“Come,” I said. “I have something to say.”
I held her hand as I guided her to the south, and there, on the edge of that vista, Empalme was somewhere in the distance, shrouded in mostly darkness. Here, at night, there were only a few dancing lights, fires and torches lit to the south.
They must have kept the nightly celebration going.
They kept going, I realized.
Without me.
Was that even Empalme? Could I even see it? Was I imagining it?
Yes. This was what I needed to do.
“We’re almost there,” Emilia said. “I bet we could make it before your family goes to sleep.”
“No, Emilia,” I said. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you. I should have told you everything.”
Those same words again. Manolito had spoken them to me, not far from where I stood. Would he be down there? Would he be gone forever?
“Tell me what?”
“If I go home, I need to be empty,” I said. “These stories … I can’t do it anymore.”
She held my hand, squeezed it. It felt so good, Solís.
“I support you, Xochitl. I already told you that.”
“They’re killing me,” I said.
I expected shock. Maybe anguish. But she nodded her head. “The pain,” she said. “How you keep touching yourself. I knew it was bad, but I … I understand.”
“I don’t know that you do,” I said, and I let go of her, not because I didn’t want to remain in physical contact, but because I needed to say this aloud, not through this strange power that neither of us understood.
“We were not meant to keep these stories,” I said. “I didn’t figure it out until after you told me about las poemas, about how you wrote them, and then discarded each one as you went.”
“But I had to—”
I raised a finger to stop her. “No, I have to say it all to you. It makes it real if I do.”
There was a scraping against the dirt. I glanced behind me: they were there, all of them, sitting proudly behind me, waiting to hear it, their eyes glowing.
Go ahead, señorita, Amato said. The world is here to listen. We are here to listen.
I smiled.
“I think I know why this is happening,” I began, and once it left my mouth, it was a flood, like the ones we got during the terrible rainstorms once a year, washing out the desert floor, cleansing it all, and it cleansed me. “Solís didn’t just want to protect others, to give them a means to tell the truth. They wanted to protect us. Las cuentistas. No one body is meant to hold so much … so many…”
I faltered, not because I didn’t know what to say, but because the moment had arrived.
We hear you, the guardians said. Please make your choice.
I kept going.
“I have it all inside me. Every emotion. Every feeling. Every possible pesadilla, every imaginable hardship, but none of them are mine. We are all so very alone, Emilia, and these stories have now found one another, have merged together, and they’re nearly a part of me.”
I breathed out, and with it went all my fear, all my hesitation.
“I know it’s happening. I keep trying to ignore it.”
She breathed in deep. “What do you mean?”
“I’m mixing it all up,” I said, choking back a sob. “The stories.”
“You said something earlier. About la señora Sánchez. I just assumed that you were … tired.”
“I am,” I said, letting that truth guide me forward. “I am so tired. But these stories … they’ve found one another inside me. And they’re becoming one thing, one living cuento within me.”
“Xo, are you—?”
“I’m giving them all back today, Emilia. Every story. Including my own. And then I’m never taking another one.”
There was no hesitation on her part. She threw her arms around me, and I wanted to tell her to stop, that there was one more thing left, the big thing, but Solís … she felt so good. No, she made me feel so good, and then the tears rushed forth, spilling down my face, and I pushed her gently.
“No, Emilia, you don’t get it,” I cried.
“Xochitl, I will support you through anything,” she insisted, and she moved toward me, but I moved back, farther from her.
And it was right there.
The tip of my tongue.
It was time.
“I’m a part of them. Which means when I give them back, I will lose myself, too.”
Her head cocked to the side, shook lightly. “I don’t get it. You always give the stories back, don’t you?”
“And I forget them. Solís strips them from my memory, and I can never remember what I was told.”
She shook her head slowly as it dawned on her. “And if you give Solís your story at the same time—”
“—I will forget,” I finished.
It grew, slow at first, like your light in the morning, spreading faster and faster until her face was twisted and uncomprehending. “No, that can’t be right,” she said, but I could see it in her eyes: she knew it was true.
“I don’t know how much I will lose, Emilia. It could be the past week or two. It could be most of my life. Where does my story begin? Where does it end? How much of it was claimed by the others, by the ones that have been eating away at me?”
She was crying now, too, but she wiped at her eyes, and her fury was defiant. “No, I don’t accept that,” she said. “Solís can’t be that cruel to you, not after everything you did for Them.”
“I don’t think they can do much of anything,” I said, and a calmness settled in my body, a clarity I had not possessed before. “I don’t think they ever planned for someone like me.”
She laughed, and when she hugged me, I did not reject her. Our emotions flitted back and forth, and then the humming began, the low growl, and los gatos joined us, and Amato leapt onto their hind legs and roared, a glorious, rebellious sound,
