Chapter 11

  Buenos días, mi hija.

  Josefa’s eyes broke the thick crust of tears and mucus that had hardened over in the night. She should be dead.

  The bed squeaked as she rolled over onto her side from her aching back, blanket already thrown to the floor among the heaps of trash and soiled clothes, all of it strewn about piled dirt and grime. She should be dead.

  Her eyelids made a stubborn point to stick and crack with each blink, the sockets closing in on the eyes themselves like foreign objects left to rot. Her temples pounded with too much drink for too many nights. She should be dead.

  The Mother mocked her with another day in a living nightmare. She should be dead.

  Josefa’s limbs ached in raucous agreement with her back. Her fingers felt like bending backwards. Bone and sinew stretched the bit of meat in her hands and creaked as the muscles and tendon flexed her fingers into fists. Her feet felt worse. “Buenas di?as, puta,” Josefa spat into the air, daring the Mother to respond. The Mother didn’t respond. She never responded.

  Josefa sat up, gasped and heaved, and swung the mess of her legs over the side of her bed. No injuries marked her skin, no bruise declared abuse, no misshapen body parts spoke to her pain. And they never had. Never would.

  A mound of the least dirty clothes she owned at the moment sat on a small wooden table across the room. They might as well have sat across La Terra hidden upon the heights of the gargantuan red wood trees in the grasp of a condor for as much as she wanted to get them. She gingerly placed her bare feet on the floor and sat shivering against the morning breeze from the open window against her bare skin. Quite a sad sight she would make, naked and trembling, fresh tears marring the old filth on her cheeks. Josefa couldn’t bear the slap of water against her skin last night long enough to bathe.

  Shadows danced away from the candle with its perpetual flame licking beside her bed. The sun peaked above the tops of the mountains opposite the Monastery, the shadow of the black pyramid there a stain on the Capital, but the great circle of fire hadn’t yet illuminated her room near the base. She broke her glare from the mountains and mound of clothes to glance around her room and determine she would clean the pigsty for the hundredth time this year. Josefa was never one for cleaning. Maria had always kept an orderly room, and she enjoyed taking care of Josefa’s room too. A fresh pain pulsated at Josefa’s fingertips and toes and traveled through her body into her stomach and rested in her chest. She gasped again to keep back a sob. She should be dead.

  Tears flowed unburdened and caught up the dirt on her face like a landslide in the rural places around the city. She looked up at the ceiling. The skin on her neck drew tight and uncomfortable, the bones threatening to crank her neck too far and break. A scar on her chest stood out bright red. It looked fresh.

  It wasn’t.

  She ran a too-sensitive finger along the disfigured flesh near her collarbone, her sister’s blood covering that finger and her hands and her chest. That memory of Maria never strayed too far from her waking eyes, always greeted her when they were shut to sleep. She should be very dead.

  Josefa stood, against her better judgment, and hobbled over to her clothes to get dressed. Every touch of fabric felt like brushing a searing hot fire, sensations she never got used to in the twenty odd years of her life like this. She cackled. Life. Que? broma. What a joke.

  “We have mass today, Maria. Socorra asked me to come to her this morning to get some tasking for the day,” Josefa spoke to her sister, to the void, to no one, anyone that would listen. She focused on what Maria’s response would be.

  “Ha! Socorra probably wants us to stalk around the kitchens and worker quarters some more. At least it won’t be a hard day!”

  Maria was always so cheery. Her smile slammed Josefa every time she looked Josefa’s way, and it was stained red with blood when she met Josefa’s eyes for the last time. Her sister was dead. But Josefa survived. Thunder without lightning.

  Impossible. Abomination.

  Josefa took a deep breath and tightened up her boots. Her ankles screamed at her, and her fingers twitched and shook at touching the tough laces. “Yup, easy day, Maria. Easy day.” She was better at reassuring her made up version of the woman than she was herself. The Arm of the Monastery, the true Arm, not that welp apprentice, typically left Josefa alone to decide how to do her job. A normal day was relegated to ensuring the pyramid’s staff were accounted for and keeping her body in shape in case any unwanted visitors came looking for her. They never did. A waft of body odor assaulted her nose when she opened her door. She noticed a pile of clothes had shifted under the movement. “Wow, I really need to clean.”

  Two kitchen staff stood in the hallway, struck with their learned fea- respect for her. Josefa had been told she had an honestly unwarranted reputation of being frightening, but she just liked a pyramid in order. “What are you looking at? Go about your day,” she barked. The one on the right, a slight baby-faced girl, squeaked and hopped into a brisk walk.

