The Madre de Aguas of Cuba

by Adam Gidwitz

Uchenna shrugged.

  “And what if we do get her in, and then she explodes out of it and kills us?”

  Uchenna shrugged again.

  Elliot hung his head. “This plan is pathetic.”

  Uchenna, gently, said, “It was your plan.”

  “That’s why I said it was pathetic. I wouldn’t have said that about a plan you came up with.”

  Uchenna smiled. “You’re sweet.”

  Suddenly, Jersey’s bag erupted with a very frightening growl.

  Uchenna said, “Uh . . . we’ve never heard him make that sound before.”

  Elliot agreed. “He sounds angry. At us.”

  Jersey growled again.

  “I’m letting him out,” said Uchenna.

  Elliot shrugged feebly.

  Uchenna unzipped the bag. Jersey burst out of it.

  He began sprinting around the exterior of the pool, growling and yapping at the Madre de aguas.

  And then, the giant sea serpent stirred.

  “Look! She’s moving!” Uchenna cried.

  The Madre de aguas blinked her eyes heavily.

  Jersey yipped at her some more.

  Slowly, very slowly, she raised her giant head. He yapped. She began to shrink, and as she did, she swam away from him.

  “It’s working!”

  Jersey began running around the pool again. Uchenna and Elliot started to run, too—keeping themselves on the opposite side of the pool from Jersey. Sure enough, the Madre de aguas started right for them, to get as far away from the tiny blue Jersey Devil as possible. His yips and yaps were rousing her from her stupor. As she got smaller and more frightened, she began to move more and more swiftly, and the water from the pool began to overflow onto the floor tiles.

  “Get the water bottle ready!” Elliot cried. But he needn’t have said anything. Uchenna was ready.

  Jersey yipped and yapped and growled. The Madre de aguas swam closer to them, and closer, and—

  A strange sound was coming through the vent that led to the lobby. There was shouting, and crashing. And then . . . singing? What was going on up there? It sounded like singing and chanting, all mixed together.

  The Madre de aguas froze.

  “Oh, come on,” Uchenna urged her, holding the water bottle as far out over the pool as she could. “Come just a little closer . . . just a little closer . . .”

  The chanting grew louder as more voices joined in, each with a different song or prayer. But each voice seemed to weave smoothly into the greater whole. Like the music they’d heard in the plaza.

  “She likes the chanting,” Elliot marveled.

  The words began to weave together, each prayer and song so different, becoming one:

  “Al combate . . .”

  “For my friend . . .”

  “Cuba . . .”

  “Of the sweet waters . . .”

  “Oh, santísima . . .”

  “Amigo sincero . . .”

  “Madre mía . . .”

  “Cuba . . .”

  Suddenly, the Madre de aguas started swimming away from Uchenna. Toward the bottom of the pool.

  “No!” Uchenna groaned. And then, “Wait, where is she going?”

  “Looks like . . . ,” said Elliot, “. . . to the drain?”

  Sure enough, the Madre de aguas swam right for the drain at the deepest point of the pool. She started wriggling at the white plastic mesh of the drain, getting so tiny she was almost invisible. And then, she disappeared.

  “Wow. Our plan literally went down the drain,” Elliot said. But then he said, “Wait! I have a theory!” And he plunged his head under the water.

  “Elliot!”

  Elliot reemerged, dripping with heavily chlorinated pool water. “I was right!” he announced. “You can hear the chanting, amplified by the water! It must be coming through the water pipes, too! I think she’s following the singing!”

  “Yeah, maybe,” said Uchenna. “But look . . .”

  Elliot looked at where Uchenna was pointing.

  His face lost all color.

  She was pointing at his sweater.

  It was changing colors very rapidly.

  “Must be from all the chlorine. I don’t even know what that new color is called,” Uchenna marveled. “Toxic pink?”

  Elliot hung his head in despair.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  A dozen men and women in black shirts and black baseball hats and black cargo pants had appeared in the lobby. The Captains of Agriculture were so busy singing and praying and reciting their poems that they didn’t notice. But Yoenis and Professor Fauna did.

