Summer of the Mariposas Read online

  Teresita was right. If only I’d warned my sisters of La Llorona’s caution to be humble and good, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Now it was up to me to contend with whatever evil I had brought upon us. I had to protect my hermanitas. “Isn’t there anything we can do to stop them? La Llorona gave me this amulet, these earrings. She said I could use it five times, once for each circle on its orbit, but I’ve already used it three times.”

  “What Cecilia has beset upon you is just the beginning. You must save the ear pendant’s remaining gifts. Use them sensibly, for there is so much more to life than nightmares and demons in the dark. In order to go home, to be truly happy again, you must face the worst enemy of all, the monster that lives among you. But you’ll need your magical gift to get there, so save your good fortune — use it wisely.”

  “Can’t you help us?” I peered across the table trying to get a better look at what was coming after us.

  “I can’t stop them,” Teresita said. “It is not within my power. All I can do is perceive and forewarn. But there are other ways I can help you. I can see into your future and advise you, caution you. Tell you how to defeat that which dwells in the mystical realm. Those are things I am familiar with, things within my sight.”

  Teresita went back to looking closely at the cards. I waited anxiously, signaling to my sisters to be quiet as she pondered.

  She pointed to a card. “El nagual.” Then she rested her fingertips on two other cards sitting close together on the table. “Lechuzas, lots of them.”

  “Witch owls?” Juanita cried out. “Where? When?”

  “¿El nagual?” I asked. “What’s that?”

  “Un brujo, a devious warlock. You will meet him first, but he will not show himself as who he really is. He will come in disguise, asking for help. But don’t be deceived by his helplessness; he is wily and ruthless. At first, you won’t know it is him. But once you discover his evil plot, you must sing and chant. Sing the song of the moon and the cave, the song of the birds and the rain, the song of your childhood. It will invoke the Mother and he will be much afraid.”

  “But we don’t know the song of the cave,” I said, looking around at my sisters for confirmation of our ignorance. Their faces were as confused as I’m sure mine looked.

  “The lechuzas will be more difficult to escape,” she continued. “They are evil beyond compare. Their tongues are made of the fifth element, and their words are sharp metal talons that can cut through even the cleverest of men. To avert the paralyzing effect of their punishment you must pray seven Padres Nuestros and seven Ave Marías while you tie seven perfectly spaced knots on a silk thread. Only then will you be able to escape the flame in their eyes.”

  “Flame in their eyes? Are you kidding?” Juanita asked, the tone of her voice told me she’d had enough of Teresita’s riddles. I had already met La Llorona and listened to her cryptic message, so my own dismay was not as great as that of my sisters.

  “Juanita, please,” I whispered, pinching her arm under the table.

  “Well, what does she mean by that?” she asked, rubbing her arm absently. “I mean, what kind of advice is this? Cave songs and knots on stupid strings?”

  “Don’t be rude.” Juanita’s lack of respect to the elderly Teresita embarrassed me. Teresita was only trying to help us get out of this mess unscathed. I thought. Of course, given our experiences with Cecilia, I wasn’t sure I could believe everything Teresita had to say, so I kept my ears and eyes open for suspicious behavior from the old soothsayer. Even if Cecilia had been under a spell and forced to tell the truth, I couldn’t help but worry about my sisters. But if she was telling the truth, she was giving us answers we needed to pay attention to, even if we didn’t understand them right now.

  “No. It’s all right,” Teresita said. “It is this girl’s fire that will keep you safe as you face the last of the malevolent trinity — the wretched chupacabras.”

  “¡El chupacabras!” Pita wailed, terrified.

  “There is no such thing! I’m outta here,” Juanita exclaimed, jumping out of the chair and heading for the gaping door.

  “Believe me, child,” Teresita’s husband said, stepping out of the darkness that suddenly seemed to overcast the room. He stood in front of the door, impeding Juanita’s progress. “The chupacabras is very real. I saw it with my own two eyes, and I don’t have cataracts.”

