“Who?”
“Tu papá y yo. Estás inquieta, Xochitl. You can’t ever seem to stay in one spot. You’re always moving, even here in Empalme. You have a drive in you that we might not understand, pero lo vemos.”
My eyes blurred. “Mamá…”
“Just tell me one thing, Xochitl.” She wiped at the tears on my face.
“Anything.”
She sucked in a breath deeply. “Will you come back? Please tell me you are coming back.”
“Por supuesto,” I said without hesitation.
But did I mean that? Did I really intend to return?
She didn’t ask me about being a cuentista. She didn’t ask me about the stories. She stared at me, her eyes glassy, her mouth curled in a bittersweet smile.
Would Empalme let me return?
Mamá kissed me on the forehead, held me in her arms briefly. Then she gently pushed me off her. “Go, Xochitl. Find what you’ve been looking for.”
“Gracias, Mamá,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
I walked off, trying to ignore the stone in my throat, the one threatening to make me sob. She knew. Not all my secrets, but she knew more of my struggle, my lies, than I had let on. The guilt was back. Had I judged them all too harshly? Would they have accepted me, asked for my story, if I told them the truth about my sorrow?
No. It was time to go. I had to.
I became a solitary procession of endings, of goodbyes, of finales. How long would it be until I saw all of this again? Was this the last time I’d see Rogelio’s porch, his battered guitar resting against the wall near the front door? Was this the last time I’d see Lani’s cabras, who munched on refuse and dried grass? Would I ever see la señora Sánchez again? María?
Or would it all be unrecognizable? Would I be a stranger to these people?
I couldn’t stop, though, and there was an uncanny momentum within me. Each step took me farther from home, and each step felt right.
I passed the town square, and it was empty. No one from Empalme, no trace of Julio or his men. It seemed that they really did leave. We had some rebuilding and healing to do—someone would have to fish out Manolito’s arm from that well—but at least I got a brief burst of relief at knowing that I was not leaving Empalme while it was under Julio’s control.
I picked up speed, comforted by this thought. Beyond Marisol’s, there was a thick, chaotic patch of crushed wood, still smoking, blackened, demolished. I gasped and tears leapt to my eyes. The remains of Manolito’s mercadito crackled every few seconds, but most of the embers had died out.
Julio must have destroyed it before he left la aldea, a final act of violence and spite. Whom would he visit his terror upon next?
Why didn’t You stop him?
A crackle. A scrape against the dirt.
My eyes locked on the smoldering ruins. I listened, went still, reached into my training as a hunter, made myself as motionless as possible.
Nothing.
I turned slowly, kept my feet rooted to the ground, and to the south, there stood Emilia, tucked up against the side of one of the homes, the light falling onto her face, and she was staring directly at me.
Our eye contact was brief, but she pierced me with her gaze, so cold and tense. How? How was she still here? Had Emilia’s father sent her back to get me?
I glared at her, a ferocious hatred for her and her father burning through me. Let her try to get to me. Let her try to stop me from leaving. She was good at that: doing nothing at all.
Then watch me, Emilia.
I walked away. That walk became a run, and I was beyond el mercadito, beyond Marisol’s, beyond so many places and people in Empalme that I had known since I was a little girl, and when I got to the gate on the northern edge of la aldea, I flung it open, let it slam shut behind me, and I did not turn back for a long, long time.
I ran, Solís.
From Emilia. From Julio. From Empalme.
From everything.
I don’t know for how long. Ten minutes. Maybe twenty. I ran because I had to, because I wanted to put distance between myself and Emilia, because I had to get as far away from Empalme as I could, lest I change my mind. If she was supposed to track me down, I wanted to give her as difficult of a job as possible.
I slowed only when my chest felt as if it would burst. I climbed up the side of a short hill, then finally gazed in the direction that I had come. Empalme was nothing but a speck behind me, a dark brown mound in the distance, the only sign of life in any direction. The mountain pass that Marisol had instructed me to take was hours to the north of me, still short and manageable at this distance, but I swung back around. No clouds of dust rising from the ground. No one on the clear, flat path back to Empalme, nothing. No one followed me; no one was chasing me down.
So I didn’t stop.
Out here, the land stretched farther than I could see, and the horizon, shimmering and shining in the morning heat, held possibility. When I moved toward it, secrets were revealed. The earth could give you patches of mesquites, the unwavering arms of the saguaros, the pointed branches of the paloverdes.
I’d learned long ago from Papá that the desert could also give you an illusion, its own magic, a trick of the mind and of Your land. I was taught that if we did not please You, You would fool us. You might let us believe in the oasis we saw
