Paola Santiago and the River of Tears

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  How long had it been since she and Dante had first wandered into the cactus field? Pao wondered. How long since the Mano Pachona had let her go? How long since she’d yelled at her best friend for wanting to be a hero?

  How long since he’d kissed her and she’d lost him?

  Pao didn’t have the answers, so she walked. She followed the flashlight when it bent around her body, urging her back the way she’d just come. She walked because she didn’t know where Dante was, or Emma, or if they were still alive.

  She walked because there was, even now, something angry and sharp inside her. Something that had been born with the first dream she’d ever had about the riverbank. Something that might have been responsible for Emma’s disappearance and all that had come crashing into their lives after that.

  She walked until the sky started to lighten and the flashlight’s beam began to fade. Her legs were just starting to burn with the strain when she heard it, somewhere up ahead—a low growl. Low enough for Pao to imagine it was coming from a very large animal.

  Her heart sped up, beating so hard she was afraid the beast would be able to hear it. If this key was really on her side, shouldn’t it have steered her away from danger?

  When she used the flashlight as a compass, it didn’t seem to drain her, but as a weapon, it definitely would. If Marisa’s story was any indication, she could only risk using it once more, and she’d need one heck of a light blast from it to get past the ahogados and into the rift.

  So whatever monster was here, she would have to face it with just her knife and what little combat training she’d picked up.

  As if on cue, the creature growled again, and Pao heard a scratching sound, too. She stopped walking and drew her dagger, pointing the flashlight at the ground and turning in slow circles so she wouldn’t be surprised when the beast came close enough for her to see.

  In that moment, for the first time since she was a little girl, Pao almost wished she’d had a father. Someone to teach her where the thumb goes when you throw a punch (inside or outside, she wasn’t sure which) or what to do if a bear attacks you in the woods.

  But today it was just Pao, who had been trained by her mom in ghostly drowning and dismemberment when she was too young to understand what they were.

  Get it together, she told herself. This is hardly the time to be waxing nostalgic about childhood.

  Up ahead, there was a fallen cactus, so ancient that its husk looked as hard as rock. Do cacti petrify? Pao wondered, but she reined herself in again. Biological queries about the flora and fauna of the area weren’t top priority right at this moment, either.

  The growl sounded again, and now that she was closer, Pao could hear an echoey quality to it. Either that, or there was more than one of whatever it was.

  She tightened her grip on the knife, remembering the way the ahogado had shattered when she’d stabbed it. If she was lucky, it would be just as effective on the monster lurking here. For a second, Pao thought of the way Marisa must have looked standing in front of the rift with Franco, holding her knife futilely when her world was about to come crashing down.

  You’ll be way better than that, Pao told herself. But the idea was too hollow to be much of a comfort.

  The growling intensified, reacting to her footsteps, though she’d tried to keep them as quiet as she could. Maybe this creature had exceptional hearing, like some kind of mutant bird, or rodent….

  Pao shuddered, but she didn’t stop walking forward. This was what she had signed up for. She would just have to hope she was equal to it.

  The cactus husk was near enough to kick, and there was no doubt about it—the growling was coming from inside. But now that she was practically on top of it, the sound had changed. It was more of a yelp than a growl. Maybe the creature was in trouble. Regardless, she didn’t let her guard down. There were plenty of terrifying things that yelped…weren’t there?

  The yelping turned into whimpering. Pao walked around the fallen cactus until she reached its bottom. The thing had to be ten feet long. Did the weird magic energy in the field make them grow abnormally tall?

  She was two yards from the cactus. Then one. Then just a couple of feet. Pao’s pulse was kicking like a bass drum across the entire surface of her skin. Was this it? Was she about to die, right now, before she ever reached the rift?

  Before she ever found out if she was possessed by some kind of terrible magic?

  When she was three steps away, the creature fell silent. Whatever it was, it knew Pao was there.

  Two steps. The darkness inside the hollow cactus husk was absolute. Pao couldn’t see a thing.