  The twins had started for the door too, but like Juanita, they stopped to listen to Teresita’s husband. “Where?” Delia asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

  “When?” Velia demanded, mimicking her sister.

  “A few months ago, out there, at the base of the cerro. It was sucking the life out of one of my goats. It hissed at me, when I came upon it. Its prickly coarse hair stood up like a sharp razor along the length of its back. It snarled and flew at me, the scrawny little thing. But I wasn’t scared. I picked up my rifle and shot at it.”

  “You killed it?” Pita asked, sounding relieved.

  “No,” Teresita’s husband said, looking a little chagrined yet firm at the same time. “But I injured it. Shot it through its left eye. Bullet went right into its head. It howled like a rabid dog. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.”

  “That’s the good news,” Teresita said, leaning in to grip my hand with her clawlike fingers. “It’s been injured by human hands, so it will be wary. But don’t be fooled by its meekness. Its heart is pure evil. There is no humanity left in him.”

  “But how . . .” I started, feeling completely overwhelmed by everything Teresita had said. Questions ran through my head. How would we recognize el nagual? Juanita had a point — what was the song of the cave? It felt as if Teresita had given us more questions than answers.

  “Don’t show the chupacabras any mercy,” Teresita’s husband advised. “Take the nearest tree branch and pound its head in.”

  “But what if it . . .” Pita started to speak, but fear devoured her voice and she didn’t finish her sentence.

  “It won’t,” Teresita assured us. “It is all in the spread of the cards. You can save yourselves, but only if you are brave and cunning and stick together through these nightmares. You must never falter in your faith. It is the only way you will make it alive to your Mamá’s house. You were never meant to die on the way. There are too many demons yet to be faced, too many tears yet to be shed.”

  I wasn’t sure I heard Teresita right. Was she trying to tell us that there were more demons waiting at home? If that was so, our journey was going to be longer and more worrisome than I’d been led to believe.

  EL ALACRÁN: A los que pica el

  alacrán, el cuartazo dan.”

  THE SCORPION: “Those who get stung

  by a scorpion end up on the floor.”

  As Teresita explained how to get to Hacienda Dorada, her husband drew up a sketchy map of the terrain for us on an old piece of linen, a shortcut, explaining it as he went along. “I’ve circled the areas I know to be dark. You need to avoid those bad places. Now this square is an old abandoned barn. You can rest there, get out of the sun, if you must. You’ll have to travel about twelve or thirteen miles up and down those hills today, but you can get there this evening if you stay away from those monsters,” Teresita’s husband said.

  They gave us a sack with provisions: a dozen hard-boiled eggs, a hunk of goat cheese still in its thin cloth casing, a stack of flour tortillas, and water. Most importantly, Teresita gave us a short piece of silver silk thread.

  As we trotted away, the old couple waved to us from their door and watched anxiously as we took the worn path down the hill. We walked along the dirt path for miles in the heat of the morning, resting often and drinking from the three huge gourds of well water Teresita’s husband had given us. Velia, Delia, and Juanita argued often, especially over the amount of water any one pers
on should drink. Sometimes, they got so nasty with each other, I threatened to blister someone’s behind with my chancla if they said one more mean word to each other.

  By late afternoon, I had them walking in pairs, a good ten feet apart from each other. Pita did nothing but complain, even when we sat in the shade, so I paired her with Juanita since she couldn’t seem to get along with anyone else.

  By the afternoon we realized we needed to get out of the sun for a while, so we started talking about looking for a shady place to rest. It was while we were looking for a safe place to settle down that we saw it: A lame donkey harnessed to a dilapidated old wagon was making its way down the road toward us.

  “Eeyore!” Pita screamed and started to walk toward the cart.

  “That’s not Eeyore!” Juanita said pulling Pita back by her sleeve.

  “Well, I didn’t mean the real Eeyore,” Pita explained. “Just one like him. Look, he even has a ribbon on his tail.”

  “That’s not a ribbon,” Juanita corrected. “It’s a dirty rag.”

