The Lightning Queen Read online

  She grinned. “Now I can see why we’re best friends for life.” She whacked her leg again. “Lightning strike. The doctor said the lightning should’ve killed me, but I tamed it instead. I’ve been the Queen of Lightning ever since.”

  As Esma talked about her powers, Thunder began squeaking in the sling. I pulled out some crushed corn from the basket strapped to my back, sprinkled it into the gourd, added a little water, then set Thunder down to dig in. I took out the rags and washed them downstream. My heartbeat, I noticed, was not as frantic as it usually was so close to the water.

  Esma watched me curiously. “Is it common in your village to carry around pooping ducks?”

  “I’m the first,” I said, grinning. And I told her about finding Thunder yesterday.

  “You’re noble, Teo,” she said. “Savior of baby ducks. You should be my knight.”

  “But I’m a—” I tried to remember the word for outsider she’d used yesterday. “Gadjo,” I said. “Can’t only Rom be part of your royalty?”

  “Nothing is impossible, my friend.”

  I stared at a thin string of clouds above the far mountain. What seemed impossible was that someone as bold as Esma would want me as her friend. She was lightning; I was a wisp of a cloud, a puff of dust. I couldn’t imagine a time when she’d need to be saved by someone like me. I asked, “How are we going to make our fortune happen?”

  Her eyes gleamed. “Well, I’ve been thinking. My people are supposed to leave tomorrow. That’s what my grandfather says, and he’s the leader.”

  “The Duke? Biggest mustache ever?”

  “That’s the one. But we have to convince him to stay longer so we can plant the roots of our lifelong friendship.”

  “So how do we convince him?”

  She tapped her chin, thinking.

  There was silence, except for the rush of the stream and the toddlers’ shouts of “Da! Ga! Ba!” and Thunder’s contented peeps now that her stomach was filled. She wandered around, always within an arm’s reach of me, just pecking in the wet sand and pebbles. She had a little limp and trouble with balance, but seemed much better than yesterday.

  Something about this little duck reminded me of Lucita. The pluckiness in its eyes. I glanced at Esma. “I wish you could come to my sister’s cabo de año.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The one-year anniversary of her death. It’s in three days.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Is that something that would plant roots of a lifelong friendship?”

  I nodded. “My sister would’ve liked you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re so … alive.”

  “Alive,” Esma mused. “Well, tell that to the boria. They call me a squash head and tell me I’m crazy and slow in the mind.”

  “Well,” I admitted, “you are crazy—”

  She reached out and lightly slapped the rim of my hat. “Hush, you squash head.”

  “But you’re good crazy,” I added quickly. “And your mind—it’s faster than … than lightning.”

  She smacked her leg again, so hard I winced. “They say my mind is as lame and broken as my body.” She held up her right hand. The last three fingers were curled tightly in on themselves, like unfurled leaves. “It’s not just my leg.”

  In my translations during Grandfather’s healing sessions, I’d seen all manner of injuries and illness, yet I couldn’t figure out how lightning could cause these particular problems in Esma. “Did the lightning do that, too?”

  She looked at her fingers, then lowered them, tucking them into the folds of her skirt. “Yes.”

  She stood up on a boulder, and now I could see the effort it took with her weak leg. But it didn’t stop her. She straightened tall like a pine tree and spoke to the valley below.

  “They said, ‘You’ll never be able to walk again, squash head,’ and I said, ‘I’ll dance!’ ”

  Pausing dramatically, she tossed a braid over her shoulder.

  “They said, ‘You’ll never be able to hold a broom, squash head,’ and I played the violin!”

  She gazed at the mountaintops, like an actress on-screen. “They said, ‘No man will ever pay a bride-price for you, squash head.’ ”

  I broke in. “Bride-price?”

  She looked down at me and her voice lowered, as if she were telling me a secret the valley couldn’t hear. “It’s what the husband’s family pays to his new wife’s family to make up for them losing a good worker. You know the boria? Well, they left their own families when they were about thirteen years old to get married and live with their husbands, my uncles and father.”

  “But why wouldn’t anyone pay a bride-price for you?” I couldn’t help blushing as I asked. After all, we were talking about marriage.

