The Smoking Mirror (4 page)

Carol was crouching on her bed, sniffing at the air. Pointed ears sat high on her skull, and her jaw had stretched into a snout. Her arms were covered in gray fur with tan and black highlights or markings, ending in claws that dug into the blanket. She tilted her head and stared at him.

“Uh, Carol, you don’t look like a jaguar to me,” he muttered, his voice trembling. She snapped her jaws, then leapt from the bed, landing in a crouch on the floor near the open window. Ignoring the ladder they’d propped against the house, Carol dove into the night. Johnny rushed to the windowsill. His sister was loping toward the peach grove. When she reached the first trees, she tilted back her head and howled.

“Dude!” Johnny muttered, flipping the tablet around to record his annoyance. “How come
she
gets to be a wolf?” 

He glanced down again and gasped. A jaguar sat in the sandy dirt, staring up at him. It gestured with its head as if inviting him down. Then it turned and ran after his sister.

Could that be…?
His heart racing, Johnny lay down, trying to fall asleep. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins.
This is insane! I need to transform! I’ve got to blank my mind.
He plugged his earbuds in and dialed up some soothing electronica. It did nothing. His frustration was overwhelming.

And then, finally, he dropped into the dark.

Chapter Five

Racing alongside her brother, their grandmother as a jaguar before them, guiding them
.
The smell of open spaces, the feel of the moon on her muzzle, the taste of fresh blood on her tongue. The jaguar circling them, drawing them down on all fours. The human girl inside falling further away as the wolf-self comes more fully forward. Seeing the invisible skeins that connect rock, root and claw: the ties that make human friendship pale in comparison.

The jaguar had turned to look at them, her eyes almost human. Then she had turned and run into the mountains. They had watched her disappear in the pre-dawn dark.

~~~

Carol awakened to loud sobs. She felt her own cheeks: they were dry. Sitting up, she saw that Johnny was still fast asleep on his bed, curled up like a napping cat. From the ground floor came more sounds of sorrow: a stifled scream, furniture being scraped across tile.

“Johnny!” Her brother snapped awake. “Something’s wrong. People are crying and freaking out downstairs.”

He shook his head as if to clear a few cobwebs, and they descended together. They found their aunts and cousin in their grandmother’s room. Helga Barrón de Quintero lay cold and lifeless on the bed, her body more emaciated than ever, as if some essential part of her had left forever. A smile lay lightly on her lips.

It was her. She ran with us last night. Somehow…she escaped her own broken body.
Tears came to her eyes, but she had to fight not to laugh with joy.

“She waited.” Johnny’s voice was husky with emotion as he leaned toward her. “She could have been free years ago, but she waited. For us. To make sure we knew.”

They went to their family, then, trying to console them in a grief they didn’t share.
What a burden she carried. And now it’s ours, too.

Hours later, when Uncle Carlos, his wife, and the other relations had arrived, Andrea handed Stefani the keys to her car. “I know it’s tough, but you’ve got finals tomorrow, and we can’t afford for you to ruin your last year at prep school. Drive back to Monterrey. Pack me some nice things and my black dress, you know the one. After your exams, drive back. We’ll have made all the arrangements by the then. The funeral should be on Wednesday or Thursday.”

Carol placed her hand gently on her aunt’s back. “Andrea? Can we go with her? We didn’t bring many of our clothes with us and we’ll need more. We can also help her pack and stuff so she can focus on her studies.”

Andrea’s face was conflicted for a moment, but Carol put on her most mature expression and waited. After a few seconds, her aunt gave in. “You sure you two will be alright? Lupita will be by to clean tomorrow afternoon—I’ll call her and ask her to cook for you while she’s at the apartment. I’ll get my downstairs neighbor Susana to check in on you, too.”

She’s actually relieved. What she doesn’t need right now is a pair of pre-teens underfoot when she’s trying to deal with all this tragedy.

“Thanks, Aunt Andrea. We’ll behave ourselves, promise. It’ll also give us some time to…digest all of this.”

Andrea hugged her tightly. “Oh, baby, I know this must be hard for you, losing your grandmother so soon after—” Andrea concluded the sentence with kisses.

