by Laura Resau
Sniffling, she pulled away to look at me. “You would want to marry me?”
I wiped her black-streaked tears away. “Of course.”
Her lips turned up in a sad smile.
A heartbeat later, lightning flashed, illuminating the entire sky.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Behind my lids, I saw the silver glint of Esma’s eyes.
I saw her swirling and flashing and singing.
I saw the head of a lion, wild and fierce.
Then it hit me with a jolt: The Queen of Lightning was too big for the Hill of Dust. She had to fulfill her destiny. And it was up to me to make sure she did. That’s when the deeper truth struck me. Saving her meant losing her. Letting her go. Helping her go.
Yet I wanted to hold her tightly, forever. I dug down to find the strength to do just the opposite.
The sky shuddered with white electricity, and thunder roiled, and I whispered, “But first, Esma, let’s make you a famous singer.”
She breathed out. “Oh, Teo, the man won’t even see me.”
“Nothing is impossible,” I said, taking her cold hands, letting lightning flow through mine into hers.
I looked up and saw Maestra María hovering beside us, face full of sorrow. She dabbed at Esma’s eyes with her hankie, a kind but futile gesture in the rain. “Ready to go home?”
“No,” I said, tugging at Esma’s hands. “Come on.”
“What?” Esma said, resisting. “Why?”
I pulled her, the way she had pulled me back to life.
Down the street, the gate was still open a crack. I pushed it open and led Esma inside.
“We can’t,” she protested. “He said no, Teo.”
“Maybe a part of him wants to come back to the world of the living. And if anyone can bring him back, you can.” I positioned her in front of the open window of Señor Antonio. “Sing, Esma.”
She wrinkled her eyebrows. “I can’t.”
“Sing!” I shouted, tears streaming down my own face now.
Esma drew in a long breath, raised her arms, tilted back her head.
And she sang. Raindrops fell over her eyelids and lips … and she sang. Her voice rang out and the raindrops accompanied her and the lightning danced.
Esma sang and it was glorious. She took all the sorrow and hope and love and longing and missing inside her and transformed it into song, pure and raw and breathtaking, straight from her center, from the center of everything.
She sang and I felt Lucita and Grandfather and Father beside me, and other spirits, too—Señor Antonio’s wife, the maestra’s husband.
Esma sang her own fortune back from the dead.
Silver ribbons swirled around us in the rain. I felt them inside my chest, saw them from the corner of my eye.
A face appeared at the window above, a man’s face, rapt with wonder.
The sisters ran outside, into the rain, and huddled there, listening, tears trickling down their cheeks with rainwater.
After Esma’s song ended, there was silence. The pitter-patter of rain, the chirp of a bird.
Dolores’s eyes were closed and a smile was spread over her face and she said, “I feel Mamá, right here with us.”
“Esma!” Margarita cried. “Your song brought our mother here.”
Moments later, Antonio appeared at the door to the courtyard, weak but joyful. Carmen took his arm, led him to a chair, wiping it off with her hankie before settling him into it.
“Please, señorita,” he said hoarsely, “please sing another.”
The afternoon passed, and the rain stopped as dusk came. The girls insisted on fetching my animals and feeding them kitchen scraps. They cuddled with Spark and giggled at Flash dashing around the courtyard.
Again, the sisters invited us inside. This time we accepted. The maid served a warm, filling dinner of chicken mole, rich with chocolate and chile, and as we thanked her, she said, “No, thank you. You’ve brought life back into this home.”
After dinner there was more music. The sisters played instruments expertly—piano and violin—and were delighted to see that Esma, too, played violin. They offered us soft beds and even set up crates piled with rags for my animals.
The next morning, over a breakfast of huevos estrellados and pan dulce and cinnamon coffee, Antonio announced, “Esma, I would be honored to manage your career. My daughters would like to offer you a place to stay, here with us, as our guest, for as long as—”
“You can share my room!” Margarita interrupted, unable to contain her excitement.
Antonio smiled indulgently. “I can begin setting up shows for you this week, Esma. You would not only be my client, but a member of the family. Do you accept, my dear?”
