Riding astride Salto, Beatriz followed the buzzards, and soon she caught up with the owl she had seen hatch from the egg in the fire. It coasted overhead with unshakable certainty, and Beatriz felt positive no owl would travel with such surety unless it was headed toward a miracle or a disaster. And what other miracle or disaster could be taking place in this valley tonight but something having to do with the former Saint of Bicho Raro?
As she rode, she wondered what she would do when she found Daniel. She had water, and a little bit of food, but she did not know what to expect.
The stars stopped their laughing to watch her gallop beneath them, and the moon covered its face with a cloud, and then, as she grew close, the stars scrambled down below the horizon so that they would not have to watch. The sun delayed its rising, too, so as to not bear witness, hesitating just at the edge of the earth, so the early morning hung in an eerie half-light.
The buzzards and pale-faced owl all gathered in the same place, a low flat area of scrub with a dune pressed up against an overgrown barbed wire fence. In this place, Beatriz caught sight of a figure and pulled Salto up sharply, meaning to be cautious. But then she recognized Marisita’s familiar dress, crumpled into a lopsided monument as she kneeled. She had Daniel’s head and shoulders in her lap. Her arms circled him.
“Do you have his darkness?” Beatriz called.
“No,” Marisita said.
This seemed impossible, as Daniel had broken the taboo by holding Marisita in her distress, and now Marisita was doing the same for him. And there was no doubt that she loved him—she was there, after all, and so she should have been an heir to his darkness. Beatriz began to wonder if they had been wrong about the savagery of the Soria darkness along with everything else, and dangerously, hope trembled in her. “How is that possible?”
“I cannot interfere with his miracle,” Marisita said with a little sob in her voice, “because it’s too late. He’s dead.”
Now Beatriz scrambled down from Salto so quickly that she terrified even Salto. The animal leaped back from her as she hurried to Marisita’s side and crouched in the scrubby grass beside her. Here was Daniel Lupe Soria, the Saint of Bicho Raro, worn to a frayed thread in Marisita’s arms. He looked like all of the icons Beatriz had ever seen. The martyred Saint, gaunt and frail, long hair hanging. Marisita was the Madonna, holding him close.
Beatriz thought she knew then what Pete felt like with the hole in his heart.
Movement to her right startled her.
“What’s that?” she demanded.
“His darkness,” Marisita wept.
It was a dark, pale-faced owl, standing nearly as tall as Beatriz. It was not the same owl that had hatched from the egg in the truck, but it was the same species. It was no natural owl, but rather an uncanny creature bred of miracles and darkness. Like the one Beatriz had seen hatch, its face was not quite an owl face. In fact, as Beatriz studied it in the pale light, she realized it had Daniel’s eyes painted on it. Daniel’s mouth, too. And Daniel’s ears, painted on the side of its head, as if it was made of both owl and wood.
“It took his eyes,” Marisita said, “and just when I got here, it stole his breath. I tried to catch it.”
This, at least, made sense to Beatriz. She had been told her entire life that Soria darkness was a terrible and fearful thing, far stranger and more difficult than an ordinary pilgrim’s darkness. And this owl with its stolen eyes and mouth and ears was a terrible and fearful thing. At least one of the stories Beatriz had been told was true.
She did not want to get closer to the creature, but she took an experimental step toward it anyway. With a little cluck, it pranced backward. Not far. Just a few steps, its wings flapping, its expression perhaps jeering.
Marisita gazed at it with loathing. “I just can’t believe he’s dead.”
“Until his darkness leaves, he is not dead,” Beatriz said. She studied the bird. It skipped from foot to foot like a boxer, as if preparing for her to make a leap for it. “The miracle dies with the pilgrim.”
“Why is there another one?” Marisita asked.
Beatriz tilted her head back to look at the other owl, the one she had hatched. Her thoughts flew up into the air to join it.
The problem was that she needed to know where Daniel’s darkness originated in order to know how to solve it. What was he supposed to learn from this owl, this lechuza, that had his eyes and his ears and his mouth and his breath? It could not be easy, or he would have solved it himself already. Beatriz took another step toward it. It took another step back. Again with the hectic, hateful, almost playful skips. She took another step. It took several more back, getting a little farther away. That was the wrong tactic, then, Beatriz decided. She would drive it away if she continued to chase it. Beatriz wondered if she could strike it, but she did not understand the rules of its theft. She didn’t want to risk injuring Daniel’s eyes or his breath. She didn’t think the owl was supposed to be defeated through violence, anyway, as there was nothing to learn there—Daniel had never lacked for fight or bravery.
Beatriz thought about what she had learned from the events of the week before. When she made assumptions, she came to faulty conclusions. She looked at the owl again, brand-new, as if she knew nothing about it. She looked at Daniel, as if she did not know him. She removed all her fear of the darkness and all her grief at her cousin’s lifeless body. Then she asked herself what this scene could mean if she had drawn no previous conclusions about it. She struggled to school her impressions to be free of fear or rumor.
“Marisita,” she said, “what if it is not wickedly taking his breath, his eyes, or his face? What if it is just keeping them for him?”
“Why?” Marisita’s voice did not sound interested. She was losing hope.
“What if it’s only there to help him?” Beatriz said. “A teacher instead of a predator?”
Marisita threaded her fingers through Daniel’s spider-eyed ones. “My teachers never took my eyes.”
Beatriz stared down the owl, and the owl gazed back at her with Daniel’s gentle expression. It was not so terrifying when she imagined it as a teacher, something positive, something trying to tell Daniel something about himself. She took a step toward it, but again, it pranced back away from her, even farther.
“It will never come to you,” Marisita said.
But Beatriz thought she knew what Daniel’s darkness stood for now. She did not like the conclusion she had come to, which is how she knew it was free of her personal bias. The lesson Daniel was meant to learn was that miracles were made to be interfered with. He was never supposed to be able to banish this darkness alone. His darkness was a puzzle that was meant to be solvable only by another Saint.
“I think it will,” Beatriz said in a smaller voice. “Because owls are very attracted to miracles.”
Marisita said, “Who are you going to perform the miracle on?”
Beatriz said, “Myself.”