  The one on the left, a portly yet similarly baby-faced boy, coughed and said, “Yup, uh, wait for me!”

  Her eyes began to dry as she watched them skitter away. Her eyelids refused to blink on their own anymore, stretching open wider than normal. The looks she gave people as a result were not helping with her reputation problem. It was hard to be patient and understanding when every sentence was a moment stretched into eons by her phantom agonies. Josefa just about skinned a boy who worked in the laundry room for tearing a shirt of hers, a disgusting piece of clothing regardless. And one time she forced a girl to walk around the kitchen with a pot of hot oil held over her head until it cooled enough to bathe in. Perhaps the reputation wasn’t entirely unwarranted. But Josefa could have been the daughter of a Greatstorm demon for the looks she got sometimes. She hoped people didn’t really think she was so terrible. She admitted she could be more pleasant to people. Josefa sighed to herself, the blazing air of her lungs roasting her throat and searing her tongue. It was time to see what Socorra had in store for her today. Josefa placed a light hand on her door, pulled it closed, and braced herself to act tough and painless.

  Socorra was already waiting for her down the hall.

  Josefa strode out of the room and turned to the left, a slight nod to acknowledge the old woman watching her with an expectant eye. “When you do that, do you just wait outside all night? Or are you watching under the door like a creep for me to wake up?”

  Her mentor sneered, “Oh, something creepier I assure you.”

  Josefa chuckled in response, it hurt like everything did, but Socorra was a soothing salve with her humor.

  “Something dreadful wafted into the hallway when you opened your portal into hell,” Socorra said and wrinkled her nose.

  “That was just my attitude,” Josefa glanced over and smirked, “been brewing all night.” The Arm had to look up at a slight incline to meet Josefa’s eyes, the only person in the entire Monastery that didn’t have to look down at her.

  “Que bien! I’m looking for a nasty attitude today I think.”

  “When aren’t you?”

  Socorra cackled and coughed.

  They continued walking down the hallway before it opened into the main square. A few of the Young Ones, shaky like chihuahuas with none of the confidence, skittered about doing their early morning chores. The pyramid was stretching and yawning in the dawn. Happy voices lilted beyond from the Children’s mess hall, the group of monks always fastidious in their desires to have the freshest cafe? and pan. A line of Children more solemn and wallowing in their solitude flowed around the corner and into the square. They would cheer up the moment they got their breakfast. The duo strolled into the mess, and a wave of quiet waiting spread like sunlight over dewy fog in the early morning. This was respect for the Arm. Though, Josefa was sure a healthy amount of fear of the fiery vieja accompanied it, and the woman began leading.

  “Horacio, can you take the Storms today in the training yard. Just have them work forms with each other. Rodrigo and his sister misstep constantly, so slap them around until they pay attention to what they’re doing. Son pendejos, Horacio,” Socorra spoke to the air without ever identifying the swordmaster and snatched up a tortilla with an egg in it as she walked through the hall. A shuffling in the crowd caught the Arm’s attention, and she turned to see Horacio’s bushy eyebrows raised at the mention of training Storms. Josefa took her place in a dark corner.

  “Pues… ok…” the Child replied.

  “Bien,” Socorra continued, “the Father spoke to me of a thunderstorm rolling in across the mountains. Children of the Peak, see to the garden, by his guidance.”

  A fresh-faced girl, likely a newly raised Child squawked in response. Josefa was sure there were words in it but didn’t expend the energy deciphering them.

  Socorra paused and shoved the whole tortilla into her mouth, a thoughtful expression narrowing her eyes. “Ah!” she exclaimed, bits of food dancing out to land on an unfortunate Child’s face, “the mass!” The Arm made a great effort to swallow, and Josefa laughed to herself at the sight. “We have pilgrims for the mass today! Everyone on their best behavior. Wear your cleanest robes.” The crowd groaned in defense of themselves. “Ay, I’m not saying names.” Socorra then pointed at a rather dirty looking monk, “Pero… I’m pointing fingers. Go get changed. Que? disgracia.” The crowd sat in silence now waiting for more instructions. Socorra spun in a circle with her arms out. “What? Do I need to tell you to wipe your culo too? You all are not Young Ones, do what you need to. Vamos!” The monks dispersed; the ones in line hung their heads and sauntered off.

