Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green (14 page)

Until we get twenty feet down the path, to the super-steep part, where Roo has to stop running because her legs are shaking, and I hear the masked man rushing up behind me, and I know he’s going to grab us again or maybe he’ll just push us off the cliff (we should have listened to Kyle!) or who knows what. I’m ready to slap his hands away from me and try to bite him or whatever (though I’ve never bitten or fought anyone—that’s Roo’s thing). But he doesn’t touch me.

Instead, he says, very calmly, “Focus, Ruby. Pretend you’re just walking across your bedroom. Go as fast as possible.”

I turn back to stare at Kyle. His hair is sticking up all crazy from being under the T-shirt mask, which he’s now crumpling into a ball and trying to shove into his pocket.

Roo looks back at him and gives a huge grin.

“Oh,” she says to Kyle, “
you’re
not evil.”

“Keep
moving
,” Kyle says without cracking a smile.

Kyle doesn’t speak again—except to occasionally command “Faster!
Faster!
”—until we’ve turned off Invisible Path onto Normal Path.

“You swore on your father’s life you wouldn’t go down that path,” he says. I have this strange sensation like I can actually feel his fury making the air around me heavier.

“I swore I’d never go
down
it,” Roo replies. “I never swore I wouldn’t go
up
it!”

“Faster,” he says, ignoring her obnoxiousness. He’s not breathing hard, even though we’ve been running practically the whole way. We barely even slowed down to cross the sky-blue stream. I’m out of breath from the pace, and from being terrified, and from worrying about everything, but mainly I’m just grateful for each footstep separating us from that grove, from that man who was talking at Dad in that awful way and saying those things that made just enough sense to fill me with a deep uneasiness.

“Man, I was really, really
scared
back there,” Roo gasps happily.

“Yeah,” I whisper, almost nauseous with the memory of Dad’s frightened face.

“This is
exciting
,” Roo breathes.

“More
scary
than exciting,” I tell her.

“More
exciting
than scary,” she corrects me.

I glance back at Kyle, who’s glaring at Roo.

“Roo—” I beg.

But she just grins and changes the subject. “Hey, does anyone know why Dad was wearing that flashing green light around his ankle?”

“It’s going to rain soon,” Kyle says, ignoring the question.

“What flashing green light?” I say.

“That thing,” Roo says impatiently, “around his ankle. It blinked green every other second.”

What’s wrong with me? Do I not have
eyes
? Why is Roo always seeing things I don’t?

“Oh” is all I say.

“Kyle,” Roo says, “
dígame.
”

Dígame. Dígame
. What does that mean again? I know I learned it in Spanish at school.

“I don’t know,” Kyle says quietly. But the way he says “I don’t know” makes me pretty sure he does know.

“Tell me what’s up with that green light!” Roo insists. “
¡Dígame!
”

Oh yeah.
Dígame. Tell me
. How does Roo know a million times more Spanish than I do?

Kyle doesn’t say anything.

“Fine, then,” Roo says, “don’t tell me. I don’t need you to tell me. I already know.”

Kyle still doesn’t say anything.

“I bet you anything it’s a tracking device, like they use on birds and other animals!” Roo announces. “
Someone
is keeping
track
of
Dad
.”

Right then there’s the enormous whooshing sound that I now recognize as the start of La Lluvia, La huge, crazy, gigantic Lluvia, which is about to make all these trees sway like flowers.

I think Kyle yells “RUN,” or maybe it’s Roo, or maybe it’s even me, but it’s impossible to hear anything, and we all start running like crazy.

T
he second we slide into the concrete courtyard of the Selva Lodge on our muddy sneakers in rain that’s like taking thirty showers all at once, the door to the kitchen of the Selva Café pops open, as though someone has been waiting for us.

And who should be standing there but the witch. In her black lace veil. Gesturing us inside. I’d really rather just go back to our room and rest and try to not freak out and try to figure out exactly what we saw up there and what it means and what we can do about it. But Roo grabs my hand and pulls me toward the kitchen.

“
¡Abuela!
” Kyle calls out across the courtyard, jogging over to the doorway and disappearing inside.

Abuela
 … 
abuela
 … I
know
I know that word! I search my memory, and, wait a sec—doesn’t that mean “grandmother”?

“The
witch
is Kyle’s grandmother?”

I don’t realize I said that aloud until Roo corrects me: “The
fairy godmother
is Kyle’s grandmother, duh. You didn’t know that?”

Of course! It makes sense.… Kyle comes here every summer.…
He’s related to the spooky old lady and the sweet old man! But somehow I had totally missed that fact until now.

“Why do you think his name is Kyle Nelson
Villalobos
?” Roo asks.

I just look at her. The fact is, I
didn’t
know his name was Kyle Nelson Villalobos, and I wonder how Roo did. I guess she just knows that the same way she knew Dad was wearing a tracking device. Man, there’s simply no competing with Roo.

“Come
on
,” she says, tugging me with her across the courtyard and into the kitchen.

It’s a big white kitchen with oversized appliances and a gray linoleum floor. But somehow it still feels kind of cozy. There are bright striped dishrags hanging on a bar above the enormous stove, and red plastic chairs at the metal table in the middle of the room, and one of those neat spiral stairways in the far corner—I wonder where it leads. Spiral staircases always seem to me like they must lead somewhere special.

Kyle is already seated in one of the red plastic chairs. The witch is pouring a thick red liquid into the glass in front of him. The word
poison
jumps into my mind.

“Uh, hi,” I say, staying near the doorway as Roo hops over to the table, pulls out a chair, and plops herself down.

“
Un licuado de papaya y hibisco,
” the witch says.