  “Not them again,” Professor Fauna muttered.

  “You know these guys?” Yoenis wondered.

  “Old friends.”

  The Schmoke security guards created a circle around Yoenis, up on the table, and the professor, who stood beside it.

  “Maybe they want to have a slumber part—”

  BOOM!

  Professor Fauna and Yoenis spun around just in time to see the golden statue of the Madre de aguas explode.

  Shards of gold and steel shot in every direction, hitting the ceiling and the chandelier, causing glass and plaster to mix with the gold and steel to rain down on everyone. Chlorinated pool water surged out of the fountain and flooded the floor.

  “¡Es ella!” someone cried. “It’s really her!”

  As the haze of plaster, glass, and gold cleared, the crowd saw a mighty sea serpent uncoiling, shaking off the bits of statue she’d broken through, growing and rising and growing, sucking up all the water that coursed through the Schmoke Hotel’s water system—until she touched the ceiling.

  Everyone gaped.

  “That’s even bigger than she was in the bay. . . .” Professor Fauna murmured.

  “That’s bigger than I ever imagined. . . .” Yoenis replied.

  The Madre de aguas looked around the banquet hall as if she were searching for something. Finally, her eyes rested on the tall glass windows and the glimmer of the sea just visible in the distance.

  Her body rippled and vibrated with strength, and she tore away from the fountain and plowed through the tables, reducing them to wood chips and tatters of white fabric. She smashed through the display of Sure-to-Choke insecticide, toppling the barrels over and spilling the pink sludge on the plush carpeting. Then she burst through the huge windows and, carried on a river of water that she secreted from her body, she escaped down one of the small alleys of Old Havana, toward the malecón and the sparkling bay.

  The room exploded with cheers. Farmers and bureaucrats and servers alike stamped their feet and whistled.

  At just that moment, Elliot and Uchenna burst through the doors from the service stairs. “What happened?” Elliot asked. Uchenna shook her head. Jersey flew up beside them.

  And then they noticed two figures, one short and one tall, sitting by the overturned black barrels, covered in pink sludge. It covered their ten-thousand dollar suits. It covered their monogrammed shirts. It even covered their matching comb-overs.

  “Help us!” the Schmokes cried. “This stuff is toxic!”

  “What did you say?” Professor Fauna asked. He was pushing his way past the security guards, toward the Schmokes.

  Yoenis hushed the crowd.

  “This stuff is pure poison!” Edmund Schmoke was wailing. “Please, please get it off!”

  Even their security team didn’t want to touch them. They just stood there, grimacing at the horrific pink mess.

  “You want a napkin?” Professor Fauna asked, gabbing two from a nearby table and dangling one over each of the Schmoke’s heads.

  “Yes!”

  “Then tell these good people of your plans.”

  “We were going to steal her!” Milton cried. “And sell you the wat
er she produced for us!”

  “We admit it!” Edmund shouted. “Just get this stuff off of us! It smells like the runoff from our oil refineries!”

  “It is the runoff from our oil refineries!” Milton moaned. “Just please, help us!”

  Professor Fauna dropped the napkins and the Schmokes grabbed them, madly rubbing the pink sludge from their faces.

  In the distance, there was giant splash. The Madre de aguas had made it back into the bay.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Elliot and Uchenna hugged Yoenis a thousand times, and then they hugged Rosa a thousand times, and then they hugged Yoenis again.

  They were all standing at the edge of the malecón, beside where Maceo’s garbage barge was docked. And sitting on the broad sidewalk, obstructing all pedestrian traffic, was the Phoenix. It gleamed. Maceo was shining the nose of the plane.

  “I don’t think the Phoenix looked this nice when she was new,” Professor Fauna marveled.

  “That plane was new once?” Rosa asked. They all laughed.

  “Well,” said Elliot. “Shall we head home?”

  “Indeed, my friends,” the professor agreed. “I think it is—”

  BOOM!

  Everyone fell silent.

