What the Moon Saw (22 page)

I pulled a blanket around my shoulders. I arranged another blanket up around don Valerio’s neck, then walked out of the shelter, across the yard to my hut. Whispery spiderweb threads connected the leaves and raindrops and burros and chickens. Their spirits breathed together, interwoven like a
petate,
interwoven in peaceful, green, wet sleep.

The next morning as María and I were patting out tortillas, we watched don Valerio walk along the path from the
temazcal.
No trace of a limp. He came out from the patch of trees, stretched, and looked up at the sky. Smiling, he untied his horse and, without the slightest strain, threw one leg over its back and pulled himself up. He spotted us, took off his hat, and waved to us. We waved back. Whistling, he rode off. The morning light made his stray brown hairs glow in a crown. Then he disappeared around the bend in the road.

Clara

C
opal smoke filled the kitchen. Sunshine came in through the slats of bamboo, making the smoke look solid. Stripes of light moved over Abuelita while she added more copal to the embers. Every once in a while her gold tooth would reflect the light at just the right angle and flash like a mirror. She was chanting in Mixteco, in a low, rhythmic voice. She was thanking the spirits, the saints, God—asking that they receive our gifts and continue to help us heal.

Next to her, I carefully arranged a green feather, an egg, and a pile of cocoa beans on a banana leaf. I tried to concentrate on being thankful, but what I kept thinking about was how normal it seemed to be doing this with her. And how strange it would be to go back to Walnut Hill with these new things inside me. How would I explain them to my friends? How could I make Samantha understand that the smell of copal smoke in a bamboo kitchen felt more real to me than the smell of new clothes on sale racks at the mall? Here in Yucuyoo my outside self finally fit together with my inside self, the way Abuelita’s sandals had molded to my feet—or maybe it was my feet that had molded to her sandals.

I wrapped the banana leaf around the gifts and tied a string around it to form a neat package. Later that day, we carried the packages just past the edge of the cornfield, to the base of the mountain. We stopped at a shadowy nook, a kind of shelf formed by four stones. Three of the stones sat upright, leaning against each other, supporting the fourth stone, which came up to our waists. The top of the fourth stone was flat, an altar covered with white pools of hardened wax from old candles. Abuelita told me that the stones around it were darkened from years and years of candle smoke, from so many gifts left here, so many prayers and thanks.

With a match, she melted the bottom of the candle we’d brought along. Then she pressed it into the wax pool and lit the wick. I put the packages on the altar and whispered thanks to the white heron. Then I listed all the things and people I was thankful for. It took a really long time, longer than I’d expected. I was thankful for all kinds of things—that Dad had a job and could live with me and Mom. That in a few months Dad and I could go on fall hikes through yellow leaves under a blue sky. That I was beginning to like my squirrel cheeks. That my hands knew how to heal and how to make tortillas. That I’d discovered squash flower quesadillas, my new favorite food. That Pedro and I had held hands and it had felt good. Each thing I gave thanks for reminded me of another.

On the way back, Abuelita talked nearly the whole time. Maybe since I would be leaving next week, she felt the need to tell me everything all at once.

“Already, Clara, with my help, you healed the baby. The time will come when you must heal alone. When you are healing, stay focused. Stay calm. Never panic. Never let your mind confuse you. Listen to God, listen to your spirit. Let your spirit animal help you.” And on and on she went, and I tried to make her words part of me, so that I’d be able to hear them even when I was far from here, back in Walnut Hill.

I didn’t know that I would have to use her words so soon. But that night, lying in bed, I did have a feeling that something was going to happen. Something big, but I didn’t know what. When I tried to think about it, it slipped away…but as I drifted off to sleep, the feeling came back, strong.

The next morning the feeling was still with me while I washed dishes and swept the kitchen floor and fed the chickens. Maybe that was why I ended up packing my backpack so carefully, to prepare for whatever was going to happen. My sketchbook, a pencil, a flashlight, an extra sweater, and the rain poncho were already in the backpack. In the kitchen I grabbed whatever looked good—some tortillas, cheese wrapped in a banana leaf, a big mango, a water bottle filled with lemonade, a chunk of chocolate, an avocado, and as always, the bundle of garlic heads to keep away poisonous creatures.

As I zipped up my full backpack, Loro screeched,
“¡Adiós! ¡Adiós! ¡Adiós!”
from the rafters above. Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Usually he’d just say,
“¡Hasta luego!”
See you later! His
adiós
sounded too final.

I walked out into the bright sunshine. “See you, Abuelita! See you, Abuelo!”

“Be careful,” Abuelita called after me, watching me go.

Strange. She’d never said that to me before. Did she have a feeling too?
Maybe I should stay home today,
I thought…but Pedro was already waiting for me on the mountain, and we had less than a week together before I left.

By the time I reached our meeting spot by the stream, I’d forgotten about the warning feeling. Pedro sat there, cross-legged in his faded red pants, picking out notes on his guitar, looking comfortable. We spent the whole morning wading in the stream, making music, scrambling over rocks with the goats, weaving palm, looking for the waterfall.

Less than one week left before I had to go back—this thought buzzed in and out of my mind like a mosquito. I said nothing to Pedro about it, but knowing it made every moment with him precious.

A heavy heat had been building up all day—the kind of heat that usually ends in a crazy storm, Pedro told me. From the east the sky was gray-black; darkness was moving in.

We were just about to go back to our homes when one of the goats let out a squeal. We almost didn’t hear its cry because the rushing sound of the waterfall was so loud here, like a washing machine. The goat’s white fur flashed behind a tree, right between the vine-covered rock face and a pile of rocks. We ran over to it.

Its rear legs had fallen into a hole. It was whimpering and struggling to grip the ground with its front hooves.

