“We need a place to stay,” I said. “We were looking for a place to make camp, but … well, we found you.”
She examined me. Moved closer. Let her arm down. “What do you think, Pablo?”
“We vote,” he said.
All the weapons dropped.
“Who thinks we should not let them stay?”
Silence.
“Who thinks we should let them stay?”
Hands shot up in the air.
“Then we are in agreement?”
In unison: “¡Sí!”
Pablo stepped forward and brushed the hair out of his face. “Bienvenidos a La Reina Nueva,” he said. “Our home.”
The reaction was instantaneous. The children did not care that we were such a horrible mess. The girl with her face painted marched up to me and extended her hand. “I’m Gabriela,” she said. Her eyes were dark like Emilia’s, like Papá’s, and she was so thin, as though she hadn’t eaten in a long time. “We protect La Reina Nueva, so we had to do that.”
“What do you mean?” I said, my mouth agape, but she didn’t explain further. She dragged me forward, and I looked back to the others, but they were swarmed by children, too. “What does that mean? Who is ‘la Reina Nueva’?”
“I didn’t name it,” said Gabriela. “Supposed to be about some ‘reina’ who ruled here long ago. Would you like something?”
What were they doing here?
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” Gabriela asked me, and I let her lead me without any resistance. I was too tired, too confused. “Marcos found some prickly pear fruit today, and we were saving them for whenever Eduardo arrived.”
I struggled to keep up. “Who is Eduardo?” I asked, then tried to find Emilia or any of the others. That name. Eduardo. Where had I heard it?
I couldn’t find the others; there were too many children, and they climbed over the ruins, surrounded my compadres, and I called out to Emilia. Rosalinda. Felipe.
“How do you not know Eduardo?” she said, as if the statement were obvious, something I should have known. She brought me to a portion of the wall that was still intact. “You’ve been walking in the sun all day. Eat! Drink! We always take care of the people Eduardo brings.”
Who is this girl? I thought.
“But what about you?” I asked. “How are you—where do you—?” I threw my hands up in defeat. “I don’t understand this place. How are you all not dead?”
“We stay underground during the day,” Gabriela said. She pointed, and I looked to the hollow space there in the ground at the base of the wall.
“You all really live here?”
Behind me, a gasp echoed out, and I faced Rosalinda; the children of La Reina Nueva had gathered Emilia and Felipe as well.
“I don’t understand,” said Emilia. “Where did you all come from? And who is this Eduardo you keep talking about?”
“El coyote,” I said, and I watched the epiphany hit Emilia.
“Soledad wanted to send us to him,” she said, nodding her head.
Large stones were hauled to us. We were told to sit. No one answered our questions, and then more children arrived—Were they different ones from those we’d seen before?—carrying baskets woven from sticks and reeds, and I could smell the prickly pear fruit. A basket was thrust in front of me.
“Eat,” Gabriela said, thrusting the basket nearer toward me. “They’re pretty fresh.”
Skinned prickly pear fruit glistened in a pile in the basket. I’d had it only a couple of times in my life, and I didn’t hesitate. I picked up a piece of the deep red fruit, its flesh sticky against my own, and I shoved it into my mouth greedily, the juices flowing down my chin.
What was this place? How could it exist?
“This is delicious,” said Felipe as he devoured a handful of fruit. “But … this is really happening, right? I’m not imagining it?”
“Solís help us,” muttered Rosalinda, who was now sitting next to Felipe as a group of children swarmed her, offering them both fruit and water, asking her if she was staying.
One voice out of that group cut through the noise.
“Have you seen mi mami? Is she coming back soon?”
Rosalinda whipped her head in the direction of the one who had spoken. She was also terribly thin, smaller than she should have been, and it looked as if a layer of dirt covered the clothing she wore, its edges frayed and tattered.
How long had these children been here?
I thought of Raúl, of his bushy hair, and was tormented by guilt. I had not thought of mi hermanito in days. Was he that meaningless to me?
No, I told myself. I love him.
I tried to imagine him here, among these jovencitos, all alone in the desert without anyone to take care of him. Nausea pushed up into my throat, and I gagged, coughing repeatedly until Emilia was at my side, handing me her canteen. I drank the cool water down, then leaned my head back, my eyes focused on all those stars around us.
“What is this place, Mami?” Felipe asked.
Rosalinda didn’t know what to say. I saw her mouth open, then shut, and she looked to me. I had nothing for her. No explanation, no reason.
How was this real?
The child named Pablo approached me. “Sorry about that,” he said. “We have to be careful now that Carlito is gone.”
I shook my head. “Carlito? Eduardo? Who are these people?”
As I ate, Pablo sat in front of me to explain. “Carlito was our leader,” he said. “He was the first person Eduardo brought here.”
“Brought?” I nearly choked on the prickly pear. “He left you here on purpose?”
Pablo nodded, and he curled his feet under him, sat up straight. “Me and Gabriela, we took over after Carlito went missing.”
“Ay, what do you mean by that?” Rosalinda groaned.
There. It flashed across Pablo’s face.
Fear.
In the light of las estrellas, he was a child.
Then, it was gone, and he addressed Rosalinda as if they were both adults, both ruled by responsibility and duty. “We haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks. He went with the guardians to help protect La Reina Nueva,
