Alberto stares at him. The spirits hover around us, perfectly still.
“What makes you think you can barge into my house, insult me and my family, and then tell me what to do?”
I feel Ramón brace himself for violence. It’s a battle he would win, but it would make getting what we came for much harder, and we all know it.
Then a voice from the doorway says: “He can’t.” Everyone spins around to gape. “But I can.”
Nilda.
Nilda, wearing her favorite purple parka and a stylish silky scarf.
Nilda with her hair perfectly coiffed, her eyes blinking furiously behind her tinted drugstore glasses, her little, trembly hands clenched into fists.
“Madrina,” Alberto gasps.
Nilda, bowed and worn but undefeated after all these years. Nilda, who made it out. Nilda, who set off a new generation of us. Nilda, who saved our parents from my mistakes.
And this is when I realize that the book of lost saints never stops being written. Every day, there are new saints who step into our lives out of the blue, who have been there all along. And if they became a saint one day, then they must’ve always been one, even when they betrayed you and almost got you killed.
Even when they were selfish and showed up back at home, risking their whole family’s lives.
Even me.
She steps forward, Nilda, who carries a whole orchestra in those little hands, or once did. Nilda, my lost saint. “You are going to let us look at the files, Alberto Rafael San Pedro Echeverria Gutierrez. And then Luis is going to do lo que le dé la gana con su club. And that’s all there is to it. ¿Me entiendes?”
Alberto nods. The spirits nod too.
CHAPTER FIFTY
This is what I remember:
The cell had only partially resolved when the guard came in. It was gray. Thick gray paint; I could feel it against my calloused fingers; the paint had congealed in sloppy frozen dollops. The crushing weight of so much concrete and misery around me once again, and the panic welling up inside, calming back down, rushing up again. And then the metal bars clang open and a figure stands there. I can’t make out what his uniform is, is he Cuban? A soldier of the revolution? No, I’m in Jersey. He’s just a blur though. And for all I know, they sent me back. I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious.
This is what I knew: I wouldn’t be a prisoner again. Not for a minute, not for an hour. I wouldn’t be held down, abused, touched. Not ever. In my head, I kissed Luis goodbye and then I banished him from my thoughts, just like I’d learned to banish my family. I said goodbye to the memory of Padre Sebastián, whom I would soon meet on the other side.
When the guard stepped inside, I tore the seat off the toilet and broke his face with it.
The last thing I remember is a hundred hands holding me, grabbing me, a fist finding my face and then a much heavier, duller catastrophe exploding across the crown of my head.
Then nothing.
And nothing.
And more nothing.
* * *
Ramón.
The last of my lost saints, for now anyway.
He walks in the middle. Luis and Nilda on one side; Aliceana and Adina on the other. An orderly accompanies them a few steps behind. I am with Ramón, always with Ramón. Behind us, the slowly marching souls of the past flush forward through the present, stern, unflinching, to be part of this one last act of grace, whatever it may be.
Linoleum footsteps echo down this corridor. Black tiles and pink walls. A water fountain. A picture of flowers in a vase. The doors have windows with wire mesh over them. Inside, TV screens flicker over tiny still lifes of lives lived in almost perfect stillness: an old man sitting up in bed, a woman alone in her rocking chair. Vacant stares.
“Here it is,” the orderly says. “B-201. Jane Doe.” This is where the paper trail ends. At some point, in the confusion of prison hospitals and trials in absentia my name vanished and I became Jane. Gutierrez always had his eye on me though; he hadn’t forgotten our time tumbling through the Escambray. It’s his signature on the transfer from the prison to this hospital. A deranged act of mercy, perhaps; I’m beyond caring. Ms. Doe’s file hid among a stack of photos, documents, and court orders in the old man’s archives—all about me.
Luis swallows back some saliva. Aliceana squeezes his arm and smiles up at Ramón. Ramón closes his eyes, breathes, and opens the door.
Inside, a woman sits in an easy chair, staring at the space just above the television.
“Jesus,” Luis says. “Jesus.”
She is me.
She is me.
My hair is gray brown, and dark bags weigh down the skin just beneath my eyes and I look so gray, so sallow and gray. My eyes, so distant. But she is me. I have a body, skin, and bones. Through prison and shoot-outs and across the sea, and more prison, I survived.
Ramón just stands there staring. Luis crosses the room, drops to his knees. Me, my body, she doesn’t respond, just stares.
The old man shakes his head. Ramón frowns at Aliceana. His eyes say that he doesn’t know what’s supposed to happen now, after all this, now that they’ve found me and I’m a shell.
But I know.
Luis sobs quietly into the chair. I cross the room. Pause to take in the moment from the outside, one last time. That dress they put me in is floral print and hideous; I would never wear it by choice. It’ll have to go.
I gather myself. Slide along the edges of my arms, inside the skin, feel my feet find my feet, my ribs my ribs, my heart my heart. I settle into my face, these arms my arms, these hands that I have loved with, killed with: They are mine.
Compared to the others whom I briefly inhabited, Ramón felt like somewhere I was meant to be, at least for the moment. But he was always just a rest stop along the way. This—my spirit fingers fill these flesh fingers and they both flex together, now as one—this is home.
This beating heart is mine. It beats for me, to keep me alive. It’s been beating all this time, faithful.
I must’ve slept for a hundred years. When I crane my neck down, the man I love is sobbing into my lap. So I lift my hand ever so slowly and put it on his furry head. I look up and there is my nephew, this great big man full of love and courage and he’s smiling. He watched my eyes click into focus. He wraps his arm around the woman he loves.