  “What was that?” Uchenna asked.

  Elliot looked up.

  BOOM!

  Elliot closed his eyes. “Thunder,” he said.

  And at that moment, the clouds opened and rain began to pour out of the sky.

  “The sequía is over! It’s over!” Rosa cried. Yoenis grabbed her, and they began to dance in the heavy rain. Jersey flapped around them, flying curlicues in time to their steps. “Do you doubt now?” Rosa called to Professor Fauna. “The Schmokes are leaving, the Madre de aguas is free, and look! She is happy again, and the rain falls!”

  Uchenna glanced at Elliot. Elliot said, “This proves nothing. There’s been a twenty-five percent chance all day.”

  Uchenna said, “There’s been a twenty-five percent chance for months. This seems like a coincidence to you?”

  Elliot opened his mouth, but then he closed it again. He smiled, and shrugged.

  Rosa crowed as she danced, “Like two roots of the ceiba! You two don’t have to agree to be one tree! Now,” she said, “before you get in that plane, you better dance with us! ¡Vengan! ¡Bailen!”

  Professor Fauna leaned into the Phoenix and turned on the radio as loud as it could go. A hypnotic, irresistible song arose from the tinny speakers: a guitar, a conga drum, and a güiro played together, twining and twisting around one another. And the members of the Unicorn Rescue Society joined Yoenis, Rosa, and Jersey, as they danced on the malecón in the sweet, sweet rain.

  The Secret Order of the Unicorn

  (Being the History of the Secret Organization, Founded in the Year 789, That Exists to Protect Unicorns from All Humans Who Might Hurt Them)

  Text & illustrations © 2020 by Unicorn Rescue Society LLC.

  “I had no idea unicorns had such bad breath.”

  Welf was holding his nose and grimacing. His twin sister, Eva, was sitting beside him in the huge, gloomy cave. She chuckled.

  Deep in the darkness of the enormous cave, a thousand unicorns huddled with their small families for warmth.

  “Yes!” Khaled agreed, holding his little sister, Lubna, in his lap. “I will write a treatise on this when I get back to the Caliph’s library in Córdoba!”

  “Khaled,” said Alcuin, his black monk’s robes wrapped tightly around him against the gusts of wind that blew into the cave, “I hope you’re joking. We all know unicorns don’t exist.”

  He paused, and then added, “At least, that’s what we’ll tell the world when we get out of here.”

  “Of course I was joking,” Khaled said. “You thought I’d write a treatise about unicorns’ bad breath?”

  “Ah,” said Alcuin. “Of course. Sorry. I’m pretty hungry.”

  “So are we all,” Eva said, gazing around at the small, sad group, huddled around a dead fire. “But on the bright side, I’m pretty sure the secret of the unicorns is safe. Because I’m pretty sure we’re all going to starve to death . . . trapped in a remote cave . . . surrounded by the most impassable and treacherous mountains in the world.”

  The young nun, Gisela, was stroking her gray bunny. Just then, he jumped from her lap and hopped to the opening of the cave and stared out at the deep drifts of snow that coated the slopes of the towering, craggy mountains.

  “What do you think, Bunny?” Eva called. “Are we going to be stranded here forever?”

  It really looked like the bunny nodded.

  Lubna pushed herself off of Khaled’s knee and shouted, “Bunny play! Bunny play!”

  Alcuin cursed under his breath. “Who would have expected a snowstorm in June? Two days into our mountain journey, all sunshine and wildflowers, and then boom. Instant winter. Trapping us in this freezing, barren cave.”

  “With a thousand starving unicorns,” Eva added.

  “And their breath,” said Welf.

  “Pretty!” Lubna was running back toward them. “Pretty!” She was pointing at the snow outside.

  Khaled sighed. “Yes, Lubna. The snow is pretty.”

  But Lubna shouted, “No!” And started to cry.

  “I’m with you, kid,” Welf muttered.

  Just then, they heard the sounds of scuffling hooves and angry whinnying from deeper in the cave.

  The humans all looked at one another.

