And somehow she knew he wasn’t talking about the dirt under her nails or the hole in the left knee of her trousers or the tiny pee stain at her crotch, but rather her very own self.
A busted table leg with a jagged end lay beside Mamá’s hand. Maybe she could reach it before he burned her. Looking the monster straight in the eyes, she said, “May I use the outhouse now?”
“If you answer a few questions first, then yes, of course.”
She blinked. She’d expected him to say no. “All right.”
“Let’s start with . . . who is your father?”
The girl pressed her knees together. It was easier to hold it standing up, but she couldn’t last much longer. “Don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Are you my papá?” she asked, peering closer. Mamá had described him as tall and pale, with hair like falling water. And that’s all she’d ever said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said the monster, and the girl felt a relief so huge it almost loosed her bladder.
Then his frozen eyes narrowed. “But it was someone like me, yes?”
The girl said nothing.
“How old are you?”
This part is fuzzy in the girl’s memory. Did she hold up six fingers? Seven?
Whatever it was, she absolutely remembers the monster peering at her strangely and saying, “You have an old soul.”
She glared. “I’m precocious.”
He stepped forward, quick like an asp, into the very air she was breathing. But she did not back away.
The monster said, “Tell me what happened to your anima-lapis.”
The girl had no idea what that meant, though it sounded like the Lengua Classica, which she did not speak and did not care to. She shrugged.
The blow came so fast she barely noted it, except suddenly she was on the floor, blackness edging her vision, wet warmth spilling into her drawers. Pain came next, exploding through her cheekbone and her shoulder where she fell. Though she hadn’t eaten all day, her belly threatened to toss something up. She blinked and blinked, trying to see straight, as her heartbeat pounded like thunder in her face.
A shape materialized on the floor at her nose: a limp hand.
“I’m sorry, Mamá, I’m sorry,” the girl whispered to the hand. “I peed myself.”
The monster grabbed the girl’s braid and yanked her head backward. He crouched beside her, his moist breath hot in her ear. “Tell me where it is,” he whispered.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I don’t know what animal apples is,” she said. “For true.”
“Anima-lapis,” he said, with a tug on her braid. “It would look like this.” He grabbed his amulet and shoved it in her face. The gemstone winked at her from inside its iron cage.
She shook her head, or maybe she just thought she did. Everything was spinning so badly. “I don’t . . . I’ve never . . .”
She’d never seen a sparkle stone until today. Horteño the blacksmith had told her about them. The stones were magical, beautiful, rare. Only animagi were born with them, though she wasn’t sure how a baby could be born with a stone. She’d seen quite a few babies in her short life, and they were messy and soft and loud; not stone-like at all.
He released her braid, and her head clunked against the floor.
Run, she told herself. But her vision was hazy, and her limbs wouldn’t obey. Maybe in a minute or so. She just needed to blink a little, catch her breath.
Before she could collect herself, he flipped her neatly onto her back and yanked up her shirt.
She tried to cover herself, but he batted her hands away and bent over her stomach to examine something there. A light finger traced the edge of her navel. It was almost a caress.
“Hmmm,” the monster said.
The girl squirmed, but he had her pinned.
“Maybe,” he said, softly to himself. “Maybe.”
In a way, it was worse than getting hit, having his soft finger glide across her bare belly. It sent shivers all through her and made bile rise in her throat. She wanted to cover her skin so badly. Wash it. Reclaim it.
“All right, let’s go,” the monster said, gaining his feet and yanking her up with him. “We have a long journey ahead of us.”
She pushed her shirt down as fast as she could, wobbling on her feet. Her pee-soaked pants already chafed the skin of her inner thighs. “Are you going to kill me now?” she asked. She needed a weapon. The meat knife would be perfect, but there was no way she’d find it in all this rubble.
“Not yet,” he said with a shrug. “If we find your lapis, you might be with us for a very, very long time.”
Being with him a very, very long time was probably a very, very bad thing. But it also meant she might live long enough to escape.
She said, “You should look in the cellar. Mamá keeps things there.” She didn’t look him in the eye when she said it, because she was terrible at tricking people, and he’d surely read her intentions on her face.
A long moment passed. If the monster was smart, he’d tie her up and explore the cellar himself, and she couldn’t let that happen.
So she added, “Mamá has a secret place down there. I can show you.”
That decided him. “You go first. I’ll be right behind you.” The sparkle stone dangling at his chest began to glow, and its anger stirred deep in her soul. It made her insides fuzzy and hot. The monster was preparing to use his awful magic.
The girl moved fast, practically throwing herself into the hole. She was still dizzy from the blow to her head, so her foot missed the first rung and she slid halfway down before catching herself with a grip that made the skin of her palms scream. She dropped the rest of the way and landed on her wet bottom.
The cellar felt cool and comforting and familiar, and it gave her strength. As the ladder creaked with the monster’s descent, she launched herself into the dark corner where Mamá kept a shelf for dry goods—nearly empty of food this late in the year, but the skinning knife should still be there.
“Girl, show yourself,” the monster ordered. He had reached the floor of the cellar, but he wasn’t used to the dark like she was.
“Over here,” she said, her fingers closing around the knife handle.
He approached cautiously, the light from his sparkling gem casting a bluish glow against the stone walls. His hair seemed especially white in the magical light, his eyes especially icy.
“Where is the secret place?” he said. He was so tall he had to crouch to avoid the hanging garlic braids.
The girl hadn’t thought beyond getting the knife, the handle of which was already slick in her damp palm, hidden behind her back. She hesitated.
“Girl?”
She couldn’t think what to say or do next.
His amulet brightened. A stream of light burst toward the floor, crashed into a burlap bag. The smell of burned stew filled the air as flames licked at the sack, warming her cheeks.
“You burned the turnips,” she whispered, staring. Magic had been done, for true. Right before her eyes.
“It takes great power to burn turnips,” he said. “They contain so much moisture. Show me the secret place.”
“It’s . . .” The girl got an idea. “It’s here. Behind this. I’m not big enough to move it.”