Paola Santiago and the River of Tears

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  Pao’s legs cramped, and her eyes burned from the effort of holding them open. She wanted to rest, to lie down in her bed under her star comforter and sleep for a whole day. Maybe two.

  But this wasn’t her room.

  It might as well have been an unexplored planet, and there was no guarantee the next alien creature she encountered would be as friendly as Bruto. The thought of outer space gave Pao the strength to go on, as she pretended this was her first mission to another world and the fate of the universe depended on her.

  Just like in the games she and Dante had played on the shag carpet, with one spaceship and one astronaut between them.

  But Dante wasn’t here now. And that was why she was doing this—to find him and Emma.

  For a long stretch, Bruto’s bouncing energy kept her going. She’d given up on the training, thankful that for now he was staying close, urging her on when she lagged behind.

  Just a little farther, she told herself when she was so tired that it felt like her very soul was being sucked from the soles of her shoes. Just a little farther.

  Miles shrank to yards, yards shrank to feet, feet shrank to single footsteps. One after the other. Pao stopped noticing the landscape, just looked down at her shoes against the pale sand as she dragged one foot past the other one more time.

  One more time.

  One more time…

  It was when she didn’t think she could go another step that she saw it—a black hole the size of a golf ball, just floating in the air. But what was it?

  She kept her distance from the spot, examining it as best she could from where she stood, but the discoverer in her wanted nothing more than to measure it. To touch it. To find out what was glinting like metal at its edges.

  That’s another world, Pao thought, and goose bumps broke out on her arms. Imagining the opening had been one thing, dreaming it another, but this was the real deal, right in front of her, and Pao felt the gravity of the moment settle over her, making her stand up straighter.

  Bruto ran around her ankles, yipping and snuffling happily. Pao understood. He was a monster and this was where he was supposed to be. Deep down inside, she shared his joy, which came from more than just her satisfaction at accomplishing a goal.

  The entrance was a bit like the Florida Water—it felt like home. Not as much as her apartment, but enough to make her wonder.

  As if it were reacting to their presence, the hole began to grow, like a cosmic finger was wiggling into the knitted sweater of the universe. Its outer ring gyrated, and the blackness in the center was so absolute Pao wasn’t sure she should look at it. Like the sun during an eclipse.

  The glinting edges elongated into fangs, and the darkness took shape until Pao—for the millionth time since she’d left the Riverside Palace—could hardly tell dream from reality.

  She’d figured, from her nightmares, that the mouth was some kind of metaphor. But now, watching the opening widen, she realized she should have known better. There were no lips, just spreading edges of darkness, teeth at the top and bottom, and a tongue extending back like some kind of horrible carpet.

  The emptiness spread across the sky, as though the whole landscape were just a photograph and someone had spilled a bottle of ink on its surface. It didn’t bend or reshape itself to accommodate the surroundings. It didn’t care if it was obliterating sand or cactus or sky. It just opened wider and wider until Pao could walk through it.

  What she didn’t expect was something inside her to urge her to do just that. She would have obeyed, wouldn’t have been able to help it, but then she got a better look at what was waiting inside.

  Hundreds of eyes, green and glowing, slitted with malevolence. This was another thing her dream hadn’t depicted accurately. The ahogados were waiting in that gloom, and they were hungry.

  But Pao had been waiting, too.

  She stuck the flashlight in her belt, knowing she could only use it once. If she turned it on too early, all this would end before it even began.

  Pao pulled out her knife—the one Marisa had disdained—and peered into the obstacle that, just a few short days ago, had defeated the centuries-old, immortal leader of Los Niños de la Luz.

  But she wasn’t Marisa, and she wasn’t Franco. She was Paola Santiago, not a Niña de la Luz coming to snuff out darkness.

  She had darkness within her, and that part of her was coming home. She was certain of it now.

  Bruto stood completely still at her feet, the protrusions on his back dancing as the rift yawned wider and wider, the air blowing out of it moldy and damp, every bit as spooky as a malevolent magical realm’s breath should be. The opening was twice her height now, and the eyes inside it seemed to be multiplying, if that were even possible.

