The Lightning Queen Page 12

  I didn’t ask Grandfather about it. I said only, “Thank you.”

  He nodded, rested a hand on my shoulder. “You know, Teo. That was the first movie I’ve seen. And it makes me think. Life is like a movie.”

  “How?”

  “We get so involved, we think that’s all there is, what’s on the screen. We laugh, we cry, we love. We forget that if we only moved our eyes away, we’d see so much more.”

  He squeezed my shoulder, said softly, “I’m near the end of my movie, son.”

  My chest clenched, making it hard to breathe. “Are you scared?”

  “Not a bit. I’ve already been glancing off-screen all my life. And after I’m gone, you can, too. Just take a little break from your own movie, turn your head, and find me there.”

  So this was the unspoken, true fortune. That my grandfather’s final credits were rolling.

  Fresh morning sunlight streamed into the classroom as Maestra María greeted the students in hesitant, broken Mixteco. At least it showed some effort. “Yo’o naa yo.” Good morning.

  The students’ eyes grew wide, and most said nothing, probably suspecting a trap. A few brave souls answered in Mixteco. “Yo’o naa yo, Maestra.”

  She offered a crooked upturn of lips, still far from a real smile.

  No, she hadn’t changed overnight. Throughout the day, after a few minutes of kindness, she’d forget and fall back into the usual hard-edged words. Then at some point, seeing a student’s troubled face, she’d stop herself, take a breath, and say something in choppy Mixteco. She’d drop her voice, and her eyes would flick furtively toward the door, as if at any moment, her superiors would burst in and fire her on the spot.

  Be brave, I silently urged her.

  By the end of the day, two facts were clear to all the students. First, the ruler had not budged from its spot on the desk where Esma had laid it. And second, Maestra María, beyond all belief, was trying to be nice. Of course, not all her words were petals; not all her words were even understandable. But she was making patient baby steps toward kindness. And baby steps toward respecting our language and people.

  After school, instead of racing home, or positioning themselves at a safe distance beneath the tree to talk, the students gathered just outside the door. They showered me with questions, peering at the maestra from the corners of their eyes. And their questions were in Mixteco, testing the new limits of our teacher.

  Exhilarated, Marcos said, “She’s changed because of the Gypsy curse, hasn’t she, Teo?”

  “Where did she learn Mixteco?” asked Benito.

  And from the others: “Is she really different now?”

  “Will she keep being nice to us?”

  “How long will this last?”

  I shrugged at the barrage of questions. I couldn’t tell them about her visit with Grandfather; that was confidential. But my silence only drove them to further grill me.

  “Hey, did your mother ever get her earrings back?”

  “Did you guys find the thief?”

  “It wasn’t a Gypsy, was it?”

  “The Gypsies are nice! No, it couldn’t have been them, right?”

  I stayed quiet and let them interrupt one another. I was still embarrassed that my mother had been exposed last night. It felt better with her shut in her room, involved in her own strange rituals.

  “Who’s the real thief?”

  “Yeah, who is it?”

  “Teo, come on, tell us, what do you think? Who could have broken in and stolen them?”

  That, precisely, was the question that had been flitting in and out of my mind all day. If I caught the real thief, then I could prove Esma’s and the Rom’s innocence. Then maybe, just maybe, they’d return next year.

  “My mother might have lost them,” was all I said. Yet last night, after the movie, we’d looked everywhere for the earrings, with no luck. Even if my mother had misplaced them, we would have come across them.

  I looked away from the kids’ eager faces, inside to the maestra, packing up. And I caught a glimpse of gold poking out from the pocket on her bag. I squinted, watching carefully.

  As she arranged her pens and pencils in the pocket, she removed a pair of large, dangling earrings. Lacy half moons. My mother’s earrings. Just as quickly, the maestra tucked the jewelry back into the pocket with the pens.

  I glanced at the other kids to see if anyone else saw. But no, they were still deeply involved in their own speculations.

  Maestra María was the thief? It felt like a kick in the stomach. Before today, I would have welcomed the chance to see her carted off to prison. But today, today I’d actually started to like her. To want to come to school.

