The Lightning Queen Read online

  Chin high, she announced, “May I present to you my royal court.”

  The blank expressions of the other Gypsies made me realize they didn’t understand her words in Spanish. They simply nodded, then continued chattering among themselves in their own language.

  With a flourish, Esma motioned to the eldest and largest woman. It looked like a field of wildflowers had blown away and stuck to her skirt and blouse and apron and headscarf. “My grandmother, Roza, Mistress of Destiny!”

  The woman’s nose filled most of her face, as if it were in the spotlight, and the other features—squinty eyes, shriveled lips, brown-spotted cheeks—were all forced into the shadows. The nose was a mountainside, shadowing the rest of her face, with crevices and nooks and caverns of its own. It twitched in a kind of greeting.

  “And my ladies-in-waiting,” Esma continued, motioning with her chin to four women who looked in their teens or early twenties.

  They nodded, and, in broken Spanish, mumbled, “Buenos días.”

  “Amigos, I shall serve as your translator this afternoon, as the Mistress reads your fortunes from her magical cards, passed down for generations. Now, in exchange for this rare opportunity, we only ask for food in return—what you see fit as payment for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity …”

  Esma rambled on as I murmured the translation in Mixteco. Language had always come easy for me, and my family on the Hill of Dust turned to me to translate on the rare occasions we had visitors. I’d learned Spanish the first years of my life, back in my father’s village, closer to Mexico City. Stubbornly, I’d held on to the language. It was the only piece of my father left.

  As Esma talked, she began looking straight at me. Blushing, I looked back, and found I could almost guess her next singsong word before she said it. Soon we were engaged in a strange dance with words, her in the lead, and me following without thinking, simply letting speech flow from her mouth to mine. It was as if our words moved to music only the two of us could hear.

  I could have gone on like this forever, but the other young Gypsy women were growing antsy, shifting from one leg to another and muttering among themselves. Clearly, they didn’t understand Esma’s words. And they didn’t care.

  At the limits of her patience, one of the women smacked Esma on the head. Another scolded her. The others grumbled in agreement.

  Esma, Queen of Lightning, scowled.

  So these were not her ladies-in-waiting. Just the opposite. And it appeared they only put up with her for her language skills.

  The Mistress of Destiny gave a thunderous snort and, in a raspy voice, hushed the others.

  Esma raised her chin and asked us, “Are you interested, amigos?”

  As this was the most exciting thing that had happened in our village since—well, since ever—my aunts and uncles and cousins all nodded eagerly.

  Grandfather studied our visitors with eagle eyes, being the only one who hadn’t fallen completely under the Gypsies’ spell. He spoke little Spanish—mainly Mixteco—but he’d come to rely on me as his translator for out-of-town patients. This had its advantages, he’d told me. When you don’t know the language others speak, you watch their faces, their eyes, their movements—all of which say worlds more than flimsy words.

  To my surprise, instead of setting out chairs for our guests in the courtyard, Grandfather escorted them into his healing hut. “Por favor, come in,” he said in choppy, Mixteco-accented Spanish.

  The Gypsies looked surprised as well. As we walked inside, the Mistress of Destiny said something to Esma, who translated softly. “Thank you. Most places we go, no one invites us in.”

  When I passed her comment to Grandfather, he crinkled his eyes at Roza. “Most outsiders don’t show our people respect. To them, we’re backwards indios. Indians who know nothing. Yet you treat us as royalty. So we, in turn, will treat you as such.”

  “Most outsiders distrust us,” Roza replied, meeting his gaze. “To them, we are sneaky thieves. But you treat us as royalty. So we, in turn, will treat you as such.”

  While Esma and I murmured translations, Grandfather and Roza locked eyes, as if they shared a secret joke. As if their faces, so very different, were somehow mirrors.

  The adobe hut barely fit us inside—about twenty people, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, all the way back to the altar at the far wall, where beeswax candles flickered. As always, the earthy, sweet scents of copal incense and pine filled the dark room. The dirt floor was cool on my feet, a welcome relief from the relentless sunshine.

