Desert Secrets

At the far edge of our village, the crumbling stone wall from great-great-great-grandfather’s days marked the point where our land ended and the neighboring village, Anahuac, began. There was not much there, except for the statues. Four figures stood along the wall, shaped like men but with no distinct impression of faces—only coarse stone. Not much rain fell in our area of northern Mexico, so the statues were untouched by erosion. They remained a feature of our village for many years, never changing.

Great-grandmother, our mother’s abuela, told me and my brother stories from her childhood about the naguals, or witches, who live secretly among the villagers. She said that the naguals were responsible for the statues, that the statues were once uncles or fathers or sisters or daughters who misbehaved in some way and were then turned to stone.

“Misbehave, like when we don’t feed the chickens?”

“No, mis hijos, like when you hurt someone real bad or tell a big lie.”

“Oh, so really bad things.”

“Yes, really bad things.”

Papá said to ignore Abuela Rosalinda, that she was old and did not know what she said, but Mamá clucked at him.

“Ramón, you think you know? Were you alive back then? No, but Abuela was. She knows,” she would say to him. And to us: “Don’t you mess around with the naguals. They know things. They can hurt you. You must be fair, and good, and honest. I don’t want to lose you.”

Catarina DeLeon was perhaps the most beautiful woman in all our village, responsible for many of the boys first discovering their curiosity about girls. She had long, silky black hair that she often let flow around her slender shoulders, and she would hide behind it like a curtain when a man asked to take her to dinner (though she of course said yes; why would she say no?).

It was said that Catarina was an ugly child—that her parents were so thankful when she became a woman and the ugliness melted away to reveal her “true looks.”

Abuela had a different explanation, though. We were helping Papá feed the chickens while great-grandmother sat in her rocking chair on the porch. As Catarina walked by, even our father paused his chores to watch. Great-grandmother seized the opportunity to say something.

“Mis hijos, do you see that girl over there? The one with the long hair? I remember her as a child. She was such an ugly baby, but I tell her mamá, I tell her, ‘What a sweet baby girl you have!’ I did not want to say to her face that she had made such an ugly baby.”

“What happened to her, Abuela? How come she isn’t ugly anymore?” Gabriel asked.

“A nagual, that’s what. I tell you, she was not a pretty girl. Only the magic of the naguals could have done that to her, make her pretty like that.”

Great-grandmother nodded knowingly while Papá shook his head, silently going back to his chores.

By the time we were old enough to roam the village by ourselves—only during the day, of course; Mamá would have been very distressed if we were out past sundown—Abuela’s stories seemed less scary, so we decided to visit the statues during our summer break. We followed Tomás because he was two years older and said he knew the way. It was a long walk, but we were up early and left as soon as there was daylight. The sun bore down on us, our scalps scorching under its glare. “Too long in the heat and you will simply evaporate,” Abuela always said.

When Tomás finally saw the wall in the distance, he took off running. Gabriel and I, not to be left behind, chased after him. The statues were lined up along the border of our village, just as Abuela had said they would be. Nearest to us was the man with the horseshoes nailed to his hands (Abuela said he had stolen his neighbor’s horse) and a few others stood in a row, a total of five in all. The figures had an odd quality about them, one that I cannot to this day do justice in describing, but it was as if they were brand new and ancient at the same time. Carved of stone with rough-hewn faces and only the slightest indication that there was a mouth, a nose, and eyes. There was no definition of the hands and barely any distinction of gender; only the stories from our great-grandparents identified who these statues supposedly were.

Tomás stretched his hand out as if to touch the horseshoe man.

“You’ll get turned to stone like him if you touch him,” I warned.

“How would you know, Sabino?”

“Because our abuela told us so,” Gabriel, usually so shy, defended me.

Tomás hesitated. “Still, they look really old, don’t they? Except that one—it looks newer.” He pointed to the end of the row.

Gabriel and I looked down the line to see one on the end that looked shiny, almost, by comparison. We glanced at each other and slowly moved closer.

“Sabino, didn’t you say there were only four?” Gabriel asked when we were standing in front of the last statue.

“I think that’s what Abuela said.”

The figure before us was a deep blue and, for all I could tell, a woman. The indentations were more dramatic, with hints of breasts and a waist. Wrapped around the statue, though, was barbed wire: clean, smooth, and without rust. Entwined within the wire were the petrified corpses of butterflies, frozen mid-flight and in a dizzying array of colors—orange, white, red, blue, black, purple—no two alike but all so tragically beautiful.

“I think this one is new. We … uh, we should go.” Tomás sounded worried. He was the toughest kid in school, who had only lost one fight to someone much older. For him to be scared was not a good sign.

“Come on, let’s go tell someone. Let’s go tell your papá, Tomás,” I said, reaching for Gabriel’s hand. We each looked at the statue for a brief moment longer and then, as if on cue, we started to run, our legs carrying our bodies as far away from the statues as possible.

Tomás started shouting as soon as we could see Señor Arciniega’s house at the far side of our village, the last one before miles of open desert began. Within a few minutes, half of the village was rushing outside to see what the fuss was. We kept running until we got to the courthouse-jail, where Tomás’s dad worked as the sheriff.

Señor Piñeda was already outside and waiting for us. We headed straight for him, stopping abruptly, hands on our knees and struggling to catch our breath.

“What’s going on, boys? Did something happen?”

“It’s–it’s the statues. The statues, Papá,” Tomás forced out.

“What about the statues? Is there damage? What? What happened?”

“Señor Piñeda, sir, the statues—” I uttered between breaths. “We went to see them–there are five now–but our abuela said there were only four, so we–we ran here to–to tell you.”

