ALE XIS C AS TELL AN OS
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BLOOMSBURY YA Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 1359 Broadway, New York, NY 10018 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK Bloomsbury Publishing Ireland Limited, 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, D02 AY28, Ireland BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the United States of America in May 2027 by Bloomsbury YA Text and interior illustrations copyright © 2027 by Alexis Castellanos All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be: i) reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by means of any information storage or retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publishers; or ii) used or reproduced in any way for the training, development, or operation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, including generative AI technologies. The rights holders expressly reserve this publication from the text and data mining exception as per Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive (EU) 2019/790. Bloomsbury books may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at specialmarkets@macmillan.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request ISBN 978-1-5476-1870-5 (hardcover) • ISBN 978-1-5476-1871-2 (e-book) Book design by Jeanette Levy Typesetting by Six Red Marbles India Printed in the United States by Lakeside Book Company To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters. For product safety–related questions contact productsafety@bloomsbury.com. 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
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To Andresito, whose research into our family history has inspired so many of my stories
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CONTENT WARNINGS
This novel contains themes that may be upsetting for some readers. To get an up-to-date list of content warnings, please visit AlexisCastellanos.com/AMFOT
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PROLOGUE Winter 1895 Somewhere outside Nuevitas, Puerto Príncipe, Cuba
A crate is delivered to the home of Doctor Victor Joaquín Fernández Serrano one sunny day in February. The doctor isn’t present to receive the delivery, so his ward and groundskeeper carry the wooden crate inside. It is large, stamped with addresses and postal marks, and with a large label that reads Elsworth Books. “The house will begin to sink if he keeps buying all these books,” Hector, the doctor’s ward, complains once the crate is settled in the library. “Where will these go?” He looks around the office, where shelves are filled from floor to ceiling with books. There are texts concerning medicine and law, in both English and Spanish, and novels from all over the world in almost every language. War and Peace and collections of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales and every copy of Robert Browning’s works regardless of Hector’s abject dislike for the poet.
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“There is always your room,” Ignacio suggests dryly as he pries open the lid of the crate. With a jarring crack and pop, the lid snaps open and a plume of dust escapes. Ignacio sneezes violently and Hector coughs, waving off the stale, dusty air. “What’s that?” an airy, high-pitched voice asks, bright with curiosity. Hector looks over his shoulder at Luisa, the doctor’s cherished daughter, who stands at the threshold of the library with wide eyes, looking questioningly at the newest addition. She is already dressed for the day in a white cotton blouse cinched at the waist with a pink ribbon, the gauzy fabric trimmed with yards of fine lace and delicate details. Her skirts stop at her calves, despite Luisa having turned fourteen this year, revealing her flat-heeled leather shoes and white stockings. In the city such a length at her age would turn heads, but since the family lives in the countryside, there is no one around to complain about it other than Luisa herself. “More books that your father ordered,” Hector explains, his voice hoarse from coughing. “Are there any gifts for me?” Luisa asks, running to peer inside the crate. Her father has been away from home for weeks now, traveling the countryside to tend to patients who work at the sugarcane factories and in the fields. Their employers, wealthy and ruthless peninsulares from Spain, offer no medical care for their injured workers, so Victor has made a habit of traveling a few times of year to tend to them. As a result, Luisa is often left with only her father’s ward and their two employees, the housekeeper and the groundskeeper, for company in their isolated country home. 2
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But gifts help soften the blow—if only the gifts the doctor thought to buy were ever interesting. Ignacio sets the lid aside, resting it against the crate. Now that the dust has settled, Luisa reaches in and pulls up the waxed canvas to get a look at what’s inside. Her face splits into an excited smile at what she finds. “Do you need anything more from me, Señor Álvarez?” Ignacio asks. “No, Ignacio, thank you,” Hector says grinning, his eyes on Luisa as she explores the contents of the crate. “Hector, come look!” she cries out, waving him over. “I found something that isn’t a book.” Curious, Hector approaches the crate and spots what captured Luisa’s interest. It’s a small wooden box, stamped with the words Korona Hand Camera. “It’s a camera,” Hector says, a little delighted himself by the discovery. This is not the usual purchase that the doctor makes. “Oh,” Luisa pouts, looking back down at the crate. “You don’t sound nearly as excited as you should be!” Hector tells her. “Why should I be excited?” Luisa asks as she digs deeper into the crate. Novels, poetry collections, medical treatises, books with covers so worn that their titles are impossible to read. It looks as though Elsworth took all the books that had been sitting in storage somewhere in England and loaded them into this crate for Victor. There is no rhyme or reason to the texts, no connection between title or subject. And all of it looks boring to Luisa. “With a camera, we can document the world around us!” 3
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Hector says, his excitement growing. He takes the camera box to Victor’s desk, carefully pulling out the device and the accompanying manual. “Why would I care to do that?” Luisa says, a little petulant. “I already know what everything looks like.” “You know what it looks like now,” Hector explains patiently. “But what about next year? Ten years from now? What if you forget?” “How could I ever forget my home?” Luisa asks, irritated by the suggestion. The innocence in Luisa’s voice breaks Hector’s heart. She doesn’t yet understand that any number of things can rip someone from their home. Hector has all but forgotten his, a small apartment in Holguín, where he lived until he was six. After twelve years, his memories are hazy, his mother’s face nothing but a blur of warm features that he can’t quite recall. He is grateful for the life Señor Fernández has given him, but he would give anything to see his mother again. “Oh, Luisa!” Antonia, the housekeeper and the only mother-like figure Luisa has ever known, appears in the doorway, dismayed by the state of her charge. “Look at you, you’re covered in dirt already,” she scolds, hurrying into the room as quickly as her creaky joints can take her. Luisa looks down at her white dress. The dirt and grime from the outside of the crate have spread to the fine cotton of her clothes, and Antonia starts to fuss over a smudge of dirt on her cheek. “I look away one moment,” Antonia complains, dragging Luisa up by the arm. “Hector, you should know better than to let her touch such dirty things.” “She has a curious nature, Antonia. I can’t bear to kill it,” 4