  Slowly, with old-man movements, Grandfather dragged an empty table to the center of the room. I helped him carry several chairs from along the wall to the table. He offered them to the women, who nodded politely and sat with toddlers piled on their laps.

  Roza, Mistress of Destiny, spread a shiny cloth over the table—red silk with coins and gold beads sewn into the fringe. Ceremoniously, she placed a deck of worn cards in the middle.

  Once I looked past the central feature of her face, I saw that her eyes were similar to Grandfather’s—watching carefully, picking up tiny details that slipped by those of us focused on words and obvious things like noses. Her gaze slid over every item in the healing hut—the colorful pictures of saints and Virgin Marías, the green bundles of herbs, the golden candles, the clay incense burners … and over my entire family.

  My entire family except for my mother, that is, who was most likely staring into space in the kitchen.

  Meanwhile, my youngest aunt, Perla, returned with cups of steaming chamomile tea and set them before our guests.

  Esma said, “Amigos, who will go first? Who has a question for the Mistress of Destiny?”

  I did. I had questions that had been growing and whirling like a dust storm inside of me. A year earlier, when the water had swept away my sister, it had also stolen a piece of my soul. The piece that felt happiness. In its place was an empty space—cold and dark and fearful. Will I find that piece? Or grow a new piece? Will I ever feel alive again? Will life ever feel strong and good again?

  But the words wouldn’t form on my tongue.

  Meanwhile, my aunts were tittering and whispering among themselves. My uncles elbowed each other, urging each other on. Finally, Aunt Perla volunteered. She asked shyly, “Will I marry soon?”

  The Mistress of Destiny seemed to expect this question. She motioned for my giggling aunt to deal out cards. From her pocket, Roza pulled out a gleaming black pipe and wedged it into her mouth. She didn’t light it, only chewed thoughtfully on its stem. Peering at the cards, she aahed and hmmed, huffing deeply in and out of flared nostrils, and finally speaking in a voice as gruff as a man’s.

  Aunt Perla held her breath as Esma translated to Spanish easily, like a spool of thread unwinding, and I, in turn, spun the words into Mixteco. “Dear girl, within the year, you shall be married to a strong and handsome man with eyes the color of the finest brown horse. He shall have ample hair, the color of the blackest night.”

  My aunts squealed. Of course, everyone in my village had black hair and brown eyes; every man was strong from working in the fields all day; and handsome was in the eye of the beholder.

  “And that’s not all!” The Mistress of Destiny placed a finger at the side of her nose, apparently lost in a trance. “Within the following year, you shall have a beautiful baby, a boy with big brown eyes and black hair.”

  A round of giggles broke out, and Aunt Perla rocked with so much glee she nearly fell off the chair. “I’ll give you an entire chicken for that fortune!”

  And on it went, marriages and baby predictions for the younger women. For the older ones and the men, vague predictions like, You will have a run of bad luck followed by marvelous luck, so keep your faith. Or, You will make a deal with someone that will bring you good fortune.

  By the time it was my turn, over an hour had passed, and everyone else was buzzing with their own fortunes and not terribly interested in mine.

  Esma smiled at me—a dazzling smile of
white, even teeth. “Your turn! The boy who translates like the wind!”

  I blushed, looked down as I walked to the chair.

  She asked, “Do you have a special question for Roza, Mistress of Destiny?”

  I’d been going over my questions for the past hour, and distilled them down to one. Will I ever feel alive again?

  I willed myself to speak it. But no, I couldn’t, not in front of everyone.

  “No special question?” Esma prompted.

  I shrugged. “Anything is fine.”

  “Now what is your name, amigo?”

  “Teo,” I replied softly.

  “Teo,” she repeated. “The boy with the eyes.”

  I lowered my gaze, embarrassed. My eyes were like two mud puddles encircled by long, dark, thick reeds of lashes. That’s how my sister had described our eyes; she’d had the same. A trait we got from our father, whose face I barely remembered now, except for those lashes.

  When I lifted my gaze to meet Esma’s eyes again, I saw that hers were the color of rain, silvery and flashing, like mica-flecked stones after a storm.

