Jack In The Green (7 page)

Luz is wondering how any of this can be real. These boys are spirits. Archetypes.
They
aren't real.

But Maria was. And Jack's sorrow is.

 "I'm sorry," Luz says.

"That's not enough," Jack tells her.

He hands her the cigarette tin that Luz and Maria magicked all those years ago.

"Bring her back," he says, his red-rimmed eyes pleading.

Luz accepts the tin, but all she can do is stare at it in her hands, feeling helpless.

"I…I can't do that," she says. "I want to, but I wouldn't even know how to begin."

"Look," Jack says. "I know who I am now. I'm the Jack in the Green—the Robin in the green hood. My companions and I have lived a hundred lifetimes in the green wood. In many ways we
are
the green wood. Yet your magics were still strong enough to bring us here, weren't they?"

She nods slowly. "But I didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't trying to bring you, specifically."

"The only reason you could bring us to you was because of
her
," Jack says. "Because she and I were destined to meet.

"I know how this charm works," Jack continues. "You think of Maria and you open the tin."

"And if nothing happens?"

"Something will happen," he assures her. "Every little thing we do makes something happen somewhere."

Luz looks at the tin. She remembers that night, rapping on Maria's window. She remembers the promise it held. She remembers how they took the tin to the bottle tree man's yard and buried it under the glass pebbles.

"Was it her magic or mine?" she asks, her voice soft.

"Does it matter? Open the tin."

She does and the world goes away.

Jack is ready this time. He catches Luz before she can fall over. He sits cross-legged and rests her head on his lap.

And like he did with Maria, he waits.

The green shocks Luz.

Jack and the boys are always talking about this ancient green wood of theirs, but she never thought it would be so verdant and lush.

She's used to cities like L.A., or the desert. Brown places with a horizon that lies in the far distance and a sky that stretches forever. Here, she can barely see the sky for the overhanging boughs of giant, mossy trees. The foliage has the wavy edges of oak leaves, but these are far bigger than any oak trees she's ever seen. The grass is thick underfoot. She would wonder about that—how it can grow so luxuriant and green with that thick canopy of leaves above—except she knows without having to be told that this place is like Jack, like the boys.

It's not a real wood, but the archetype of a wood.

She starts to walk. Her footsteps are almost silent on the grass, but the woods are full of birdsong. The air is moist, compared to the dry desert. It doesn't smell like dust. It smells like freshly turned earth and bark and leaves.

Luz should feel out of place. Her surroundings are unlike anything she's ever experienced before. Yet she feels like she's come home. And she's inexplicably happy.

She wanders aimlessly until she hears the sound of water. She follows the sound up a low incline until she comes to a spring-fed pool. Water tumbles from a cleft high in the rocks at its far end. Water lilies bloom on the surface of the pool and the rocks around it are covered in thick green moss. The giant oaks tower above, making it feel like a natural cathedral.

She's not surprised to find Maria sitting on one of those rocks, one hand trailing in the water. A shaft of light penetrates the trees, illuminating Maria's flawless brown skin and black hair. The white dress she's wearing glows in contrast to her surroundings. There are no holes in it, no blood. She looks like an angel.

Maria's gaze meets hers and she smiles, not in the least surprised to see Luz, either.

"You opened the tin," she says.

Luz nods. "Jack told me to."

Maria sighs. "Oh, Jack. All I ever got was a few kisses from him. But I feel like I've known him forever. We should have been together forever."

"He feels the same way."

Maria's eyes brighten, then she sighs again.

"Too bad I'm dead," she says.

"You're not—" Luz begins, except she doesn't really know what to say.

Maria
is
dead. She just watched her coffin being lowered into the dusty ground in San Miguel Cemetery.

"It's okay," Maria says. "You'd be surprised how quickly you get used to the idea. And this—" She waves her hand to take in their surroundings. "It's not such a bad place to be."

Neither of them says anything for a long moment.

"Jack seems to think he knew you from before," Luz says finally. "Like in some past life or something."