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Hector says with a smirk, much to the housekeeper’s irritation. “Come with me,” Antonia grumbles, pulling Luisa from the room. The young girl sighs, but knows better than to defy her caretaker. Hector, left alone in the library, pores over the manual for the camera. In the crate he finds more items related to it— packages of photographic plates, gelatin silver, a tripod. He has seen cameras before, when Victor took him to Havana on business, but he has never used one. The entire process fascinates him, from preparing the plates to focusing the camera to processing the pictures. He saw a reason to catalogue the changing world around him, something Luisa would unfortunately learn one day soon. Already the rumblings of revolution were growing in the east, and Spain was sending soldiers to the island in anticipation of war. It would not be the first time Cuba would fight for its independence, nor the second. Hector hoped, however, that it would be the last. His people had suffered enough under the colonial rule of Spain, after promised reforms to end the war were never seen through, after Cubans were left to struggle and starve under high taxes and an economy that crumbled due to Spanish greed. Enough generations had lived and died without ever tasting freedom, and he refused to believe that another would go by the same way. But there could never be liberty without loss. Change was coming for them, whether they were ready or not. So Hector would make sure Luisa had pictures to remember her home by. Hours later, Luisa returns to the library, cleaned up and 5
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wearing a new dress with sleeves as large as her head. Half of her honey-brown hair has been pulled into a matching pink bow pinned to the crown of her head, the rest of it falling in fat ringlets down her back. “Hector, are you still in here?” she calls into the library. Quickly enough, she spots him behind her father’s desk, still tinkering with the camera, having not moved far since she left him. “I think I know how to use it now!” Hector says excitedly, looking up at her with a wide grin. His eyes are bright with fever-like focus. “Will you go find Ignacio? We’ll need his help.” “With what?” Luisa asks. “Luisa, please,” Hector says, giving Luisa his most pleading look. It is not often that Hector asks for things. Being the ward of Señor Fernández, he is very mindful of his position in this home and never makes demands. On the rare occasion he does ask for something, Luisa doesn’t have it in her heart to ignore him. “It won’t take long, I promise.” “Very well,” Luisa sighs, turning around to search for the groundskeeper. Hector gathers up the camera box and tripod and walks out to the front of the house, passing the dog that Antonia lets in when Victor is away, sleeping on the doctor’s favorite chair. Sucio looks up at Hector and blinks lazily at him before settling back in for his nap. Señor Fernández’s absences have been growing longer and more frequent, something that has only made the terrier bolder. Outside, Hector sets up the tripod in front drive, making sure to get some of the entrance in frame—a grand arch with Corinthian columns and the imposing front door crowned 6
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with stained glass. It’s a spectacular home, built far out in the countryside, in the style of the grand colonial architecture of Havana. Hector wants to make sure that Luisa will have something to remember it by, even if she doesn’t see the point of it now. There may come a day when this great structure no longer stands, when she can’t recall the type of flowers that grow on the vines outside, or the shape of the arcade that lines the courtyard. “I’ve brought Ignacio,” Luisa announces, bounding down the front steps toward Hector. He’s set up the camera in the open gate of the stone-and-iron fence surrounding the front of the property. The early afternoon sun has fallen behind a cluster of bright white clouds, filtering the light just enough to diffuse any hard shadows. “Thank you, Luisa,” Hector says, double-checking all the camera settings. He spent hours poring over the manual, learning everything he could to set the camera up for the perfect exposure. “Ignacio, I need your help for a moment.” “Of course, señor.” Hector shows Ignacio how to press the shutter, quickly explains the process of taking a photo, and sets him up behind the camera. “Luisa, stand with me here,” Hector instructs, directing her to join him at the top of the stairs. “Is that the camera?” Luisa asks, ignoring Hector’s directive and inspecting the machine. “This is what makes a photograph?” “Not quite,” Hector says, pulling Luisa away to the front of the house. “I can explain it to you later if you are truly interested, but first let us take a photograph.” 7
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“What am I meant to do?” Luisa asks, fidgeting next to Hector. He places a gentle hand on her shoulder, intending to calm her. “Just stand still for a moment.” He looks up at Ignacio, who is patiently waiting behind the camera. “Ignacio, count back from three and then press the shutter.” “Yes, señor,” Ignacio says. Luisa bounces from one foot to another, a bundle of energy ready to explode now that she has been forced to stay put. “Hold still,” Hector hisses, placing a hand on either shoulder and drawing her closer to keep her from moving. “Three . . .” “What if the camera steals my soul?” Luisa asks. “It won’t,” Hector assures her. “Two . . .” “How can you be sure?” Luisa asks, an edge of nervousness in her voice. “Because—” “One!” Click.
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PART
1
Love is to untangle spiderwebs of roads in darkness: Love is this loving of what pains us, what makes us bleed inside . . . —Dulce María Loynaz, “Love Is”
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CHAPTER 1 June, Present Day Miami, Florida
“Are you free tonight? Maybe we can, you know, hang out.” There are several reasons Camila is about to turn this guy down. The first one is the most obvious: she doesn’t really know or like him. And she has no interest in rectifying the first or reconsidering the second. The second reason is more complicated. She’s spent her whole life watching her mother steadfastly dedicate herself to trying to convince the man she loves to love her back, and by extension, the daughter they share together. Camila has seen her mother bend over backward trying to get Orlando to be part of their family, to finish the picture she has in her mind of the perfect life they could have. But Orlando has no interest in being tied down. And perhaps that is the third reason for Camila rejecting this guy—she is more like her father than she’d like to admit.
