“I don’t know what else I can do,” I said. “It is the only thing I know. My whole life was decided for me.”
“We all decided to come on this journey,” she reminded me. “You get to decide how to end it.”
But did I want to end it? If I returned to Empalme, to home, and I performed the ritual, would I continue? Would I keep doing what I had been taught to do?
My struggle with this was obvious. Rosalinda wiped her hands and stood. “Mija, you do not need to make these decisions now. You have time. Go home. I am sure your family will be overjoyed to see you. They will understand in time, even if at first they do not.”
“And I will do what I can to help,” said Emilia. “If you want me to.”
I considered telling them all the final thing, the one truth I couldn’t quite accept. But I smiled, and I told them that it was time to leave, that our guardians wanted us to go. I bade them goodbye—once again uncertain I would ever see them again—and we climbed upon our horse.
Amato spoke briefly with Pablo, assured him that the guardians would all return shortly. That idea—that I would be done with everything so soon—sent a nervous energy through my body.
You are conflicted, Amato said, staring up at me with piercing eyes.
“I’ll make a decision,” I said.
You do not have much time, they said. If you fail to act, you will die.
We left La Reina Nueva as fast as we could.
The dread hit me when I remembered what came next.
I was taught as a child that all things rot, that we become a part of the earth as time passes. The first time I saw a dead body outside of Empalme, the coyote had perished many weeks before. Most of their bones had been picked clean by scavengers, but I never forgot the discoloration of what little fur remained, or how I could see remnants of what they used to be.
Eliazar had not been dead nearly that long.
I told myself to keep my eyes straight ahead, to avoid looking to the earth, because perhaps I would miss it, and I would not have to be scarred by the memory of his corpse.
I would have missed it all if Emilia had not cried out, had not pointed to the east.
There, not far from us, was a brilliant patch of green and yellow and pink, a burst of life in the soil that had not been there before, each of the prickly pear barrels vibrant in color, and, floating above one of them, some sort of pájaro, tiny and just as colorful, its wings beating so furiously that I could not see them.
“Do you know what they call those?” she asked me.
I shook my head. It landed on the top of one of the trunks of the prickly pear, leaned its tall, thin beak into a flower, drank.
“Un colibrí,” she said. “They are a sign of good luck.”
It sped off into the distance.
I stared at the patch of prickly pear.
It was the spot, wasn’t it? The last I had seen of it, it was covered in zopilotes.
“Maybe he is in a better place,” she said, “and this is how he wants us to know.”
I wanted her to be right. Was he at peace? Was he finally resting? Had he reunited with Gracia? I wished I knew what happened after we left your world, Solís.
I wanted so many things at that point. I desired hope. I desired an answer. I desired rest.
“Come,” Emilia said. “We must keep moving.”
There was a part of me that wanted to stay there forever.
But we moved on, and soon, in the midst of the hottest part of the day, our eyes found the bones of La Reina, of la ciudad that had been punished, wiped of life like the rest of the world.
I thought of the dead that had followed us. Before, I had been terrified of them, had believed that they were ready to harm those of us who had not told the truth.
But what if I had gotten it all wrong? What if they wanted those who passed through La Reina to bear witness to what had happened to them? They were cleansed as Solado had been. They were full of stories that had gone untold for years and years and years.
They awoke in me. A single mass. A single story.
We slowed as we approached, and Amato could sense my hesitation.
Why are you afraid?
“I do not know what this place will show me,” I admitted.
You survived it once. Surely this means it will be easier for you to face it again.
The sun pressed on my skin. I held Emilia tighter.
“Vámonos,” I said.
We moved forward, tentatively at first, the guardians prowling serene at my side. Emilia sat tall and sure. “You will be fine,” she told me. “You have told the truth. You have nothing to hide.”
She was wrong.
Amato stopped. Our horse neighed softly and stilled. A prickle ran over my scalp, down my back, and I shuddered.
“Xochitl?” She clutched one of my hands, the one pressed against her soft belly. “What is it?”
He has arrived, Amato said, looking behind us.
I twisted my torso until I saw him.
The blood.
The wound.
The sadness.
“I warned you, Xochitl,” he said. “And you went anyway.”
“I had to, Lito,” I said, and I faced forward. I gave the horse a gentle kick, and she started moving.
“I’m proud you did,” Lito said, and now he was walking to my right side. His stump still bled, his torso was still torn apart, and his face was a terrible mess.
“But you haven’t admitted the truth, Xo,” he said.
Emilia said nothing. Did not look at him. I don’t think she could see or hear him; she kept her eyes straight ahead.
La Reina had something just for me.
I was angry, resentful that this place had decided
