Paola Santiago and the Forest of Nightmares

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  But he was no longer a man. He shrunk until he was just a little taller than Pao. Until he was the teenager he had been on the day La Llorona’s minions had dragged him into the river.

  Just a boy at heart, all this time. A boy who hadn’t deserved to die.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Pao said again. “But there’s peace out there for you, Joaquín. I’ve seen it. All you have to do is reach for it.”

  “I . . . I can’t,” he said, sounding scared now. “I don’t know how.”

  “It’s easy,” Pao said, smiling, tears in her eyes as she stepped forward to embrace him. “You just let go.”

  There was a sigh against her shoulder, the sound of a long-held burden being discarded for good.

  “Good-bye, Joaquín,” she said. “Be free.”

  And then the last of his faint purple smoke dissipated into the air, a breeze through the open door blowing it out into the forest air.

  Sliding to the floor, her knees weak, her body wearier than she could ever remember it being, Pao wept, silently, for a long time.

  When she stopped, the air was clear and cold, and dawn light was beginning to stain the sky outside.

  Behind her, her father stirred.

  “Mom!” Pao screamed, getting to her feet, backing away. “Mom, help!”

  In an instant, her mom and Emma were back inside the trailer.

  “What is it?” her mom asked. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you? Did . . . ?”

  “Ms. Santiago,” Emma said, her eyes wide as she peered over Pao’s mom’s shoulder. “Look!”

  Beto was struggling to sit up, his hair in his eyes, every line of his face radiating pain. Pao was frozen in shock, but her mom rushed to him, kneeling on the ground, her voice thick with tears.

  “Beto?” she asked. “Is it really you? How do you feel?”

  He coughed, clutching at his chest. “I feel . . . so heavy,” he said. “Everything hurts. I . . . I think I pulled something in my back when I fell. What is this?”

  Laughing and crying at the sound of his voice, Pao stepped forward and took his hands in hers. “It’s called being human, Dad,” she said. “Welcome back.”

  Her mom laughed, too, and Emma stepped up beside her, sliding her hand into Pao’s for support.

  Still outside, Bruto barked as other voices could be heard approaching.

  “What is this, some gross old trailer? Why are you bringing us here?”

  Pao’s heart leaped at the sound of Naomi’s snark, and she bolted toward the door, eager to see if the rest of her friends were safe. Before she reached it, though, she stopped and looked back, torn.

  “Go,” said her dad in a strained voice, his face breaking into a smile that looked much more like the weary mortal father of an almost-teenage girl than a tragic ghost man possessed by a vengeful murder victim.

  “You sure?” Pao asked.

  Her dad nodded. “We have lots of time now,” he said. “Thanks to you.”

  Pao, still holding Emma’s hand, bounded out the door just in time to see Marisa, Naomi, Franco, and all the other Niños tromping down the hill, led by the duendecillos mayores. Bruto bolted halfway up the slope to greet Sal, who ruffled the ridges on the puppy’s head. They were safe from the Hitchhiker, Pao thought with relief. It must have been driven out when Joaquín was, just like her father had said.

  “Are you okay?” Emma asked her shyly before the group reached them. Pao stopped and turned to look at her best friend.

  There was so much she would have to get used to, Pao thought. So much to mourn, but also plenty to celebrate. Her dad was alive, and reunited with her mom! Emma and the Niños were safe, and Dante . . . Well, Pao had been to the void once before, hadn’t she? With all these people on her side, maybe there was still hope. . . .

  “I’m not sure what I am yet,” she said to Emma, and that was the honest truth. She literally didn’t know what she was.

  “That’s so valid,” Emma said. “But I’ll be there for you while you figure it out, okay?”

  Pao smiled, a real smile. It felt odd, like she was out of practice. “Promise?” she asked.

  “Promise.”

  On the drive home—for which Pao’s mom had rented a fifteen-passenger van in a place called Grants Pass—Emma got an excited phone call from Drs. Pinky and the Brain.

  Apparently, the specialist from Seattle had no more than walked into the room when Señora Mata’s brain activity began to register normally again. She was still coming out of sedation and being monitored, but they had high hopes that she would wake up in a few days.

  And so, three days after their homecoming, Pao and Emma walked into Silver Springs Community Hospital together, feeling hopeful and scared and everything in between.

  Emma grabbed Pao’s hand as they entered the makeshift ICU (the old one was still being renovated after the “drug dealers” had ransacked it).

  “Listen,” Emma said, stopping Pao and looking straight at her. “None of this is your fault. Even if you are part . . . void spirit or fantasma or whatever we’re calling it . . . you didn’t make Dante betray you. You didn’t send him to the void. And even though he said awful things, you still followed through on your plan to save his grandma. I will not allow you to be down on yourself about this. Okay?”

  “I’m a paragon of moral virtue,” Pao said, deadpan, and Emma stifled a laugh. “Plus, my dad is looking into every possible avenue for getting Dante back. Once we come up with a plan, it’s off to the races.”

