Paola Santiago and the River of Tears

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  She thought of Franco’s metaphor about the soldiers and the general.

  If Pao’s mom had gotten it wrong, and La Llorona wasn’t the scariest thing this area had to offer, what was? Who was the rift’s commander? And what did he want with all these kids?

  Try as she might to keep the thought out of her head, Pao couldn’t help but see herself as one of the ahogados, as she’d been in her dream. Her own eyes glowing green, her white hair proof that everything human had been drained from her. She’d had one single thing on her mind: to grab hold of Dante and drag him into the water.

  If only the dream had revealed whose orders she’d felt so compelled to carry out.

  Beside her, Marisa appeared relaxed, her shoulders straight, weapon in hand. Her eyes—unlike everyone else’s—were closed, as if she didn’t need vision to know the spirits were coming. Pao remembered watching Marisa put the burning ember into her mouth. Marisa had said she was tying herself to the light, taking in the memories of past leaders, but what if she’d done more than make herself immortal that night? What if she’d inherited some superpowers, and she really didn’t need her eyes to know what was happening to her Niños?

  Pao wanted to ask about it, of course, but on the other hand, she didn’t want to disturb what might be the last moments of peace Marisa got before the battle. The last moments any of them got.

  The horn blew again, and Pao nearly jumped out of her skin. It was just one blast this time, long and mournful. Pao looked at Marisa, though a sinking feeling in her stomach told her that this sound didn’t mean anything good.

  “Someone’s been taken,” Marisa said without opening her eyes. “One of ours.”

  Dante’s not one of yours, Pao thought, tears already stinging the backs of her eyes. He’s mine. And he’s coming back. He promised.

  But she knew that was just wishful thinking. Dante was as much a Niño as Pao wasn’t. They would blow the horn for him. And he would deserve the honor.

  If time had been slow before, it seemed to have stopped now. Pao couldn’t feel the campfire burning at her back anymore. Everything inside her was frozen. She tightened her grip on her knife. If one of those soulless things had taken Dante, she wouldn’t rest until she had killed them all.

  When three short, sharp blasts sounded, Pao didn’t have to ask what they meant. It was evident in the shifting stances of the Niños around her. In the way Marisa opened her eyes at last, scanning the field in front of them like a well-trained warrior.

  “They’re coming,” Pao said.

  It wasn’t a question.

  No one corrected her.

  She tried to remember everything she had learned in the pit that morning. Offense and defense, and weak points, and all the rest of it. But the only things in her head were the sound of that long, funereal horn blast and the vision of herself as a monster, dragging Dante toward the water.

  Would the ahogados take her, too? Or would she be spared again?

  And which was worse? If Dante had been taken, did she want to be spared?

  “Up ahead!” shouted Marisa, and Pao snapped back to the present, shifting her gaze to where the leader was pointing. Through the mist—which had only grown thicker over the past hour—several silhouettes could be seen moving quickly toward them.

  Were they ahogados? Or was it Dante and Naomi’s group fleeing back to safety?

  Marisa gave her the answer. “Defend the fire,” she said in a low voice. “They will try to douse it.”

  Pao met her eyes and nodded once. The Manos had exploded when they met the flames. The creatures of the watery rift obviously couldn’t withstand the heat. It was an advantage, and they had few enough of those.

  There was no space in the air between Pao and Marisa for words of comfort. The horn was blowing frantically, the code long forgotten. These sounds meant panic and danger, and Pao was afraid, but the reason for her fear wasn’t the same as everyone else’s.

  Her fear was that she was safe, and everyone else around her was in danger, and it was too late for her to tell them.

  She had never felt so alone.

  “They’re almost here,” Marisa said, and Pao could see the ahogados now. Their eyes and the auras around them glowed green through the haze. Green like the mist that had chased her out of Dante’s apartment. Green like Pao’s nightmares.

  She scanned the shapes coming closer, hoping to recognize Dante’s form among them, but so far it was only ghosts. Middle school–size kids with green eyes and white hair moving with the feral grace of animals. Of predators.

