What the Moon Saw Read online

  We reached a small stream, and Abuelo slipped off his sandals. He rolled up his pants and waded right in. “It’s only knee-deep, m’hija,” he said. “Easy to cross.”

  I took off the sandals and stepped into the cool water. It wasn’t easy to hold my suitcase above the surface. Halfway across, I shifted the bag to my other hand and looked back at the hills we’d walked over.

  Abuelita paused next to me, balancing the heavy duffel bag on her head, one hand steadying its weight. Her other hand rested at my back, urging me forward. “We have almost arrived, Clara.”

  I’d never seen an eighty-year-old with this much strength. When we stepped onto the opposite bank, her hand brushed a branch of small white flowers which leaped up at her touch. But they weren’t flowers after all! They were butterflies, and as they rose, they seemed to emerge from her hand, one for each finger, flying up like magic.

  A few minutes later, after we had turned a sharp bend in the trail, Abuelo set down the bags and pointed to the cluster of wooden and bamboo shacks that had just come into view. “This is our home!” he said. “And your home!”

  One shack was the kitchen, Abuelo told me as we drew closer, one the bathroom, one the bedroom, one a living room with a little bedroom attached. They looked like run-down toolsheds. They were old and small, but that was about all they had in common with my imagined house. I peered into the living room to see if there was a DVD player. Not even close. Only three wooden chairs and a table. Not even a TV, not even a sofa or rug or armchair. None of the things that made a living room a living room. My stomach sank.

  The farthest shack was the tiniest, just a few boards pieced together, with a torn sheet hanging over one open side. That was the bathroom.

  I tried to say something but couldn’t find any words.

  “There is a market every Saturday at the next village over,” Abuelo said. “If we leave at dawn, we arrive before the heat. Two hours walking.” His voice was hopeful, trying to please me, but now I barely noticed his effort.

  I said nothing. Two hours?

  “But what a pretty walk it is,” he added. He glanced nervously at Abuelita, who watched us in silence.

  He motioned to a field of green stalks with big leaves moving in the breeze. “Our cornfields,” he said. “We grow beans and squash, too. And in the woods, coffee plants.”

  I hardly heard his words. All I could think was, How can I live here for two months without suffocating from boredom? How can I live in a place without even a sofa?

  They led me through a patch of weeds to a wooden shack with a tin roof.

  “Here you will sleep,” Abuelita said. “Your father’s old room.”

  Inside it was cool and dark. There was no furniture except for a thin mattress on a rusted bed frame, and some broken crates piled against the wall. What creatures lived in that heap of scraps? Mice? Snakes? Definitely spiders; I spotted one crawling casually across the floor, as though this were his territory, not mine.

  “Would you like to eat now or rest first, mi amor?” Abuelita asked.

  “Rest,” I said, trying not to let my voice shake. I let my bangs fall into my face to hide the tears welling up.

  “You will be happy here,” Abuelo said uncertainly. “You can take walks in the woods. You can help us with our work….” His voice trailed off.

  Abuelita patted his hand and led him out. “Rest now, mi amor,” she told me, and closed the door, leaving it cracked.

  Once they had left, I lay on the blanket and breathed in the musty air. Everything was a little damp—the planks of the floor, the scratchy wool blanket beneath me. I heard a noise under the bed, the faint rustle of tiny footsteps.

  Sixty days stretched before me, empty and endless as sand dunes. No movies, no computer, no entertainment. My portable CD player’s batteries would run out soon, and then there wouldn’t be music, either. It was a naked feeling. Who am I without all these things that fill up my life?

  I closed my eyes tight and tried to imagine my bed at home, the fresh flannel sheets, the down comforter, the pile of pillows. But it was impossible to ignore this lumpy pillow stuffed with balled-up fabric scraps. Or the springs inside the mattress that jutted into my back. Or the ancient, moldy odor.

  I turned onto my side and pulled my shirt over my nose. I breathed in the last remnants of fabric softener. When I was a little kid, at sleepovers, sometimes everything would suddenly feel wrong, and I’d call Mom at midnight to come get me. Wishing for a phone, I fell asleep.

