Paola Santiago and the Forest of Nightmares

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  A year or two should do it, she thought. Three, tops.

  Instead, she dragged herself back into the house, her heart heavy, every limb aching and sore, to investigate yet another mystery.

  “Pao?” came a voice from inside the bedroom door. Naomi’s. “Pao, are you there? We’re locked in!”

  “I’m here!” Pao called, trying to sound like her heart hadn’t just been through a meat grinder. “I have to figure out how to get you out!”

  “There’s a key,” said another voice. Softer and lightly accented. “He probably took one with him, but there’s a spare in the drawer next to the oven.”

  “Be right back,” Pao called.

  The drawer was crammed with batteries, a broken remote control, and several random pushpins that stabbed Pao’s fingers as she dug through. Lanyards with no keys attached and screws in baggies with folded instructions taped to them.

  Finally, at the bottom of the drawer, with what looked to be a handful of sunflower seeds, was a silver key.

  Pao walked back to the door slowly, bracing herself for what was going to happen when she opened it. Losing her best friend had been painful enough, but when she told Naomi about it? When she confronted the mother who had abandoned her son to set all this in motion? That would make it real. And Pao wasn’t sure she was ready for real.

  Regardless, she pulled open the door, a little nauseated when she saw that the room hadn’t been changed at all in ten years. It was still home to the toddler bed painted blue, the toy box, the pile of dusty stuffed animals in the corner.

  His mom had kept it all as some kind of shrine. Pao wanted to cry. She wanted to run.

  “Are you okay?” Naomi asked, stepping out into the hallway, none of her usual snarkiness in her demeanor. “Where’s Dante? What happened? He told us he had something to do. He locked us in here ‘for our safety,’ and just left. You were out cold. We didn’t know if he was helping you, or . . .”

  As Naomi spoke, Pao looked behind her at the woman who wasn’t even trying to leave the room. She was just sitting on the little boy’s bed and staring vacantly at the wall.

  It was too much. Pao could feel her stomach doing backflips, the tears building up, the lump in her throat.

  “Can you keep an eye on her?” Pao asked Naomi, interrupting her. “I’ll be right back. There’s one more thing. . . .”

  She didn’t wait for a response, just ran out the door. She made it as far as the second row of grapevines before she threw up all over the ground, the heaves giving way to sobs that racked her body.

  Pao hoped that Naomi couldn’t hear her. That she would assume whatever Pao had run out to do was important ghost-hunting business.

  Instead, Pao fished her phone out of her pocket, still crying, found Emma’s contact by the picture alone, and pressed the button for video. She needed to see a familiar face. To remember that she wasn’t utterly alone.

  “Pao?” Emma’s voice said before her picture loaded onto the screen. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “N-no,” Pao sniffled. “Nothing’s okay. He’s gone and he hates me and he tried to kill me and I have an Arma del Alma but I have no idea what to do. I’m in way over my head and—”

  “Slow down,” Emma said, her voice like a cool washcloth across Pao’s forehead. “Take a deep breath, okay?”

  Pao tried to, dragging air in through her snotty nose and hiccupping halfway through. She opened her eyes enough to see Emma’s face, her glittery lip gloss, that little bump in her bangs.

  “Good,” Emma said, smiling encouragingly at Pao with her perfectly straight teeth. “Now take another one.”

  Pao did as she was told. Then she blew her nose on her shirt and inhaled again for good measure.

  “Are you safe?” Emma asked, not smiling now, but calm enough to make space for Pao to fall apart.

  Pao nodded, not trusting her voice yet. “There was a fantasma, but . . . he’s gone now. It’s quiet.”

  “Where’s Dante?” Emma asked. “You said he was gone—did he get taken? Was it another ahogada?” She overpronounced the name in a way that was so cute, Pao almost giggled.

  But she couldn’t. Not when the next answer was going to make it all real.

  “He left,” she said, her voice hollow. “For good.”

  Pao could tell Emma was trying hard not to overreact to this news, and she loved her for it.

  “He’ll be back,” Emma said automatically. “He always comes back. He’s just having a hard time with his abuela and everything. It’s not your fault, Pao, okay? He’ll be back.”