  Yesterday evening, she’d disappeared into my mother’s room and stayed there, alone with her for several minutes … supposedly to compliment my translation skills. Maybe she’d had other motives. And maybe she’d assumed my mother was too crazy to notice something was gone.

  I leaned against the door frame, shaken to the core. I’d believed her heart had opened last night; I’d believed she liked using feather-soft words. But no, her kindness was only for selfish reasons, to avoid the curse. There was something even more heartless about pretending to open your heart. The betrayal was deeper.

  The maestra walked toward the doorway, and we all backed up a little. The chattering stopped.

  “It’s fine with me if you speak your language,” she said with a smile, a little less crooked than before.

  The students looked relieved; they’d hoped for this, but it was good to hear from her mouth.

  “So, what are you talking about?” She’d never shown any interest in our lives until today, but now she seemed genuine.

  The boys looked at one another, gauging the situation. If they told her they watched a movie shown by the Rom, would she be angry? After all, it had been a Romani girl who cursed her. An older boy spoke. “We went to see the movie last night.”

  “A movie?” she asked, surprised. “In the city?”

  “No, in Teo’s village. The Gypsies showed it.”

  Maestra María sucked in a breath. “I see.”

  Encouraged that the maestra wasn’t angry, the boy continued. “Teo’s mother had something stolen from her last night. Earrings. In the middle of the movie, his uncle stood up and accused the Gypsies.”

  The maestra paled, blinked, clutched her bag. “Well, children, I must be going,” she said quickly.

  She glanced back at me on the way to her car. “I’ll see your grandfather later this evening, all right?”

  I said nothing, only stared at her climbing into her car. She dared return to our home? Was she going to steal something else from us? But why? She had enough money. She even had her own car! Maybe that car hadn’t come from her dead husband. Maybe she’d stolen that, too.

  Fleeing the students’ next round of questions, I started running home.

  Halfway there, I slowed to a walk, breathing hard. It felt good to run, to feel my blood zooming and my heart pumping. As I rested, doubled over, I remembered that this evening was the gathering for my sister, the Romani Business Appreciation Event.

  My thieving teacher would show up right in the middle of a bunch of Rom, who she could easily blame for anything else she’d steal.

  And this was to be my last night with Esma for a whole year. At this rate, maybe forever.

  In the silvery-blue twilight, our Romani guests stood before Grandfather’s mosaic, oohing and ahhing. Beneath the tree, the rectangle of colored sawdust featured a girl with dark hair and a red skirt and purple flowers swirling around her. Golden rays surrounded her like an angel’s halo—or bolts of lightning—depending on your perspective.

  To the Rom, the girl was Esma, a gesture to show we didn’t share in Uncle Paco’s suspicions. A sign of solidarity.

  To my people, it was Lucita dancing in heaven, bathed in beams of celestial light.

  Soon my aunts were handing out hot cinnamon-chocolate and sweet tamales, commanding
us, “Eat! Eat!”

  They had spent all day cooking, and a good thing, too, because every inhabitant of the Hill of Dust was gathered here in the candlelight, together with the Rom. Words in broken Spanish flitted around the nighttime courtyard. Feelings filled the spaces between words, between my people and our visitors. There was appreciation, as warm as steaming tamales. But there was also fear that the ugly scene from last night could repeat itself.

  The villagers said, “Oh, how sad we are you’re leaving tomorrow!”

  And the Rom said, “How sad we are to leave!”

  “You’ll come back, won’t you?” the villagers asked.

  To this, the Rom vaguely nodded, casting nervous glances at Uncle, who was skulking around the shadowy edges of our courtyard.

  Grandfather had made him promise not to contact the police and not to stir up trouble. Uncle knew he was outnumbered, but still, I cringed at the thought of him ruining this night. What if he’d disobeyed Grandfather? What if the police were on their way?

  When I’d told Grandfather about the stolen earrings in Maestra María’s bag, he’d nodded, eyebrows furrowed in thought, and said, “If Paco accuses the Rom again, you can tell everyone your suspicions of the maestra. Otherwise, let’s keep this quiet for now.”

