The House of the Scorpion

by Nancy Farmer

  A kind of heavy sleepiness fell over Matt as he was swayed along. The pain had died down, and Steven said he hadn’t lost too much blood. He was too dazed to worry about what Celia would say when she saw the broken window.

  They reached the edge of the poppy fields as the last streaks of sunlight slid behind the hills. The dirt path gave way to a wide lawn. It was a shimmering green, growing deeper with the blue light of evening. Matt had never seen so much green in his life.

  It’s a meadow, he thought, drowsily. And it smells like rain.

  They started up a flight of wide, marble steps that shone softly in the darkening air. On either side were orange trees, and all at once lamps went on among the leaves. Lights outlined the white walls of a vast house above, with pillars and statues and doorways going who knew where. In the center of an arch was the carved outline of a scorpion.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!” came a flurry of women’s voices as they swept down the stairs to lift Matt from Steven’s and Emilia’s arms.

  • • •

  “Who is he?” asked the maids. They were wearing black dresses with white aprons and starched, white caps. One of them, a severe-looking female with deep creases down either side of her mouth, carried Matt as the others went ahead to open doors.

  “I found him in a house in the poppy fields,” replied Steven.

  “That’s Celia’s place,” a maid said. “She’s too stuck-up to live with the rest of us.”

  “If she’s hiding a child, I’m not surprised. Who’s your father, kid?” said the woman who was carrying Matt. Her apron smelled like sunlight, the way Celia’s did when it came straight from the clothesline. Matt stared at a pin fastened to the woman’s collar, a silver scorpion with its tail curved up. Beneath the scorpion was a name tag that said ROSA. Matt didn’t feel well enough to talk, and what did it matter who his father was, anyhow? He didn’t know the answer, either.

  “He doesn’t talk much,” said Emilia.

  “Where’s the doctor?” Steven said.

  “We’ll have to wait. He’s treating your grandfather. At least we can clean the kid up,” said Rosa.

  The maids opened a door to reveal the most beautiful room Matt had ever seen. It had carved wooden beams on the ceiling and wallpaper decorated with hundreds of birds. To Matt’s reeling eyes, they seemed to be moving. He saw a couch upholstered with flowers that shaded from lavender to rose like the feathers on a dove’s wings. It was to this couch that Rosa was carrying him.

  “I’m too dirty,” Matt murmured. He had been yelled at before for climbing on Celia’s bed with muddy feet.

  “You can say that again,” snapped Rosa. The other women opened a crisp, white sheet and laid it over the wonderful couch before Matt was laid down. He thought he could get into just as much trouble for getting blood on that sheet.

  Rosa fetched a pair of tweezers and began pulling out fragments of glass from his hands and feet. “Ay!” she murmured as she dropped the bits into a cup. “You’re brave not to cry.”

  But Matt didn’t feel brave at all. He didn’t feel anything. His body seemed far away, and he watched Rosa as though she were an image on a TV screen.

  “He sure screamed earlier,” observed María. She was dancing around, trying to see everything that happened.

  “Don’t act so superior. You yell your head off if you get an itty-bitty splinter in your finger,” Emilia said.

  “Do not!”

  “Do so!”

  “I hate you!”

  “Ask me if I care,” said Emilia. Both she and Steven watched in fascination as blood began to well out of Matt’s cuts again. “I’m going to be a doctor when I grow up,” announced Emilia. “This is very good experience for me.”

  The other maids had brought a bucket of water and towels, but they didn’t attempt to clean Matt up until Rosa gave them permission.

  “Be careful. The right foot is badly cut,” said Rosa.

  The air hummed in Matt’s ears. He felt the warm water and suddenly the pain returned. It stabbed from his foot all the way to the top of his head. He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. His throat had closed with shock.

  “Oh, God! There must be glass left inside,” cried Rosa. She grabbed Matt’s shoulders and ordered him not to be afraid. She seemed almost angry.

  The fogginess that had surrounded Matt had vanished. His feet, his hands, his knees throbbed with more pain than he had known existed.

