I couldn’t go in.
They would know.
Ya lo saben.
My hand grazed the edge of the burlap cover in the doorway, and another spike of terror raced down my arm.
I had to face them.
There was an iron pot on la estufa bubbling, and Raúl was deep in conversation with Mamá. Papá stood to the side, rolling a ball of masa over and over, his muscles flexing, and he winked at me as I walked in.
“You finished?” he asked.
I walked over to him, let him kiss me on the forehead. “Sí, Papá. All done.”
I rubbed at my eyes and yawned. I didn’t have to fake the exhaustion. It hit me fiercely, a rolling sensation that merged with the guilt. Was that my guilt or Manolito’s?
“Mi hija obediente,” he said. “We’re so proud of you.”
They know.
I smiled, or at least I tried to.
What had I done? I had never heard of a cuentista keeping a story. We just didn’t do it. We wouldn’t dare betray the promise we made to You.
Would we? I had known only one other cuentista: Tía Inez. And she had passed on mere hours after she gave me her gift. Her curse. I didn’t know what it was anymore.
What had I done?
And was Julio really a cuentista? How had he left his aldea without abandoning his people?
I shuffled over to my sleeping roll. Mamá said something then, but I curled up, turned away from her.
Raúl was at my side. “Do you want to eat first?” he said. “We were going to meet the others at the fire.”
I shook my head. “No, hermano. I just need to sleep.”
“Déjala sola,” Mamá ordered. “You know she needs her rest.”
They know, they know, they know.
I let the exhaustion take over my body. I did not dream. I woke up in spurts that evening and into the night: once while the others were still awake, again a few hours later when our home was dark and silent. They must have been at the fire, at the nightly celebration.
Each time I awoke, Manolito’s story moved inside me, as if it were burrowing deeper, finding a better place to hide.
I fell back asleep, and I didn’t awaken again until the warmth of the morning pulled me into consciousness. Raúl was snoring softly this time, and I let the sound of it—the normality of it all—convince me that everything was fine.
It was not. But my anxiety was not as bad as it had been the night before. Instead, it was a gentle pulse near my heart. I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, and I breathed slowly, in and out, waiting.
Nothing happened.
No.
Nothing had happened.
I pushed myself up on my elbows and looked about our home. Raúl was still asleep, and I could hear Papá snoring in the other room. Was Mamá up? Would she know?
I breathed slowly again.
I had done it. I had kept a story for nearly half a day and … I was still alive. You had not punished me. You had not scorched the earth again. We were surviving, as we had always done.
Nothing has happened.
There was a muted sense of dread deep within me, but as I kept myself busy, I was able to ignore it. I emptied our pot of waste in a hole behind our home near the old jardín and covered it up. Then I lit la estufa while the others still slept. I brewed nettle-and-rosemary tea for mi mamá, and then I made a large desayuno for myself—huevos from the chickens that María kept, leftover frijoles and tortillas with fresh green pimientos fritos Papá had grown. Sometimes they were shriveled from the heat, but they still stung my tongue with their bite.
Mamá was the first to rise, and as I gave her tea and el desayuno, she told me about los viajeros, where they had come from, and where they were headed to next. She said that they had given our nightly celebration a much-needed burst of joy. “I almost forgot Julio was even here,” she admitted, sipping at her tea. As I stood there, watching her braids swing back and forth as she spoke, the mention of Julio’s name brought all the panic right back.
They know they know they know she knows she knows SHE KNOWS.
I told mi mamá that I wanted to get a head start on some other chores before it got too hot out. As I finished dressing, I caught her staring at me. Her gaze lingered on me longer than I wanted.
I left quickly and hunted water again, brought back another bucketful a couple of hours later. I focused on every dig with la pala, every squeeze of water into the bucket. It was a necessary distraction.
The vials.
The shipment.
La cuentista among us.
What was I going to do with this? What could I do? I couldn’t confront Julio by myself, not about his plans or his secrets. And I couldn’t tell my family. How would they react?
Would they still love me if they found out I had defied Solís? That I might have doomed us all?
But the story from Manolito haunted me. I tried so hard not to think of it, but it was too easy for all his emotions to come rushing back to the surface.
So when Papá asked me to accompany him to Manolito’s once I got home, I nearly broke. It was hard enough keeping this secret from those I knew and loved, even from random aldeanos. But from Lito himself?
I sputtered a response. Papá tilted his head to the side, and his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.
If I didn’t go with him, he’d become suspicious. He already was, wasn’t he?
I had to keep the lie going. Just a little bit longer, I told myself.
Until what, though?
You burned me. The sun felt so specifically targeted on my skin that I started to convince myself that You were about to destroy me. When we got to el mercadito, I asked Papá if I could stay outside while he negotiated
