Jack in the Green

Will takes out a list of people who need help that Luz made before she was arrested. The gang splits up, each taking some of the money, and although it's not even daybreak, they spend the next couple of hours delivering bundles of the stolen cash to those in need.

  Maria is with Jack on the delivery run. Her spirits rise as they visit several homes on Calle Adelanto. At one house, they leave money to cover the expense of a child's asthma medicine. At another, the cash will keep a man from losing his burrito cart. At the third house, the old woman who answers the door ushers them inside with a smile that falters when she is offered money to pay her electricity bill.

  She looks from Jack to Maria.

  "Where did you get this money?" she asks. "Is it stolen?"

  Maria knows many old women like this. The neighbourhood is full of them. Their brown skin is wrinkled, they move slowly and their once glossy dark hair is grey. They balance on the sharp edge of the poverty line, but they have their pride and are honest to a fault.

  "We took it from a bad man, señora," Jack says. "You deserve it more than he does."

  The woman shakes her head. "The devil has sent you. Do not tempt me."

  Maria takes out the silver cross she wears on a chain under her dress.

  "My friend is a good man," she says. She lifts the cross to her lips and kisses the silver. "I swear by Our Lady and los santos."

  "Please, señora," Jack says. "Let us help you. We know you are alone in the world. Let us do what your children would if they were still here to look after you."

  "My children…it was joining the gangs that killed them both."

  "We have nothing to do with the bandas," Jack says. "We—"

  His cell phone rings.

  "Pardon," he says as he pulls it out of a pocket.

  His eyes go dark as he listens to the voice on the other end.

  "I'll be right there," he says before he cuts the connection.

  "What is it?" Maria asks.

  He shrugs. "Nothing, really. Just a little trouble—coincidentally, with the 66 Bandas. Will you wait for me here while I straighten it out?"

  "But—"

  "This is not the same as what we did earlier in the evening," he tells her. "That was like a game. In this, your inexperience will get you hurt."

  "I'm not afraid."

  "I know," he says. "But I'm afraid for you and I need all my wits about me. Don't worry. I won't be long."

  He kisses her on the cheek, nods to the old woman, then slips out the door.

  "I knew this had to do with gangs," the old woman says. "Everything bad in the barrio comes from their drugs and killing."

  "We aren't with the gangs," Maria says. "We stand against them."

  She can hardly believe the words coming out of her mouth. Before tonight, she would have been no different from the old woman standing in front of her. She would have believed that it was always better that the gangs didn't even know you existed.

  But now she understands that ordinary people have to take matters into their own hands to help themselves. The police are corrupt and the government does nothing. The church can't keep up. And all the while, the rich hide behind the walls of their gated communities.

  "Then you are doomed," the woman says. She makes the sign of the cross. "And you have brought them and their dirty money to my house."

  "For that I apologize," Maria says.

  Before the old woman can say any more, Maria opens the door and steps outside. She's surprised by the change in the light. The sun is rising above the Hierro Maderas. It's much brighter now than it was fifteen minutes earlier.

  She remembers what Jack said about staying out of his way and slips through the old woman's dusty yard to the corner of the next house. Peering around its adobe wall she sees Jack and Ti Jean in the middle of the street. Jack's swinging something in one hand—she can't quite see what it is. A necklace perhaps. It's a blur, swinging too fast for her to see. Ti Jean is holding a length of saguaro rib as tall as he is.

  Facing them are a four men wearing the colours of the 66 Bandas. Coming down the street behind the bandas she sees Will approaching at a run. She can't spot either of the Glimmer Twins.

  This is bad. Two of the bandas are carrying guns. The others have a machete and a tire iron. So far as she knows, her friends have no weapons—unless you could call Ti Jean's staff a weapon. But a saguaro rib is nothing against a gun or a machete, or even a tire iron.

  Maria wants to hide her eyes, but she can't look away.

  She looks around for something to use as a weapon. If the boys are going to fight, she will too.

