A week.
Two weeks.
He knocked it off the shelf yesterday morning, and it tumbled to the ground, tearing open as it did so, and they spilled all over the floor: tiny glass vials that shimmered in the low light. Manolito panicked. He wasn’t supposed to read any of los mensajes; he never opened anyone’s packages. But it was so tempting, Solís. Manolito had never seen anything like this before, and curiosity burned in his mind. What were these for? Why did Julio need them?
He left el mercadito that night and headed straight for the one person who would know more about this than anyone else: Marisol, la Reina del Chisme, as she was known in Empalme. Manolito dashed to her home, descended down steps carved into the earth, but she turned him away almost immediately. “I do not cross Julio,” she said, setting aside her stitching. “No matter what you are paying.”
“But I just wanted to show you—”
“No digas ni una palabra más,” she said. “I don’t even want to know.”
“I’ll do anything,” he begged. “I can—”
She pointed to the door.
He returned to el mercadito, returned the box to the counter, and was no closer to understanding what was going to happen in Empalme. He picked up the vials that had rolled over the floor. It was just there, sticking out of the box, and Manolito picked it up, unfolded it, and began to read el mensaje addressed to Julio.
He shouldn’t have read it, Solís.
He folded it back up, stuffed it in the crate, and tried to reassemble the container as best as he could. It was hopeless, too broken ever to reconstruct. He hoisted it up off the counter, walked it out of el mercadito, and marched straight out into the desert. He didn’t stop until he was sure he wouldn’t be seen. Then he set a single lit match to an edge of the wood, then another, then another, and it caught fire, a thick smoke rising into air, and he panicked. He would be seen. He would be caught. So Lito rushed back home, to the tiny room underneath el mercadito, and he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Manolito begs for Your forgiveness, and he hopes that his truth absolves us of Your wrath. He was weak, he knows it, and he will never betray You again.
He shouldn’t have read it.
But he did.
And he can’t do anything about it.
The letter was wrinkled around the edges, the script hasty and messy, as if someone had written it under duress. They wrote to Julio of their success, of the delivery they were taking south, under the light of las estrellas, away from the gaze of You. They were determined to avoid suspicion, and they would be in Empalme in a few days.
Then, the person wrote, the bloodletting would begin.
La aldea would be controlled.
And the letter writer had included one last touch of devotion in the end.
The final line read, “My beloved cuentista, Julio, I long to make you proud. You will not be disappointed.”
They were coming for us.
“Lo siento,” Lito rasped, and sweat dripped down his temples. “You cannot tell anyone.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think straight. Lito’s terror thrust into every open space of my body, and panic rolled behind it. These emotions rushed through my body and nearly overwhelmed me. I held back a scream, pushed the story down.
I heard something rustling behind me. My head spun around, and Lito’s pesadilla was there. It closed those bright red eyes, and then it shrank before me, until it was nothing but the shadow behind a shelf.
The vials.
They were gone, just like Lito’s pesadilla.
But something is coming for us.
I turned back to Lito, and his shoulders were pushed back, his head held up higher, and relief radiated from his body.
He had given his burden to me.
He was free.
Soy libre, I thought.
“You have to give it up soon,” he urged me, wiping at his damp forehead. “No one can know. I’ll try to stop him, but … but I don’t know what to do. And I’m afraid he’ll find out.”
I clutched at my chest, Lito’s terror and my own becoming one. No. No. What did this mean? Why did Julio want our blood? What was he going to do to us?
I wanted to ask Lito more, to tell me what else he knew, but he helped me up and was gently guiding me to the door.
He was free.
I couldn’t get the words out. I couldn’t say anything. His fear was overwhelming, and if I didn’t get it out of me … I didn’t know what would happen. Would it overpower me? Would I become unable to do anything but give in to the fright? Would I fail Empalme, too, like Lito already had?
This was my burden. My duty. I would give up this story … and then I would forget. I would forget our own destruction.
“Gracias, Xochitl,” Lito said, and when our eyes locked, I saw pity in his own. “I know this can’t be easy, but I feel so much better.” He smiled. “I don’t know what we would do without you.”
The door closed in my face. The fear ate at me.
I walked out into the desert. I didn’t know what else to do.
When You leave our world, there is a sound to the sunset, too, and I dropped down to the earth as You dropped behind the horizon to the west. I had not journeyed far out into the desert, as I usually did to complete the ritual.
I became still as I remained hunched over there, and that’s when the desert woke up. Las lagartijas, las serpientes, los ratones, los conejos: all of them emerge from their hiding spots, and the ground comes alive with their footsteps, with each rustle of feathers or fur. A rattlesnake slithered from behind a saguaro to my left, regarded me, and did not perceive me as a threat. I was motionless. I became a part of the ground, of the sky, of everything around me.
I could feel Manolito’s story within me, swirling deep in my gut, and his fear flowed up into my throat, a flood of emotions that were not mine, but which I still recognized.
There are no emotions I do not empathize with anymore. For a cuentista, there is nothing new under You, Solís. Empalme has been giving me stories since I was a child, and then I return those stories to the desert, to You.
I have felt it all:
Regret. Anger. Distress. Sadness. Hatred. Envy. Disappointment.
I may forget the details, but I know that those in Empalme have felt every emotion imaginable. I knew what mi gente suffered with in their lives. At least, I thought I did.
Except—Julio and his men.
They had been a mystery to me, and not only because I did not know where they had come from. Probably from another aldea, some other place they stole from and exploited. They had refused our rituals and our guidance, and they didn’t care if we were worried that You would return and scorch it all out of existence again. We were superstitious and silly to them, and that’s why Julio had said we deserved to be conquered. “You are all like this,” he slurred to Papá one morning during that first week he arrived; it was also the last day that we relied on our weekly portion from the well. “The last aldea I controlled, they were just as weak as you. Waiting for Solís to save them.” He brushed his hand across the face of mi papá. “Their god didn’t show when I slaughtered them all.”
Was he telling the truth? Why did he choose us? Was this a test, Solís? Did You want to see what we would do?