He was there again in front of me. I shut my eyes and walked. Felt nothing. Opened my eyes.
He was still the same distance from me.
“What do you want?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Did Solís send you?”
“You have to turn back,” he said, or at least, that’s what it sounded like. When his mouth opened, they poured out: both the words and maggots. A sign of rot, a sign that Manolito had become a meal for something else. Where was his body? Is this what he looked like now? The insects tumbled to the ground, piling upon one another, then his tongue, split on the side and shredded, half consumed by el sabueso, drooped to the sand.
“Go back,” he slurred. “You must.”
I was firmly planted where I stood, but when he took a step toward me, I tumbled, fell back onto my elbows, a new pain bolting up my arms.
“Lo siento, Lito,” I said, softly, barely able to speak. “Lo siento que te pasó.”
“Go back,” he oozed.
“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t go back there. I can’t let them pay the price for what I’ve done. I have to find out what’s in the desert. What’s in Obregán.”
His head tilted to the side as if he was considering something. “You were warned,” he said, and he took another horrible step toward me, and from where I lay sprawled on the ground, I could see that his right leg was barely connected to his body, that it was held by sinews of tendons and muscle, that he might fall apart right there.
Lito reached down. His hand—those cold, bloody fingertips—brushed over my cheek.
“You will see me only one more time, Xo,” he said. “And it will be before you admit the truth.”
For just a flash, I saw him. Lito. The man I knew, who told me stories of Obregán and the desert beyond, and through that bloody, mangled face, he came back to me. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he said. “I should have told you everything.”
His whole form collapsed, as if he had never been there in the first place, and a hot wind gusted around me, sending ash—what remained of Manolito—into the air.
He was gone.
My stomach lurched, but I ignored it, desperate to keep the food down. I sucked in a breath, tilted my head back, let it out.
I was still alive. I was still here. So I stood up, and I brushed myself off. I forced a little water down, and then—
I kept walking.
Was that You, Solís? Or something else? Did the guardians send him to me?
I pushed away so much uncertainty on that day.
Most of all, I tried to ignore the fear that You were still watching me.
It would have made more sense to walk during the night, when I could be hidden, but I was alone. And I had no knowledge of where I was going. So I kept walking, with only those poemas in my heart.
As terrible as Julio was, he, too, had been a cuentista—and he was evidence that what I was told as a child could not be true.
Soy libre.
Did You understand me? Or did You think I was a fool?
I believed in myself despite everything that told me not to.
Is that really so bad?
I picked up the pace at first, a desperate attempt at escaping the spot where Lito had appeared and then turned to ash. My legs wobbled, but despite the scare, I remained determined. I had to keep going. Was I running from guilt and shame? Maybe.
Maybe deep down, I thought that if I walked faster, I’d never have to accept that I had kept all those stories, that I had played a part in accelerating everything. Mamá had said that they expected me to leave. Had they known that I would betray Empalme, too?
I kept my eyes on the trail ahead, about ten paces or so in front of me, because it helped me feel like the landscape was passing much quicker than it was. Your heat cut straight through my skin, seemed to cook the bones and muscle and tendons that held my body together. It was a piercing sensation, like terrible knives shooting into me. But I didn’t complain. I said nothing when my monthly cramps rushed into my abdomen, and I grimaced as they forced me to stop and breathe deeply. They passed for the moment, certain to come back, and I kept going.
The land bled into itself, repetitive in a manner that made it difficult to tell anything apart. I hadn’t passed that patch of prickly pear before, right? And that mesquite or those ocotillos were new, ¿no? Las montañas seemed closer, but there was no way to tell. Browns blurred into dull greens; each hill or shallow valle barely differed from the others; the saguaros stood still, bearing witness to my passage, acting as silent judges on Your behalf.
And I kept walking,
and walking,
and
walking.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been gone.
My head throbbed, and each pump of blood sent pain to my temples, down the back of my neck. The journey stretched out before me, and it occurred to me that this could all be endless. Impossible.
It was a silly thought, one I discarded by laughing so my whole body shook. “Stop it, Xochitl,” I told myself. “It’s the heat. You were foolish enough to walk during the hottest part of the day. You’ve done it before. Do it again.”
I had not spoken in so long that it was soothing to feel the words emit from my throat. I took another drink of water—nearly a quarter of it gone, I noticed—and swallowed it gratefully.
I