~~~

It was impossible to suggest to Stefani that they stop at the caves on the way back. The eighteen-year-old wasn’t as devastated by her grandmother’s passing as some of the other family members, but she was somber and focused as she drove through the desolate landscape, listening to loud, growly alternative music. An apparent frivolity like exploring the wide expanse of ancient grottoes was not going to fly.

lets wait til shes n school tmrw & take a taxi
, Johnny texted Carol.

K. Good idea. Wait, do you have money?
she texted back.

no but i saw where andrea keeps stash we can borrow some
.

Would it kill you to punctuate?

rly? thats what u r concerned about? id be more worried about why u turn n2 a wolf n not a jaguar maybe u r defective
.

She punched him, but it
was
strange. Pulling out her mother’s diary, she read the rest of the entries carefully. One passage in particular caught her eye:

Thank God I’ve got mom to talk to about this. Eventually, if I have kids, one of them will be like us, and then the three of us can share the secret together. Unless I have twins. Mom says that hardly happens. She says there haven’t been twin shapeshifters in centuries.

She handed the diary to Johnny, pointing out the paragraph. His eyes grew wide.

see? theres something about us & maybe moms disappearance is related to it.

Hopefully. We need to be ready for anything, though
.

~~~

They both spent the rest of the trip researching the caves and lore about
naguales
. A lot of what they found on the Internet was just nonsense, urban legends or embellishments created for non-Hispanics who wanted to use Mesoamerican creatures in their role-playing games and so forth. But there was plenty of information that seemed legitimate. Carol even found a scholarly monograph on shape-shifting sorcerers. Though the researchers treated the beliefs of villagers seriously, it was obvious they thought the Mexicans who believed in
naguales
were just trying to find explanations for tragic deaths in their communities. Still, their interviews of elders in the southern Mexican towns yielded some tidbits of lore. Apparently, it was tough to kill a
nagual
without ritually prepared weapons, but there were many ways to make a sorcerer revert to human form in order to lynch him. Carol had no idea if any of this was applicable to natural-born shape-shifters, like her brother and her, or just to people who used spells to make their
tonal
come forward. She could only hope that the folk in the mountain would enlighten her.

~~~

That night was the first during which she was aware of her transformation, though it seemed distant and dreamlike. From deep within her came a pressure, an almost physical
need
. Instead of fighting against the rising sensation, she mentally relaxed, dropping all barriers and inhibitions. A hungry, eager part of her leapt into the gap left by her relinquishing of control. It was her
tonal
, a glowing, vital force that required more than human flesh to inhabit the world. It hooked itself deeply and
molded her
, like masterful fingers pulling at clay. She reached out to the
tonal
, tentatively at first, but then with excitement, embracing it, linking with it. She saw through its eyes. The former darkness of the bedroom was startlingly clear, and her keen vision was enhanced even more by her powerful sense of smell and hearing, revealing a world she barely glimpsed as a human girl. Every subtle movement around her, every glimmer of light, conveyed incredible amounts of information.

It was dizzying.

Her transformation, as far as she could tell, was complete. She could smell the jaguar on the other bed, could tell that his senses were changing, too. Then he thudded to the floor beside her. They could not speak to each other, but so much could be communicated with gestures of muzzle, ear and tail.  