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After all, Camila has never understood her mother’s desperation to tether her father to them. The one time Camila outright asked, her mother looked at her with a sad, wistful smile. “One day, you’ll understand, mijita” she said, and it came out sounding more like a threat. “The women in our family, we have a hard time letting go. It’s our curse.” This was not a figure of speech on her mother’s part. “We’re all cursed,” Camila’s grandmother warned her. “A santero in Cuba told my mother so. Something dark follows us generation after generation. You have to be careful who you give your heart to.” Yaya had sounded so grave when she’d imparted this information. Instead of being concerned, though, Camila was mostly confused because she was twelve years old and had simply shared she’d gotten her first period, and now she was being told about a family curse. Despite their warnings, Camila doesn’t believe they’re really cursed. It seems more like a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you ask her. It isn’t a generational curse that makes her mother return to Orlando again and again and again—she chooses to do that, because he was her first love and like everything else in her life, she can’t let go of something once it’s come into her grasp. Even if it has no interest in being held. And knowing what Camila knows about this guy—Javier? Jonathan? Juan?—she can imagine he falls in the same category as Orlando. This guy doesn’t even know Camila outside of her job, a job in which she is required to wear a bright red one-piece and sit under an umbrella to make sure small children don’t drown. He’s come every week with his little 13
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siblings, which in theory is very sweet, but he spends no time with them and all his time ogling the ladies at the pool. Her grandmother always says: Los hombres Cubanos no sirven para nada. Living in Miami, however, means that Yaya goes against her own advice and dates Cuban men all the time. Do as I say, not as I do. Yaya doesn’t have to worry about that. Camila isn’t interested in dating much anyway, whether they are Cuban like her or not. Her aunt, Veronica, would have told her to say yes to this guy. Everything is worth trying once. That was her aunt’s motto, a refrain that kept her jumping from thing to thing, place to place, person to person seeking the thing that would finally fix everything. She searched far and wide, to the ends of the earth, for the missing piece that would set her life back on course. But Veronica died a year ago, halfway across the world from her family, her deepest desire unfulfilled. It was not the kind of life Camila wanted to model her own after, either. All of that would be enough for her to say no to Javier-Jonathan-Juan, but Camila knows deep down the real reason why she is saying no. Even if this guy isn’t like Orlando—even though as he is waiting for Camila’s answer, his eyes wander over to a busty mom of two pulling herself out of the pool, her cleavage on full display—he is a guy from Westchester, her hometown. And after the last year, Camila is determined to sever herself from this place. Not that it is proving to be all the difficult, really. All her friendships at school are surface level at best, her closest relationship being with the middle-aged woman at the ventanita who has her café con leche ready for her every morn 14
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ing before school. Camila has always maintained the persona of closed-off-yet-cool, but after her aunt died suddenly, the pallor of death kept even the most curious of souls away from her. Her planned departure is different from Veronica’s, though. Not a search for something but an escape. She has one year left of high school and then she will free herself from Miami, from the past that hangs around her neck like an albatross, from the cycle of suffering the women in her family seem determined to continue. Camila knows despite her best attempts to break free while at home, it will never really stick unless she leaves. And what if Javier-Jonathan-Juan isn’t some playboy clown and actually becomes the love of her life and traps her here, subjecting her to a tumultuous love story against the backdrop of her grandmother’s whispers about the family curse? Besides, he is wearing those wraparound mirrored sunglasses. If all the rest weren’t true, the sunglasses would have been enough for her to turn him down. “I can’t,” Camila says flatly, picking up the whistle from around her neck and blowing it hard enough to make Javier-Jonathan-Juan wince. “Walk!” she barks over his head at the siblings chasing each other across the deck with pool noodles. “What about—” Another sharp whistle, even though the kids listened to her the first time. This one is for Javier-Jonathan-Juan, who clearly isn’t getting the message. He opens his mouth to push her on her answer, but before he can get anything out, she blows her whistle again, this time making hard eye contact with him. 15
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The lack of subtlety with this move seems to penetrate his dense brain, and he grimaces in response, put off by her attitude. Finally. Camila spends the rest of her shift watching the pool deck and trying not to let her mind wander. The whole reason she got a summer job was to get out of the house, where grief still hangs heavy in the air, her family determined to hold on to the loss of Veronica as long as possible. She can’t understand their unwillingness to move on, their need to wallow in suffering. It goes far beyond the loss of her aunt, of course. This is simply the way her mother and grandmother are. They are emotional and physical hoarders. Unfortunately for her, the pool is only open until two. When she gets home after her shift, she can hear the distant sounds of her mother in the laundry room working on the washing machine she’s been trying to fix since last weekend. In the kitchen there’s a cake stand with a glass cloche filled with Yaya’s pastelitos, made fresh that morning. Camila grabs one, hungry after hours in the sun, and continues to scour the kitchen for more quick snacks. There’s a half-eaten bocadito in the fridge, two cold croquetas de jamon, and a Tupperware full of fresh-cut watermelon. Camila snacks leisurely, enjoying the relative silence of the house—the muffled cursing in Spanish from the laundry room notwithstanding. But then she spots her grandmother outside, clad in a bikini top and shorts, painting at her easel on the deck. Watermelon in hand, Camila opens the back door to get a better look at what Yaya is up to. Disco music is playing from a speaker on the table next to her, and she has a frozen 16
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margarita in one hand while she lazily sweeps her brush across the canvas. “You’re going to get skin cancer, Yaya,” Camila barks at her before taking another bite of watermelon. “Déjame tranquila, Cami,” Yaya complains, not interested in her granddaughter’s warning. “You know the sunshine helps me think.” Yaya has always claimed that she can only paint when it’s sunny outside. Any hint of rain drains away whatever well of artistic inspiration she draws from. Which makes it difficult when a gallery owner expects finished paintings from her during hurricane season. Yaya spends most of the summer in the house or in her little cottage in the backyard, staring out at the gray skies and torrential rainstorms and sighing dramatically. So when the weather is sunny and bright like this, she can always be found at her easel working on something. Although she usually does it in more clothes. Camila rolls her eyes. She turns back toward the kitchen, not sure why she bothered to come outside in the first place. But then Yaya moves, and a corner of the canvas catches Camila’s attention. She’s working on a portrait of Veronica, her wavy hair undone and wild around her face, skin a golden tan from sunshine in places unknown, and her signature smile, a crooked grin with a wistful edge. Yaya has painted her likeness perfectly, capturing the distance Veronica always held between herself and others. A distance that is as wide as a chasm now that she is gone. Even though it’s been just over a year since she passed 17
