When Beatriz, Pete, and Joaquin arrived back at Bicho Raro, everything was quiet and dark except for the soft noises of owls that had begun to gather again. All of the pilgrims and the bonfire had burned out and quieted. Joaquin crept away to sneak back into the camper, a process that was possible only if he moved very slowly; it took an hour for him to accomplish it from beginning to end.
This left Beatriz and Pete standing in the cold night, gazing at Bicho Raro.
It is surprising how a strange place can change with just a little familiarity. When Pete had arrived in Bicho Raro not very long ago, the chilly night had felt full of eerie and unfriendly entities. The structures had seemed less like houses than outcroppings, none of it welcoming. But now it merely appeared to be a sleepy collection of homes, a friendly port in the vast dry sea of night. The whispers he heard were merely the owls on the rooflines; the shivers over his skin were merely from being so close to the desert and to Beatriz. He knew the bed waiting for him was only the floor beside Padre Jiminez’s bed, but he didn’t mind it.
It is surprising, too, how a familiar place can change with just a little strangeness. Beatriz had lived in Bicho Raro for her entire life and she could have navigated it in full dark. She knew all of the sounds and smells and shapes in it, and she knew how this invisible dark felt when it curled between the buildings to sleep. She knew that many people were frightened by Bicho Raro after dark, but night here had always been a comfortable time for her, a time when her thoughts could stretch into the quiet without anyone else’s voice intruding. But tonight, her home seemed strange and awake, every board and every nail and every shingle sharply visible in the dim lights, all of it marvelously distinct like she had never seen it before. It was as if she was afraid. Her head wasn’t frightened—her thoughts proceeded quite as usual. But her heart felt as if it was—it was racing.
But she did not think she minded it.
Pete said, “I’m nearly finished with the stage.”
“I saw,” Beatriz replied.
“Do you think you would like to test it with me?” Pete asked.
He held out his hand, and Beatriz thought for a moment before taking it. Together they climbed onto the amber-brown dance stage and walked across the boards into the very center. They stopped and faced each other.
“I don’t know how to dance,” Beatriz admitted.
“I don’t either,” Pete said. “I guess we’ll figure it out.”
Beatriz took his free hand and put it on her waist.
“It’s cold,” Beatriz said.
“It is,” Pete said.
He stood a little closer to her so that they were warm together.
“There’s no music,” Beatriz said.
“We need the radio.”
But the station had long since gone quiet, and Diablo Diablo had long since turned back into Joaquin.
Pete put his voice right by Beatriz’s ear so that his breath warmed her skin, and he began to sing. It was nothing extravagant, just Patsy Cline sung in his low and uneven voice, and they began to dance. It was very quiet. No one else would have seen if not for the desert. But when the desert heard Pete Wyatt singing a love song, it took notice. The desert loved him, after all, and wanted him happy. So when it heard Pete singing, it rose a wind around them until the breeze sang gently like strings, and when it heard Pete singing, it provoked the air to heat and cool around every stone and plant so that each of these things sounded in harmony with his voice, and when it heard Pete singing, it roused Colorado’s grasshoppers to action and they rubbed their legs together like a soft horn section, and when it heard Pete singing, it shifted the very ground beneath Bicho Raro so that the sand and the dirt pounded a beat that matched the sound of the incomplete heart that lived in Pete Wyatt.
The sound of this roused the Sorias from their sleep. Francisco looked out of his greenhouse and saw Pete and Beatriz dancing, and he missed Antonia. Antonia looked out the window of her house and saw Pete and Beatriz dancing, and she missed Francisco. Luis the one-handed took out his future love’s box of gloves from beside his bed and counted them. Nana reached for the photograph of her long-dead husband. Michael had been sleeping rolled up in his own lengthy beard, but he woke up and returned to sleep rolled up with Rosa instead. Judith looked out her window and wept with happiness to see her sister happy, and Eduardo wept, too, because he always liked to dress to match his wife when he could.
As she danced with Pete, Beatriz was thinking that perhaps this was what performing the miracle felt like for Daniel. The sensation inside her felt like it came both from inside her and from someplace very much outside her, which was impossible and illogical and miraculous. If Daniel had been there, he would have told her that this was because holiness was love, but he was not, so she had to merely wonder if she finally understood her family a little better.
Pete was thinking that he liked Beatriz’s quiet, watchful ways, and he was thinking that he liked the way that she felt, and he was thinking that he could feel his heart, but not in a bad way. He realized that he had been wrong to think that joining the army or starting a moving company would satisfy that hole in his heart. He had thought he had lived a happy life, but now he understood that he had only ever been content. This moment was his first moment of true happiness, and now he had to readjust every other expectation in his life to match it.
They both felt more solid than they had before, although neither had realized they had not felt solid enough before.
When they stopped dancing, Pete sweetly kissed Beatriz’s cheek.
Beatriz took Pete’s hand and held his arm still. Then she put her thumb right on the inside of his elbow. It was just as warm and soft as she had thought it would be when she first saw it. Her thumb fit perfectly.
“How about …” Pete started. “How about I don’t take the truck until all this business with Daniel’s darkness is over with?”
Beatriz considered. There were many ways that Daniel’s darkness could end, some faster than others. If they didn’t need to drive out into the desert to reach Daniel, they didn’t need the truck. She could find another way to make Joaquin a radio that could be hidden in a hurry. It was very fair. Too fair. Because—“That could be a long time.”
“I know.”
She put a hand on his gentle cheek. “I think you did a good job on this stage.”
“Thank you,” he replied.