Skye turned away and the car continued down the road.
“Skye,” he sobbed, falling to his knees.
Beads of sweat dripped from his brow and mingled with the dusty, baked earth.
Esteban didn’t understand why Skye had not asked her father to stop. He had not seen her since the night they took MaMaLu away. Didn’t she wonder where he’d been? Didn’t she miss him and MaMaLu?
Skye must have had a good reason, and when they got back, she would tell him. Esteban decided to wait. The sooner he spoke to Warren about MaMaLu, the sooner he’d get to see her.
Esteban walked back to the gates. He saw Victor, locking them up with a chain and padlock. Victor.Hewas responsible for this.Hehad sent MaMaLu away. All of Esteban’s rage and frustration boiled over. He forgot that he was a twelve-year-old boy up against a hired henchman. He forgot that even Blondie and Bruce Lee get the shit kicked out of them. He forgot everything except the fact that Victor Madera was the reason MaMaLu was in Valdemoros.
“Victor!” Esteban had the advantage of surprise, and he’d been practicing high kicks and punches for months. He went straight for Victor’s torso.
“Estás puto—are you mad?” Victor staggered back and the chain clanged against the gate. “I thought I told you to stay at Fernando’s. You should learn to listen!” He circled Esteban.
It wasn’t much of a fight. Esteban closed his eyes as he felt the blows on his back and chest. When he fell to the ground, Victor kicked him in the stomach.
“Go home, you stupid little shit,” he said.
But Esteban shook his head, cradling his tummy. “I’m not leaving until I see Señor Sedgewick.”
“You think Señor Sedgewick gives a fuck about you? You think he’s going to bring MaMaLu back?” Victor laughed. “You poor, naivebastardo.You are as expendable to these richgringosas yesterday’s newspaper.”
“That’s not true!” Esteban’s face was caked with dirt. When he wiped the tears, they left brown streaks on his cheeks. “Skye is my friend.”
“Really?” Victor shook his head in mock pity. “Tell me, did yourfriendsay goodbye? Did she tell you she was leaving and never coming back?”
“You’re lying.You’re a dirty, filthy liar!”
“Wait then. Wait for yourfriendand her father to come save you.”
Esteban was too tired and too hurt to react when Victor walked away. He was bruised and battered on the outside, and simmering with shame and anger on the inside. He felt feeble and powerless and beaten down. He lay doubled up by the locked gates, under a merciless afternoon sun.
Hours passed, but Esteban waited. It was quiet. Too quiet. None of the help was around, and the gates were never chained down. Where was the guard? Where was the gardener? Esteban refused to believe they were all gone. He knew Skye would never leave without saying goodbye. Heknew.
When the stars came out, Esteban limped to the entrance and looked through the gate. The outside lights had not come on and the path to the staff’s quarters remained unlit. He climbed over the hedged fence in the back, and up the tree outside Skye’s window. Esteban tried jiggling it open—it was still unlatched.
Esteban turned on the light and looked around. It felt weird being in Skye’s room without her. It felt wrong. Her bed was made, but her closet looked like someone had been through it in a rush. All her favorite books and clothes were gone. Esteban felt something crunch under his feet. He looked down and saw that the floor was littered with paper—all the magical, mythical things he had fashioned out of the most colorful, special paper he could find. They were carelessly discarded around him. Some of them had been trampled into grotesque, malformed pieces.
Esteban picked up an origami scorpion. It had taken him a long time to get the folds just right. The body was flattened, but the stinger remained upright. He thought about what Victor had said. Maybe he was right. Maybe Warren didn’t give a fuck about him or MaMaLu. Maybe Skye didn’t care. Maybe he and MaMaLu were just like all of this paper—folded and molded to suit a purpose, and then stepped on, on the way out.
Esteban flung the scorpion away and winced from the blows Victor had inflicted on him. He looked out the window and saw the new moon reflected in the pond. He remembered when Skye had been curled up in bed and MaMaLu told them about the magic swan that hid in the gardens of Casa Paloma, a swan that came out once in a while, on the night of a new moon.
If you catch a glimpse of it, you will be blessed with the greatest treasure,she’d said.
Esteban hadn’t believed her then, and he didn’t believe her now. It was all made up—all the magic, all her stories, all the happy endings. They were all empty and meaningless and hollow. His father had never been a great fisherman. He had never loved him or MaMaLu. MaMaLu had lied. Skye had never been his friend.
You think Señor Sedgewick gives a fuck about you?
You think he’s going to bring MaMaLu back?
You are as expendable to these richgringosas yesterday’s newspaper.
That was the cold, hard truth.
Esteban turned off the light and stood alone in the empty darkness. When he climbed out of Skye’s window that night, he left something behind: his childhood, his innocence, his shining, naive ideals—all scattered on the floor like limp, trodden paper dreams.
ESTEBAN SAT ON THE CONCRETE stairs ofLa Sombra, one of the small cantinas in Paza del Mar. Its sloping tin roof protected him from the torrential downpour. He stared at the water, collecting in rivulets down the dirt street. It reflected yellow pools of light from kerosene lamps that hung on porches of the shops that were still open. A stereo was blasting Luis Miguel’s “La Bikina”, a tune about a beautiful, scarred woman with a pain so deep, it provokes rivers of tears.