"That's so weird. But maybe it's true. I felt this immediate connection the first time I saw you guys robbing that house in Desert View. Maybe we did know each other, but I just can't remember. Or only my subconscious can."

"You could ask him," Luz says.

"Except I'm dead, so that's not really an option."

"I'm here to take you back," Luz tells her.

Maria's eyebrows go up. "Seriously? How does that work?"

"I'm not really sure."

"It's a nice thought," Maria tells her, "but I don't see it happening. Did you know they have talking foxes here?"

Luz shakes her head.

"They're so strange. They say I'm the maid of the green wood. That when the Summer King returns, he and I will…we'll make love, and that'll welcome in the spring. Our being together will make the year start or something." She shakes her head. "They call me Maid Marian instead of Maria, but I'm not their maid."

That makes Luz smile. And it fills her with the unexpected confidence that maybe this
can
be fixed.

"At home you
were
a maid," she says. "Just not the kind they expected. Come back, and you can be whatever you want to be."

"Come on. Remember me dying? I can't go back."

"There's always
brujería
."

Maria shakes her head. "I don't think even magic can heal death. Luz, it's over. I felt each of those bullets as they tore through me." She plucks at the white cotton of her dress. "Even if they didn't leave any trace when I woke up here."

"Jack says if we're going to make things better we need to focus on that—the violence, not just the poverty."

"And how's he planning to fix that? Is he going to clean up the cartels?"

"We haven't figured it out yet," Luz says. "We need
you
to do that."

"Me? What do
I
know?"

"More than you think. But it's not just what you know. It's who you are. You're a martyr now. The woman the cartels and the bandas can't kill because she'll just come back. You can be the symbol of hope we need to stand against them."

"What if I don't want that? What if I just want to be an ordinary girl?"

"Oh Maria," Luz says. "You were never an ordinary girl."

"I still don't see how that brings me back."

"I think it's a matter of wanting to go back. You have to want it."

"If that's all it takes," Maria says, "pretty much everybody who ever died would go back."

"Maybe they do want to. But they don't have a magic cigarette tin like we do. When I was studying with Abuela she told me that magic depends mostly on our will. It's almost like, for it to work, you just have to believe that it will. Everything else—charms and spells and potions—those are just there to help us focus."

"Do
you
believe it?"

Luz breaks into a huge smile. " Oh, I
know
I'm going to bring you back," she says, holding out her hand.

Maria meets her gaze for a long moment before she stands up and takes Luz's hand. Their vision swims, the forest spins, and then the green is gone.

Luz opens her eyes to find herself back in San Miguel Cemetery, lying with her head in Jack's lap. She grins up at him.

"I did it," she says, sitting up.

But then she sees that it's just her and the boys here at the graveside. Ti Jean offers her a hand and she lets him pull her to her feet. All her giddy good humour is gone. She turns to Jack.

"I thought…I was sure…" she begins, but her voice trails off.

She thinks she can still hear an echo of the birdsong from the green wood. She can almost feel the damp air. If she closes her eyes, she sees the green against the backs of her eyelids.

But the green wood is gone. She's back and Maria is still over there.

Maria is still dead.

Espinoza Amate attended the funeral service at Santa Margarita Maria. It was there that she learned the full name of the young woman who died almost on her doorstep.

Maria Ana Martinez Reuda.

The newspapers had only referred to her as Maria Martinez, leader of Los Murrietas.

Espinoza doesn't agree with what the
banditos
were doing. Yes, they helped those in need, but it was with stolen money. Stealing is wrong, no matter what the excuse.

Espinoza still needs to pay her electric bill. The money the
banditos
left behind in her house she put in the collection box at Santa Margarita Maria. But she makes no judgment concerning the poor young woman. It isn't hers to make. Only God has the final word on such matters and Maria Ana Martinez Reuda is with Him now. It is to Him she must make her explanations.

Espinoza hopes the girl doesn't argue. She hopes she accepts that she has sinned. Only then will God forgive her.