Across from him is another man I love. Padre Sebastián’s quiet smile hangs in the air just in front of me; his essence covers this room. He has been with my body all along, cuidando. Taking care of this empty shell while my soul wandered the world. He begins to fade and then Ramón appears in his place, puts his hand on my shoulder and looks down at me with tears in his eyes. Aliceana stands beside him, one hand on her tummy. I find Ramón’s face with the tips of my fingers.
“Marisol.” He says it like the prayer it is, my name.
I smile. It is a strange thing to do, lifting my cheeks to either side, but it’s something I could get used to. It’s natural, even if I haven’t done it in ages.
And this is how I will die, one day, many years from now: surrounded by my loved ones, finally at peace after a very, very long journey.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I was taking a walk through Bed-Stuy with my best friend, astrologer Samuel Reynolds, one autumn afternoon, trying to figure out what I would write next. Sam said, “You know, sometimes I wonder what happened to the spirits of the people who died at the Isle of Pines…” and it was such a striking thing to say, because those spirits had been dancing through my head for some time, maybe always—not just the ones from that prison specifically, but the many voices lost in the tumult of the revolution. And perhaps that is the haunting that every child of a diaspora, every descendent of war, carries; and sometimes it’s a burden, and sometimes a blessing, but right then I knew there was some work to be done to let those voices out. I went home and started preparing to write the book you now hold. So first and foremost, I want to thank Sam, whose words led to an avalanche.
Very special thanks to Tananarive Due, who I have always looked up to both as a writer and human and who was instrumental in helping The Book of Lost Saints become the book it is today. I wrote the first draft of this book while attending Antioch University’s low-res MFA program in Culver City, where she was my mentor, and I’m very grateful to her and all the teachers and classmates there who gave their thoughts on early drafts in workshops and meetings, especially Gayle Brandeis, Alistair McCartney, and Jervey Tervalon.
Thank you to my editors, Rhoda Belleza and Erin Stein, for believing in this story and lifting up this voice. As soon as I met Rhoda at a book festival in Cambridge, I knew she would see this book for what it was, and I’m so honored that she took it on.
Thanks to the whole team at Macmillan, especially Weslie Turner, Molly B. Ellis, Brittany Pearlman, Katie Quinn, and Allison Verost.
To Eddie Schneider and Joshua Bilmes and the whole team at JABberwocky Lit: You are wonderful. Thank you.
The great Raysa Madeiros provided notes on various points of Cuban history and those particularly Cuban Spanish phrases. Thank you, Tía! (All mistakes are mine, all mine, and probably there on purpose.)
Thank you to early draft readers Kimberly Banton, Shanae’ Brown, Brittany Nicole Williams, Sorahya Moore, Marc Older, Zahira Kelly, Cheryl Chastine, Christina Lynch, Anika Noni Rose, and Carolyn Edgar.
Thanks to Brian White and the Fireside Fiction crew for publishing an excerpt of this book in the form of a short story called “Stay.”
Thank you to the Speculative Literature Foundation for helping me get to Cuba for research.
Many thanks to Leslie Shipman at The Shipman Agency and Lia Chan at ICM.
Thanks always to my amazing family, Dora, Marc, Malka, Lou, Calyx, and Paz. Thanks to Iya Lisa and Iya Ramona and Iyalocha Tima, Patrice, Emani, Darrell, April, and my whole Ile Omi Toki family for their support; also thanks to Oba Nelson “Poppy” Rodriguez, Baba Malik, Mama Akissi, Mama Joan, Sam, Tina, Jud, and all the wonderful folks of Ile Ase. Thank you, Jason Reynolds, Jacqueline Woodson, Anika Noni Rose, Akwaeke Emezi, Jalisa Roberts, Lauren Chanel Allen, John Jennings, and Sorahya Moore and fam.
And thank you, Brittany, for everything. I love you.
Baba Craig Ramos: We miss you and love you and carry you with us everywhere we go. Rest easy, Tío. Ibae bayen tonu.
Carmen Gonzalez, in your tower by the sea with your pups and sci-fi books: I still think of you and lift up your name. There is so much of you in this book. Ibae bayen tonu.
I give thanks to all those who came before us and lit the way. I give thanks to all my ancestors; to Yemonja, Mother of Waters; gbogbo Orisa; and Olodumare.
Also by
DANIEL JOSÉ OLDER
Star Wars: Last Shot
The Shadowshaper Cypher
Shadowshaper
Ghost Girl in the Corner (novella)
Dead Light March (novella)
Shadowhouse Fall
Shadowshaper Legacy
Bone Street Rumba
Half-Resurrection Blues
Midnight Taxi Tango
Salsa Nocturna
Battle Hill Bolero
Dactyl Hill Squad
Dactyl Hill Squad
Dactyl Hill Squad: Freedom Fire
Dactyl Hill Squad: Thunder Run
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel José Older is the New York Times–bestselling author of the young adult series The Shadowshaper Cypher, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, the middle grade historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, and Star Wars: Last Shot. He won the International Latino Book Award and has been nominated for the Kirkus Prize, the Mythopoeic Award, the Locus Award, the Andre Norton Award, and the World Fantasy Award. Shadowshaper was named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read. You can find his thoughts on writing, read dispatches from his decade-long career as an NYC paramedic, and hear his music at danieljoseolder.net, on YouTube, and @djolder on Twitter, or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Part One. Tirar
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Interlude: Isla De Pinos
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Part Two. Volver
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Part Three. Re/Volver
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Acknowledgments
Also by Daniel José Older
About the Author
Copyright
A part of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271
THE BOOK OF LOST SAINTS. Copyright © 2019 Daniel José Older.
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by email at [email protected].
Book design by Ellen Duda
Imprint logo designed by Amanda Spielman
First hardcover edition, 2019
eBook edition, November 2019
eISBN 9781250185822
Si le quitas la cubierta a este libro, cuidado que no te caiga un rayo encima.
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