Duckling Ugly

seconds or so a single drop of wa­ter fell from the tip into the basin, with a delicate plink. The sound was like the faintest, highest note struck on a xylophone.

There was a mist across the surface of that little pool of water. The closer I got, the more I could feel its heat.

Plink.

'Mineral water,' Aaron said. 'Just what your face needs. It'll open those pores and get rid of that acne.'

'You think so?'

'Oh,' said Aaron, 'I know so.'

Plink.

Then he put his finger in and swirled it around. 'It's just right,' he said. 'Body temperature.' The steam cleared away as he stirred, and colors played in the water like the aurora borealis?the northern lights captured in a shallow stone bowl. When he took his finger out, he wiped the water beneath one of his eyes, and then the other, as if it were invisible war paint. Then he licked his fingertip.

Plink.

The surface of the water was glassy, and for a strange instant I had the impression that someone was in there looking out at me, until I realized that it was my own reflection. I was just as horrible as ever. There was mustard on my lip from our lunch, and smudges of dirt from touching my face after touching the cavern walls. It was the longest I'd ever been able to see my own reflec­tion, because this water did not cloud.

Plink.

'Go on,' Aaron whispered, standing right behind me now. Then he brought his lips as close to my ear as he could without actually touching it and whispered, 'Your face is dirty. Wash it off.'

Plink.

Between one drop of water and the next, I dipped both my hands deep into the pool and splashed the water onto my face. Once. Twice. Three times.

It burned. Not like the heat of water, not like the heat of flames, but a different kind of heat that soaked in through my pores, like fine needles penetrating so deep I could feel it all the way to the tips of my toes.

I opened my eyes, thinking they would sting, but they didn't. And when I looked at my hands, the water had already dried up, absorbed into the dryness of my skin.

'There,' said Aaron. 'All your skin needed was a good deep cleaning. No more acne for you.'

The shimmering lights were gone from the pool, and it had misted over again. Another drop plunged from the pointy tip of the stalactite into the stone bowl.

Plink.

'Come on, Cara,' Aaron said. 'Let's go home.'

16 Unveiling

It was already dusk when we emerged from the caverns, and by the time we made it back down into the valley, the sun was long gone from the sky.

There was a celebration at Abuelo's mansion when we got back. The entire population of De Leon was there. This time they weren't scattered around the mansion as I'd seen them before. Tonight, everyone was in that great room at the top of the stairs.

Musicians played, and people danced. Harmony was the first to hurry to me, and she gave me a bone- crunching hug.

'It's so good to finally see you,' she said.

'What do you mean?' I asked her. 'I just saw you yesterday.'

'Let me take you to Abuelo,' she said. 'I know he'll want to see you right away.'

We weaved through the dancing couples. The band played a melody that was a strange cross between classical and swing. I had never heard that piece of music before, and wondered if it had been written by one of the citizens in the town.

I looked around for Aaron, but he had already dissolved into the crowd behind me, and then, as we moved through the couples spinning one another to the music, there was Abuelo, on his settee.

Next to him was an intravenous stand, and a plastic bag of clear fluid dripped down a narrow tube that went into the vein on his left arm.

I had seen this before, on my own grandfather, when he was dying in the hospital. However, this old man seemed in the best of health. Truth be told, he seemed more radiant than any other time I'd seen him.

'What's the matter, Abuelo?' I asked. 'Are you sick?'

He found this amusing, and turned to a woman beside him who was not quite as old as he. They shared a look and a chuckle. It irritated me that I couldn't be in on their little joke.

'I am, as you say, fit as a fiddle. Even fitter, for a fiddle will break its strings, whereas I will not.'

He saw me looking at the intravenous bag.

'Oh, this thing. It's just a little pick-me-up. My annual beauty treatment.' He and everyone within listening distance laughed.

He called to the musicians to stop playing, and they did al­most instantly. The dancing couples turned around to see what was happening, and as Abuelo stood, they cleared the floor.

He went out to the center of the room, rolling his intravenous stand with him. 'My dance partner is slender and graceful, no?' Then he turned to me and gestured with one hand. 'Come.'

I didn't like being ordered around like a dog, and I didn't like being the center of attention. I felt the way I had beneath the lights at the spelling bee, but with the eyes of everyone in the room on me, I had no choice. I thought about the ritual of flow­ers when I first arrived, and wondered if some other ritual was in store for me today. Was today the day I would be cast out? Had they grown tired of looking at me?

The old man put his hands onto my shoulders, like a real grandfather might, and looked into my eyes.

'Ah, my ugly one, my ugly one. Do you have any idea at all who I am?'

Although I had no idea, I was beginning to sense that the an­swer was not something I was prepared to hear. Not just because of the cunning twinkle in his eye, but because I chanced to look at the intravenous bag hanging beside him and noticed something I hadn't noticed before. The clear water inside wasn't entirely clear. It was swimming with faint colors like the northern lights.

'My given name is Juan,' Abuelo said. 'My family name is Ponce de Leon.'

I rolled it over in my mind. Juan Ponce de Leon?one of the great Spanish explorers. 'You're one of his descendants?'

Abuelo slowly shook his head. 'Think again.'

As I recalled, Juan Ponce de Leon had laid claim to Florida? but he was best known for his folly, which was searching all his life for something he never found.

Or had he?

I thought back to the mineral pool deep in the 'Cauldron of Life.'

'The Fountain of Youth!' I said out loud.

It made the old man smile.

'You see,' he said, to all those assembled, 'every schoolchild knows of me.'

'But that's impossible! That would make you hundreds of years old ...'

'Five hundred and forty-six?but who's counting?' He laughed heartily. 'Alas, I found the fountain too late in life to be eternally young. Instead I am eternally old. It could not restore me, only sustain me, keeping me at the same age I was when I first partook of its waters. But I am not bitter?for I have learned that youth is overrated. It is the fountain's other gift? its true gift that I have come to value far more than youth.'