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away, seeing this painting of Veronica makes Camila feel like she did when they first got the news. A sudden punch to the gut. A random car accident on the other side of the world, one wrong turn and she was gone. Yaya notices where Camila’s attention has strayed, and she turns to consider the painting alongside her granddaughter. “She never let me paint a portrait of her,” she admits, her eyes growing misty. Camila considers the painting, the blurry features of Veronica’s face, rendered as through a pane of frosted glass. In Camila’s mind, the only way through loss is to let go and move forward. That is how she overcame Orlando, by accepting that he would never play a role in her life. It freed her, made it less painful when she saw girls proudly bring their fathers to school, when family tree assignments went half unfinished, when illnesses went ignored. But Yaya and her mother are not the kind of women to let go. Camila almost understands it. Yaya had everything stripped from her when she came to this country alone with a baby, so now she holds on to everything with an iron fist. Even her grief. Camila can’t help but wonder how much lighter they would feel without all that. “You know,” Camila begins, an idea forming in her mind, “I could use this summer to go through Tía’s house.” “¿Qué?” Yaya asks, sounding wary. “I think it would be good to go through everything, get rid of stuff—” “Get rid of?” Yaya says, insulted by the suggestion. “Yaya, por favor, you know that house is full to the brim 18
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with things none of us need or want,” Camila says, tone light. None of them have set foot in the house since Veronica’s passing, instead letting the lawyers take the keys to look for paperwork in the mess. But they need to do something about the house. Rent it or sell it or at least get rid of all the stuff Tía accumulated on her trips around the world, the things she bought the fill the void in her life. “You don’t have a sentimental bone in your body,” Yaya complains, returning to her easel and signaling the end of their conversation. “The house is not to be touched.” Camila’s body heats from annoyance. Yaya is acting like she just suggested setting fire to the place. She’s just being pragmatic, not evil, but she knows her grandmother can’t see the difference. “Yaya, I’m trying to help,” Camila says, trying to rein in her frustration. “We can’t leave that house like that forever.” “Help, huh?” Yaya says. “You want to get rid of all the things your aunt loved? The only things we have left of her? You think that’s helping? Insensible,” she spits in Spanish. “You get that from your father.” That comment, a common refrain, makes Camila’s mood take a turn for the worse. But she doesn’t have a comeback, because Yaya is right. She’s not sentimental or emotional or sensitive, like her mom and Yaya. She’s hard and cold and distant, just like her father. She dreams of running away, of leaving her family behind to escape their grief—grief that goes well beyond their recent loss, a sadness that lives at their core. Loss of country, loss of family, loss of love. They hold on to it all, and Camila can’t stand it. But as true as Yaya’s comment may be, it’s also an insult. 19
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Yaya hates Orlando, a man that has been more like a ghost in their life than any kind of father figure. Camila gets the birthday cards and one-off phone calls, but her relationship with her dad is nearly nonexistent. The only reason she receives anything at all is because her mom has tried so hard to tether Orlando to them, but the best she can wrench from him is a phone call twice a year. Her mom doesn’t stop trying though, much to Yaya’s disappointment. “And how will you feel when a hurricane hits the house?” Camila snaps. “What if it floods and all of Veronica’s things destroyed? We don’t even know what’s in there.” “If a hurricane comes, we’ll hire someone to deal with it,” Yaya says dismissively, turning her back to Camila. That sets Camila’s blood straight to boil. If Yaya imagines ill intent in Camila’s words, she’s going to give her ill intent. “Well, since I’m so unsentimental and unfeeling and unloving,” Camila says, voice even and cool, “why don’t I just go through the house by myself? Throw everything away without a second thought.” “Camila,” Yaya growls, turning around to glare at her. “I did not call you any of those things.” “But I’m just like my dad, right?” Yaya purses her lips, but before she can say anything, Camila’s mom steps out through the back door. “¿Qué pasa?” she asks, not knowing what she’s just walked into. She’s in stained jeans and an oversize T-shirt, and she’s holding a pair of pink rubber gloves in one hand and a bucket in the other. Judging by the state of her hair and the mystery stains on her clothes, things aren’t going well in the laundry room. 20
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“I’m going to Tía’s and I’m going to start clearing it out so that the house can finally be something other than a museum of garbage,” Camila announces. “You can’t get rid of Tía’s things,” her mom says quickly, a hint of panic in her voice. She drops the gloves and bucket by the door and hurries over to her mother’s side. “Why not?” Camila demands. “She never used any of it. She just collected random crap from around the world and dropped it off there before turning around and leaving again.” “Those things were special to her!” her mom argues. “Mom,” Camila says flatly. “Do we really need to hang on to her collection of antique doorknobs?” “Yes! We could sell them one day!” Yaya cuts in. “Okay, then, let’s sell them!” Camila shouts, her frustration bubbling over. “Why do they need to be sitting in an empty house? If we clear things out we could rent the house or I could live there for college or something.” Her plan to leave only works if she gets into a school outside Miami, but if she doesn’t, she would like the option of not living in the middle of this. “Don’t you want to live with us through college?” her mom asks. “You know what,” Camila says, backing off the deck and turning toward the driveway, “I’m just going to do it.” “Camila, don’t you dare throw away anything in that house,” Yaya orders as she starts to chase after her, Camila’s mom close behind. “You wouldn’t even know if I got rid of anything because you refuse to go inside!” “We’re not ready!” her mom cries out. 21
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“Well, I am,” Camila snaps. “Since I’m the unsentimental one in the family, I can go through all the things with a level head and start clearing out the house.” “Cariño,” Yaya says softly, “I shouldn’t have said that about you—” “What did you say about her?” Her mom cuts her off. “You said it because you meant it,” Camila says. “I’m going.” Her mom and Yaya chase her down the driveway to the front door, where she snatches her keys from their hook. She brushes past her family and heads to her car, all while they try to cajole her. “Mijita, please,” her mom begs. “Cálmate, por favor. Yaya meant nothing by it.” “I won’t throw anything away,” she promises them as she climbs into the driver’s seat. Not yet, anyway. “But someone needs to do this. It might as well be me.” Camila slams the car door shut and doesn’t look at them as she backs out of the driveway.
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CHAPTER 2
Even though Tía Veronica was the younger sister by three years, she grew up much more quickly than Jessica. Veronica married her high school sweetheart straight out of school, a Cuban boy named Felipe, and they started their lives together in a blissful blur of happiness. Veronica got a job as a photographer for the Miami Herald and Felipe worked in construction. They bought a house in Coconut Grove, a mid-century gem nestled in the greenery of dozens of trees and among flowering bushes and wild peacocks. It was the perfect place to start a family. They renovated the house little by little in anticipation of their future kids— but those kids never came. They never had the chance to try. Just a few years after getting married, the September 11 attacks rocked the United States, and Felipe felt called to defend the country that had given him exile. He was deployed, and died soon after.