  “Do I still get to be your Max Gibson when you go?” Emma asked teasingly.

  “As long as you remind me who that is again?” Pao said, grinning sheepishly.

  Their giggles faded as they approached Señora Mata’s room. The door had been decorated with bonnets—provided by the ladies of Saturday Night Bingo en Español, according to the card taped beside them.

  Pao tried not to be offended that Señora Mata had more friends in town than she did, though her own count was increasing. Franco—using an ID he’d gotten from Johnny in Rock Creek—had wasted no time in finding the Niños a warehouse space to rent in town. He said he was ready to turn full-time to his research now that the void was truly no longer a threat.

  Since the cactus field near the Gila had lost its force field, the old camp was no longer viable, and the Niños needed a place to set up shop while they figured out what to do next. Pao’s dad had donated all his creepy forest-lab equipment to the cause and even cosigned the lease. She wasn’t really sure what he saw in Franco, but Pao was so glad to see her dad putting down roots, she didn’t even complain.

  Naomi was less than thrilled with the arrangement, but Pao had assured her she could escape to Riverside Palace anytime the lovefest between Franco and Marisa got to be too much.

  “Ready?” Emma asked, snapping Pao back to the present.

  “To tell my elderly neighbor that I got her grandson banished to the void?” Pao grumbled, her stomach roiling with dread.

  Señora Mata had awoken that morning. She seemed small and frail and was still hooked up to about a dozen monitors (functioning perfectly since the old woman’s return from the portal, thankfully). At the moment, she was sitting up in bed, staring contemplatively out the window.

  “Hey, señora,” Pao said, trying not to use an I’ve got some bad news tone. Judging from the expression on Emma’s face, she had failed miserably.

  “Don’t give me that look, Maria, I’m not dying yet.”

  Maria, Pao thought with a heavy heart. So Joaquín had been right. Her memory loss wasn’t a result of her field trip to the past, but of something else. Alzheimer’s? Dementia? Pao made a note to ask her doctors—who still seemed to believe Pao and Emma were family.

  At least she’s alive, Pao thought. And she honestly didn’t even mind being called Maria anymore. Not since the real Maria had gotten everyone home safely and sent ski-catalog Aaron packing.

  “Of course not, señora,” Pao said, smiling sadly. “You’ll outlive us all.
”

  “How do you know I haven’t already?”

  Emma giggled, then quieted down as Pao sank into the visitor’s chair.

  “Don’t get too comfortable now, Maria. I have the bingo ladies bringing me lunch.”

  “Of course you do,” Pao said. “Don’t worry, this won’t take long. We just . . . we wanted to talk about Dante. He . . .”

  Señora Mata grabbed at the sheet over her legs like she was on a boat threatening to capsize. Her eyes opened wide, and she looked at Pao as if for the first time.

  “He’s done it, hasn’t he, Paola? He’s gone over?”

  “How did you know?” Pao asked.

  “¡No soy estúpida!” Señora Mata snapped. “I’ve seen things that would make your toe hairs curl.”

  “Right,” Pao said. “But Dante . . .”

  “We all make choices, Paola,” Señora Mata said. “I’ve been ready for my grandson’s choice ever since he was a little boy.”

  “I was there,” Pao said. “I know what you did for him. That you saved him. It doesn’t matter what choice he made, señora. I’m going to get him back.”

  Señora Mata sighed, patting Pao’s hand. “I know you will try, querida.”

  “What do you mean?” Pao asked. “I’m going to help him. I’m—”

  “Sometimes the die is cast long before we roll it,” Señora Mata said, her eyes briefly going dark before brightening again. “But that doesn’t stop us from doing what we will, now does it?”

  “I have questions, señora,” Pao said desperately. “I need to know how it . . .”

  “How it ends?” Señora Mata asked, laughing a small laugh. “Of course you do. But it’s better if you don’t, ¿entiendes?”

  “How can you say that?” Pao asked. “You could help us find him. You could . . .”

  Emma put her hand on Pao’s shoulder. “Pao, maybe we should . . .”

  “Now scoot on out of that chair, Maria,” Señora Mata said cheerfully. “Did I tell you the bingo ladies are bringing me lunch?”

  Pao was caught somewhere between cursing and crying and laughing, but then again, weren’t most people on this wild ride called life? “Sí, Señora Mata,” she said. “You told us. I hope it’s delicious.”

  “Come back and see me again,” she said, shooing them off. “But not too often, Maria. You don’t want to be a bother, ¿verdad?”

  She closed the door with her cane before they could answer.

  In the weak winter sunshine outside the hospital, Emma walked her bike alongside Pao to the end of the street, where they’d have to part. Emma back to her gilded side of town, and Pao to the Riverside Palace.

  “Hey, there’s a Rainbow Rogues meeting tomorrow,” Emma said. “We’re protesting biased media coverage of underprivileged people in our community after the story on the drug dealers. There’ll probably be baked goods!”

