Chapter 12

No hay dos sin tres.

Ximena's Abuela had sayings that became like prayers to their small family. Always repeated with an urgency that felt like a stern, ominous warning. And even though her grandmother was far back at the village now, Ximena heard the wonderful woman's words echo in her mind as she stopped in her tracks on the desert. Heat rained down on her and Carlos like hot, invisible rain.

No hay dos sin tres.

There is not two without three.

Something can happen once and be not of worry, but if something happens twice, it will surely happen a third time. All bad things happened in threes. Ximena wondered if good things were the same—if maybe good things happened in a sequence of three all the time but we were too distracted or too unimpressed to notice. Ximena looked for the good and the bad in everything, but the echo of her grandmother's adage at the sight of another dead and bloated jackrabbit landed the omen square in her stomach. Within the next day or two of walking, she'd surely stumble upon another one.

"Shame we didn't get here sooner, we could have had supper." Carlos jabbed at the tiny corpse with the pointy end of his walking stick but she'd have rather eaten rat meat. She could never eat rabbit without thinking of its pounding heartbeat. Anytime she managed to catch one back in the village, the poor little thing's heart raced faster than it could hop.

"What do you think is killing them?" she asked Carlos.

"Could be anything. Snake. Bird of prey." He continued walking, but Ximena stopped to examine the rabbit on its back, moving it to its side with a rock. No visible blood. No holes or cuts to its body. Just dead. Muerto.

"A snake or a bird eats its prey after they kill it. Looks like it's been here for maybe two days." She shook her head and wondered what her Abuela might say about two dead, blackened rabbits. All things in nature held a language, a symbolism that her grandmother seemed to have memorized. Ximena stared at the ratty fur waiting for some bit of information or wisdom to come to her. Was this a warning from Creation?

"Sometimes animals kill just to kill," Carlos said from ahead and Ximena pulled herself back to her feet to catch up. She hadn't minded not having kids her age to play with growing up, and even now Carlos as her only friend didn't bother her, but her only friend was often wrong. It wasn't that he was stupid, it was that he let hope outweigh his critical thinking. He hoped nothing mysterious had killed these rabbits, leaving their carcasses to rot, so he reasoned it away.

"Animals kill to eat. They kill out of instinct to survive. Killing just to kill—you're thinking of humans."

"Ah, Ximena, always the wise one." He smiled as if neither of them knew how truly murderous humans could be.

"People are inherently evil. You know that." Carlos was trying his best to ignore reality, but she couldn't let him. Not anymore. Not while they were out in the middle of the desert all alone. She pushed him to confront what those in the village tried so hard to cover up. "The Hollowings." Ximena insisted, "People are doing that, not animals."

She waited for Carlos to reply, but he only responded with the same rehearsed thing that all the adults seemed to love repeating. "The Council of Elders said it's wolves. Wild wolves."

"Wolves are wild. You don't have to say ‘wild wolves,' it's redundant. And I think you know wolves couldn't slice a human open with a clean square cut. Wolves don't have thumbs to pull out organs. And they wouldn't leave all that meat behind." Ximena waited for Carlos to respond, but he didn't. He walked like a man on a mission, and she hoped he was just trying to protect her. She had enough doubts without having to distinguish the truth from the lies. She didn't need protection. She needed the truth. "Do you really think we'll find them? It doesn't feel in my heart as though we're getting any closer to them."

"You and your feelings. Of course we'll find them." He added no additional reasoning.

Ximena had thought that once they started the search for her mom and Mariana that she'd feel better. Like all of Creation might play a game of Hot or Cold with her and shout through various signs, caliente, caliente.

But their search was not a game of Frío o caliente.

Even if it were, surely two dead rabbits in two days were a sign from Creation that they were cold. Very far from finding her mother and even further from finding out the truth. And just then, Ximena's entire will to take one more step in the hot desert sank to the bottom of her feet. That's it. ?Dios mío! . . .

The reason she didn't feel any warmer, any closer to finding her mom and Mariana the more they traveled up the California Baja Peninsula could only mean one thing and it wasn't good. She thought back to when she first told Abuela about leaving to look for her mother. The old woman hadn't been shocked or scared, just serene. Ximena hadn't understood the calm reaction at the time, but it all made sense now. Just like how the adults responded to the Hollowings. As if Abuela already knew, deep in her own bones, the dark truth but wanted to protect her granddaughter from pain.

Two dead rabbits.

Not being able to feel her mom's presence, her existence.

Ximena knew the truth already.

Her mom and Mariana were dead.