  She thought of the Niños, waiting at camp for a deluge of monsters. If she did what she’d come here to do, they’d never have to face them again. Pao pictured Sal and smiled.

  Pao knew the ahogados were ready to swarm her, to feed on all the shining confidence she hadn’t known was lurking just under her skin.

  “Bring it on,” she whispered into the toothy chasm, and the ghosts obeyed.

  The first thing Pao felt was the drop in temperature.

  As a child of Arizona, she wasn’t used to being cold, and this was far worse than the winter mornings when she could see her breath on her way to school. This chill was almost sentient.

  It did battle with her skin and clothes. It crept inside and nestled until she was foggy and slow with it. But she drew her knife anyway, waiting for the worst.

  She didn’t have to wait long.

  The first wave of ahogados came like the hounds of hell let loose at last. They slashed at her with ragged, sharp nails, and they grabbed at her with long, wasted arms. The places where she’d doused herself with Florida Water burned, like they had when the green mist pushed her out of the Riverside Palace.

  She could only hope it would somehow protect her now, because it was already clear this fight would be nothing like the one at camp a few hours earlier.

  Those monsters had just wanted to drag her off. These were protecting the entrance to their world. They wouldn’t stop until she was dead or fully one of them—she could feel it in the desperation of their movements.

  But they weren’t the only ones who were desperate.

  Her knife seemed to spread warmth into her arm as she wielded it, trying to remember what Naomi and Marisa had taught her about timing and defense. She quickly realized, sizing up the approaching mass of enemies, that their lessons in the pit would be useless against this many foes. So she just made sure the pointy end of her knife was facing the right direction and swung wildly, connecting with the nearest ahogada in the nick of time.

  Its body wasn’t entirely solid, but it wasn’t entirely phantasmal, either. She had seen the way they shattered against the weapons of more experienced fighters, and she’d even delivered a blow to the wrist of one she had fought at the fireside.

  None of that had prepared her for landing a killing blow.

  The knife resisted as it went through the ghostly chest, but only for a moment before there was a cold crunch, like ice being crushed between back molars. A wet sort of shattering. Too close to hers, the face of the ahogada twisted in pain and fury, and Pao took advantage of her surprise to strike again.

  When the specter was on the ground, oozing green from her various wounds, Pao turned to confront the next, and then the next. From somewhere nearby, Bruto yelped in confusion, but his loyalty was stronger than Pao had thought, and soon he was snarling and tearing at the legs and feet of any ahogado that came too close.

  He’s taking them by surprise, she noted proudly as her knife connected with the neck of a boy a foot taller than her. The spirits didn’t see the puppy as a threat until it was too late.

  But even with Bruto’s help, Pao’s arm grew sore, her muscles screaming and her heart pounding as she danced to avoid attacks from all directions. She was fighting with everything she had, a
nd the throat of the rift yawned beyond, waiting to disgorge as many of its monsters as was necessary to make sure Pao never reached its heart.

  Bruto yelped again, this time a sound of pain, and Pao cast around anxiously until she saw him limping away from a snarling ahogada who looked a lot like the girl who’d put gum in Pao’s hair last year in gym class.

  “Back off!” Pao screamed, lunging at her, careful not to step on Bruto.

  But they were losing ground, she and her brave puppy being pushed farther and farther back toward the cactus field, and Pao knew there was only one thing left to do.

  “I really hope this doesn’t kill me,” she said, scooping up Bruto with one arm and pulling the flashlight out of her belt with the other hand. “Choke on this, you weird zombie ghosts!”

  Pao closed her eyes and clicked the flashlight on. She was afraid to look, worried that it would be like Naomi and the chupacabra all over again, and nothing would happen. Had she been an idiot to assume this key story was even true? Franco could have lied to Marisa, or simply been wrong….

  But she had felt it at the fireside, the light building up inside her. It had chased the monsters away. Could she count on that happening again? It was too late to hope for anything else.