“A papaya and hibiscus smoothie!” Roo exclaims as the witch pours another glass. “
¡Dámelo!
”

“Oh,” I say awkwardly, wondering how Roo always makes herself at home wherever she goes, never the least bit anxious or untrusting. “I didn’t notice that one on the menu.”

“
Abuela
is testing it out on us,” Kyle explains. “And it’s great.”

“It tastes funny!” Roo says around the straw in her mouth.

It tastes funny. Oh my god.

“It tastes funny,” Roo says again, “but I
like
it.”

Beneath the black lace, the witch’s smile grows. She turns toward me, and I can’t help it, I get nervous.

“You would like to try it,” she says in English, and I don’t know if she’s asking me or telling me.

I look around the kitchen, at the white countertops and the gleaming white fridge. There’s a way-outdated calendar on the wall, from the year Roo was born, with a picture of a lady saint in a purple robe. I mean, it really
does
feel pretty good and safe and clean and nonpoisonous in here. Plus, haven’t I been eating every meal in the Selva Café anyway? Besides, whatever’s in that red liquid can’t be worse than grasshoppers. I’m about to say, “Okay, sure, papaya and hibiscus, whatever,” when I notice the bowl of fruit on the counter. Flies laze through the air above it, bouncing around among papayas and mangoes.

“I’m not … hungry,” I whisper, staring at the flies.

“It’s a drink!” Roo insists. “You don’t have to be hungry.”

“I’m not thirsty either.”

The witch goes over to the bowl of fruit and flicks at the flies.

“If you are not thirsty,
querida
, then it must be story time,” the witch says, pointing at one of the red plastic chairs.

Story time? I have no idea what she means by that. But I cross my arms and plunk down into the chair, because I bet she’s going to keep staring at me from behind that veil until I do as she wishes. Slowly, she lowers herself into the seat across from me.

“Once upon a time,” she begins, and even with just those four words my mind starts to calm down and listen, “a brave young man from the village had a habit of walking up the volcano where nobody else went. He always wore a cloak as blue as dusk, and everyone in the village was scared of him. One day he walked all the way
to the rim of the volcano, and there he saw a young woman. She lived inside the volcano. She was a goddess. Of course they fell in love, because they were both so strong and so brave. He wished to marry her, and she wished to marry him too, but she pretended she did not. He got very sad. For months he asked her why she would not marry him. Finally he forced it out of her: If he wanted to be her husband, he would have to jump into the volcano. That was the only way she could be married. She came up to the surface for just a couple of hours a day, the hours she spent with—”

“Oh
man
, Señora V, you speak
such
perfect English!” Roo butts in. “I want to speak Spanish the way you speak English!”

I shoot Roo a
shush!
look, because I hate it when a good story gets interrupted, and she shushes. And then I wonder what’s up with Roo calling Señora Villalobos “Señora V.” I guess that’s just Roo doing her thing, giving nicknames to anyone she likes.

But Señora V doesn’t seem to mind either the interruption or the name. “I have to be able to speak English to the mother of my grandson,” she explains. “And you will speak perfect Spanish someday,
querida
.”

“Keep going, please!” I say. Hello, you can’t just stop at the climax of a story.

Señora V looks over at me—I’m surprised to see the pleased grin on her veiled lips—before continuing: “The young man said that was fine. He would jump into the volcano. She explained that he would die, that their marriage would be that of a ghost and a goddess. Again, he said he did not mind. That is how much he loved her. He was so strong, so young and full of life, that it made the volcano goddess very sad to think of him dying. But he was determined. He stood on the rim of the volcano and jumped. At the last second, though, she could not stand to see him drown in lava. She
raised her finger and gave him wings. He pulled up away from the lava just in time. Before he flew away from the mouth of the volcano, a single drop splashed on his throat and left a fiery streak. He had been transformed into a bird with feathers as blue as dusk and, on the throat, as golden as lava. But the magic of the volcano goddess was very powerful and could not be undone, even by her. She could not transform him from a bird back into a man. For the rest of time, the volcano bird would dwell in the jungle near the top of the volcano, soaring over the pool of lava, forever seeking union with the volcano goddess.”

Roo gasps: “The Lava-Throated Volcano tr—”

“
Sssss,
” Señora V hisses at Roo, turning very witchlike again. “You know you must not say that name here! Remember what happened last time?”

Last time? Huh?

“The electricity cannot go out now,” the witch growls. “I have flan in the oven.”

“Oh,” Roo says, blushing.

“Supposedly it upsets the volcano goddess to hear her beloved’s name spoken by a child,” Kyle explains. “Reminds her of the children they can’t have.”

Oh yeah. Kyle. I’d gotten so caught up in the story that I’d forgotten about him being right there next to me. Wow. It gives my heart a little jump start, the way he says
beloved
. What boys I know would ever use the word
beloved
? And then I feel my cheeks getting all flushed, because into my head pops this image of Kyle marching up the volcano in a blue cloak, his face serious and solemn and full of love.

“
Muy poderoso,
” comes a voice from the doorway, and we all turn.

“Señor V!” Roo exclaims, her nickname for Señora Villalobos extending to the old man as well.

And there he is, in his bright white linen suit with its bright orange handkerchief. I can’t believe I didn’t realize he was Kyle’s grandfather—how could I not have noticed that he has the exact same thoughtful look in his bright brown eyes?

“
Muy peligroso
,” he says.

“Okay, okay,” Roo says, rolling her eyes, “I’m sorry, I get it, I know, I know, it’s dangerous to say the bird’s name, it’s powerful, got it!”

“This is not a joke,” the witch says severely.

Señor V steps across the room and murmurs something into the witch’s ear. She sighs, and gazes at me and Roo through black lace.

“There are four truths about the volcano,” she finally says. “I learned them when I was a girl, and my husband learned them when he was a boy.”

Beside me, Kyle clears his throat and stares angrily at his grandmother.