The Smoking Mirror Read online

  Parking on the street, Andrea led the twins and their cousin into the broad courtyard, where their Aunt Sandra stood waiting for them behind their grandmother’s wheelchair. Sandra was short and dark-complexioned: more like her father, everyone said. Carol had never met the General, but photos of the brooding, serious man could be found in most of his children’s houses. His widow, once beautiful and tall, now slumped feebly in her wheelchair. Carol moved quickly to embrace the old woman, whose one lucid eye looked at her intensely.

  “How are you, Carolina?” Sandra asked with a warm but sad voice. They hugged as Johnny kissed their grandmother’s cheek.

  “Fine, tía Sandra. Happy to see you two. It’s good to be with family.”

  Smiling wistfully, Sandra nodded. “Yes, dear, it is. I’m so glad you could visit.” She squeezed Johnny, who managed not to smirk. “Here, let me show you how I’ve redecorated.”

  She guided them through the roomy home, its normal earth tones accentuated by bright splashes that had to be Sandra’s doing. Once the twins were installed in a cozy bedroom on the second floor, Carol and her aunts went into the large grove that formed a semicircle around the house. Shooing away butterflies, they picked peaches to make the creamy dessert that had become a family tradition over the years. Stefani joined them in the kitchen as they set to peeling and slicing the peaches and preparing the crust and the cream. Their talk was light and joyful, but there was an unmistakable undercurrent of loss.

  When the dish was baking in the clay oven, Carol went looking for her brother. She found him sitting on a bed in the large bedroom on the first floor that looked out on the grove. Their grandmother Helga was sitting in her wheelchair across from him.

  She was struggling to speak.

  “Johnny, what’s going on? She needs to rest.”

  “She wants to tell me something, dude. I tried to tell her not to worry, to just relax, but she gets all agitated.”

  “Ca-ca-ca…” the woman slurred out of one side of her mouth.

  Carol stiffened a bit. “You don’t think she needs, you know, to be changed?”

  “No, you moron. Just let her speak, okay? Be patient.”

  Helga lifted her arm weakly. “Ca-ca-ca…cajón.”

  The twins looked at each other.

  “Does she mean her drawer?” Johnny wondered aloud in English.

  Carol shrugged. “Well, she was pointing at the dresser.” Turning to their grandmother, she asked in Spanish, “Do you want something from your drawer, grandma?”

  Almost imperceptibly, Helga Barrón de Quintero nodded her head.

  Johnny leaned back, smirking. “Sounds like a job for you. I am not going through abue’s undies. No way.”

  Carol sighed. “You started this, Johnny. But fine.” Crossing to the rustic-looking chest of drawers, she began opening each one, looking for something that their grandmother might be wanting. The old woman made dismissive grunting noises at the hairbrush, the barrette, the silver handheld mirror.

  In the bottom drawer, under a pile of scarves and leg warmers, Carol’s hands closed around a thin leather book. She pulled it into the light. Gilt initials spelled out VQB across the cover.

  “Is this what you wanted?” she asked, turning around. Helga’s eye lit up excitedly.

  “VQB,” mused Johnny, thinking of his mother’s two surnames. “Verónica Quintero Barrón? Did it belong to Mom? Is it her bible or something?”

  Carol undid the clasp and opened the volume to the first page. In a neat manuscript hand, someone had written the date—13/X/88—across the top of the page.

  “13th October, 1988…” Carol looked up at her brother. “I think this is Mom’s diary.”

  Their grandmother, with great difficulty, nodded her head twice, slowly.

  “R-r-r-read.”

  Chapter Four

  As his sister read, Johnny felt prickles of nostalgia along his skin: her voice gradually taking on the rhythms and intonation of their mother’s speech. It was like Verónica Quintero de Garza was in the room at that precise moment, sharing her innermost thoughts.

  Today Mom told me the craziest thing: like her, I’m a shapeshifter. A nagual. I didn’t want to believe her, but then she shifted into a jaguar right in front of me! She was orangey-gold, with a white belly and black spots. Only her eyes were the same light brown, though with a little shimmer.

