The Lupe POV

Or

For whom the bell tolls

Lupe Contreras struck a match, and then tried to use it to light her makeshift torch. And after the flame quickly ate through the material of her pajamas and died, she remembered that in the movie she'd seen, the guy had dunked the cloth-wrapped bone into some oily stuff to keep it lit. With a glare of annoyance, she stuffed the matches back into the backpack, and brought out the pocketknife instead, and used another strip from her pajamas to tie it, blade out, to the end of her femur club. Whether or not it would do any good against El Silbón, it made her feel a little more secure. Then she headed back down the path she and Miguel had run, and upon reaching the crossroads they had found, hurried as best she could down the right side through the darkness.

Ever since they had finally left her father* and come to live with her mother's sister and her family, nobody-not Mamá, not Tía Dolores, not Marisol-thought Lupe was capable of doing anything for herself. They kind of treated Alejandro like that too, but most of their concern and overprotectiveness was focused on Lupe. They acted like she was a glass figurine, like she was going to fall apart if she ever had any strenuous responsibilities or tried to be in charge of anything. And she was so, so tired of it, and the way that they didn't listen when she tried to tell them that she didn't need to be treated like that anymore, and could handle herself.

The worst part, she realized with surprising astuteness for an eight-year-old, was that Mamá probably thought she and Alejandro had run off and gotten themselves lost in the desert or something, so even if they did make it home they'd just be more protected and sheltered than ever.**

But surprisingly, part of her didn't care. It thought that it would be worth it, if they could just all manage to get home alive.

Lupe followed the sound of the whistling,*** feeling her heart in her mouth as she rushed up and down bony trails, hoping against hope that please please please El Señor let her brother be all right.

And then there they were: El Silbón, lowering his sack to the ground and reaching out with his bony hands towards Alejandro, who had evidently managed to ignore his still-injured wrist enough to climb halfway up one of the walls, and was now trying to climb the rest of the way, but his feet kept slipping out from under him and his wrist was evidently still giving him trouble.

Lupe decided to return the favor from their previous fight with the monster, and charged, thrusting the blade of her makeshift spear into El Silbón's back.

El Silbón gave another one of those horrible screeches, whirling on her and, very unfortunately, knocking the spear from her grasp.

She stumbled, nearly falling right on her back, but managed to grab onto one of the walls for balance. She looked for a loose bone, a skull, something she could use as another weapon, as El Silbón pulled the spear from between his ribs and tossed it aside. Behind him, Alejandro half climbed, half fell back down the wall.

Lupe gulped a little as the whistler stalked closer, glaring down at her with eyes of gold-

And then, from above, deus ex machina arrived.

Neither of the Contreras siblings knew the phrase "deus ex machina" yet, so all they knew was that in this case, it was the sound of a giant bell. And then, looking up, they amended the definition to the sight of-Lupe blinked in bewilderment but no, it still appeared to be true-a giant, green, flying cat that had a large bell around its neck,**** swooping down towards them.

The image was so out of place even for here that all they could do was stare up at it for a moment, blinking stupidly at the unexpected sight. Had they been a little older or more familiar with even more of the darker aspects of the world, they might possibly have wondered if there was some kind of illegal substance they had been inhaling.

Lupe glanced over at her brother to check if he was seeing this too-and to her further bewilderment, El Silbón was gone.

No sign as to where he had gone, he'd just-vanished.

Then the giant cat was landing with a thud in the maze before them, bones crunching and crumbling under her huge paws, and allowing them to see that there were three skeletons and assorted multicolored animals crowded together on its back.

Lupe was also as yet unfamiliar with the phrase "out of the frying pan, into the fire," but when she saw that yet more skeletons had arrived, that general feeling was honestly the first thing that came to mind; that perhaps these creatures were rivals of the first skeleton, who had come to steal his prey so they could eat it themselves. So her knee-jerk reaction was to grab the spear, rush over to stand protectively in front of her brother, and point her weapon at these new arrivals, yelling at the top of her lungs, "Stay back!"

Two of the skeletons-a severe-looking woman in a purple dress, and a man with a somewhat decrepit straw hat-looked at each other in confusion. The third, who was sitting by the cat's tail with one of the smaller dogs on her lap, just looked like she was trying not to laugh.

Then the skeleton man carefully slid off the cat's back, holding up his hands in a placating way that looked startlingly familiar.

"It's okay, niños. We're here to help you. We're Miguel's familia."

"Except me," said the skeleton with the braids, "I just came along for the ride." She frowned thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, I'm not too sure who or where my family is anymore...though I must have at least some, if I haven't been forgotten already…" Her speech devolved into quiet muttering to herself.

The other two skeletons ignored her; instead, the one in the purple dress jumped off the cat too and began dusting off her skirts.

Lupe brandished her spear more fiercely, ignoring the way her hands trembled the tiniest bit. Then, to her astonishment, Alejandro swept past her and approached them without apparent fear.

"You're Miguel's Papá Héctor!"

The skeleton blinked. "How did you know that?"

"They've been making a museum about you in the shoe shop. And Miguel told us that he went to the Land of the Dead and got to meet some of you, and then when we found the center of the maze we saw a skeleton who looked like you-"

He was interrupted by the woman, who Lupe realized must be Imelda Rivera, demanding, "Where is Miguel?!"

Lupe swallowed, suddenly feeling a rock growing in the pit of her stomach at the anxiety in the older woman's voice. "I-he was hurt, and I had to find my brother-"

"So you left him alone?!" Imelda's tone became very quickly outraged. "De la Cruz could have found him by now!"

Lupe blinked. "De la Cruz?"

Before either of Miguel's ancestors could explain, one of the other strange animals flopped off the cat's back, landing in an ungainly heap before somehow scrambling up onto his feet, revealing himself to be a rainbow-colored dog with a pair of scrawny wings.*****

Héctor pulled a strip of red cloth out of a pocket of his vest, and held it out for the dog. He sniffed at it eagerly, and then blew out a stream of breath that revealed a series of glowing shoeprints...leading right to Lupe.

She looked down at her feet, and then gave them a sheepish look. "He let me borrow his shoes."

Imelda made an annoyed sound, and smacked the dog on the ear. With an indignant whine, he tried again, and this time he excitedly rushed off into the labyrinth, following a fresh trail of bare footprints that appeared. Héctor was right on his heels, and now that she knew there was hope for finding her grandson, Imelda took a moment to help these two strange children climb onto the cat's back, before the rest of the group took off after him.

*Her real life one, not the one in the hallucination or whatever it was.

**That is, if their mother and aunt ever decided to un-ground them for disappearing like that and scaring everyone to death.

***Or rather, didn't follow it. Or followed it in the opposite direction. Ah, you know what I mean.

****And didn't look all too pleased about it.

*****At that point, Lupe gave up being surprised.