Perchance to Dream

by Lyssa Chiavari

  Only reached by few

  You will look forward and not back

  A beautiful view

  Beloved by the world

  You both will be

  Embraced by the stars

  Embraced by the sea.”

  Their voices sounded almost like music. Then, just like that, Catalina rolled the paper back up and the sisters rose.

  “But wait, there’s some more,” Lisbeth said, pointing to the paper.

  Catalina placed the paper into a metal box behind her.

  “We hope you have enjoyed your fortune. We are sure you will do great things,” Amana said.

  They were being pushed out of the tent.

  “But what does that mean?” Lisbeth asked.

  “Good night,” Amana said, already ushering in another person, the tent flap closing behind her.

  Lisbeth and Bianca stood in front of the tent for a few minutes.

  “Come on, let’s go to the doll tent. You can use your money to buy one of the dolls,” Bianca said at last.

  “But… but what did that mean?” Lisbeth asked, looking back at the gold tent.

  “It doesn’t matter. They probably tell everyone the same thing. At least they didn’t charge us,” Bianca said as she began walking to the doll tent. Bianca pointed to the dolls, but Lisbeth shook her head, still thinking about their fortune.

  ❦

  Act II

  Lisbeth woke to the sound of murmurs in the kitchen. She could smell the coffee and the soft tortillas Abuela was making. The crack and sizzle of eggs mixed with the faint coughing of her grandfather. They spoke quietly for a few minutes before Lisbeth heard the scrape of the chair on the floor and, a few moments later, the slight creak of the screen door as Abuelo went outside.

  Lisbeth rose and put on her pants and shirt, the front of one of her shoes splitting open as she placed her foot inside. She looked under the bed for the tube of glue and squeezed some on the front of the shoe, holding it closed for a few minutes.

  There was a rap rap rap on her window, and she knew it was Bianca without looking outside. The front of the shoe seemed stuck together pretty well, so Lisbeth shoved her foot inside and ran to the kitchen. Her grandmother handed her two warm tortillas with soft eggs inside and opened the door, and Lisbeth ran out.

  Bianca was waiting near the back fence with a paper bag in her hand. Lisbeth handed her one of the tacos, and they sat on some flat stones to eat them slowly.

  “Your grandma makes the best tacos,” Bianca said, smiling. Lisbeth smiled back. She noticed there were small wrinkles under Bianca’s eyes.

  “Did you sleep okay?” Lisbeth asked her.

  Bianca swallowed the last of her taco and breathed in and out slowly, enjoying every last bit of it. Finally she nodded and handed Lisbeth the paper bag. There was a glass soda bottle inside, filled with canicas. Two large marbles rolled around in the bag.

  “Wow, you filled up the bottle,” Lisbeth said. “That was fast!”

  “Not really,” Bianca replied quietly. “It’s been almost a year.”

  Lisbeth nodded, but said nothing.

  “Do you think about them?” Bianca asked. “The three sisters, I mean. Do you think about them?”

  Lisbeth grabbed the two large marbles and began to move them around in her palm.

  “No,” she answered. Then she looked at Bianca. “Do you?”

  “I’ve been thinking about them, yes. I thought maybe you had, too, because of what they said… about our future.”

  Lisbeth shrugged, the marbles moving slowly around each other in her hand.

  “They’ll be coming back soon,” Bianca said, her eyebrows furrowing.

  Lisbeth nodded.

  “Less than a month now,” Bianca continued.

  “Yes, I suppose they will be,” Lisbeth said. The Día de los Muertos celebrations were less than a month away. The dry heat of the summer had lifted off the dirt streets in September, and her grandfather didn’t come back home so sweaty anymore.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go this time,” Bianca said softly.

  For a few moments, the only sound was the grinding of the two large marbles against each other.

  “Why not?” Lisbeth said.

  “I don’t know. The three sisters, they might be there again. I don’t think… I don’t think we should see them again,” Bianca answered.

  “We don’t have to go to their tent,” Lisbeth said.

  Bianca reached over and grabbed Lisbeth’s wrist. “But they’ll be there,” she said in an urgent voice.