  She seemed unfazed. “The women in our boria say no man would want me. That I’ll just have to let them boss me around and call me squash head until I die.”

  “And what do you tell them?”

  Her answer came as a bellow that echoed through the valley. “I tell them, ‘Someday I will be a famous singer! I will be paid a thousand times the bride-price a man would have given. I will be loved not by one man but by hundreds, thousands! By men and women and children and anyone who hears my songs.’ ”

  She packed every word with soul-shaking emotion. Just listening to her made my life larger, as if I were being projected onto a sheet on the side of the church right along with her. As if our story were epic, a music-drenched tale of tears and laughter and heart-swelling triumph.

  Turning to me, she narrowed her eyes fiercely. “Then I told them, ‘And no one will call me squash head!’ ”

  My heart raced. She was a lightning storm so bright I had to look away. So I did, and that’s when I noticed what the toddlers were doing.

  “Esma,” I said, cringing. “Your cousins are eating duck poo.”

  She jumped in alarm, then scrambled down the boulder to the children. She tried wiping the yellow-green goop from their mouths and chins.

  “Oh,” she muttered, “I’m such a squash head.” She wrinkled her eyebrows. “Think it’ll make them sick?”

  I shrugged. I’d never had any duck-poo-eating patients with Grandfather.

  She groaned. “My people don’t like poo-covered animals, and definitely don’t like their children eating poo.”

  “Most people wouldn’t,” I pointed out.

  “But they have this idea about marime. Impure things. Ideas you gadjé wouldn’t understand. Let’s just say the boria would tear out my eyeballs if they knew.”

  Da started crying, and she patted his back. “Think the poo is making him cry?”

  I was a little hurt by her comment about us gadjé not understanding. Flatly, I said, “He’s just mad you made him stop eating it.”

  She rocked Da, and just as his cries let up, Ga and Ba started wailing. Now spit bubbles and mucus and tears were smeared over their faces, mixing with the dust, creating muddy streaks along with the poo. Not a pretty sight.

  Esma looked miserable.

  “Let’s go to my grandfather,” I said. “He’s a healer. He’ll know what to do.”

  She hesitated. “My family wouldn’t like that either.”

  “Why not?”

  She let out a breath. “You know how … disturbing it felt to watch my cousins eat duck poo?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, that’s how my people would feel if they knew I went to a gadjé home. I mean, if I went for something other than business reasons.” She averted her eyes. “They think spending time with gadjé would make me marime. Unclean.”

  I tried not to feel offended. Slowly, I said, “I’m … unclean? And being with me is like … eating duck poo?”

  “That’s how they’d feel,” she said quickly. “Not me. Listen, Teo, I like being with you. And your baby duck, poo and all. And when my family tells me I can’t do something, I do it.” She stuck out her chin. “So let’s go, my friend for life!”

  She fi
lled one bucket and I filled the other, and we hurried into town along the river, currents rushing, water sloshing, kids crying, goats bleating, duck squeaking, friend for life echoing.

  And no dead sister wailing.

  It took a while to get all the goats and toddlers back to town. At her camp, Esma dropped off the buckets of water, then quickly told the boria she’d found a good spot for berry picking. She grabbed an empty red pail, and before anyone could protest or offer to come with her or smack her head, she and the toddlers were walking toward my house, supposedly to pick berries. “Not lying,” she assured me. “Just creative storytelling.”

  By the time we reached the courtyard, Da and Ga and Ba were still fussy—maybe because it was hot and they were tired; maybe because Thunder’s poo was churning around in their stomachs.

  My aunts, in the kitchen, didn’t see us cross the patch of dust to my grandfather, who was repairing a fence. He looked up, surprised, and greeted Esma with a handshake. In accented Spanish, he said, “Buenos días, Queen.”

  She greeted him back. “Buenos días, Doctor.”

  Then, to Grandfather, I said in Spanish, “Her little cousins ate Thunder’s poo. Will they be all right?”

  He surveyed the toddlers’ filthy, tearstained faces, then gave me a baffled look. I switched to Mixteco and repeated myself, adding that poo made her people feel extra disturbed.