  Sniffing, Pao shook her head, knowing she must look like a total mess, but not caring. “He said awful things. He’s been talking to someone, a new ally. He said . . . He said I didn’t deserve to be the hero, and that . . .” She was crying again. She couldn’t go on.

  “Wow,” Emma said. “Listen, Pao that is awful, okay? I didn’t mean to make excuses for him. Just because he’s hurting doesn’t mean he deserves to treat you that way. There’s no excuse for abusive behavior, even when you’re traumatized.”

  Pao could tell Emma was exerting a herculean effort not to tell her which of the Rainbow Rogues’ lunchtime webinars she had learned this from.

  “You’re right,” Pao said. “You’re right. It’s just . . .”

  “He’s your best friend,” Emma said when Pao trailed off. “He’s been with you through everything. You were supposed to be able to trust him no matter what, and he betrayed that trust. But, Pao, it says nothing about you, and everything about him, okay? You’re not the destructive one. You’re not the one who hurts people.”

  She felt Emma’s words move through her like the golden light that had grown her Arma del Alma. They lit her up and made all the empty, cold places easier to bear.

  “Thank you,” Pao said, knowing they didn’t have much more time. Soon she’d be alone again with the weight of the world on her shoulders. So, instead of talking more, instead of explaining, Pao just sat in the silence of the empty vineyard and looked at her best friend and took more deep breaths.

  “Your mom will probably call soon, huh?” Emma said after a few minutes.

  “Yeah.”

  “Look,” Emma said, “I don’t know much about the void or the fantasmas or anything else, but I do know you. And you’re not in over your head, Pao. You’re the smartest, most capable, most amazing person I know.” She took a deep breath. “Your heart is so big, and your instincts are so good, and I know this hurts, okay? But you’re gonna find your dad. You’re gonna save Señora Mata. And you’re gonna do it with or without old what’s-his-name, because that’s who you are. You are a hero. You’re my hero.”

  Emma was blushing a little, and Pao couldn’t help it—despite the snot and the tears drying her eyes all crusty, she smiled. A big, genuine smile. “You’re my hero, too,” she said. “You saved the day just now, that’s for sure.”

  “I know you’ve known him longer,” Emma said. “But you’re not alone, either. You still have one best friend left, and I’m not ever going anywhere.”

  The tears were back, but this time they were happy ones. Pao heard the door to the house open, footsteps on the porch.

  “I gotta go,” she said, though it was kind of the last thing in the world she wanted to do. “Stay safe, okay?”

  “You too,” Emma said. “Call soon? As soon as you can?”

  “I will,” Pao promised, not knowing when she said it how impossible the promise would prove to keep.

  By the time Naomi found her in the vineyard, Pao had collected herself.

  “We need to get out of here as soon as possible,” Pao said, getting to her feet and brushing the dirt off her pants. She hoped she looked like she’d just been doing something really important and not crying to her best friend.

  “What the heck happened?” Naomi asked, real curiosity in her eyes. “How is your arm better? And where’s hero boy, anyway? I want him to answer for the three hours I just spent locked in tha
t closet while you were apparently fighting a fantasma alone.”

  Hero boy, Pao thought, letting it sting for a moment before she moved on. The nickname had a very different ring to it after the speech he’d made.

  “He’s not a hero,” Pao said. “And he’s gone. For good. We need to go on without him.”

  “Gone?” Naomi said, catching up as Pao walked toward the house.

  She had a few questions for Dante’s mom before they hit the road. Pao had a feeling she wouldn’t be seeing her again after this.

  “Gone.”

  “Gone where? Hey, wait up! Aren’t you usually, like, busting at the seams to chatter to someone about something?”

  “People change,” said Pao, and she felt the truth of it in her chest. She had changed today. Forever.

  “Listen, if I’m going to help you,” said Naomi, “you’re gonna have to tell me stuff!”

  Pao realized it felt good, being pestered for information by a girl who had once considered herself so superior. Pao planned to keep up this dynamic for as long as she could.

  Assuming Naomi didn’t up and walk out on her, too.