  But then she sees them. Three more bandas sneaking up through an alley behind Jack and Ti Jean. The buildings hide them from everyone except for her.

  She cries out a warning to Jack.

  In the alley, one of the bandas raises his gun. Maria feels the bullets punch into her chest before the sound of the gunshots register. They lift her up onto her toes and then she falls backwards, arms outspread. She hits the ground hard. She tries to suck in air but her lungs fill with blood.

  She doesn't hear Jack's inarticulate cry. She doesn't see him spring into action.

  The bottle tree man knew as soon as he saw Jack that the boy in the green hoodie was a marksman with any weapon—even it was only a stone in a sling. He would not be surprised by what happens next.

  Jack had planned to only scare off the bandas. Break an arm, a leg. Incapacitate them.

  Now, he shoots to kill.

  He moves with supernatural speed, turns, looses a stone from his sling. Another. The bandas who shot Maria and the man beside him are dead before they even realize Jack has a weapon. Ti Jean charges the other four. Will comes at them from behind. The Glimmer Twins appear from a side yard and run to help.

  In moments five bandas lie in the street, their lives bleeding out on the pavement. The survivor in the alley turns tail and runs.

  But for Maria, it is too late.

  The next morning the news is full of the gang war between the 66 Bandas and Los Murrietas, which left seven dead on the barrio streets. There's also speculation about Sheriff Crase's involvement, fueled by his sudden disappearance and the photo the Glimmer Twins uploaded of the sheriff's safe with their message spray-painted on the wall above it.

  No one pays attention to the release of Lucia Chaidez from county. With all the heat spilling over from the sheriff's office, the D.A. doesn't want to risk being seen as holding an innocent girl behind bars.

  Luz walks from the county jail to the camp the boys have outside of town. The camp's hidden under some cottonwoods where the San Juan River winds its dusty way along the back of a ranch on the east side of town. It's only during monsoons that water fills its banks.

  Jack's not there.

  "We haven't seen him since last night," Will says. "He walked out into the desert after we got back to camp and he hasn't come back."

  Jack doesn't return until the funeral, three days later.

  Santa Margarita Maria church in the barrio is filled to capacity. The whole neighbourhood has heard that the bandas killed the leader of Los Murrietas, and everyone has come to the funeral service to pay their respects. Burly barrio boys without gang affiliations keep watch by the doors of the church and stand on street corners nearby in case the 66 Bandas are brazen enough to show up.

  Luz sits unnoticed in a pew at the back where she hopes Pablo and the rest of Maria's family won't notice her. Jack and the boys are scattered through the congregation. Luz pays no attention to the crowd. She doesn't hear the priest. Her attention is on the photo of Maria on an easel beside the coffin.

  Oh Maria, she thinks.

  And she remembers.

  Once upon a time, they were best friends.

  Earlier this year, when they are both nineteen, Luz comes back to Santo del Vado Viejo with Jack and the other boys. The first thing she plans to do is look up Maria.

  "She's a good friend?" Will asks when she excitedly mentions this to the boys.


  "She's my best friend."

  "And here I thought I was your best friend," he says. He lays the back of his hand against his brow. "I'm so hurt."

  She punches him in the shoulder and grins.

  "Don't be silly," she tells him.

  "Don't you be silly either," he says.

  She's about to make another joke when she sees how serious he looks.

  "What's up?" she says.

  "What will you say when she asks what you're doing back in town? Will you invite her to join our little gang?"

  "Of course not. I'm not going to tell her about any of that."

  "But it will be hard keeping something so big from her."

  She's about to say it's not even going to come up, but then she realizes how can it not? Maria will ask her lots of questions about her life. She'll ask if she found her magic. Luz will have to spin some story, but it won't do much good. Maria knows her too well. She'll see straight through any lie.

  "It will be easier for both of you if you don't see her at all," Will says.

  Ti Jean nods. "She doesn't sound like us. If she gets involved, she'll get hurt."