  He raised a brow, then took some ears of dried corn from a pile and set them in front of the children. They grabbed the cobs, banged them against each other, open-mouthed and intent. Meanwhile, he peered into their eyes. “Tell me, Teo, was the poo fresh or old?”

  “Fresh, very fresh.”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “More green or yellow?”

  I thought about it, then conferred with Esma. “Yellow,” she said nervously.

  Grandfather frowned gravely. “Goopy or runny?”

  Esma and I discussed the consistency. “Goopy.”

  A wide grin spread over Grandfather’s face. It crumpled into a laugh. He shook his head and wiped his eyes, and that’s when I knew Esma’s cousins would be all right. I laughed, and then glanced at Esma, and she laughed, too, relieved.

  “Let’s all have some mint tea together,” Grandfather said, patting my back. “If their stomachs are upset, the tea will calm them. They’ll be fine.”

  Esma played with the toddlers and their corn while I gathered fresh mint from our garden. I brought the bundle of leaves into the kitchen, where two of my aunts bustled around, roasting red chilies and garlic for salsa. My mother stood in the center, holding the broom, motionless.

  “Mother, could you boil water to brew this mint?”

  She offered me only an empty look. Beneath the shadows of her shawl, her eyes were red and watery from the chili smoke, but she didn’t bother wiping them. If the river had stolen a bit of my soul along with Lucita’s, it had taken most of my mother’s. There wasn’t much left.

  Sighing, Aunt Perla said, “I’ll do it,” and took the herbs from my hands.

  My other aunt huffed that nearly every woman she knew had lost a child or two, and they didn’t use it as an excuse to laze around.

  Ignoring her, Aunt Perla patted my back, then kindly offered me panela to sweeten the tea.

  I bit the inside of my cheek and waited for the water to boil. After the tea had brewed and cooled a bit, I joined Esma and Grandfather and the toddlers outside, where we sat and sipped from chipped clay mugs. I’d snuck in extra panela to make the tea sweet for the toddlers. It worked. They guzzled it down, then went back to inquiring about their corn. “Da? Ga? Ba?”

  Meanwhile, in broken Spanish, Grandfather told Esma about the disgusting things I’d eaten as a toddler. Kitten throw-up, chicken droppings, owl pellets.

  I refused to translate, but Esma caught the gist without my help. She made faces and laughed. I was a little embarrassed, but mostly I wished she could stay forever. Or at least a few more days. But how? Especially now that I knew how her people felt about Rom and gadjé mixing. For nonbusiness reasons, at least.

  After the tea, Da, Ga, and Ba curled up in the shade, sleeping in a pile like puppies.

  Esma finished her tea and wandered around the courtyard. She stopped under the tree in the corner, in front of a colorful sawdust mosaic framed in wood. The flowered border was done, but the inside remained to be finished.

  “Pretty,” she said. “What is it?”

  “It’s for my sister’s cabo de año. Grandfather will fill in the rest with more flowers and stars and birds and things.”

  Esma cocked her head. “When did you say this party was?”

  “In three days. And it’s not exactly a party,” I admitted. “I mean, it’s in honor of a dead person. But we’ll have sweet tamales and cinnamon-chocolate,” I added, to make it sound more cheerful.

  As she stared at the picture, her mind gears were turning. “Think your grandfather could put a Romani wagon in the picture? I mean, he can still do flowers and birds, but they’d be painted on the wagon.”

  “I guess,” I said, wondering where she was headed. “Why?”

  Her eyes shone. “Think you could invite my people?”

  Excitement bloomed inside me. “Maybe. But would they come? I thought they didn’t approve of spending time with gadjé.”

  “This would be for business relationship reasons. We can call it the Romani Business Appreciation Event.”

  “Are we clean enough for your people to eat the food we make?” I couldn’t help it; a little resentment crept into my voice.

  She shrugged. “As long as the drinks are sweet enough and no one sees Thunder pooping all over your shirt, my people should be fine.”

  The corner of my mouth turned up. “I’ll sneak extra panela in the chocolate.”