  Marisa charged forward, her water knife cutting through them and taking chunks of their bodies with it. Like frozen smoke, their parts shattered in the air. Yet the ahogados fought on, limbless, half-headless, and still terrifying.

  Pale lips curled back over teeth that were gapped, or crooked, or covered by metal braces. Pao didn’t recognize any of the kids’ faces, yet they were still familiar. They were children, like her, but with a horrible toxic glow where the light in their eyes should have been.

  How many generations of drowned children were here today? Pao wondered as they swarmed. There were twenty of them—fifty, maybe more. With all the swirling and the shattering, Pao couldn’t keep track long enough to count them.

  Instead she looked for Dante, for the firelight glinting off his club, or for Emma, her Arizona tan gone pale, her glittering purple nails reaching for ankles or wrists or throats.

  She didn’t see either of them, and terror started to choke her. She stood paralyzed in the middle of the chaos, everyone around her screaming and fighting as Naomi’s group caught up and the combat around the fire began in earnest.

  Where is Dante? Pao’s thoughts screamed. Her whole body screamed it. Where is Dante?

  A ghost girl got too close, and Pao reacted instinctively, stabbing with her knife, watching the shock and anger on the monster’s face as her wrist shattered, her pale hand left dangling by only a thin strip of skin.

  Is it skin? Pao wondered almost hysterically, but this was no time to question the biological makeup of ghosts. Another one was coming at her—a boy, taller than Pao and broader in the shoulders.

  This time, her knife was too slow. He got ahold of her arm, and the shock of his touch caused her to drop the dagger. She pulled with all her strength, twisting and writhing in his grip, an unnatural cold burning into her skin until she couldn’t tell heat from ice and she felt dizzy.

  “Help me!” she tried to scream, but her vocal cords were frozen, too.

  The boy started to drag her away from the fire, and though she fought as hard as she could, Pao was no match for his supernatural strength.

  Just give in, said a voice in her head. Was it her subconscious?

  Let them take you. There’s a place for you here…. The Source takes care of its own….

  “No,” Pao managed to squeak. Her voice was weak and feeble, and she was oh so tired.

  Just when the phantom was about to pull Pao outside the protective circle of firelight, Naomi slammed into him, her staff glinting in the haze as she took chunks off his body. At last, he collapsed in a heap.

  “You okay?” she asked Pao.

  “Dante…” Pao said through frozen lips. “Is Dante…?”

  The defeated look on Naomi’s face was all the answer Pao needed.

  Behind them, someone screamed, and Naomi was already moving toward the commotion. She paused to put a hand on Pao’s shoulder. “Get back to the fire, and don’t stand still,” Naomi said, and then she was gone.

  Pao tried to stay focused and alert, but all she could think of was Dante. Dante being dragged away, the horn blowing long and low for him. Dante taken to wherever Emma had gone.

  Gone. Gone. Gone.

  That’s when the second ghost grabbed her. A girl this time, and she was faster than the last. Her arms locked around Pao’s middle as she dragged her away from the warmth of the flames.

  Any minute now, Pao thought. Any minute the voice would com
e to her rescue, tell the ahogada to let her go. But instead, another specter joined in, clutching Pao’s legs and pulling her hard to the ground, knocking the breath from her lungs.

  A third one came then, sneering and slit-eyed, putting his clammy hands around Pao’s throat. Where was that stupid voice? Where was Ondina? Wasn’t Pao monster enough to be spared?

  Like the faint smell of smoke, doubt wafted into her head. What if she was wrong? What if no one was going to save her this time?

  Her knife was long gone, but the shopping bag was still on Pao’s shoulder. It was all she had.

  Around her, everyone was engaged in battle. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Marisa swinging her water knife with abandon, and Naomi was letting loose a war cry somewhere nearby. There was no one to save her on either side. She was alone, and losing ground.

  With her one free hand, Pao dug into the bag and pulled out the flashlight. She wasn’t even sure what she planned to do with it—she just felt better holding it than being unarmed. Perhaps she could hit one of the ahogados in the head with it. Or shine the light in their eyes. Maybe, if she was lucky, they would be stunned enough to let her go.

