By the time Coyote and I climbed out of the mine, the moon hung high in the sky. The desert air was chilly now, just a bit too icy to bear. I rubbed the cold tips of my ears and shivered. Coyote pouted at me like human frailty was annoying.
He strolled forward. “So where are we going, bruja?”
“Cece,” I said and started after him. “I know you know my name. If you’re going to be my criatura, you might as well use it.”
He gave me a cold, sideways glance. The moon caught his hair and lit the white parts with a ghostly glow, leaving the gray and brown patches dark.
“Is that a no?” I asked.
“You can force me to say yes, if it will make you feel better.” His black eyebrow lifted in a taunt.
“I don’t even know how to do that.” I glanced around the landscape, trying to get my bearings. Tierra del Sol was to the north, where small lights roamed the town. Oh, that’s right. During the criatura months, the police enacted a curfew and nighttime patrols to keep everyone safe. “Do you think you can get us back inside my house without my parents noticing?”
He pouted at me.
“Please? I really don’t want to spend the night in the desert.”
He grinned. “What? You afraid of the big, wide, scary, dark desert?” He wiggled his clawed fingers at me.
I leaned away from him. “Mother Desert doesn’t exactly like humans the way she does criaturas, you know.” I frowned and finished dusting sand off my jacket. “Can you get me home or not?”
He sighed, crouched, and motioned for me to climb up his back. I hesitated. He gestured more impatiently. With a sigh, I came over and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. He straightened up.
“So, to Tierra del Sol?” he asked as he pulled me into a piggyback ride.
“Yeah. My house is northwest, around—”
“It’s fine. I’ll be able to smell it.”
And suddenly, he took off, and the dust fell far behind us. We practically flew through the landscape, streaking past Criatura’s Well, weaving through the Ruins, and jumping onto roofs once we hit the town proper. I dug my fingers into his shoulders. He was so fast, I was sure my stomach had blown out of my body about a mile ago.
He slowed a bit. “You okay?” he asked.
I peeked an eye open. Had he noticed I was scared?
“Yeah,” I said.
He leaped more carefully, and ever so quietly, from one roof to another. Now that we weren’t going so fast, I could see the streets below. Police held torches above their heads, scanning each dirt path between houses. They did these kinds of patrols every year during the criatura months, but there were more police around than usual. Probably because of Juana.
Coyote skated to a nearly soundless stop on the roof of my house. He glanced down at the adobe beneath his feet. “This is your place, right? It smells like you.”
“Yeah, this is it—wait, what do I smell like?”
He tilted his head. “Kind of like . . . salt. And water.”
“I smell like sweat?” I gawked at him. “I’m not even that hot right now.”
“No—more like ocean spray, or brine, or um . . .” He suddenly looked nervous. “It’s not a bad smell.”
“Never mind, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” If it wasn’t sweat he was whiffing, why would I smell like water? Unless—it was my water curse. Had it somehow changed my scent? Embarrassing. “Is there any chance you can sneak me in through my window?” I pointed to the right side of the house.
Coyote walked us over to the edge and looked down. “No problem.”
He leaped down and crouched in my windowsill. Coyote leaned inside slowly, carefully, to avoid notice. But a light filled the alley behind me. I glanced back. A member of the police, holding his light aloft, was headed past my house.
I lunged our weight forward, and Coyote and I tumbled onto my bed. He rolled off and hit the floor. I winced.
Coyote scowled and looked up from the floor. “What in Desert’s voices was that for?”
“I don’t want the police to see us,” I hissed. “They execute brujas and criaturas, you know.”
He looked like he was going to snap back, but he paused and looked at the floor. “Are those your parents?”
“Did they wake up?”
He pointed to the hatch. “Yes.”
The hatch started to open. I scrambled forward and threw myself in front of it, to block Coyote from view. He caught on and moved to the other side of the hatch flap, crouching in the darkness.
“Cece?” Mamá’s sleepy face surfaced. “Why are you making so much noise? You know I have to get up early—”
“Just a nightmare, Mamá,” I whispered. I made a low sniff for good measure.
She sighed and peered at me blearily. “Cece, don’t cry.”
My heart sank a little. I grabbed the hatch and started closing it. “Sí, Mamá. Lo siento. I didn’t mean to wake you up. You can go to sleep.”
Mamá let me lower the hatch, but stopped it halfway down. “Do you need me to hold you?” she whispered.
Her voice was tender now. I gripped the hatch’s edge. I’d wanted her to ask that question so many times. But I couldn’t indulge it right now.
I swallowed and shook my head. “No, Mamá,” I said. “I’ll just go back to sleep.”
Her dark eyes caught the police’s torchlight from my window. “Cece—I’m sorry about earlier,” she whispered. “You know I just want to protect you, mija.”
My throat tightened. I nodded. She watched me for a moment longer before descending the ladder into our living space. I eased the hatch lid down and stepped back. Coyote watched me from the darkness.
I wrapped my arms around myself and turned away from the question in his eyes. I wish he hadn’t heard my conversation with Mamá. He was probably going to think I was weak too, if he didn’t already.
“It’s freezing in here,” I whispered, like that would distract from what had just happened, and tunneled into my bedcovers. I wrapped them around me as closely as possible, but the desert’s cold felt like it had sunk into my bones. “Good night, Coyote.” I shivered beneath my covers, staring across my bedside cabinet, hoping that I’d feel better in the morning.
Coyote slowly crossed into view. I stiffened as he stopped in front of my bedside cabinet, eyeing my candle stub.
“What?” I asked him, careful to keep my voice low.
He pulled out a match from my matchbox and lit the candle. I furrowed my eyebrows. He shifted awkwardly under my stare. “Are you still cold?”
