The guardians gathered outside Emilia’s home. Amato rubbed against my leg and spoke as they did so.
It is not as she thinks.
Amato, do not be so cruel, Luz said, and Emilia reached out, gripped my arm. Emilia, I am sorry you traveled so far for me. Please, come into our home and learn the truth.
Emilia walked slowly forward, past the line of guardians, into the doorway, and I was right behind her.
The room was empty, rid of all the details from the story that Emilia had told me. Empty except for a chair.
A guardian.
And a man, seated beside them.
He was young, perhaps only a few years older than I was. His skin was waxy with sweat, and he barely moved, staring at us with dark eyes that seemed overjoyed to see us by our arrival. His hair was matted against the side of his head, and as we approached, tears fell down his cheeks.
“You made it,” he said.
The time has come, said the guardian next to him.
I recognized her.
It was Luz.
But something was wrong. She seemed to be both here and not here, existing in between life and death, light and shadow.
You can see the truth, cuentista, she said to me.
I moved forward. I couldn’t stop myself. I knew that look. I’d seen it more times than I could count.
Eduardo, said Luz. You know what to do.
Eduardo.
It was him.
He smiled at Luz, then at me.
He stuck his hands out.
Palms down.
“Luz, what is this?” Emilia cried. “What happened to Solado?”
Luz did not answer her.
“Cuentista,” said Eduardo. “Will you take my story?”
I hesitated, and he smiled again.
“Was it worth it?” Eduardo asked.
“Was what worth it?” I asked.
“This journey. The choices you made.”
My lips parted, but I kept the answer to myself. I did not know this man. And I did not know how he knew.
“I ask you because this will be the last story you will ever need to take,” he continued. “Once you do, you will understand why. You will have freed me from a terrible burden. And you will be able to make your own decision.”
“Luz, please,” Emilia said. “Tell me what is going on.”
She moved toward her guardian.
And Luz growled.
I cannot, she said. We must not make contact.
Emilia began to sob, and I hated the sound, the sharpness of her inhalations, and that I could not help her. Luz backed up a step, but still stayed at Eduardo’s side.
“Please, cuentista,” said Eduardo, and his eyes implored me. “Uno más.”
But it wouldn’t be the last one for me, would it? There was no Simone; there was no means to get rid of all of this; there was nothing here for me. How could this man be so sure of what he had said?
Someone or something brought me here, though. Was it you? I wondered. The guardians? Something greater?
I let instinct take over; I ignored Emilia’s screams; I fell to my knees in front of Eduardo, and my leather pack slid off my back.
I placed my palms under his.
I felt the surge.
And then I knew.
Let me tell you a story, Solís.
Eduardo was raised to believe that he was nothing.
As long as he could remember, his mamá, Sofía, was distant. He wondered if she secretly despised him, too, because he looked so much like the man she married, a man she truly hated. Was it because he and Fidel had the same nose, the same dark eyes, the same long, flowing hair? Did he remind his mamá of the man she mistakenly chose to trust? At a young age, he began to daydream about finding his mamá in another aldea, much, much later in life, when she had left Fidel behind and married someone else, and they would reconnect and love one another again, far from Fidel and his infidelities and excuses.
It was a dream that could never come true. Eduardo’s family moved frequently from one aldea to the next, sometimes in the same month. Fidel was a blacksmith, but he never lasted long whenever he was. In their first aldea, he was caught stealing ore from his boss, and so he moved them all to another one after a hellish two-day journey across the desert. There, Fidel learned how to assist the local mercado, keeping track of all the shipments, all the food and supplies. He was good at it. He excelled at it. But after a year, Fidel woke his son and wife in the middle of the night, urged them to pack what belongings they could, and then told Eduardo that they were going on an adventure. It was only when the men started chasing them out of la aldea, shouting out that word over and over again, that Eduardo realized what his father truly was.
Ladrón. Ladrón. Ladrón.
This was their life. They would flee from one place to another, resettle, integrate slowly into another community, and then it would begin again. Late-night escapes, days gone hungry, and stories crafted so that the next aldea would take pity on them, would take them in, would believe that they were helping a poor mother and father escape the vicious guardias of the previous aldea.
And Eduardo’s mother took it out on him. She never hit her son, never laid a finger on him, but she lashed him with her tongue, told Eduardo that he was useless, that he should have been earning his keep at home, that he should have stopped his father from drinking, that he should have forced Fidel to change. Eduardo tried, but his father was impenetrable, unmovable, convinced that he was the victim, that everyone he met only wanted a scapegoat.
He had no one to talk to. He moved so much that he never got close enough to a single cuentista, and thus had no one to whom he could tell the truth.
It all caught up with them in Obregán. Eduardo was seventeen when they left the last aldea and
