Was she chosen? Emilia had no idea. But every day, that guardian—whom she named Luz—stuck by her. Luz accompanied her when she started to work in la huerta, a place deep in one of the caverns where children first began to pay their dues. It was the most time she spent around los pálidos, and it gave her a sympathy for her father. They were a miserable people.
“It’s why they wear those damn monstrosities,” Papi had explained after her first shift picking manzanas and carrying baskets full of them to another part of Solado. “Apparently, Solís punished them worse than everyone else, and the light of the sun is deadly to them.” He laughed at that. “They think they are owed the world.”
After weeks of the difficult labor, with only one day to herself, Emilia began to talk. She told Luz about what little she remembered of Alegría’s stories of their old home, then told her about her mami. Luz sat there and occasionally tilted her head as if she was listening. Emilia appreciated it, and so she told more stories, often while she was collecting fruit that had fallen to the ground. She shared her fears and her anxieties with Luz so frequently that years passed before she realized she had not sought out Ivan. Why would she need a cuentista when she was telling the truth to her guardian?
And then Emilia started making up stories. She imagined a life outside of Solado, outside of all this labor, outside of wishing for her mami to come home. As the years passed, she stopped thinking it was possible, but her stories kept alive the tiniest sliver of hope. Maybe her stories could come true.
It was less than a year ago that Julio burst into their home, panting and sweating. He said nothing at first. He bundled some of his clothing together, brought them up to his nose, sniffed. Stuffed them in a bag. He laughed, then looked up at her. “I am finally free,” he said, and Emilia’s heart sank. The joy dripped off him. “And we are leaving this wretched place.”
“Leaving? For where?”
“Didn’t you hear? Simone has given me a gift.”
Luz rose from the floor; the fur on her back bristling.
Tienes el poder de una cuentista, she said.
As long as Luz had been by her side, she’d said nothing to her; this was the first time Emilia had ever heard that voice, deep and sensuous.
“I do,” said Julio, and a wicked smile spread over his lips. “And I already used it, and now I know how to leave.”
Do not go with him, Luz said. He will corrupt everything.
“She is my daughter,” Julio sneered. “She will do as I say.”
“What do you mean by ‘using’ your power, Papi?” Emilia pushed herself up from her bed. “What have you done?”
He crossed the room quickly, unnaturally. “Don’t you get it, mija? No one has ever used it as I have.”
“I’m confused. How did you—?”
“Ivan,” he said. “Ivan wanted to be with his man, and Si- mone needed a volunteer, someone she could give the power to instead.”
Luz growled again. You are supposed to be pure of heart.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice giddy. “Because Si- mone believed me.”
He threw an empty bolsita at Emilia then and ordered her to pack. Emilia knelt and ran her hands over Luz’s head. “Luz, what’s happening? Is this real?”
Unfortunately. There was a chilling pause. Emilia, mi amor, you must not go with him.
Emilia clutched at her chest. She trusted Luz unconditionally, but she still could not believe that she was speaking aloud. She wanted to do as she was asked, but she found herself gazing up at her papi, lost in her confusion.
“Me and my men … we are heading south,” Julio told her, caressing her chin, and then he moved on to her clothing, started piling them on Emilia’s bed. She grabbed at him to stop him, and he swatted at her as if she were nothing more than an insect. “It is time for me to stop waiting around this place for your mother to bring us our fortune.”
Emilia was terrified, but no matter what Julio said about Mami, she stood up for her. “But how can you—?”
“I’m done waiting,” he said, and the smile he wore on his face cut her down.
“Papi, we can’t leave,” she begged. “What if the stories are true? What if the land above us is poison? What if we die because we don’t have protection?”
He ignored her, as he always did.
She held on to Luz as her father’s men—Emilia did not even know their names—came into her home. She screamed as they grabbed her arms and legs and yanked her out into the passageway. Luz began to howl, then leapt at one of the men, tearing at his forearm, determined to reach her.
The last thing Emilia saw of her home was one of those men looping a rope around Luz’s neck and holding her back. Her guardian pulled fiercely on the rope, yapping and howling and crying out, and then Luz was gone, lost around a corner.
Emilia was wrested from her home that night, and, under the cover of darkness, she left the land of devastation. Just before she was taken aboveground, her face was wrapped tightly in a rough cloth; she was told that this was for her protection. She could not see much at all, and her voice was gone from all the screaming, but she paid attention. She watched as they stepped out into the arid land above. With each foot forward, the ground crunched underneath her. She listened to Papi talk to the others of what they could do now that they were free. What Julio would be able to accomplish as a cuentista.
They threw Emilia on the back of a pale horse, tied her in the saddle. She