  “I told you he was crying earlier,” said María.

  “Be quiet!” said Emilia.

  “Look! There’s writing on his foot,” the little girl cried. She tried to get close, but Emilia thrust her back.

  “I’m the one who’s going to be a doctor. Rats! I can’t read it. There’s too much blood.” She snatched a washcloth and wiped Matt’s foot.

  The pain wasn’t as bad this time, but he couldn’t help moaning.

  “You’re hurting him, you bully!” shrieked María.

  “Wait! I can just make it out . . . . ‘Property of’—the writing is so tiny!—‘Property of the Alacrán Estate.’ ”

  “ ‘Property of the Alacrán Estate’? That’s us. It doesn’t make any sense,” said Steven.

  “What’s going on?” came a voice Matt hadn’t heard before. A large, fierce-looking man burst into the room. Steven immediately straightened up. Emilia and even María looked alarmed.

  “We found a kid in the poppy fields, Father,” said Steven. “He hurt himself, and I thought the doctor . . . the doctor—”

  “You idiot! You need a vet for this little beast!” the man roared. “How dare you defile this house?”

  “He was bleeding—” began Steven.

  “Yes! All over the sheet! We’ll have to burn it. Take the creature outside now.”

  Rosa hesitated, obviously bewildered.

  The man leaned forward and whispered into her ear.

  A look of horror crossed Rosa’s face. She instantly scooped up Matt and ran. Steven dashed ahead to open the doors. His face had turned white. “How dare he talk to me like that,” he hissed.

  “He didn’t mean it,” said Emilia, who was dragging María along behind.

  “Oh, yes he did. He hates me,” Steven said.

  Rosa hurried down the steps and dumped Matt roughly onto the lawn. Without a word, she turned and fled back to the house.

  4

  MARÍA

  Matt gazed up. Hundreds of stars lay in a bright smear across a velvety, black sky. It was the Milky Way, which Celia said had spurted from the Virgin’s breast when She first fed Baby Jesus. The grass pressed against Matt’s back. It wasn’t as soft as he’d imagined, but it smelled fresh, and the coolness of the air was good, too. He felt hot and feverish.

  The terrifying pain had subsided to a dull ache. Matt was glad to be outside again. The sky felt familiar and safe. The same stars hung over the little house in the poppy fields. Celia never took him outside by day, but sometimes at night she and he would sit in the doorway of the little house. She would tell him stories and point out a falling star. “That’s a prayer being answered by God,” she explained. “One of the angels is flying down to carry out God’s orders.”

  Matt prayed now for Celia to come and rescue him. She’d be upset about the window, but he could live with that. No matter how loud she yelled, he knew that underneath she still loved him. He watched the sky, but no star fell.

  “Look at him. He’s just lying there like an animal,” said Emilia from not far away. Matt jumped. He’d forgotten about the children.

  “He is an animal,” Steven said after a pause. They were sitting on the first step leading to the house. María was busy picking oranges from the trees and rolling them down the stairs.

  “I don’t understand,” said Emilia.

  “I’ve been stupid. I should have known what he—it—was the minute I saw it. No servant would be allowed to keep a child or live away from the others. Benito told me about the situation, only I thought it was living
somewhere else. In a zoo, maybe. Wherever those things are kept.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Matt’s a clone,” said Steven.

  Emilia gasped. “He can’t be! He doesn’t—I’ve seen clones. They’re horrible! They drool and mess their pants. They make animal noises.”

  “This one’s different. Benito told me. Technicians are supposed to destroy the minds at birth—it’s the law. But El Patrón wanted his to grow up like a real boy. He’s so rich, he can break any law he wants.”

  “That’s disgusting. Clones aren’t people,” cried Emilia.

  “Of course they aren’t.”

  Emilia hugged her knees. “It makes me feel goose bumpy. I actually touched it. I got its blood on me—María, stop rolling oranges at us!”

  “Make me,” jeered María.

  “In about one second I’m going to roll you down the stairs.”

