I sit on a bench outside Dulcita’s Paleta Shop and stare at my great-great-grandmother. We walked with Fautina from the wildlife center, the gulf breeze tangling our hair as Fautina’s silver bun stayed firmly planted on her head.
“I’m glad you showed up.” I examine Fautina’s face closely. I see my abuela’s golden eyes flecked with green and my dad’s mouth that turns up more on the left side than the right when he smiles. I see family.
Fautina grins and lifts her chin to the white-capped waves tumbling on the beach, the sand they churn up turning the water milky brown. “I’m glad you called on me,” she says. “I’m grateful to meet my great-great-granddaughter. Even though she’s attracted quite the menace. How did that happen?”
Taking a deep breath, I launch into my explanation. I tell Fautina about the effigy on New Year’s Eve and all the bad luck that followed. I explain how I learned I could summon my ancestors by writing in my diary, and how it made Andaluz and Pipo appear. When I get to the part about seeing the Luck Eater in the school hallway, I squeeze my hands together as Keisha picks at the sole of her shoe and Juan Carlos bites down on the wooden stick of his horchata paleta.
“You’re certain he had scaly skin, glowing green eyes, and black clothes?” Fautina asks. As she speaks, a translucent form of the Luck Eater appears on the sand in front of us. Keisha yelps and scurries to the bench, sitting next to me as Juan Carlos scrambles up and wedges himself next to Keisha.
“Don’t worry,” Fautina says. “It’s not really him. It’s just my story.”
I bite my lip and think for a moment. “So you were making all those images appear on the wall at the wildlife center when you told the fishermen story?”
Fautina nods. “Didn’t your abuela mention that I was a storyteller?”
“Yes, but she never said you could do that. But that’s how you . . . I mean, I think you’re like me. Is that how you could summon our ancestors?”
Fautina chuckles, the light sound swirling in the breeze. “Yes. If I told a story about one of our relatives out loud, they would appear. How do you do it?”
I tug on the sleeve of my Houston Aeros hoodie. “If I write about someone in a diary my abuelita gave me, our ancestors show up.”
A smile stretches across Fautina’s mouth. “I didn’t think anyone in our family had the gift anymore. Once we left the island, I assumed it was gone. But it’s still there, in your spirit, connecting you to where you are from.”
I rub my hand over the mark on my arm. I think I’ve reached Peak Cubanity more than anyone in my family.
“After we die, the gift changes. Now I can make stories appear before your eyes.”
I nod. “Like how Pipo can play music without any instruments and Andaluz can control water.”
Juan Carlos chews on his paleta stick and mumbles. “I think I’d like to be able to talk to animals. That would be a cool power. But I’d rather be able to do it and not be dead too.”
Keisha twists her shoelace around her finger. I wait for her to say something, but she purses her lips and sighs.
Fautina smiles. She reaches to pat me on the knee, but her hand passes right through my jeans.
“I’m never going to get used to this,” Keisha says, shaking her head.
Fautina winks at her. “But this Luck Eater you describe,” she says, pointing to the faint apparition that still stands on the beach. “I know who he is.”
“You do?” I ask.
“He’s El Cocodrilo.”
Juan Carlos puts his head in his hands. “The Crocodile? That doesn’t sound good. You know crocodiles can’t chew. They just crush and swallow you whole. No thank you.”
Fautina purses her lips. “He’s a luck eater of the worst sort. Most luck eaters do humanity a favor, taking their sadness and regret so they can move on and hope for better. But this one, he’s not like the others. He’s cursed to be a luck eater. He must feed on the sadness of humans so he doesn’t wither away to nothing. The more misery there is, the more he gets to eat.”
The form on the beach looks at us huddled together and snarls.
“Um, ma’am?” Keisha mumbles. “Could you make him go away, please?”
Fautina waves her hand, and the Luck Eater disappears, ashes floating over the waves.
“So this Cocodrilo guy is cursed?” I ask. “What the frijoles did he do?”
Drumming her finger on her lap, Fautina sighs, takes a deep breath, and flips her hand at the gulf waves. “El Cocodrilo was ashamed of who he was. He always desired to be someone else, even if it hurt the people he cared about the most.”
My eyes widen as I look out at the gulf. The waves slowly turn light green, the water’s surface growing spiky, almost like long blades of grass. We watch as the sea disappears and a tall hill rises in front of us. The air fills with the smell of something acidic.
“Um, Señora? Should you be doing this where everyone can see?” Juan Carlos asks.
Fautina laughs. “Don’t worry. This time it’s only for you.”
She continues. “In 1898, the United States fought a war with Spain and made Cuba the battlefield. Soldiers fought in our towns, on our hills, and in our harbors.”
Keisha, Juan Carlos, and I watch smoke rise from the grassy hill as shouts and laughter fill the air. Men in navy blue jackets with United States flags on the sleeves sit around a fire, smoking cigars. Around a separate fire, several men in khaki pants and shirts are gathered. They pass the US soldiers drinks and food before retreating to their own circle. But one man in khaki stays with the soldiers, pouring them drink after drink and slapping them on the back.
Even though his skin is tan and not scaly, he has the same piercing black eyes as El Cocodrilo. One of the Cuban soldiers tries to get El Cocodrilo to join them at their fire again, but he sneers and waves a dismissive hand.
