The Last Cuentista

I glance up at Fire Snake in silence. “I’m going to be just like you, Lita. A storyteller.”

She sits up, legs crossed, facing me. “A storyteller, yes. It’s in your blood.” She leans in. “But just like me? No, mija. You need to discover who you are and be that.”

“What if I ruin your stories?” I ask.

Lita cups my chin in her soft, brown hand. “You can’t ruin them. They’ve traveled hundreds of years, and through many people to find you. Now, go make them your own.”

“Fairy gowns and suits shimmer like the wings of dragonflies. Fairies drink from cups the shape of lupine bells. Fountains of juice and nectar of all different colors fill their cups.” I close my eyes. “Trees filled with fireflies twinkle with their glittering—”

Mom gasps again, interrupting me and pointing in the opposite direction. “What’s that?”

I turn away from the magical fairy party inside the tallest cactus arm. Mom’s flashlight is pointing at a very real shrub with little yellow flowers.

I sigh. “Creosote.”

“Good job!” she says. “Isn’t botany great?”

“Mmmh,” I mumble, realizing what this really is. It was fun while it lasted, though.

She kisses my head and points her light back at the house. “And there lives the loveliest of all the fairies. Petra Fairy. And she needs a shower before bed.” Mom catches my eye and winks. “Beat ya there.”

She takes off running, and I sprint after her, terrified of the darkness.

[The Chancellor] motions to where Earth spun peacefully a few moments earlier. “Today we celebrate our arrival to the new planet. What happened to the former world was not a tragedy. It was an opportunity to leave our past behind. Thanks to the Collective, not a single memory of a world filled with conflict, starvation, or war will find its way into our future.”

My parents wanted a better future too. But Dad said exactly the opposite of how people needed to get there. “It’ll be our job to remember the parts we got wrong and make it better for our children and grandchildren. Embrace our differences, and still find a way to make peace.”

“Once, there was a princess named Blancaflor,” I begin. It’s not a standard fairy tale. Parts of it I’m not even sure how to tell in English. Lita said there was a time, when she was a little girl, she didn’t dare speak Spanish in public, or share her stories where others could hear. A time when her language and the color of her skin could mean trouble. So, under a blanket of starry skies and piñon smoke, out of habit, she whispered her stories to me in Spanglish. Her own version, passed from her grandmother, and her grandmother’s grandmother—each of them a slightly different version depending on what was happening in their world at the time.

I remember what Lita said about my stories. “Never be ashamed of where you come from, or the stories your ancestors bring to you. Make them your own.”

I will never be a real storyteller now like Lita. But for Zeta-4, I decide to tell one more. And for Lita, I’ll make it my own.

“Finally, Blancaflor delivered the prince safely back to his own home and family. The prince’s father was grateful that Blancaflor returned his son to him…” Make it my own. “And the king was so impressed with her cleverness, he made Blancaflor his heir and next ruler of his kingdom. She chose the prince as her sidekick for his knowledge of the kingdom, where she ruled with intelligence and kindness. Blancaflor not only ruled the prince’s kingdom, but went on to outwit her own ogre of a father, and any other tyrant or ruler who was unkind.”

Maybe no one is paying attention. I could throw the monitor into the lake. The cave will hide my heat signature. I’d be free.

I close my eyes and imagine myself back in Lita’s arms. “Can you imagine the fear Blancaflor must have felt?” She clicks her tongue. “Still she mounted the flying horse and trusted it to deliver her and the prince across a vast ocean. All the while the king on an even faster horse, flying at their heels[…]”

Lita said about Blancaflor: “If you don’t take a risk, you cannot cross the ocean.”

I glance back toward the shuttle. Once behind those vines, they’ll never see me. And Len wouldn’t have the guts to even look. […]

I turn to face [Feathers]. She smiles up at me. Just like chick feathers, her baby hairs are plastered to her forehead from Sagan’s humidity. And staring down, I realize it.

I can’t leave her and Rubio behind on the ship to spend their lives with Nyla.

Suddenly, I know what Lita’s words really mean. Blancaflor wasn’t just brave because she crossed the ocean herself. She was brave because she took the risk in saving the prince.

Feathers sits next to me. “I really liked the cuento you told about Los Viejos and the shiny gems and stones, Zeta-1. Especially the ending when they lived by the river and planted fruit trees and crops and the children from all the neighboring towns arrived to run and play through the orchards.” She sighs. “I’d like to see an orchard someday.”

I turn my head quickly. It’s a great addition to the story, but I know I didn’t mention children running or playing in orchards.

Rubio continues, “I liked how Los Viejos helped the poor and homeless after the great pandemic.”

Tingles run up and over my spine. I definitely didn’t mention the great pandemic from back in the twenties. If they’re remembering things from home, it’s great. But my gut tells me now it’s better for them to remember after we’re on Sagan.

Javier tilts his head and leans in closer. He whispers, opening to the first page, “Dreamers.”