  Socorra noticed Josefa waiting in her corner. “Ven, ven, ven.” She came as told, back held straight as a statue’s, her aches written into every step she took but wiped from her face. The Arm glanced around at the thinning crowd and leaned into whisper to Josefa, “I need you to wait just outside the service tunnel during the pilgrim’s mass today.”

  “Que??”

  “I need you to wait just outside the service tunnel during the pilgrim’s mass today,” Socorra repeated, but like she was talking to a dog instead of her head of guard.

  Josefa’s expression remained neutral, “Wait for what, Child?”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “There will be an odd-looking man stumbling or running or falling, or some other form of uncoordinated movement, from the entrance to the great hall after the crowd gets settled into their seats.”

  “What?”

  Socorra began to reiterate the statement in her mocking tone again before Josefa cut her off, “How do you know a man will be doing that?”

  “Because I know he’s coming, and I know what he’s going to do.” A typically unhelpful response. Josefa bit back a chuckle.

  “What should I do when he comes running out?”

  “Just make sure he doesn’t go back in. He’s not one we need to be in our Monastery,” Socorra looked around the room as she spoke, “Wander with me. We seem odd just standing here.” The Arm hobbled past. Josefa was content with the old lady’s slow pace; she could keep up. Well, she could always keep up with others too, it was just a matter of how much suffering she would have to endure.

  Once they reached the mess entrance and were alone, Socorra leaned in again, “Grab him and bring him inside.”

  “What?”

  “Josefa, if I have to repeat myself one more time, I’m going to become unpleasant to work with.”

  Josefa cocked her head and pursed her lips.

  “Alright, I’m going to become more unpleasant to work with. Just grab him and bring him inside.”

  “To do what with him?”

  “We’re going to offer him a position of sorts.”

  “I thought he was going to be of the unsavory type.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Josefa looked around exasperated, “So you want me to just grab this man and bring him in knowing nothing about him or what he’s capable of?”

  “Correct.”

  “Puta.”

  “By the Parents’ guidance,” Socorra patted Josefa on the cheek, it felt like the woman extended her arm and slapped her as hard as she could, but Josefa refused her body a flinch of pain. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Lock him in one of the rooms in the empty staff corridors in the bottom level.” Socorra added under her breath, “He probably can’t break out easily yet…”

  “What?”

  Socorra leveled a practiced glare at Josefa. The Arm was the only person capable of sending such a chill up her spine. “Just leave him in one of the rooms and flag it with some cloth tied to the handle. Lock it tight.”

  “I didn’t know we were in the business of locking up strangers.”

  “We aren’t in any business at all. We are the Monastery. Regardless, the Father approves. By the Parents’ guidance, amiga. We must uphold spiritual integrity in La Terra.” A devious gleam shown in the old woman’s eye.

  Josefa snuck some of the good pan and café from the Childrens’ mess and made her way down the long service tunnel. It was dark and damp and had rough, dirty walls, but those things were all of the sort that soothed Josefa’s soul. She came down here to think often when others would go to the peak. It was the place of her birth, not biological, but those moments that would define the rest of her life after her sister was killed and left her as a mystery of the Parents’ blessing to walk the world alone. Remembered feet scraped against the wet stone ground, her gurgles of pain and sporadic, lucid screams. “Good you didn’t have to see me through that part, Maria. I was in a rough place. Body fighting to kill itself yet refusing to die. Socorra hardly mentions what it’s like living without her brother, her thunder. But us? Me? I don’t think she’s mentioned it once in the decades we’ve spent here. But every time she looks at me, I know she’s wondering. ‘How?’ She had promised to answer when she saved me. She never did. I don’t blame her. I don’t think she can,” Josefa’s rant ended, and her voice rang off the walls absent the echo of Maria’s voice in her head, “Pues… Oh, well. Easy day today, Maria.” She hung her head and rubbed her face, her eyes beginning to adjust to the deep darkness. She saw better than most down here.

  “Yeah, except we’re kidnapping some poor guy from the church.” Thank the Father she conjured an answer this time.

  Josefa shrugged her shoulders, “He must deserve it, right?”

  “You put a lot of trust in that old woman.”

  “Yes. I do.” Glimpses of a dark room with lights reflecting from the floor and off polished black walls blinked through her mind. The tunnel’s ceiling lowered, and Josefa lowered her head enough to avoid it. Café trickled down her throat and soothed her pounding chest. Walking itself like this wasn’t tiring but restraining herself from screaming with each step was exhausting. Sweat beaded on her forehead and upper lip. Light shown down the tunnel from its exit. She was almost to the end. Josefa slowly poked her head from the exit’s hidden place in the mountainside and looked around for any observant merchant or customer to notice her join the crowd in El Mercado Rojo. No one did. No one ever did.