  But when she clicked the on button, something else happened:

  Warmth returned to her body, too fast, like she had put cold hands under scalding water coming from the faucet. She almost lost her grip on the plastic handle, but she had learned her lesson from losing the knife, and she held on to it for dear life.

  As the warmth spread through her arms and legs, the ahogados dragging her seemed to slow. Or was that just her imagination? Against the green mist swirling around her, Pao’s skin began to glow golden.

  The ghost boy let go of her legs with a furious hiss, like he’d been burned. But there were still two ahogados left.

  The warmth continued to travel, spreading to her torso and pooling in her stomach. The girl hugging her middle let go as well. As Pao glowed, she felt the sharp pulling sensation from her dream deep in her chest. It hurt, and pain worsened as the beam got brighter.

  But Pao knew she shouldn’t let go of the flashlight. Not even if it turned into a supernova.

  Confused, looking to his mates for cues, the third ahogado loosened his grip around her neck, and Pao lay on the ground limp with relief, the toy hot in her hand like it had just been taken out of the oven.

  Her body continued to blaze until it couldn’t hold the light inside anymore. The heat in her veins dissipated as a glow radiated out from her center. Soon she was surrounded by a translucent golden sphere that repelled the ahogados, leaving only the Niños within its brilliant bubble.

  Pao sat up, her vision swimming, her extremities growing cold as the sphere continued to grow, robbing vital energy from her as it did so. But it was working. Outside the circle of its glow, she could see the ahogados fleeing. Their wails and screams pierced the night, and the sound was familiar to Pao, though she couldn’t quite remember where she’d heard it before….

  In a matter of minutes, the battle was over, and all Pao could hear was the crackling of the fire. Using the last of her strength, she clicked off the flashlight, and the glow disappeared, taking the warmth with it.

  Her whole body trembled as she pushed herself to stand. Around her, every last one of the Niños was looking at her, thunderstruck.

  “Dante…” Pao said, feeling her knees buckle just before everything went black.

  When Pao came to, she was lying on glittering black sand, her mouth and throat full of water.

  She rolled over and retched, the weedy taste of the river washing over her tongue as she gasped for air. Her clothes and hair were soaking wet, like she’d nearly drowned, and her veins looked greenish under her washed-out skin.

  The bloodred sun was setting over the river.

  Pao felt a wave of dread wash over her.

  She was having another dream, and somewhere, in “real life,” the Niños were in trouble. Dante was gone. And he and Emma were running out of time.

  “Just haaaad to play the hero, didn’t you.”

  Great, Pao thought, struggling to sit up. She coughed, each spasm making her chest ache. “Not…you…” she said, the words burning her throat on their way out.

  “Always so gracious,” said Ondina from her seated position near Pao’s feet. Her hair seemed to drift eerily around her shoulders, and her eyes were somehow more absorbing than usual, like the girl was becoming less human every time Pao saw her. “It’s no wonder your friends keep disappearing. Who’d want to hang around with someone who has such a bad attitude?”

  “My friends are disappearing because your friends are taking them,” Pao said, her anger burning through, pushing her to her feet. “Where is Dante?” she asked, getting closer to Ondina than she’d ever been, almost nose-to-nose.

  She smelled like the river—fishy and metallic and cold.

  “Where’s Dante?” Ondina parroted, her voice high and reedy. “Where’s Emma?”

  “Shut up,” Pao growled.

  “Who am I going to sit with at lunch now? Oh, woe is me!”

  “I said, shut up!” Pao shoved Ondina in the chest with both palms.

  She shouldn’t have been surprised to find Ondina solid, especially after Pao’s very physical tangle with the ahogados, but the black-clad girl was so different from them, part of Pao had expected her hands to pass right through.

  But they didn’t, and Ondina stumbled back, stabilizing herself just before she fell, adjusting the high collar of her dress with a snooty expression and extracting several strands of black hair from her pouty little mouth. “Pushing me isn’t going to solve your problems.”

