Page 281 of The Mortal Trials

I shake my head at the memory. “She didn’t take the slingshot away from you, though. She dragged me out to the yard and told us not to come back in until you had better aim and knew what not to aim at. We stayed outside until the stars sparkled overhead and the air turned cool, with the insects singing all around us. And we laughed. Do you remember? About everything and nothing. Abuela grew tired of waiting and she was afraid a coyote would get us, so she waved us inside for a late dinner. You never hit anything accidentally again. But don’t worry, I didn’t tell her how much your aim had improved. I let her think some of your later carnage was accidental.”

His brow flinches, but he doesn’t move closer.

Torsten reaches the ash, twists onto his belly, and pushes himself up.

Someone else is stuck in the mud further down the bank, though not as bad as Torsten was.

Another contestant leaps over the mud and into the dark water and starts swimming across it.

“Fool,” Torsten says as he sloughs the muck from his arms and chest, watching their strokes slice the surface.

Then, he starts to talk to his mother. He describes making bread with her. How they made the dough and rolled it out. How she helped him form it and gave him milk while it baked in the fire. How it steamed when they took it out, and he burnt his fingers tearing into it too soon. He told her that the crust was her favorite part, and the soft middle was his.

I offer another memory to my brother.

“Cillian, do you remember when I tried to sew a dog for you for your birthday? I cut the shape out of Abuela’s best dress. She was furious, but it was your favorite color and the little yellow flowers on it were pretty. And you were desperate for a puppy. I wanted to give you a real one and Abuela said no, so I thought it would be the next best thing. Except I couldn’t sew.”

I chuckle softly. “I stabbed my finger and bled onto its ear, and the stain never washed out. I did my best with the stitches, but it looked monstrous when I was finished. Twisted, gnarled, and puckered. In one place, the stitching was too loose and stuffing leaked from its side. You loved it, though. For years, you held it when you slept. And when it needed mending, you wouldn’t let anyone touch it but me. Even though I always made it worse somehow when I fixed it.”

He raises his head, something sparking in his eyes. “I still have it,” he says. My brother uses the pole to move closer to me.

My heart skips a beat. “That’s good, Cillian. Come back to me.”

Torsten describes fishing with his mother. Of wading in the icy water together. Of her telling him stories at night. He repeats his favorite, one he asked her to recite a thousand times, about a wolf and a bear and how they became unlikely friends at the fjord.

She recognizes the tale, awakens a fraction, and starts moving closer to him.

“Cillian, do you remember dinners with Abuela and Carina? They would cook the meal, and you and I would set the table. I’d climb onto the counter and get the glasses and plates down from the cabinet, and you put them on the table with forks and spoons and Abuela’s sewn napkins. Those napkins were your favorite. Each one had vibrant thread stitched around the edges that matched our chairs. Yours was blue. Mine was red. Carina’s was yellow. And Abuela’s was green – like the feathers of her favorite birds. Like her front door.”

“Quetzals,” he says distractedly.

“Yes! Quetzals. Resplendent Quetzals, if you ask her. We used to pick a flower for the little vase Abuela had before I knocked it over and broke it.”

“It was green, too,” he says, his voice stronger. Sounding more like him.

“That’s right. It was green. That’s why Abuela loved it. Carina made it for her out of clay. She baked it in the sun, then painted it green.”

“Where was Mamá?” he asks. “You didn’t mention Mamá.”

“Mamá left us with Abuela. Do you remember when she did?”

Though he seems confused, he pushes his boat closer. “I don’t – I don’t know.”

“I sewed that dog for your birthday, but Mamá left us with Abuela on mine,” I tell him, tears welling. “That evening, Abuela told us to put our good clothes on for dinner. She’d made me my favorite caçao cake, which was cooling in the kitchen. I couldn’t wait to have a slice. When she cut a piece, the middle would ooze like lava. Mamá already had her dress on, and she’d laid mine and Carina’s out for us. She went to help you get ready while we put our dresses on. You wore the little suit she sewed for you, and Abuela wore her bright red dress. Do you remember it?”

Cillian nods, and a single, silver tear splashes onto his cheek. He drifts closer. He’s almost to the shore. “She didn’t have dinner with us that night,” he laments.

“No. She left right before, Cillian.” Not that any of us ate that night. My chin starts to wobble.

“She took her jewelry off.” His voice breaks and his shoulders start to tremble.

“That’s right. The jewelry Da gave her.”

He lifts his head and my heart soars. My brother has come back to me. “You look like her.”

I try to smile. “I know.”

“You look like Carina, but even more like Mamá.”