Paola Santiago and the Forest of Nightmares

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  “Whatever,” Pao said. “I don’t care about your motives. I just want to save Señora Mata and stop more fantasmas from attacking sick people.” And, if there’s time, also find out why my dad abandoned me and who I really am, Pao added silently.

  “Yes, they’re going north,” Naomi said, like she was already bored by the conversation. “Franco had all this equipment, ways to track magic activity that he never showed us how to use. He can locate any rift in the world with it.” She said this part with her teeth mostly clenched, like she was irritated about how impressive it sounded.

  Meanwhile, Pao was getting starry-eyed about this equipment. As skeptical as she was about Franco, how cool would it be to use equipment that tracked and measured something everyone thought was made up?

  “Anyway,” Naomi said again, bringing Pao back to earth from her first space-out in ages. “Lately his readings have been going crazy. At first he thought the machines were malfunctioning, they were so high. He pinpointed the energy to a single location. Apparently there’s magic collecting in one place—a place a thousand miles from the nearest rift.”

  “Did it start happening after we closed the void?” Pao asked.

  Naomi shook her head. “That’s the thing,” she said. “It was weeks after. No one knows why. It’s just gathering at this single point like a storm.”

  There was no doubt about it, Pao thought. Naomi wanted to be out there. She was, like, longing to be chasing this magic anomaly with her friends and fighting whatever fantasmas came along as a result.

  “And this gathering point?” Pao said. “It’s in Oregon, isn’t it. The southern part?”

  Naomi looked at Pao, straight into her eyes, like she was trying to x-ray the contents of her brain. “Yeah,” she finally said. “It is. Although I can’t for the life of me figure out how you know that.”

  “Me neither,” said Pao, her brain already going a mile a minute. “But here we are.”

  This magical anomaly was centered near her dad. Pao just knew it.

  She remembered how he had looked in her dream, lying there helpless, the green force field surrounding him.

  Now fantasmas were chasing her in real life, and weird green things were stalking her dreams, like she was some kind of target for the creatures of the void. Had she put her father in danger, too? Was that what the nightmares had been trying to tell her?

  Naomi leaned back against the blocks and looked up at the stars—so much easier to see now that there was no bonfire. After a beat, she asked, “You’re gonna go after them, aren’t you?”

  Pao nodded. “And you’re gonna stay here?”

  “Where else could I go?” Naomi asked, that sad chuckle escaping her lips again. “I’ve been fourteen for, like, eight years. I can’t drive; I can’t get a job. I’ve basically just been freelancing around here for meals while I figure out my next move.”

  “Freelancing?”

  “Sure, you know, ghost-hunter-for-hire-type stuff. There’s plenty of work. Now that the rift is closed and there’s no monsters to keep them in check, the little household spirits are running rampant. I get rid of fantasmas, collect whatever reward I can, and keep moving on.”

  “Sounds lonely,” Pao said.

  Naomi shrugged.

  “You can come with me and Dante if you want,” Pao said. “We could use the help.”

  “Pass,” Naomi said witheringly.

  “Yeah, I get it,” Pao said. “Who wants to go through the trouble of discovering a magic anomaly and fighting new monsters when you can help kindergarteners with the duendes in their walls.”

  “Watch it, small fry,” Naomi said.

  “No, I mean it,” Pao insisted, using the same super-earnest expression that had always gotten her mom off her back when she was plotting something a little shifty. “Franco’s got all these lofty ideas and aspirations about saving the world? Let him have them. Someone has to be on the ground, helping the real people. Isn’t that what the Niños are really about?”

  Naomi didn’t immediately retort, which Pao took as a good sign.

  “And Marisa,” she continued, noting the crease that appeared between Naomi’s eyebrows at the mention. “She’s always been a little too high and mighty, if you ask me. If she wants to run off with Franco, get cozy on their long trip north, fall in love or whatever, who cares, right? They deserve each other.”

  The crease disappeared. “Leave Marisa out of this—she’s being brainwashed.”