  Pita ran up to meet the donkey, who had come to a complete stop before us. “Whatever. I don’t care what you think.”

  The donkey hung its head, looking pathetic. As I got closer to the cart and inspected the poor animal, I had to admit it did look a bit Eeyore-ish. It had big sad eyes and his lips turned down at the corners, like it was a little depressed.

  “Don’t touch it,” I said, slapping Pita’s hands away as she came up to pet the beast.

  “He says he’s tired.” Pita stroked his neck and face. “And thirsty.”

  “And covered in fleas,” Juanita interjected. “You’re going to get piojos if you keep petting him.”

  I moved to examine the animal’s head. Pita was making kissy-faces at the donkey and cooing at him. “I said not to touch it.” I tried to pull Pita away from the beast, but she shook me off.

  Delia came up and joined Pita in petting the donkey. “You two are weird. You’ll touch a dead man, but you won’t touch a living, breathing animal. Something’s definitely wrong with you.”

  “I’ll touch it if it’s not all dirty and gross,” Juanita said.

  “All right, that’s enough,” I said, pushing them all out of the way. The donkey’s foreleg looked swollen at the ankle, so I crouched to inspect it.

  “Is it hurt?” Juanita wanted to know.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t tell what’s wrong, but it was limping. I wonder who it belongs to?”

  Pita shushed everyone and cocked her ear at the donkey, who was braying loudly. “Listen to him! He says he’s all right. He’s just tired and we should give him a little time to rest.”

  “You’re nuts. You know that, right?” Juanita told Pita, who ignored her and turned her attention back to the donkey.

  “Leave her alone,” I said absently. I looked down the road, trying to figure out where the animal had come from. Maybe we had missed a ranchito somewhere along the way. It might be worth our while to backtrack a little and investigate, because we were running low on water.

  “Well, she is,” Juanita complained. “She’s having a conversation with a donkey, for God’s sake.”

  “She is not,” I insisted. “She’s just pretending.”

  Pita put her ear to the animal’s mouth like she was listening to him speak. Juanita grabbed our little sister’s arm and pulled her away. “Pita, don’t do that. It could be sick, mamita.”

  I scrambled onto a boulder and looked down at the horizon as far as I could see. With my hand shading my eyes, I surveyed the circumference of the area looking for a dwelling, a farm or a ranch house where the donkey might belong, but there was nothing out there but brush and huisache trees. As far as I could tell, he’d come out of nowhere. I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to his owner.

  “His name is Charrito,” Pita said, interpreting the beast’s thunderous brays. “He says he’ll take us to Abuelita’s house. He knows the way. We should just wait a little while, while he catches his breath.”

  Pita’s words, her conviction that the donkey could speak and she could understand him, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up to alert. La Llorona’s warnings, Teresita’s reading, they all came back to me.

  “So let me get this straight,” Juanita asked Pita as my mind raced through the warning signs, trying to remember the things I should be looking for. “This is a talking donkey, and it wants to give us a ride. Is that it?”

  “I’m all for that.” Velia jumped on the rickety wagon and looked around for a way to navigate the newfound vehicle. “Odilia, do you know how to drive this thing? Where’s the steering wheel?”

  My mind back on the present, I hurried to the front of the wagon. “There is no steering wheel. And you should really get down from there.” I reached up to help her get off the wagon, but Velia ignored me.

  “He says you don’t have to use the reins. He knows where we’re going,” Pita said, pressing her cheek against the animal’s cheek and smoothing down the tuft of hair at his forehead.

  “Sure. Whatever.” Juanita looked at me and circled her index finger around her ear to show me what she thought of Pita’s interpretations. Juanita paused and scrutinized the wagon. It was big enough to hold all of us, and though it was old, it seemed sturdy enough to take us all the way to Abuelita’s house. “Listen. This might not be a real talking donkey, but using the wagon to get to Abuelita Remedios’s house is not a bad idea. Okay, everybody up.” Juanita suited her own words and climbed up herself.