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The way Camila’s grandmother and mom tell it, Veronica died twice in her life. Once, when Felipe was killed, and then years later, when a driver swerved and hit her car somewhere in the mountains of Peru. Now the house they bought together sits empty, a promise never fulfilled, a future left forgotten. And Camila is finally going to do something about it. The drive to Veronica’s is long. Cars choke up the expressway, every lane stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The slow stop-and-go gives her enough time to calm down, but she still ignores the flurry of texts rolling in on her phone. The initial bright anger and irritation have finally fled, and now she’s just left with determined focus. Her mother and grandmother might not appreciate this right now, but they’ll thank her in the end. They can’t just let Veronica’s house sit there, full of stuff and slowly sinking into the Atlantic. Despite the traffic, Camila makes it to Tía Veronica’s before the sun sets. As she pulls into the driveway, she’s taken by how the house has been devoured by the nature around it, just as wild and untamed as she remembers it. A banyan tree and strangler figs and palm trees and ferns cascade over the property. There’s a kapok tree where Camila carved her name when she was six, and a tiny burbling fountain hidden in a copse of trees. Vines and roots crawl all over the front lawn, nearly hiding the path leading to the front door. Camila has copies of keys to the house already on her key ring, something her tía made sure they all had since she was never around to check on the house. Over the years, Camila let in a number of plumbers and repair guys and landscapers. Now, she is letting herself in as a self-designated one-person cleaning crew. 24
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When she pushes the door open, the smells of musty abandonment and sandalwood incense rush out of the house. The air is heavy with trapped heat, the kind that makes it difficult to breathe. The vision young Veronica and Felipe had when they bought this place was never achieved, but the house is still beautiful. Large windows and warm wood and red brick define the home—the special kind of details you might find in an architecture magazine. This would have been a cozy home, a place where they could have spent Noche Buena together every year as a family. Instead, it became a dumping ground. A massive framed photo of Veronica and Felipe on their wedding day greets Camila in the foyer. It’s a posed shot, taken in front of the large stained-glass windows of the church, Veronica wearing a scoop-neck gown with an explosive veil, looking radiant and joyful next to Felipe, who looks like he knows he’s the luckiest man on earth. He died years before Camila was born, but from all the stories she’s heard about him, she feels like she knew him. Felipe was goofy and loud and a constant source of joy to the people around him. And when that joy was extinguished, Veronica never found anything like it again. She did try, though. Which is why the house is in the state it’s in. Camila doesn’t even take ten steps before the clutter begins. The living room is packed with furniture, antiques Veronica found in North Carolina and rugs she bought on the side of the road in Hialeah. The walls are covered in paintings by Yaya, family photos, and some of Veronica’s published work. And there are at least a dozen unopened boxes, things Veronica purchased on a whim and had delivered, then promptly forgot about. 25
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Staring down at the piles of stuff, Camila has no idea where to start. Squeezing past boxes, she scoots along the hallway to Veronica’s closet. It started out as a spare bedroom, but soon got overrun by clothes. This is probably Camila’s best place to begin, since this room alone would give her enough inventory to open her own thrift store. It has everything from Veronica’s quinceañera dress to the lifeguard uniform she wore in high school (not too different from the one Camila wears now). There are even pieces that belonged to Camila’s great-grandmother, dresses from the 1960s in bright patterns and 1980s leisure outfits. Camila gives everything a quick once-over, trying to determine if Tía Veronica ever had these clothes organized by some kind of criteria, but quickly realizes they were all randomly thrown together when she finds a 1970s Laura Ashley prairie dress next to a black 1990s catsuit. A quick online search on the dress shocks her: similar pieces were selling for upwards of three hundred dollars. A few more gems like these, and she could make a serious dent in her college tuition. Curious about the appeal, Camila throws the dress on over her T-shirt and shorts. It looks more like a bata de casa than anything she would ever wear outside the house, the fabric white and sheer with an abundance of frilly lace details. Its high neck and puff sleeves make it seem like something out of a period piece, but despite its dated look, Camila finds it to be fairly comfortable. She keeps the dress on as she continues to go through the racks, marveling at the work ahead of her. All these clothes are in nearly mint condition, and they’re just sitting here gath 26
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ering dust. Why did she get that job as a lifeguard when she could have been here, cataloguing all the stuff in her aunt’s house to sell online? Her family acts like going through this house would be too painful, but none of this stuff really means anything. These were all the things Veronica bought in an attempt to fill a hole inside herself, not anything that held meaning or memories. If any of this was important to her, she wouldn’t have left it to collect dust. After forty-five minutes, Camila has found a Members Only jacket, a banana Halloween costume, five exact versions of the same Gap cable-knit sweater that is too warm to ever wear in Miami, and her mom’s communion dress. Then she hears the knob of the front door click. Camila freezes, trying to remember if she locked the door behind her. “Hello?” she calls out, looking around the room frantically for anything that can be turned into an impromptu weapon. A stiletto knee-high boot it is. “Hello?” she calls again when no one answers, stepping out of the room, ready to fling the shoe at any intruder. No one responds and she begins to panic, fully aware that Veronica’s abandoned Museum of Mysteries is a prime location for a burglary. She slips out into the hallway quietly, listening for any sound. Once the front door is in her line of sight, she winds up her throwing arm and— When Camila realizes that the person pushing open the door is, in fact, her grandmother, she doesn’t have enough time to stop her throw entirely. Her arm is already arcing through the air, the patent leather boot slipping from her grasp, the sharp stiletto heel careening straight toward 27
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Yaya’s head. Camila has only a second to adjust, letting go of the boot quickly in hopes that it won’t get enough momentum to knock Yaya down. “Watch out!” she cries as the boot spins heel over top across the room. It crashes a few feet short of Yaya, striking a pile of cardboard boxes. The pile tips over, and the contents spill onto the hardwood floor. “This is why we didn’t want you to come here! You’re already making a mess of things,” Yaya shouts, running over to pick up the fallen boxes. Camila’s mom is close behind her, not bothering to close the front door before joining Yaya. “Oh, please,” Camila says, rolling her eyes and walking past them to shut the door. “That wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t tried sneaking into the house.” “We weren’t sneaking,” her mom says. “We were taking our time before we walked in.” “Ay, Jesi, look,” Yaya says, her voice dripping with nostalgia as she holds up something from the fallen pile. “A photo album.” It’s smaller than a modern photo album, with an engraved leather cover that says Fotografías and a spine bound by string. “This must have come from Cuba,” she muses as she stands up and opens the album, Camila’s mom watching over her shoulder. “Is it yours?” Camila asks, kinder now. She knows that old photos, especially from Yaya’s childhood in Cuba, are precious to her grandmother. When her family fled the country, there was only so much they could bring with them. Photos were the best way for her to stay connected to a life that was stolen. And it’s not like Camila is a monster—she wants to keep the stuff that is sentimental to her family. The problem is, she 28
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doubts everything in this house could possibly be sentimental to them. For example, she knows for a fact that Yaya hates the throw pillow on Veronica’s bed cross-stitched with the words “Calm Your Tits.” Yaya shakes her head. “This was my mother’s. Veronica asked for some of her old albums a few years ago. I had almost forgotten about these,” Yaya muses, flipping through some pages. “Oh! See, this is my grandmother, Pilar,” she says excitedly, pointing at a photo of a young woman looking down, her long, dark lashes sweeping across her cheeks. She looks like Yaya, the same heart-shaped face and sharp Cupid’s bow. “So that makes this photo album . . . what?” Camila’s mom says, counting under her breath. “Around a hundred years old?” “Maybe older,” Yaya notes, turning back a few pages to point out some photos of city streets. “I think these are pictures of New York.” “Why would pictures of New York be in this album?” Camila asks. She creeps up to Yaya’s other side and mirrors her mom, watching as Yaya goes through the album. 29
