I knew my uncle well enough to know it would be useless to insist. So I swallowed my questions and followed him onto the beach. As we left the arch, I noticed that the tide had turned, and the water was starting to reach the rocks.
For a while, nobody spoke. Against the sound of the waves on the sand and the shrieking call of the seagulls, my uncle’s words played in my mind. Suddenly I realized something in his story was wrong.
“But Tío, if you both returned to California, why is Mother still in my world?”
My uncle did not hesitate. “That happened later. Many years later. Your mother was already in college studying to be a physician. She would have been a good one, I’m sure. She was so strong-willed, I don’t think any patient of hers could have refused to get better. But your father had other plans. He came over one night, alone. By then your grandfather had died in one of his glorious battles, and your father was king. So Don Andrés came and took your mother to be his queen.”
“Really, Tío? But Mother couldn’t have been so easy to convince.”
“Well, it is true it was not so simple. But your mother was not the problem. She was willing to go as soon as she saw him. I think she had fallen in love with him when she first met him. The real problem was how to explain to our family why she would never return. And how to keep her disappearance from the papers.”
“The Papers?” He had said the word in a curious way, as if it carried a capital P.
“Yes, the papers and the TV and . . .” He laughed. “Don’t worry, you’ll understand soon enough.”
Suddenly Tío stopped. Following his stare, I saw a dark figure standing still over the dunes. “Kelsey!” my uncle whispered, visibly upset. Then, after ordering me to wait, he walked in long strides toward the girl.
The girl addressed him first in an angry voice. Bewildered, I watched them argue. I had assumed until then that the young people were Tio’s pupils, but the girl was not showing any respect for Tío Ramiro. In fact, if the tone of their voices was any indication of their respective ranks, she seemed to be the one in charge.
After a couple of minutes of furious shouting, the girl turned her back on my uncle and stalked away. After a slight hesitation,Tío shrugged his shoulders and came back to where I was waiting. “Come, Andrea. Let’s go,” he said sharply, already walking away. “And whatever you do, don’t say anything about your world.”
I nodded. What difference could it make what I said to them? Had Tío forgotten I could not understand their language anyway?
I ran after him. “Tío, who is the girl? Why is she upset?”
Tío turned and stared deep into my eyes. “She’s Kelsey. My daughter.”
I gasped. “Your daughter! You have a daughter and never told me?”
“Why should I have told you about Kelsey?” Tio’s voice was annoyingly calm. “You were not supposed to meet her. Ever. Your world and mine can never mix. I’m sorry Andrea, but you have to go back.”
“Go back? I don’t want to go back!”
“Let’s go to the house. Tomorrow we will discuss the matter further. But don’t get your hopes up, Princess. Whether you want it or not, you will return to your world.”
I will not, I said to myself. But I knew better than to start an argument with Tío when he was angry. Pretending to agree, I rushed after him.
In front of us, over the dunes, the pale moon of the new world was watching. As I stared in wonder at its mysterious silvery light, my uncle’s words came back to me: The door only opens when the full moon rises over the eastern horizon. I smiled. Tío had no choice. I was staying. At least for a while.
7
The New World
The shrieking call of a seagull woke me up. Across the room, framed in the window, I could see a long stretch of sand rolling gently to the shore and the blue mantle of the ocean lost in the mist. Where was I? The seagull cried again, and as its second call died in the distance, memories of the previous evening flashed through my mind.
Wide awake now, I pushed away the blanket and jumped from the narrow bed Tío Ramiro had referred to as “sofa.” My hand on the doorknob, I hesitated. More than anything, I wanted to go downstairs to meet my cousin and her friends—Tío had whisked me upstairs as soon as we entered the house, and I hadn’t seen them yet—but I had promised my uncle I would stay in the room until he came for me. Not daring to disobey his orders on this, my very first day in his world, I dropped my hand and moved back.
The room Tío had called “his study” was small, the size of a cell in my parents’ castle, but so amazingly crowded, I barely had space to move about. I was certain I had never seen so many things together in my entire life. Some I recognized—a table and chairs, books, and paintings. Others challenged my imagination, like the square shiny box staring at me with my own bewildered face reflecting from its black surface. Close to it, by the candle that burned without fire, a tray with food had mysteriously appeared. A rumbling noise in my stomach made me realize I was starving. That was not surprising, for I had not eaten anything since the soup Ama Bernarda had given me the previous day in my own world, after my fight with Rosa.
I had already finished the fruit and bread and was drinking the surprisingly sweet orange liquid when, with a knock at the door,Tío Ramiro came in. “Good morning.”
I ran to him. “Where is everybody,Tío? I can’t wait to meet them.”
“I’m afraid the meeting will have to wait,Andrea,” Tío said coldly. “As a matter of fact, it’ll have to wait forever. Kelsey and her friends are gone.”
“Gone? But . . . why? Where?”
“Kelsey was so upset I hadn’t told her about you that she left last night. As for where, she went back to Davis, the town where she actually lives.”
I frowned, confused. “Doesn’t she live here with you?”
“I live in Davis, too. We only come here on the weekends—I mean, sometimes.”
“What about your wife? Is she here?”
“My wife? I don’t have a wife. Kelsey’s mother and I don’t live together. Haven’t in ages.”
It was obvious my uncle did not want to elaborate further, so I changed the subject. “I’m sorry,Tío. I didn’t mean to cause you trouble with your daughter.”
Tío nodded. “It’s all right. She’ll get over it soon enough. As for you, young lady, you are staying here with me until the next full moon. And then, like it or not, you go back to your world.”
“But—”
“No buts, Princess, or you will not so much as step out of this house for the entire month. So now,” he continued as he handed me some clothes, “put these on. They’re Kelsey’s. I think they’ll fit you.” Without giving me time to answer, he turned and left.
I stared at the door, and for a moment I even considered opening it, outrunning Tío, and leaving the house. But where could I go? Besides, Tío was right about one thing: I had to get rid of my old clothes if I was to blend in. Curious about the strange garments, I put them on. They fit me. At least I thought they did, as I was not sure how they were supposed to look—my only glance at the New World’s fashion having been in the dark.
Once I was ready, we left the house and Tío helped me into his so-called “car.” With a deafening explosion, the car came to life and started roaring as if an angry beast was inside fighting to get free. I screamed and grabbed onto the exit handle.
“It’s all right, Andrea,” Tío said. But the noise did not stop, and even worse, the car started moving.
I screamed again. And again Tío Ramiro told me to relax; according to him, there was no cause for alarm. Then, as the car rolled forward into the black wide path, a wave of nausea grabbed me, and for a moment, I was too busy keeping my breakfast down to think of anything else.
Tío, oblivious to my discomfort, was talking. “I want you to understand that your coming here was a mistake. As far as my world is concerned, yours does not exist. And that is how things must remain. It is not safe otherwise.”