Some guys jump in the front and start the car, slamming on the gas. Katia pops open a black box connected to the console. Bottles of water and cans of soda and tea are inside.
“Care for a refreshment?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Well,” she says, shrugging and grabbing a can. “Help yourself whenever. We’ve got a bit of a drive.”
188
MY MOTHER HAS BEEN MURDERED. Again.
189
“THERE’S NO NEED TO CRY,” Katia says.
“Because she’s not real?” My voice screeches like an owl.
“Precisely.”
“What the fuck do you mean by that, anyway?”
Katia looks out the window. There are tiny village lights in the distance and I briefly wish I could send a Patronus to someone, anyone for help.
“There were rumors…” She says it in a low voice.
My God. She’s been telling me my mother’s not real because of a fucking rumor?!
I snarl. “Didn’t you cry when you realized you’d never see your children again?”
She snaps her head back toward me, her eyes hard. “Don’t speak about my children. You know nothing.”
“I know what it’s like to have something I love taken from me. I know what it’s like to be used. And so do you, Katia. And now you’re doing the same shit to me.”
Her hand is on my throat now. A wheezing noise escapes my lips.
She grits her teeth. “You. Know. Nothing.”
190
MY GRANDMOTHER SLIPS INSIDE THE car, bringing smells of herbs and prickly pear. Katia looks around, her eyes narrowed, but her grip on my throat doesn’t loosen.
“I’ve got nothing left,” she says, bringing her eyes back to mine. “I’ve got nothing left. Your mother took everything from me. My ship. My spouse. Why not return the favor?”
The man in the passenger side turns, his gun cocked to Katia. “We were instructed to bring the specimen in ideal condition.”
Katia rolls her eyes. “You’re aiming a gun? At me? At me.” She laughs, and, faster than I can process, reaches over and knocks the man out. It sounds like she hits him on the head with his own gun. I try the door in the chaos. No surprise: it’s locked.
She glares at the driver through the rearview mirror. “Do you share the same sentiment as your partner?”
The man gives a swift, firm shake of his head.
Katia smiles. “Good.” She turns to me, her hand returning to my throat. “Now. Where were we?”
191
REMEMBER, MY GRANDMOTHER WHISPERS TO me. Time.
192
KATIA’S SQUEEZING MY NECK SO hard, I feel like my eyes are bulging. Through stinging tears, I somehow see the clock on the dashboard. It’s 8:58 and I will it to slow the fuck down.
That’s not time, my grandmother says. I feel her hand on my head. This is. She gestures all around me.
She must mean something about… perception? But it’s so hard to just think. I look at Katia, at the spots of blue in her dark eyes, at the tears that line her face, mirroring mine. Each tear has a quarter moon in it. In the front, our driver has turned up the radio. It’s playing “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac, right on that deep, drawling guitar solo.
And then, all around us, the cacti shiver and shimmy, like a thousand-armed wind just ran through the desert. Just beyond Katia, one drops, reaching a hand out toward me. I can almost hear its prickly voice.
Care to dance?
193
KATIA SAYS SOMETHING, BUT I can scarcely understand because the words come out thick like molasses. She’s—she’s slow. Slower than the migrations of stones across the desert.
I grab her hand from my neck and punch her ugly, beautiful neck as hard as I can. She flings back against her door, her head rattling on the window. But the impact is slow going, absurdly idle, her head on the plexiglass mimicking a calm, dull drum beat.
I grab the seat for leverage and lean back, kicking my own door. It opens with such fluid ease that I realize my superpowers must include Buffy strength.
Though we’re going something like ninety, I step out of the car as if it were parked.
As though our beefy driver slowed down just so the desert can welcome me not as a captive, but as a warrior.
I take a breath, staring into the wide sky with its black silt on one side, a line of peach on the other, and in the middle, the quarter moon. I pause, listening to the crickets.
They sound like the chants of men. The deep of their voices echo with long hums in this ancient, earthly church.
194
THE CAR SCREECHES AND STOPS within a few dozen feet, all still in slow motion. Katia climbs out of the side with the broken door, her eyes on mine immediately. I idly touch my neck. It should hurt like a bitch, but oddly enough, it doesn’t. I remember how my mom’s arm lacerations healed in a few hours. But that gets me thinking about my mom, and I cough, suppressing the urge to throw up.
When I glance up again, Katia’s moving at normal speed. She raises an eyebrow and smiles.
I already have my arms up, hands in fists, when she’s close. No matter. She slings one right at my cheekbone, too fast, and I fly into the sand.
I push up immediately, ignoring the ringing in my ears. “Is everyone from your planet a bitch? Or just you?”
She just smirks at me. As though anything about this is humorous.
195
I LAND ON THE SAND for the fifth or sixth time, on my shoulder this go. “Christ,” I groan.
Katia’s on me, giving my hip a good kick. I roll a few times, getting about another pound of sand in my hair.
I stand, but my back is to her. I can’t bring myself to care all that much right this second. Everything hurts too much.
