Summer of the Mariposas Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either

  the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any

  resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,

  events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

  Cover photograph of road © ilker canikligil, shutterstock.com;

  cover photograph of center girl © airportrait, istockphoto.com;

  cover photograph of far right girl © iñaki antoñana plaza, istockphoto.com;

  other silhouettes © Tulay Over; clay adorno butterflies (reference for Aztec

  butterfly in jacket art) catalog number 30.2/9231 courtesy of the Division

  of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History.

  Mariposa definition on opposite page loosely based on online information

  referencing the following sources: Sheena Morgan, The Real Halloween;

  Dr. Carlos Beutelspacvher, “Las Mariposas entre los Antiguos Mexicanos”

  (Butterflies of Ancient Mexico), 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  TU BOOKS, an imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS Inc.

  95 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

  leeandlow.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  by Worzalla Publishing Company, October 2012

  Book design by Isaac Stewart

  Book production by The Kids at Our House

  eBook conversion by Ugly Dog Digital

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  McCall, Guadalupe Garcia.

  Summer of the mariposas / Guadalupe Garcia McCall. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In an adventure reminiscent of Homer’s Odyssey, fifteen-year-old Odilia and her four younger sisters embark on a journey to return a dead man to his family in Mexico, aided by La Llorona, but impeded by a witch, a warlock, chupacabras, and more.

  ISBN 978-1-60060-900-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) —

  ISBN 978-1-62014-010-9 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-60060-901-5 (e-book)

  [1. Adventure and adventurers--Fiction. 2. Sisters--Fiction. 3. Llorona (Legendary character)--Fiction. 4. Supernatural--Fiction. 5. Dead--Fiction. 6. Mexican Americans--Texas--Fiction. 7. Family life--Texas--Fiction. 8. Texas--Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M47833752Sum 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012014845

  mariposa (mah-ree-PO-sah)

  from the Spanish, mariposa, the apocopate Mari- (Mary in English) and posa (to rest or repose)

  Butterfly. Mariposas are slender, delicate insects with four wide, colorful wings. In almost every culture, butterflies are associated with transformation. The Aztecs held the butterfly, papalotl, in high regard and had a special celebration to welcome the migrating monarchs in early August every year. They believed that mariposas were the cheerful souls of their loved ones, the angels of women and children, their fallen warriors, their ancestors, returning home transformed to assure them that they were well and that life, however brief, was beautiful.

  TABLE

  of

  CONTENTS

  PART I: THE DEPARTURE

  Prologue: El Cazo/The Pot

  Chapter 1 La Calavera/The Skull

  Chapter 2 El Pájaro/The Bird

  Chapter 3 La Estrella/The Star

  Chapter 4 El Venado/The Deer

  Chapter 5 El Mundo/The World

  Chapter 6 La Mano/The Hand

  PART II: THE INITIATION

  Chapter 7 El Árbol/The Tree

  Chapter 8 La Sirena/The Mermaid

  Chapter 9 La Araña/The Spider

  Chapter 10 La Garza/The Heron

  Chapter 11 El Alacrán/The Scorpion

  Chapter 12 La Muerte/The Death

  Chapter 13 Las Jaras/The Arrows

  Chapter 14 El Diablito/The Little Devil

  Chapter 15 La Dama/The Lady

  PART III: THE RETURN

  Chapter 16 El Nopal/The Cactus

  Chapter 17 La Chalupa/The Canoe

  Chapter 18 El Corazón/The Heart

  Chapter 19 El Músico/The Musician

  Chapter 20 La Rosa/The Rose

  Chapter 21 La Corona/The Crown

  Chapter 22 La Luna/The Moon

  Author’s Note

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To my cinco hermanitas

  whom I love con todo mi corazón:

  Alicia, Virginia, Diamantina, Angelica, y Roxana

  the Garcia girls, together forever —

  no matter what!

  PART I

  THE DEPARTURE

  In which my younger sisters and I find a drowned man in the Rio Grande and how, with La Llorona as our mystical guide, we take a trip across the Eagle Pass border to return him to his family in El Sacrificio, Coahuila, Mexico.

  PROLOGUE

  EL CAZO: “Hazme caso o te caso con un sapo.”

  THE POT: “Listen to me or I will make you marry a toad.”

  — a play on the multiple meanings of the word caso

  (pay attention and wed/marry)

  Almost a year after our father left the house, never to be heard from again, the long, miserable drought ended in Texas. The heavy summer rains had more than enchanted everyone; the days that followed had brought forth a most unexpected, spectacular surprise. To our delight, an unusually large brood of American Snout butterflies swarmed Eagle Pass by the billions.

  Indiscriminate in taste, the mariposas flittered over cultivated gardens as happily as they danced over thorn-ridden lots and neglected fields. To them, nothing was safe, nothing was sacred.