  One step. Wait…was something glimmering in there? It looked like an emerald….

  Pao knelt down at the opening just before the yawning tunnel’s entrance exploded in a whirl of fur and teeth and glowing green eyes.

  She screamed, falling onto her butt with an undignified thump, swinging fists and shopping bag and knife and flashlight indiscriminately as the thing finally made contact.

  But it didn’t sink its terrifying fangs into her flesh, or peck at her with some mutated beak, or hiss at her before it wrapped its body around her torso….

  In fact, when Pao calmed down enough to realize she wasn’t being devoured, she realized that the thing—which was barely bigger than the neighborhood cat back home—seemed to be…licking her.

  “Ewww, get off!” she shrieked, scrabbling back across the dirt in a sort of panicked crab walk as the thing bounded after her, its black tongue hanging out of its mouth in a goofy way totally unbefitting a terrifying paranormal beast.

  With a foot or two of space between them—space the creature was trying its hardest to close as Pao held it off with her foot—she could see it more clearly. Its fur was midnight black, and glossy—though it was dirty and ragged in places—and it seemed to have several cactus spines poking out of its body.

  Its eyes were green and glowing like the other rift monsters—but these were round and curious, almost playful. Along its back were two ridges of tentacle-like protrusions barely the length of Pao’s pinkie finger.

  Though it bore little resemblance to the one that had almost taken off her face the day before, there was no doubt about it—this was a chupacabra.

  Correction, Pao thought as the creature finally overcame her sneaker to barrel back into her lap, a chupacabra puppy.

  “Get off me!” she screeched again, as the pup resumed its enthusiastic—and incredibly smelly—licking of every inch of her exposed skin. But her heart wasn’t really in the scolding. In fact, with its big feet and playful yelps and still-floppy ears, the thing was actually sort of cute.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, scratching behind its ears, avoiding a particularly scaly spot in favor of the familiar dog-like fur. It was definitely a he, she decided. Not nearly enough survival instinct to be a female. “It’s okay, little guy. What are you doing out here all alone?”

  As if in response, the chupacabra puppy howled a sad little howl.

  Pao’s heart leaped into her throat. “No, no,” she said, having a sudden vision of a pack of bloodthirsty void beasts bearing down on her, thinking she’d stolen their baby. “Shh, it’s okay.”

  She gathered the floppy thing in her arms and held him close to her chest, making shushing, soothing sounds as he wriggled himself into a more comfortable position.

  Before two minutes had passed, he was fast asleep.

  Pao leaned back against the petrified cactus, which, thankfully, had lost most of its spines, and let the puppy sleep. He was hideous, she thought. Dangerous. A monster. But he trusted her, and right now that was enough to make up for the rest.

  Isn’t that what everyone wants? Pao asked herself. To be loved even though they’re kind of a monster?

  The thought should have made her scoff. Instead, it almost made her cry.

  “Who cares?” she said out loud. “There’s no one here.”

  In her arms, the chupacabra puppy snorted in his sleep.<
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  “Well, except for you…” Pao had come up with a list of puppy names a mile long when she was trying to convince her mom to get her a dog, but right now she couldn’t remember a single one of them. And plus, those names had been for cute yellow or brown puppies from the pound. Not a demon hell beast from a malevolent magic void.

  As she racked her brain, all she could think of was the only dog that had ever lived in the Riverside Palace apartments. He’d been a massive rottweiler named Spooky, and when he barked at all hours of the night, Dante’s abuela used to scream down at him, “Callate, Bruto!”

  Pao had always giggled at how out of sorts it made Señora Mata, that barking dog. He hadn’t been so bad, really. But Pao had always secretly thought Spooky was a terrible name for him. He was fearsome, and Spooky was not a fearsome name.

  “Bruto…” Pao said thoughtfully, stroking the little spot on his head where fur grew over the weird scales. “Is that your name? Bruto?”

