“Always,” he said. “But aren’t you supposed to give the stories back?”
“I found out the truth about Julio,” I said, “and I wanted to do something about it.”
“But you didn’t.”
His words were a fist to my chest. He didn’t mean to be cruel, so I gave him a weak smile. “I thought I could do something.”
Raúl smiled back. “You’ll figure it out,” he said. “You’re our cuentista.”
He meant it as a sign of solidarity, as an expression of hope.
It felt more like a curse.
When Papá returned, he didn’t want to talk about what else he had spoken of with la señora Sánchez. He made for the back of our home, and Mamá followed him. Their voices were muffled but sharp. They were arguing. About what? I never found out.
I lay down on my sleeping roll and tried my best to ignore them. I could hear Raúl next to me, trying to do the same thing.
My mind raced, uncertain what the immediate future would hold. I brushed my fingers over the hiding place in the floor, las poemas so close to me. I wanted to find the person who had been able to reach inside me so delicately, so wholly.
But that wasn’t me. I had my whole life mapped out before me. Take, consume, return. Tuve que honrar a Solís. Proteger mi aldea. Amar a mi familia. That was it. I protected others, but who protected me? Who listened to me? Who cared about the things that made me scared, worried, or angry?
How could I tell any story of my own?
They knew. Whoever wrote las poemas, they would know why I had done what I had done. They would understand the deep well of emotions that churned in me. They would understand my curiosity when I learned what Julio was. They knew what it was like to feel contained … and they had broken free of that.
Soy libre.
I had to know. I had to know why these words held such an immense power over me.
I had to leave.
There was one person en la aldea who could help me. I took a waterskin bag, filled it halfway with water from my hunt the day before, and then looked upon Raúl. I couldn’t tell if he was actually asleep or pretending to be.
I left my home and was met with the cool air of the early evening. You, Solís, were nearly gone from the sky, and the soft glow was settling in. Soon, las estrellas would light our path at night. Would we still have our celebrations? I wondered. Or had Julio ruined that? Had I ruined that?
How could we celebrate when Manolito was dead?
I walked to the west. I went straight for Marisol, one of the last people ever to talk to Manolito.
She would have the answers I needed.
I had not seen Marisol during Julio’s terrible display, and by the time I crossed over Empalme—down dark alleys, cutting through abandoned plots of land, wary of how quiet and eerie the evening was—I worried that this plan wouldn’t work. What if Marisol had left la aldea already? What if I was truly stuck here? What if los aldeanos got to me first?
Marisol had come far from the north, from a distant aldea with a name I did not know, whose people had survived La Quema by burrowing deep into the ground. I had heard Marisol tell of her upbringing there, of the complicated network of tunnels that kept la comunidad safe from the scorching sun during the day.
Maybe she had left Empalme and gone home.
Maybe this was a horrible idea.
What am I doing?
These thoughts tormented me as I came upon her home, dug into the arid soil. Only a small bit of it sat aboveground. If you didn’t know where it was, it was impossible to see at night, even in the glow of starlight. Rogelio was known to trip over the edge of it and fall asleep on the roof after our celebration until the baking sun forced him to seek shelter in the morning.
That night, though, Marisol was sitting on the edge instead, and her lit cigarillo glowed in the darkness, its ember orange, red, sparkling. She took another long drag from it, lowered it to her side. “¿Qué quieres, Xochitl?” she asked, and her voice was deep and musical. “What can I do for you?”
Marisol knew things. People. Places. That was her role in Empalme. She was one of the few who regularly traveled in every direction, and she brought information back with her. La Reina del Chisme. Who had work available in the surrounding granjas? What was the latest chisme out of la capital? Which aldeas were still thriving? Which had died out? If you had a question, you could pay Marisol, and she was dependable. For the right price, she could give you an answer for practically anything.
Her features came into view as I stepped up to her. Her hair was bushy and full, and her tight curls fell dramatically down the sides of her face, most of them gray and white. She was stunning, really, but it was the feeling I got from being around her that captivated me the most. She seemed so sure of herself, of her place within the world. As I was born to be a cuentista, she was born to be La Reina del Chisme. And in an existence so scattered, so desperate to cling to life after La Quema, information was valuable. Powerful.
She had been here for nearly fifty years, before my own parents had been born, and it was hard to imagine Empalme without her.
And now I needed her. After all this time, I had a reason to talk to her. To ask the questions.
“I need to leave Empalme,” I told her, choosing to be as direct as possible.
“And go where?”
I hadn’t thought that far. “¿Obregán?”
She smiled, blew smoke out of her nose,