  “Great! Now go ahead,” Esma urged. “Tell your grandfather.”

  I translated most of it into Mixteco, but there was no equivalent for Romani Business Appreciation Event. I wasn’t sure how he’d react; he was always adamant about being honest, and this involved some … creative storytelling.

  “Romani Business Appreciation Event?” Grandfather repeated. And then he threw his head back, and the laughter spewed out. “Yes. I think Lucita would like combining her cabo de año with this, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “Definitely.” This was the first time in a year I’d been able to talk about Lucita with a smile.

  “This evening,” Grandfather said, “after the movie, I’ll formally invite the Rom.”

  I hugged him. “Grandfather,” I whispered, “you really think I’ll be Esma’s friend forever?”

  “I can tell you this,” he said in my ear. “Somehow, the Queen of Lightning put the spark of life back inside you.” He looked at Esma, standing expectantly at my side. “It’s true, you have the power to save each other. I’ll do what I can to make your friendship last.”

  That night, moon shadows stretched long through the pines where the Rom’s wagons circled a bonfire. Sweet smoke drifted and swirled above, past the golden flames and into the cool smattering of starlight. Music rose, a cascade of violin notes and hands clapping in rhythm, sticks drumming against tin buckets, and above it all, a soaring voice. It was a song without words, a kind of trilling melody, a soul cry that soared and dove and soared again.

  It was Esma, I was certain.

  In the darkness, Grandfather and I walked unseen to the edge of their circle, watching the young women dance, their arms raised, faces aglow, jewelry flashing, skirts and braids whirling. It felt as if we had stumbled across something secret and ancient. I put my hand over Thunder, who was trying to squirm out of the sling, as if she wanted to join in. Esma had said she’d be disowned if she befriended gadjé. And now, watching her people, I understood what a loss it would be for her to give up this life. Even if the boria did call her squash head all the time.

  When one of the men noticed us, he said something to Esma’s grandfather, the Duke. And the Duke said something to his wife, the
Mistress of Destiny, who sat on a tree stump with her knees splayed, pipe bobbing, foot tapping in time with the music. Her nose twitched in surprise, and her eyes squinted at us, puzzled. As word spread through the group, people stopped their music and dancing one by one. To my dismay, Esma stopped singing, too, and set down her violin. But the secret look she gave me made up for it.

  Grandfather and I introduced ourselves and begged pardon for interrupting them.

  The Duke reintroduced himself as Ivan, Duke of the Impossible Caravan, Master of the Traveling Cinema. Ceremoniously, he twirled the tips of his enormous mustache and welcomed us into their firelit circle.

  We sat on little wooden chairs. The Duke pulled another white orb from his suit pocket—maybe a peeled apple; it was hard to tell in the dim light. He bit into it and munched, then stuck it back into his pocket. Noticing our curiosity, he pulled out another one, unbitten, and offered it to us. As he leaned in, I smelled it, the sharp odor that stung my eyes. Onion.

  Grandfather and I shook our heads politely.

  The Duke, still munching, said something passionate in garbled Spanish. Esma clarified, lacking his enthusiasm. “Raw onions,” she sighed. “Supposedly his secret to good health. Strength. Long life. He snacks on them all day long.”

  Moving swiftly, she grabbed two porcelain cups from a low, round table draped with a gold-fringed cloth. On the table sat an enormous, shiny silver vessel, with a spout that Esma opened with her pinkie. Transfixed, I watched as steaming, honey-colored liquid poured out, into the cups.

  “Tea,” she announced, placing the cups in our hands.

  I sipped. It was a strange, dusky taste—nothing like the pale yellow chamomile tea I was used to. No, sipping this was pure magic, as though I were somehow sipping a night of Romani music and dancing and films. My insides warmed, suddenly golden.

  In Mixteco, Grandfather said, in his most formal voice, “Thank you for the tea. And for bringing joy into our hearts and a spark into our souls.” I translated in my own most formal voice.

  Duke Ivan gave a little bow. Grandfather and I bowed back.

  Roza, Mistress of Destiny, just chewed on her pipe and watched us with sharp eyes.