  A patch of light on my face woke me up. It was coming through the crack of the heavy wooden door. I got up and walked outside and squinted in the bright sunlight, only half knowing where I was. I stood, dazed, rubbing my sore shoulders. To my left, fields of leafy stalks waved in the breeze. Behind them towered green lumps of mountains. Over the peaks, a few clouds spotted the deep blue sky.

  I slipped on Abuelita’s sandals and walked to the back of the hut. From here, the plants—corn plants, maybe—stretched over the hills. There were a few shacks way in the distance. I walked farther around the building, skimming my fingers along the rough plank walls.

  When I turned the corner, I faced a garden overflowing with petals and leaves of all shapes and sizes. Their scents mingled together on tiny breezes—a honey-sweet smell, a sharp spicy one, a cool mintiness. All of a sudden, the urge to explore this place swept through me. It was the same feeling I had that first night I went into the woods in Walnut Hill. The feeling that something was calling to me, something waiting to be discovered.

  I reached the front of the hut again, and there stood Abuelo, in the big patch of dirt and weeds between the four shacks. Chickens swarmed around him, pecking at the corn he scattered from a sack.

  “Finally, m’hija! You’re awake!” he called out. “Do you know you slept all morning?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why don’t you go into the kitchen and meet Loro?” He motioned toward a bamboo shack where smoke rose from the roof. Who was Loro? A neighbor, maybe? Someone my own age might be nice. Maybe he had a TV.

  Inside the kitchen it was dark and smoky. Once my eyes adjusted, the first thing I saw was a giant green parrot, perched on a rafter. He opened his beak and screeched, “¡Hola hola hola!” Hello hello hello!

  Abuelita, holding a big tortilla, stood underneath him. “This is Loro,” she said, “and Loro, this is Clara.”

  Abuelita showed me how to feed Loro bits of tortilla. He plucked the tortilla pieces from my hand, one by one, and I laughed at the way his beak tickled my palm.

  “Loro has been on this earth nearly as long as I have,” Abuelita said. She turned back to the fire to stir something in a clay pot with a long wooden spoon. Her bare feet seemed to merge with the packed-dirt floor beneath them, like aboveground tree roots.

  Suddenly, Loro shrieked. “¡Ánimo! ¡Ánimo!” he cried.

  I jumped, not only because it was so loud, but because that was what Dad would say to me when I felt upset. It meant something like “Cheer up” or “Have courage” or “Get your spark back.” Whenever I acted pouty or grumpy, rolling my eyes and stomping around, he’d grin and say, “Ánimo, my daughter!” and I’d roll my eyes even more, trying to hide my smile. Or, the times I felt truly sad, he’d smooth my hair lightly and whisper, “Ánimo.” It did cheer me up, but I never told him that.

  Again, Loro opened his beak and screeched, “¡Ánimo, Silvia! ¡Ánimo, doña Carmen!”

  “Silvia? Doña Carmen?” I asked Abuelita. “Who are they?”

  Abuelo breezed into the kitchen. “Old friends of your grandmother’s,” he said, looking at her with a devilish grin. “Right, mi vida?”

  Abuelita raised her eyebrow.

  She motioned for us to sit on the wooden chairs, and began serving hot milk with cinnamon and chocolate, rich and foamy. I waited for her to explain, but all she said was “They were threads in the web of our lives.” Talking with Abuelita was like diving for pennies. She’d drop some words that flashed li
ke coins. Maybe it was up to me to dive down to find them.

  She handed us thick tortillas folded in half, filled with orange squash flowers and melted cheese, cooked over the fire on a clay plate—a comal. Then she perched on a wooden chair, smaller than the ones Abuelo and I sat on—kind of a doll’s chair. She seemed comfortable with her legs drawn up under her and a tortilla balanced on her knees.

  I took a small bite, chewed cautiously. “Good,” I said, surprised.

  “Your father’s favorite food, squash flowers,” Abuelo said.

  I didn’t correct him. It might make him sad that now Dad’s favorite food was marshmallow brownies. But is it possible, I wondered, that deep inside, Dad does like squash flowers best?

  Abuelita rested her hand on my shoulder for a moment. Her touch made me remember what had been nagging at the edges of my mind all day, even in dreams during my nap. “Abuelita. Before the bus wreck—why did you squeeze my hand?”

