Ballad & Dagger, page 13
That’s all I remember. And I haven’t thought about it since it happened, but it definitely happened. She’s always been there, cheering me on toward this truth of who I am, long before I understood it.
Suddenly, I’m on the verge of tears. She’s pulling me into a wildly lopsided hug, rubbing her hands in calming circles over my back.
“I thought you said it would get easier to deal with the injuries,” I mutter once I’ve managed to hold back the sobs. “This time the heaviness came on so much faster.”
“You did more healing, and you did it faster, mi amor. You’re getting ahead of yourself.”
She’s right. These injuries were all more severe, and once Chela helped unlock the secret within me, it all seemed to flow, and quickly.
“When you don’t have time to clean off,” Tía Lucia tells me, slowly disentangling from the hug, “the trick is to find places within yourself to store the hurt.” She narrows her eyes, waving one finger up at me. “Pero escúchame, Mateo. That’s only a temporary measure. You cannot leave other people’s crap rotting inside you forever and ever, ¿lo entiendes?”
I nod, still getting my balance back. Already, though, I understand what she means. It’s like how she explained her altars once—that they’re a way of giving spirits a place to be so they won’t just roam around everywhere. The illnesses and injuries I’ve taken on, especially that heart attack, are wandering in a thick cloud through me. I do as Tía suggested and imagine them sectioning themselves off and organizing into tidy little clusters, folding away in corners and pockets of my inner self.
I don’t know if that’s really how it’s done or just a placebo, but it’s working. I feel stronger, clearer-headed.
“Are you okay?” Tams pants, catching up to us with Maza by her side.
“Grrrk,” I mumble. “Think so?”
“He will be,” Tía Lucia reports with a chuckle. “You two head to Tolo’s club. I’ll send him there when we’re done.”
Done? Done with what?
Doesn’t matter. I’m getting my strength back and can mostly walk on my own now, even if it feels like there are cinder blocks strapped to my arms and legs and cotton candy in my brain. I give Tams and Maza a thumbs-up and stumble along beside my aunt.
“Where we going?” We’ve cut down some side streets and are making our way down a quiet walkway toward…
“The canal,” Tía says. “Look, m’ijo, I know you’ve been through a lot in the past day.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I shoved you headfirst into the deep end of the pool….”
We reach the concrete edge of a narrow canal. She nods, pulls out a cigar, and lights it. “But there’s no choice, I’m afraid. Anisette is up to something. I saw what happened tonight. I don’t know who those guys were or what Gerval’s role in all this is, pero…pues, ese es el problema: no lo sé. And unfortunately, you’re probably the only person who can find out.”
“Why me, Tía?”
“Everyone trusts you, Mateo. They know you just enough to think they know you, but al mismo tiempo, not at all.”
“Sea espíritu,” I mutter. There but not there, heard not seen. Sometimes it feels like a curse.
She raises her eyebrows, watching the dark water stream by. “Sure, eso. I know the world came at you fast, but I knew you’d be ready for it, Mateo. And you were.”
“I wasn’t ready!” It comes out louder than I meant it to, but I guess I’m pissed. “I barely figured it out! You could’ve died last night, Tía!”
“You are ready,” she says. “And I didn’t. That’s the point. You were ready. You just didn’t feel ready. Those are different things. I’m not trying to be funny. I know you’re ready.”
“I wish I knew it.”
“You will. Bueno, pues, let’s clean. You feel it, all that muck?”
I nod, because it’s been steadily fading but it’s still there, like the world is a swamp around me.
“As I said, you will feel it less the more you heal, as your body and soul learn how to manage it. There are also natural ways we get rid of it without meaning to. Puking, for instance!” She chortles to himself, but whoa—it puts my whole puking thing in a totally different light. “Pero, it’s better to cleanse yourself on purpose. That’s what I’m here to show you. Ahora, dime: How did you figure out how to really use your powers?”
“I…It was when Chela said it was inside me just like the music is. And I let the song come out while I did it.”
