The
advantage of following a little girl through the streets of Hijo de
Dios was that they were steep enough to slow the kid down. The
disadvantage was that they were steep enough to slow the kid’s
pursuers down. So while Maggie and her friends were able to spot the
little twerp before she got out of sight, catching her would be a
different matter. Especially in this highly bright noonday sun –
even in the deep shadows of the narrow lanes between the ramshackle
houses and apartments, the humidity weighed heavily upon Maggie’s
shoulders.
She scampered up a concrete staircase, so steep that she was
effectively climbing a ladder. Behind her huffed Alejandra, Benigno
and Rafael. Ahead of her, still at a distance, was the girl. "Hey,"
panted Maggie, "kid, what the hell are you trying to do?"
"Revenge!" shouted the girl as she spun around. "The
Sons of the Sea can drown, but before that I will kick their shins!"
"And they’ll just let that happen?" said Alejandra.
"Could be a suicide mission," grumbled Benigno. "Come
on." He dashed up the street, in pursuit of the girl. Alejandra
and Maggie followed, ducking through this lane and that alley as the
girl seemed to be more keen on losing her pursuers than on actually
getting anywhere.
And then the girl squealed, as something reached out of the
shadows and grabbed her arm. Maggie put on a burst of speed,
Alejandra close at her heels, fearing the worst.
But then the girl’s captor stepped out of the shadows, and it
was the bare-footed woman of dreadlocks and rings, from not long ago.
She had the little girl in a firm grip – but not tight. The girl
was not complaining about being hurt, only trying to get free, to no
avail.
Maggie and Alejandra skidded to a halt. It was then that Maggie
noticed the woman’s eyes – for her irises were dark enough that
someone from a distance could not discern the shape of her pupils. Up
close, however, Maggie could see that the woman’s pupils were
slitted, like that of a cat, or a snake. "Wait," panted
Maggie, "What are you up to? Do you eat babies or something?"
The woman glanced at Maggie, then laughed. "Please! Babies
are hardly juicy enough for my taste. No, I kid. I’m just surprised
to find this kid running around an abandoned part of the city. Girl,
what’s your name? And don’t lie to me, because I can find out
from other people."
"Go ask other people then," said the girl.
"And yours?" said Maggie.
"That is Madame Balam," murmured Alejandra.
The cat-eyed woman grinned. "And that is Alejandra de
Surdeville. Hey, babe. You cheating on me? I’m devastated."
Her grin did not fade.
"We’re not on right now," growled Alejandra. "I
find this one even more intriguing, anyway."
"Sure," said Maggie. "You’ve got a thing for
tall, dark, vaguely magical women."
This caused Alejandra’s face to turn red. "I don’t –
it’s completely a coincidence. Never mind!" She stomped over
to the little girl. "Manuela, what on earth were you thinking,
trying to go after the Sons of the Sea? The only reason they didn’t
immediately open fire back at your house is because they wanted to
confirm it was you."
The girl glared at Alejandra, then at Maggie. "My name is not
Manuela. And maybe what I was doing was deciding to have my very
justified revenge and then I’d get killed and I could have a chance
at a new start somewhere else, or something."
"Yeah," murmured Benigno. "That’s what I
thought."
"So what?" said Alejandra. "You’re so ashamed of
your part in the fiasco that you decided to end it all, after you’d
just been given a new start?"
The girl frowned. "What part?"
"You –" Alejandra fell silent, glancing at Maggie.
Maggie put her hands up in a "not my fault" gesture.
"Maybe her kid brain is too small to retain all of her old
memories," said Rafael. "Kind of like how Maggie lost most
of her own memories when her brain didn’t phsyically exist. So this
girl here is a child in mind and body...still, you’d think that one
would stick."
The girl finally shook off Madame Balam’s grip. She folded her
arms and shifted her glare to Rafael. "I do not enjoy being like
this. Rafael, change me back please."
But before Rafael could speak, Maggie cut in. "Let’s say
you’re a woman in your healthy and well-seasoned sixties." And
the girl became a diminutive elderly lady of grey hair and many lines
upon her face.
Still she looked disappointed, glaring up at Maggie with all the
force of an elder’s disappointment, causing Maggie to feel rather
small in comparison. Maggie cleared her throat. "Okay, uh...is
there a specific age you’d like to be? I thought getting past
menopause –"
"That’s not it," said Benigno.
"You’re not exactly familiar with old Abuela Manuela,"
said Madame Balam.
"She never did like being called Abuela," said
Alejandra.