  She and Abuelo looked at each other.

  “Your father has told you about me, no?” she asked.

  “Well, a little.” I searched every cranny of my brain, trying to find a story, a quote, any piece of his past with Abuelita in it. When I was small, he used to sing songs from his village and tell me stories about the rabbit and the moon. He’d always make me speak Spanish with him—but we’d just talk about everyday things, like what time he had to pick me up from art class. He’d never given me details about his childhood or his mother or father. All I knew, really, were the bare bones of his life. Finally, I thought of our conversation the evening the letter had arrived. “He did say that you know things.”

  Abuelo set down his mug. “Know things,” he repeated proudly. The firelight glinted off his eyes. The green one looked translucent, like some kind of gemstone, and the brown one glistened like melting chocolate. “Your grandmother can see a whole world that the rest of us cannot.”

  Abuelita playfully poked his shoulder. “More hot chocolate, Clara?” she asked, standing up.

  I nodded, watching both of them. Suddenly, more than anything, I wanted to know what she knew.

  “Abuelita,” I said. I was ready to take a deep breath and dive under to get the shining coins. “Cuénteme.” Tell me.

  She passed me the steaming mug, settled back into her small wooden chair, and began.

  Helena

  SUMMER 1934

  The most beautiful things in life are unexpected, Clara. They tear at the fabric of the everyday world. The world of patting tortillas and fetching water and washing dishes. They show you the deeper world, where you talk with the spirits of trees. Where you see silvery threads connecting a leaf to a star to an earthworm.

  I was just a young girl, about eight years old, the night I made my first soul flight. The whole day I’d spent working. Cooking, washing, sweeping, as always. That evening we were drinking hot cinnamon milk around the fire—Uncle José, Aunt Teresa, my cousin María, my grandfather Ta’nu, and me—when we heard something strange. The hoofbeats of a burro, growing louder, closer.

  Ta’nu somehow knew. He put down his milk and said, “Ita”—that’s what he called me, Flower—“bring me the mezcal. And gather ruda and white lilies from the garden.”

  He walked out the door. He was a small man, stooped over. A calm man. A man who never rushed, never panicked.

  I leaped up and collected some cups, the mezcal, and a jug of water.

  Uncle José muttered, “All these strangers coming. I’m tired of it.”

  Aunt Teresa looked down and said nothing. She hid her eyes whenever Uncle was near. She was a wide, round woman, but she tried to make herself small around Uncle. Small like a mouse hiding in the corner.

  “Bring me another cup of hot milk,” Uncle José barked at me, just as I was hurrying out the door with my arms full.

  Aunt Teresa whispered in a brave mouse voice, “Child, go help your grandfather. I’ll give José his milk.”

  Uncle shot her a dark look.

  Before he could say another word, I stepped outside and into the dusk. A man and a woman stood by the burro. They held a child, a little girl, maybe four years old. Her body hung limp, like wet laundry. Ta’nu took the things from my hands. He led the family down the hill, into the curing hut.

  I knew what to do. You see, I had been helping Ta’nu heal from the time I could walk. From the time my parents died. I ran around back and picked bunches of ruda, breathing in the smell. A sharp, strong smell. Then I gathered an armful of tall, white flowers, still damp from the afternoon rainstorm. I ran back to the hut in the faint light. Mud squished between my toes and splattered my huipil, but that didn’t matter.

  Inside, on the table covered with statues and pictures of saints, candles were lit. The smell of smoking pine filled the room. On the dirt floor, on a woven mat, lay the girl, barely breathing. Poor thing, she looked like a wilted plant, a plant so close to death.

  “My daughter was down at the stream,” the woman said, “playing, while her sisters gathered water.” She spoke slowly, trembling, wrapping her braids around her fingers. Her eyes were swollen from tears. “They said my daughter fell. Crack, her head hit a stone. And, still, she hasn’t woken up.”

  Ta’nu took the white lilies and ruda, dripping with rain. He swept them over the girl’s body. He sang and sang. Waves of words he sang, words that rose and fell. Words that moved up and down with his arms. That wove around us, then up through the cracks in the roof. Over and over, he called to her spirit. He asked it, again and again, to return to her body.