“Five? What are you talking about? How can there be five?”

By now, many people had gathered around us and heard our tale. Whispers and indistinct mumbles started buzzing around our ears.

“What about the statues?”

“They say there are five now.”

“Five? But how can that be? Who is missing?”

“Someone must be missing. Who is not here with us?”

Señor Piñeda looked at us, trying to determine if we were telling the truth. I think he knew we wouldn’t—or couldn’t—lie about this.

“Okay, folks, I need to go look at the statues. Ramón, Delfino, Alfonso: You come with me. Everyone else, stay here. And boys, don’t go nowhere. I want to talk to you when we come back.”

“Yes, Papá,” Tomás said.

“Yes, sir,” I spoke for me and my brother.

Papá left with the others, climbing into Señor Piñeda’s truck, kicking up a cloud of dirt as they peeled out of the village. The adults all around us began to fervently talk, each adding their speculation to the mix. The only person I did not see joining this discussion was our abuela. I could see her down the road, rocking in her chair. I almost went to stand next to her, but decided to stay with the others and hopefully learn what happened when Papá and the others returned.

It didn’t take long for the men to come back in their truck, but they were in no hurry to join the crowd. Even Tomás’s dad hesitated. What was it they figured out that Tomás, Gabriel and I couldn’t? Señor Piñeda, Papá, and the others came back to where the crowd had formed, but none were willing to talk first.

“Well? What did you see?” someone finally asked after a prolonged moment of silence.

I could see everyone shifting their weight, inching closer. It felt as if the entire history of our village could change with what Señor Piñeda said next.

“There is a new statue.”

“Well? Who is it?” Alfonso’s wife asked.

Señor Piñeda looked at Papá, who looked at Alfonso.

“We believe it is Catarina DeLeon,” Alfonso said.

“Catarina? No!”

“This is terrible. Are you sure?”

“How can you know?”

The villagers’ questions came so fast it was hard to tell who said what.

“We think it is Catarina because she is not here with us now, and I honestly can’t remember seeing her this morning. I will of course be setting up a search party, and I’ll need help from all of you. In the meantime, I want everyone to be back in their homes by sundown—this is only a temporary precaution.

Tomás’s dad could barely be heard above the commotion, until one voice cut through the din.

“What does the statue look like?”

The chatter died instantly as the same thought ran through everyone’s mind: What had Catarina done to offend the naguals?

“The statue is wrapped in barbed wire, with some petrified butterflies tangled in the wire,” Señor Piñeda told the crowd.

“Barbed wire?”

“Butterflies?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that Catarina is now trapped in her own beauty.”

Everyone turned toward the last person to speak. Abuela tottered through the crowd, with the adults politely moving out of her way as she was so fragile, balancing with the use of her cane.

“Señora Rosalinda, how do you know this?” Tomás’s dad asked.

Abuela didn’t answer him, but stopped in the middle of the crowd and stood as erect as her frail body would allow.

“Abuela, what do you mean?” Papá asked. I watched closely as he searched Abuela’s face for an answer, yet she still did not say anything.

“Señora, do you know what happened to Catarina?”

Abuela locked eyes with Señor Piñeda and deliberated before finally saying, “She got what she deserved for not paying the naguals.”

“What do you mean ‘not paying’?” Papá asked.

The crowd was silent, no one daring to move. Abuela was a well-known figure in our village, having been a curandera, a healer, her whole life, until the knuckle disease prevented her from mixing her creams and brewing her teas. That she might know something was not entirely a surprise; she always had an answer to our questions.

“When you beg and plead and cry to the naguals that you are ugly and want to be pretty, and the naguals are kind enough to help you, do you expect that this was done for free? No. The naguals require something in return. Catarina did not pay, so Catarina got what she deserved.”

For a few moments, no one spoke. As the implications reeled in my mind, Papá finally asked, “Abuela, how do you know all this?”

“I simply know. That is all you need to be concerned with, Ramón.”

Mamá came over to Abuela and tried to usher her back home. Señor Piñeda jerked slightly, as if he were about to protest her leaving but decided against it. Instead, he told everyone to go home, that he would be organizing the search party in a little while.

Papá rounded up my brother and me and told us to go back home with Mamá and Abuela. We said our goodbyes to Tomás and some of the other kids who had joined their parents in the crowd, promising any information we learned.

Later that night, as we were getting ready for bed, we heard Mamá talking to Abuela, their voices drifting through the crack in the open door. We crouched at the doorway, trying to hear everything they said. Mamá sounded upset as she whispered fervently.

“Abuela, I thought you said no more. You promised my mother that you wouldn’t do it again.”

“Mija, I cannot stop being who I am. Besides, she knew the price, and she chose to ignore the warnings.”

“I know that, but promise me: no more. I can’t risk the boys finding out. You know what would happen to them in the village.”

“I won’t tell them, that I will promise. But I won’t promise to be something I’m not.”

Gabriel and I looked at each other, faces barely visible in the moonlight filtering through our window.

“Sabi, does this mean Abuela is a—”

“Ssh! Mamá is coming!”

I heard the click of Abuela’s door as Mamá shut it, heading down the hall to her room. Gabriel and I scrambled to get back to our beds, but before we could slip under the covers, Mamá opened our door and peered in at us. I could feel my heart pounding like a drum inside my chest.

“Why aren’t you–what are you–did you boys hear?”

Our voices had been stolen by the fright of being caught; I could only nod, and that was all that was necessary for the color to drain from Mamá’s face as she realized we had heard everything, that we knew the truth.

S. A. Scranton