If Not Now
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Elena of Avalor
Copyright: Disney
/
"So, I shook my fist at Heaven.
Said, "God, why don't You do something?"
He said, "I did. Yeah, I created you."
- Matthew West, "Do Something"
/
Funerals were dreary affairs in Avalor since Shuriki had taken over: no music, no flowers, and if anyone made ofrendas on Dia de los Muertos, they did it in secret. Even the statues in the churches were draped because the Queen found the paint and gold leaf excessive. The only sounds heard during the service were coughs and shuffles from the congregation and the voice of the priest, an elderly Northerner who droned out his sermon like someone who'd done it a million times before.
When they moved to the graveside, somehow "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" sounded a lot clearer in Rafa's ears than "sure and certain hope of a resurrection". She wished she could cry, but her eyes were as dry as the earth that covered the coffin.
"Abuela would've hated this, wouldn't she?" Mateo whispered beside her.
"Hush," she whispered back, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and looking around to make sure no one had overheard. "But yes, I know what you mean."
Graciela - Mateo's grandmother, Rafa's mother and, long ago, Alacazar's wife – had been a quiet, emotionally withdrawn woman, but also someone who loved beautiful things. As a weaver and seamstress, she had let bright colors and bold designs speak for her when she couldn't, or wouldn't, speak for herself. Even during her last illness, when her hands had grown too weak to work, she'd slept under a quilt patterned like a starry sky and worn nightclothes embroidered with flowers.
Today, however, the craftswoman's last surviving relatives wore black from head to toe. Though Rafa could have sworn she'd made no mistakes in her sewing, nothing fit right. The bodice of her dress was too tight to breathe properly, and Mateo's shirt hung like scarecrow rags on his skinny frame.
Neighbors and friends surrounded them, shaking hands and saying all the usual things: "I'm so sorry" … "She was a good woman" … "She's safe in the Spirit World now" … "If there's anything we can do … "
Rafa felt as if she were behind a thick glass barrier, and it was all reaching her from a distance. She returned the handshakes and thanked everyone mechanically. Mateo endured the process with silent resignation, looking far too old for his twelve years.
As they walked away from the graveyard and down the street that led back home, out of earshot from everyone, Mateo said exactly what she'd been thinking – though she'd hardly dared admit it, even to herself.
"I thought Abuelo would have come back by now."
"What gave you that idea?"
Her son looked up at her, his hazel eyes so like his grandfather's smoldering with frustration. "Because if not now," he said, "Then when?"
/
"But when, Papa?" Rafa cried, clinging to the hem of her father's robe. "When are you coming back?"
"Impossible to say," said Alacazar. "Perhaps soon, perhaps never. Now please let me finish packing, I don't have much time."
Graciela pulled Rafa out of the way as a hurricane of clothes, books and magic supplies went spinning through the air, some landing in Alacazar's bigger-on-the-inside carpetbag, others crashing into each other or the furniture in midair. Rafa had never seen her father's magic so out of control and it frightened her. She loved it when he made her float, but this was something else.
"Couldn't you take us with you?" Graciela asked.
"No!" he snapped, then in a softer tone: "Shuriki's after me, not you. You'll be safe here without me, I promise."
"What if I don't care about that?" Graciela's low voice trembled. "I don't want to lose you."
The carpetbag snapped shut and Alacazar snatched it up, throwing on a cloak in the same movement. Rafa hid behind the stair rail, looking anxiously from one parent to the other.
She'd never known her father's magic to be clumsy, but she'd also never seen her mother cry.
/
That was the first and last time she'd seen her mother cry. Graciela had been a rock since that day, unshakeable, the one person in the world who could be depended on. She had raised Rafa on her own and later helped her raise Mateo. As the decades went by, they had spoken of Alacazar less and less, but Graciela had never taken down the portraits she'd made of him in tapestry form. On her deathbed, she'd taken to looking out the window, watching the sky with wide, searching eyes. How disappointed she must have been when he never came back or sent a message, not even to say goodbye.
"I'm sorry, mijo," she said, "But I think we need to face the fact that he's not coming back. We don't even know where he went, and besides … he was older than your abuela, you know. He could be dead by now as well."
She had seen enough of death that she could say this matter-of-factly, but inside, she felt like the same frightened, bewildered child she had been thirty-seven years ago. Every time she lost someone – her mother, Mateo's father, her friends – it brought that first loss back with merciless clarity, and every time it wore another piece of her away.
"But what does that mean for us?" Mateo kept his voice to a fierce whisper, even though the street was all but empty. "For the kingdom? What about all your stories, Mama, about the Princess and the Amulet? You can't tell me they're not true."