  “Then what is?” Pao asked, at the end of her rope. “I fought with the Niños today because they trusted me, they told me things—they didn’t just show up in my dreams and speak in riddles!” She took a deep breath. “You know where Emma and Dante are, I know you do. So tell me. Just tell me! Or maybe I’ll let one of those monsters drag me to wherever they’re always trying to take me and find out for myself.”

  “No!” Ondina shouted, with a ferocity that flashed like lightning, surprising them both. “If you do that…You can’t do that, do you understand me? There’s no getting in that way. Not for you.”

  “How do I get in, then?”

  “It’s so obvious,” Ondina said, rolling her too-large eyes, her thick eyebrows adding extra disapproval to the expression. “You have all the information at your fingertips—just use your brain.”

  “You can’t tell me, can you?” Pao asked, one corner of the puzzle starting to come together. “You act like you’re this big badass, but you’re really just a scared little girl with puppet strings still attached.”

  She could tell she’d hit a nerve when Ondina didn’t even attempt a snarky comeback.

  “Is it the ahogados?” Pao asked. “Er, the other ones, anyway? Do they control you?”

  Ondina scoffed, flipping back her curls with a pale hand. “Please. Those brainless things? All they can do is follow orders. And for the last time, I’m not one of them.”

  “Then what are you?” Pao asked, knowing she was close to figuring it out from the electricity that sparked between her synapses. It was the feeling she always got when she was about to make a big breakthrough, her favorite feeling in the world.

  Ondina’s eyes flashed, and in them Pao could see something more than just a petulant dream girl who showed up at the worst times. Something timeless and hungry and terrifying. “La Hija de Lágrimas,” Ondina said, her voice flat and expressionless. “That’s what they call me.”

  Once again, Pao’s faulty Spanish was going to be the end of her. Hija was daughter, but lágrimas? Pao didn’t think she’d ever heard that word before.

  “Whose orders?” she asked, seeing Ondina in a new light. Was she the general? “Who do the ahogados follow?”

  For the first time, Pao detected fear in Ondina’s expression. It was fleeting, but it was there.

  Ondina wasn’t the gener
al, but she knew who was.

  “Who is it?” Pao asked, stepping closer to her again. “They know where Emma and Dante are. They’re responsible for all of this, so who is it?”

  “You’re running out of time,” Ondina snapped. “That isn’t important. Don’t ask yourself who…ask yourself how….”

  Her voice was fainter now, and she began to shimmer in the air.

  “Don’t you dare!” Pao said, grabbing her by the shoulders, their faces closer than they’d ever been. Ondina’s skin was shockingly cold through the fabric of her dress. “Don’t you dare disappear before you tell me what’s happening. Not this time.”

  “Silly girl,” Ondina said, her gaze far away now. “Silly, stupid girl.”

  She was gone before the last word was even all the way out, and Pao’s hands clutched at nothing while the landscape in front of her evaporated again.

  Something jerked Pao to the side and she landed on her back again—this time on sand as white as bone. Around her, black moss hung in curtains from cacti ten feet tall. The river was green again, but in front of her, yawning, gaping, terrifying, was a giant mouth.

  Pao screamed like she hadn’t in a dream since elementary school. She screamed in a way that told her she was screaming in real life, too.

  The mouth opened wider, and she could see down its long black throat. That fishing-hook feeling was back, tugging at her chest, pulling and pulling until Pao’s shoes were pressed against a massive tongue and the teeth were surrounding her and its hot breathing was threatening to suck her in.

  But just before the mouth swallowed her whole, everything went still.

  And, as if her body were being controlled by puppet strings, Pao got to her feet and walked calmly into the darkness.

  This time when Pao woke up, she knew she was really back.

  Back in her body, back at the Niños’ camp. Her eyesight was blurry at first, but it didn’t take long for faces to start coming into focus.

  She was on the ground, she knew that much. Marisa’s braids were the first thing she identified, followed by Naomi’s wide brown eyes and tangle of white curls. Pao coughed, then pushed herself up to sitting even though every muscle in her body screamed at her to stop.