  Because they were everywhere, clinging to freshly scrubbed laundry on clothes lines, or stuck to the bottom of well-heeled shoes, the butterflies were on everyone’s most wanted list, including Mamá’s. She hated sweeping their brown, dusty corpses out of her kitchen and off her porch, but she especially hated how they followed her everywhere like a dark little cloud.

  That same summer, Mamá stopped being a housewife. After admitting to herself that Papá wasn’t going to send any more money, she’d done the responsible thing and gone out and found her very first job.

  As for us, we tried staying indoors and playing Lotería like Mamá instructed. It was difficult, however, because to play Lotería we needed a caller, un cantor, and Papá had always been ours. A good cantor can recite the traditional riddles for all fifty-four cards in the Lotería by heart as he reveals each card to the players. Riddles like “El caso que te hago es poco” were all right, but to keep things interesting Papá had always altered the riddles and personalized them to fit our family. We’d squirm and giggle with joy and excitement every time a new riddle featured one of us. One day, however, right before he left, Papá made up a particularly ominous riddle.

  “La Sirena,” he called, holding up the card for The Mermaid. “La mujer who wants to take your Papá away! No! We won’t let her!”

  My par
ents were like any other parents; they bickered and made up all the time. But that day the riddle upset Mamá so much that the fight it stirred up between them soured the game for Papá. From then on, we played Lotería as a family with less and less frequency. So it was no surprise that after he left, we lost interest in playing the game altogether.

  The summer of the mariposas, we abandoned our beloved Lotería for good, neglected our chores, and went completely wild. We cared for no one but each other, not even Mamá. Because we were always unsupervised, we finally had the freedom to do whatever we wanted, wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted.

  On rainy days, I’d read a book and watch the girls as they played in the crowded shed behind our house. But on scorching summer days, when the pavement was so hot you couldn’t sit on it, they made aluminum bracelets and arm cuffs out of the bottoms of soda cans they rubbed against hot cement sidewalks. Sometimes, they even costumed themselves with dusty curtains and old tablecloths, scissoring through the faded fabric with Mamá’s gardening shears or tearing them apart with their bare hands. And when Mamá would get upset because we weren’t helping, we’d whine and then scrub out a pan or two before we’d take off again. Honestly, there was just too much fun to be had to pay her any mind.

  Some days, we’d hike the hills beyond El Indio Highway, following the swarm of mariposas. They’d become our dusky shadows, our companions, as much a part of us as we were to each other. Most days, however, we rode our bikes as far away from home as we could get, a flighty brood of the tiny butterflies straggling behind us. With our chubby little sister, Pita, sitting precariously on the handlebars of my bike, we pedaled down to the river, rode through one of the large gaps in the eleven-foot border fence, and swam for hours at a time without drinking or eating anything more than the watermelons we chilled in the bank of our river.

  The waters of the Rio Grande were unruly and loud, but we had found an alcove far off El Indio Highway, a pebbled niche where the current swirled in peacefully and stayed for a while, as if to rest from its long, draining journey over boulders and through canyons all the way from California down to our miniature bay in Eagle Pass. There it pooled, relaxed, cleansed itself, and bubbled into laughter at the sheer joy of having us in its midst. We splashed around in that cold, clear water like river nymphs, born to swim and bathe till the end of days. It was a magical time, full of dreaminess and charm, a time to watch the mariposas emerge out of their cocoons, gather their courage, and take flight while we floated faceup in the water. And that’s exactly what we were doing the morning the body of a dead man drifted into our swimming haven.

  LA CALAVERA: “La calavera del muerto

  está en su huerto.”

  THE SKULL: “The skull of the dead man

  is in his grove.”

  Juanita reacted first. Being fourteen and only second oldest, she didn’t usually take charge. But when she felt the corpse floating beside her, she started pulling Pita out of the water as if she were a sopping Raggedy Ann doll.

  “Holy shiitake mushrooms!” the twins, Velia and Delia, shouted in unison, frozen in place by the sight of the body bobbing up and down and side to side only a few feet away from us.

  I shrieked the way Mamá would have if she’d been there with us. “Get out! Get out! Get out!” Grasping only the sleeve of Velia’s shirt, I yanked her toward me with all my might.

  “Odilia!” she complained. “Let go of me!”

  “Get out of the water! Now!”

  “Okay! Fine. But I thought you were yelling at him,” she defended herself.

  I pushed her and Delia ahead of me. “Why would I be yelling at him? He’s dead!” We stood, all five of us, drenched with fear on the bank of the river, staring wildly at the first cadaver we’d ever seen in our lives.

  It was spooky, like seeing a ghost floating facedown in the water. His dark hair was long for a man. His thick tresses floated loosely around his head like the black tentacles of a sea monster.

  “We should call someone.” Pita shivered, pushing her wet hair out of her face and scooting over to stand behind me as if she were afraid the man was going to suddenly get up and come after her.