“Along with his best friend, El Cocodrilo was part of a group of Cubans who assisted the soldiers from the United States. He didn’t fight, though, and was only responsible for making sure that the soldiers had ammunition and that their weapons worked properly. But he desperately wanted to be part of the US soldiers. He thought his fellow Cubans were beneath them and was embarrassed by his countrymen.”
Fautina waves her hand, and the grassy hill changes, the smoke thickening as the ground is covered with charging soldiers. Men run across a field, yelling and pumping their fists. Pops and cracks fill the air, and I jump. Some of the men crumple to the ground, clutching their chests and bellies as blood seeps through the fabric of their uniforms.
Three men in khaki shirts and pants crawl low across the grass, dragging small wooden crates. They shove the crates at the men in blue uniforms who break them open and take out long, shiny bullets to reload their rifles.
El Cocodrilo clutches a wooden crate to his chest and quickly runs away from the soldiers, in the opposite direction of the fighting.
“One day, El Cocodrilo’s cowardice and shame caused him to lose the person he cared about most,” Fautina says. “His closest friend.”
My jaw drops as I watch El Cocodrilo stand over a soldier sprawled on the ground, dark red blood flowing from the back of the soldier’s head and seeping onto the grass. El Cocodrilo bends down, and I think for a moment he’s going to help the fallen soldier. Instead, he quickly unbuttons the soldier’s jacket and removes it from his body. He does the same with the soldier’s boots, placing them on his own feet after kicking off his worn shoes. He slips his arms through the jacket sleeves and snatches the hat that has fallen a few feet from the soldier.
Another man in khaki—his friend, the same man who called El Cocodrilo to join him at the fireside earlier—waves his arms at El Cocodrilo, pointing to the soldiers fighting on the hill. El Cocodrilo shakes his head furiously and begins to run away, but not before a sharp crack pierces the air and his friend clutches his stomach as red liquid bursts from his shirt. He falls to the ground, and El Cocodrilo turns back and runs to him, cradling him in his arms, his hands stained with blood.
“He stole that dead soldier’s uniform?” Juan Carlos says, shaking his head. “And he got his friend killed because of it. He really is a smelly chum bucket.”
“We’re on letter N. He’s a noxious nasty nematode,” Keisha shoots back.
“What happened to him?” I ask.
“He traveled back up the mountains and told everyone he fought in the Battle of San Juan Hill with President Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. He drank and told his lies; he fought anyone who asked him what had happened to his friend. He drank more and bragged that he had killed scores of Spanish soldiers.”
The grass turns brown and smooth as it fades into a dirt street meandering through a small town. El Cocodrilo stumbles out of a building, a large glass bottle gripped in his hand. He’s still wearing the navy blue jacket from the dead soldier, the gold buttons undone, exposing his sweaty, hairy chest. He snarls and takes a long drink as he braces himself against a column outside the building.
“One night, it finally caught up with him.”
I watch as El Cocodrilo shuffles behind the building to the banks of a churning river. He takes another long drink from his bottle and throws it into the water. His head hangs as he looks at the United States flag on his sleeve. He picks at it until the threads loosen, and he tears it from the fabric. Twisting his arm back, he takes off the jacket and launches it and the patch into the river. But he loses his footing and stumbles in, disappearing beneath the water. I tighten my grip on Keisha’s arm as my breath quickens.
The scene slowly fades as the river settles into the reappearing gulf waves.
“Did they ever find his body?” Juan Carlos asks.
Fautina nods. “Yes, they did. And the sadness and despair in his heart seeped into the ground where he was buried. He festered in that cocoon, surrounded by all manner of insects crawling over him.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” I blurt out.
Keisha raises an eyebrow. “Why?”
I sigh, too tired to keep things from her. “I’ve been seeing a bunch of insects on the effigy Abuelita made. And other creepy-crawlies pretty much everywhere—cockroaches, flies, worms. If El Cocodrilo was covered in insects when he turned into what he is now, maybe bugs are his thing? That and turning into other people, it seems.”
As expected, Keisha groans. “Perfect. Just perfect.”
Fautina nods. “I think you’re right. All those insects turned El Cocodrilo into what you saw at your school, a miserable creature feeding off the bad luck of others. Except now he enjoys the taste of sadness. It’s not something necessary for his survival anymore. He craves it.”
“That makes sense,” Juan Carlos says, still chewing on his paleta stick. “Lots of insects pretend to be other things. Phasmids look like sticks, the patterns on butterfly wings mimic predator eyes, and leaf insects . . . well, it’s pretty obvious what they look like.”
I roll my head back and sigh. “Do you have any idea how to stop him?” I say to Fautina. “Pipo said we need to starve him so that the effigy won’t fill up, but that would be impossible to continue for long.”
Keisha and I stand, and Juan Carlos tosses his paleta stick into the trash can, wiping his hands on his jeans.
“Yeah. I’m running out of supplies for Señor Listopatodo,” Juan Carlos offers.
“And we have big stuff coming up that the crocodile guy would really like to mess up,” Keisha says. “I have a fencing tournament, and Mari has a mariachi band audition.”
Fautina shakes her head. “My goodness, those are much too tempting for El Cocodrilo.”
I remember something the fake Dr. Younts mentioned right before the tank of mud crabs exploded. “El Cocodrilo said something I don’t understand. He said we’re family. What did he mean by that?”
Fautina stands, twisting her hands together as her lips purse.
“It’s true. His real name was Reinaldo Samuél Crespo. He was my father.”