  The little girl stuck out her tongue. She threw a fruit so hard, it shot off the bottom step and landed with a soft plop on the grass. “Want me to peel you one, Matt?” she called.

  “Don’t,” said Emilia. The seriousness in her voice made the little girl pause. “Matt’s a clone. You mustn’t go near it.”

  “What’s a clone?”

  “A bad animal.”

  “How bad?” María said with interest.

  Before Emilia could answer, the fierce man and the doctor appeared at the top of the stairs.

  “You should have called me at once,” the doctor said. “It’s my job to make sure it stays healthy.”

  “I didn’t find out until I walked past the living room. There was blood all over the place. I’m afraid I lost my head and ordered Rosa to throw it outside.” The fierce man seemed less dangerous now, but Matt still tried to wriggle away. The movement sent a wave of agony through his foot.

  “We’ll have to take it somewhere else. I can’t operate on the lawn.”

  “There’s an empty room in the servants’ quarters,” said the fierce man. He shouted for Rosa, who pattered down the steps with a furious look on her face. She carted Matt to a different part of the house, a warren of dim hallways that smelled of mold. Steven, Emilia, and María were ordered away, to take showers and change their clothes.

  Matt was deposited onto a hard, bare mattress. The room was long and narrow. At one end was the door and at the other a window covered with iron grillwork.

  “I need more light,” the doctor said, tersely. The fierce man brought a lamp. “Hold it down,” the doctor ordered Rosa.

  “Please, Master. It’s a filthy clone,” the woman objected.

  “Get moving if you know what’s good for you,” the fierce man growled. Rosa threw herself across Matt’s body and grasped his ankles. Her weight made it almost impossible to breathe.

  “Stop . . . stop . . . ,” the boy wailed. The doctor probed in the deepest cut with a pair of tweezers as Matt struggled and begged and finally broke down entirely when the sliver of glass was extracted. Rosa held on to his ankles so tightly, her fingers burned like fire. When at last the wound was cleaned and stitched, Matt was set free. He rolled himself into a ball and looked fearfully at his tormentors to see if they planned anything else.

  “I’ve given it a tetanus shot,” said the doctor, putting away his instruments. “There may be permanent damage to the right foot.”

  “Can I send it back to the poppy fields?” inquired the fierce man.

  “Too late. The children have seen it.”

  The men and Rosa went out. Matt wondered what would happen next. If he prayed very hard, Celia would surely come for him now. She would hug him and carry him off to bed. Then she would light the holy candle in front of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

  Except that the Virgin was far away in the little house, and Celia might not even know where he was.

  Rosa slammed open the door and laid newspapers all over the floor. “The doctor says you’re housebroken, but I’m not taking chances,” she said. “Do it in the bucket if you’ve got the brains.” She placed a bucket next to the bed and picked up the lamp.

  “Wait,” Matt said.

  Rosa paused. She looked distinctly unfriendly.

  “Can you tell Celia where I am?”

  The maid smiled maliciously. “Celia isn’t allowed to see you. Doctor’s orders.” She went out and closed the door.

  The room was dark except for a faint, yellow light filtering through the bars of the window. Matt craned his head up to see where it was coming from. He saw a bulb hanging on a wire from the ceiling. It was as small as the lights Celia used to decorate the Christmas tree, but it shone valiantly and softened what would otherwise have been complete darkness.

  He could see nothing else except the bed and the bucket. The walls were bare, the ceiling high and shadowy. The narrowness of the room made Matt feel as though he were locked in a box.

  He had never, never gone to bed alone. Always, even though it might be very late, he could count on Celia’s return. When he woke in the night, her snores in the next room made him feel safe. Here there was nothing, not even the wind over the poppy fields or the murmur of doves in their nests on the roof.

  The silence was terrifying.

