She appeared. “You finished? It may look close, but we still have a long walk to Jorge’s.”
“Who is that?” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too out of breath.
“He owns la granja. Well, the one we can stay at.”
“And you’ve stayed there before?”
“Close enough,” she said, frowning. “My father didn’t trust him, so we made our own space on the other side of the fields of maíz. But I got to talk to Jorge. Nice man. I think he’ll be pleased to see us.”
She headed off ahead of me, and I took the chance to run my fingers along the edge of the pouch. The leather was more worn than the others, softer, inviting me to open it up.
And it was definitely real; this was not my imagination.
How long had it been here, buried beneath the ground? Years? Had no one ever found it? Was I meant to discover it?
There was no time to read la poema, though, and when I relieved myself and rejoined Emilia at the head of the descending trail, I felt I was about to erupt from joy. She lowered her canteen and squinted at me, and I didn’t care how obvious my excitement was.
She examined me, then smiled. “You as happy as I am that we’re going downhill now?”
“Don’t let it fool you,” I said. “It is easier on the legs, but you still need to drink agua. The heat isn’t any better on the decline.”
She nodded. “Gracias, Xochitl,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
My insides twisted up at that. So I chewed on some nopalitos as we descended. A dull ache settled behind my eyes, the first warning that I needed more water, but we were heading to a place that shimmered in greenness. I did not worry about preserving water for the next day, so I allowed myself a number of big gulps until my belly sloshed when I moved.
I reached into the band of my breeches.
I brushed my fingers over the edge of the leather.
I reminded myself again of what I was doing.
I was seeking freedom from this curse.
The pain would be worth it.
The stories that I held had been quiet for most of the day, but at the thought of purging myself of this power, they awoke, if only to find a place deeper within my body to hide.
It would not be much longer before I was free.
I clung to that idea. To hope. I ignored the pain—the throbbing in my head, the cramps in the lower half of my abdomen, the soreness that settled over my legs—because there was a purpose to this all.
“Do you have a plan, Emilia?”
She swallowed the nopales she had been chewing on. “¿Para qué?”
“After.”
We rounded another switchback on the trail, our soles pounding against that packed dirt. She wiped sweat away from her eyes before answering. “To see the world,” she said. “As much of it as I can.”
“How?” I asked. “I always hear how dangerous it is in the desert. Don’t you want to settle down somewhere? Build a new home?”
“I’ve basically been in one place my whole life until maybe a year ago,” she said. “I’m not ready for something like that. Not yet, at least.”
I had been in a single place for sixteen years. There was a part of me that understood what she meant, but it was still a discomforting idea, something jagged that rubbed me raw the more I thought about it. Could I spend my life traveling the desert? I thought of los viajeros, who traveled from aldea to aldea, selling and trading and giving stories. That was their normal.
Maybe it was time for me to change my perspective.
You were far in the west by the time we made it to the bottom of la montaña, and we were shrouded in its shadow. Emilia was now more sure of where to go, and she directed me to skirt the edge of the nearest field, the ground a deep brown, green sprouts of something shooting toward the sky, reaching up to You.
We came upon two new fields split by the road, and there were some sort of beans growing to the left, calabazas to our right. My mouth watered at the thought of a calabaza cut open, roasted over a fire until the seeds were a dark brown. Mamá would add azúcar to them as they cooled, and we would eat the flesh out of them while watching las estrellas come out.
I missed her. It was a brief, fiery thing.
It passed.
Because while I missed home, I knew I had left for the most important reason of all: to become myself.
My mouth dried out quickly, though. You were falling past the horizon and Your light was fading, yet the air lacked any moisture or relief. I longed for the oasis again.
I sipped at my water as we came upon another crop, this one with stalks that rose high above us. The leaves were browned on the edges, burned from the heat, but they were still green and thriving otherwise. A few ears of yellow maíz poked out here and there. It survived as the rest of us had.
“It’s easy to get lost here,” Emilia said, “so stick close, Xo.”
Xo.
I liked the sound of that. Lito had been the only one in my life to call me by that name. But this felt right.
So I reached out and grabbed her hand, and she twisted around and smiled.
“Now I get to be the teacher,” she said. “Since I’ve been here before.”
Emilia guided me forward, between two rows of the towering stalks. The leaves were rough around the edges as they brushed against my bare arms. The rustling was the only sound, and the shadows from the setting sun were long, haunting. I had no sense of where I was or where I was going. All I had was Emilia, holding me tight, pulling me forward.
It
