Each step I take, I am pushed back toward the house by these violent winds. A heavy object slams into me. I fall on my back, but I grit my teeth through the pain. I can’t stop.
“Eury, please! I made this for you,” Ato yells. “Everything as you like it.”
Ato has lied to me since I first saw him. A memory of us trickles in, the moment when I first met Ato, and I tried to destroy Papi’s gift.
He won’t come back because of what you did.
Ato’s words cut as sharp as a knife, a wound that never healed. For so long, I believed Papi must have left because of something evil within me. But I was wrong. I was only a child. Ato wedged himself like a cancer, clinging to my grace. He fed me this lie, and I carried it with me everywhere.
I don’t know exactly why Papi left. I may never really know. But I know now it was never my fault.
I turn and watch as the tumultuous wind tears the roof off the house. My god. I can’t stop the memory from overtaking me, of cowering in the bathtub while my home, my real home in Puerto Rico, was destroyed around me. But this time, it’s Ato who watches in anguish as his dollhouse is swept away by the storm.
Before I succumb to the nightmare of the past, I remember Pheus and his beautiful face. How he closed his eyes when he sang. His dimples. I remember his smile and how he turned so serious when he spoke of the histories of places and buildings. I remember the way his hands caressed my cheek when we kissed. Pheus.
These memories will launch me away from this hell.
I turn away and push forward with all my strength. I must reach the center of this hurricane.
Something yanks my shoulders back—Ato. We tussle to the ground.
“Don’t leave me, Eury.” Ato has the face of an angelic young boy. This evil tormentor. He will not have me.
I shove him with all I can muster and run. I only manage a few steps before the wind takes hold of my body, pulling me off the ground and tossing me toward the eye of the storm. Branches and parts of the house come hurling toward me. I’m spinning and thrashing through the air. I watch as the roof careens forward. It will crash into me, and I will be torn apart. I can’t stop the momentum.
The roof is upon me. I think of Pheus, when he sang “Adore” in Spanish.
Then, there is only black.
I don’t open my eyes. Not yet. Will I find myself right back in my jail with Ato ready to feed me a deadly feast?
There is no noise. No wind howling. No voices. A void. Am I dead? Again?
I wiggle the toes on one foot first. Then the other.
I’m scared to wake up. I don’t want to relive this nightmare. I wait. My breathing is certain. If I’m breathing, then surely I am still alive. Or is breathing nothing but a dream?
I open my eyes. It takes a moment for shapes to come into focus. But then I recognize where I am and start to cry.
El Yunque is as lush and green as I remember it. Verdant. My beautiful rainforest. How can a real place feel so otherworldly? When I first entered El Yunque, the sadness from Papi leaving was lifted in a way I can’t really explain. It was different than my interactions with Ato. Perhaps this was so because El Yunque was my oasis. It wasn’t Ato’s or Mami’s or anyone else’s. It was mine.
Until Ato killed a little llorosa right in front of me. But Ato is gone now.
I banish the violent image from my thoughts and follow the familiar narrow path down to La Mina. Above me, giant tree ferns fan in the gentle wind. Moss blankets the trunks of the trees. I spot the brilliant white and green orchids and inhale their sweet fragrance. A small lagartijo runs out in front of my path but quickly disappears into a dense shrub. It is a winding path with so much to see, like these clusters of soft pink flowers. Impatiens. There they are like a tiny miracle. It’s all here. El Bosque.
When I bend down to touch a dangling red hibiscus, the flower shrivels before my eyes, similar to how a moriviví, a plant native to Puerto Rico, closes its leaves when touched. But a hibiscus is not a moriviví.
I whirl around to see the rainforest destroying itself behind me. It is as if I am a virus contaminating everything with each step I take. In an instant, my joy dissolves into anger. This is yet another setting. Just like the house in the mountains and the river Ato re-created, so is this Yunque. It is a vision plucked from my mind only to be twisted and poisoned. He’s gone too far this time.
I continue to walk toward the falls, each step fueled by hate. Behind me, I know that my precious Yunque keeps deteriorating, but I also know that it’s not my fault. The water roars louder and louder until I reach the falls, where I notice a child sitting along the edge of a pool of water. She is crouched down, clutching her knees to her chest.
“What’s wrong?” I ask the girl with thick, long hair.
She points to the sky, where a small patch of the sun’s rays slipped through the foliage. I don’t understand what she is afraid of. She begins to cry. Her tears fall into the pool of water. I bend down beside her and press my knees to my chest. In the distance, I can hear the sound of thunder. She begins to tremble. I, too, begin to tremble.
“They are coming back,” she says in between cries. Her face is a river of tears.
“Who?” I ask the question, but I know the answer. I still need confirmation.
“The hurricanes. Don’t you hear it?”
The thunder becomes louder. In the rainforest, there is no place to hide. We are vulnerable out here. Surely the winds will throw us into the pool of water, smash us against the falls. We will drown.
El Yunque dies around us in slow motion, and yet I can’t move away from her. The mist turns into a heavy rain. It’s hard to tell where our tears end and raindrops start.
“We have to go,” I say. She is inconsolable. The young girl covers her ears with her hands.
“There’s nowhere to run,” she says.
I know this girl. She looks like me.
The waterfall stops churning as if someone turned a faucet off.
“Let’s go,” I tell her. Her wailing increases to match the thunder.
“You won’t get far,” the little girl says. “The island is meant to be destroyed.”
I gasp. Her words are like punches. Puerto Rico is not a cursed island meant to be repeatedly ravished, be it from hurricanes or corrupt men or demented spirits. If I let her thought nestle into my bones, I will stay complacent. I will accept evil as something warranted. I know I don’t deserve this, and neither does my home.
“No,” I say. “This island is meant to just be. It flourishes despite everything natural and unnatural that tries to destroy it. I won’t stay here and wait for the storm.”
I try to grab her, but she refuses to come with me. El Yunque is being swallowed up, and she wants to stay. I won’t.
Now that the falls have dried up, I can see an opening in the stone wall ahead of me. I head toward it, leaving the child behind. Around her, the rainforest continues to be wiped out.
I enter the opening in the mouth of the falls to find a set of stone steps. They lead down into a majestic Spanish courtyard. I can no longer hear the storm or the girl’s cries. A woman stands at the bottom of the steps, offering me her hand. She is both beautiful and intimidating, and her hand feels like marble.
“You’ve arrived just in time,” she says. “We’ve been waiting for you.”