She looked at Max as though waiting for him to announce himself.
He straightened his shoulders. “I am Maximiliano Feliciano Esteban Córdoba, son of Feliciano Córdoba Jr. and grandson of Feliciano Córdoba Sr. And this is Isadora, who is traveling to meet her sister, Rosalina.”
Lola sniffed the woman’s boots and wagged her tail.
“That’s Lola,” said Max. He pointed to the kitten. “And Churro.”
“And I am Yadra, nothing more, nothing less.” She rummaged in her apron pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and gently blotted Isadora’s face, dabbing away the blood on her lip. “Isadora, your sister is waiting at the next safe place so that you may travel on together.” She looked at Max. “Were you followed?”
“Yes,” he said gravely. “To the bridge with all the ducks. We jumped in the river and Lola swam us across. Two men are looking for us.”
Yadra pulled them inside and bolted the door. “They won’t find you here. But the sooner I move her, the better.”
Isadora gazed up at Yadra as if she were an angel. “We thought you would be … different.”
“A troll? Or a witch?” said Yadra. “I’ve heard what they say. It’s been the same my entire life. Everyone thinks they know who I am, even if we’ve never met.” She put an arm around Isadora. “Come. Let’s get you two into some clean clothes and then I’ll give you something to eat and drink.”
As they followed Yadra down a flight of stone steps, Max suddenly realized how tired and thirsty he was. The enormity of the past few days settled on him. Were they safe now?
Lanterns on the rock walls flickered. The yeasty smell of baked bread wafted into the stairwell. Lola pushed past them and darted ahead.
“Oh my, one of us is hungry,” said Yadra, laughing. “Did I mention I love visitors and dogs?” She reached out and petted Churro. “And kittens, too, of course.
“Now, when we get into the cavern, don’t be alarmed,” said Yadra. “It might seem a bit overwhelming at first. I like to call it my garden of the miscellaneous.”
At the bottom of the stairs, towers of folded blankets and tablecloths hugged the walls. Large metal bins held boat oars. Glass jars, still labeled with the former contents—pickled eggs, fig jam, pigs’ feet—had been stacked in gleaming pyramids. Baskets lined both sides of a long hallway.
“Where did it all come from?” asked Max, amazed.
“They are left-behinds. People on a journey sometimes discard the unnecessary,” said Yadra. “Or pass-alongs from the generous river. Because of the currents, anything the river swallows upstream often ends up downstream trapped in my cove. I collect it and pass it along to those in need. Once a year, everything goes to a home for women and children, and then I start collecting all over again.”
Yadra took Isadora’s hand and led them around an old rowboat filled with gloves and socks without mates. She reached in and grabbed two socks, one red and the other striped, and handed them to Isadora.
They stopped in front of a row of giant baskets. After studying them for size, Yadra pulled out clean shorts and a shirt for Max, and a soft purple dress for Isadora, and sent them to separate nooks to change.
They followed Yadra to a large stone kitchen, where the sun streamed in from a small window far above, and a loaf of bread cooled on the back of the stove. “Please, sit,” she said, directing them to the table. She hummed and put the kettle on for tea. Max couldn’t keep his eyes off of Yadra’s shimmery hair and odd clothes, or her wide smile that seemed to make the room brighter. She clucked and fussed over them, reminding Max of Mariana and Amelia.
Yadra brought the kettle to the table and placed the bread on a board with a round of cheese and sliced it, encouraging them to eat. Still humming, she fixed bowls of food for the animals.
Isadora looked around. “Do you live here all by yourself?”
“Not always,” said Yadra. “But I keep to myself. I was once a hidden one, like you. No one can hurt me now, but the fear of being discovered runs very deep.”
“You ran away from Abismo, too?” asked Isadora.
Yadra shook her head. “I didn’t run away from another country. Cruelty doesn’t only happen across borders. Unfortunately, it happens everywhere, even in our own backyards.”