Esma looked around the table, at these girls who treated her like the queen she was, and at the same time, like a sister. Then she looked at the maestra, who gave her a smile and a little nod. Finally, she looked at me, sitting beside her.
I wanted to pull her in again, hold her tightly, be with her every moment of forever.
Instead, I tapped her head. Tugged her braid. “Go make your fortune, squash head.”
Beaming, she turned to Antonio, and said, “Yes!”
And just like that, Esma’s destiny unfurled like a brand-new leaf; like a royal red carpet; like a ribbon, silver and strong and flying on the breeze.
Later that morning, Esma came to the maestra’s car to see us off.
She gave the maestra a long hug good-bye. “Thank you for everything.”
“Thank you, my dear girl,” the maestra said, kissing both cheeks. “You were the spark that set off everything.”
With a sad smile, Esma buried her face in the fur and feathers of my animals. “Take care of Teo,” she told them.
The maestra took the animals and started settling them in the car, leaving Esma and me alone to say good-bye.
Esma threw her arms around me. Chin wedged onto my shoulder, she whispered, “Thank you for wanting to marry me.” She held me tighter still. Her necklaces and beads pressed against my chest; her scarf brushed my cheek. “Maybe someday,” she said. “Who knows. We have our whole, long lives ahead of us.”
I took her hand. I never wanted to let go. “One day I’ll save you, Esma.”
“You already have.” Her gaze swam over my face, so close to hers. “I thought I’d never need anyone to rescue me. But all along, I needed you, Teo. You’ve saved me … just by being my friend.”
Her silver eyes locked with mine. She touched my cheek, lightly, her fingertips leaving a trail of sparks. Slipping her other hand from mine, she removed a coin necklace and held it up for a moment so it flashed sunshine. Then she pooled the shimmering strands into my palm and covered them with her other hand. Pressed together, our hands were alive with sparks and tingles and crackles of lightning.
I breathed, “Good-bye, my queen.”
“Good-bye, my friend for life.”
Our lips touched like two bird wings brushing against each other for the tiniest moment, then flying apart on their own separate journeys.
And then, I was in the car and waving and Esma was growing smaller out the window, and we turned a corner and she was gone.
My animals settled at my feet and I felt their warmth, their tiny movements of pulse and breath. A dam blocked my throat and a tightness squeezed my chest.
I didn’t talk on the way back to the Hill of Dust.
But the maestra did. The whole way, she murmured the sweetest, softest words in Mixteco, words from Grandfather that floated here and there like feathers.
And as the mountains spread around us like our past, present, and future, I dangled the coin necklace in front of it all and saw Esma in every glitter of sunlight.
Grandpa Teo’s far-off gaze focuses back on me, onto the necklace in my open palm. The old coins are still zinging in my hand, sparks shooting out.
I rub my eyes and stretch my arms and stamp my numb feet. It’s that feeling you get at the end of a mov
ie, when the credits start rolling and you take off your 3-D glasses and blink, totally shocked to return to the regular world. Only this movie hasn’t finished yet, not really. Grandpa said it was up to me to make the ending. But how?
I raise the necklace in front of me. Like a ghost of Esma, it’s dancing and swirling in the air, even though there’s no breeze in the healing hut.
I let it fall back into my hand. My voice creaks out, rusty. “Ever see her again, Grandpa?”
He reaches into a small pine box behind the altar and pulls out a yellowed envelope and a postcard with wavy, worn edges. I take a closer look. They’re addressed to him on the Hill of Dust, in fancy, old-fashioned handwriting.
“We wrote to each other for five years,” he says with a sigh. “Esma was performing for big, adoring crowds. I was so proud of her.”
“Really?” I’m actually on the edge of my seat. “Then what?”
“Well,” he says, “at that time I was studying in high school, then interning at a hospital.”
“The one where you met Grandma?”
He nods. Very carefully, as if handling a baby animal, he takes out the letter and unfolds it. “Here, mijo, read it.”
“Um, okay.” I hold the crinkly paper to the candlelight and read slowly, since it’s in Spanish and written in superflowery lettering that’s hard to make out.