  Pao hugged Bruto tightly to her chest, her eyes still closed as she envisioned everyone she was doing this for. Dante and Emma, who would never be rescued if she didn’t find them. Sal. Naomi. Marisa. Señora Mata.

  Her mom.

  Pao thought her heart would burst when she saw the familiar face in her mind.

  Her mom, with her perpetually flyaway hair, and one eyebrow slightly higher than the other. Her mom, with her smile that lit up the room, even if she was talking about something boring like juniper tincture.

  Her mom, who had done nothing but love her.

  Her mom, who had been right all along.

  A tear slid down her cheek as Bruto snapped at an ahogado from her arms. This had to work. It just had to…

  That’s when it happened.

  The flashlight began to vibrate in Pao’s hand, and she opened her eyes. The beam was glowing brighter than she’d ever seen it before.

  Pao held on as the vibration intensified, the handle trying its best to leap out of her hands. Bruto barked as light spilled from the crack in its plastic case.

  But the ahogados didn’t scatter like they had at camp. They kept pressing in, smelling of rot and cold, like something that had gone bad in the refrigerator. Pao hissed in pain when one of them swiped at her exposed forearm with its jagged nails.

  Still she held on to the flashlight.

  The heat built until Pao was sure she couldn’t take it anymore, until she was sure it was melting her flesh and taking none of the bad guys with it.

  But then she felt a change deep inside.

  She sensed the light within her joining with the key, as if her life force was powering the beam. And the energy was much more potent than it had been by the campfire. So much so, in fact, that her instinct was to turn off the flashlight, throw it down, and run away. But her hand was stuck to the key, which was unlocking something buried deep in her chest, acting as a conduit for the light and heat and vibration.

  This is it, Pao thought. This is it.

  The key was going to drain the last of the life force from her, she thought clinically. The rest of her hair would go white, and she would become an ahogada. The key would be lost. The solstice would end with Emma and Dante doomed to be part of the void forever.

  Her legs went weak and wobbly, and Pao sank to the ground, light still unspooling like ribbons from the crack in the flashlight’s plastic case. “Bruto,” she said, tears streaming down her face. He licked them up as they fell, and once again she was grateful for him.

  Grateful she didn’t have to be alone at the end.

  The vibration built to fever pitch, and Pao wondered if she would come apart before she was drained, if the thing would turn her to dust right here at the doorway between worlds.

  Instead, the key exploded.

  A ball of light engulfed her like combusting hydrogen. The ahogados flew back as though a tornado were twisting through them, leaving Pao all alone in the center with the trembling puppy in her arms.

  Once she had recovered her sight, she stood up on unsure legs. She was still encircled by light, but the flashlight’s plastic case was in pieces at her feet, the bulb blackened and shattered.

  The darkness of the rift was inhaling the ahogados, but Pao could no longer hear its rattling breath. Inside her ball of light, everything was safe and quiet and peaceful.

  She set Bruto on his feet, and together they walked deeper into the void. Her brave demon puppy still limped a little, but there was no visible wound.

  The rift trembled around them, and Pao could sense its weakness.

  The third quarter is a time of letting go and forgiveness, Marisa had said, and now Pao realized why that had sounded familiar. Her mom used to tell her the same thing. She saw her mother again, this time as a younger woman, sketching the moon phases for little Pao, who had to stand on tiptoes to reach the table.

  Letting go, Pao remembered. Forgiveness.

  As Pao walked, she forgave Dante for loving his Arma del Alma and wanting to be a hero and thinking she needed saving all the time. She forgave Emma for having a shiny cell phone and a perfect family. She forgave Naomi for being such a know-it-all.

  The sphere glowed brighter around her, and the rift seemed to shrink back a little, forming a tunnel into which Pao walked without fear.

  Just like in her dream.

  Pao forgave Marisa for the way she’d treated her at school, and for tying her up and stealing her flashlight.