  Beams of sunlight gnawed at the back of her skull, no amount of squinting ever enough to save her eyes when she exited the tunnel, and looked to the west seeking her favorite stall with her favorite elote?. A great, burly man stood in a stall made for someone half his size, and a man wearing a ratty sombrero stood and paid the large attendant with a couple copper coins. The man shuffled off, either full of corn or hungover from last night. Josefa nodded at Oscar. He nodded back, chins folding in a meeting that was anything but warm, “Hola.”

  “Que? tal?”

  He just grunted in response, and that answer was enough. He was fine. Oscar made good company for a woman without many words for most people. He handed her a cob covered in her favorite toppings, and she tossed him back a coin. The bar squeaked as he shifted, hand still waiting outstretched. Josefa rolled her eyes and tossed a second coin onto the stall counter, its red paint worn from years of elbows resting with hands full of the steaming delicacy. “Gracias,” Oscar grunted. He swept his hand across the countertop. Her coin vanished.

  With her taste buds satisfied but her stomach not full, Josefa took her time wandering the city and eating snacks before mass would take place, before she needed to kidnap this poor stranger. She shook her head at the thought. Wasn’t she a guard? Eyes kept weary at all times for foul play from foul people? Now she was the one instigating. And yet, Socorra must have the right of it.

  The sun peaked above the bowl valley of the Capital, and its dry, blistering heat burned away at the flesh on her neck. Her hair was pulled back tight, as always, and offered no protection. The discomfort was almost soothing, a distraction from the plague of pain she experienced every day. Despite the summer coming to an end, the long hours of sunlight drenched the stone of the mountains and their pyramids and their inhabitants in heat. But less of the twenty-seven hours of each day were taken up by that bright oppression this time of year, and that was nice.

  For all the discomfort, El Mercado Rojo was vibrant in the midday light. New scarlet reds from young shops sporting striped and patterned pottery juxtaposed the worn and tattered wood with a hew only hinting at the market’s namesake. The place didn’t offer any particular craft or food or service, it offered its personality, its look and feel. If people wanted something specific like meat, La Calle? Carniceros was a whole market in the center of the city offering meats of every variety La Terra had to offer at all hours of the day and night, except a brief pause at the Parents’ hour for a quick reverence. That was the twins’ favorite spot. Those boys could eat.

  Women with cones of straw called out their inventories of tortillas while their husbands pulled a cartful of the staple. Corn and char drifted through the air as one of those callers passed Josefa. Men sang with fast fingers dancing on guitar strings. Men lamented in long notes, their voices the only instrument they needed. This place was all Josefa had ever known, and yet, there was more in this city than any person ever could know. Barrios of colorful houses with rich merchants and shacks for the poor stood out as pockets among flat fronted shops and restaurants and public bath houses boasting their aromas and stenches, food and feces, mixtures that could only be found in the Capital. Life got quieter up the slopes of the valleys. Josefa looked up, right between the pyramids to the south, to Las Afueras Escalaras, to her childhood home.

  She knew the house was gone, everyone in her family long dead in truth, or just in spirit. Josefa’s mother had feuded with her siblings over property left after Josefa's grandparents’ deaths. They died gracefully. Their family had not. Josefa’s ti?as and ti?os and primas and primos were all but strangers now. Wandering and reminiscing and stimulating the senses dulled by a slow life in a church of all places, Josefa’s mind drifted beyond her pain, her joints wanting to bend back a little too far, her skin ripping into itself, and she found a smile there despite everything wrong. She still had Maria, somewhere. She had Socorra, the Juans. People loved her. That was enough, or it should be enough, but she couldn’t banish the pain or that flutter of worry at the top of her chest, the tightness at the back of her throat. After ten or so quadras away from the Monastery, she noticed the sun dipping towards the upper rim of the valley over the pyramid’s peak. A frothing crowd had gathered down El Derecho where the great hall of the Monastery opened itself to summer’s end. “Mierda,” Josefa hissed under her breath.

  A little girl walking with a mangy old doll, mangier hair hanging in her eyes, pointed at Josefa and exclaimed, “That’s not a good word!”

