suddenly silent. In the distance, a lone coyote howls, and his forlorn cry echoes across the valley. Hours later, when I finally allow myself to cry, I know I will sound as desperate and lonely as that coyote separated from his pack.
Behind me, Rosa whimpers quietly. Her cheek is pressed against the dirt and her tearstained face smeared with the deep-red clay that covers the ground. I crawl toward her, marking my skirt with the same red that stains her face. Grabbing her hand, I tie one end of the cut thread around her ring finger.
Maria Elena settles herself in my lap, and I consider wrapping the other end of the thread around my own finger. Instead, I hold it out to the wind and we watch as it flutters away and disappears into the dark night sky.
Folks around here call us
el destinos.
They like to say we came from the stars. And when I stare up at the infinite heavens stretched out above us like a shroud, it’s hard to imagine we came from anywhere else.
I place my hand over Rosa’s trembling one, and after a moment, she intertwines her fingers with mine. And it is like this, while sitting on the hill, that my sisters and I wait for the day to blossom like a flower over the desert plateau.
I’ve always been fascinated by mythology, a fascination that started when I was in middle school and hasn’t yet been forced aside by other, more pertinent topics. I always found mythology to be a delicious combination of magic and humanity.
The Three Fates — immortal goddesses that appear in Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology — were once believed to control the destiny of each mortal from birth to death. It was while thinking of these three powerful deities that I also began to wonder what it might be like to live as a young teenage girl during a time of upheaval and change in American history. I thought of all those times when one’s cultural and national identity seemed at odds, and I wondered, what might it be like to be divine and yet, at the same time, utterly human? I suppose all these thoughts wove themselves together, because suddenly I had Valeria, Rosa, and Maria Elena, three immortals sent down to live as Mexican American sisters during the years after the Texas annexation.
THE BLOOD SPATTERED ACROSS KLIO’S cheek and jaw had yet to dry. She drew a clean, delicately embroidered kerchief from her pocket and wiped her face, staining the white square scarlet. She tucked the kerchief away and surveyed the room.
This job had been too messy for her taste. For the most part, Klio fulfilled contracts in a quick, tidy manner. She went in, did her work, and left the target with little more than a startled expression forever written across his or her face.
The man sprawled half on the foot of the bed and half on the floor did not look startled. His face had gone slack, his eyes glassy. But the dark splotch just below the left breast pocket of his waistcoat piqued Klio’s annoyance. She rarely fell back on her dagger to finish a job.
The room bespoke of a haphazard kill: chairs overturned, papers strewn from the desk onto the floor, an overturned inkwell rolling along the desktop while its contents dripped over the edge to a widening black pool below, and feathers floating in the air above the pillows from which they’d erupted. Jagged shards of glass were scattered across the room.
So many still believe mirrors will make a difference.
Klio wondered how such misinformation managed to stay in circulation despite all the evidence to the contrary.
With one last disapproving look about the room, she pulled on her gloves and exited into the hall. The other doors in the boardinghouse remained shut. No curious eyes peeked out. No cries of alarm roused the house matron.
Some of Klio’s jobs would have necessitated finding another way out of the room, an escape by which she would not be seen. This boardinghouse, however, was home to those who were doing their best to remain unnoticed, and becoming curious about a
Behind me, Rosa whimpers quietly. Her cheek is pressed against the dirt and her tearstained face smeared with the deep-red clay that covers the ground. I crawl toward her, marking my skirt with the same red that stains her face. Grabbing her hand, I tie one end of the cut thread around her ring finger.
Maria Elena settles herself in my lap, and I consider wrapping the other end of the thread around my own finger. Instead, I hold it out to the wind and we watch as it flutters away and disappears into the dark night sky.
Folks around here call us
el destinos.
They like to say we came from the stars. And when I stare up at the infinite heavens stretched out above us like a shroud, it’s hard to imagine we came from anywhere else.
I place my hand over Rosa’s trembling one, and after a moment, she intertwines her fingers with mine. And it is like this, while sitting on the hill, that my sisters and I wait for the day to blossom like a flower over the desert plateau.
I’ve always been fascinated by mythology, a fascination that started when I was in middle school and hasn’t yet been forced aside by other, more pertinent topics. I always found mythology to be a delicious combination of magic and humanity.
The Three Fates — immortal goddesses that appear in Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology — were once believed to control the destiny of each mortal from birth to death. It was while thinking of these three powerful deities that I also began to wonder what it might be like to live as a young teenage girl during a time of upheaval and change in American history. I thought of all those times when one’s cultural and national identity seemed at odds, and I wondered, what might it be like to be divine and yet, at the same time, utterly human? I suppose all these thoughts wove themselves together, because suddenly I had Valeria, Rosa, and Maria Elena, three immortals sent down to live as Mexican American sisters during the years after the Texas annexation.
THE BLOOD SPATTERED ACROSS KLIO’S cheek and jaw had yet to dry. She drew a clean, delicately embroidered kerchief from her pocket and wiped her face, staining the white square scarlet. She tucked the kerchief away and surveyed the room.
This job had been too messy for her taste. For the most part, Klio fulfilled contracts in a quick, tidy manner. She went in, did her work, and left the target with little more than a startled expression forever written across his or her face.
The man sprawled half on the foot of the bed and half on the floor did not look startled. His face had gone slack, his eyes glassy. But the dark splotch just below the left breast pocket of his waistcoat piqued Klio’s annoyance. She rarely fell back on her dagger to finish a job.
The room bespoke of a haphazard kill: chairs overturned, papers strewn from the desk onto the floor, an overturned inkwell rolling along the desktop while its contents dripped over the edge to a widening black pool below, and feathers floating in the air above the pillows from which they’d erupted. Jagged shards of glass were scattered across the room.
So many still believe mirrors will make a difference.
Klio wondered how such misinformation managed to stay in circulation despite all the evidence to the contrary.
With one last disapproving look about the room, she pulled on her gloves and exited into the hall. The other doors in the boardinghouse remained shut. No curious eyes peeked out. No cries of alarm roused the house matron.
Some of Klio’s jobs would have necessitated finding another way out of the room, an escape by which she would not be seen. This boardinghouse, however, was home to those who were doing their best to remain unnoticed, and becoming curious about a
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