I could see inside my own body. The stories were dark blotches in me, each of them with uneven borders and boundaries that collided with one another, over and over again. They were scrounging for space, pushing up against organs and bones and muscle, and each little battle stung and pierced me, sent fiery pain rushing up my body.
Then the first of them got the idea, an infectious one, and it rammed into another, on purpose, crushing against it until the boundary broke, and the two stories became one. Whose were they?
Omar.
Ofelia.
Lani.
Lázaro.
Lito.
Marisol.
Emilia.
Soledad.
Eliazar.
Eduardo.
The liars.
The desperate.
The abandoned.
They fused, each embracing the terror and isolation of the others, and it was a comfort: they had found someone like themselves. They had discovered that they were not alone. And they had discovered this inside my body.
They grew.
They found Eliazar. His grief. His regret. It felt familiar to them. How much had each person lost? How much did they blame themselves for what had torn their lives apart? He joined them.
They grew.
There was Emilia’s story, her longing, her terrible desire to escape, and Marisol held her, told her that life aboveground was possible, and Eduardo knew what it was like to want more for yourself, and they embraced, all of them.
They grew.
And there was Manolito. His secrets. They all had them, and they all knew how badly they had wanted to keep the truth from the world. From themselves. When they took Manolito in, they offered him pity, then understanding.
They grew.
They grew inside me.
I was ready to burst.
Was a body meant to hold all of this? Was one person supposed to contain so many truths, so many stories? Or had I defied my design? Was I the first?
Would I be the last?
The guardians were right. If I did not return these stories …
They would consume every last bit of me.
I awoke later in the morning, and the stories were coalescing, waging a war against my own sense of self.
“I can’t make it,” I told Emilia, but before she could react, Amato had their paw on me.
Look at me.
I lifted my eyes to them as quick as I could, obeying the guardian.
You are la cuentista, they said.
“I am,” I replied aloud.
Emilia trembled, grabbed my hand, and I surged again, tried to tell her that we were okay.
You take stories.
“I do.”
They do not normally cause you pain.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never kept them so long before this.”
Other cuentistas have. Why does this cause you so much trouble?
I coughed. “Because I am not the others, Amato.”
They regarded me as I tried to drink water. Even that was a struggle.
There are many inside you. Too many.
I nodded.
They are consuming you.
“Sí,” I said, and my voice faltered. “I know.”
You don’t have much time. Perhaps a few days at most.
I didn’t bother asking how they knew. “I am almost done,” I said. “I need to get home.”
Home. They said the word as if they were tasting it, trying to determine its flavor. Such a strange concept. Why must you wait? Why can you not return the stories now? Would you not then experience relief?
I couldn’t say it. Their breath was warm on my face as they snorted at me. I could sense Amato trying to will me to do it. To say the thing I had known but would not vocalize.
“Xo, what’s happening?” Emilia asked.
You refuse the truth.
“I’m scared,” I said, and my voice broke.
The longer you deny it, the worse it will get.
“Please,” I said. “I am almost there. I am almost done.”
You will have to face it, joven. It is now or later, but it cannot be changed. You must face the truth.
“What about your truth?” I spat my words at Amato, and they reeled back.
We are guardians of the truth, that which is passed on to us from Solís. Their voice was fiery in my mind as they spoke. We learned from Them, and we honor Them.
“Is that why you destroyed Solado?”
Emilia gasped. “Xo, no, we don’t have to do this now—”
I cut her off. “When, then? When is a good time?”
“Don’t you think I’m furious, too?” Emilia snarled. “My home is gone. Abandoned. Everyone I knew … they’re all dead or gone or somewhere else. I lost it all!”
But Solado had to be cleansed, Amato said.
“Did it?” Emilia shot back, and it was clear that Amato had allowed their voice in her head. “You couldn’t root out los pálidos and spare the rest?”
Amato dropped their head down, and it was the closest thing to shame I had seen in one of the guardians.
“You didn’t give them a choice,” I said softly, my throat raw and arid. “Just like no one gave me a choice about being a cuentista. No one ever let me choose.”
Amato was silent for a long while, and we sat there in the paltry, useless shade.
We had not thought of things like that, they admitted. We only knew one way.
I grunted in response to them. Had anyone thought about what it was like to give an eight-year-old girl the power to take stories? Had anyone thought about how constrained and suffocating my life was?
No.
“Let’s get going,” I said, leveraging myself up with the paloverde trunk. “I want this to be over.”
And I wanted to choose something different.
I had not relaxed long. We continued, bound for La Reina Nueva.
Time is short if we are going to make it today, Amato told me.
“There’s no way I can make that journey in less than a day,” I said. “It’s not possible.”
Not alone.
I did not know what they meant until I heard the musical sound behind us.
She whinnied to let me know that she was here. Emilia and I spun around, and she was beautiful, like the color of goat’s milk, with patches of brown the same shade of my skin. Her coat shone brightly in the morning light as she moved from side to side, her plodding anxious, eager.
She is ready for you, they said. She