Dearest friend for life,
I am in America now! Oh, how I love it here! I make enough money to live in a nice little house, and I even have a car—the same color as the maestra’s! The only thing missing from my life is you, Teo. Please come live with me … will you?
Love,
Esma
I swallow hard, flushing, like when a romantic scene sneaks into a “family” movie I’m watching with my parents. This is a love letter. I mean, Esma’s practically asking Grandpa to marry her. I fold up the paper, hand it back to him. Awkwardly, I ask, “You were already in love with Grandma by then, right?”
He nods. “For days I could barely eat or sleep. I didn’t know what to do. And then a sick little boy came to be healed. So sick he was nearly dead. I stayed up all night, tended to him for days with teas and herbs. And he recovered. That’s how I knew, Mateo. I belonged on the Hill of Dust. I was the head of a mouse here. If I hadn’t been here, the boy would have died. I asked myself, How many animals and people would suffer if I left? Yet I couldn’t ask Esma to come here. She was already the head of a lion in America.” He sighs. “And then there was your grandmother. I loved her, and she was happy to live on the Hill of Dust with me. That day, I wrote Esma the hardest letter of my life.”
He gets quiet, so I nudge him. “And what did she say, Grandpa?”
He takes the postcard from the altar and hands it to me. There’s a photo of the New York City skyline of long ago, black and gray and cream.
On the back, there’s one handwritten line.
I suppose some things are impossible after all.
My insides sink. What a gigantically massive bummer. I stare at the postcard, imagining how crushed Grandpa must have been, imagining how this letter cut their bond of friendship with a single snip. And I don’t know much about girls, but it doesn’t take a genius to see why Grandma didn’t like hearing stories about some miraculous, beautiful Gypsy girl who was in love with Grandpa. No wonder my grandparents never talked about her before.
I remember the impossible fortune the Mistress of Destiny gave to Grandpa, something like this: You and Esma are on the path to being friends for life. If you fulfill this destiny, you will save each other when no one else can.
A wave of sadness rushes over me. A feeling that the fortune is supposed to come true. A feeling that something is wrong, very wrong.
“Grandpa,” I say. “You said you needed my help.”
He looks at me closely in the darting candlelight. “Will you look for her?”
The necklace jolts and leaps in my hand. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Gracias.” He tilts his head, smiles. “It won’t be easy, but if anyone can help me, you can, Mateo.”
I have a zillion questions, but I’m growing more desperate for food and a bathroom by the second. I settle on, “Why now, Grandpa?”
“Lately I’ve been hearing Esma’s voice … in crackles of lightning, rumbles and booms of thunder, gusts of wind, bursts of rain. She needs me, Mateo. Now.”
And in the pocket of silence that follows, I swear I hear a whisper in the rain drumming outside.
“You know,” Grandpa continues, “a few months ago I spoke with your grandma’s spirit. She offered me her blessing to find Esma. So I gave your cousins her name and had them search online. They found nothing.” Suddenly, Grandpa looks vulnerable, like a lost little boy. “Mateo, don’t feel bad if you can’t find her either.”
I hold up the coin necklace to the light, watch it swing back and forth, imagine the Romani girl’s eyes flashing, the lightning zipping through her veins, and her words: Nothing is impossible!
The coins buzz with electricity. Something zaps through my fingers and pumps through my blood. Esma’s words echo in my head. Give yourself a fortune and make it come true.
“Grandpa, I’m gonna find her for you.” I stand up, the force knocking my chair backward. In a voice that seems to come from outside me, or maybe from some hidden place inside me, I say, “Nothing is impossible!”
A knock at the door. Mom peeks her head inside. “Mateo? Papá? You guys have been in here for hours! Aren’t you hungry?”
“Starving,” I admit. So starving it overpowers my urge to take out my cell phone and start searching for Esma. But just barely.
Grandpa stands up. “Let’s eat,” he says, leaving the letter and postcard on the altar and resting his hand on my back. On the way out, he rests his other arm around Mom, his oldest daughter.