“What do you mean?” asked Max.
“My father and mother were very strict about how I should live my life.”
Max nodded. He knew how that felt. He couldn’t even take a bus to Santa Inés with his friends.
“When I grew into a young woman and was old enough to make my own decisions, my parents were not pleased with my choices. And when I did not comply with their idea of me, I became invisible to them. My own parents did not see me. They only saw their own disappointment. They could not accept the living, breathing human standing before them, needing their love.”
That wasn’t like Papá or Buelo at all. They loved Max. But what would it be like when his friends and other people found out his mother was a hidden one? Would they be cruel? Would he become invisible too?
“They hurt your feelings,” said Isadora.
“That must have been a hard time,” said Max.
Yadra nodded. “Thankfully, others saw me and recognized I needed help. Guardians helped me figure out who I was and where I would fit into the world. One of them told me I didn’t have to endure hardship by myself. Isn’t that the most comforting thought—that there is always someone to help and you don’t ever have to struggle alone?”
Isadora slipped from her chair and hugged Yadra. Max blinked back tears. Yadra was so honest and so easily shared her secrets—the sad ones and the hopeful ones. He wanted to be like that.
“There, there, both of you,” said Yadra, sending Isadora back to her chair. “Enough about me. Maximiliano, I have heard so much about you. And here you are. You’re very young to be one of us. Then again, you’ve been nurtured by guardians. It runs in the family.”
Max couldn’t lie to Yadra. “They don’t know I’m here. My father and grandfather weren’t home when the guardian came with Isadora. I tricked him and said I sometimes substitute for my father, but I don’t. This is my first time. I left a note so Buelo would know where I am, but I’m sure he is still worried.”
“I will let them know that you were a worthy guardian and proved yourself. I’m very impressed you managed this all on your own. You are a courageous and selfless young man to risk your life for another.”
Max shook his head. “I’m not courageous and selfless … I came for my own reasons.”
Yadra raised an eyebrow.
“Buelo told me once that you could help find things and answers to perplexing questions.”
“Sometimes, yes.”
Isadora whispered, “He wants to find his mother and make his papá happy again.”
Yadra sighed. “Well, I’m afraid that is problematic.”
“But, you met her, right?” said Max. “And took her to the next safe place? She must have told you something …”
Yadra nodded. “I met her, of course. It’s easy to see you are her son with those eyes.”
He held out the compass. “She lost this and it meant something to her. I thought I could return it. And meet her … and see if maybe she’d come home …”
Yadra leaned her head back and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she said, “You see, Maximiliano, not everything is findable. The road of life is littered with lost things—papers, people, answers, the other half of a pair … the truth. And remnants of someone’s happiness can’t always be recovered.”
“But she’s in Mañanaland. And that’s the same place you’re taking Isadora, right?”
Yadra smiled but looked confused. “Well … yes. But—”
“Can I go there with you?” blurted Max. “To take Isadora and find my mother? Please?”
Yadra slowly poured more tea in their cups. “I sense you are motivated by goodness, Maximiliano, and that your heart is true. But it is a difficult journey with ho
urs of rowing …”
“I could help. I’m a good rower,” said Max.
“I want him to come,” said Isadora.
Yadra looked from Isadora to Max. “What about Lola? There’s not much room in the boat, and I couldn’t risk her barking.”
“She could stay here,” said Max. “We could leave food and water and make a bed for her. She’d be fine.”
Yadra’s mouth twitched. “You know I could not allow you to go any farther than the next guardian. There’s a—”
“A code. I know,” said Max.
She studied him. “Please understand that you may find nothing you are expecting and everything unforeseen.”
Max didn’t understand, but he nodded anyway.
In the early evening, Yadra combed and braided Isadora’s hair and tied purple ribbons at the ends. She brought piles of blankets to the kitchen and made soft beds on the floor. “You both need to rest now. We must leave in the middle of the night. I’ll wake you when it’s time.”