  Mom shrugged off her pink dress and prowled around for a while, then went into the bathroom. She came out a few minutes later, in human form, wearing a bathrobe.

  “What the heck, Mom? How long have you been like this?”

  “Since I was your age, Vero. On my side of the family, there is a nagual born every generation, to the previous shapeshifter, unless she doesn’t have children. In that case one of her sisters will bear the new one.”

  “But how did you know it was me and not Sandra, Andrea or Carlos?”

  “I didn’t. Not until a month ago, when I saw you wandering the peach grove.”

  “What are you talking about? It’s been months since I was out there.”

  “No, Sweetie. You have been visiting it every night for the past five weeks. Hunting.”

  “You mean…I’ve been shifting into a jaguar like you?”

  Mom shook her head and explained. “It takes time for a nagual to fully transform. At first we begin partially shifting, each change introducing more and more animal characteristics. After a few months, the process is complete. Learning to control your ability is another story, however. What emerges when you transform is your tonal, your beast-soul. Everyone has one, but very few can perceive it. Even fewer can allow it to come forward into this physical world. For most naguales, this is a natural process, like what you’re going through. But a small number of sorcerers learn to pull their tonal through their flesh…”

  “Wait.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Sorcerers? So not only do were-jaguars exist, but witches, too? What else? Vampires? Mermaids? Unicorns?”

  Mom smiled at me, not the sort of reaction I had expected or wanted. “Almost all the old stories are true, Vero. But people hunted most of those ancient creatures into hiding or extinction long ago. And were-jaguars? No, that’s something totally different. But you’re getting me off track. What I’m trying to tell you is that it is difficult to control your tonal. You’re not used to having a conscious awareness of that aspect of your being. That’s why you don’t remember anything about your transformations.”

  “But...now that I know, won’t I start remembering? Won’t I be aware?”

  “To a small degree, yes. But it takes a lot of practice, Sweetie. I can guide you somewhat, but we’re going to have to enlist the help of more knowledgeable folk.”

  She didn’t explain what she meant, but she promised she’d be with me in the grove tonight, in jaguar form. Now that I’ve jotted all this down, I’m going to try to get some sleep. I mean, close my eyes and let my beast-soul take over. Or whatever. Goodnight.

  Johnny leaned forward. His heart was racing, his palms tingling. “Whoa. So I’m a nagual, too, huh?” He looked at his grandmother, who smiled crookedly and swiveled her head around to stare at Carol.

  “Uh, Johnny…there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Carol’s face was flushed, and she dropped her gaze to the tiled floor. Johnny understood right away. “Wait. No way. You, too? Dude!”

  “You probably think that this is totally cool, don’t you?” Carol had her normal I-don’t-approve-of-your-boyish-enthusiasm face on.

  “Hello. Of course I do. Are you nuts? We get to transform into big freaking cats. How is that not cool?”

  “Well, it sounds like Abuela Helga was pointing out some pretty major drawbacks back in 1988, Johnny-boy.”

  “Just keep reading…gah. Girls, I swear.”

  Narrowing her eyes, Carol continued.

  So I remember bits and pieces now. Smells, mainly. Specifically, the smell of blood. The sound of a beating heart. The scent of my mothe
r, racing ahead of me, showing me how to flush a brace of jack rabbits.

  This morning she was sitting at the foot of my bed, smiling.

  “You’re almost completely a jaguar now, when you transform. Do you remember?”

  I told her I did.

  “Good. Pretty soon we’ll take a trip to Monterrey. To visit your cousins. At least,” she whispered, “that’s what we’ll tell your dad. In reality, we’re going to visit the García Caves. Some…experts in these matters…can be found there.”

  “Who, the tour guides? There isn’t anyone else living up on Friar Mountain, Mom. It’s in the middle of a national park”

  “I’m more interested in the folk living inside the mountain, Vero. But you’ll see what I mean soon enough.”