  “It’s okay,” Lisbeth said, pulling her wrist away. “It’s not a big deal. And besides, maybe you’re right, maybe they do tell everyone the same thing. And if they do, then what does it matter? And anyway, they can’t make us go in their tent.”

  “But what if… what if you want to go in to find out what the rest of the prophecy said?” Bianca exhaled.

  “What do you mean?” Lisbeth asked. “The three sisters only give a person one prophecy.”

  “But ours wasn’t finished. You saw, there was more,” Bianca said.

  Lisbeth shook her head and frowned. “No,” she said.

  Bianca’s eyes widened. “Yes, you pointed it out yourself. You even asked them about it.”

  “No, no, I didn’t,” Lisbeth said.

  “Yes, you did.”

  Lisbeth rose. “No, I didn’t. I think I would remember.”

  Bianca stared at her for a few moments. Finally, she said, “Come on, let’s play,” and grabbed a stick, drawing a circle in the dirt. She divided up the marbles, and she and Lisbeth spent one of their last warm afternoons tossing marbles back and forth with their thumbs.

  When the sun set, Bianca gathered her marbles in her soda bottle and placed it in her wrinkled paper bag. As she walked home and turned to wave goodbye to Lisbeth, she could not help but notice the lightness of her bag or the heaviness of her heart.

  ❦

  Act III

  The night was alive with the smell of damp grass and the embers from fires. The freshly baked bread was still soft to the touch, and the light from the tents shone on the almost-bare branches of the trees, casting long, thin shadows on the ground.

  Bianca wore her dark brown dress with the faded yellow flowers and her brown shoes, scratched and scuffed from running all summer. Lisbeth wrapped a knitted gray, black, and white rebozo around her pink lace dress to hide the rips and tears. She reached down and tore off a long strip of lace that had been dragging in the dirt and sighed.

  They were both almost fourteen now. Four years had passed since their fortunes had been told, and there had been no sign of the three sisters since. Neither had stopped searching, although their reasons for doing so were different.

  Bianca could not help but notice that, although time had hardly altered the tall, crooked cemetery, she and Lisbeth had changed far too much to be wearing these dresses. She smiled. “Did your grandma make that dress?” she asked encouragingly, though she already knew the answer. Their grandmothers had made all of their clothes.

  “Yes,” Lisbeth said. “Hace mucho, mucho tiempo,” she added with another sigh.

  “It’s very nice,” Bianca said with a small smile. She lifted up her knitted black pouch and shook it. “I’ve got twenty pesos this time,” she said.

  Lisbeth smiled wide and lifted her white-and-green knitted pouch. “I’ve got twenty-five.”

  “Which tent should we visit first?” Bianca asked.

  She looked around and pointed to a large red tent where a group of small children were gathered. When they moved, she could see flashes of white feathers and gray and white fur. A man came out of the tent and tossed a handful of grains in the air, and the chickens jumped around and pecked at the ground.

  “Let’s go over there! We can feed the chickens and pet the goats!” Bianca said, her voice alive. Her eyes shone as she reached over to grab Lisbeth’s arm.

  “Wait,” Lisbeth said. She turned her head, search
ing each of the tents. Her eyes floated over the sweet breads and candies and sodas, over rag dolls and clay pots and colorful balero toys. It was not there.

  “Didn’t they come every year, before?” Lisbeth asked under her breath.

  The light in Bianca’s eyes dimmed. “The three sisters?” she asked.

  Lisbeth looked down, giving her answer. Her throat felt tight as she pulled the rebozo around her. She opened her pouch and pulled out the coins, moving them around in her palm. Then she looked back up at the tents and nodded. “Let’s go see the goats,” she said, walking forward, her eyes still searching for the beautiful gold tent.

  For one peso they could get a small portion of hay and feed the goats. Bianca felt a small pang of guilt as she paid for two handfuls of hay, because both of their grandfathers had goats and hay. They saw all of these animals every day. But there was something calming about feeding the goats, and she knelt down and let them take the hay from her hands.

