Not enough time to trace her, and she was sure this taquería didn’t have Wi-Fi anyway.
“So, who’s your friend?” Pao asked Naomi to break the awkward silence. “The one giving us a ride.”
“The one I’m going to ask to give you a ride,” Naomi corrected. “No guarantees. His name’s Johnny. He works in his dad’s garage and makes regular trips up to Fresno for . . . car stuff.”
Pao glanced at Dante, wondering if he’d have a problem with this, and sure enough, his jaw tightened and his eyes closed for a brief moment. But he didn’t say a word.
“He owes me a favor,” Naomi continued, oblivious to Dante’s discomfort. “A few months back, there was a particularly nasty fantasma in his parents’ well, and I got rid of her for them. He said if I ever needed anything to just ask.”
“Cool,” Pao said, trying to sound casual, like mechanics often owed her favors as well. “How’d you get rid of the fantasma?”
Naomi waved off the question, as if it had been easy. “Most of the ones tied to a specific place are just trying to wrap something up. They’re attached to an object, or bitter about a wrong that was done to them in that location. It’s just about tracking down that source, cutting the cord that’s tethering them to the world of the living, and setting them free.”
Pao thought about this as their food arrived at last—three of those massive chorizo-and-egg burritos that only hole-in-the-wall taquerías did right. She inhaled hers in record time, as much out of urgency to leave as of hunger.
Still, Dante finished first.
“I’m gonna go wash up,” Pao said when it became clear she couldn’t just lick off the red-tinted grease on her fingers. “Then we head out?”
“Garage opens in twenty,” Naomi said, “but he’ll be there by now. Probably better to get him before there are customers anyway.”
“Be right back,” Pao said, and she slipped into the yellow-tiled bathroom.
She’d been washing her hands for a few seconds, closing her eyes as the warm water and her full stomach reminded her she’d barely slept in two days, when the stall behind her opened and a breathtakingly beautiful woman exited.
Pao did a double take. She was sure that the stall had been open and empty before, but again, lack of sleep. She must not have been paying close attention.
And yet she felt that weird prickle on the back of her neck.
The woman smiled a little sheepishly, then stepped up to the sink beside Pao.
Her skin was a light, luminous brown, her eyes huge and so dark they drew your gaze whether they were turned on you or not. Her black hair hung in perfect waves nearly to her elbows. It was movie-star hair, Pao thought. The kind that always made Emma say it must be extensions before Pao went on her tirade about beauty standards again.
For once, the memory didn’t make her sad.
“I love the food here,” the woman said in a lightly accented voice. It was like honey, or the smell of the dark liquor Pao had seen her mom pour over ice at her job. “Whenever I’m passing through, this is the first place I stop.”
Pao smiled, still rinsing her hands, even though they were no longer soapy. Why was she doing that? she asked herself, but she didn’t stop. “I just had a burrito,” she said. “Chorizo. It’s my first time here, but it was excellent.”
“So messy, though,” the woman said, laughing a lilting laugh and holding up her perfectly immaculate hands as if making some sort of point. The sleeves of her bright-red dress went down to her wrists, but they were perfectly dry.
“Totally,” Pao agreed, not altogether sure anymore what she was agreeing to. “Where are you headed?” This question seemed very important, and she dried her hands slowly and carefully while waiting for an answer.
“North,” the woman said a little wistfully. “Always north.”
“We’re heading north, too,” Pao said eagerly. “My friends and I. We’re just filling up first.”
The woman’s eyes sparkled. “What a happy coincidence.”
Pao nodded so hard her head felt a little swimmy afterward. She was supposed to be somewhere, wasn’t she? It seemed important, but she couldn’t remember.
“Maybe I could trouble you for some help,” the woman said, leaning a little closer to Pao, who had made no move to dispose of her paper towel. “You see, I’m going north to help my sick amá, but my husband, well . . .” She pursed her lips like she wanted to say more but couldn’t.
“What?” Pao asked, leaning forward herself.