  “Someone has been talking to Dante—in his dreams, most likely. I think it’s someone from the void, because this person knew things they couldn’t know otherwise. Things about the past. They’ve been poisoning Dante’s mind.” Pao left out a lot, of course. Like what Dante had said about her family being the reason this was all happening. Pao was determined to get to the bottom of that on her own.

  Naomi whistled, long and low. “So he’s turned on us? Joined the other side? I never saw that coming.”

  “He thinks he’s the good guy,” Pao told Naomi, not meeting her eyes. It was easier to get this out when they were walking side by side. “He called me the villain. Said I destroy everything I touch. He’s made his choice.”

  “Harsh,” Naomi said. “You okay? Didn’t you guys have some kind of—”

  “I’m fine,” Pao said. “I just need to get on the road. I want to make it to the anomaly by tomorrow.” She finally turned to face Naomi. “Do you know anything about whatever it is that’s influencing Dante?”

  If Naomi did, she didn’t let on. “No clue,” she said. “The only person I’ve ever known who could talk to void creatures in their dreams was you.”

  “Señora Mata can access the dreams, too,” Pao said. “I saw her in one of them. You sure it’s not some kind of Niños de la Luz thing? Or an ancestor of mine . . . ?” She was thinking hard about what Dante had said about her origin story, about her not putting together the pieces of who she was.

  Like he’d been able to do it without his mysterious void ally, Pao thought scathingly.

  “Not that I know of,” Naomi said, shaking her head. “I’ve never heard of a Niño with that kind of power. And Dante’s grandma? Whoever she is, she was before my time.”

  “Hmm,” Pao said, thinking hard. “Another mystery.” Another question to ask my dad, she noted privately. She’d never been so motivated to reach him. The list of things she needed him to explain was growing by the minute.

  Because, even if Dante had been vague and totally cruel, he had confirmed one thing for Pao before he left—her father was somehow connected to all this. The rifts, the void, the magic, all of it. She just needed to know how his puzzle piece fit.

  “One more thing,” Naomi said, “and I hate to bring it up when this is all so . . . fresh. But didn’t we kind of need hero b—I mean what’s-his-name—along for the ride? At least for his big, shiny club? Without it, how we gonna deal with the fantasmas that seem to be stalking you? Because you were very nearly roadkill back at that rest stop, and—”

  Pao ended this line of questioning by pulling the magnifying glass out of her pocket and envisioning it as a staff, willing it to transform.

  Naomi gasped audibly as it did, the butt of it hitting the ground with a thud and the blade stretching toward the night sky. Its gold marbling glowed faintly. Pao filed away that useful fact for later.

  “Is that . . . ? How did you . . . ? Where . . . ?”

  Pao smirked. Naomi, speechless? Maybe Emma had been right to call Pao amazing after all.

  “It’s an Arma del Alma,” Pao said casually, like she plucked superpowerful soul weapons from dream flowers all the time. “And it’s mine.”

  “Okay, then,” Naomi said, trying and failing to match Pao’s nonchalant tone. “Hero boy who?”

  They had arrived back at the house. The lights were on, but there was no movement inside. It was late, probably past ten p.m., but Pao needed to talk to Dante’s mom.

  They found her still sitting on the toddler bed, her eyes open but clearly not seeing anything. Pao wondered if something had happened to her, if maybe the fantasma had hurt her. But when Pao cleared her throat, the woman looked up.

  “Is he gone?” she asked.

  Pao nodded. She knew she shouldn’t feel sympathy for this woman who had abandoned her child, but it was hard not to in the moment. “Long gone,” Pao said. “Did he tell you where he was going?”

  “I don’t know anything,” the woman said, tears already welling up in her eyes. “I haven’t seen him in . . . since . . .”

  “Ten years,” Pao said as gently as she could. “Since the day the fantasma killed your husband.”

  The woman gaped at Pao, her eyes wide. “How did you know that?”

  “It’s a very long story,” Pao said, and she felt the weariness in her own voice threatening to take over. “But I was there. I stayed with your son until his abuela got him to safety. Once they were gone, I took the locket and dispatched the fantasma.” Pao paused. “Well, at least I thought I did. It came back tonight.”