I face the moon and I wonder if its light can see my mother’s body now, in that office in Phoenix. If it can touch the blood running down her face. And if it does, maybe it can connect the blood on my head and shoulder and arm with her somehow. Maybe right now, I’m cradling my mother’s face as I hold my hands to the moonlight.
The crickets’ chants are louder, like a thousand spirits surrounding me, giving me strength. They hold their candles out to me, each flame a star in the black silk sky, just like I’ve done with them a hundred times.
Before Katia grabs me, I see my abuela in the desert, her hair lined in silver.
Katia feels so light. Like the skins of garlic and onions.
I bend my legs and flip her over. Something crunches and she moans. Her hips twitch and she looks at me. She’s not cocky anymore.
She looks frightened.
196
I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT IT’D BE difficult to kill someone, but when I remember the blast of the gun and Mami crumbling to the floor, when I remember the deep black of her blood on the shitty gray carpet? I find it’s rather easy.
My fingers are on her throat and she’s gasping with a high-pitched whine.
My hands are impossibly strong. They’re carved from desert boulders, like they were made for this woman—this fucking thing’s neck.
I tighten my grip until I hear my grandmother.
No.
197
ONCE, DURING OUR HERB-GATHERING WALKS, Abuela took me really far out. Like, five or more whole miles out of the way of our normal path. After my feet felt like they’d been rubbed raw, she let me take a break next to some boulders.
“Mira,” she said after a minute.
I dragged my feet over to where she pointed. There, just beyond her finger, black paintings adorned the stone wall. Animals, men, triangles, and lines.
“Holy crap,” I said. “Are those real?”
Abuela was running her fingertips above the edges of each image, somehow seeing them perfect with her eyes still closed. “Sí.”
I swallowed. “Who made them? The ancestors?”
“Not our ancestors.”
Right. Abuela was always going on about how our people were from jungles and
jaguars and that’s why we’d never feel at home in the desert. It wasn’t in our blood.
“What happened to them?”
“Their descendants are here, Sia.” Abuela shrugs. “But a lot of them, lost.”
“Lost how?”
“Gringos.”
It was one word, but it explained everything. A wave of rage went over me, and I kicked at the boulder to try to get it out. “Why do people have so much hate about everything? Where did all that racism come from, anyway?”
Abuela shrugged. “They believe in the cruelest god, Artemisia. What else can we expect?”
198
I RELEASE HER THROAT WITH a sharp inhale of air.
Before I can finish the thought, Katia’s up, faster than I can make out. She slams a kick into my head and, once again, I’m digging an outline of my body into the sand.
199
“GODS,” SHE SAYS, STANDING, HER silhouette covering the moon. “You’re even more foolish than your mother is.”
“Was,” I say with a cough.
“I beg your—”
“Was,” I say. “ ’Cause you killed her, you murderer.”
Her eyes glint. “Let me earn that name twice, then.” This time, her kick is to my stomach.
200
I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT is with this woman and necks, but she’s got her hands on mine again, hell-bent on asphyxiation.
I’m stronger now. I can feel it in the tingle in my hands and feet and bones and jaw.
But not strong enough to push her back. Not strong enough to outlive this monster.
Dozens of SUVs lumber on the road, right toward us. It distracts her just enough. Enough for me to pull her hand away just a touch. I look right into her eyes and say, “What would your children say if they could see you now?”
201
I DON’T THINK SHE EXPECTS THAT, ’Cause her jaw drops a little. Maybe she thought I would call her a bitch or a murderer again. I don’t know.
And I sure as hell don’t expect for her hands to pull away from me, all gentle. For her to fall to the sand, a choke of a sob leaving her lips.
202
I DON’T GET TO WONDER about her reaction for long, because we are then surrounded by headlights. They cut into dusk like machetes.
Her hand returns to my arm, tightening so hard I wince.
“Come on,” she says, pushing me toward the cars.
203
“THIS IS MAGDALENA MARTINEZ’S DAUGHTER,” She yells out to the armed silhouettes. “She has been turned. And it is a success. She can alter time, expand her strength.”
A man approaches. In the car lights, I can see how sharply pressed his tweed suit is, like he’d just picked it up from the dry cleaner’s. “Katia. What are you doing?” He smiles, but it comes off as more of a grimace. “Release the girl’s neck.” I hadn’t realized her hand was back to my throat. Maybe it’s ’cause I’m in too much pain.
“Not until you let me go. I want out, Armando.”
“Katia.” The man sighs. His hair is dark, his skin tawny. “We’ve been over this. We have to be able to replicate the experiment. You have to teach us how.”
“You have my notes! You have my records, my videos! You have my everything. And you said once we’re successful—”
“Successful with duplication.” The man gets closer, close enough for me to make out the pale morning blue of his eyes. “Many times over, ideally.”
“No.” Katia’s hand tightens around my neck and I groan. Shit, that woman has a hell of a grip. “I’ve done my end of the deal. I want access to the Selkie parts. I want a team to repair it. I’m going to go home.”
The man bites his lips. “Katia, do you hear yourself? The Selkie is in several hundred pieces. There’s no way—”
I can feel her fingers pressing into my spine. “For fuck’s sake!” I rip her hand away. “They’re not going to give you what you want. Ever. I’ve been listening for two seconds and even I can see that.”