“He doesn’t get along with Amá,” she said, her sadness like dark molasses in a glass jar. “We argued. He . . . went home without me. To the south. Now I must spend the last of my money on a bus ticket instead of buying her the medicine she desperately needs. Unless . . .”
That was a travesty, Pao thought, furious at the man’s heartlessness. She had to help. She would help. Only . . .
“I don’t have a car,” Pao said mournfully. “My friend, she’s . . . We’re going to ask someone to give us a ride as a favor. I wish I could help.”
Even when the woman’s face fell, she still looked beautiful. “I truly believe you would.” She touched Pao’s cheek like a mother might, her hand cold and impossibly soft.
Then she bared her teeth and lunged.
Pao jumped backward just in time, flattening herself against the cold tile of the bathroom wall as the woman’s gorgeous features turned feral, her long red nails swiping dangerously close to Pao’s eyeballs.
“What is this?” Pao asked, holding up her hands to ward off the woman’s attacks.
A snarl escaped the woman’s lips. She stepped forward, closing the distance between herself and Pao in a single step, her eyes wide like a predator about to overtake her prey.
Pao’s mind was still hazy and muddled, a paper towel balled in her fist. She needed to do something, she knew—draw a weapon, push past the woman, run, at the very least.
But before Pao could pull her knife, the woman was upon her, fingernails glinting in the fluorescent light of the bathroom, and Pao was too confused, too confined to stop her. I’m going to be slashed to ribbons right here in this bathroom with my friends right outside, and—
The woman’s razor-sharp talons stopped a centimeter from Pao’s face. Her expression was conflicted, flickering between human and monster. Pao watched, frozen, hardly daring to hope.
After an endless moment, the woman’s mouth moved grotesquely, like she was one of those ventriloquist puppets come to life. “Come to me, Paola,” she said, her eyes turning from brown to glowing green as if a switch had been flipped.
Pao didn’t get a chance to ask what she meant, or react at all, really. The green eyes flicked back to brown, and the woman—now human again—brushed her dress casually, fluffing her hair and reaching across Pao (who flinched) to take a paper towel for her hands.
“Thank you, sweet child. Travel safely.”
“I will,” Pao said slowly, shaking her head to clear it. She was sure something had just happened—something terrifying. Her racing heart was proof.
But all she remembered was washing her hands.
The bathroom door closed like someone had just exited. But hadn’t the place been empty before? Pao was alone now, looking at her hands, feeling like her head was full of cotton balls. She’d washed her hands for so long, her fingertips were wrinkled. Why had she done that?
“What, did you fall in?” Dante asked, cracking half a smile. Clearly the food had improved his mood, Pao thought, but she couldn’t smile back. She still had the distinct feeling she was forgetting something. Something important.
“Sauce on my shirt,” Pao said vaguely, not knowing how to explain the rest.
He shrugged and turned away, but Naomi’s eyes lingered a little longer on Pao’s, like she knew something was up.
“You good, pipsqueak?” Naomi asked as Dante made his way to the front to buy hot dog gummies for the road.
“Yeah,” Pao said. “There was someone in the bat
hroom . . . a woman. But I can’t remember. . . .”
“Very specific,” Naomi said, raising an eyebrow, waiting for more.
Pao didn’t elaborate.
On the way out the door, on top of a glass case filled with phone cards, photos of the store from the fifties, and dusty boxes of papaya chicle, there was a small altar. In the center was a portrait in a white lace frame.
The subject was a strikingly beautiful woman, her dark eyes drawing Pao’s even through the glass. QUERIDA ELENITA was embroidered in blue across the top of the frame, along with a birth date and a death date some fifteen years ago.
“You coming?” Dante called from the door, which was standing open, letting in the brisk morning air.
“Yeah,” Pao said again, pulling her eyes away from the portrait at last.
She had never spent any time in Rock Creek, she thought as she stepped out into the bright sunlight. She certainly didn’t know an Elenita. . . .
So then why did the woman in the frame look so familiar?
