like something greater is wrapping its arms around me and pulling me
into the black hole.
I grab on to the sides. He expects me to jump into that ?
Nova doesn’t give me a chance. His hands press on my shoulders. He
shoves me into the portal.
I scream into the void, down, down, down, into a pitch-black sky.
I scream even as I feel Nova’s hands holding mine. Can I still call it
the sky if we’re falling down? Whatever it may be-sky, space, a black
hole-the wind is warm, and after a few moments, I relax into the fall.
We’re a tangle of limbs flailing in the wind. It’s a relief to hear
him screaming too. I catch glimpses of Nova as we pass by what can
only be stars. He’s staring right at me, smiling triumphantly. We’ve
done it. We’ve created a portal and thrown ourselves blindly into it.
The sense of calm goes away when a light erupts below us.
His hands start to let go.
“Don’t!” I shout, but the wind carries my words away.
We spin and turn over until I can’t tell which direction we came
from or if we’re ever going to stop. All I know is our black hole
seems to shrink, the walls closing in until we’re in a tunnel made of
space and starlight.
“Let go!” Nova says.
I hold on by the tips of my fingers. “Are you crazy?”
“Trust me!”
How can I trust him when he pulls his hands from mine and lets me
go?
Part II
The Fall
13
La Mama and El Papa shaped Los Lagos to their liking.
A place for all souls and a home for the banished.
- On Los Lagos, Book of Cantos
Falling was the easy part.
Trying to open my eyes is not. Like there’s a weight on top of
them. When I try to sit, my body sends pinpricks of pain through my
sides. My magic pulses weakly. I can hear it whisper to the
surrounding trees.
I don’t remember hitting the ground, though I’m cushioned by
curly, dark-green grass that tickles my cheek. The copper taste of
blood fills my mouth from where I must’ve bitten my tongue. I lean
back on my elbows and take in the scenery.
The scarlet trees are so tall their lush, black leaves form a
protective barrier that blocks out the sky. There’s an energy here
that feels as old as time itself. Whispers come from the wind weaving
between branches, the trickle of water down tree trunks, and the
chirping of insects foreign to me. Giant, heart-shaped plants shoot up
from the ground, like natural shelter for the lazy snails dragging
their shells on the rain forest ground.
It’s familiar but not. The colors are all wrong. Like I was
wearing a dull filter my whole life and now there are only the
brilliant hues, raw and dark all at once.
“Nova?”
I stand through the pain. I give thanks to El Terroz by taking a
bit of dirt and pressing it to the center of my forehead.
“Nova?” I say a little louder.
I clutch my crescent moon necklace for some sort of comfort, but
it doesn’t help. I don’t know what I was expecting from Los Lagos, but
a rain forest wasn’t part of it. A whooshing noise catches my
attention, like when the windows are open and my mom is driving down
the highway. I move slowly toward a great big hole in the ground where
a tree has split in two. Thick roots shoot out of the ground, as if
the tree tried to pick up and walk away. I touch a root and feel the
familiar warmth of the tree in my backyard. The black hole sucks in
dirt and leaves and tiny worms, like an insatiable mouth. Its pull
makes me lean toward the swirling void. Slowly, it starts to shrink.
If Lula were here, I’d tell her it reminds me of my screensaver, and
then she’d snicker and Rose would laugh.
Hands fall on my shoulders. I kick back. He grunts.
“We just fell through that,” Nova says, pulling me back a dozen
steps. “You do not want to go back out that way.”
“Why not?” I ask, a wave of vertigo crashing over me. There’s a
black spot in my line of sight from staring at the portal. I shake it
off and focus on Nova. “We can’t just go home that way?”
“The portal is a one-way deal. It’ll close on its own. You’d be
falling with nowhere to go, Ladybird.”
I punch his arm. “ Stop calling me a bird.”
He rubs his bicep, though I doubt it hurt. “I can’t help it. You
remind me of a flightless bird.”
“Flightless birds are penguins and ostriches. And a ladybird is a
bug , genius. That’s not endearing.”
“Fine. You’re a falcon. You just haven’t learned to fly yet.”
For the first time, I notice the bruise on his cheek from the
fall. It looks painful, yet it doesn’t stop him from smiling. Does he
think everything is funny?
“Come on,” he says when I fail to respond.
Behind him is a small camp. There’s a clear patch on the ground
and a fallen tree trunk blanketed by black moss, where he’s spread out
our map, the mace, and a couple of water bottles. I’m suddenly
incredibly thirsty and drink mine in almost one gulp. Nova chuckles,
then refills it from a curled leaf.
“The map marks the safe drinking water,” he tells me.
“That’s good to know. How long have I been out?”
“Time is a human fabrication,” he says, like he’s reciting from a
textbook, “and doesn’t exist in Los Lagos.”
I roll my eyes. “How many fabricated minutes on the ticking thing
around my wrist was I out for, then?”
“Fifteen,” he mumbles. “Thought you could use some rest before we
get going. And check your ticking thing. It’s not ticking no more.”
I tap my waterproof watch, and sure enough, the numbers are
frozen.
Nova walks over to sit on the tree trunk. He shifts all his weight
to his right side when he moves.
“You’re limping.”
“I came down on my left side. I’m fine. It’ll fade.”
“What’s that humming sound?”
“It’s the magic of this place. Don’t you feel it?”
I feel something, like a pulse so rapid all you hear is a
vibrating sound.
“Los Lagos is a place of power. You have power, whether you want
it or not. The land calls out to us. It’s saying hello.”
I stare at the brilliant-blue bug that looks like something out of
a prehistoric exhibit. It scurries across the dirt, right past my
feet. Then it opens up its hard shell, revealing wings. It flies
around my head.
“Hello,” I say, while Nova laughs at me.
“I wouldn’t touch anything,” he says.
“Is it poisonous?” I jerk away from the buzzing little bug. Then
it loses interest in me and flies away into the trees.
“I don’t know,” he says, “but it’s just common sense to not touch
things unless you know what they are.”
“You could always volunteer as a test subject,” I muse.
“So could you.”
The heat starts to rise. I can feel the air turning to steam. I
sit beside him on the tree trunk, facing the map. It’s the most
precious thing we have right now. I touch the thick parchment, whisper
a rezo for my family.
Nova nudges me with his shoulder, sending a spark of pain from the
landing.
“We’re here.” He taps his finger on a dark sketch of land labeled
Selva of Ashes. “It’s a land unto its own, separating it from the rest
of Los Lagos by a river. We have to get across the river, through the
Caves of Night, take this middle path from the fork in the road that
leads through Meadow del Sol, over this small mountain range called
Las Peñas, and boom. We’re at the labyrinth. Cake.”
I want to hyperventilate and slap him at the same time. There’s a
black blotch above the Tree of Souls, at the center of the labyrinth,