Outside, I’m startled to see it’s already nighttime. I jog through the silver drizzle, across the patch of mud to the bathroom. Sweet relief. After that detour, I head to the kitchen hut, stomach growling. Bits of wet straw poke out from the adobe walls and the thatched roof. The door’s open, welcoming, revealing an orange hearth fire in the corner and a little wooden table surrounded by los viejitos. The old people. That’s what we call all the great-great-uncles and great-great-aunts who still live here in the village. I can’t even keep track of how many greats there are.
Most of the younger relatives live in Mexico City or Chicago now, except for us in Maryland. Sometimes, my cousins come to the Hill of Dust on the weekends, and it’s cool having kids my age to hang out with. But secretly, I like los viejitos the best. And now, after hearing Grandpa Teo’s story, I see them in a new light. They weren’t always ancient and shriveled and wise.
Grandpa and Mom and I squeeze in beside them, and his latest rescued animal—a deaf baby fox—curls at our feet. It’s supercozy in here, with that fairy-tale feeling, and rain pitter-pattering the roof and chamomile tea bubbling on orange wood coals. We dig into the heap of pink-sugared sweet rolls and sip warm atole.
Everything is exactly how it’s been every summer of my life, the same faces around the table, growing more wrinkled by the year. For the past two years, though, Grandma’s face has been missing. Sadness gets me right in the chest, like a hole’s ripped through it. I think back to her funeral, so many crying, sniffling people packed into the cathedral. Even Dad was here on that trip, comforting Mom and me.
I glance at los viejitos, glad that Grandpa wasn’t left alone here on the Hill of Dust. Uncle Paco, who’s technically my great-great-uncle, is shining a black shoe in his lap with a rag, and the smell of polish mixes with the wood smoke. I try to imagine him as some arrogant jerk hurling insults and stealing, and later, sniveling with shame. But I only see the gentle, funny, smart man who has offered to shine up my sneakers and flip-flops every evening of every summer I’ve spent here.
The Maestra—my great-grandmother—leans over and kisses my cheek, leaving a cloud of old-lady perfume. I can’t help wonder
ing if it’s the same stuff she wore decades earlier. “You’re getting so handsome, Mateo. Your eyelashes are just like your grandpa’s when he was young, you know. Oh, the girls better watch out for you!”
I shrug and smile weakly, because what are you supposed to say to that? I have yet to see any girls stricken by my lashes.
The Maestra clasps her hands together in delight, then leans in to kiss my other cheek. Until today, I never knew why everyone calls her the Maestra; I just went along with it since I was little. When the Maestra’s not looking, I wipe her lipstick from my cheeks.
I mentally erase her sags and wrinkles and age spots, and picture her as a stunning and stylish young woman. Who knows, maybe she still could be if she laid off the makeup a little. She always wears fancy dresses and heels and a perfect bun in her hair and sits up really straight. As usual, she’s holding a book now, her manicured fingers smoothing the pages. Poetry, probably. She’s the only one who speaks perfect Spanish besides Grandpa, and she’s always trying to get me to read Spanish poetry with her, which I secretly don’t mind so much.
My other great-grandmother, who I’ve always called la Otra Abuela—the Other Grandmother—hardly speaks at all, and when she does, it’s in a soft mix of Mixteco and Spanish. Right now she’s poking around in the cardboard box on her lap. I always figured it was like her security blanket or stuffed animal or something. I never guessed it was connected to the death of her daughter, ages ago. I just get excited that on every trip, she lets me choose a shiny old treasure as a present. Over the years, I’ve picked out a mirror, a knife, a picture frame … and this year, there are only two things left—a candlestick and a silver hairbrush.
“Choose something, Mateo,” she whispers, softer than the crackle of the fire. Her voice sounds creaky and out of practice.
I take the candlestick, wondering what I’ll do with it. I feel kind of bad; I mean, now the Other Grandmother only has that hairbrush to look at all day. “Thanks,” I say, really looking at her for the first time, at all the sorrows behind the curtain of her eyes. “What’ll you do when the hairbrush is gone?”