  "If you love her," Jack says, "you'll let her go her own way."

  The Glimmer Twins nod in agreement.

  Though it upsets her, she knows they're right. She'll do what they say because the last thing she wants is for Maria to be hurt in any way.

  "I really miss her. We were always best friends," she says.

  "Then you have to decide," Jack says, "which is more important? The work, or her?"

  She knows the answer to that, though she's not sure it's the right one because the decision is made by her head, not her heart.

  But fate brings them together again anyway.

  Maria is laid to rest in San Miguel Cemetery. Half the barrio comes out to the graveyard, but Lucia is no more aware of the crowd here than she was back in Santa Margarita Maria. She watches as the coffin is lowered into the ground. It feels like a piece of her is being buried with Maria in that grave.

  She stays long after the crowd is gone and the grave has been filled in. She knows Jack and the boys are close by, but they give her some distance.

  Finally she hears a soft step in the dirt. Jack sits on his haunches beside her.

  "We were supposed to be together," Jack says. His tears make tiny dark circles in the dirt at his feet.

  "I didn't know until I saw her," he continues. "But as soon I did, I knew. She's my other half. We've only barely met. How can it be that she's gone?"

  Luz is wondering how any of this can be real. These boys are spirits. Archetypes. They aren't real.

  But Maria was. And Jack's sorrow is.

  "I'm sorry," Luz says.

  "That's not enough," Jack tells her.

  He hands her the cigarette tin that Luz and Maria magicked all those years ago.

  "Bring her back," he says, his red-rimmed eyes pleading.

  Luz accepts the tin, but all she can do is stare at it in her hands, feeling helpless.

  "I…I can't do that," she says. "I want to, but I wouldn't even know how to begin."

  "Look," Jack says. "I know who I am now. I'm the Jack in the Green—the Robin in the green hood. My companions and I have lived a hundred lifetimes in the green wood. In many ways we are the green wood. Yet your magics were still strong enough to bring us here, weren't they?"

  She nods slowly. "But I didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't trying to bring you, specifically."

  "The only reason you could bring us to you was because of her," Jack says. "Because she and I were destined to meet.

  "I know how this charm works," Jack continues. "You think of Maria and you open the tin."

  "And if nothing happens?"

  "Something will happen," he assures her. "Every little thing we do makes something happen somewhere."

  Luz looks at the tin. She remembers that night, rapping on Maria's window. She remembers the promise it held. She remembers how they took the tin to the bottle tree man's yard and buried it under the glass pebbles.

  "Was it her magic or mine?" she asks, her voice soft.

  "Does it matter? Open the tin."

  She does and the world goes away.

  Jack is ready this time. He catches Luz before she can fall over. He sits cross-legged and rests her head on his lap.

  And like he did with Maria, he waits.

  The green shocks Luz.

  Jack and the boys are always talking about this ancient green wood of theirs, but she never thought it would be so verdant and lush.

  She's used to cities like L.A., or the desert. Brown places with a horizon that lies in the far distance and a sky that stretches forever. Here, she can barely see the sky for the overhanging boughs of giant, mossy trees. The foliage has the wavy edges of oak leaves, but these are far bigger than any oak trees she's ever seen. The grass is thick underfoot. She would wonder about that—how it can grow so luxuriant and green with that thick canopy of leaves above—except she knows without having to be told that this place is like Jack, like the boys.

  It's not a real wood, but the archetype of a wood.

  She starts to walk. Her footsteps are almost silent on the grass, but the woods are full of birdsong. The air is moist, compared to the dry desert. It doesn't smell like dust. It smells like freshly turned earth and bark and leaves.

  Luz should feel out of place. Her surroundings are unlike anything she's ever experienced before. Yet she feels like she's come home. And she's inexplicably happy.

  She wanders aimlessly until she hears the sound of water. She follows the sound up a low incline until she comes to a spring-fed pool. Water tumbles from a cleft high in the rocks at its far end. Water lilies bloom on the surface of the pool and the rocks around it are covered in thick green moss. The giant oaks tower above, making it feel like a natural cathedral.