  He cracked open one eye, which glowed green, and then every muscle in him tensed joyfully as he resumed his enthusiastic licking.

  “Okay, okay!” Pao said, standing up, laughing for the first time since Dante had disappeared. “Bruto it is. Now come on, make yourself useful.”

  Pao took out the flashlight and clicked it on. But Bruto was not a fan. He ran in circles around her, yipping and yapping at the thing, growling at it like it was another animal and not just an inanimate object.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, shining the light at him. But, of course, the beam continued to point to her left, even as his yapping became a more determined bark. “You don’t like it?” Pao got down on her knees and offered the flashlight for Bruto to sniff. “It’s okay!”

  But the creature refused to get near it. In fact, he backed away, his hackles rising, the tentacle-like things on his back waving like he was floating instead of standing on solid ground. Pao supposed it made sense. Bruto was from the void, and the flashlight was a magical key made to destroy the creatures from there.

  “Fine!” she said, standing back up. “You don’t have to like it. But we do have to use it. Come on.”

  She oriented herself until the beam of light and her sneakers were pointing in the same direction. She was feeling almost rested, and more hopeful. Maybe she could pull this off after all.

  Bruto lingered a few feet away, his green spines still waving as his eyes stayed narrowed in suspicion. For a moment, Pao wondered if he would follow her. Was the flashlight offensive enough to send him scurrying back into the cactus husk for good?

  The prospect seemed almost unbearable, squeezing Pao’s chest. Before, she had thought she could do this by herself, but now there was no denying that it was nice not to be alone.

  “I won’t make you come with me,” she said, her voice a little wobbly. “But I…would really like it if you did. Okay?”

  He cocked his head to one side, looking more like a real puppy than ever.

  “Okay. Here goes.”

  Pao took a step. Behind her, Bruto whined. She took another step, and then another, her heart sinking more with each second she didn’t hear his little monster claws following.

  She was twenty-five paces (not that she was counting) away from him, her heart somewhere near her left sneaker, when his constant whine became a high-pitched bark, and in a tiny cloud of dust, Bruto barreled into her ankles, panting and looking very pleased with himself.

  “Good boy,” Pao said, her big, genuine smile so out of practice it started to hurt her cheeks after a minute. “Good boy, Bruto.”

  With the puppy at her heels, Pao double-checked the flashlight and, still smiling, continued on.

  In its winding, twisty way, the flashlight kept them going, its path never making any more sense than it had before.

  The solstice day was dawning. They had until midnight tonight to get in and out of the rift or else…

  Well, Pao was trying really hard not to think about what happened if she failed.

  She dug into Sal’s food pack when her hunger got unbearable. There was tough skillet bread, dried meat and fruit, three bottles of water, and, at the bottom, a sleeve of Starbursts. Pao let out a whoop of joy that echoed strangely in the mist.

  Bruto startled, bounding away and then creeping back.

  “What, no Starbursts in the heart of darkness or wherever you came from?” Pao asked, taking the pink square at the top as a good omen. She popped it in her mouth, and Bruto whined.

  “You want one, too?” Pao asked him, and his ears perked up.

  She pulled out a yellow and unwrapped it. There was no way she was gonna eat that one, anyway, even if it was the last source of calories on earth. When she tossed it to Bruto, he just watched it fall, then gobbled it up off the ground afterward, dirt and all.

  If they’d just been able to walk in a straight line, they could have traveled so much faster, she thought. But they never passed the same landmark twice, and for about the hundredth time since entering the cactus field—geez, had it only been two days ago?—Pao gave in to the nonsense. Wherever the light led her, she followed, and wherever she went, Bruto came, too.

  Along the way, she started to teach Bruto tricks, just to pass the time. There were five yellow Starbursts in the pack, and Pao pulled pieces off them as they went, trying sit, stay, and come commands whenever they paused for rest.

  Bruto was fine with trotting alongside her (or up ahead), but he was utterly hopeless at following orders. Even if Pao told him to do things he was already doing, he would immediately stop and do the opposite.

