“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.”
This was Beatriz’s thesis: The Sorias must have once upon a time confronted their own darkness in the same way that all pilgrims were asked to confront their darkness. Somewhere along the way, a Soria must have lost the taste for facing their demons, however, and either died before performing the second miracle, creating a legend, or merely stopped the practice in its tracks, proclaiming Soria darkness too difficult to tackle. And so Sorias forgot how to solve their darkness, and they let it build up inside them until it became too treacherous, with a handful of Sorias being struck down each generation, falling prey to years of backed-up darkness.
The only way Beatriz had to prove this theory, however, was by testing it on herself. And if there was any other explanation—if Soria darkness was truly impossible, or if it had become impossible—Beatriz might become wood like Daniel’s parents or blind and breathless like Daniel himself.
“Take Salto and go,” she told Marisita. “I don’t know what will happen.”
“I won’t go,” Marisita said. “I endured my own darkness and I will endure this, too.”
“Then take Salto and at least ride a little ways off so you can watch safely.”
She waited until Marisita had retreated just a little with Salto, and then she went to her cousin. She tied her bootstrap to his wrist so that nothing could carry her away from him before she could give him back his eyes and breath. She called her thoughts back down from where they were soaring with the buzzards and the other lechuza, the one with the woman’s face, the one who had hatched from the fire. Then she peered at the strange owl still on the ground, the one with Daniel’s face.
Do you have darkness inside you?
Beatriz thought of how Marisita had just overcome her darkness, and the twins, and Tony.
Do I have darkness inside me?
She remembered those owls sitting on the edge of the radio telescope, watching her hopefully, and she knew that she did.