The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (83)

Isabela Buenasuerte was an old woman with so much regret that she’d carried it to her grave. It poured out of her in shimmering tears.

“I know my daughter well enough that I knew there was something wrong,” Isabela said, sniffing and taking a calming drag of her cigarette. “It was in her eyes. She was scared.”

“Did you see the Living Star?” Marimar asked.

Isabela paused, like she was trying hard to recall the night. “Yes, yes I did. I was going to leave after seeing Orquídea perform, but I stayed until the end. They rolled him out in an iron cage. A Living Star, they called him. I thought it was a bunch of horseshit, you know. Trying to fool honest people. But he glowed from the inside out. You couldn’t even see a person, only the outline of one. Orquídea watched him, too, from the opening of one of the curtains. That’s when I took my chance and went after her. You say this Living Star survived, too?”

Rey nodded and lit another cigarette. “He said he’d never stop hunting us.”

Isabela’s bones rattled as she shook her head. “I tried to find her, when the circus caught fire. When I couldn’t find her, I thought she was dead. She and Pedrito. My poor girl. It’s my fault, not the stars’. The only bad luck she ever had was me.”

Marimar gripped the lip of the tomb. “We shouldn’t have come here.”

“Don’t say that,” Isabela said, like she’d been slapped. “I didn’t know my daughter in life, not truly. But through you, perhaps I know her a little more. You know, there is something.… When Orquídea was a little girl, she talked to the river more than she talked to me. She told me she made a pact with the river monster. I wouldn’t be surprised if she went back there when she escaped the fire.”

Marimar brushed the corners of her eyes.

“We’ll let you rest,” Reymundo said. “Thank you.”

“What will you do?”

“Go to the river,” Marimar said.

“Take this.” Isabela yanked off the tips of three phalanges and handed them to her descendants. “Keep them with you. Put them somewhere safe. I failed to protect my daughter, but perhaps I can protect you.”

Marimar chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“You just reminded me of her for a moment,” Marimar said.

Isabela laid back and rested her hands on her abdomen. She shut her eyes. The impression of her ghost faded. “She is still my daughter, after all.”





28

THE FLOWER WHO STOLE FROM THE STARS




A few weeks into her search for the key to free Lázaro, Bolívar had become so attentive, so utterly loving, that Orquídea almost wanted to change her mind. Doubt seeped into her thoughts. Why should she take another man’s word over her own husband’s? A man who was not a man but a celestial being. A fallen god trapped for the amusement of others by a clever ringmaster.

Bolívar proved his love and desire for her again and again, for the duration of their voyage. When they changed ships in Panama, en route to Santiago, Chile, Orquídea spent most of her time walking on deck, taking in the cold breeze. She talked to her child, even though he was still growing. She wanted to make sure he recognized her voice when he was born.

On one of those walks, another passenger approached her. He leaned against the railing beside her. “What a beautiful sight.”

She nodded and offered a polite smile but nothing more.

The man leaned in. He was handsome, tailored. The kind of man who liked to adorn a bowl with exotic fruit but never eat it. A Nordic accent perhaps. “I meant you.”

He reached for her cheek, but before his hand made contact, Bolívar grabbed the man by his coat and pinned him against the edge. The threat was clear. Orquídea tried to pull Bolívar back, but she was not strong enough.

“Stop it, Bolívar, please!”

“He was going to touch you,” Bolívar shouted, feral.

Thankfully, Lucho was there to stop her husband from being jailed for manslaughter.

Back in their cabin, Bolívar kissed her, pressed his face against her pregnant belly and apologized for scaring her. Everything was fine for a moment. That’s what Bolívar was like, moments of love, adoration, heat, betrayal, jealousy. All of them fleeting.

When the moon was full, the tide within him changed. He wandered into the crowded parlors and salons, searching for a pretty girl to fuck in the dark corners of the ship. He was a lycanthrope, waiting for that one night of havoc and rage, of wild reverie that made him forget about his wife and his son growing in her womb.

It was that day, once a month, when he stayed out all night, that she made herself remember her rage. It drove her. It turned her little by little into a new kind of marvel, the woman made of iron. But no matter how many times she emptied his closets, his suitcases, turned out the pockets of his dozens of tailcoats and doublets, his socks and his undergarments, she couldn’t find the key. The only thing Orquídea discovered was that Lucho left his post once, every night, just after midnight to carry out his clandestine affair with Wolf Girl. Those were the moments she spent with the Living Star.

Lazáro was getting impatient. They were already making their way across Chile and into parts of Argentina, after which they’d continue north to Guayaquil and end back in Cartagena where everything had begun for the Londo?os.