After the service she lights a candle for the girl. She doesn't go out to the cemetery. It is too far to walk and she doesn't have the money for bus fare. She has always been frugal, but these days, especially, every penny counts.

Instead she goes back to her little house on Calle Adelanto and sits in a lawn chair on her front stoop. There she rests, rosary in hand, its beads moving through her fingers, her lips moving silently. She prays for the soul of Maria Ana Martinez Reuda.

Such a senseless death.

Espinoza prays for herself, as well. For forgiveness. She should never have let the girl go out into the dawn. She should have called her back, but fear stopped her. Fear of the 66 Bandas—what they would do if she interfered. And now because of her cowardice, the poor girl is dead.

The day is hot. There is dust in the air, as there always is in the barrio, and Espinoza is thirsty. She wishes she had lemons to make lemonade. She wishes—

Her mind goes still. She stands up and stares at the corner of her neighbour's house where the young girl died, her eyes widening with shock. She crosses herself.

The ghost of the dead girl has appeared there.

"
Madre de Dios
."

Espinoza doesn't realize she spoke the words aloud until the dead girl turns in her direction.

"Hardly," Maria says. "I'm just me."

"Forgive me," Espinoza says. "I meant you no harm. Do not haunt me."

"I'm not haunting you."

Maria holds her hands up in front of herself and rubs them against each other.

"I'm just not dead anymore," she tells Espinoza.

"But that…that is impossible."

Maria smiles. "You'd think."

Espinoza only met the dead girl once when she was still alive, but that one meeting was enough for her to see the change in the girl now. Maria carries herself with an air of serenity and grace. In the old woman's eyes, she seems to glow from within.

Espinoza crosses herself again.

"You have become a saint," she says.

Maria shakes her head. "I think that's pretty unlikely. I'd need another couple of miracles under my belt first, and even then I don't think the church just hands sainthood to a barrio girl like me."

She crosses the dusty yard and comes up on Espinoza's stoop. She reaches out her hands. When Espinoza takes them she feels a tingle in her fingers that spreads through her whole body.

"You should sit," Maria says. "Rest a bit."

With the girl's help, Espinoza lowers herself back into her lawn chair.

"What will you do," Espinoza asks, "now that you have returned? Will you seek revenge on the bandas for killing you?"

Maria lets go of the old woman's hands.

"I don't know," she says. "Right now I just want to find my friends."

"They will be in…in the cemetery."

Maria nods. "I know."

Espinoza reaches for her, but Maria has already stepped back.

"Revenge is not the answer," she tells the girl. "Leave their judgment to God."

"Do you really think God pays any attention to people like you and me?"

"Of course I do."

Maria shakes her head. "I think maybe he expects us to help ourselves."

"Do not be swayed by dark desires, child. God has a plan for each one of us."

Maria smiles. "So who's to say whatever I do isn't his plan for me?
Vaya con Dios, señora
."

Espinoza watches the girl walk across her lawn and down the street. She watches until she can't see her anymore, then she pushes herself up from her chair. She goes to her neighbour's house to tell her what she has seen.

Before the sun sets that evening, the whole barrio knows of the Miracle of Calle Adelanto.

By midnight, a small shrine stands on the place where Maria died and then returned again. There are flowers and votive candles on the ground surrounding a white cross. Small milagros and folded scraps of paper holding prayers litter the ground.

Espinoza hides inside her house. Everyone wants to talk to her about her experience with the girl returned from the dead. Neighbours and strangers. Reporters. It's too much for the old woman and she wishes she'd never talked to anyone about it in the first place.

Maria has every intention of going straight to San Miguel Cemetery, but as she continues down Calle Adelanto toward Mission Street she passes by Luna Diablo. She has never been inside. No one who values their own skin does since the Devil's Moon is one of the main hangouts of the 66 Bandas.

She stops in front of the bar without knowing why.

Except that's not true.

She knows what she's thinking of doing, but it's so
loco
—so like nothing she'd ever do—that she could never explain it if anyone were to ask. But dying and coming back changes something in you. Or at least it has changed her.