They turned to the open window. The night called to them, and they rushed to answer, leaping into the moonlight.

~~~

“You two stay out of trouble,” Stefani warned as she scooped up the keys from the counter in the morning. “Just hang out here. Surf the Internet, watch some TV, read a book. I’ll be back around 2:00pm.”

Carol assured her that she’d keep Johnny in check, and Stefani almost smiled at the conspiratorial us-against-them tone.

They let some time pass, then they grabbed their knapsacks and headed to one of the main streets, hailing an
Eco Taxi
and asking the driver to take them to the caves.

“Shouldn’t you two be in school?”

“We’re American,” Johnny answered with a smile. “School’s already over for us. We’re meeting our parents at the park to explore the caves.”

The taxi driver shrugged. “So long as you can pay.” Johnny foolishly flashed the pesos they’d taken from their aunt’s bedroom; the man nodded, turned on his meter and drove off to the polka rhythms of some
norteño
band on the radio. The twins chatted excitedly in English about their experiences during the most recent transformation, comparing notes and speculating on ways to trigger the shift while they were still awake. Before long, the taxi dropped them at the parking lot near Friar Mountain with Johnny leaving him a generous tip from the borrowed funds. They hiked up the trail a way, then paid sixty pesos each to ride the aerial tramway up the steep slope. After ten minutes of hanging precariously in the air, they walked with a group of tourists into the large principal chamber. The air was comfortably cool, and the great expanse of rock hanging overhead suitably impressive. A guide gathered the newcomers, giving them maps and a choice: the A twenty-minute or one-hour tour. Not sure what to expect, the twins opted for the longer one.

Metal walkways that had been painted yellow led the way from chamber to chamber, each of which had a distinct name. As they moved through the chambers, they were duly amazed at some of the massive rock formations: the ‘Christmas Tree’, the ‘Frozen Fountain’, the ‘Chinese Tower’. There were walls like melted wax, pools of sterile water, and what was extravagantly called
The Eighth Wonder
: a stalactite and stalagmite that met exactly halfway from the ceiling and floor. Carol saw that Johnny was entranced by the structures, but she could hardly focus on them. She kept looking around, searching for some sign of the mysterious folk in the mountain.

The twins lagged well behind the group they were with. As they mounted another set of rickety metal stairs, Carol noticed some fossils embedded in the rock to her left. As she took a moment to study the ancient sea creatures that had left their mark, she glimpsed something moving in a gap just beyond the walkway. She leaned over the railing, peering into the darkness that lay between two formations. Straining her eyes, she managed to make out a form: a boy, it seemed at first, maybe six or seven years old. But then a glow came from his hands, and she stepped back, startled, bumping into Johnny.

“Hey, watch out, dude! You’re going to knock me down the stairs or something.”

She ignored his complaints. “Johnny, look.”

It was not a boy. It was a small man-like being, pale-skinned, with a shock of black hair and large, widely set eyes. It wore a simple linen loincloth and sandals. In its long-fingered hands it held a rock, the source of the light.

“Come,” it whispered. “Over the railing. Quick. Before they see you.”

Carol and Johnny stood stock still. The being grew impatient. “Carolina, yes? And Juan Ángel? You’re here for a reason. If you want to know what it is, I reckon you’d better climb over the railing this very minute.”

They obeyed, jumping across the short space with ease. Carol saw that the little man only came up to her chin. Surreptitiously she sniffed the air, a new habit she was picking up from her shifted existence. He had no smell. Or rather, he smelled of rock and water and sterile sand, like everything else around her.

“Come on then,” the little man said in his lilting, old-fashioned way. “The others are waiting.”

Carol found her voice. “The other what?”

“The other
tzapame
, Little People. We come to set you on your path. Now, enough dawdling.”

He moved quickly through the darkness, and the twins rushed to keep up. After a couple of minutes they came to a solid wall. He placed his hand on a particular spot, chanting strangely in some language Carol had never heard. A section of the wall faded, and the three of them stepped into a dimly lit chamber that was not on the tour map.

It was full of
tzapame
. Some were a little taller than their guide; others shorter. The males wore loincloths or breeches; the females, linen robes. Most of them were adorned with bracelets and necklaces of feather, bone, metal and jewels. They stood in a semicircle around a large, polished disk of black stone. The distant stalactites reflected darkly in its surface.

“You’re…you’re elves.” Johnny’s voice was tinged with wonder.

“We’re
tzapame
, and no doubt about that.” Their guide seemed a little offended, but mostly amused. “Little People, older children of the Feathered One. We were here before humans, in other words.”

Carol tried to smile, but hundreds of stony eyes regarded her, and she faltered.
The folk in the mountain. A stern, cold race.
“Did you…did you train my grandmother?”

“Train? Well, we sure did teach her a lot. Your mother, too. Though there’s some as thinks that was a big mistake, all things considered. They call me Pingo. I am pretty much the youngest here. They chose me to guide you and to be their voice because I can speak English. Most of these older fellows have barely gotten used to Spanish. Many of them still think Nahuatl is too new-fangled.
Tzapame
live a horribly long time.”