  Pao raised both hands. “Totally,” she said. “Franco seems to have that effect on people. But not on us. That’s why we’re here and she’s out there, huddled in a tent with him, telling secrets and forging bonds, and—”

  “When are you leaving again?” Naomi asked, glowering.

  “Sorry,” Pao said. “I’m just impressed. You went with your gut and didn’t let yourself get sucked into that miasma of charm and chiseled jaw and piercing eyes and—”

  “I know a guy in Rock Creek,” Naomi said flatly. “He might be able to get you as far north as Central California. For now, catch some shut-eye. I’ll keep watch the rest of the night and take you there when the sun’s up, make sure no ghosts or police mess with you on the way. That’s as much help as I can offer.”

  Pao smiled with all her teeth, hoping it looked natural. “Thank you,” she said. “And hey, maybe when we’re done saving Dante’s abuela and getting an up-close and personal look at the magic anomaly, I can come back. Hang out and help you with”—she gestured around at the “camp,” which honestly looked more like a trash heap where a feral cat lived—“all this. I really do admire your sacrifice, you know.”

  Naomi grunted noncommittally, but Pao saw her scan the camp with new eyes.

  Pao, smirking, lay down on an abandoned sofa cushion.

  Sure, Naomi thought she was taking them as far as Rock Creek, but if Pao had laid the groundwork right, the older girl would be along for much more than the first seven miles.

  This time, when Pao drifted off to sleep, no ghosts followed her.

  Little did she know what the next day would bring.

  Pao opened her eyes to the sight of Dante, his hair wild, springing to his feet with his club drawn. He’d apparently just discovered someone in their midst.

  Naomi lounged against the firepit laughing her head off. “Stand down, hero boy,” she said. “You really expect to hit anything swinging wide like that?” She stood up and jabbed beneath his too-extended arm. Dante pulled the club in, his eyebrows knitting together in a scowl to rival any of Naomi’s.

  Pao wanted to tease him, too, remembering their fighting lessons last summer, the way Naomi had gone mercilessly for Dante’s weak points until he was angry and reckless. But she didn’t. The last thing she wanted was for him to explode again.

  Even if he didn’t like her very much right now, they still had to work together.

  Dante turned to Pao, and she was ready with a smile that said, Let’s bury the hatchet before a fantasma buries one in us.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “What’s she doing here?”

  “I’m right in front of you,” Naomi said, the playfulness gone from her tone. “And I live here, so if you want my help, don’t be a jerk.”

  “I don’t,” Dante said, whirling on Naomi. “We have this under control. Thanks anyway.”

  Pao thought under control was a bit of an overstatement, but she decided to keep her opinion to herself.

  “Naomi showed up while you were asleep,” Pao explained in her gentlest tone. “The other Niños are gone, but after I told her we’re trying to save your abuela, she agreed to help us find a ride north.”

  If Naomi was surprised that Pao didn’t give Dante all the details about Franco and the Niños and the anomaly, she didn’t show it.

  “Why are you so interested in helping?” Dante asked Naomi. “You know we’re not doing any more suicidal favors for you, right? Because we’re not.”

  “I haven’t asked you to do anything,” said N
aomi, bristling, and Pao watched her plan begin to unravel as their egos circled each other, hackles up.

  “Not yet,” Dante said. “But face it, help without strings attached isn’t exactly the Niños’ style.”

  Pao hadn’t expected this tension between the two of them. Last summer, Dante had wanted nothing more than to be a Niño de la Luz, and his unbridled admiration for Naomi had annoyed Pao endlessly.

  But, Pao recalled now, that had been before the pair had gone off on a mission together. One that ended in Dante being abducted by ahogados.

  Naomi glared daggers at Dante. “I’m not part of Los Niños de la Luz anymore,” she said. “And even when I was, you didn’t know anything about me.”

  “You let me be taken,” Dante said in a low voice, and as much as Pao wanted to interrupt, to stop this interaction from wrecking her plan, she couldn’t. She had never heard Dante talk about what happened. He’d resisted every time Pao had tried to bring it up.

  “We were outnumbered,” Naomi said. “I did the best I could.”