"Think about what she’s been saying," said Rafael.
"Think about how I would react, if you turned me into a girl."
But before Maggie could formulate those thoughts, she noticed that
Madame Balam had disappeared, and there in the distance, at the head
of a large troop of young men toting rifles, was a large,
blond-bearded man in a white suit. "Shit. Uh, maybe I can
conjure a huge stone – or maybe you can vanish all those guys,
Rafael?"
"Sun’s too bright," said Rafael. "The eyes are on
us. We need to cool it. Benigno, what about your vaunted army?"
"Sun’s too bright," said Benigno. "We need a lot
more shade."
The troop of men drew closer.
Alejandra cracked her knuckles. "If I can reach Diego fast
enough, I can at least try to knock him into next week."
"I did that back at the fish market," said Maggie. "It
clearly didn’t stick. Look, he doesn’t even have a bandage on his
jaw anymore. Where the hell is Madame Balam? She got all those guys
to stop in their tracks before."
Doors began to open, and people began to wander out onto the
street – carrying baskets, rolling carts, wheeling barrows, hauling
cans of paint, gradually getting up the hustle and bustle of a
regular city street. If these people had not been all of the very
same ones that Maggie had seen gathering around Manuela Lopez’
house as she lay dying, and if they had not seemed to hustle to their
specific positions, then the scene might have been plausible. As it
was, the young men, these Sons of the Sea, marched straight towards
them, and yet the people did not give way, or even seem to notice
that anyone was approaching.
So the men bumped into them, shouldered
into them, tried to get around them, many of them forcefully shoving
them to the side – only for them to resume their positions as if
nothing had even happened. If Diego knocked someone sideways, or if
one of his followers kicked someone down, they stumbled and then came
back to where they were, so that someone farther back in the troop
was forced to do the same thing.
As if that wasn’t enough, there were a certain number of people
in the crowd who weren’t even shifting a centimeter when anyone ran
into them. Thirteen of them, in fact – thirteen women, dressed in
old-fashioned nun habits complete with wimples, who could not be
moved, not if a fellow bumped into them, not if he tried to shove
them aside, not if he tried to kick them – that resulted in more
than a few lads hopping up and down in pain.
All in all, the effect of this gentle yet insistent resistance
was to do to a marching troop what a gravity-drop pin game did to a
mass of steel balls: scatter them and slow them.
"Clever trick," said Maggie. "You command your
people well, Benigno."
"I only discussed the idea with Abuela Manuela a few times,"
said Benigno. "I don’t know who got everyone to do this."
And then, there at the front of the crowd, as Diego was
laboriously shifting aside a nun centimeter by centimeter, a woman
stepped in between the two and could not be moved even by Diego – a
tawny woman in white shirt and black robes.
"Ah," said Maggie. "Leading from the front, I see."
"Anyone else doing that would get themselves killed,"
grumbled Benigno.
"Like everyone up there who isn’t stone?" said Alejandra.
"Pretty impressive for getting this right the first time. But
the whole point is to buy time for more interference, so let’s get
the hell up there and get Diego talking. Come on. She grabbed Rafael
and Benigno by the hand and marched forward, the people in the crowd
suspiciously having their attention caught by something and stepping
aside just in time for Alejandra and company to pass by them.
They halted before Diego, and Diego and his men likewise halted.
Every single one of them seemed infuriated to even have these three
in their presence.
"All eyes are on them," said the elderly woman. "Now’s
your chance, Maggie. Disguise me again."
"I’m going to change you into a little boy for a bit,"
whispered Maggie. "Is that alright?"
"Absolutely."
"So be it," whispered Maggie. "You are now a
six-year-old boy."
The sunlight grew a bit brighter, and the air grew warmer still.
Lo and behold, where an elderly woman had been, a little lad
stood, looking delighted. "Hot dang," he said, "this
is the ticket alright. Give me a lift?"
Maggie knelt, and scooped the boy into her arms, just as some of
the young men made their way towards Maggie and her young ward.
"Yes?" she said to fellow who was standing gruffly before
her, his arms folded. "What is all this about anyway?"
"We heard that a girl who was the spitting image of a
six-year-old Manuela Lopez was coming to cause trouble," said
the man. "Maybe she figured out some clever trick to be young
again. Diego was going to either get the secret out of her or get her out of the way." He set his eyes on the boy. "Cute kid you got
there. What’s his name?"
"Mojito," said the boy.
Maggie frowned at the same time the young man did. "Hang on,
isn’t that an alcoholic beverage?"