She nods thoughtfully. “Mmm, muy bien.” Then she gets up in my face a little. “Pero—”
“Don’t trust Chela Hidalgo, I know.”
The fact that Chela is one of the people I’m looking for…it sits heavy in my mouth. This doesn’t seem like the right time to tell Tía. Part of me feels like it would be a betrayal somehow. Everything is a betrayal, it seems. That’s the way of things.
“She’s right, though,” Tía says. “Just like there are songs for healing others, there is a song for cleansing yourself, see? So first place your hands on your heart, hmm?”
I do it, feeling kinda sappy, I gotta admit.
“Ahora…” She chuckles a little, meeting my eyes.
“Escucha,” we both say together.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I grumble, but I’m laughing, and so is she.
“But seriously, this is what I mean, Mateo. Escucha. Escucha al mundo.” Listen to the world. “A tu propio corazón.” To your own heart. “A tu espíritu.” Your spirit. “Tu canción.” Your song.
I close my eyes. Let the hum of the city rise around me as those color splotches bubble across the sudden darkness.
I tune inward, the way I reached within those injured people, but this time on myself. Shadows envelop my consciousness. I hear…nothing.
“Go deeper,” Tía’s voice says from what seems like a million miles away.
I do, shutting out the sounds of traffic and machinery, shutting out the world until I just feel like I’m falling, falling, forever falling into an impossible void.
And then a hand yanks me forward, hard. “Guh!” I shout, gasping for air.
“Tranquilo, tranquilo,” Tía says, rubbing my back.
“What the hell happened?”
“You’ll get there, it’s okay.” She’s smiling up at me; she looks…proud. I didn’t expect that, and I definitely didn’t expect the surge of emotion it sends through me. I don’t know what I did, but whatever it was, it’s got Tía Lucia glowing in a way I’ve never seen before. I did that. I just wish I knew how. It almost makes up for having seen her laid out and unconscious last night. “Next time,” she says with a sly chuckle. “Next time, you’ll go even deeper, hmm?”
“Deeper?” I gape. “Feel like I almost drowned this time!”
“Bueno,” she says with a wry smile. “That means you’re listening. But even without the song, you can still go through the motions of the cleaning, hmm? It’ll still work, just not as well. Now do like you’ve got something nasty on your hands and you gotta shake it off into the canal, eh?”
She shows me, and I do as she says. I feel the weight lighten as I shake, the clouds leave my brain, the world returns to itself. Energy flows within me, then out. The surface of the dark water doesn’t change, of course, but I can imagine all that hurt, the broken bones and bleeding organs, sliding away downstream and mixing with the endless waters of the world.
“In the Cuban Santero tradition, they cleanse with coins sometimes, or candy. Machetes, like we did last night. It can get more complicated, too. The most important thing is that you use intention.”
“What do you mean?”
“La intención es todo. Everything else is just tools and toys, eh? ¿Qué es lo que quieres hacer? You want to cleanse. You do what you’re called to do, and with the intentionality of cleansing in your heart, you will do the right work. This is how these powers function. You intended to heal when you crouched over those injured people. Y entonces your spirit found a way. Música was the method.”
“I…I think I understand.”
Tía Lucia nods toward the street. “Now, go find your friends, Mateo. There is still much to be done.”
TOLO’S CLUB IS FULL OF people—old and young, pirate, Santero, Sefaradim, and whatever. He opened up the bar and someone started cooking in the back, so everyone’s sitting around, chatting, trying to unwind and process everything that happened when I walk in.
And then they see me, and everyone goes dead quiet.
Welcome, once again, to my worst nightmare: other people’s eyes. Lots of them, all pointed my way. I guess it’s a little better than last night because I’m ready for it. And at least now I know what they’re staring at me about.
Still.
My skin feels like it’s on fire, and my stomach does several somersaults.
“Uh…” I say, because that’s what I’m good at: saying uh. “Hey, everyone.”