My voice shakes. “One day we bundled gifts in our backpack and crossed a bridge outstretched like the universe. And we made it to the other side, thirsty, in awe.”

Page after page I read, searching his eyes for recognition. Just a spark. I read louder when they enter the new land, the things they did not understand, the fear, the mistakes. Searching, like we are, for a place to belong and feel safe, until they found a new and magical home. I turn to the page with the child sitting on his mom’s lap. Just like Javier and I used to. I turn again to the page where the orange-and-black monarch sits atop the page like he could take flight any moment. Javier touches it like he always has. Every. Single. Time.

Suddenly the old man before me is my little brother again. I choke out the final words. “Books became our language. Books became our home. Books became our lives.”

Tears drip down the sides of my cheeks. I want to fight, not give up. But it no longer matters. The thing I was fighting for—a life with Javier, a future for the other kids, to be a great storyteller. What kind of storyteller am I if I couldn’t even reach my own brother? Lita would be ashamed. I wish they would hurry and get this over with.

Nyla [the Chancellor] sits on a stool next to the pod and slips on gloves like she’s a dental hygienist about to perform a cleaning. “I have never had the opportunity to speak with one of you. A relic, that is,” she says. “You are one of the few left who actually experienced what your kind had become. Polluting your own air and rivers and oceans…for profit. Starving some so others become bloated. It is for those reasons the Collective exists.”

Now, I can say what I want. I don’t have to pretend anymore. But I can’t speak. And I can’t look at her. She’s right. Those things did happen for the greed of a few. But most, like my parents, still had hope for something better.

She stops for a moment, staring down at me. “Fascinating.”

I turn to the mountains, where the rabbit is nearly a pinpoint.

This time I sprint. I’m out of breath by the time he scurries into the tiny hole at the red mountain’s base. […]

I’m two steps back to where I came from when, just like before, when guitars and fiddles twang like a distant fiesta. I turn slowly back to the mountain. […] I walk and the desert sand gives way to a cobblestone path, its vermillion stones worn and rounded by what looks like millions who must have travelled it before me. […] In the center of a room, smoke drifts lazily out of the top of a chiminea, leaving the room in a magical haze. I sniff the air. Pinon. As I step inside closer to the flickering blue flames, I scan the space around me. Like spokes on a wheel, rows and rows of wooden shelves surround me. From floor to ceiling the shelves are crammed. I squint to see what is so important el Conejo brought me here. My heart leaps with joy when I realize what they are. The shelves are lined with librex.

I pull [Voxy] into a hug. “Why are you here?”

“I saw what Nyla and the others did to you. I don’t want to be like them. If I go back, I will be part of that. Part of the Collective.”

The idea of that happening to Voxy makes me shudder.

He bows his head. “And…and I want to have cuentos too.”

How could I not see this coming? And he’s right. He should have all those things. Will the Collective hold his hand when he’s scared? Will they tell him stories to calm his nerves?

It’s too late for my little brother, but maybe I can give Voxy the childhood Javier never got to have.

“If I stay with you…?” Voxy’s timid voice trails off.

I grit my teeth, and a tear falls inside my visor. “If you stay with us, you’d be Voxy,” I answer. “Just Voxy. A boy who gets to have his own cuento.”

His jaw settles in a stubborn clench. “Then I choose to be Voxy. Voxy who gets to have his own cuento.”

I close my eyes and suddenly I’m behind Lita’s house in the desert. The chirp of the flying lizards here, singing to their friends high above the trees, sounds like the coyotes singing back home. I even imagine sweet elephant-ear wood smoke drifting into Sagan’s starry sky.

Lita’s voice fills my head. “Set your intention.” Tears well in my eyes. I let my memories fill me. I am bringing all of them: Mom, Dad, Lita, Javier, and our home. Ben and my crumbling library, deep in my mind. The stories of Lita and my ancestors. I’m bringing them all to this world.

The winds pick up high above, branches billowing in Sagan’s warm breeze, just like the New Mexico desert. I look around at Rubio, Feathers, Voxy, and Suma: different colors and sizes. However dissimilar, we feel like an unexpected family.

“A few brave humans left their home on the nagual’s mother, Earth. They took very little and left behind so much they loved, in hopes of finding a new home for their children, and their children’s children, and all humans to come. […] The fire snake mourned for the loss of his mother, blaming himself. […] He had no choice. He followed the only thing that felt like home, the only thing familiar to him.” I point to [Rubio] and Feathers and Voxy. “Humans.

“For hundreds of years, the fire snake trailed the humans on their exodus.” I point in the direction of the west. “Staying within a safe distance, for fear he might accidentally harm them too. He dared not get too close. But when they arrived at their new home, and the fire snake with them, he realized he could not live on the dark side of Sagan, to the east, as its ice might extinguish his fiery breath forever.”

A warm gust from the west times itself perfectly with my story.

“See?” I say. “He sends his comforting winds to the humans, a promise he will keep a safe distance, but send his breath to keep them warm. A reminder that he’s here to protect us, the other children of his mother, Earth.”