Sunday buses were usually empty, and Rosa’s bus was no exception. It was just her, a woman in a uniform—a knee-length pink dress and tan-colored tights that made her seem like she worked in a diner—and the driver. Traffic was light, and the bus was only a couple of stops away from the church when the driver slammed on his brakes. Rosa flew—forehead first—into the seat in front of her. Dazed, she checked for blood, but there was no cut, just a tender spot that would for sure form a goose egg. The woman in the pink dress, though, was moaning from the floor. She’d been thrown completely out of her seat and was in a crumpled heap, bleeding from the mouth. There was a long run in her tights, all the way up her shin.
The driver got to the woman before Rosa could. He was trying to open a first aid kit and speak into his radio at the same time. He was saying something about an animal running out into the street, and how he’d had to come to a sudden stop to avoid hitting it.
“It looked sort of like a dog,” he said. “Or like a real skinny wolf.”
Rosa bolted out the side doors of the bus, first checking under the wheels and then looking frantically up and down the street. She thought she saw something—a flicker of a shadow low to the ground—on the other side of a parked car, and she ran toward it. There was nothing there, but then that same flicker caught her eye, this time as if it had just rounded the corner of a building up ahead. It was leading her closer and closer to the church.
This was perfect. This was just what she’d been hoping for.
Like last time, there was a line of people waiting to see Father Mendoza, but Rosa shoved ahead of all of them.
“I have another question,” Rosa said, standing across from the priest’s desk.
Father Mendoza’s dry-kindling eyes were, as usual, patient and kind. His stark white office wasn’t the type of room that Rosa expected would change much from day to day, but she hadn’t expected it to be exactly the same as before. There were the same simple cross, the same simple ticking clock, and also the same line of ants marching in the same curve up the wall behind where the priest sat.
“Is it possible,” she began, still slightly out of breath, “for the spirit of a person to enter another creature?”
“You’re talking about possession?” Father Mendoza asked. “Like when a demon enters a person’s body?”
“Not a demon, no. I’m wondering if the spirit of a person can enter the body of an animal.” Rosa paused to look to the ants on the white wall. “Or an insect.”
“Is that what you think has happened with Ana?” Father Mendoza asked.
“Yes,” Rosa replied. “Maybe, yes. There were fireflies and a bird that fell. And the hyena. It escaped from the zoo on the anniversary of the day my sister died. It killed a squirrel on our front lawn.” There was a little pinch in Rosa’s heart, and she pushed the palm of her hand against her chest. “I think . . . it may be close by.”
Father Mendoza was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, “You think your sister is controlling these things?”
“Yes,” Rosa replied. “Does this mean something?”
For a long time, Father Mendoza said nothing. He had to have known there was still a line of people waiting outside to speak with him, but he didn’t look at his ticking clock. Rosa could see a spark in his eyes, like he was calling to mind a memory. He was off somewhere, in the room but not in the room. Rosa knew what that was like.
“Ever since you came last time, I’ve been doing some thinking,” he finally said, “and I have a question of my own. Why is it Ana who is doing these things? Why isn’t it your mother?”
Rosa suddenly felt very heavy. Over the course of the last year, she and her priest had talked for hours and hours about faith and death and the meaning of life, but they’d never talked about Rosa’s mother. Rita de la Cruz was a woman who had grown up in the Rio Grande Valley, who’d met Rafe Torres when they’d both been in the ninth grade, and who’d died just hours after giving birth to Rosa. All Rosa knew was that, during the delivery, something had gone wrong. There was blood loss. Even the strongest heart can’t beat without blood.
“I’ve never told you this,” Father Mendoza went on, “but I knew Rita. I’m a couple of years younger than her, but we both grew up in Mission. It’s a small place. Everyone knew everyone.”
Father Mendoza’s chair squeaked as he sat back and brought his fingers into a tent. His eyes were doing what dry kindling does when it heats up. They were smoldering. Rosa knew what was coming. Her priest was about to launch into a story. He probably thought this story, which would no doubt be about the young Rita de la Cruz down in Mission, Texas, was going to be a gift Rosa could then take home with her and cherish like a bird’s bright feather or a perfectly coiled snail shell. Father Mendoza probably thought he was being kind and generous. But Rosa knew his story wouldn’t really have anything to do with Rosa or her mother. She could tell by the warm glow in his eyes that, even if the story seemed on the surface to be about Rita de la Cruz, it was really about him.
“Our mothers had been friends since high school,” he said, “but it wasn’t until Rita was fifteen that we officially met. I was thirteen.”
Rosa looked to the cross on the wall, and then to the clock. She closed her eyes and took a breath. Father Mendoza wasn’t listening. She’d come to him with something specific and important, and he was turning it into something about himself. He was launching into this tale as if he had all the time in the world to tell it, as if it wasn’t getting late in the day or if there wasn’t a small mob of people still waiting outside his door for his counsel.
“You look a lot like her,” Father Mendoza said.
Rosa felt even heavier. What a waste this was turning out to be. Jessica had always had a bad taste in her mouth when it came to priests, and now Rosa was beginning to understand why.
Just a moment earlier, Father Mendoza had said, “Everyone knew everyone.” Rosa disagreed. No one knew anyone. Not really.
She wasn’t there to argue that point, though, so she put up her hand, palm facing out, just like she’d seen Father Mendoza do hundreds of times while he led services. He’d hold one hand like that while the other rested on the opened pages of a Bible. The priest saw Rosa’s hand, and he stopped talking.
“Thank you,” Rosa said. “I’m leaving now.”
Rosa found Walter outside, sweeping the steps. He was facing away from her and didn’t know she was there. Rosa liked the look of it: Walter, a tall boy with strong arms, sweeping stone in the twilight. Still unaware of Rosa, Walter stopped his work and looked for a moment to the darkening sky, to the lightning flashes in the distance. She liked the look of that, too: a boy watching a storm.
“Walter!” Rosa called out.