Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls by Kaela Rivera (online e book reading .txt) 📕

I jumped up and down, pointing out the distant buildings. “That’s it! That’s Tierra del Sol!”

Tzitzimitl smiled down at me, her soul necklace swinging with my movement. At least, I thought she was trying to smile. It was hard to tell since she didn’t have lips.

“Tzitzimitl, can I ask you something?” I asked as we continued toward town.

“You may. Though I can’t promise I will answer.”

I pouted. “Mamá’s books said you were the Devourer. I don’t know exactly what that means, but it sounds bad. Why are you helping me?”

“Ah,” she said, and then didn’t speak for a long time.

After several unbearable moments, I shook her arm. “Well?” I asked.

The town lights grew brighter, each building like a lantern warming the edges of the desert. We crossed into the town’s shady, abandoned outskirts—the Ruins, Mamá called the area, left over from an ancient battle with criaturas. Large, empty husks of adobe buildings lined us left and right as we walked. But I kept my eyes on the lights. They were bright beneath the shadows of the cone-shaped oil wells lying far, far on the other side of town.

I’d never been out in that direction, but Papá said the oil fields lay all the way outside the Ruins that ringed my town, toward the east. And when he got a job there, he’d make enough money to build us a real house out of adobe.

Tzitzimitl’s fingers closed more tightly around mine. I looked up at her again.

“When the moon blacks out the sun, and Naked Man trembles in wonder at the heavens,” she said, using the name our legends used for humankind, “I am called to be the Devourer. It’s what I was named for. But I was also named the Protector of Progeny, the keeper of Naked Man’s children.”

I stared up at her as the worn, dirt road leading through the Ruins and into town appeared beneath our feet.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “How can you be both?”

“I wonder the same thing sometimes.” She sighed and patted my head with her other hand. “But it was the name given to me, so it is what I am. Only the Great Namer knows why.”

The Great Namer. I scrunched up my forehead as we reached the edge where the Ruins met my town. Warm yellow light fell over us as we crossed over. Mamá had definitely told me about the Great Namer before, hadn’t she?

“You mean Coyote!” I exclaimed when I remembered his other name.

Tzitzimitl flinched. “Shh, child!” I pulled my shoulders up to my ears. Her stance relaxed when she saw no one was around, and she nudged me to start walking again. I followed quietly.

“That is his name,” she said in a hushed tone.

“He’s my favorite,” I whispered. “Out of all the legends, I like Coyote’s the best.” Then I straightened up. “Oh, but yours is nice too, Tzitzimitl. Well, not nice exactly . . .”

I paused and looked up at her. The Devourer, leading me safely home? I squinted as I thought about it. She couldn’t be both. So she must be what I saw—the one who was nice enough to bring me home.

We entered the town square, and she glanced across the many avenues. “Where is your home, mija?” she asked.

I was about to point to the street when we heard a voice behind us.

“Miguel, she must be here somewhere. She knows better than to leave town—”

“Quiet. We will find her.”

The voices piled up into noise. I turned around, and Tzitzimitl let my hand slip out of hers.

From one of the streets behind us, Mamá and Papá appeared at the head of a great party of people. They held torches high, and the square was soon flooded with orange firelight. I shouted, “Mamá!”

Their heads swung toward us. Tzitzimitl took a step back.

“Mamá, Papá!” I called, throwing my arms up in the air. Their mouths dropped open as they spotted me. I ran forward, laughing. I’d missed my familia so much—

“A criatura!” Mamá screeched.

She and Papá dove past me toward Tzitzimitl. I flinched as they and the party of torchbearers flooded by. Without hesitation, they mobbed my friend, pulling her under their mass of strength.

At first, she fought back. She delivered powerful blows with her bony arms. She tossed some to the side. She even grabbed the man nearest her and opened her jaw wide. Someone screamed as her teeth aimed for the man’s shoulder. My stomach suddenly knotted up. She wasn’t going to devour him, was she? She was good. She wouldn’t.

Just before she bit down, her wide sockets stopped on me. I looked at her. And held my breath. And hoped.

Slowly, her bony fingers released the man. She stopped fighting. Immediately, the adults yanked her under a mass of torches and rope.

I dove into the crowd. “Don’t hurt her!” I filled my lungs to the brim and let out a scream: “Stop it!”

I found Papá and dug my fingers into his belt. He looked down at me, over his shoulder. His dark eyebrows crushed downward as he shoved me away from the fight. “Stay back, Cece!”

At the center of mayhem, Mamá reached down, gripped the necklace I’d noticed swinging from Tzitzimitl’s neck bone earlier, and yanked. The leather snapped. Tzitzimitl let out a painful-sounding gasp.

“Call the head of police!” Papá cried out as Mamá gave him the stone. “We will kill her tonight, before she can lure any more of our children away.”

“No!” I said, but the mob still dragged Tzitzimitl away.

Mamá crouched down beside me and turned my face to hers. “Cece, calm down, pepita. You’re safe now.”

I shook my head. “She’s not bad, Mamá. You—can’t—hurt her!”

Mamá’s hands froze on my face. “Mija,” she said, her voice like iron. “Criaturas are dangerous. If we do not destroy them when they come after us, they will overrun our people as they did in the days when the curanderas failed.” She gripped my face. “You must not cry! You must not be weak.” She gave my chest a