“How do you know that?”
“You’d know too if you went to Lady’s classes.” He takes out the map and flips it over. “Also, it says so right here.”
There are a few notes scrawled in nearly illegible handwriting. I wonder who it belongs to. My father? Aunt Ro? Maybe Mama Juanita. I remember her sitting at the kitchen table when she thought everyone was asleep. She had a cigarillo in one hand and her fountain pen in the other. Usually, a bruja writes their initials after an entry in the Book of Cantos. The map of Los Lagos, and the notes scrawled on the back, are unfinished, anonymous.
“Wait,” I say. “If the Devourer is siphoning out the energy, wouldn’t that kill the land?”
Nova stares at the shore across the silver river, clutching his prex. He rubs the blue stones one at a time. My mother does that when she’s uncertain and when she’s praying.
“I don’t know, Ladybird. What I do know is the moon and sun are still far apart. We have time. We’ll have to see how fast the cycles pass to mark our pace.”
“You can say day, you know.”
He shakes his head and walks west.
I start to follow, but I see something moving in the water. I walk to the edge of the riverbank. My boots kick gravel into a current so fast it doesn’t even ripple. I try to find a sense of calm in the rushing water’s silver waves. I reach my hands to touch the salty water, but Nova yanks me back. I fall on my butt.
“What the hell?”
His face pales as my foot dangles over the river, silver waves licking at the tip of my boots. He grabs me again and drags me back a few feet.
“Don’t touch things just because they’re shiny.”
“I wasn’t.” I push myself off the ground and dust the moist earth from my pants.
He makes a deep guttural noise that makes me think of my neighbor’s pit bull.
“Do me a favor. Let’s have the rain forest that sets itself on fire be our warning for the rest of our time here. Don’t touch anything. You don’t know what kind of water this is. You’re not back home, Alex. We’re in another dimension. If I can’t make that clear for you, then you’re dead, and I’m dead with you.”
I cringe at the smell of burning rubber. I look down to find a hole at the top of my boot where the silver water splashed me. Right. Don’t touch anything.
“Welcome to Los Lagos, Ladybird,” Nova grumbles as he leads the way. “Come on.”
• • •
We walk at a safe middle distance between the edge of the rain forest and the edge of the silver river. The clouds thicken in dark-gray mounds above us. Every shadow, movement, and splash makes me want to jump out of my skin. What else is going to get set on fire? Is everything here made to kill? I take off my shirt because of the thick humidity and stuff it in our backpack. In minutes, I sweat right through my tank top.
“Did you see that?” I point to the water. “There’s someone in there. I saw it before.”
“You saw what that water did to your boot. I don’t think it can sustain life.”
I know what I saw but I drop it. A light rain starts to fall, which makes our walk more slippery.
Nova searches the horizon with a frustrated scowl. “The ferryman is supposed to be somewhere here.”
If the water burned a hole in my boot, how does it not burn a boat?
As the rain gets progressively harder, the rain forest to our left shudders as lightning strikes.
“There!” Nova points ahead.
I grab hold of him and together we run, trying not to slip as the earth softens under our boots. We take turns almost falling, but when the golden glint of something bobbing in the water becomes clearer, I’m the one pulling him.
Disappointment comes swiftly. “That isn’t a ferry. It’s an oversize rowboat.”
“It’s a small Viking ship,” he says. But even he has to admit it wasn’t what we were expecting. “This can’t be right.”
Nova takes a step onto the golden pier that goes out a few yards over the river. The gold boat has a curling bow and stern, and high sides that might prevent the passengers from getting splashed with the corrosive water. There are four oars resting across a bench, and it looks like it seats up to six passengers.
“Hello?” I shout. I realize I probably shouldn’t announce myself like I’m at the bodega.
Then a man appears from thin air.
“I’m right here, girl,” he says in a raspy voice. “No need to shout at the wind.”
I take several steps back until I collide with Nova’s chest. His hands fly protectively to my shoulders.
The man isn’t exactly a man. He’s got the face of an old man, yes. His moss-colored skin looks rough to the touch. His eyes are like swirls of gold, and when he smiles, two perfect rows of gold teeth flash back at us. His torso is hidden beneath a long, black cloak that’s caked in mud at the hem. He hobbles when he steps toward us.
“Fear won’t get you very far in these lands.” He extends a furry finger that ends in a sharp, black nail. He breathes deep, as if he smells a perfume he likes. “Though…perhaps your magic could.”
Nova steps in front of me, to block me from the creature’s golden gaze. Nova’s posture changes. He digs one hand in his pocket and relaxes his shoulders like he’s not afraid. He tilts his chin up.
“You the ferryman?”
The creature tilts his head from side to side, amused. He moves like molasses and speaks just as slowly. “I am Oros, the duende of the River Luxaria. I provide crossing to the other shore.”
“Shut up.” Nova’s sudden enthusiasm makes me panic. Where did my street-savvy brujo just go? Instead, he looks like he’s about to jump on the creature’s lap and list everything he wants for Christmas. “My grandma told me you guys were all extinct.”
The duende makes a sour face. He keeps that long, craggy finger pointed in my direction.
“Most of my kind was sent here by El Terroz, Lord of the Earth and its Treasures. He is our father and protector. I am charged with passage across the Luxaria, or as common witches call it—Lover’s Lament.”
“Lover’s Lament?” I look at the hole in my shoe. “Why do they call it that?”
Oros hobbles to my side. I follow his gaze to the silver water. “Watch.”
“For what?” Nova says, impatient.
I nudge him in the ribs.
“Impatience will get you killed almost as quickly as fear, boy.”