  “You didn’t need me,” Dante continued, as if she hadn’t answered. “Just the club. As soon as I’d done what you needed—driven the ahogados toward camp—you turned your back.”

  He took a step toward her, and for a terrible moment, Pao thought he might hit her. Instead, he dropped his voice even lower and said, “I believed in you—your ‘community’ or whatever—but it was all conditional, and it almost got me killed. I won’t let that happen again.”

  Pao privately felt that any help was the kind they needed right now, but he had said we and she needed him on her side, so she stayed quiet. Best to keep the boat still for now.

  “We had an objective,” Naomi said, shrugging. “We were trying to stay alive.”

  “No matter the cost,” Dante said, and finally he unfolded his arms.

  “Look, I’m gonna do a lap, make sure everything’s secure in case I’m leaving.” Naomi’s eyes darted to Pao, who tried to form a facial expression that simultaneously meant Don’t worry, the plan is still on and Don’t tell him anything more and also Please don’t change your mind about helping us just because my friend is kind of a jerk now.

  From Naomi’s eye roll, Pao guessed she’d only succeeded halfway.

  When Pao and Dante were alone, she turned to him, still feeling the sting of everything he’d said last night, the ache in her chest that sat right in the place where their friendship once had.

  But they didn’t have time to talk it through. The Niños were moving north. Pao’s mom had probably mobilized the whole town looking for her by now. Señora Mata was barely holding on. . . .

  And, somewhere, Pao’s dad might be in danger, as magic gathered all around him. She had to reach him in time to get the answer she needed to help Señora Mata. Not to mention some answers of her own.

  “What does she want from us?” Dante asked the moment Naomi was out of earshot. “I don’t buy this new I quit the Niños and just want to help thing. Especially not from her.”

  “I may have tried to convince her that going north to find the other Niños was in her best interest?” Pao said in a wannabe-lighthearted voice, knowing that Dante wouldn’t like it no matter what tone she used. “She hasn’t agreed, but she did get annoyed enough to offer a ride from her friend just to get rid of me, so that’s something.”

  Dante was looking at her with disbelief. “You actually want her to come with us, don’t you?” he asked. “On some return-the-lost-Niña mission. You told me this was about helping my abuela, Pao. Not about playing hero again because you’re mad that your mom got a boyfriend.”

  Today, Pao’s mantra about Dante hurting her because he was hurt didn’t seem to be working. She felt the place behind her eyes get hot, a sure sign she was about to cry.

  Dante seemed to struggle with something for several silent seconds before he finally said, “I’m sorry, okay? That was a low blow. I’m just worried, and I don’t want to get derailed by being pawns for these guys again.”

  It was the most Dante thing he’d said in a long time, and Pao fought the urge to spring forward and hug him. She didn’t question where all his resentment from last night had gone, or what had made him apologize. She was just glad he was acting like her friend again.

  “I get it,” she said. “I’m worried, too. And it’s not about the Niños, okay? I promise. They’re tracking a magical anomaly thing up north with some instruments of Franco’s. Naomi is a means to an end. And the end is saving your abuela and stopping whatever’s happening here for good.”

  Dante just looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time. The silence was unnerving.

  “I mean, we’re two thirteen-year-old kids, who have definitely been reported missing by now, trying to travel over a thousand miles,” Pao said as logically as she could. “I was hoping Marisa and Franco would be here and one of them would have a magic door we could step through and pop out right where we needed to be. But they’re not, and that door probably doesn’t exist, and it would definitely be easier to get to Oregon with Naomi’s help than on our own.”

  He was quiet for another long minute, and then he smiled, a forced thing that didn’t quite reach his eyes. But it was something. “Okay,” Dante said, stuffing the now chancla-shaped weapon back in his pocket. “I trust you.”

  Pao’s heart soared.

  The walk into Rock Creek was long and quiet.

  Naomi and Dante wouldn’t meet each other’s eyes. Pao walked between them like a buffer, but she couldn’t figure out what to say. She had planned to use this time to convince Naomi to come north with them, but she didn’t know how to do that and keep Dante on board at the same time.