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“Pues, mi bisabuela, your three-times-great-grandmother, was born in New York City,” Yaya explains. “Her name was Rosario and her parents were exiled from Cuba after the country lost the first war of independence against Spain.” “Like José Martí,” her mom points out, naming the Cuban folk hero who led the final war of independence against Spain. His name is plastered everywhere in Miami, his likeness nearly as prevalent as Jesus Christ’s around the city. “Exactly,” Yaya says. “Her parents rubbed elbows with the wealthy in Manhattan, getting them to donate money and weapons to the Cuban people so that they could gain their independence.” “That’s kind of badass,” Camila says. Then, an I told you so coating every word, she says, “And to think, we never would have found this if we didn’t go through Veronica’s things.” Her mom and grandmother ignore her. Yaya turns the page to a spread of photos from a wedding. The couple is posing in a studio, the bride dripping in flounces and lace, with a cascading bouquet that almost touches the ground. “Oh my god!” Mom cries out, pointing out a picture on the right. It’s a close-up portrait of the bride, her large, dramatic eyes drawing you in. “You look just like her, Cami!” “What?” she says in surprise, taking a second look at the woman. She has the same heart-shaped face and gently upturned nose that the women in Camila’s family tend to have, and the messy brown hair that Veronica and Camila both inherited. “I guess,” Camila says, not seeing a close resemblance at all. “What are you talking about?” her mom says on a laugh. “That’s you, igualita, igualita.” Yaya flips back and forth between some pages, searching 30
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for something. She shouts in delight when she finds it, a portrait of the same woman holding a baby. “And here Rosario is with Pilar,” Yaya says. She flips past a couple of pages—blurry shots of a fence, a woman seated in a chair, a horse—and then gasps when she lands on a spread featuring a different girl. “Ay, pobrecita,” Yaya laments. “¿Quién es?” Camila’s mom asks, leaning in to get a closer look at the picture. The photo is of a young girl, maybe six years old, perched on the edge of a table like a doll. She has fine hair that has been tamed into a bun and looks despondently at the camera. “You remember her, this is Luisa,” Yaya says. “La prima de mi bisabuela.” “Oh god, is this the relative with the really sad story?” Camila says with a grimace. She knows this story well; it is the backbone of all the lessons her mother and Yaya ever taught her: you can never trust anyone. “You remember the story, no?” It doesn’t matter whether Camila does or not—her grandmother launches into the story anyway. “Luisa was left in the care of her father’s ward, Hector, while her father worked as a traveling doctor. When the doctor returned, they were both gone. Hector had kidnapped Luisa, taken her God knows where. The good doctor did everything he could to find his daughter, but neither of them were ever seen again. Ay, pobrecita,” Yaya says again as she looks at the child, as though this girl was someone Yaya knew and not a distant ancestor. “Dios Santo, if that ever happened to you, Camila, I don’t know if I could survive it,” her mother says. “You see,” Yaya says, tapping the page and shaking her head, “this family has always been cursed.” 31
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“Not this again,” Camila says, rolling her eyes and pulling away. Yaya slams the photo album closed and glares up at her disbelieving granddaughter. “Tú vas a ver,” she warns her. There’s a glint in Yaya’s eye, something grim and knowing. “It comes for us all.” Camila has already pushed her luck enough today; if she rolls her eyes one more time at her grandmother, she knows she’s going to be at the other end of a flying stiletto. “Well, anyway,” Camila says, stepping back to face the rest of the room. “Should we keep going through all this stuff? We can sort through it bit by bit, keeping the things that make sense and donating or selling the rest.” Yaya huffs at the suggestion and sets the photo album down on the empty console table by the front door. “I’ll take this one home with me today,” she says, bending down to pull another photo album from the floor. “All these photo albums need to be in better storage, anyway.” “Exactly!” Camila says brightly. “Who’s in this one?” her mom asks, ignoring her daughter and looking at the photo album Yaya has opened. “More of Bisabuela?” “I don’t think so,” Yaya says, turning through the pages of the album, thick black paper with black-and-white photos secured with brass corner brackets. The photos seem to catalogue a family with a set of young twins in what looks like the 1920s. “We don’t have any twins in our family.” “Okay, then we should get rid of it,” Camila says. “Camila!” her mom cries out, like she suggested setting the house on fire to speed up this process. 32
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“What? Yaya just said she doesn’t know this family! Why should we keep these photos?” she argues. “Because Veronica kept them,” her mom says, her voice a little sad. “And?” “Enough, Camila,” Yaya says, snapping shut the photo album and setting it aside. “Eres tan fria.” The anger from earlier returns to Camila with a vengeance. Caution be damned, it wouldn’t be the first time her grandmother threw a shoe at her. Ever since Veronica’s funeral, things have been growing more tense between them, Yaya becoming even more critical of her than before. Camila couldn’t grieve right, in her grandmother’s eyes—she didn’t spend hours sobbing. She spent those hours calling the funeral home, organizing the catering, notifying family and friends. Camila showed her care through pragmaticism, ensuring Veronica’s life was celebrated at all. But her grandmother only saw dry cheeks and clear eyes—she was her father’s daughter, and that meant some part of Camila was foul and hateful. “I’m cold, right,” Camila says. “Just like my father, unsentimental and rude and uncaring—” “That’s not what I meant, Cami,” Yaya says, mouth twisted in frustration. She tries reaching out a hand to comfort her, but Camila jerks out of the way. “No, it’s exactly what you meant, because it’s exactly what you said.” “Mami,” her mom snaps at Yaya. “We’ve talked about this. I know you have your problems with Orlando—” “Of course I have problems with Orlando!” Yaya cries out. 33
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“—but I’ve told you multiple times not to talk about him like that in front of Camila,” her mom says. “Orlando is still part of this family—” Yaya laughs bitterly at this blatant lie, and Camila has had enough. Once the subject of her dad starts up between these two, they’ll go on for hours. Mom still loves him and Yaya has always hated him and they will never meet in the middle. So while they’re distracted with this new argument, Camila turns around and tries to get as far from them as she can.
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CHAPTER 3
The closet is still too close, the words of their argument still clear as day, so Camila ventures farther into the house. She walks up a small staircase at the end of the hallway to reach a little solarium that Veronica used as an office. This was Camila’s favorite room as a kid, on the few occasions Veronica was in town, because it has a nearly panoramic view of the greenery engulfing the house. Through the windows you could spot the peacocks that liked to roost on the roof, parrots flying across the sky, iguanas sunbathing in a perfect beam of sunlight, and lizards skittering along. But when she gets to the solarium, Camila stops in surprise. The office looks nothing like the rest of the house. It’s not crowded with things or too full to walk through; it’s not just storage for random objects of mysterious provenance or more vintage dresses.
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Instead, it’s relatively clean and organized. The desk is empty, Veronica’s laptop gone with her in the car accident, but there are several notebooks piled off to the side. A stack of boxes sit under the desk, labeled and organized. There’s even a corkboard on the wall with various notes and pictures pinned to it. “What in the world?” Camila utters under her breath as she steps into the room. She bends down to look at the stack of boxes, her hand reaching out to touch one of the labels in her tía’s neat handwriting. Luisa. A shudder passes through her. Is this the Luisa she was just discussing downstairs with her mom and Yaya, the missing child that has haunted their family for over a century? But why would her aunt have an entire box dedicated to her? Camila sits in the office chair and pulls the box onto the desk. Another notebook sits on top of the pile inside. Its edges are worn, the cover stained with ink and coffee rings. She thumbs through quickly, surprised to find the inside of the journal full, cover to cover, with Veronica’s writing. There are some pages that have photos or clippings secured to them, others that are of Veronica’s handwriting alone. The entries are dated and labeled by location, marking wherever she was in the world when she decided to sit down and write. Camila stops flipping and lands on one page toward the front of the journal. Sevilla, Spain, March 2012 I did find evidence of a Hector and Luisa moving to Spain from Latin America in the late 1890s, but the dates didn’t match
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up. This Luisa was older, and I traced the family line for this Hector to Colombia, not Cuba. I’m in contact with someone in the Dominican Republic who is going through records there. So far he’s found a Luisa Fernández who moved there in 1898.