"Everybody likes a mojito," said Mojito. "I bet
everybody will like me."
The young man sighed. "Yes, I knew an old woman who very much
enjoyed those. It is a shame she seems to have passed away. Wherever
she went, I bet she’d be tickled to know you’re a sort of
namesake." He gave Mojito a significant look. "One wonders
where she is now. But, she’s clearly gone, so our mission here is
ended." He turned to head back to Diego –
Maggie spotted a young man holding a rifle up to Rafael’s head.
Before she could say a word, there was an ear-splitting crack –
And Rafael had his hand up in the path of the bullet, utterly
unharmed.
The sunlight grew even brighter, so that the color of the sky was
a far paler blue than before.
And Rafael vanished.
Diego and all his men looked up to the sky. She could see him
mouthing curses, and then dashing into the shadows, his men
scattering in every direction, finding whatever door they could to
throw open or bash open, or whatever window to jump through, in the
midst of all the civilians doing the same thing, such that many of
them ran into the same houses as the men with the rifles, and were
bodily tossed out seconds later. Maggie looked wildly around for any
shade she could find – until she realized she could solve the
problem her way. "I declare that the streets of Los Hijos are
all lined with vast old trees." Lo and behold, there was
suddenly a great deal more deep shade, as up sprang rows of mature
chestnut trees in place of the dirt and gravel.
Thereby plugging up the majority of the streets and cracking many
walls, as the streets were mostly narrower than the girth of mature
chestnuts.
Silence fell, broken only by the gentle rush of wind in the
leaves, as the people of Los Hijos halted in the sudden shade,
staring up at the great boughs above them. Many of them had their
jaws hanging open.
Mojito turned to Maggie with a delighted grin. "Hot dang, you
really are a conjurer."
"Out of here everybody," said Benigno. "While the
Sons of the Sea are still bottled up. Everyone stay out of the
sunlight. Come on."
…
Maggie, Alejandra and Mojito were in the bare-concrete lobby of a
dilapadated concrete tenement, as far away from their previous
position in Los Hijos as possible. The remainder of the civilians of
Los Hijos were either in rooms above, or in adjoining buildings.
Maggie had sealed the front doors of each such building, created
doors through the walls between them, and effectively turned a few
tenements into a hidden stronghold, secluded in the midst of a
thousand ramshackle buildings just like it. If there were no moles
among these people, it would take the Sons of the Sea a very long
time indeed to ferret them out.
"Awful pun," muttered Maggie.
"Who are you talking to?" said Alejandra, as she set up
the chess board for the hundredth time.
"You wouldn’t believe me anyway," said Maggie.
The path towards this spot of Los Hijos had not been easy. Most of
the streets of this place were narrow, and now thoroughly blocked off
by vast chestnut trees – yet they were not narrow in a regular
pattern, and finding streets wide enough had been a journey of many
dead ends. Gloomy as everything was now in the shade of these vast
trees, sometimes they couldn’t tell a path was blocked until they
ran into a trunk. And tempting as it was to conjure holes in walls
and trunks and so forth, besides making the gaze of Los Ojos even
more furious, the Sons of the Sea might be able to pick up on such a
trail. The solution Maggie had hit on was to pick the streets that
were just wide enough that it was possible to slip between the
trunks, but narrow enough that anyone looking at them would assume
they were blocked. Hopefully Diego and his goons weren’t too
clever.
And now, even in spite of the shade, every window was kept well
away from, nor were any lights lit, nor were words said loud – just
in case.
And to top it all off, Maggie had lost at chess a hundred times,
to Mojito.
The little twerp grinned. "Best six hundred out of a
thousand?"
"Stuff it," whispered Maggie. "I bet I lost because
I can’t see anything in this dimness."
Alejandra sat down beside Maggie and draped an arm over her
shoulder. "Hey there, crazy conjurer. How are you feeling?"
"Rafael’s gone," muttered Maggie. "I...don’t
know if I can call him back. I probably can’t. I should try. But at
this point, even if it didn’t bring extra heat from Los Ojos, I’d
be scared to try, and fail again."
"No embarrassment for your sudden conspicuous forest?"
Maggie chuckled ruefully. "I should have specified ‘old’.
Chestnuts are old, alright – old-fashioned. Why, they went out of
style decades ago! So to speak. Um. For a reason that is very much
still around. I should have asked for any other tree, these ones are
toast within the year."
"Aw nuts." Mojito looked disappointed. "They’re
so cool."