Lola and Churro curled up together between Max and Isadora.
“Are you excited?” whispered Max.
“Yes,” said Isadora. “But I wish you could come with me even after tomorrow.”
“You’ll have Rosalina. And there will be a guardian. You won’t be alone.” He hoped it was true. He hoped she’d always have someone to protect her.
“Besides,” he teased. “You’ll forget me soon enough.”
“No, I won’t! Not ever!”
He smiled. “Maybe someday, when I’m a famous footballer … you will find me and come to see me play.”
“I will find you,” said Isadora.
Even though it wasn’t likely, imagining it made Max happy.
It was dark and cozy in the cavern. Lola moaned in her sleep. Max thought Isadora had drifted off, too, until she said, “One more story?”
He was glad to keep talking. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was very tired but could not go to sleep. Every time her eyes closed, they popped opened again, like a caja sorpresa. It was only after she heard a magical song that she was finally able to slumber.” He sang, “Arrorró, mi niño. Arrorró, mi sol. Arrorró, pedazo de mi corazón …”
She continued. “Este niño lindo ya quiere dormir, háganle la cuna de rosa y jazmín.”
“You know this song?” asked Max.
Isadora yawned and murmured, “All mothers sing it to their children. My mother sang it to me … and her mother sang it to her …”
Was that why he remembered it? Somewhere long ago and far away, had his mother sung it to him?
Max hummed the song, softer and slower until Isadora was asleep.
Buelo was right. It was going to be hard to say goodbye.
The sky was mottled with dark clouds that almost eclipsed the moonlight. The river was black ink.
They had left well before dawn in the small boat. Yadra sat in back, deftly rowing, Max on the front thwart opposite, watching the river recede. Isadora snuggled into him and slept, with Churro tucked in a new sling.
As the river grew straight and wide, time stretched and Max’s mind drifted. He had no sense of how long he’d been gone. He had to think hard about what day it was. Monday.
Tomorrow it would be exactly three weeks since Papá had left for San Clemente. That meant yesterday would have been Sunday dinner. He pictured Amelia sitting beneath the oak tree at the cottage, working in her puzzle book, Buelo cooking in the kitchen with Mariana, and Papá and Tío playing chess at the old picnic table. He wondered if Chuy had come looking for him to go to the water hole. Santa Maria and everyone in his life felt so far away. Even the fútbol tryouts seemed distant and oddly unimportant.
As if reading his mind, Yadra said, “You must miss home. I can see you are carrying many burdens of your own. Even though you have come seeking answers for yourself, you have been brave and selfless. You never left Isadora, and you risked your own life to save hers. Your father and grandfather will be proud of you.”
Max let the words sink in. “I hope so.” Would they be angry when they discovered he’d disobeyed them?
“Isadora has grown attached to you, and you to her,” said Yadra.
Max nodded in the darkness. He tried not to think about the return trip without her. “Do she and her sister have any other family to take care of them? Someone waiting in Mañanaland?”
Yadra kept her voice low. “Their parents were killed by military police while protesting conditions in the factory where they worked. As far as I know, there is no one else.”
“Her sister is only two years older than I am. How will they live?”
“The guardians won’t abandon them. The network is wide and deep.”
Max repositioned Isadora so that she was snug in the crook of his arm. She was lucky that there was a place like Mañanaland where, unlike Santa Maria, everyone was welcome. “Is Mañanaland a big country or a small one? When we arrive, is there someone I can ask about my mother?”
Yadra stopped rowing. “Maximiliano, I don’t think you understand. Mañanaland is not a destination. It’s a … way of thinking.”
He frowned. What did that mean? “But, isn’t that where we are going?”
“In a sense, yes. We’re taking Isadora to the next guardian. Then she and Rosalina will go on to somewhere else so that they might leave a painful past behind and have a new life with at least the possibility of happiness. Where they, or any hidden one for that matter, end up could be anyplace and will remain unknown to me … and to you.”