Juan & Sons Auto Repair was one of those tiny cluttered shops that looked like it had gotten messy in the seventies and no one had moved a thing since.
Not even the weird cymbal-banging windup monkey on the top shelf growing cobwebs from its ears. Pao stared at it for a beat too long—its eyes were following her, she was sure of it.
Either that, or she was still jumpy from . . . whatever that had been at the taquería.
Naomi took point, warning them under her breath not to speak unless she gave them express permission. Pao hid a smile. It was almost like old times, Naomi being embarrassed by them.
Pao slid her eyes over to Dante to see if he remembered, too, but he wasn’t looking at her. She tried not to feel too disappointed.
The garage was empty except for an old red car that was super shiny, every edge rounded. Pao didn’t know the first thing about cars, but Dante seemed impressed.
“Karmann Ghia?” he asked, circling it.
A lanky guy slid out from under the car, sneakers first, a red bandanna over his nose and mouth and a greasy wrench in his hand. He was lying on one of those wheeled boards they let you play with in elementary school gym class when the teacher has run out of other tortures for the day.
“That’s right,” the guy said, pulling off his bandanna and wiping his sweaty brow with it.
“Sixty-four?” Dante guessed.
Pao was shocked. What did Dante know about cars? He had lived his whole life in an apartment with a little old lady who rode the bus.
“Sixty-five,” the guy answered with grudging respect in his tone. “Good guess, though. They’re practically identical in every way. Not sure even I could tell the difference.”
Dante grinned at the compliment. “She’s pretty cherry.”
“Yeah, the guy who owns it is a collector. He brings ’em here for tune-ups, because he likes to tell us we did it wrong.” He smiled, a lopsided thing, and stuck out his hand. “I’m Johnny.”
“Dante.”
Johnny tied the bandanna around his forehead, holding back long curtains of glossy black hair. His face was halfway between a boy’s and a man’s, with a few proud hairs clinging to his upper lip. His smile was bright against his deep-brown skin. He wore blue jeans and a white T-shirt with a leather vest over it. “What can I do for you, hermanito?”
“Uh . . .” Dante said, but Naomi stepped around the car and into view.
“Hey, Johnny,” she said, and immediately the man-boy’s face flushed red, his hands jamming into his pockets.
“Naomi,” he said, trying and failing to hitch his cool back into place. “What’s up? Haven’t seen you around in a . . .” He got stuck between while and minute, and what came out sounded like whimmit.
Naomi chuckled and shook her head before stepping forward to bump fists with Johnny—who promptly dropped his wrench. When he stooped to pick it up, Pao saw that his vest was engraved with a vulture skull on the back.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, his flush creeping down to his neck. “What brings you to Rock Creek?”
“I need a favor,” she said, just like that, and Johnny started nodding like a bobblehead.
“Yeah, anything!”
“These friends of mine need to make a trip north. Far as you can get them.”
Pao was pretty sure the vulture skull on Johnny’s vest made him part of a local motorcycle gang, but she didn’t dare say anything. Any ride was better than none.
“I got a transport going to Fresno on Thursday,” he said eagerly. “I’ll have a brother with me, but I’m sure I can get them on board after what you did for my folks.”
Pao started to panic. Thursday? It was only Monday. If they had to hang around Rock Creek for another three days, they’d get caught for sure. Emma could only hold off Pao’s mom with her faux bad acting for so long.
If they lingered here, they’d end up back home, where Pao’s mom would keep her locked up forever after two disappearances in one year. Señora Mata might not recover. And Pao would never find out what this magic anomaly had to do with her dad, or why he had left, or if there was something special about her, anything at all.
“We can’t wait until Thursday,” Pao said firmly, and Johnny’s eyes darted to her for the first time. Pao knew the look well—she was too young to be of interest to him.
He was already shrugging that nothing I can do shrug when Naomi chimed in.
“Yeah, sorry, that’s not gonna work,” she said. “They need out of here today.”