  I ignored her cryptic remark for a moment. “Why do we have to lie to Dad, though? Doesn’t he know…what you are?”

  Mom’s eyes got all misty, and she glanced away. “He knows. That’s…that’s how we met. It was the late ‘60s, during the student movement: civil rights protests, pro-labor rallies, meetings to promote equality for women. He was a captain in the army then. His men, searching for secret anarchist meetings and so forth, found my mother and some other naguales, and—oh, Sweetie—they killed them. Then they began to investigate their families. Your dad tracked me down…I was studying at the UNAM in Mexico City. He pretended to be a graduate student. We…I fell for him. He’s pretty handsome, you know.” She laughed a little. “Anyway, I guess he couldn’t go through with…turning me in or whatever. When he told me the truth, I hated him a little. But by then I had no choice. I had to be with him. He could protect me in ways I couldn’t protect myself. He made me swear to stop transforming. I never told him it was hereditary, but I’m guessing he knows. We haven’t spoken of it in twenty years.”

  I was so angry at my dad at that moment. I want to run into his office and confront him, tell the super important Colonel Quintero what I thought of him. But my mother took my hand and stroked my hair.

  “It’s the nature of things, Vero. Naguales, like other magical creatures, have been slaughtered throughout the history of Mexico. We are blamed for awful tragedies, and occasionally we have been guilty. And that’s why it’s very important that you never speak of this secret with anyone, not even your siblings. Especially not your father. You can’t leave any record of any of our lore, either. It has to be kept here and here.” She touched my head and heart.

  But I can’t keep this inside me. I’ll go crazy thinking about it. That’s why I hunted up the diary Dad bought me last year (I never wrote in it…never had secrets up until now), and now I’m using it to find relief. I’m excited, I’m scared, I want to cry, I want to laugh. Tonight Mom will be with me again, running free under the silvery moon. I’m going to try to remember more. And when she takes me to the mountain, I’m going to learn everything I can.

  Johnny stood up and mused aloud. “The García Caves. Dad said they used to be underwater grottoes, like millions of years ago. Remember how he wanted to take us to see them in fifth grade?”

  Carol nodded. “Yeah, and Mom got all panicky and said no. That it was too dangerous or something.”

  Their grandmother muttered excitedly.

  Johnny knelt beside her. “The caves are important, yeah?”

  A tear welled up in the old woman’s good eye. “Va-va-va-vayan.”

  Johnny nodded and glanced over at his sister, who was flipping through the remaining pages. “She wants us to go, Carol. To the caves.”

  Holding up the diary, she pointed to a blank page. “There are just a few more entries, and then nothing. Did you catch her, abue? Is that what happened? You took it away to protect her?”

  Tears were now rolling down their grandmother’s face. Before she could attempt to say anything further, Andrea walked in.

  “Kids, it’s time for…” As her voice trailed off, she rushed to her mother. “What happened? Why is she crying?”

  A little panicked, Johnny blurted, “We don’t know. We were talking about Mom and she got like this.”

  “Well, shoo, both of you. It’s not good for her to get this worked up. Go wash your hands. Dinner’s on the table.” She began making soft, reassuring sounds as she embraced the old woman and tried to console her. Carol closed the journal and pressed it to her side as she walked out of the room. Johnny followed.

  By the time she was wheeled to her place at the table, their grandmother had grown calm, a peaceful expression softening the lines on her face, making her look as Johnny remember from the early years of his childhood. In a few months he would become a teen, but he suspected he would never be able to forget how his grandmother had fostered his love for building, buying him blocks and Legos, then model kits of buildings and bridges. She understands me. It was tough, seeing her become an invalid. I didn’t want to face it. But now I’ve got to understand her. There’s something important here, and not just that me and Carol are shapeshifters. She needs us to do something. In the caves.

  After dessert, Stefani wanted them to go with her to the movies, but the twins begged off, saying that they were exhausted and wanted to turn in early. They sat down across from each other, on narrow guest beds cushioned with thick San Marcos blankets, and said nothing for the longest time.