  The sounds got worse.

  Angrier.

  “Should we see what’s going on?” Eva asked nervously.

  “You mean, should we wander into the darkest part of this cave, with no lantern or fire, and try to break up a fight amongst a thousand angry, starving unicorns?” Welf asked. “Sure. That sounds fun.”

  Eva stood up. “I’m going.”

  Khaled rose, too. “So am I.”

  Lubna cried louder: “Pretty! Pretty! Oony-corn yum yum!”

  Khaled looked pleadingly at Sister Gisela. Without a word, she nodded, stood up, and took Lubna’s little hand. Lubna stopped crying and led Gisela to the front of the cave, where the gray bunny was sniffing at the snow.

  Lubna was still muttering, “Oony-corn yum yum pretty. Oony-corn yum yum pretty.”

  * * *

  The cave was not entirely dark. There were a thousand dimly glowing horns, on the tops of a thousand unicorn heads. It was like walking through a forest at night with no stars and no moon, but where the branches of the trees glowed.

  Khaled and Eva walked side by side, their shoulders touching. They made their way around families of unicorns, lying on the cold, wet stone, or standing in tight groups. Their horns were a hundred different hues.

  The unicorns were restless, agitated. Because they were hungry, but also because of the sounds of fighting that were coming from deeper within the cave. And the sounds were getting worse.

  The scrape of horn on stone.

  The cry of a unicorn.

  Eva started to run, and Khaled was close behind her. He stumbled over a unicorn’s outstretched leg, and fell, hard, to the stone floor, skinning his knee. The unicorn he’d tripped over stood up and waved its horn at him angrily. Eva helped Khaled to his feet and dragged him on, deeper through the forest of glowing horns, toward the sounds of the conflict.

  Two huge unicorns were facing off, their horns like blazing spears pointed at one another. In the gloom, one looked gray—though he may have been white. The other seemed to be the color of wine, with a horn the shade of green wood.

  The gray one pawed the ground, and his hooves rang out on the stone like a hammer on an anvil. The other tossed his horn back and forth.

  “That means he’s ready to charge,” whispered Eva.

  “What’s that?” Khaled asked, pointing. B
etween the two unicorns was a small, lumpy object. The wine-colored unicorn moved toward it, and the gray one jabbed the air with his horn to make him fall back.

  “It looks like . . . food,” said Eva. “The last of the hay we passed around yesterday morning.”

  “They’re going to kill each other over a lump of stale hay?”

  “They’re starving.”

  Just then, Eva and Khaled heard the sound of two small feet, moving very quickly.

  Before they could react, Lubna ran out in front of them, directly toward the two angry unicorns. “Pretty oony-corn yum yum! Pretty oony-corn yum yum!”

  “Lubna, stop!” Khaled cried.

  Gisela came running up beside them, shouting, “Lubna, come back!”

  But it was too late.

  The gray unicorn reared up, his forehooves kicking the air. The wine-colored unicorn whinnied with rage.

  “LUBNA!” Khaled shrieked.

  The gray unicorn came crashing down.

  Eva screamed. Khaled screamed. Gisela screamed.

  Lubna did not scream.

  Because she was encircled by four young unicorns.

  They had dashed out of the darkness to protect the little girl.

  Lubna put her tiny hand on the flank of one of the young unicorns.

  “Oony-corn pretty yum yum!” she said.

  And then she held up a flower.

  “Where did she get that?” Khaled murmured.

  “Oony-corn! Oony-corn!” said Lubna. The young unicorn she was touching turned its head to her, lowered its long face, and sniffed.

  “Yum yum!” said Lubna.

  The unicorn nibbled at the flower. Then the unicorn ate it whole, and sucked up the stem with its big soft lips.

  Lubna clapped. “Pretty! Pretty!” she cried. “Oony-corn yum yum!” And she went running toward the mouth of the cave, and the bright, deep snow.

  The young unicorns followed her.

  After a moment, the other unicorns did, too.

  Eva and Khaled and Gisela stared.