I perch on the tub’s porcelain ledge, waiting for the shower to warm up. I’m still chilly from Ma’s warning about ICE sweeps—US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The white noise is soothing, and after a while, I let my eyelids droop as the sound of the running faucet fills my head.
My mind drifts back to my dreamscape. Usually after being awake a few hours, that world sinks away. But today, I’ve felt a pull to get back there all morning, as if I left something behind in my subconscious that I need to retrieve.
I shut my eyes—
Daytime has dimmed to dusk.
I’m racing through a field of wild grass in the same golden dress I always wear in my dreams, flexible but formfitting with a pocket for stashing small weapons. The Citadel looms on the horizon, its black stone as impenetrable as outer space.
The scent of jasmine infects the air, a warning note that night is nearly here. And it’s hungry for me.
Shadows stretch across the landscape, veiling the foliage in silver, and I’m sprinting so fast, I stop feeling the ground. The moonlike opal doorknob grows larger, but something flickers in the fringe of my vision, and I stumble.
A puff of red smoke rises from beyond the black wall.
It looks just like the smoke I saw in the stairwell. Did I drag the memory here, or are pieces of my dreamworld now invading my reality?
A flash of green snaps me back to action. The Citadel’s spiky veins of ivy uncoil, baring thorns as sharp as shark teeth. They rear up to strike, and I hunch my shoulders to pounce—
But I edge away, feinting left. The armored tentacles mirror my movements, and as soon as the doorknob is unprotected, I leap up, jabbing my hand out—
And my fingers brush against cool, smooth stone.
I gasp, and my eyes fly open.
I’m back in the steamy bathroom, the dream replaced with the realization I just dredged up to my mind’s surface.
Last night, I touched the Citadel for the first time.
4
When I step out of the shower, the mirror is completely fogged. I wrap a towel around myself, and I brush my thick hair as gently as I can, so I won’t keep losing hairbrush bristles.
A mosquito buzzes onto the glass, and I squash it dead with my palm. The reflex is so immediate that it only registers when the sting reverberates up my arm. I drop my hand into the sink to rinse off the dead bug, and when I look up, there’s a clear spot amid the condensation, leaving everything blurry but my eyes.
Unbidden, the memory unfurls …
I’m eleven, and it’s my first time at a birthday party. I met Ariana at the local playground, and she doesn’t mind that I always wear sunglasses—in fact, she even asks her parents for her own pair because she thinks I look cool.
Ma tells Ariana’s mom I have something called photophobia so I can’t take my glasses off. When I get to her house, I’ve never seen so many kids my age in one place. It’s instantly the best day of my life—until it becomes the worst.
A blond boy Ariana has a crush on thinks it would be funny to toss me into the pool even though I can’t swim. I scream as his arms wrap around me, and Ariana’s mom runs over to tell him to put me down. The boy shoves me so hard that I fall to the floor, and my sunglasses slide to my chin.
It feels like the whole world stops.
Ariana’s mom is the only person close enough to see my eyes, and I watch as her outrage at the boy rearranges into shock at me—which is quickly followed by revulsion, and the inevitable question:
“What. Are. You?”
I shake the memory loose from my thoughts as I change into shorts and a tank top, then I meet Ma in Perla’s plant-riddled living room. The mingled aroma of eggs and bacon still permeates the apartment, so I throw open a window, ushering in hot air that’s webbed with conversation—songbirds’ shrill cries, buses’ boisterous bellows, construction’s discordant crashes.
I join Ma on the worn turquoise couch, which despite its fraying fabric still manages to be the loudest part of the room. The high velvet seatback is rippled like a seashell, and it’s tall enough to cushion our heads. When I was ten, it inspired me to spin a fairy tale about Perla—the first story I ever wrote. She keeps it framed on her nightstand.
“Perla has one of her migraines, so I put her back to bed,” says Ma as she doles out seven cards for each of us—plus an extra one for me, since I’m up first—and sets the rest facedown on the cushion separating us. Next to the stack is a notepad with two columns: M for Manu (me) and S for Soledad (Ma).
The game begins when I discard my spare, so I get rid of my heaviest card—the king of clubs—and am left with seven. Ma picks up a new card from the facedown stack and drops the jack of hearts. To win a round, we have to fit all seven cards into two groupings that can be a set of at least three cards of the same number and/or a sequential run of at least three cards of the same suit. Any leftover cards in your hand count as points against you.
“She says you should finish reading Cien Años de Soledad and be prepared for a quiz when she wakes up,” Ma goes on as I pick a card from the stack. It’s the seven of diamonds, so I slip it between the pair of sevens I’m already holding—one grouping down—and drop the nine of spades. The only seven I’m missing now is clubs.
“¿Te gusta Márquez?” she asks as she picks up a new card, and I nod in assent. I’ve been trying to read Gabriel García Márquez’s masterpiece as slowly as possible so I can relish the writing, but it’s so good that I’m already two-thirds of the way through.
Ma discards the eight of spades, and I groan; I should have held on to that nine. But my mood improves when I see my new card—ace of hearts. I already have the two and three of hearts, so with the ace, that’s my second sequence.
Now I just need the four of hearts or the seven of clubs if I want to end the round with a perfect score.
“Does that mean Márquez has the honor of going on your favorites shelf next to Austen and Wharton and Dickens?” Ma prods as she shuffles her cards around like she’s also just completed a grouping. “Or are we talking top shelf, next to your sainted Harry Potter? I realize the Buendías are no Weasels—”
“Weasleys—”
“But it wouldn’t kill you to read more Spanish books.”
I roll my eyes, but my gut tightens at her taunting. My love for the Weasleys has nothing to do with nationality or language. I love them because they’re the family I long to have, and the Burrow is the home I crave. Only I can’t admit this stuff to Ma because she’s given up everything for us, and I don’t want her to think all she’s sacrificed isn’t enough for me.
That she isn’t enough for me.
“Are you going to keep ignoring me?” Ma demands.
“No, but if you’re going to make fun of something, you should know what it is. Maybe if you tried reading Harry—”
“Name one Latino character, and I’ll read it.”
I’m too weighted down with other worries to play two games at once, so I pull another card from the stack, hoping it’s the four or seven I need …
Queen of diamonds.
Damn.
“¿Qué te pasa?” Ma doesn’t take her turn until I lift my eyes and meet her excavating gaze.