Ofelia came again. She told me the same story as before, and I knew then that she had done this to me, over and over, that she had used me not to pass on the truth to Solís, but to exonerate herself. I listened; I took her story; it was a crumb compared to Lito’s, but I could still feel it.
Omar was next; he had managed to hold off la pesadilla for a few more days, and in a strange way, I appreciated that he tried.
But then he told me he had cheated on his husband, and while he said it, his eyes went red and glassy. He said he was sorry, that he wouldn’t do it again, that he would try harder this time. I held him, and a thought popped into my mind: He had done this before, too. He would do it again. Was he really sad? Was he performing for me? For his own heart? Did I ever question this before when I took his story? I couldn’t be sure, and the thought enraged me. What was I to these people?
What was I to myself?
The stories piled up, rooting into their hiding places in my gut.
Lani, with her short hair and her disarming smile, told me that she had cheated her assistant out of her earnings by blaming it on Julio’s men.
Lázaro had stolen from Ramona. He did not feel that guilty about it. But his pesadilla had grown too large and he could no longer hide it. It was an enormous lobo with teeth like razors, and it slunk away once Lázaro was done telling me the truth.
When I slept, the stories rose in my mind, bursting into mis sueños like unwanted guests. They reminded me of the betrayal. The guilt. The anger. I awoke frequently in those days, coated in sweat, slick with my own guilt. I pushed it down by telling myself that this was worth it. All I had to do was get the courage to go to Manolito and then … what? How could I convince him to give me the information I needed without revealing what I’d done? I hadn’t considered that, so instead, I stopped going to Manolito’s. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, to face him, because he would know the truth if he saw me.
By the end of the first week, I was convinced everyone knew.
And I had no solution to it. Nothing except … go to Manolito.
But how?
And then Raúl came home late one afternoon, when I had so many stories rumbling inside me that I couldn’t tell which was which, and he was drenched in sweat, out of breath, terrified.
I had been home alone, reading la poema again:
cuando estoy solo
existo para mi
when I am alone
I exist for myself
I was filling myself with the solitude offered by la poema, my eyes tracing patterns over the cracks in the ceiling when Raúl burst inside. I snatched at la poema and hid it. My hand was under my bedroll, clutching la poema tightly, and I was convinced that Raúl had caught me. But he was too panicked to notice the obvious, so when I stood up, he didn’t look down to see the hole in the floor and the missing stone.
“It’s Manolito,” he huffed, and he bent over, his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. “You have to come, Xochitl!”
“Take me there,” I said, and I looked back, quick as I could, and hoped that no one would come home before we did.
He pulled me out the door. “They found something—Julio’s men,” he said. “Something in Manolito’s mercadito.”
Dread ripped my heart down to my feet. No. No. This couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?
I wanted to believe it was, but they all awoke at once inside me, a painful rush of noise and emotion.
They know they know they know
We ran as fast as we could toward the center of la aldea, toward the well that Julio now controlled. The well where the town had once gathered.
Our feet pounded on the dirt, kicking up dust with each step, and we said not a single word to each other. Not just because of our shared terror but also because of the silence that sat around us.
Raúl put his arm out and slowed me as we approached the well. The dark iron pump jutted out of the center of it, and a long shadow stretched toward the east.
Julio and his men stood in that shadow. I stilled and nearly missed Manolito, who was curled up at the foot of the well, most of his body out of sight behind it. His hands were behind his neck and his head.
Julio raised a hand. “Leave him,” he said. Then he brought two fingers up to his mouth and used them to whistle, high and long. By the time he dropped his hands down, his mouth was curved into a devious smile.
“It’s time,” he said, his voice echoing in the clearing. “If you are watching us now, it is safe for you to come out. This display is for everyone.”
The central plaza of our aldea was lined with homes, and I saw Ofelia pull aside the cloth of her doorway across the square from us. She delicately stepped forward, reluctant to commit more than a step. Julio waved at her, almost as if she were a friend, and she allowed herself another step.
I saw others, peeking around corners, hiding in their doorways, and Raúl and I remained where we were. I didn’t want Julio to see me.
It rumbled into the square, a covered wooden cart that wobbled from side to side over uneven dirt, the wood creaking and groaning as it came upon us. I had never seen one as tall as this one, but I had seen the person who clutched the reins.
Emilia.
Her jet-black hair draped over her shoulder like the expensive silk wraps you could buy in Obregán, and it ran down to her lush leather boots. She wore them well; they suited her.
I hated her. I hated that she did everything Julio told her to, that she didn’t protest anything he did. She was a conqueror like him, wasn’t she? She played her part in all of this, and our interaction days earlier had soured her even further in my eyes. But the fact that she did nothing, that she never intervened? That made her unforgivable to me.
She stepped down from the cart and joined her father at his side, a scowl twisting up her sharp mouth as she looked up at him. She seemed to be thriving.
“Empalme has been mine,” Julio announced, and his voice rang out in the square. “And I am done with it. It is time to return it to all of you.”
“What does he mean?” Raúl whispered. “‘Done’?”
I shushed him and watched Julio walk over to Manolito, reach down, hoist him up. “Manolito, you stole something from me.”
I don’t know whose guilt ripped a chasm in me. My stomach dropped, a stone that pulled me toward the ground and compelled me to give up their stories to You.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.
“I didn’t do anything,” croaked Lito, and he wiped something from his mouth. Redness. Blood. “Please, let me go.”
“Will you tell me the truth?”
Lito looked up. Then he looked out at us.
Then he looked at me.
He was broken. His brows shot up.
I shook my head. I had not told his secret to anyone! How did Julio know?
Lito let his breath out. “I don’t know what you mean. Please.”
Julio shook his head. “I want everyone to see that I gave Manolito a chance. You cannot say I am not fair.”
“How is any of this fair?” Raúl whispered.
I ignored mi hermano. My attention was rapt on the terror unfolding.
“Manolito,” Julio said, and then he knelt before him, his hand out, stretching toward Lito’s head, “tell me a story.”