  Training a puppy is hard work, Paola, said her mom’s voice in her head, but Pao waved it off. This wasn’t just any puppy! It was a creature of the void! Shouldn’t it have powers and stuff?

  Pao told the creature of the void to come.

  He ran away.

  She told him to sit.

  He jumped.

  “Useless!” she shouted, and he ran right up and jumped on her. “Down,” she said.

  He turned in a circle and jumped on her again.

  “Forget it!” Pao told him, putting away half of a yellow Starburst. After that, there was only one whole one left. “Stay here for all I care.”

  When she walked away, Bruto followed obediently.

  Another hour passed, and still there was nothing interesting in the landscape. Just the same spindly cactuses and bone-like rocks littering the never-ending dust. They had walked miles, Pao thought as they sat down to rest, though she wasn’t sure how many. The first of the three water bottles Sal had given her was almost empty, and Bruto had eaten half the dried meat.

  “I’m going to starve because of you,” she told him, but she dribbled water into his mouth and rolled her eyes affectionately. “And my mom said I couldn’t take care of a puppy. Just look at me now.”

  Bruto was appropriately impressed, and Pao was thankful she had someone to talk to besides herself. Even if it was a demon lizard-beast.

  “Roll over!” Pao said, holding up the yellow Starburst half.

  Bruto sat.

  She gave it to him anyway. “Terrible,” she said in a cooing, affectionate voice. “You’re a terrible, disobedient wretch.”

  He licked her face and rubbed against her ankles like a cat.

  “You know,” she said in a conversational tone as they walked, “if I die out here, you’ll probably eat me, won’t you?”

  The puppy whined, and Pao chose to take it as a promise that he wouldn’t instead of a complaint that the Starburst was sticking his jaws together.

  “If we run into any of your big brothers, maybe we can use the candy to incapacitate them.”

  It was a ridiculous thought, and Bruto didn’t even dignify it with a response. But Pao stashed the last yellow square in the pocket of her jeans, just in case.

  “Come on, boy,” she said. “We’re almost there.”

  He cocked his head to the side.

  “You’re right,” Pao admitted. “I’m full of it. I have no
idea where we’re going, let alone how long it’ll take to get there. Come on!”

  Bruto took three steps toward her. Was he finally learning a command? Pao’s heart was in her throat.

  Not even half of the way to her, he sat down.

  “Ugh!” Pao threw up her hands and walked away. Ten seconds later, he darted past her and lifted his leg on a scrubby bush.

  They continued on. What else could they do? Pao tried not to think about the fact that the flashlight couldn’t take them back to camp. This was a one-way trip.

  “It better be worth it,” she grumbled.

  As if someone had heard her, the landscape started to change.

  Under their feet, the sand grew lighter, going from black to gray to bone-white while the skeletal rocks sprang up bigger, like mushrooms.

  The cacti widened, arms spreading out like they could hold up the moon—which was visible for the first time, low and almost orange along the horizon line. Black mosslike stuff started appearing in little clumps on the cacti, and as they walked on, it grew longer and dripped from the arms until Pao was pushing aside curtains of the stuff.

  This was what the landscape had looked like in her dream: the white sand and black moss of the place where the giant mouth had opened in the sky. They were getting close.

  Bruto didn’t seem at all alarmed, Pao noted. But why would he? He was a monster and this was his home.

  It terrified Pao, though. Did that mean she wasn’t a monster after all?

  I guess that’s what I’m here to find out, she told herself, straightening her shoulders and taking comfort from the presence of the little beast beside her.

  The sky was hazy now, the sun casting a strange bloodred light over everything. Pao thought the air felt different, too—more humid, like they had walked from the desert straight into a swamp.

  For the first time since she’d first turned it on by accident, the flashlight’s beam wasn’t bending at weird angles—it stayed straight. The target had to be nearby, didn’t it?