  “We have to go to the caves,” Johnny finally said.

  Carol nodded. “She definitely wants us to go. I guess you want to learn to master this whole shape-shifting thing, huh?”

  For such a smart chick, she can be really dense . “Not just that, Carol. There’s something else. Why was Mom scared to return to those caves? I think…I don’t know how, but I think we can find out what happened to her there.”

  “Johnny, those old grottoes are four hours away from Donna. That’s not how she disappeared.”

  Johnny kicked off his Converse high-tops. “Dude, I know that. But maybe there are clues. Or maybe these mysterious ‘folk’ that Grandma mentioned to Mom know something. Does she ever say who they are in the diary?”

  Carol let the pages flip through her fingers. “Nah, the entries stop right before they take their trip.”

  “Well, we’ll have to find out for ourselves. When we head back to Monterrey, let’s get Andrea to stop. We’ll tell her we want to sightsee.”

  Carol slid the diary into her knapsack and pulled out her smart phone. “So, jaguars. Yikes. I guess that explains the spots I saw on you.”

  Johnny reached for the phone, started scrolling through the photos. “Yeah, I can see it now.” He paused on a close-up of his transforming face: a broad bridge of the nose, rounded feline ears, golden downy fur ringing his face. “I’m like a jaguar-man or something. You know, like the difference between a werewolf and a wolf-man?”

  “Ah, yeah, more like jaguar-boy. You don’t turn thirteen until September. Even then, man is going to be a bit of a stretch.”

  Johnny threw a pillow at her. “Ha, ha. Tonight’s your turn, mensa. I’ll stay up and use my tablet to record you. It’s got better resolution than your cheap phone, anyhow. Then we can make fun of how you look, okay?”

  ~~~

  They made preparations and then hit the sack. It took forever for Carol to fall asleep. She’s such a freaking night-owl. Johnny had gone down to the nearest depósito and picked up a two-liter soda and a bunch of Gansitos. He set to munching on the chocolate pastries and swigging the caffeine and sugar-laden drink while sketching a building whose curved ceilings were reminiscent of enormous caves.

  Eventually the sugar rush wore off. He struggled to stay alert, but his eyes kept shutting. He would jolt awake with a start, only to find Carol still asleep and still fully human. Just when he was about to give up on his surveillance, however, she growled, and all grogginess left him as he lifted his tablet and pressed record.

  Carol was crouching on her bed, sniffing at the air. Pointed ears sat high on her skull, and her jaw had stretched into a snout. Her arms were covered in gray fur with tan and black highlights or ma
rkings, ending in claws that dug into the blanket. She tilted her head and stared at him.

  “Uh, Carol, you don’t look like a jaguar to me,” he muttered, his voice trembling. She snapped her jaws, then leapt from the bed, landing in a crouch on the floor near the open window. Ignoring the ladder they’d propped against the house, Carol dove into the night. Johnny rushed to the windowsill. His sister was loping toward the peach grove. When she reached the first trees, she tilted back her head and howled.

  “Dude!” Johnny muttered, flipping the tablet around to record his annoyance. “How come she gets to be a wolf?”

  He glanced down again and gasped. A jaguar sat in the sandy dirt, staring up at him. It gestured with its head as if inviting him down. Then it turned and ran after his sister.

  Could that be…? His heart racing, Johnny lay down, trying to fall asleep. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins. This is insane! I need to transform! I’ve got to blank my mind. He plugged his earbuds in and dialed up some soothing electronica. It did nothing. His frustration was overwhelming.

  And then, finally, he dropped into the dark.

  Chapter Five

  Racing alongside her brother, their grandmother as a jaguar before them, guiding them . The smell of open spaces, the feel of the moon on her muzzle, the taste of fresh blood on her tongue. The jaguar circling them, drawing them down on all fours. The human girl inside falling further away as the wolf-self comes more fully forward. Seeing the invisible skeins that connect rock, root and claw: the ties that make human friendship pale in comparison.