“But … my mother carved on a stone that her eyes were on Mañanaland. And Isadora’s sister said she was waiting in Mañanaland.”
“Your mother’s eyes were on a hope and dream,” said Yadra. “And Rosalina meant that she was waiting for her sister somewhere safe where they could live without fear of whatever happened in Abismo. After you’ve experienced a terrifying and anguished existence, anywhere better … is Mañanaland.”
Max felt his face flush. All this time he had foolishly hoped to find a place when none existed? He struggled to make sense of it. “But … then … where did you take my mother?”
“To the next guardian.”
“Can I ask her or him about my mother?”
Yadra shook her head. “That guardian moved away long ago. And I’ve never had occasion to assist on the next leg of the journey, so I don’t even know where the hidden ones go after I hand them off. I only know that they travel by train.”
“Did … did my mother tell you anything about why she left?”
“I had to move her quickly, just like Isadora. She was with two other young women so we didn’t have the chance to talk privately. At first, she posed as the guardian but then admitted she had been a hidden one and needed to move on. She said it was for the safety of her family. I told your father the same years ago when he came searching for her. She was brave and determined and risked her own life to guide the two women here, even if it was also for herself. You are like her in that way.”
Max let Yadra’s words sink in. “But you have to know something more. I came all this way, and Buelo said you’d have answers.”
“I’m sorry, Max. That’s all I know.”
Max’s body deflated from the weight of her words. Without any more clues, how would he ever find his mother? Or know what his own future held? Maybe Papá was right not to believe in happy endings.
Yadra continued to row.
Max turned his head away from her and silently wept.
By midmorning, rain threatened. The landscape turned to rolling hills with few trees. Max and Yadra took turns rowing and resting. After what felt like hours, Yadra slowed the boat and searched the riverbank.
“What are you looking for?” asked Max.
“A signal,” said Yadra.
A lone cottage near the top of a hill came into view. “Look for smoke from the chimney.”
Within minutes, a plume rose from the bricks.
Yadra pulled the oars
and moved the boat upstream again. “That was the sign that it’s safe to proceed. Señorita Villa will meet us.”
“Is she the next guardian?” asked Max.
“Yes. She is new, like you, but not quite as young. She has already helped many women find their way.”
Within minutes, they had tied the rowboat to a small, isolated pier and waited under a large oak near the riverbank. Isadora clutched Max’s hand.
Yadra searched the horizon until a car threaded through the foothills and rattled toward them. When it stopped, two women emerged.
Isadora dropped Max’s hand, took a few steps forward, and then flew into her sister’s arms. For a moment there was no sound, except muffled crying and then quiet laughter. He couldn’t tell who clung to the other more tightly.
Yadra put an arm around his shoulder. “We don’t often get to see reunions. We usually just send people off toward the horizon. This makes it worth it, yes?”
Max swiped at his eyes and nodded.
Señorita Villa was barely taller than Max and didn’t look much older than Rosalina. With her hair beneath a bandana and a smock apron over her clothes, she looked like any young woman who might work in a market stall. She embraced Yadra and then the two women stepped aside to talk.
Isadora pulled her sister toward Max.
Rosalina had the same timid smile and thick fringed hair as Isadora, although she wore hers loose and unbraided. She grasped Max’s hand and held it. “Thank you for bringing Isa to me. She told me what a good guardian you were and that you saved her more than once.”
Max thought about how far he had come. There was the vast distance between here and Santa Maria, of course. But his feelings had changed, too. At first, he had thought Isadora a burden he couldn’t wait to unload on the next guardian. Now he couldn’t imagine being without her.
A lump formed in his throat. “I was glad … to be the one,” he said, and meant it.
Yadra approached and explained to Isadora and Rosalina that Señorita Villa would travel with them by train. “In three days, you will be safe, somewhere far away.”
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