Camila flips past a few pages and lands on another entry. Panama City, Panama, September 2013 I finally got my hands on their original birth certificates! I will not be asking Guillermo how he did it, his secrets are his to keep, but they’re in my hands. It turns out that I had Hector’s full name and birth date wrong, so this might be the key I need to finally track them down. Guillermo also managed to find some photo albums from Hector’s family, but there aren’t any photos of Hector in them. It ’s still a mystery as to whether he made contact with his family after kidnapping Luisa, but maybe I can try to track down where his descendants are now and ask what they know. Havana, Cuba, September 2016 I wish Mom could have come with me on this trip. I’m taking as many pictures as I can, but nothing will come close to the feeling of being here. I can’t quite explain it—a deep sense of connection, the shadow of grief, but also elation? To finally return to my home. But being here has me thinking about Luisa more than ever. Records are hard to get ahold of, so I switched gears and went to a babalawo. I’m not sure what I thought he could tell me, if I thought he could reach Luisa’s soul and find out what happened to her or tell me something about my own life. Either way, what
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he told me was something I’ve heard a hundred times before from Mami: “Tienes un arrastre espiritual.” I’m not surprised he can sense the dark thing that hangs on us all. Did it follow Luisa, too? Granada, Spain, November 2020 Being stuck in this apartment with nothing to do has at least helped me make some headway on the Hector/Luisa research. I’m in contact with someone in Mexico who thinks they’ve found Hector’s death certificate; the dates and names match up and everything. It worries me that Luisa’s name isn’t on any of the paperwork , because that means it might be a dead end or . . . this could really be him, and Luisa’s name isn’t there because she’s not there. Because he did something to her. Jesus Christ, the thought alone makes me feel awful. I hope she got away from him. I hope she got to live her own wonderful life somewhere far away, where she got to meet someone who loved her, someone who would take care of her. Why am I even doing this to myself?
Camila has the same question for her aunt. What was it about these two missing people from the nineteenth century that had her so invested? According to these notebooks, she was at this for years. Veronica was flighty at the best of times, never keeping to one look or location or interest. One month she couldn’t stop talking about how much she loved bird-watching and sent dozens of up-close photos of warblers to the family group chat, and the next month birds were out and she was espousing the merits of knowing your color season. If she came home one year with blond hair in a pixie cut and dressing in 38
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rockabilly clothes, she came back a year later with black hair grown down to her butt and wearing trousers and paintstained button-ups even though she never painted. The only two things that Veronica kept close to her heart were Felipe and photography. Those were the only two through lines in her life, the only things she kept with her wherever she went. But it appears this missing person case had a hold on her, too. The muffled sounds of her mom and Yaya fighting fade out following the slam of the front door. Maybe they realized that Camila could hear them arguing and wanted to keep things more private by shouting about her father to all of Coconut Grove instead. Squatting down, she pulls out more boxes from under the desk. They are heavy and stuffed to the brim with research. In one are more photo albums, documents in plastic sleeves, and photocopied newspaper articles. Sitting at the top of another box are the birth certificates Veronica mentioned in the journal. They have been placed in protective sleeves, too, but even so, the paper has degraded quite a bit in the last century and a half. Some small chunks are missing and the ink is faded, but Camila can still read them, at least a little bit. Hector, born in 1877 to José Antonio Álvarez Estrada and Carolina Rafaela Guerrero Betancourt in Holguín, Cuba. There are more details, like the name of the street where he was born and the names of his maternal and paternal grandparents. The handwriting on the paper is neat and clean compared to the writing on Luisa’s, which is flowery and decorative in a way that makes it nearly impossible for 39
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Camila’s twenty-first-century eyes to read. If she didn’t already have some context clues, she wouldn’t be able to read anything. Luisa, born 1881 to Victor Joaquín Fernández Serrano and María Carmen de la Torre y Roxas in Puerto-Principe, Cuba. Under the birth certificates are some other documents, like death certificate copies and naturalization records and marriage certificates. On each one there is a sticky note with some comments, rating the likelihood of the document being directly related to Hector and Luisa. Veronica’s research was meticulous. On the bottom of the stack is a box labeled Cuba, 2016. That was the year travel restrictions were lifted, allowing American citizens to travel to Cuba more easily. Veronica went first thing, planning the trip on a whim and inviting the family to go with her. Yaya hadn’t felt ready to return to the island, and it was more complicated for her and Camila’s mom. Because she and Jessica had been born there, they would have needed to apply for their Cuban passports and jump through a million hoops. Even if Jessica could have gotten the paperwork in time, she didn’t want to go without her mom. Leaving Camila, who was too young to go with only her aunt as guardian. So Veronica went alone, sending pictures to the group chat every day. She found the apartment building where Yaya had grown up, now just a crumbling ruin that some still managed to live in. She went out to the countryside, to Camagüey, where Yaya’s family had come from. The pictures of the countryside were breathtaking, green and expansive 40
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and full of a wild beauty Camila had never seen before. Veronica brought back bottles of Cuban rum and paintings of landscapes by Cuban artists. But it looks like there was more she brought back, things related to the search for Luisa and Hector. Things she never told them about. Inside the box are dozens of smaller boxes, some the size of photographs and others no larger than the palm of her hand. Camila opens a blue velvet box first, and gasps at the beautiful necklace nestled inside. Carefully lifting it from the box, she admires the delicate gold chain and the small azabache charm that dangles from it. The small pendant, made of a large jet bead stacked with a smaller coral bead with a decorative golden cap on the end, is stunning. It looks like the kind of thing you could buy at a high-end jewelry store, the kind of necklace that white influencers would buy and call “Scandinavian Simple” despite the dozens of comments telling them that it was actually a Cuban necklace meant to ward off evil. Camila thinks it a shame the necklace is just sitting in this box, going unused and collecting dust like everything else in this house. Since no one is there to say no, she decides to gift it to herself. She clips the necklace around her neck and 41
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presses the jet bead close, feeling the warmth of it against her skin. Curious about what else her aunt collected, Camila dives back into the research around her. There are more notebooks and documents, and in one of the larger boxes is a collection of photos. They have been placed in protective sleeves, just like the certificates, with comments added to the back in sticky notes. These photos are incredibly old, going back to the 1880s and 1890s. Everything is sepia-toned and a little fuzzy, none of the details too sharp. There are photos of a house exterior, a beautiful two-story home with shuttered windows and a small fountain with flowering vines and palm fronds peaking in from the corners. There’s a picture of a dog taking a nap on an overstuffed couch and a portrait of a young man in profile. He has a strong brow, dark hair, downcast eyes framed with long, dark lashes, and a slightly parted mouth. He looks pensive, his collar loose around his throat, revealing just the slightest bit of skin. He doesn’t look as starched up and stiff as other portraits of this time, like the Victorian men and women who stared into the camera lens with frowns and dead eyes. Camila brings the photo closer to get a better look at the details. The blurred background behind him seems like it could be part of the library, and there’s a hint of a chain peeking out from underneath the collar of his shirt. She flips the photo, hoping for a note from Veronica on who this person is, but there’s nothing. She continues to flip through the images, more photos of the same house, showing off the beautiful ceramic tiles and Corinthian columns. In 42
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between the photos is a slip of paper ripped from a notebook, covered in a collection of dates written in Veronica’s tight scrawl. Confirmed Dates January 28, 1895 — Victor leaves for countryside. Employees are left in house with Luisa and Hector. February 13, 1895 — A shipment from England is received at the house. Sometime between January 29 and February 23, 1895 — Last known photo of Luisa and Hector taken February 17, 1895 — Employees claim this was the last day Luisa and Hector were seen. February 24, 1895 — Victor returns to house, finds Luisa and Hector missing. Also the day the war of independence begins.