  “Deal the cards, Teo.”

  I obeyed. They were well-worn around the edges and looked like they’d been chewed on, drooled on, and spit out by children and animals over the decades. Each featured a hand-painted scene—a majestic lady, a gold goblet, silver swords, a black cauldron, a yellow sun, a white horse, a red heart.

  Esma watched Roza respond to the cards. Her nose twitched. To the right, to the left, and then did a lively dance. Her nose had not made this particular series of moves before.

  I looked beyond, at her eyebrows, which were pressed together in confusion. Her shriveled lips stuck out in a puzzled pout. She blinked and squinted at Esma, Queen of Lightning. Then she squinted at me, gnawing at the stem of her pipe. My pulse sped … something big was coming, I was certain.

  The others—Gypsies and villagers alike—were chattering and didn’t notice the strange reaction; it was only me, Esma, and my ever-observant grandfather.

  Finally, Roza shook herself like a dog in the rain, took a breath, and gave my fortune. As Esma translated, she seemed disappointed, and failed to conjure up any drama. With a sigh, she said, “You are kind and gentle and stronger than you know. If you do something bold, you will be rewarded.”

  My heart sank. Just another vague fortune.

  At the prompting of my cousins, I translated, my voice flat. I turned to Roza and, with a weak smile, said, “Gracias.” Then I stood up to fetch her payment.

  Grandfather put his hand on my shoulder, pressing me back down. He looked at the fortune-teller, past her nose and into her slits of eyes. Still watching her, he murmured, “Teo, ask her your true fortune.”

  I looked at him, confused.

  “Go ahead, son.”

  I swallowed, then said to Esma, in my most polite voice, “Excuse me, señorita, my grandfather would like the Mistress of Destiny to tell me my true fortune.”

  Esma’s right eyebrow shot up, straight into her bangs. “Your true fortune?”

  I nodded. “My true fortune.”

  Esma gave me a sideways grin, then translated my request to her grandmother. My true fortune.

  In the shadow beneath the Mistress of Destiny’s nose, a smile spread, revealing two crooked teeth above and three below. The pipe was clenched firmly between them. Her eyes crinkled and she nodded at Grandfather in a gesture of respect before speaking.

  This time, as Esma listened, her eyes sang. She translated, swiftly, with trembling excitement. “I will tell you what I truly saw, but I will also tell you that it is impossible. That is why I … adjusted the fortune. There are such things as false truths and honest lies, my friends.”

  I was on the edge of my seat now. I wiped my damp palms on my pants.

  Roza continued, dropping her voice to the lowest rumble, the purr of a mountain lion. And as the Mistress of Destiny spoke, Esma’s jaw fell open. The Gypsy women stopped their chattering and tea sipping and stared at Esma. Then at me, then back at Esma. With expressions of disbelief, they shook their heads, muttering a harsh word that bounced among them.

  Finally, Esma raised her chin, drew in a breath, and climbed, in her lopsided way, onto her chair. Standing tall on top of it, she towered over us.

  “According to the always-accurate prediction of the Mistress of Destiny’s cards, this boy—what’s your name again?”

  “Teo.”

  “This boy, Teo, and I, Esma, Queen of Lightning, are on the path to being loyal friends for our long lives!” She paused to let this sink in. And then she continued, eyes wildly alive. “And if our friendship lasts, we will save each other when no one else can. This is our destiny!”

  For a moment, my heart stopped. Then I stammered a translation for Grandfather, whose face lit up brighter than a sunrise. He gave a nod of approval to Roza, Mistress of Destiny.

  My aunts and uncles and cousins were exchanging doubtful looks. “Impossible,” they murmured, most in Mixteco, a few in Spanish. It was probably the same word the Gypsies were murmuring. Impossible.

  Esma, on the chair, bellowed, “I, Queen of Lightning, specialize in the impossible!” She smiled at me, held out her hand, and declared, “Join me, Teo, my new friend for life!”

  I stood motionless, all eyes on me. I didn’t take her hand, because what if she pulled me up there? What if she was crazy? What if crazy was the word her people were muttering?

