, just, lately, I prefer girls.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself,” I tell Rose. Turning to the guys, I make my voice hard. “No one else can know. And if either of you say anything disgusting about it, I will literally break the window with your face.”
“Come on,” Omar says. “I’m not going to say shit.”
“Sorry, I just—I just didn’t know.” Noah’s hands are up.
“Why does it matter?” I retort and Rose pats my arm.
“It’s okay,” she whispers. “Look.”
Mom’s giving the man a hug, which makes me feel relief and unease at the same time. They turn and make their way toward us.
The man’s got skin like amber, dark and rich. His hair is thick and black, and he’s got a gray-streaked beard. His eyes give a strange silver glow and I get the feeling he can see things he shouldn’t. As if on cue, he directs those eyes right on me, holding his stare way too long to be coincidental. A few seconds later, the door opens and all three walk inside.
162
“RIVER,” I REPEAT.
The man nods.
Omar jumps up. “Sabertooth,” he says, pushing his chest out and squaring his shoulders. He shakes River’s hand aggressively. It’s like watching a little kid meet Mickey at Disney World.
I shake my head as Omar steps back as though he’s making room for a king. “So, what the hell are you doing here, River?” I ask.
He smiles, but it’s not the patronizing smile most adults offer when I’m bitchy. The smile, it’s warm. Which actually makes it more unnerving.
“Well.” He takes a breath, glancing around at us. Dad looks even more suspicious than I feel, but everyone else is politely listening. “They let Katia out.”
“We know,” I say. “She tried to kill me.” I gesture to my neck.
“Sia,” Mom says in a please-tone-it-down voice.
The man is furrowing his b
row at my neck. “I—they released her on the condition that she bring you back, Sia. I don’t understand why she’d try—”
“Maybe because I broke the Selkie,” Mom says.
Now River looks shocked. “I hadn’t heard it was broken.”
“What the fuck is a Selkie?” Dad asks.
“That spacecraft I crashed. I’m sorry,” she says to River, her fingertips grazing his hand. Now Dad stares at River like he’s planning on tearing his limbs apart.
Mom turns back to us. “River and Katia. They’re not… from here. Earth.”
Now we all whip our heads to River. I mean, him? He’s an alien?
There’s a prolonged squeaking noise from Omar’s direction. “Are you serious?” he whispers.
“You look pretty human to me,” Rose finally says.
River laughs. “That’s because, in a way, I am human.”
“Human, just like the Nordics. I called that! I called that shit!” Omar looks as though he might break into a dance.
Dad’s not amused. “What does it matter that the ship broke?”
“It was their only way back home.” Mom looks guilty.
River shakes his head. “Look, Lena.” My dad bristles at her name on his lips but River just continues. “You know that I never believed we were ever going back. Craft fixed or not—they weren’t going to let us go. Ever. But Katia was different.”
“She’s a mother,” Mom says, her voice soft. “Mothers don’t give up hope easily.”
River seems like he wants to say something, but he stands and looks out the window. “So Katia knows there’s no way back now. Not for decades, which is probably how long it’ll take to repair the ship.”
“It was totaled,” Mom says. “Might take even longer than that.”
“She was on her last leg of sanity as it was.”
“She was fucking out of her mind,” Noah says. “What? She was. You were there, Rose. Omar. Sia.”
“She was,” Rose agrees.
“She’s not using her Nordic powers to help humanity at this point,” Omar adds. “Must be a traitor, huh?”
Mom sighs. “She also seems to have at least one ability returned. Speed, at least.”
“Speed?” River raises an eyebrow.
“You know. Time.”
“Time?” Noah asks.
Omar pumps his fists. “Time travel. I knew it! I knew it, Christ on a cracker, I knew it.” And now he’s actually dancing.
“Look,” I say, standing up. “What does this all mean? Will someone explain? You,” I say pointing to River. “Explain it. Now. Like I’m five freaking years old.”
He gives a half smile. “Explain what?”
“The whole damn story. From the beginning.”
163
“HUMANS ON EARTH, AS YOU know them, anyhow—or as you know yourselves, yes?—arrived thousands of years ago.
“There are so many things we don’t know for sure. The exact time of arrival, for one. We don’t know why they left our home planet. Moon, I mean.” There’s pain in his face as he says this.
“A moon on the Pleiades?” Noah asks.
River smiles. “Not quite.”
Omar jumps up. “You mean you’re not Nordic?!”
River shakes his head. “I’m not certain what you mean by that.”
“That’s okay,” Omar says. “That’s fine. Should’ve known, the Nordics look like the Aryan race. You all are too brown for that. But I think you might still be Nordic, you know. It’s the only species that makes sense to me. The one of them that looks human.”
I roll my eyes. “Omar, calm down. Please.” I turn to River. “So humans left the home moon and what? Migrated here, to Earth?”
River nods. “We don’t know why they didn’t develop… abilities like us.” River glances at Mom, and my father tightens his hand around hers.
I take a breath. “What’s this got to do with the woman who wants to kill me?”
River nods, glancing down. “Our… race has been studying the Earth and its inhabitants for a while. Keeping an eye on our cousins.”
“But you were shot down,” Mom says.