  I didn’t want to keep it quiet. I wanted to shout it out to the entire Hill of Dust, clear the Rom’s name for good. It was even harder to bite my tongue when, through the crowd, I caught sight of Maestra María.

  She wore a pale pink skirt and a white cotton blouse, and her hair was gathered in a girlish, pink-ribboned ponytail. She’d probably chosen her outfit to suggest innocence. And she’d brought her large white bag, perfect for stashing more stolen goods. It made my stomach turn.

  Her face held a mystified expression as she looked around, her lipstick glittering in stray light from flames and stars. Her eyes landed on me.

  “Buenas noches, Teo,” she said, weaving through the crowd. “What’s going on here?”

  “I forgot to tell you,” I said flatly. “It’s a kind of party.” I hesitated, unsure how to explain our annual event to an outsider. “A joint celebration to honor my sister’s death and a Romani Business Appreciation Event.”

  “Romani?” she asked, confused.

  “Gypsy,” I said, an edge to my voice.

  She squinted at the throng of Rom. She held her bag closer, as if she were afraid they would steal from her. “These are all Gypsies?” she asked in disbelief. “You invited them to your house?”

  I leveled my gaze at her. I wanted to grab her bag and dump out the contents and reveal her as the thief. “You were wrong about our language,” I said evenly. “You’re wrong about the Rom, too.” I couldn’t help adding, “They’re not the thieves around here.”

  She gave me a strange look, but before she could say anything, Aunt Perla came by and offered her a gourd full of chocolate and a sweet tamal.

  “Tatsavini,” the maestra said in awkward Mixteco. Thank you.

  My muscles clenched at the sound of her speaking our language, pretending. She ate the food, drank the drink, even tried complimenting it. “Yeu.” Good.

  I watched her, wondering what she had planned. Because she did have something planned. I could tell by the way her eyes flickered around, the way she fiddled with the zipper of her bag, the way her eyebrows pressed together, the tips up like vulture wings.

  Then she said, “Is your uncle here? The one who escorted me to my car last night?”

  She had to be the only person in town who actually wanted to see Uncle Paco.

  “Over there,” I said, pointing with my chin.

  The maestra headed over to Uncle. On seeing her, his face lit up. He tucked in the tail of his shirt and wiped his hands on his pants. He grabbed an empty chair and set it between them, gesturing for her to sit.

  But she didn’t sit. She stood tall. And in the evil voice she hadn’t used all day—the Heartless Woman voice—the maestra called out, “I’d like everyone’s attention, please.”

  Oh no oh no oh no. This could not be good.

  Rom and Mixteco alike stopped talking and stared at her. There were murmurs of “la mujer sin alma” … “la devoradora” … the woman without a soul, the devourer … “María Félix, the movie star herself!” She was indeed a sight to behold, the flames illuminating her gorgeous face, casting dramatic shadows beneath her cheekbones, accentuating the long, curved eyebrows.

  Her expression, at the moment, was as ruthless as I’d ever seen.

  She kicked off her heels and climbed onto the chair. Towering over us all, she demanded, “Where is the Gypsy girl who came to my classroom yesterday?”

  Oh no oh no oh no. The maestra was going to wreak vengeance on Esma. I had to do something. I had to protect her. I had to save her.

  As Esma loped forward, I stepped beside her, wishing I were brave enough to hold her hand. Instead, I kept my hands on Flash, wriggling around my collar, in case I had to threaten the maestra with him.

  “What is your name again, señorita?” Maestra María asked.

  “Esma,” she replied, chin high. “Queen of Lightning.”

  My heartbeat filled me like thunder. I whispered to Flash, “Get ready.”

  “Esma, Queen of Lightning,” the maestra continued, “did your curse say anything about the tears of a grown man?”

  I blinked, confused. This was not what I’d expected.

  Esma tilted her head, curious, then shook it. “Only tears of a child.”

  The maestra smiled. She opened the side pocket of her bag and pulled out the golden crescent earrings. She raised a finger like a magic wand and pointed it at Uncle Paco in the same way that Esma had pointed at her the previous morning at school.