  “The authorities,” I said, my mind still reeling from the shock. The only thing I could think of was how Mamá was going to give me one historical paliza when she found out — and she’d find out if we called the authorities. But I had it coming to me. After all, I got my sisters into this by bringing them here. The waters of the Rio Grande were dangerous, and Mamá wouldn’t care that our swimming hole seemed safe to me. How many times had we heard of drowning victims turning up on its banks?

  The twins, Velia and Delia, chimed in. “The cops for sure.”

  “No. We should call the border patrol. I bet they know what to do,” Pita said, sounding older than her ten years.

  “Guys,” Juanita whispered, her face suddenly pale. “Do you realize what this means?”

  “What?” Velia asked, still staring at the body floating in the river. I didn’t respond. Juanita’s brain always worked differently from my own, so I couldn’t begin to guess what she was about to suggest.

  Juanita’s face broke into a grin. “We’re going to be on TV!” She sobered a little when she glanced down at the body again.

  “Mamá is not going to like this. You know how she feels about talking to strangers,” Velia reminded Juanita. She was right. Mamá was more than paranoid about giving out personal information. In her mind, everyone was a potential predator, and we were under strict orders never to speak to anyone about anything if she wasn’t around to protect us. We weren’t allowed to use the Internet anywhere other than school, where we were semiprotected. No e-mails, no instant messaging — not only couldn’t we afford a computer at home, but Mamá worried that we didn’t understand how to distinguish our real-life friends from dirty old men. “Besides, we’re in no condition to be put in front of a camera. Look at us. We look like bums.”

  I looked at each of my sisters in turn. We were wearing cut-off shorts and ripped tank tops. Pita tugged at her wet shirt, squeezing out the water and pressing it down over her round belly to smooth it out, while Velia and Delia tried in vain to straighten out each other’s clothes. And to say nothing of our hair, which was not only wet but thick and clumpy with dirt residue from the river water. Pita had leaf particles clinging to her bangs. I reached over and picked the bigger pieces of debris out of them as I mulled over our predicament.

  “Well, it’s not like we’ll have a choice. This is big,” Juanita tucked her shirt into her shorts, as if that was going to make a difference.

  The twins nodded at each other. “This is more than big — this is huge,” they said in unison. They had a habit of finishing each other’s sentences. They were even closer to each other than all five of us were as a group. It was a game they played — presenting themselves as the “twin front,” fooling people who didn’t know them all that well by making them think they really were exactly alike.

  I tried to think of a way out of it as I chastised myself for bringing the girls to swim in the river all summer long. Calling the authorities brought with it consequences, but we couldn’t just leave the dead man where he was in the water. He’d pollute our swimming hole — not to mention that he should be put to rest somewhere.

  “Ginormous,” Juanita whispered beside me.

  Delia pulled her ratty tennis shoes off her feet and beat them against each other, trying to loosen the clumps of dirt from their soles. “You think they’ll get here that quickly? Like right away? Can’t we go home and change before we call them? I don’t know about you, but I want to look my best for my first-ever television appearance.”

  “No, we can’t,” I said, looking at the twins. They were the pretty ones. With their long honey-brown hair, hazel eyes, and perfect smiles, they had nothing to worry about. They didn’t look as pretty right
now, after a day swimming in the river, but it didn’t matter. The camera would love them, no matter what they were wearing or how disheveled their hair had become. Not me — like Juanita I was big boned, darkly bronzed from being out in the sun every day, and homely as a gingersnap.

  Juanita undid her droopy ponytail and tried to comb her wet hair with her fingers. “This isn’t a movie set, and you’re not starlets yet,” she reminded the twins, who had aspirations of someday making it in Hollywood. “This is about him, not us.”

  “That’s right. This is real life, and that’s a real dead man in there.” I pointed to the river. What if bringing an investigation here meant no more swimming? “Whoever we call is going to want to interrogate us. The cops, the border patrol, everyone’s going to want to know how and when and where we found him. And that’s when the news people get involved.”

  Velia looked at her twin sister for validation, not grasping the full meaning of what I was getting at. “But we’re filthy. My shorts are ripped. See? We can’t be seen on TV looking like this. What will people think?”

  Delia put her hand on her twin’s shoulder. “They’ll think we’re poor, and that our father has abandoned us,” she stated sarcastically. The painful truth set off my sisters. Suddenly everyone was talking at once.

  Pita’s voice cut through us all, saying aloud the one thing that worried us more than Mamá finding out about this. “Do you think Papá will see us? On television?” Pita asked, biting the inside of her lip. “I hope we don’t embarrass him.” I couldn’t help but wonder, myself, what Papá would do if he saw us. Would he feel sorry for us? Would it make him come back?

  “It’ll be fine,” Juanita assured her. “Here, let me fix your hair.”

  As Juanita used her fingers to scrape back Pita’s hair and resecure its braid, I thought about where our father might be now. “We don’t know if he even watches the news,” I reminded them. “The truth is, we don’t know much about him nowadays. Not where he’s living, where his band is performing, or why he hasn’t called or come home in almost a year.”