Then I realize there’s something different about their expressions this time: awe. Some of them are people I healed earlier. The rest must have heard about what happened. What I did. They’re looking at me like I’m some kind of hero, but I’m not. I didn’t ask to be a healer, didn’t choose it. It chose me. I just did what I was told. “The Healer,” they mutter, and “It’s true,” like they can see it on me, like Galanika himself is just hovering around my head. But he’s not, and I’m barely a healer at all, I’m just a kid. And it’s all too much.
I almost break down into tears of relief when Tams pops up and hugs me. “You were amazing!” she says, and my heart sinks again. Was I? I don’t know. Why are all my thoughts turning against me? I’m just glad we’re all still alive.
I look her over. “Are you okay?”
She nods, and by the glint in her eye and that overlarge smile, I gather she’s more than just okay.
I tilt my forehead down and one eyebrow up. “Oh, word? It’s like that?”
She twists her mouth to one side. “I mean…”
“Mateo!” someone calls. Chela. Now both my eyebrows go up, and it’s Tams’s turn to forehead-tilt at me. “Can you come to the back office for a sec—”
“Yes!” I yell before she can finish.
“Tolo wants to talk to us.”
“Okay!” I call, jabbing Tams with my elbow so she stops laughing.
“Whew!” Tams wheezes. “The speed with which you said, Yes, Chela, I would love to go to the sexy back office and make out with you!”
“I explicitly did not say that!”
“And the speed with which she put that possibility to rest. Whew, I say!”
“The prior conversation is extremely not over,” I warn Tams. “Anyway, come with me.”
She shoots me her dubious face. “Really?”
“You had my back out there, Tams. You were by my side the whole time. Whatever he has to say to me he can say to you, too, shoot.”
“You know who else had your back the whole time?” She does a little shimmy, and I roll my eyes.
“Yes, bring Maza, too, but hurry up.”
“Good, because we both had simultaneous revelations about how incredibly hot Tolo Baracasa is tonight, and we’d like a chance to confirm up close and personal.”
“You are…really something.”
I make my way through the many stares, the faces wide open with wonder, the weirdness I feel inside about it all. Special powers are cool, sure, but me managing to reach the far end of the room without tripping over anything or just curling up in a little ball on the floor—that’s real magic, man.
Tams and Maza fall in behind me, and we walk past Big Moses Arroyo, the bouncer (who tonight seems more like a bodyguard), down a narrow hallway and through a huge iron door.
Old leather-bound books line the walls of Tolo Baracasa’s office. An oriental rug is stretched across the floor leading up to his huge desk, which looks like it’s made from a giant piece of driftwood. Framed on the display area behind the desk, forming a kind of symbolic backdrop to Tolo himself, is an old-school map of San Madrigal, complete with elaborate etchings of those three famous peaks, sea serpents rising from the waves, and various creatures in the wilderness area and even on the rugged streets. I could stare at it for hours, but right now there are more pressing things at hand, like Tolo Baracasa’s huge frowning face staring directly at me.
“Ah, hi,” I say with a weird little wave.
“Mateo Matisse Medina.” Even at the near whisper he speaks in now, Tolo’s voice fills the room with its rich and resonant timbre, the pull of a bow across double-bass strings. He cracks a slight smile when he talks, not unlike his cousin. “Your parents still off saving the world in…Where are they again?”
“The Congo,” I say, impressed that he knows anything about them. Then again, I guess it’s his job to know everything about everyone in this community, huh.
“Mmm, but you’re not with them this time.” He nods at Tams and Maza and then sets his gaze back on me. “Bet they’ll be thrilled to come home and find out their little man has taken after them, no?”
I wonder. Like, I can see why someone would think that, but don’t forget: Jorge and Sandra Medina are people of numbers, facts, and data. I gather they weren’t that thrilled about my initiation in the first place, but they probably accepted it as a necessity. And then they were, I’m sure, happy to whisk me off to their extremely non-magical data-driven world of medications and morbidity rates, hypodermic needles and hotel rooms. I haven’t Skyped with them since I found out, and I honestly don’t know how to tell them about everything that’s been going on. It feels a little bit like a rejection of everything they’re about, if I’m honest.