  “I’d like to make it clear,” the maestra said, “that this man gave me these earrings as a gift when he escorted me to my car yesterday.”

  Uncle stumbled backward as if he’d been hit.

  A wave of shock, and then relief, washed over me. Once I found my voice, I translated to Mixteco, shouting so that everyone could hear.

  “Is this true?” my other uncles asked.

  Uncle Paco shook his head and sputtered, “She’s crazy, I didn’t …”

  “Do not lie to me,” the maestra commanded, pulling her ruler from the bag. Would she actually smack him with it?

  Her eyes, beneath their arched brows, bored into his, until finally, he muttered, “I took them.”

  For several more minutes, the maestra yelled at him and shamed him. All the yelling and shaming she’d saved up in the past day of kindness burst out, straight at Uncle. On and on she raged, her words stronger and more vicious than any ruler.

  And his tears came. His tears came and he sank to the ground, a salty, wet heap in the dust.

  Grandfather whispered to me, “Sometimes a heart needs to be broken open, doesn’t it?”

  Later, after Grandfather led Uncle into the curing room, and after the earrings were safely back in my mother’s box, and after Maestra María came down from the chair, she approached Esma. For a long moment the maestra stared at her. Then, with a frown, she said, “I suppose I should thank you.”

  “Me?” Esma’s eyes widened.

  “For showing me that trick of standing on chairs.” The corner of Maestra María’s mouth tipped up into the tiniest hint of a smile. And then, just as fast, went back to a frown.

  “You’re welcome, Maestra,” Esma said, almost shyly.

  At that moment, the maestra’s ears perked up, and she turned in the direction of the toddlers. Da and Ba were stuffing their little cheeks with tamales, but Ga was looking at hers, which had just fallen to the ground. Flash scrambled over and dragged it away.

  Ga’s lip quivered, and her face scrunched itself into that look a face gets just before the wailing starts.

  Maestra María flew over to Ga, grabbing a new tamal on the way, and just in time, stuck it in the child’s hand. Ga’s face rearranged itself into a smile, and she took
a huge bite. The maestra stayed beside her, kneeling down, chatting with her and the other two. Tears averted. More links in the chain broken. And yes, from the way the maestra stroked the girl’s tendril, she just might have been enjoying herself.

  Late into the night, right before everyone left, Esma sang a song for Lucita. A song of longing and missing and hoping. I felt Lucita’s presence strongly, as if she were beside me. As if Esma’s voice were so powerful, it made me turn away from the movie of my life and look into the other realm where Lucita dwelled.

  Esma’s voice brought tears to other people’s eyes, too; perhaps they felt their own loved and lost ones at their sides. I wished my mother could hear it, but she’d already disappeared into her room with the box.

  No wonder Esma’s songs had enchanted the music agent. No wonder he wanted to bring this voice to the rest of the world. Despite everything it would mean, I wanted other people to hear her songs, not just people on the Hill of Dust and other Mixteco villages, but people in far-off lands.

  Tears streamed down Maestra María’s face as she listened. Now there was no crookedness at all in her smile. It was pure and sweet and laced with salt water. And when she bid me and Esma good night, she sniffled and said, “Esma, Queen of Lightning, your voice can bring back the dead. At least for a few precious moments it can. I thank you for that gift.”

  Every tear holds a story. That’s what Grandfather always said. Judging by the tears spewing from Uncle Paco, he must have been holding in a sea of stories.

  Even more tears flooded out after Grandfather gave him a limpia to clean his spirit. That meant spitting on him with cactus liquor and beating him with bundles of herbs. And now, in the aftermath, tearstained and huddled in the corner of the healing hut, Uncle Paco looked like a half-drowned rat, soaking wet, shivering, small, and meek.

  I paused at the doorway, unsure whether to enter. My animals trailed behind me, full and sluggish after so many scraps of tamales. The last of our visitors had just left, leaving ghosts of loved ones lingering among the chocolate-crusted drinking gourds and corn husks.