Summer of the Mariposas: Prologue–Chapter 3

Indiscriminate in taste, the mariposas flittered over cultivated gardens as happily as they danced over thorn-ridden lots and neglected fields.

One day, however, right before he left, Papá made up a particularly ominous riddle.
“La Sirena,” he called, holding up the card for The Mermaid. “La mujer who wants to take your Papá away! No! We won’t let her!”

Most days, however, we rode our bikes as far away from home as we could get, a flighty brood of the tiny butterflies straggling behind us.

With our chubby little sister, Pita, sitting precariously on the handlebars of my bike, we pedaled down to the river, rode through one of the large gaps in the eleven-foot border fence, and swam for hours at a time without drinking or eating anything more than the watermelons we chilled in the bank of our river.

The waters of the Rio Grande were unruly and loud, but we had found an alcove far off El Indio Highway, a pebbled niche where the current swirled in peacefully and stayed for a while, as if to rest from its long, draining journey over boulders and through canyons all the way from Colorado down to our miniature bay in Eagle Pass.

We stood, all five of us, drenched with fear on the bank of the river, staring wildly at the first cadaver we’d ever seen in our lives.

His thick tresses floated loosely around his head like the black tentacles of a sea monster.

Juanita’s face broke into a grin. “We're going to be on TV!” She sobered a little when she glanced down at the body again.

I reached over and picked the bigger pieces of debris out of them as I mulled over our predicament.

I tried to think of a way out of it as I chastised myself for bringing the girls to swim in the river all summer long.

The camera would love them, no matter what they were wearing or how disheveled their hair had become.

Not me—like Juanita I was big boned, darkly bronzed from being out in the sun every day, and homely as a gingersnap.

The way the current worked here, once something floated into an eddy it had to be pushed out again.

Knowing Juanita and her quixotic ways, this could turn into one of her many harebrained schemes.

Although she was only a year older than the twins, who were thirteen and full of cuss words and spite, Juanita was much taller and more muscular.

“He hasn’t been dead very long,” she hypothesized.

“See, no riga-morphus.”
“Rigor mortis,” I corrected.

Their announcement piqued Pita’s interest.

“We have to turn it all in—the wallet, the money, everything,” I said resolutely.

“Because why?” Juanita demanded doggedly. “Give me one good reason.”

One minute her long, white dress was billowing against her legs, and the next she was gone.

Like a ghostly apparition, she vanished into the surreal light of the fading sunset.

She sat cross-legged on their dilapidated dresser, smug as a cat.

To my surprise, the twins flounced off the bed. All four of my sisters marched out and down the hall to the kitchen without another word.

Her black hair was twisted up in a haphazard knot and the dark circles under her eyes were more pronounced tonight.

But I wasn’t worried about her anymore, because she wasn’t as sad as she used to be and she was eating again. She looked more like me and Juanita now, strong and voluptuous, but tired from working so hard.

Soon, I covered up with her blanket and pretended to snore, congratulating myself the whole time. I was bien águila, the queen of ruse.

I pulled off Mamá’s frumpy shoes and pushed on my own sneakers.

Velia held a flashlight, while Juanita, who had brought a pair of Papá’s old jeans, one of his dress shirts, and his cowboy boots, dressed the body with the reverence of a dedicated mortician.

The short trees tore at her immaculate white dress, but she didn’t care.

I swam with long even strokes, trying to remain in control of my body, not letting the undertow pull me down.

The water rose over my head and swirled around me like a whirlpool, dragging me deeper and deeper, until the thin light of dawn turned into darkness, and I couldn’t see anything anymore.
All was obscurity and cold, and I thought I would drown.

A penance for my part in it. I should have been more careful, made sure they were always safe.

I considered her words and wondered why someone would willingly punish herself for all eternity. It seemed implausible to me. But then again, I was standing on the edge of the river talking to a ghost.

Standing beside the hackberry shrubs with hundreds of empty desiccated cocoons still clinging to their branches and a carpet of butterfly corpses under her feet, La Llorona did not look anything like a malevolent specter.

“It is an eternal atonement, to watch over the children of the sun, the children of my people, the Azteca bloodline.”

“Yes. You are descendant of a great people,” she continued, pulling my attention away from my wild, erratic thoughts and making me focus on the situation at hand.

La Llorona’s gaunt face shriveled up like a pale raisin, becoming sallow and ashen, creased by centuries of wrinkles and dark blotches.

“It belongs to you now. Wear it on your left ear. When you need help, take hold of it, spin it, and invoke the goddess, the Aztec queen, Tonantzin, the Holy Mother of all mankind, and ask for her magical assistance. Whatever you ask, she will provide.”

I focused back on the spectral woman whose voice was becoming more strained.