Free B0061QB04W EBOK by Reyna Grande Page B

Emperatriz pulled it off, I felt another sting on my neck. The pain spread up, pulsing in waves from my neck to my shoulders and up to my face.
    “Mago, go slice an onion and get the rubbing alcohol!” Tía Emperatriz said. Mago ran to the kitchen while my aunt and Carlos hunted for the scorpion because the locals believed that if you killed the scorpion that stung you, its venom wouldn’t be as powerful. But they couldn’t find it.
    “What’s all the fuss about?” Abuela Evila said as she stood by the door. When Tía Emperatriz told her about the scorpion, Abuelita Evila glanced around the room. “There it is,” she said, pointing to the straw-colored scorpion crawling high up on the wall, barely visible in the weak light from the bare bulb hanging above us. Everyone gasped as it squeezed its flat body through a crevice between the adobe bricks and disappeared from sight.
    Tía Emperatriz rubbed alcohol over the stung areas and then tied the onion slices on them with strips of cloth. Tears bathed my face, and I felt as if a thousand hot needles were piercing my body. My face, my hands, and my feet were becoming numb. She sent Mago back to the kitchen for an egg, which she then forced me to swallow. It felt like a big ball of mucus sliding down my throat. Tía Emperatriz said the raw egg would dilute the venom. Back then I didn’t know any better than to believe this, so I made the knot in my throat loosen so the egg could slide down.
    “We need to take her to the doctor,” Mago said as she sat next to me and squeezed my hand.
    “There’s no money for that,” Abuela Evila responded.
    “The venom might not do much harm, now that she’s eaten the raw egg,” Tía Emperatriz said. “Besides, look at you, Mago, when you’ve been stung, it’s as if nothing happened.”
    “But that’s because my blood is hot and strong,” Mago said proudly. “And I’m a Scorpio, so scorpions don’t do anything to me. But please, Tía, take Reyna to the doctor.”
    “There’s no money,” Abuela Evila said again.
    “I’ll keep an eye on her tonight,” Tía Emperatriz said. “If she’s still not well in the morning, I’ll take her in. ¿Está bien?” Mago nodded. “Now, go back to bed, you two.” Tía Emperatriz picked me up and took me back to the living room where she slept on a bed tucked in a corner of the room. For privacy, she’d hung a curtain from the rafters. She lay down next to me, and I eventually fell asleep in her arms.

    In the morning, the whole room spun around me. I couldn’t get up, and every time I tried to, I felt like vomiting. I wondered if this was how my grandfather felt when he was drunk. Abuelo Augurio liked to drink mescal, which is made from the heart of the maguey plant. When he would come home from the fields, he would sit outside on the stone steps taking sips out of his flask while watching the people go by on horses and on foot. He would call out to his friends and ask if they wanted a drink. When the smell of chorizo and boiling beans reached his nose, he would take one more sip of the mescal and make his way to the kitchen, holding on to the wall so that he wouldn’t lose his balance.
    That morning, I was moving just like my grandfather, zigzagging two steps one way, one step the other way.
    Tía Emperatriz missed work to look after me. I felt as if I had a guitar inside my head. She held me tight by the waist and walked me to the outhouse, but with every step I took the guitar strummed and strummed, the vibrations sending waves of pain that bounced inside my brain.
    “She needs to see the doctor, Amá,” Tía Emperatriz said to AbuelaEvila. “She’s burning up with fever. Let’s not take any chances. If anything happens to her, Natalio—”
    “He and Juana chose to leave their children behind,” Abuela Evila said as she cleaned the beans. “I didn’t ask for this. Look at me. I’m seventy-one years old. Do I look like I need to be taking care of three young