  Matt cried steadily. His grief went on and on. When it lessened, he remembered Celia and started crying again. He looked up with tear-blurred eyes at the little yellow light, and it seemed to waver like a flame. It came to him that it was like the holy candle in front of the Virgin. After all, the Virgin could go wherever She liked. She couldn’t be locked up like a person. She could fly through the air or even knock down walls, like the superheroes Matt saw on TV—only She wouldn’t do that, of course, because She was Jesus’ mother. She could be standing outside right now, watching his window. Something let go inside of Matt. He sighed deeply and soon he was fast asleep.

  He woke to the sound of someone opening the door. Matt tried to sit up, but the pain made him lie down again. A flashlight shone in his eyes.

  “Good. I was afraid this was the wrong room.” A small shape ran over to the bed, unslung a backpack, and began taking out food.

  “María?” said Matt.

  “Rosa said they didn’t give you dinner. She’s so mean! I have a dog at home, and if he doesn’t get fed, he howls. Do you like mango juice? It’s my favorite.”

  Matt suddenly realized he was very thirsty. He drank the whole bottle without stopping. María had brought hunks of cheese and pepperoni. “I’m going to put them into your mouth one at a time—but you have to promise not to bite me.”

  Matt indignantly said he never bit people.

  “Well, you never know. Emilia says clones are as vicious as werewolves. Did you see that story on TV about the boy who got hair all over him when the moon was full?”

  “Yes!” Matt was delighted he and María had something in common. He had locked himself in the bathroom after that movie until Celia came home.

  “You don’t grow hair or anything, do you?” asked María.

  “Never,” Matt swore.

  “Good,” María said. She popped bits of food into Matt’s mouth until he couldn’t eat any more.

  They talked about movies and then about stories Celia had told Matt of the dangers that lurked after dark. Matt found that if he lay perfectly still, his wounds didn’t hurt too much. María bounced around and occasionally hurt him, but he was afraid to scold her. She might get angry and leave.

  “Celia hangs charms over the doors to keep out monsters,” Matt told María.

  “Does that work?”

  “Of course. They also keep out dead people who aren’t ready to stay in their graves.”

  “There aren’t any charms here,” María said nervously.

  That thought had occurred to Matt too, but he didn’t want her to go away. “We don’t need charms in the Big House,” he explained. “There are too many people, and monsters hate crowds.”

  María’s interest drove Matt to greater and greater heights. He talked feverishly, un
able to stop, and he ground his teeth from sheer nervousness. He’d never had so much attention in his life. Celia tried to listen to him, but she was usually too tired. María hung on his words as though her life depended on them.

  “Do you know about the chupacabras?” Matt said.

  “What’s . . . a chupacabras?” asked María. Her voice sounded a little high and breathless.

  “You know. The goat sucker.”

  “It sounds nasty.” María moved closer to him.

  “It is! It’s got spikes down its back and claws and orange teeth, and it sucks blood.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Celia says it has a face of a man, only the eyes are black inside. Like empty holes,” said Matt.

  “Ugh!”

  “It likes goats best, but it’ll eat horses or cows—or a child if it’s really hungry.”

  María was pressed right up against him now. She put her arms around him and he gritted his teeth to keep from wincing with pain. He noticed that her hands were icy.

  “Last month Celia said it got a whole pen of chickens,” Matt said.

  “I heard about that. Steven said Illegals stole them.”

  “That’s what they told everyone to keep them from running away out of sheer terror,” said Matt, echoing the words Celia had used. “But they really found the chickens in the desert without a drop of blood inside. They were blowing around like dry cantaloupe skins.”

  Matt was afraid of Steven and Emilia, but María was different. She was his size and she didn’t make him feel bad. What was it Rosa had called him? A “filthy clone.” Matt had no idea what that was, but he recognized an insult when he heard it. Rosa hated him, and so did the fierce man and the doctor. Even the two older children had changed once they knew what he was. Matt wanted to ask María about clones, but he was afraid she might hate him too if he reminded her.

  Meanwhile, he had discovered a wonderful power in repeating the stories Celia had told him. They had held him spellbound, and now they were impressing María so much that she was practically glued to him.

  “The chupacabras isn’t the only thing out there,” Matt said grandly. “La Llorona walks in the night too.”