  Unfortunately, the two-hour-twenty-minute walk was over before she could get a handle on her warring loyalties.

  “The garage doesn’t open for another hour,” Naomi said. “We’ll have to lie low until then.”

  “I’m starving,” Pao blurted before she could help herself, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Dante nod before he used that strange half smile on her again.

  “Breakfast burritos it is,” Naomi said, and she steered them left onto a long dusty road heading into town.

  Seated in a sticky vinyl booth with a tall strawberry-banana agua fresca in front of her, Pao came back to life a little.

  They’d bought three pairs of big cheap sunglasses from the dollar rack with Pao’s money, which Naomi said made them look more conspicuous, not less. But they made Pao feel better. The glasses, combined with Naomi’s eye-catching silver hair, made it so no one would look at Pao and Dante for too long.

  While they waited for their food, Pao turned on her phone for the first time since last night. She knew she’d have to make her call quick to prevent her mom from tracking her, but an update from Emma about Señora Mata might make this first part of the trip go more smoothly.

  The phone rang twice before Emma picked up. “Sorry, Mom!” she said on the other end. “It’s Alex asking about the posters for the rally. I have to tell them I can’t make it!”

  Pao waited until she heard a door close on Emma’s end. “You there, Emma?”

  “Yep! But if anyone asks, you’re a Rainbow Rogue named Alex who loves metalworking and dumpster diving and abhors the gender binary.”

  “That’s me all right,” Pao said, cracking a smile for what felt like the first time all day. “What’s up on your end?”

  “I’m keeping it together,” Emma said in a half whisper. “Your mom called, like, five times this morning, but I think I convinced her that I’m hiding you in my room.”

  “How’d you manage that?” Pao asked.

  “‘Nooo, Ms. Santiago,’” Emma said, and Pao could just picture her eyes going big and round for her innocent act. “‘I haven’t seen Pao once since earl—I mean yesterday! I’m sure she’s fine wherever she is, but it’s definitely not here at all!’”

  Pao was laughing in earnest now. “That was so bad,” she said.

  �
�That’s the point,” Emma said, laughing, too.

  Pao had to admit she’d missed Emma’s ability to make her smile no matter how dire the circumstances.

  “So you don’t think she suspects I’ve left town?” Pao asked, ignoring Dante’s eyes on her.

  “Nah. My guess is she just thinks you’re mad at her and you need to cool down for a few days.”

  “Good,” Pao said. “How’s Señora Mata?”

  “I’m on my way to the hospital now,” Emma said. “I stayed pretty late yesterday. They had to move her to another floor because of the damage the ghosts caused, but there’s been no change in her, for better or worse.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Pao said. “What did they say about the fantasma attack? Are there tabloid reporters filming for alien activity yet?”

  Emma paused for a long time. “Um, actually . . . they’re calling them drug addicts from the other side of town. They claimed they broke in looking for pills.”

  Pao rolled her eyes. “Of course they did. These people see literal ghosts and change the story to blame poor people within twenty minutes. Unbelievable.”

  “Disgraceful,” Emma said. “I mean, nonwhite people are accused of drug offenses at a staggeringly high—”

  “Emma?” Pao said, sensing another Rainbow Rogues’ lunchtime webinar coming on. “I gotta go before my mom sics her Find My iPhone on me. Text me when you see Señora Mata, okay? I’ll check in again as soon as I can.”

  “You got it!” Emma said. “Happy to be your guy in the chair!”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Pao said.

  “Byeeee!”

  The line went dead.

  “She’s on her way to see your grandma,” Pao said to Dante, bracing herself for a cutting comment. “Said she was moved to another room but she hasn’t gotten any worse.”

  They both knew that was just a nice way of saying she hadn’t gotten better, but Dante’s face remained strangely blank.

  “Thanks,” he said, and that was all.

  Pao’s phone rang, and she realized she hadn’t turned it off. She pressed the power button hard, relieved when the little apple glowed briefly on the screen and then disappeared.