  Josefa leaned in close, the girl’s face taking on a familiar expression most people donned at the sight of her, and snapped, “Bite me.” The little girl yelped and scampered off.

  Josefa guessed this mood was as good as any for an abduction.

  She jogged back towards the exit to the service tunnel, hidden in its scattering and smattering of boulders against the mountainside, and her feet protested every slap against the earth. Little bits of rock got into the tops of her boots and made her want to pull her hair out. A crowd was still mulling outside the great hall while a trickle began to move inside. Josefa reached the eloteria with a huff. Oscar nodded at her, indifferent to her rush or anything to do with the pilgrims. She faked a smile anyway, habits, and watched his attention turn back to cleaning his stall before shambling over to the tunnel exit. Servants came and went infrequently, and when they did, they went in the early morning when the passersby were as rare as a Storm in the countryside.

  Stone scraped at her clothes as she braced herself against the mountain, and her heart threatened to pound from her chest, her feet swelling out of her boots. Josefa cursed at her stubborn body and its reaction to the short run. She and Maria would walk around the Ministry with heavy packs for hours on end climbing ropes and ladders to fix anything that broke. She hated how physically demanding even walking felt now. It was getting worse, and she was getting older. But the good news was she beat the monks to their mass, if not the crowd.

  More and more people flowed through the doors and around the corner, an indistinct murmur of many voices reaching her and bouncing off the rocks around her, a whisper of ghosts and little heard men. She squinted to see if she could spot any standout churchgoers that might be her man. Socorra said he’d come stumbling out, but it couldn’t hurt to spot the target early. Josefa’s eyes darted to each figure in the crowd. Pregnant woman and, presumably, her husband, a group of little old women that Socorra might have joined in another life, a few wool robed merchants, and the man from earlier in his weathered sombrero. His headwear seemed less foolish now among his kin. These country folk weren’t up to times, nor did they care for any hour of fashion. Yet he was a sight, standing tall among the crowd, darker skinned and straight backed. He had a leanness like a dancer but didn’t seem too weak. He was looking up at the pyramid, and he seemed… solid, more than the rest, then he ducked his head and disappeared into the Monastery. He was definitely hungover before now that she could see him hail. All these ‘pilgrims’ really came to the Capital to have some fun. She didn’t blame them.

  A clap of thunder sounded from inside. The mass was beginning. Josefa had decided she would get a good punch across the guy’s temple. She tied some loose fabric she always carried in case of emergency, or crime apparently, around her knuckles to lessen the blow she knew her hand would take. Josefa gritted her teeth against the rough cloth. By the Mothers’ godly bosom, the punch was going to hurt way more than the pathetic piece of fabric could protect, and she was already wincing.

  “Puta,” she spat at her throbbing hand. That seemed to be the word of the day for her. Word of the damned decade.

  A bit of commotion sounded from the direction of the great hall. Was her man already coming out? She ducked behind the rock but kept her eyes peeking over the edge. Sure enough, a figure stumbled out from the great hall. A tall figure, a man obviously, with a lean build, and dark skin. On his head sat his all-too-familiar sombrero. “Puta, puta, puta.” Josefa clenched her jaw and tightened her fist. He must be her man.

  He took a few steps backward, mumbling under his breath. It appeared Socorra had been correct in her prediction and accurate in using the word ‘stumble’. However, Josefa didn’t see how he could be considered strange. Sure, he was a bit tall. Who wasn’t compared to her? He was lean, yes, with a body like a dancer, a perfect description. Not some misshapen mishap of -

  Body like a dancer… or a swordmaster.

  Josefa saw his face now, and she knew what Socorra had meant by strange. It was like Aquiles had put on the clothes of a country boy and forgot his grace. The man's shuffling feet kicked dust in little puffs, eyes wider even than Josefa’s. Maybe he had just learned about his striking similarity to the new Arm of the Monastery as well. But this was no similarity. The Juans were similar. This man could match Aquiles’ description exactly.

  Identically.

  “...demon,” Josefa whispered. So, she stood, and without checking her surroundings this time, struck like a snake at the side of the demon’s head. He dropped like a sack of rice.

  ***

  Arturo stumbled from the mass. His head was jumbled and empty at the same time. Did he have a- was he- who was that- what was happening? He shook his head, it felt clogged and heavy like it used to back home, like the pain had returned. Had it? He blinked and let his feet carry him. Something crashed into him, and stars exploded in his vision, the ground rushing to meet his face. He felt another impact and tasted dirt.

  Buenas noches, mi hijo.