  The wind picked up as the night awoke, and soon Bianca was wishing she had brought her own red and orange rebozo from home. They walked from tent to tent, Lisbeth’s eyes looking but not really seeing, searching for the three sisters and for her future.

  When they reached the end of the line of tents, Bianca peeked into her bag. “I only have two pesos left,” she said, trying to cram her wooden doll and her small package of candies inside. She would save the soft caramels to give to her grandparents.

  Lisbeth jiggled her bag. “I have twenty left,” she said, smiling.

  “Do you want to run through the tents really fast and buy some things?” Bianca asked.

  “No, it’s okay. I think I should save it,” Lisbeth said, placing the long pouch over her neck and tucking it under her rebozo.

  “Save it? For what?” Bianca asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lisbeth said. “Maybe one day, we’ll go north, to the United States, and we can buy some things there. Nice things.”

  “North?” Bianca asked. Lisbeth nodded. Bianca was about to say that twenty pesos was only about two American dollars, but she stopped herself. There was no point. Instead, she smiled at Lisbeth as they began to walk toward their families’ graves.

  ❦

  Their grandparents spent most of the night of November First sitting around a small fire and talking softly about their children. They brought beautifully colored flowers—real and paper—to decorate their tombstones. Old black-and-white photographs of small children in chipped oval frames decorated the front of the tombstones. Lisbeth and Bianca knew that when their parents had been teenagers, there had been a few years of dry, harsh weather, when the air was never really clear of the rough dust that floated around, covering crops and asking for water. There were no photographs in those years.

  They sat down silently next to their grandparents. Lisbeth’s grandfather smiled and winked at them, nodding at Bianca’s wooden doll. A good purchase, he thought.

  They sat in silence, remembering.

  Lisbeth felt the soft wind and recalled the rush of lighting cuetes in the new year and to ring in the coming of the Tres Reyes. She was so small, and her mother chased her around with a towel, trying to hit her for lighting the firecrackers. “You’re going to blow your arm right off, and when you do, I’m not going to feel bad for you!” her mother would scream. Her father would laugh, and together they would run away.

  Lisbeth reached into her pouch and pulled out a small brown string attached to a square piece of cloth decorated with the Virgen de San Juan. The string was twisted, and the dark brown color had faded to pink in some areas. She closed her fingers around it as she remembered.

  Bianca could see the pictures her mother used to hold up, the bright red book with black-and-white illustrations, a strong and kind toro that reminded her of her grandfather’s bull. She could smell the paper and feel her heart racing when her mother turned the page. She could remember her father, worried that she was never going to speak, asking her to say anything, anything at all: perro, gato, mamá, papa. She remembered the look on their faces when she finally decided to say toro.

  She reached into her pouch and took out a small brown bear with a red hat. The hat was torn near the spot where it met the bear’s ear, and some of the fur had become knotted. The bear had velcro on its back that opened up to reveal a small box with two buttons: one that recorded sound and the other that played it back. Sometimes, late in the night, Bianca pushed the button to hear her mother reading to her. If she listened close enough, she could hear her father talking softly in the background. She held the bear close to her, trying to smell her mother on its fur. Sometimes, she wondered where her parents were now, and what would happen to her when her grandparents died.

  As if reading her thoughts, her grandmother tapped her on the shoulder, and she opened her eyes. There were two small envelopes on the ground with their names printed in cursive letters. Lisbeth could tell that her grandmother had written them, because the letters looked as if they were shaking as hard as the hands that had brought them to life.

  Lisbeth and Bianca looked at each other. They never gave gifts on this day—only during the Día de Reyes, when they would get a plastic bag with cacahuates and other nuts. A thought occurred to Lisbeth and Bianca at the same time: maybe it was from their parents. A letter?

  Bianca reached for hers, but Lisbeth hesitated. These weren’t from their parents. They couldn’t be. How could they have known what would happen? How could they have seen so far into the future to know to write a letter for their daughters, a letter to be given to each when they were no longer around?

  Lisbeth reached over and grabbed her envelope. Bianca had waited for her and, in silent agreement, they turned them around and opened them slowly, careful not to tear them.