  “No!” Dante’s mom got to her feet, her eyes darting everywhere.

  “Don’t worry,” Pao said, shaking her head. “It exploded. I don’t know how it came back before, but I’m pretty sure it’s gone for good this time.”

  “And my boy? Do you—”

  “Why did you leave him?” Pao blurted out. Even though the question was rude, she didn’t take it back. She needed to know the answer.

  Pao had always tried to make logical sense of the things that scared her. Her obsession with science had begun, in fact, when she’d looked up facts about the Gila River to stop her nightmares about La Llorona. Cold pockets, strong currents, hidden debris—all those commonplace worries were much easier to control than the big, unreasonable fear the ghost elicited in her.

  Her research had only branched out from there. Anxiety about climate change had led her to learn about alternate fuel sources. Persistent worries about the earth’s ability to support human life had inspired her to check out theories about the habitability of other planets.

  Over the past few months, Pao had turned away from science because the world had proven itself too vast and unknowable for any arsenal of facts to protect her.

  But this? A mother abandoning her own child in the face of certain doom? Pao had to understand it or else she’d go crazy.

  Dante’s mom had been silent for so long, Pao didn’t know if she’d ever answer the question. But eventually, the frail woman sat back down, tears spilling from her eyes as she looked up at Pao.

  “I was afraid,” the woman said. “I was a coward. I was so young—only sixteen when Dante was born, still half a child myself on that day. I told myself he’d be okay, that if I couldn’t see him, he had gotten far enough away, or he was already . . .” She started crying in earnest then, like she’d been holding back these tears for a decade.

  “But after,” Pao said, realizing she was being relentless but needing to know anyway. To make sense of it all. “When you found out he was alive, that he was with Señora Mata, why didn’t you come back for him?”

  Why doesn’t anyone come back? Pao thought of her father now, knowing, all of a sudden, that it wasn’t only Dante’s mom she wanted to interrogate.

  “I was too ashamed,” the woman said. “How could he love me after what I’d done
to him? And Rodolfo, my dear Rodolfo, he wasn’t around to help. . . . There was no money. . . . I thought . . .” She sobbed once, a heartbreaking sound, then looked Pao straight in the eye. “I thought he’d be better off without a mother who’d left him to die.”

  “He wasn’t,” Pao said, speaking for herself and for Dante. “He wasn’t better off.”

  “What do you want from me?” Dante’s mom said, looking years older than she had when they’d started this conversation. “He’s gone again, he wants nothing to do with me. How does telling this story help anyone? It’s over. It’s all in the past. I’ll never forgive myself as long as I live, but it’s too late to fix it now.”

  “It’s never too late to fix it,” Pao said, wanting—no, needing that to be true.

  “Then what do I do?” she asked.

  “You help us find out why he’s changed,” Pao said, meeting her gaze now, asserting “confidence and authority” as she’d been taught in her public-speaking class. “We’re on our way to investigate something that could help us find Dante and learn why he betrayed us and whether someone’s controlling him. But we need your help.”

  “Ay, you’re too young to say such things!” said Dante’s mother, bringing a hand to her forehead. “You’re just children!”

  Pao took out her staff and transformed it for the second time in the past few minutes, watching with satisfaction as Dante’s mother’s jaw dropped. “Not normal children,” she said.

  It was four in the morning when Dante’s mom walked Pao and Naomi to the bus stop in the center of town.

  She’d insisted they each get an hour or two of sleep, which Pao had protested mightily until she learned the first bus didn’t come for five hours anyway.

  Pao had been sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep—not after everything that had happened. She’d planned to text with Emma until it was time to go.

  But Pao had conked out almost immediately. As if a dream had just been waiting to pull her under.

  It was a short one this time. Just a single scene in the same dense forest Pao had followed the duendecillo through. Looming large against the pines was a man’s silhouette. Her father’s? No, this figure seemed different somehow. An ominous cloud of green smoke swirled around his head as a smaller figure knelt on the mossy ground in front of him.