  Soon, I knew, he would need the mezcal. I opened the bottle. Our mezcal was made from cactus juice from a nearby town. How it burned going down your throat, how it made your skin tingle! Mezcal has great power to heal, you see, when it’s mixed with herbs. But some people—like Uncle José—gulp mezcal down. They drink it because they have a thirst for something else, only they don’t know what their thirst is for. They gulp mezcal down until they collapse, dizzy. And oh, how they make their families suffer.

  I passed the bottle to Ta’nu. He used mezcal only for cures. He took a mouthful and sprayed it on the girl in great gusts. Gusts like wind in a sudden storm. He called to her spirit, reminding it of the pleasures of life. “Hot cinnamon-chocolate milk,” he said. “Warm hearth fires,” he said. “Music, laughter, your mother’s touch,” he said.

  But she did not wake up. There she lay with her braids half undone, a few fine hairs damp against her cheeks. Again and again, Ta’nu blew, but the girl remained still. Still as a tree on a day without a breeze.

  Ta’nu brushed a piece of copal incense over her. Onto her wrists he rubbed it. Onto her forehead. Onto her temples. Onto her neck. Then he set it in the clay dish of smoldering pinewood. Clouds of smoke spiraled upward. Sweet smoke. Smoke that whispered a kind of language. If you paid close attention, it told you hidden things.

  Up and up the smoke moved, and Ta’nu watched it. He watched it to find out what was wrong with the girl. I understood the smoke too, but he didn’t know that. No one knew that. You see, every time I helped Ta’nu with his ceremonies, I knew what he would say, because I knew what the smoke had said. This time the smoke told us that the girl’s soul was captured. Held prisoner by the spirit of the stream.

  A stream spirit! Oh, stream spirits are known for their raw tempers. Up they rise, like whirlwinds. Up they rise, spewing dark water, angry waves, furious white foam. You can never tell when a stream spirit will fly into a rage. When it will lash out for something as simple as a girl stepping onto its favorite rock. So you can see why my heart was pounding fast, why fear was spreading over my skin like cold fingers.

  “When your daughter fell,” Ta’nu said to the parents, “her soul left her body for a moment. And in that moment, the spirit of the stream snatched her soul.”

  The mother bit her bottom lip, so hard it drew blood. “How can we find it?”

  “It will not be easy,” Ta’nu said. “She is very young. Her soul is just weakly attached to
her body.” He closed his eyes.

  We watched him. We waited and waited.

  Finally he announced, “I will find her soul and bring it back.”

  Before he even had to ask, I ran up the hill to the kitchen to prepare the sacred tea. The kitchen was empty of people. By this time, Aunt Teresa, Uncle José, and little María had all gone to bed. I stoked the hearth fire, then unhooked a small metal pot from the rafters. Into it I poured water from our heavy clay jug. I rummaged through the sacks of dried chiles and hardened corncobs piled in the corner. There it was, the crate packed with baskets of dried herbs. I laid the herbs I needed by the hearth and waited for the water to boil. Back and forth over the dirt floor I paced. Back and forth, skimming the bamboo walls with impatient fingertips.

  Finally, bubbles began to rise in the pot. I dropped in three leaves of yuku kuaa, six of ita tikuva, ten of yuku nuxi. They steeped and I prayed. I prayed for the spirits of the herbs to help the girl, to give Ta’nu a safe soul journey. Then I poured the tea into a clay cup and brought it to Ta’nu. I was careful, very careful, not to spill a single drop.

  Now a cloud of panic filled the room. Tears streamed down the mother’s face. The father looked stunned, like a sleepwalker caught in a nightmare. Only his hands were moving, wringing each other out like rags.

  “Ita,” Ta’nu said to me. “We must do it now. The girl stopped breathing for a moment. She has started again, but the string that connects her soul to her body is fragile.”

  Ta’nu gulped down the cup of tea without letting it cool. It must have scalded his throat, but that didn’t matter to him. His song started again, a song that rode on ripples of a stream. A leaf, floating away. His voice sculpted the night air like hands shaping clay. His voice created another world. A world of giant oceans and shooting stars and mountains. Of tiny hummingbirds, butterfly wings, new buds.