  “No, no, no,” I said, taking the reins in my hands. Juanita reached for them, but I stepped out of her reach on the driver’s seat. The other girls stood half-ready to climb up, but scuffed their feet in indecision at my vehemence. “We didn’t agree on this. This animal should have an owner nearby. I mean, where’s the driver here? Farm animals aren’t tethered to wagons twenty-four seven. It’s obvious something happened to its owner. He probably fell, or, worse yet, the donkey might have gone psycho and run off without him.”

  At that moment, something struck my core and Teresita’s words came back to me. Slowly, quietly, they echoed in my mind. “A devious warlock . . . he will come in disguise . . . asking for help.”

  “Girls, listen to me,” I pleaded, holding onto the reins and standing my ground. “Remember what Teresita said? What if this is him, the nagual?”

  “Odilia,” Juanita interrupted. “You didn’t really believe everything that old lady said, did you?”

  I leaned in toward Juanita, losing my patience. “Look, I’m not making this up. I really did speak with La Llorona at the river, and she said it too. This world is different. Here, things are not always what they appear to be. I have a bad feeling about this, Juanita. Something about this creature just gives me the creeps. Let’s leave him here and get back on the way to Hacienda Dorada.”

  “I agree,” Juanita said, looking down at me from her seat in the front of the wagon. “We should get back on the road to Abuelita’s house. And this is the fastest and safest way to get there. So stop being so mulish and get up here. Come on, everybody up.”

  Delia, who had been wandering off toward the back end of the wagon, looked at me remorsefully for a moment and then climbed up next to Velia. Pita, being so attached to the donkey, was too busy petting it to climb up, so Juanita whistled at her and said, “You too, Christopher Robin, up on the wagon.”

  As I watched Pita climb onto the driver’s seat, Juanita reached down and yanked the reins out of my hands. As soon as they were all aboard, the animal started walking, pulling the wagon up the road in the same direction we had been heading.

  “I can’t believe this,” I shouted, trying to keep up with the wagon. “If Mamá were here, she’d be doling out the spankings by now. I just hope we don’t end up paying for this in a major way.”

  I walk
ed beside the wagon briskly, always keeping an eye on the donkey, looking for a sign that he was not what he appeared to be. I could only hope I was wrong about this, even with as looney as Pita was acting — she kept conversing with the beast as we made our way down the road. But at least we were traveling in the right direction.

  After a while, the girls celebrated their good fortune by breaking into the provisions. Juanita passed out the hard-boiled eggs, cheese, and tortillas. I was still mad at them, so I refused to partake, but they fed like kings, throwing eggshells off the side of the wagon like they were gold coins meant for peasants.

  After the feast, the girls seemed to settle down. They sat back and enjoyed the rhythmic ride, mesmerized into a weary silence by the fullness of their stomachs and the steady movements of the wobbly cart. I trailed behind them at a slow but steady pace. We traveled for about an hour before I stopped to catch my breath. The sun was beating down furiously on us and I was ready to pass out from heat exhaustion.

  Juanita looked back to talk to me. “You sure you don’t want to get up here?”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “I just hope we reach Hacienda Dorada before nightfall.”

  “Oh, we will,” Juanita said, turning back to look at the road ahead of us. “It’s so peaceful here. This is what life is all about. No cell phones, no iPods, no cars driving by polluting our lungs.”

  “I know. This is how our ancestors must have felt,” I said as I sped up to walk beside the wagon. The sun continued making its way westward in the sky and was almost directly above us now. “Unhurried, relaxed, and grateful for what they had.”

  “Sure. No running water!” Velia interjected.

  “No indoor plumbing!” Delia continued sarcastically. “No deodorant!” As if to accentuate their cackles, the donkey let out two lungs full of vociferous braying.

  “He wants to know if we want to drink some water and rest,” Pita said. “There’s a running creek up there on the left. Do we want to stop?” She leaned over and almost tipped out of the wagon.