  Lisbeth’s eyes widened as they both pulled out a one-way bus ticket to the United States.

  ❦

  Act IV

  They were to stay with Lisbeth’s aunt Lenna, who was living in the city of Houston in Texas. Lisbeth had only met her once, and she remembered feeling that her aunt was very tired. Lenna had not come back to Mexico very often since she had left, but Lisbeth knew that she sent her grandparents money, and that money was where her Day of the Dead pesos came from.

  It took Bianca a moment to understand what the ticket meant. It was not a visit. Her grandparents would not be coming with her, and it was likely she would not return for some time.

  Bianca had wondered why her grandfather had sold his large bull. She’d thought maybe he was getting too old to take care of so many animals. But a bull could bring in a good amount of money, enough to buy a bus ticket to the United States with a bit extra left in case Bianca needed to buy things for school when they got there. They would have to enroll in high school when they arrived.

  Bianca felt a pang of something in her chest—was it longing? Longing for what? Or fear. Fear of leaving her grandparents alone. And guilt. Why should she get to go and not them? But even as her mind asked the question, it also answered it: they would never move away from here. This was their life.

  She looked over at Lisbeth and saw a similar mixture of feelings in her eyes as well. Lisbeth’s first thought was to decline the tickets, to try to convince her grandparents to get their money back. Not only would they be alone without her, but there was also the fear of living with her aunt, whom she barely knew. Lisbeth was embarrassed. I would be invading her space, she thought. What if she doesn’t want us there?

  But there was something else. She was afraid, most of all, of wanting to go. She had wanted to go all of her life. The possibility of having another life—a better life—was too much of a temptation for her to decline. She gripped the ticket even more tightly in her hand, fearful that a gust of wind would come by and take it—and her future—away.

  Bianca and Lisbeth could hardly remember the rest of the night. Their grandparents hugged them and told them that when they arrived with Lisbeth’s aunt in two weeks, everything would be different. They
ate some of the conchas Lisbeth’s grandmother had made and drank warm coffee. As the night wore on and the wind picked up speed, Lisbeth and Bianca’s thoughts intertwined in a mixture of fear and planning.

  The next few days were a blur. They filled their small bags with clothes and a pair of shoes. Bianca tried to stuff her plush bear in her bag, but it wouldn’t close. She saw Lisbeth put the soft brown necklace over her head and laughed. “You’re lucky that’s so small, you can carry it anywhere,” she said.

  “Just leave it,” Lisbeth said. “We’ll come back, and your grandparents will take care of it.”

  There was a silence. Would they come back?

  Bianca looked into her bag once more, setting her bear aside.

  “Okay, ready,” she said. Except she wasn’t.

  ❦

  As they looked out onto the street where their grandparents were waving goodbye, Bianca cleared her throat to keep from crying. Lisbeth wiped her eyes with her black rebozo and exhaled.

  The bus rumbled through the bumpy dirt roads, and the concrete buildings turned into shrubs and trees, mountains in the distance. Night fell as they neared the border, bringing with it a cold wind. Lisbeth marveled at the long line of cars ready to enter Mexico, and the long line ahead of them ready to exit.

  “Where do you think all these people are going?” she asked Bianca.

  Bianca shrugged. She clutched her bear under her rebozo and wrapped it more tightly around her. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was fearful another passenger would see her with it.

  “Maybe visiting family?” she suggested.

  Lisbeth nodded. “Sometimes people come to work here, too. From all over the world. But I think mostly it’s the other way around.”

  Bianca nodded. She thought it would be a good time to ask something that had been worrying her the whole time they had been on the bus. “So, what’s your aunt like?” She was worried that she might turn out like the women in the fairy tales, the stepmother from La Cenicienta and the like.

  Lisbeth looked over at her and smiled. She knew, and she was a little nervous, too. Bianca had never really met Lisbeth’s aunt Lenna, and the one time Lisbeth had seen her, she was rushing back and forth, bringing things from her car into the house, hurrying to buy things to take back to Houston. She hadn’t stayed long that time, either—less than a week if she remembered correctly.