  Then I whispered, “I’ll be back in a minute.” Legs shaking, I stumbled out into the sunshine, then across the patch of dirt, and into the dark kitchen.

  There by the hearth fire was my mother, hair messily unbraided, huipil filthy, and expression vacant. Draped over her head, a black shawl hid her eyes in shadows. She held a sweet potato in one hand and a knife in the other, unsure what to do with them. A year ago, she would have been dashing around the kitchen, shooing out the chickens that were now pecking around her still feet. I looked at her, wishing she would look back at me. She didn’t.

  I took three of my circles of goat cheese to use as payment and wrapped them in banana leaves. On the way out the door, I paused. “Mother, if I told you I’d be lifelong friends with a Gypsy girl, what would you say?”

  She looked at me blankly, as if I were speaking another language. Impossible to understand. For her, after what had happened to my sister last year, everything was impossible. Getting up from her petate in the mornings, making tortillas, doing the simplest of chores. The smallest task, like talking to her son, was impossible. Even if she could answer my question, I knew her response. Impossible.

  I left her in the kitchen and headed across the patch of dirt, through the squawking cluster of chickens and turkeys, and back to the healing hut. My cousins and aunts and uncles were just leaving, still giddy, while the Gypsies were putting away their things.

  The Impossible Caravan, that was the name of this troupe. Did impossible describe the incredible wonders they’d brought all the way out to the Hill of Dust? Or did they—the Queen of Lightning in particular—hold the magical key to making the impossible happen?

  Esma was humming a lively tune as I walked over and handed her the payment. “Cheese,” I said, “from my goats.”

  “Gracias, querido amigo,” she said, radiant.

  Tingles crept over my skin. Dear friend, she’d called me. Where my mother was emptied of life, this girl was overflowing.

  “Gracias, gracias, gracias,” she sang.

  I nodded. “Gracias to you.”

  She locked eyes with me. “It’s not impossible, Teo.”

  I paused. “They think it is,” I said, motioning to her people and mine.

  She scoffed. “They just accept things how they are. They would say we’re only staying here one more day and we might never come back and Romani girls aren’t friends with boys of any kind and Rom aren’t friends with gadjé and if I am friends with a gadjo, then I’ll be impure and they’d disown me and—”

  “Gadjé? Gad
jo?” I asked, trying to keep up. “Romani? Rom?”

  “The Rom are us. The Romani people. Gypsies. And gadjé are you all. Anyone who isn’t Romani. A gadjo.”

  “I see.” I struggled to understand. “But how can they argue with the Mistress of Destiny?”

  Esma twisted a braid around her ring-bedecked finger. “It’s true, my grandmother has power, but traditions run deeper than predictions. For centuries, things have been this way. It would take more than a single fortune to change that.” She paused, letting her silver eyes pierce mine. “But we’ll do it, my friend!”

  As Esma reached her hand toward mine, one of the Romani women snapped at her and whacked the side of her head. It was a hard slap, but not enough to damage more than her pride. The women frowned, ready to leave and waiting on her.

  I had more questions, but there wasn’t time. I just said, “I hope our fortune comes true.”

  “Teo,” she said fiercely, “hope is for squash heads. You and me, we won’t sit around and hope. We’ll make our fortune come true. Nothing is impossible. Not for me. And not for you either, now that you are my loyal friend for eternity.”

  Pure craziness. Yet my unasked question had been answered. All at once, life thrummed with possibility.

  I searched for what to say next, but one of the women slapped Esma’s head again, and another grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her away.

  From the doorway, I watched them leave. The other women trudged, except for Roza—who waddled, her hips rivaling her nose in enormity—and Esma, who danced away in a peculiar lope, as if she simply refused to walk like everyone else.

  Suddenly, she wrestled her arm away, turned around, and called out, “See you soon, Teo, my lifelong friend!”

  Her defiance earned her another smack.

  No matter. Esma, Queen of Lightning, tossed back her head and sang out to the dust-baked mountains: “Nothing is impossible!”