  Pao laughed, shaking her head. “I’m supposed to have dinner with my parents.”

  “How weird does it feel to say that?” Emma asked, reading Pao’s mind again. “‘My parents’?”

  “Less weird than I thought it would?” Pao said. “But we’ll see. I don’t want to get too attached, just in case. . . .”

  “In case your dad turns out to be a ghost brought back to life with another spirit trapped inside his brain that makes him do terrible things in the name of revenge?” Emma asked, one hand against her cheek in an expression of faux shock.

  “Fair point,” Pao said. “But still, I’m easing into it. It’s hard to be happy when . . .” She trailed off, thinking of Dante.

  “We’ll get him back,” Emma said bracingly, stopping at the end of the road. “And your parents? Your . . . unique heritage? We’ll figure all that out, too, okay?”

  Pao smiled and gave Emma a one-armed hug. “Thanks for always knowing what to say.”

  “What are best friends for?”

  They did their secret handshake for good measure before going their separate ways.

  Pao didn’t know what the future would bring. There was Dante, and her complicated legacy of hurt and undead children and possessed fathers to sort through.

  But she had her parents. Plural. For the first time in ten years. And Bruto, her adorable void baby who almost made being part ghost or whatever worth it all on his own. She had the Niños—no matter how annoying Franco was. Finally, she had Emma, who always knew what to say. Who never gave up on her, no matter how unlovable and prickly Pao was.

  Whatever came next, they would do it together. All of them.

  It was enough for now, Pao thought as she walked into the setting sun. And wasn’t that the best you could really hope for?

  TEHLOR KAY MEJIA is an Oregon native in love with the alpine meadows and evergreen forests of her home state, where she lives with her daughter. When she’s not writing, you can find her plucking at her guitar, stealing rosemary sprigs from overgrown gardens, or trying to make the perfect vegan tamale. She is the author of Paola Santiago and the River of Tears, which was selected for the Kirkus Best Books of 2020 Middle Grade list, and the YA fantasy novels We Set the Dark on Fire and We Unleash the Merciless Storm. Follow her on Twitter @tehlorkay.

  RICK RIORDAN, dubbed “storyteller of the gods” by Publishers Weekly, is the author of five New York Times #1 best-selling series, including Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which brings Greek mythology to life for contemporary readers. His most recent novel is Daughter of the Deep, a modern take on Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The goal of Rick Riordan Presents is to publish highly entertaining books by authors from underrepresented cultures and backgrounds, to allow them to tell their own stories inspired by the mythology, folklore, and culture of their heritage. Rick’s Twitter handle is @RickRiordan.

  ★ “With this adventure, Mejia draws upon her heritage to conjure creatures from folklore.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  ★ “This fast-paced journey into folklore . . . is sure to keep readers turning pages into the night.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  ★ “A warm, thrilling Mexican American adventure.”

  —School Library Journal (starred review)

  ★ “A new hero’s fantastic and fantastical debut—her next appearance can’t come soon enough.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “A clever, twisty, imaginative take on the ever-spooky folktale of La Llorona. Filled with love and fear and courage. Readers will delight!”

  —J. C. Cervantes, New York Times best-selling author of The Storm Runner

  “Paola Santiago and the River of Tears has the perfect blend of action, heart, and honesty in showing a painful world that most young readers will already recognize—and provides the perfect amount of hope that they will survive and thrive. Tehlor Kay Mejia’s writing is pure magic.”

  —Kacen Callender, Stonewall Book Award and Lambda Literary Award–winning author of Hurricane Child

  “Paola Santiago is a whip-smart Latina who dares to explore the shadows between folklore and middle-school friendship. A thrilling adventure full of culture, magic, monsters, and a mystical chancla, Mejia offers readers a fresh, modern take on La Llorona while creating a legend of the intrepid Paola.”

  —Nina Moreno, author of Don’t Date Rosa Santos

  “Paola Santiago and the River of Tears is just plain marvelous. Paola is a brilliant, furious girl who often trusts her brain but trips over her heart. This book is a thrilling adventure from start to finish, with a bright core of emotional honesty anchoring it to reality.”

  —Sarah Gailey, Hugo and Locus Award–winning author of River of Teeth

  “Mejia pulls no punches in showing us the monsters—whether fantastic or all too real—that children who live on the border between two cultures face every day. Even better, she gives readers the tremendous gift of a third way, one that shows us science and folklore aren’t enemies but rather allies, and that reason and myth are strongest when they work
together.”

  —Carlos Hernandez, Pura Belpré Award–winning author of Sal and Gabi Break the Universe

  OTHER RICK RIORDAN PRESENTS BOOKS YOU MIGHT ENJOY

  Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi

  The Storm Runner by J. C. Cervantes

  Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee

  Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez

  Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

  Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia

  City of the Plague God by Sarwat Chadda

  The Last Fallen Star by Graci Kim