By Patrick Cabello Hansel
Luz and Angel walked in silence to the cemetery. The clouds had disappeared, and the nearly first quarter moon hung like a bowl tipped up to pour out blessings. They stopped by the closed gates and looked at the sky together. Midnight passed, and the slow December march t the dawn began quietly.
“Do you think we”'re going to die?” Angel asked Luz.
“Yes””I mean everyone has to die,” she answered.
“No””are we going to die soon?” His lip began to curve into the same shape as the moon.
“I don”'t know””why?”
“It”'s just everything that I”'ve gone through: the owl calling, getting beat up, the immigration raid, the man on the street that I cut, the carjacker, the ghost of Mateo that haunts everything””it looks like someone”'s out to kill me.”
“And then there”'s my uncle”'s escape, the Mother Lights, your old teacher, my abuela, your talk with your dad, even Guadalupe Day and Santa Lucia””it looks like someone”'s trying to save us.”
“You”'re right”, Angel said. “And it”'s all happened in just a few days. So what do we do now?”
Luz thought a moment. “Remember what the last Mother Light told us?” she asked.
“She said that maybe we need to find what we”'re running away from, if we”'re ever going to find what”'s chasing us,” he answered.
“That”'s right””except she didn”'t say ”˜maybe”'.”
Angel thought for a second.
“You”'re right””neither Mother Light nor anyone else we”'ve met has equivocated on what they told us.”
“Equivocated?” Luz laughed. “What a scholar you are!”
Just then a large bird flew over their heads. They both instinctively ducked, and watched as the bird flew into the cemetery
“Was that the owl you saw?” Luz asked Angel.
“No, that was a hawk””a red tailed.”
They both looked at each other and shouted: “¡Halcon!”
“Halcon means hawk in Spanish,” Luz stammered.
“You don”'t think that man””if he was a man””just flew over us?” Angel asked.
“Let”'s go see!” Luz shouted.
“You mean we”'re going to break into a cemetery?” Angel asked.
“Well, have you ever heard of anyone breaking out of a cemetery?”
“Maybe Mateo Kelly Hidalgo did!” And they began to laugh as they climbed the wrought iron fence. As they dropped to the fresh snow, they tumbled into each other.
“Luz, do you know what you”'re running away from?” Angel asked.
She hugged herself as if afraid to let go, then slowly opened her arms. She looked at Angel.
“My past,” she said..
After a moment, she asked him the same question. He looked up at the sky, and then at her.
“I think maybe I”'m running away from my future,” Angel said.
She touched his cheek and smiled.
“I think you”'re right””except maybe you should drop the ”˜maybe”'.”
And then they kissed, the kiss that had been interrupted by their lives for too long. They held each other, a long and tender embrace, there among the peaceful dead, and the not so peaceful, and what was stirring in them was stirring in the world.