Pedro grabbed the goat under its front legs and tugged. He looked like he was just about to tumble in after the goat, so with my right arm I grabbed Pedro around his waist and with my left hand held on to a tree branch to keep us from all falling down the hole. Pedro’s face was red and straining, more than the time he’d held the watermelon rock over his head, and he pulled until he fell back against me with the goat in his lap. We sat sprawled in a pile, catching our breaths and letting our heartbeats settle down. Pedro moved his hands gently over the goat’s stomach and legs, just like a vet, to check for injuries.

“The goat’s fine,” he said as it stood up and walked away, wobbly and dazed.

Then it dawned on us at the same time. I practically saw the lightbulb go on in his head and I said, “This is it, Pedro!” My excitement was growing by the second, the way it does on an airplane ride right before takeoff. This had to be it. The rushing sound was louder than ever, and sure enough, it grew louder as we crouched down and lowered our ears to the hole. We could see nothing but darkness inside.

“I wish we had candles,” Pedro said.

“I have my flashlight!” I unzipped my backpack, rooted through my stuff, and pulled out the red plastic flashlight. Like I said, it pays to be prepared, even if it means dragging around a heavy backpack.

I shone the flashlight down into the hole, onto a big, triangular stone. The floor of the cave was a few feet down, just beneath the stone.

“Look, we don’t even need a rope to get down there!” Pedro said.

He took the flashlight from me and started to drop into the hole. He lowered his body carefully. The hole seemed to swallow him up. Suddenly that warning feeling came back.

Before his head disappeared, I said, “Wait, Pedro!” I was stalling, trying to think of a respectable reason not to go down there. “What about the goats?”

“They’ll be all right. Just a few minutes, Clara, then tomorrow we can come back for longer.”

I looked at the sky. The sun had disappeared, and dark clouds were blowing in fast overhead. There was a strange light, kind of orange-yellow, thick as squash soup. Everything glowed like a painting done in a palette of eerie colors. I picked up Pedro’s abandoned guitar and put it in one of the deep cracks in the rock face, a little way down the hill. I didn’t want his guitar getting ruined when the rain came, especially since I’d be leaving soon and he’d need it to keep the sadness—or maybe anger—from filling his heart, as Abuelita had said.

Back at the hole I knelt down. The rock face loomed above, about three stories high, with its curtain of vines dangling like growing-out bangs. On one of its jagged ledges, a white heron calmly watched us. I held perfectly still, watching the heron watching us. That was when I knew for sure that something big was happening.

“Come down, Clara!” shouted Pedro.

“Just for a minute,” I called. I felt the heron watching me as I dropped my backpack to Pedro and lowered myself. I felt solid rock under my toe and let my weight come down onto it. I sat on the damp stone and then slid down onto the floor. While my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I put on my backpack.

We were in a small tunnel. Small enough that if I’d stood in the middle and stretched out my arms, my fingertips could have touched both sides. Water dripped down the rock walls. I reached my hands up and felt slick, wet stone just above my head. The sliminess made me pull my hands back quickly and wipe them on my jeans. A stream that looked about ankle-deep trickled down the middle of the tunnel.

We headed downstream, sticking to the sides, where the rock floor sloped higher than the water’s surface. We made our way slowly along the edge of the tunnel with our sides pressed against the slimy walls. Pedro led with the light, and after a few steps, he reached back to take my hand. His hand was cold and wet. It didn’t give me the same tingly hot feeling as the last time we’d held hands, but at least it made me feel braver. The rushing sound grew louder and louder until I felt surrounded by it, inside an ocean of sound.

Then the light went out. Absolute blackness.

“Shake the flashlight a little,” I said. My stomach was already jumping around with panic. Hopefully the batteries had just lost contact for a moment.

“What?”

The sound of pounding water was so loud it swallowed up our words.
“Shake the flashlight!”
I yelled.

Still no light. He handed the flashlight to me. I had to fumble in the dark to open it. I pushed down the batteries, screwed the top back on, and tried it again. Nothing.

I moved closer to him and spoke right into his ear. “The batteries must be dead. Let’s go back!” I started to turn and tugged on his hand. Now the bad feeling was taking shape, becoming clearer. It was a dark cave feeling, blackness closing in. I thought of the goddess trapped in the steam bath.

“Clara, wait! Do you see a light ahead?”

A faint light came from a curve in the tunnel. Something was glowing beneath the surface of the stream. As we moved closer, it became clearer. It was
sky
—bits of sky, and vines, and leaves! Had we entered a different dimension, an upside-down land?

Then I realized it was a reflection, moving on the surface of the water. It must be reflecting what was around the bend. I tightened my hand around Pedro’s and we kept going, following the curve. Another thing I was thankful for came to mind—that Pedro and I were exploring this place together, that it wasn’t
my
secret mission but
our
secret mission.

How can I explain to you what we saw when we turned that bend?

Imagine opening your closet one day, expecting the same dark, cramped space you see every day, and instead, being met with a humongous space full of light and water.

The tunnel opened up into a giant chamber, higher than three houses piled on top of each other. On the left side of the chamber, at the top of a steep embankment, there was an opening—a dazzling window to the outside, where vines were hanging, and behind them, that crazy orange sky. A rushing sound filled the chamber and echoed off the walls.

The stream emptied into a large pool in front of us. Other trickles of streams came out of the floor from under boulders and fed into the pool.

Everything seemed huge. It felt as though we had entered a realm of giants. We climbed onto one of the boulders, and from here, we could see past the pool, where the cave sloped down sharply toward the right and narrowed into another tunnel. Water tumbled over the rocks, and white foam churned wildly. Pedro and I didn’t talk. We just tried to soak it all in, breathing in the spray and letting the mist coat our skin.