Why did Veronica keep all this research a secret? Had she been waiting until she solved the mystery to reveal all this to the family? Camila continues to flip through the stack, when a photo of two people standing in front of the house catches her attention. It’s a young man and younger girl. He has his hands on her shoulders like he’s holding her in place—which was probably the case considering how petulant and miserable she looks. The man behind her seems to be the same one from the portrait, with the same heavy brows and messy hair. Camila flips the photo around and finds a note affixed to the back. Last known photo of Luisa and Hector, Winter 1895.
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“No way,” Camila gasps, and nearly drops the photo. Even after she went through all her aunt’s research, the missing couple had felt more like a story than anything else; a family legend she couldn’t be sure was true. But this is them. Hector is nothing like what she expected. She imagined an older man, someone in his thirties with a giant mustache and a lascivious look on his face. But this guy could be someone from her high school, and he appears more exasperated than creepy, like an older brother annoyed by his sister’s antics. Luisa, on the other hand, looks exactly as Camila imagined her. Young and innocent—though not without attitude— with wide eyes and the distinct Cupid’s bow that marks all the women of her family. Looking at the photo, Camila suddenly gets why Veronica was so captivated by them. Here, in her hand, is proof that Luisa and Hector were real. That at some point, they were more than just a sad story. Unlike Camila’s mom and grandmother, Veronica never made strange pronouncements of the family curse to her. She always gave Camila practical advice, like how to avoid having your phone stolen abroad and how to break into the house when you forgot the keys. But it’s clear from her journals that at least some part of her believed it was true. Maybe Veronica was so intent on finding out what happened to Luisa because she was hoping she got a happy ending. Proof that not everyone in their family was cursed. Isn’t Camila hoping for the same? Isn’t that the reason behind her grand escape plan? The only difference is, Camila knows the past doesn’t hold her happy ending. 44
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Still, she finds herself looking closer. The protective sleeve makes it difficult to really inspect the photo closely, the smooth plastic capturing the glare from the sunlight. If she just pulled it out and took a photo of it with her phone, she could zoom in and look at the details more easily. Using the hem of her dress as a makeshift glove, she removes the photo from the sleeve and sets it down gently on the desk. Luisa and Hector are crystal clear in the photo, the background around them fuzzy and indistinct. Working quickly, she takes out her phone and snaps a shot of the picture, checking twice to make sure it’s totally in focus. Camila was never particularly interested in their family history, in the curse her grandmother always cryptically referenced when something went wrong. But something about this, about Veronica’s laser-like focus on this mystery, has her curious. Perhaps it could be Camila’s parting gift to her, to finally solve it. And maybe this mystery of Veronica’s is just what Camila needs. If Camila can find out what happened to Luisa, prove whether she lived or died—whether Hector kidnapped her and forced her to marry him, or she went on to live a happy life somewhere else—maybe her mom and grandmother will finally let go of the idea that their family is cursed. A sudden draft rushes across Veronica’s desk, shuffling the loose papers and sending the photo of Luisa and Hector off the edge. On instinct Camila reaches out to catch the photo with her bare hands, trying to stop it before it falls to the floor. Her fingers catch on the surprisingly rigid paper, her thumb pressed firmly against Luisa’s face. Camila only has a 45
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moment to panic about the oils from her thumb getting on the photo, perhaps ruining its integrity forever, before a sudden and powerful bout of vertigo overtakes her senses. Her vision blurs, her view of Veronica’s office tunneling before going completely dark. Her stomach plummets like she’s on the highest drop of a roller coaster, and a loud rushing sound roars in her ears. Gone are the parrots and rustling leaves outside, the distant argument of her mom and Yaya on the street, the creaks and groans of an old house. All Camila feels is her body is going down, down, down, but she’s not sure to where. It feels like an age passes, like there is no time, like she’s falling forever, or for only a moment, or not falling at all, and she doesn’t even think to scream or cry before the world finally comes crashing back. The sound of rustling leaves and parrots returns first. She hears distant voices again, maybe her mom and Yaya coming back into the house, but the dizziness is so severe she can’t bring herself to open her eyes. She steadies her hands against the floor, hoping that touching it will help settle the vertigo still rattling her senses. But instead of feeling slick tile, Camila’s hands press into damp soil. A strong breeze hits then—sending the trees above her dancing, shaking so hard they drown out the sound of the people and parrots—and bringing with it the briny scent of the sea. Panicked adrenaline now overriding her nausea, Camila sits up quickly, her eyes snapping open. All Camila sees is green. Green grass and green trees and green birds flying overhead. Familiar trees, palm trees 46
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and a flamboyán, but others that she can’t place. The wind settles and now she can hear the voices again. She turns to look toward them, the whole world spinning for a moment as she moves. Through the trees she can make out a house and three people standing outside. “Tres . . . ,” a man’s voice calls out. The others are too far to make out properly. “Dos . . .” Camila doesn’t recognize any of these voices. “Uno . . .” She doesn’t recognize this place or this house— The house. She does recognize the house, but just barely because she saw it for the first time just minutes ago. But that house was in a country she’d never been to yet always known; in a time she could hardly imagine. Click.
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