  She's not surprised to find Maria sitting on one of those rocks, one hand trailing in the water. A shaft of light penetrates the trees, illuminating Maria's flawless brown skin and black hair. The white dress she's wearing glows in contrast to her surroundings. There are no holes in it, no blood. She looks like an angel.

  Maria's gaze meets hers and she smiles, not in the least surprised to see Luz, either.

  "You opened the tin," she says.

  Luz nods. "Jack told me to."

  Maria sighs. "Oh, Jack. All I ever got was a few kisses from him. But I feel like I've known him forever. We should have been together forever."

  "He feels the same way."

  Maria's eyes brighten, then she sighs again.

  "Too bad I'm dead," she says.

  "You're not—" Luz begins, except she doesn't really know what to say.

  Maria is dead. She just watched her coffin being lowered into the dusty ground in San Miguel Cemetery.

  "It's okay," Maria says. "You'd be surprised how quickly you get used to the idea. And this—" She waves her hand to take in their surroundings. "It's not such a bad place to be."

  Neither of them says anything for a long moment.

  "Jack seems to think he knew you from before," Luz says finally. "Like in some past life or something."

  "That's so weird. But maybe it's true. I felt this immediate connection the first time I saw you guys robbing that house in Desert View. Maybe we did know each other, but I just can't remember. Or only my subconscious can."

  "You could ask him," Luz says.

  "Except I'm dead, so that's not really an option."

  "I'm here to take you back," Luz tells her.

  Maria's eyebrows go up. "Seriously? How does that work?"

  "I'm not really sure."

  "It's a nice thought," Maria tells her, "but I don't see it happening. Did you know they have talking foxes here?"

  Luz shakes her head.

  "They're so strange. They say I'm the maid of the green wood. That when the Summer King returns, he and I will…we'll make love, and that'll welcome in the spring. Our being together will make
the year start or something." She shakes her head. "They call me Maid Marian instead of Maria, but I'm not their maid."

  That makes Luz smile. And it fills her with the unexpected confidence that maybe this can be fixed.

  "At home you were a maid," she says. "Just not the kind they expected. Come back, and you can be whatever you want to be."

  "Come on. Remember me dying? I can't go back."

  "There's always brujería."

  Maria shakes her head. "I don't think even magic can heal death. Luz, it's over. I felt each of those bullets as they tore through me." She plucks at the white cotton of her dress. "Even if they didn't leave any trace when I woke up here."

  "Jack says if we're going to make things better we need to focus on that—the violence, not just the poverty."

  "And how's he planning to fix that? Is he going to clean up the cartels?"

  "We haven't figured it out yet," Luz says. "We need you to do that."

  "Me? What do I know?"

  "More than you think. But it's not just what you know. It's who you are. You're a martyr now. The woman the cartels and the bandas can't kill because she'll just come back. You can be the symbol of hope we need to stand against them."

  "What if I don't want that? What if I just want to be an ordinary girl?"

  "Oh Maria," Luz says. "You were never an ordinary girl."

  "I still don't see how that brings me back."

  "I think it's a matter of wanting to go back. You have to want it."

  "If that's all it takes," Maria says, "pretty much everybody who ever died would go back."

  "Maybe they do want to. But they don't have a magic cigarette tin like we do. When I was studying with Abuela she told me that magic depends mostly on our will. It's almost like, for it to work, you just have to believe that it will. Everything else—charms and spells and potions—those are just there to help us focus."

  "Do you believe it?"

  Luz breaks into a huge smile. " Oh, I know I'm going to bring you back," she says, holding out her hand.

  Maria meets her gaze for a long moment before she stands up and takes Luz's hand. Their vision swims, the forest spins, and then the green is gone.

  Luz opens her eyes to find herself back in San Miguel Cemetery, lying with her head in Jack's lap. She grins up at him.