“Today?” Johnny gulped, his protruding Adam’s apple bobbing up and down almost comically. “I don’t know if I can make today happen, Naomi. Not even for you. The . . . car parts won’t even be ready for another two days.”
Pao’s eyes darted between them. From the shifty look in Johnny’s eyes and the understanding in Naomi’s, she was pretty sure they weren’t talking about actual car parts. Or, if they were, the parts hadn’t been obtained legally.
Any ride is better than no ride, Pao repeated firmly to herself, physically biting her tongue to keep from commenting on the transaction occurring in front of her. She’d just have to hope the ride didn’t end with the cops pulling them over.
Pao hadn’t historically had the best luck with police. And she doubted anyone in this group had fared any better.
“Well, maybe,” Naomi said with a gleam in her eye, “you make an unscheduled road trip?” She looked at the shiny red car pointedly.
For a change, Dante cracked a smile that didn’t look forced—probably at the prospect of cruising north in this thing.
“This car?” Johnny asked, his eyes bugging out now. “Naomi, they will seriously kill me! Everyone. My pops, the hermanos, the guy who owns this car, everyone.”
“Or,” Naomi said, her warmer-than-usual demeanor cooling considerably, “maybe the next time a fantasma’s haunting your home and you’re unprotected, that will kill you instead.” She straightened her shoulders and jerked her head toward the exit. “Come on, guys. We’ll find you another ride.”
Pao had her doubts about walking out in the open only a few miles from where her mom was definitely looking for her by now, but she knew better than to argue with Naomi when she got that steely look on her face. Pao, along with Dante, pivoted to follow her out, not knowing what they’d possibly do now. Wild thoughts of stowing away in the cargo area of a Greyhound bus swirled around in her head until—
“Wait!”
Johnny caught up with them just before they exited the garage.
Naomi stopped, but she didn’t turn around. She just waited.
“He won’t be back to pick up the car until tomorrow,” he said breathlessly, digging the keys out of his pocket and simultaneously sending a shower of candy wrappers and receipts fluttering to the cement floor.
Naomi turned just a little.
“Maybe I take her for a test drive?” Johnny offered.
“I’m listening,” Naomi said.
“Maybe I get a flat tire a
nd get stranded with no cell service until tomorrow?”
“That would be a shame,” Naomi said slowly, spinning around the rest of the way to face Johnny, who had that dopey puppy-dog smile on his face again.
“Yeah,” he said, looking a little hypnotized. “Listen, as long as your friends aren’t, like, fugitives or runaways or anything, it should be no problem getting them to Fresno.”
“Oh, they’re probably both by now,” Naomi said offhandedly. “Or, if not yet, they will be in a few hours.”
Johnny smiled uncertainly, like he thought Naomi might be joking.
She didn’t smile back.
Within thirty minutes, Johnny was in the driver’s seat of the Ghia, Dante beside him in the passenger seat, and Pao stretched out lengthwise in the back. In an effort to keep the shaky new peace between them, Pao had allowed Dante to take shotgun.
Well, it was also because she had absolutely nothing to talk to Johnny of Juan & Sons Auto Repair about for the eight hours and thirty minutes he estimated it would take them to get to Fresno, and she was sure he didn’t want to get stuck talking to her, either.
Instead, Pao figured she’d spend the trip trying to figure out what the heck they were going to do once they got to the end of the Johnny’s stolen-car express line. By her calculations (done on her phone, which she briefly turned on to use the map), the town where her dad’s PO box was located was another eight hours north of Fresno.
There was no way Johnny was going to take them the whole way, no matter how big a crush he had on Naomi. They’d be in an unfamiliar city, alone and at odds, with only one night to figure out how to get back on the road north.
Pao had never even been to California. There were beaches there, right? That was pretty much all she knew.
Maybe Dante would win over Johnny with his random-but-convenient knowledge of cars by the time they got there, and he’d be willing to help them find somewhere to crash. Or buy them bus tickets? Usually Pao liked things to be a little more locked down, but she had the next six hundred miles to come up with a plan.
Paola Santiago and the Forest of Nightmares Page 9