Probably all that thinking and overthinking has me shifting uncomfortably, because Tolo narrows his eyes and then sighs. “Look, we all saw what you did out there tonight.” He glances at Chela, whose face is as inscrutable as always. As almost always. “I…I asked my cousin, and she said I had to talk to you about it.” He shakes his head, amused and defeated, and then does the Galerano shrug-mambo. “So…here we are. I know what I saw, what the people are saying. But I prefer to go right to the source when I want to know something about a person. Is it true, you’ve awakened to your powers as a healer?”
“I…” Words don’t come, no surprise. It feels wrong to claim something I barely understand, just found out about twenty-four hours ago. But then again, I’ve already seen it work, felt it work over and over since then. And Galanika was there, staring at me with those shimmering, translucent eyes. I didn’t make it up. Chela saw him, too. “I have,” I finally spit out.
To his credit, Tolo shows surprising patience and grace as I squirm. He doesn’t make a fuss or roll his eyes, just waits and watches. Then he nods, says a curt but not unkind “Good,” and steeples his fingers. “Please sit, all of you. I’ll try to be as clear with you as possible.”
I exhale. I don’t know if he realizes what a blessing it is to deal with someone straight-talking and close to our age after all these riddlesome adults. “Thank you.” I take a spot in one of the chairs facing his desk, Tams and Maza flanking me.
He leans forward, smiling slightly. “Do y’all know what I do, exactly?”
Tams doesn’t miss a beat. “You want the real answer, or the polite one?”
It’s a gamble, man, but Tolo immediately slams one thick hand on his desk and busts out laughing. Whew. “I like her,” he says. “But please, do not be polite with me. Not now, not ever. I’m a pirate, man, come on.”
“Well,” Maza says, “word on the street is you came up as a smuggler under your dad and that’s how you made your fortune, and now you run his old crew.”
He nods, appraising the info thoughtfully. “And what do they say I smuggle?”
Tams shrugs. “We always figured it was the usual stuff—guns and drugs and whatnot.”
Tolo flicks the notion away with a shrug and a swipe of his palm. “I mean, sure, in the beginning. But that gets boring pretty quick, you know.”
We don’t, but it’s not a question.
“I heard,” Maza says, “you have crews all over the world hunting ancient treasures and then selling them off on the black market.”
He nods, serious now. “Mm, that’s part of it, yes. Some people invest in stocks; we invest in…long-lost treasures, as you say. But for these past fifteen years, ever since the day of the catastrophe…” He raises his eyebrows, eyes far away, voice trailing to nothing. Then he shakes it off. “The real treasure my father and now I have been hunting is lore.”
I think we all blink at him at the same time.
“Folktales, stories, songs, spells…A lot of cultures make up who we are. Not just the Santeros, Sefaradim, and pirates they always talk about. Taínos and Arawaks came through to trade, some started families. Plus, all kinds of folks trying to get away from the law or the various empires all over the Caribbean. For a while, we had crews going out to take down slave ships, and many newly freed people would stay, so cultures from different parts of West Africa. Plus, Jews would regularly pop up, escaping one pogrom or another in different parts of Europe.”
“Wow…” I say. I knew other cultures were mixed in; I’d just never thought about the extent of it.
“And all brought traditions with them, their myths and monsters, and those became part of who we are. Our own mythology is gigantic, spans centuries. And somewhere in there, in all those sacred teachings and trickster stories and barroom waltzes and murder ballads and lullabies and love songs, there’s an answer. There’s a reason our homeland sank, and if there’s a reason it sank, there’s a way to bring it back. I think we’re close. But there’s a lot we still don’t know. One thing we know is that we need to find that third initiated child, the one made to San Madrigal herself.”
