Chapter Text
The trees here are different.
Back home they were smaller weaker things- spindly branches that broke when Valentina’s fat toddler hands grabbed or pulled at them, dry yellow leaves falling down with little provocation. Here, they’re huge! They tower overhead so invitingly, begging to be climbed.
It doesn’t take very long before she gets her chance.
Valentina sits at the very top of a soursop tree, stomach aching from gorging herself on ripe fruit. It’s dizzyingly high up. Everything looks tiny. She can see all the houses, candlelights in every window. Laughter from someone’s open window carries itself on the breeze.
Someone is playing guitar- and aside from a few bad notes, it’s pretty peaceful. Tucked snugly away in a cluster of branches, Valentina feels her eyelids grow heavy.
It isn’t until several hours later, after a little nap, that she realizes she’s well and truly stuck.
Valentina doesn’t cry, she’s fourteen now- not a baby. So no, she doesn’t do anything dumb and littlekid-like. But she does get a little bit nervous.
She tries stepping on branches that seemed so sturdy a few hours ago but they bend under her weight in a taunting way, like they knew this was gonna happen. She can’t go higher- it’s too big of a fall, she’d hurt herself if she jumped down.
Her papa is probably asleep, his head too full of worries to notice Valentina’s absence.
But, she’s optimistic! Yes, she figures someone will come soon.. Someone will notice that she’s gone- they have to.
The birds whistle lowly and she can hear the chirping of insects- it’ll be no time at all.
By the next morning, her legs ache and her head hurts, she’s thirsty. But no one walks by. Now it’s three pm and she can’t help but cry because she’s gonna die up here and when she does- she’s gonna haunt everyone in this stupid dumb town. Especially her papa for making her move here.
It’s almost sundown when one of the village girls finds her pathetically whimpering, snot dripping down her nose between heaving sobs.
“You ok up there?” The girl says- sounding like she’s about to laugh.
“I’m stuck,” Valentina says, wiping her face on her sleeve. Her mouth is so dry that every word feels like a chore.
The girl is a little older than Valentina. She has long waist-length hair, smooth coppery skin, and a Cheshire cat look on her face. Valentina hates her almost immediately.
The two stare at each other for a minute and the corners of the girl’s mouth twitch upwards.
“Can you just go get someone to help me get down?” Valentina shouts down at the girl. She has no other choice, but she hates begging.
“I can get you down.” The girl says cheerily. Friendly in the way a cat greets a mouse.
“No, listen- my papa has a ladder, just go down the hill and-”
“I can get you down.” She says again, firmer this time. The girl has no tools, no ladder, and she isn’t even carrying a bag- how could she possibly-
Valentina shrugs and raises her hands as if to say, ‘I’m waiting!’
Nothing happens. Obviously.
The girl- she’d met her before, briefly, she just didn’t remember her name- crosses her arms and smiles again. It’s infuriating. If Valentina can make it down, the first thing she’s gonna do is punch her.
“You’re an idi-” But before she can finish the insult- a heavy vine wraps itself around her ankle, flipping her upside down.
In a confusing and, frankly, humiliating process- she’s down on her feet on solid ground before the scream is even done rattling through her body. Shaken- she leans against the tree.
What the fuck.
“En el nombre del Señor Jesucristo.“ She prays, trembling, signing a cross over her chest and backing up. This girl was a demon who was in league with the devil and was going eat her.
She had to be dreaming. Was she already dead? Did she die in a stupid tree??
The girl- I-something, Inez? Imelda? Steps closer. Valentina can feel the girl’s breath. Demons wear a lot of pink. Demons wear pink and smell faintly floral- she never should’ve moved here.
“Usually people say thanks, but that works too.” The demon rolls her eyes and plucks a leaf out of Valentina’s tangled hair.
“I’ll scream- I’m-I’m not afraid of you.” Valentina holds her hands out cautiously.
“I-I’m not afraid of you,” The girl mocks back. “Did you seriously not listen when my abuela showed you and your papa around town?”
That’s where she knew the girl from- Isabela, that was her name. She was in that big family that ran the town with the scary abuela. No, she hadn’t listened to a thing that woman said- there had been a really cool lizard on the wall.
“I was present..” She trails off weakly.
Isabela shoots her a withering look and Valentina relents.
“Ok, maybe I tuned out some of it,” all of it. “So what? As if I wanted to hear all about the town’s architecture or whatever.”
“Magic powers.”
“What.”
“We all- my family has magic powers.”
Valentina realizes that she’s probably going insane and that this girl is an especially vivid hallucination- so, she nods.
“Ah,” Valentina hums, striving-for-thoughtful. “Yeah, sounds good.”
Valentina keeps nodding as she backs away toward the village. Keeping her eyes trained on the other girl as she does so.
She has the longer legs- she could probably beat the girl back to the village, enough time to get on Helado the donkey and head back to the city.
“It was- just, so great to meet you,” Valentina takes a few steps back. “Again, a million thanks for helping me out there. Magic! Very cool!” She’s about to make a break for it, but she trips over a particularly overgrown tree root and lands face-first in the dirt.
“Hijueputa,” She mumbles into the ground and clenches her jaw. There’s dirt in her mouth.
“I grow plants,” Isabela adds helpfully. “That’s my gift.”
Valentina spits mud on the patch of grass in front of her.
There’s a rock in Valentina’s sandal. It’s small and sharp- and she purposefully digs it into her skin to try and ignore… whatever this is. Furrowing her brows, she looks up.
Isabela’s hands are raised. The gesture is supposed to put Valentina at ease but does the opposite- this girl could kill her with a thought- without ever even moving a finger. Valentina rubs her ankle with the flat of her hand mindlessly, the skin is red and raw.
Her eyes catch on the bright splotches of yellow pollen around Isabela’s hips- like she’d wiped her hands off on her dress earlier.
“Sorry..” Isabela trails off- her teasing smile is suddenly awkward. “I didn’t mean t-”
They’re both cut off by a sickening crack. Lightning bursts in blinding flashes nearby- impossibly loud. The ground shudders beneath the two of them. Hadn’t the sky been clear ten minutes ago? It didn’t even smell like a storm.
Isabela’s eyes dart towards her house- the big one in the middle of town, where… Where the storm seems entirely localized.
“I think my aunt needs something, I-” She grabs the hem of her dress as she walks backward towards the town- half stumbling as she looks back apologetically.
Hungry and tired, Valentina just blinks, dusts herself off, and starts down the path back home. What a god-awful day.