“Yes. We weren’t expecting such an explosion of war technology our last go.” He sighs. “Once our feet touched the Earth, we were tranquilized. Couldn’t access our powers anymore. Though your government officials had seen enough of our abilities—healing, shadow work—to begin making their greedy plans.”
Mom gestures to River’s arm, which frames a dozen scars. “They kept you all inebriated for years, right?”
River nods, leaning against a wall, crossing a leg. “Decades.”
“So you were captured by the government,” Omar says slowly. “Kept as prisoners. Just like the Greys after Roswell, right? Experimented on. Forced to perform experiments.”
“Yes.” River nods. “About sums it up.”
“So there are Greys. You just admitted, the Greys exist, right?” Noah’s holding his breath.
River shakes his head. “I haven’t personally encountered these Greys you speak of.”
“Come on!” Omar slices the air with a fist.
“Relax,” Noah murmurs. “Just because he hasn’t seen them—”
“Doesn’t mean they’re not there. I know, I know, man.”
“So what now?” Dad barks. “What do we need to know to save Lena and Sia?”
River glances down. “They’ll stop at nothing to get them.”
“Unless we expose them,” Mom says.
I think about brown babies in cages. I don’t say it, but I don’t know. I don’t know if people will care about experiments on immigrants enough to stop anything.
“Katia has…,” Mom begins. She’s focused on River. “She’s getting desperate.” It’s the second time I’ve heard Mom describe Katia that way, and each time, her tone makes it seem like it could be the worst thing we’re dealing with.
“Yes.” River’s voice is deep and silky.
“I destroyed your only way back.” Mom’s eyes are teary.
River looks down again. “Yes.”
164
ALMOST EVERY MEXICAN KID HAS heard the tale of La Llorona. My grandmother used to tell it to me so I wouldn’t play alone outside after dark.
La Llorona was a beautiful woman with hair as long and black as desert shadows. She caught the eye of a wealthy hidalgo and bore him two sons. She cooked him tamales from the maíz she plucked from her own gardens and made him huevos con salsa from the eggs of her hand-raised hens. But he still left her for another woman. A nobler woman. A whiter, richer woman.
La Llorona blacked out from grief, and when she awoke, her children were missing. She searched all over for them, especially by the river they loved to play in. She only found a few items—a shoe, a carved toy horse. But not her babies.
When La Llorona died, she went to heaven, where Saint Peter told her she could only enter the Kingdom if she found her sons.
And so to this day, the spirit of La Llorona wanders the riverbanks and cacti forests, looking for her bebitos. She especially hides in the night and in the shadows, where her dark hair cannot be seen. She howls sometimes, in that black of night, and it makes everyone’s blood run like ice.
And now, I wonder if La Llorona thinks she can get her babies back by capturing me and Mami.
La Katia now roams the desert roads, looking for us. Looking for her way back to heaven.
165
OMAR’S PHONE RINGS, SHATTERING THE silence after River finishes speaking. “Oh, it’s Imani,” he says. “She’s probably gonna yell at me some more, but wait till she hears all this!” He waves a hand at River. “Be right back.”
Rose is laying in my lap, her hands on her face. “Holy smokes, you guys. My gone-to-church-five-days-a-week-since-I-was-three-days-old brain cannot handle this. It is literally sizzling in my skull.”
“Thank God your dad’s not around,” I say.
“Right? Like, this would convince him, beyond any doubt, that thi
s is the devil’s work. Like, we are aliens? God Almighty. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
“Alright, so you helped Lena escape,” Dad says, clearly not impressed by Rose’s fall from grace. “What’s your plan now? Hmm? Did you make another deal? You here to take her back?”
River shakes his head.
“He wouldn’t,” Mom says.
“How do you know? I don’t trust—”
“But I do, amor. I trust him.”
Dad looks like someone made him taste old pennies.
River stands. “They actually were going to force me to… participate in your retrieval. Yours and Sia’s. But…” He pauses. “There was a lot of chaos when the photos of the crash leaked. So much so that I was able to escape in a tiburón.”
“Ah,” Mom says.
“A who?” Rose asks, pushing herself upright.
“We made small versions of our ship. Called them tiburones,” River says. “For the government’s use. The only problem is…”
“No one can man it unless they’ve got the powers,” Mom finishes.
River nods. “The tiburones only obey me and Katia, and presumably you. We’ve tried a lot of scenarios with some of the military pilots. Pods won’t even hover if they’re just the co-engineer.”
Mom snorts. “Trillions of dollars,” she says, “and the tiburones won’t even go for them.”
River smiles sadly, and I can see something like pain in his eyes when he looks at Mom, at her head on my dad’s shoulder, their hands intertwined.
“How’d you know we’d be out here?” Dad asks gruffly.
River shrugs. “Heard a lot about Liana’s place when I was caring for Lena.”
“Caring.” Dad gives a bitter laugh. “You call poking her, cutting up her spine and blood, you call that caring?”
“Luis,” Mom says, but we’re interrupted by the door flying open.
“Hey, guys,” Omar says. “Imani says she doesn’t believe me. Again. Which is bullshit. Predictable bullshit, but bullshit all the same.”
“How are we going to get this information out there if our one legit connection doesn’t believe us?” Rose asks.
Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything Page 19