"I’ve only heard of them in library books," murmured
Alejandra. "A species of a far-off land...Don't askhow did you know about
them?"
Maggie drew her knees up to her face. "I...don’t know.
That’s the downside of being a fictional character. I don’t know
how much of me is me and how much of me is the author."
"A fictional what now?" Mojito looked puzzled. "How
are you a character?"
"She’s a real character alright," muttered Alejandra.
Maggie rose, and bowed to Mojito. "I concede, child, you are
a chess genius."
"Compared to you, sure."
Maggie glared at Mojito. "Don’t push it, kid." She
straightened, casting her gaze to the staircase. "I have so many
questions to ask everyone. So, Alejandra, if you would be so kind as
to keep an eye on the boy, I must make inquiries." She moved to
the steps and bounded up them.
The upper hallway was as bare concrete as the lobby, and also more
crumbly, as if the floor itself would give way with a cough. Yet
another reason it was impossible to actually stay in here. Maggie
strode past one door and another, asking after Benigno at each one.
Eventually, she discovered the man in a room near the end of the
hall, sitting in a plain wooden chair, busy sharpening a knife.
Benigno looked up at her. "Yes? How may I be of assistance?"
It was too tempting to conjure up a chair here. Maggie settled for
resting her behind on the edge of a small table. "Your army. Who
the hell is in it, and how did you get it? What even is it? Where is
it? Why don’t you use it against these bitch-ass Sons of The Sea?"
Benigno raised an eyebrow. He kept sharpening his knife, before at
last cleaning off the blade, stropping it, and placing it back in his
belt sheathe. "Plenty of questions you got in your head. I can’t
answer all of them. But...I think if you consider what you’ve seen
of me so far, you can put together plenty of answers for yourself."
Maggie thought back to her first encounter with the man, and the
instant disappearance of poor Jeronimo in the chair. "You make
people vanish by asking them to join your army...which is probably
the same way you got an army in the first place...how did you get
that many people dying at once thoughhhhhh…" Her voice
trailed off, as her eyes were fixed on the glassless window. "Um.
I guess it has something to do with how few people are in this place
now?"
"I cautioned Manuela against a direct assault,"
muttered Benigno, his eyes downcast. "Took advantage of the
aftermath. Maybe you’d blame me. Maybe you wouldn’t."
"Any more than you would blame me for the excess of trees?"
said Maggie. "Wait, hey, I just had a thought. If your guys need
shadows to work...and we’ve got lots of shadows now…"
"I’ve been having my ‘guys’ scout out the position of
Diego’s goons," said Benigno. "At the last update,
they’re not close." A rolled-up piece of paper shot out of a
shadowed corner and landed in Benigno’s lap. He unrolled it, and
spent a fair bit of time reading it in the dim room. "Looks like
Diego is sending out scouting parties, but tentatively. Wait, but the
police are also trying to get in. I guess the sudden appearance of a
vast forest covering an entire favela will attract official
attention." He glared up at Maggie.
"I’m not saying my decision was smart," said Maggie.
"It was just very me. Kinda sounds like we should be thinking of
getting out of here?"
"And going where?" said Benigno. "La Ciudad? They’d
ask us where the rest of their servants have gone."
"Maybe go down to the sea and take ships somewhere,"
said Maggie. "But that would be in the sunlight...where can we
regroup quickly?"
Benigno glanced at the doorway. "There is a place. Have you
heard of the Forest of the Faithful?"
"The park at the other end of Division Road," said
Maggie. "But I never go there, it’s always full of...nuns…Wait
a minute." She whirled around to jog out the door – only to be
brought up short by Mother Marquez, standing there in the doorway.
"You," said Maggie. "Why are you trying to look like a
priest? Are you a priest? Who are you?"
"I will give you my personal name on safe ground," said
Mother Marquez. "The Forest of the Faithful. I will meet you
there." She turned to leave.
"Wait," said Maggie. "Hang on, just answer the
other question. What the hell is with that outfit?"
"Complicated," said Mother Marquez. "But, I will
give you this much – Los Ojos tend to overlook priests and nuns,
for some reason. How easily fooled we are, when we rely on sight
alone! See you later." She stepped out the door.
"Great," said Maggie. "There’s an idea, dressing
everyone up as a...priest? Nun?"
"I don’t know," said Benigno. "Having that many
‘converts’ all at once would be plausible, but it would also
attract attention."
"What else is there then…" Maggie thought for a
moment. Then she snapped her finger. "I have an idea."