“Well—” I looked down at myself wrapped like a brightly striped burrito. “Yeah. But it’ll be fine.”
The moment I said yeah, Coyote brought both his calloused hands around the flame. I sat up in my blankets. “Hey, careful. You may be a legendary criatura, but you could still burn yourself.”
His top lip twitched upward, but otherwise he ignored me. He closed his eyes, hummed quietly, and started tapping a small, steady beat on the candle’s wax. Suddenly, the flame crackled and roared with life, now four times its previous size. My mouth dropped open as the heat pulsed out from the wick and rolled over me.
Coyote pulled back without a single burn and looked at me. “Better?”
“Yeah. Thank you.” I looked from him to the fire. “But—how did you control it like that?” I asked.
The most famous legend about Coyote was, of course, his role as the Great Namer. But in his earliest tales, he was called the Bringer of Fire. Legend said that after the Sun god sacrificed himself so humans could be born, Naked Man was happy and well—until the first winter began. Then, we started to die off as the cold reached its peak. Thankfully, Coyote descended from his cerros and gave fire to Naked Man to save them from freezing. It was one of my favorite stories.
But nowhere did the legends say he could control the fire he brought.
Coyote sat back in my chair. “I didn’t always know how.” He lifted his thumb and traced down the white side of his hair. “This is where the first fire burned me.”
“You mean when you gifted it to Naked Man?” I hunched forward, grinning.
“Gifted it?” He looked at me in surprise. “I didn’t give fire to Naked Man. You all made it.” He looked back to the candle. “It was the first humans who taught me how to avoid its burning and inspire its flame.”
My eyes widened, and I scooted to the edge of my bed. “What? But the legends I know said you gave us fire.”
He shook his head, still staring into the candle. “When I came down from the cerros, I brought Naked Man music.” He closed his eyes for a second and hummed. The fire crackled, just a little, on the wick. “They were so cold, huddled up on the ground, freezing away. So I taught them to get up. I taught them to use drums, to sing. I showed them how to dance so they could stay warm.” He opened his eyes, and they lit up as he looked at me. “And when Naked Man danced, they were beautiful. They danced so ferociously, their feet kicked up sparks. And from their twirling, they made the first, magnificent fire.” He’d nearly started grinning but suddenly caught himself and coughed. “Anyway. The flames burned my hair and all the way down my back, to the tip of my tail.” He fingered the white bits of his hair again. “Naked Man rushed to put it out. Before long, they mastered both fire and my music and dance. Soon they were the ones teaching me, so I could make the fire breathe in return.”
Oh, wow. The true story of fire was even better than the way our legends recorded it.
Before I could wipe the eager look off my face—I was still such a sucker for Coyote stories—his mouth softened in return. He smiled tentatively, and I grinned back. For a moment, his gaze was less metallic. I was less afraid.
For a moment, we were equals discussing the most successful trade in history.
I wiggled excitedly. “That’s so cool! I can’t believe we have fire because you cared enough to come share your music and dance with us. It’s amazing.” Coyote let out a single, awkward chuckle. I settled back in my bed and looked him over. “Can I ask you something?”
The softness in his mouth disappeared again. “You own my soul now. I suppose you can make me answer if you want.”
I huffed. “No, I mean—if I ask you something, will you answer it? Please?”
After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded.
“Why did you do it?” I asked. “Why did you help us?”
His smile dropped slowly. “I . . . don’t really know.”
The candle’s flame whirled and twirled beside us, steady and strong.
“Maybe it’s the same reason I’m entering the Bruja Fights,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “Please don’t say the power of love. Humans are always going on about that. As if you’ve ever understood what love is.”
Well, that sounded like a sore spot. “Of course that. But I was thinking of something else.”
“What?” he asked.
I smiled at him over my blankets. “Hope.”
What he’d been hoping for when he revealed his secrets to save a strange people, I didn’t know. I wondered if he ever regretted it now, considering we’d become enemies. And that we used his gift of dance to ward off criaturas every year. But when he’d told the story, Coyote’s eyes had lit up, like the embers of hope were still inside him somewhere.
Coyote’s silence made me think I was right.
After a moment, he gestured at my bed. “You should sleep. Those Bruja Fights are soon, right? You’ll want to be well rested.”
“Oh, and so will you.” I stood, gathered a spare blanket and couple of pillows, and spread them on the floor at the foot of my bed. “I guess you can stay here tonight.”
He lifted an eyebrow and pointed at the other side of the room. “What about that bed?”
I looked at Juana’s mattress. I hadn’t changed a thing about it since yesterday. The dent, the trimmed pieces of fabric scattered about it, the quilt laying half on and half off—it was all just as she’d left it.
“That’s . . . my sister’s,” I whispered.
Coyote looked from Juana’s bed to the floor. Quietly, he took the crocheted blanket from my hand. “Buenas noches, bruja.”
He settled down on the floor, wrapping the colorful blanket around himself. I stepped back up onto my bed and stared down at him. For a criatura, he seemed strangely . . . reasonable. I squinted. Unless he was trying to trick me?
“You’re not going to kill me in my sleep or anything, right?” I whispered.
“Not if you let me go to bed already.” He yawned. “Now shh.”
It shouldn’t have, but the comment made me smile. I blew out the large candle flame. The heat remained in the air for a few moments after, and I curled up in my covers.
The first battle of the Bruja Fights was in two days. I had the bruja look. I had the legendary Coyote by my side. I had Grimmer Mother and Tía Catrina’s guidance. I had everything I needed to do this.
I’m coming, Juana, I mouthed into the night.
And like Coyote when he brought music to Naked Man, I clung to the hope that I wasn’t wrong.