“Ready,” the man murmurs into his forearm. We hear the clicking of guns pointed our way. “Sia. Step away from Katia. Slowly.”
I can’t. I mean, I know Katia has been bad news. But weirdly enough, this guy seems worse. Maybe it’s the way he says my name. Like he’s known me—or about me—for a long while.
“Aim,” the man says. Shiny glints of gun barrels now point right at us.
Katia grabs my hand.
We melt into the orange night just before the shots.
204
I’M SMOOTH AND DARK ALL across the desert, hand in hand with La Llorona. We are nothing but shadows, and we should be the only humanoids here under a swirl of stars, but we’re not. Figures stop to let us pass—women who are part saguaro, men who have tails like wolves, mice with the eyes of children. I wonder if this land—the shadow land—is also where myths live. Or maybe just spirits.
I look for my mother but she isn’t here. I wonder if it’s because I haven’t yet draped her body with yellow roses, haven’t had a chance to sprinkle holy water over the wounds.
I ache for my father and Rose and Noah. I pray for them.
They’re okay, the spirits say.
When we reach the city of lights, Katia releases me.
205
“I’M NEVER GONNA SEE MY babies again.” Katia’s voice breaks like she might cry, but she settles for looking up. Like this black sky might give her a glimpse of who she’s looking for. “I’m never gonna see them again.”
I stand, praying to God she doesn’t lose her shit on me. And something weird happens. As soon as I see her as, God, I don’t know, a human, I can feel her pain. I know it sounds so ridiculous, but her emotions, they spin off her body in waves and breezes and I stumble in the thick of it. It burns.
Jesus, I can’t take anymore. I jump back.
How can someone feel like that and survive?
After a minute, I catch my breath. “Why—why haven’t your people come looking for you?” I swallow. “You came on a routine check, right? They should’ve come to find you by now.”
Katia closes her eyes and her shoulders drop, like my questions put the weight of moons and universes on her back. “They don’t know we’re here.” A tear drips off her chin into the sand. “They’ll never know.”
I stare for a few moments. “But River said—he said you just came here to check on us. Humans. Your cousins.”
She looks right in my eyes. “River lied.”
206
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE lied?” I say. “I—we—my mother believed him. He said he loved her. But he lied? To her?”
Katia closes her eyes as she brushes dust off her white blazer. It’s fruitless. The only way to get that amount of sand off will be to burn the thing. Much like my hair, likely. “We didn’t come to check anything. We came because we were attacked. And when we consulted the ancestors—for the last time, because the colonizers destroyed our connection—they said Earth was our only hope.” She smirks. “No explanations. No plans. Just one ambiguous line.”
She opens her eyes and looks at the last bits of sunset on the horizon. It’s deep orange. Almost red. “River and I took a ship—the Selkie. I didn’t want to leave them.” Tears fill her eyes again. “My daughters. But he said we’d all die, anyway, if no one tried.
“We were spouses back then. I trusted him.”
She inhales. It sounds painful. “I don’t know what we expected when we got here. But we were reckless to think we’d get any answers. Reckless to think we wouldn’t be in danger.”
“You got caught,” I say. “So River was right about that. Drugged. Forced to—”
“Forced to fix the ship. Forced to make humans like us. When we got your mother? When I heard she could talk to her dead mother, just like we did to our ancestors? I had a feeling she was a key.” Now Katia can’t keep the tears in. “River went on about love, how it made the experiment successful. I didn’t pay much attention to that. Him and his wishful thinking.” She slid her boot
along the ground. “But she was. Magdalena was the key. I was so happy. So elated. Finally I was going to have my chance to go home.” Katia gets real close to me, enough to make me much more nervous. I hold my breath. “But when she took the ship, she took the only thing I was living for.” She wipes her tears, smearing terra-cotta dust on her cheek. Fire returns to her gaze and she stares at me, her eyes dark and hard. “She destroyed my only chance to see my daughters again.”
I take a step back and exhale. “Okay, River lied, whatever. But the fact that you won’t see your children—that’s not my fault. That’s not my mom’s fault.” My voice is hoarse and I cough.
Katia’s response is so low, I hardly hear it over the wind. “I know.”
I swallow and think maybe I should change the subject. “What was that guy gonna do back there? Kill us?”
She shakes her head. “Those were tranquilizer guns.” Her voice is numb; her eyes are back down toward the earth. “We would’ve woken up in a lab tomorrow. Maybe the day after. Maybe we wouldn’t have been woken up at all. Just poked and sliced and diced until they got what they wanted.”
I nod. “Well.” I’m not sure what to say. Do I thank her for saving me from that? Do I thank the woman who just killed my Mom? A wave of nausea passes over me and I cough. Instead of responding, I look around. “Where are we?” I stare at a tall building. It’s made of polished marble and there’s a gargoyle carved onto the top. Or maybe that’s just another spirit.
“That student,” she says. “Imani Clarke. Sixteenth floor. Door A.”
Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything Page 22