  Pao closed her eyes, putting one foot in front of the other. She forgave her mom for all the stale pizza and tarot cards, the candles that couldn’t pay the bills. She even forgave her dad for leaving.

  But when she thought of her dad, a familiar worry surfaced. Why had he left, anyway? Had it been because of her?

  She opened her eyes to see that the rift was closing around them. The ball was growing smaller, the light dimmer. Pao could feel the darkness pressing on the bubble like it was her own skin. It was fighting against the intrusion. Trying to cough up Pao and launch her back into the haunted cactus field.

  She tried to run, Bruto whimpering as he looked behind him.

  I wasn’t good enough, Pao thought. I was a bad daughter and a bad friend. I was jealous of Emma, and of Dante and his weapon, and I didn’t listen to my mom when she tried to warn me….

  “I’m sorry,” she choked out, still running, even though the light around her was barely a second skin at this point. She was cold again, and the long dark throat of the rift seemed to extend for a thousand miles.

  She couldn’t go forward. She couldn’t go back. It hadn’t been enough. All this effort, and it hadn’t been enough.

  Pao tripped and went down hard, the ground wet and gritty beneath her, sharp rocks—were they rocks?—stinging her knees and palms. The light of the key, flickering and dying, played across her skin as she shivered and sat up.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, the cold wet creeping into her throat like another tongue, choking her, ready to take her at last.

  Bruto bounded over and she brought him into her lap. He licked her face and hands, his green eyes shining up at her.

  “I’m sorry….”

  He whined, licking her again, his black tongue warm as he tried to keep her from fading away.

  He’s forgiving me, Pao thought as the darkness threatened to obscure her thoughts, her memories….

  “Thank you,” she whispered, stroking him. If these were her last moments, there was only one person left for her to forgive. Pao had made mistakes. She had lied, lost her temper, been impatient. She had underestimated her mom and led her friends into danger. She had definitely turned in a lot of homework assignments late. Once, she had thought really hard about cheating off Simone W.’s math test when
she didn’t know the answer. She hadn’t actually done it, but she’d thought about it.

  Pao recounted all the things she’d failed at, the things she’d screwed up. She remembered the people she’d let down.

  But hadn’t she also been brave? Hadn’t she risked everything to stand up for her friends, to save them? Hadn’t she taken a chance on a monster in the wasteland and named him and shared her food to keep him strong?

  He had forgiven her, in that boundless, love-filled way that only dogs really could.

  Maybe it was time for Pao to forgive herself, too. To remember that she was only twelve, and under normal circumstances she would still have time to grow. To change. To figure out what kind of person she wanted to be.

  “I did okay, right?” she asked, and her voice hitched, sobs threatening to escape. “I did my best.”

  Around her, the white light gradually began to inflate again, like a beach ball. Pao got to her feet, no longer shivering, and ran ahead as fast as she could, Bruto right behind her. The light moved along with her, expanding with a faint humming noise. As the brightness grew in intensity, the hum got louder, until it sounded like the whistle of a massive teakettle. Bruto shook his head and whined.

  And then the bubble burst into a shower of golden confetti.

  When all the glitter settled, the long, dark throat of the rift was gone, and Pao and Bruto found themselves standing in a huge domed space. It looked like a graveyard—an expanse of barren ground about the size of a soccer field, interrupted by protruding stones and a few spindly, leafless trees. In the distance there was some kind of tall, multitiered, spired structure that Pao couldn’t quite identify in the gloom, but it made the hair on her arms stand up nonetheless.

  “Whoa,” she said to Bruto. “I should probably have forgiven myself for the whole Simone thing a long time ago, huh?”

  Bruto just panted, but his mouth was stretched into a pretty good approximation of a smile. Despite the dire circumstances, Pao wondered if any other chupacabra had ever smiled before.

  The pressure the dark tunnel had exerted on her could be felt here, too, as Pao walked to the edge of the dome, which crackled occasionally with what looked like toxic green lightning bolts. On the other side of the dome, a black river eel swam past, its eyes glinting with each flash.