Rafa struggled for an answer that would be honest without breaking his heart.
"They were true," she finally said. "Once. Today, though … impossible to say."
/
Rafa had to leave for a double dress fitting that afternoon. Work didn't stop even after a funeral, and honestly, she was grateful for the chance to stay busy. Countess and Doña Herrera were the most demanding customers she had, but at least they paid well and she needed the money. It was almost nightfall by the time she got home, her sewing kit in a bag over her shoulder, trying to remember what was in the pantry.
"Mateo?" she called wearily. "Did you have dinner already?"
No answer.
"Are sandwiches okay? I'm going shopping tomorrow, so if there's anything particular you'd like … "
No answer.
"Mateo! Where are you?"
No answer.
She dropped her sewing kit on the floor and ran around the house, searching every room, calling his name and fighting a rising panic. It wasn't like Mateo not to answer when she called. He did sometimes hide and sulk when he was unhappy, but he was too kind-hearted to ever deliberately upset her.
This could not be happening. He couldn't be missing, not today, not her little boy.
She burst out into the garden, where the last of the evening sunlight fell over the wall, even as a crescent moon was rising. That was when she heard a sound that, even though she hadn't heard it in thirty-seven years, was still as familiar to her as her own heartbeat. It was coming from the ground beneath her feet.
Someone was striking a tamborita.
/
Alacazar struck his tamborita. "Llevaluq!" he said.
The dark house flooded briefly with a warm, golden light. It took hold of Rafa as gently as her father's magic had always done. No longer out of control, it floated her with perfect precision from her hiding place behind the stairwell and into his outstretched arms.
"We'll never lose each other," he said. "Not completely, as long as you keep me in your hearts."
He gave them both a massive bear hug as he always used to do, lifting them off their feet before setting them back down.
"Ah, mustn't forget. One more thing." He reopened the carpetbag, rummaged inside it, and pulled out a leather-bound book with a magenta ribbon marking its pages. "The Amulet and the painting. The release spells for the royal family are in here."
Rafa was too young at the time to understand why her mother's face became so pale, or why she wrapped up the book so quickly in her shawl as if it were dangerous. As she grew older, though, she would realize what Graciela must have known in that instant: He didn't expect to come back.
"Be careful, mi sol." Graciela adjusted Alacazar's cloak, her slender hands delicate with the fabric she had made, as if that tiny gesture could protect him.
"Always, mi luna." He wiped the tears away from his wife's face. "Don't give up hope, no matter what happens."
His tamborita sounded for the last time – once, twice. He turned his carpetbag into a small twig, himself into a hawk, and soared away into the night sky as fast as his wings could carry him.
/
Rafa ran as fast as her feet could carry her. She crouched down beside the trapdoor to the old cellar, where the sound was coming from. Graciela had packed up all of Alacazar's magic supplies down there on the very night he'd left, and lied with a straight face to Shuriki's henchmen when they'd come to interrogate her the next morning. Rafa had avoided the place all her life, not only because magic was illegal, but because she feared the memories belonging to her father's things would hurt her.
Now Mateo, of all people, was the first one to find it in thirty-seven years.
Rafa's first impulse was to drag her son out by the ear and give him a piece of her mind. He knew he wasn't supposed to go down there. If the neighbors found out … most of them were friends, but some were poor enough (or spiteful enough, or both) to report magic use to the Guards in exchange for money. She couldn't stand to lose him too.
Her hand was on the door when she heard Mateo's voice as he cast a spell.
She paused.
He sounded so … different.
Her Mateo was shy. He spoke in a murmur, and never knew what to do with his hands. The Mateo practicing magic down there had a voice that rang with confidence, and his hands beat the tamborita with a natural rhythm. The language of the spell was Old Maruvian, and Rafa couldn't even tell if he was pronouncing it correctly, but she knew he was deeply invested in what he was doing. She'd felt the same way when her mother had first taught her to set a perfect stitch.
"What about all your stories?" her son had asked her. "You can't tell me they're not true."
No, she couldn't tell him that … not if he was the one making them come true.
"We'll never lose each other, not completely," her father had told her. "As long as you keep me in your hearts."
"Papa?" she prayed in a whisper, her hand over her heart. "Mama? What should I do?"
But she knew what they would have wanted without having to ask.
Without making a sound, she let go of the trapdoor handle and retreated into the house. If anyone asked her, she could say with complete honesty that she'd never seen her son working magic.
Shuriki had stolen her past and nothing could ever bring it back – but no way was Rafa letting her have the future.