Sun Kissed

2. The Myth (EDITED)

2. The Myth

Sofi waited until breakfast before asking tia about the bridge. As soon as she did, the air in the room became heavy, more suffocating than usual. Maya kept her eyelids at half mast, making her seem less like a harmless old woman and more like a stray cat watching for prey.

"Beyond that bridge lies a river. You know the one?"

Sofi nodded. Maya closed her eyes and kept them shut while she spoke.

"That place . . . is one of evil."

Sofi blinked. "Um, do you mean the river, or –"

Maya's nostrils flared as her eyes shot open. "The river, the forest, all of it."

Yeesh, she's worse than the locals. Sofi kept her thoughts to herself. She had never seen this side of Maya before. Eager to know where it was all coming from, she asked, "Why?"

"Because it is a place where wicked creatures prey on humans."

Sofi was quite certain that tia and the rest of the locals were completely out of their minds, but this was too amusing to pass up. So she schooled her features into something less cynical.

"Creatures?"

Sofi didn't expect Maya to come so close. She folded her hands around Sofi's like they were praying over the departed.

    "We call them . . . Encantado."

    The word was familiar, yet it tickled Sofi's inner ear in a way that only foreign sounds could. It felt like a name from another world. Somewhere far and lost. Somewhere that should have never been or perhaps might never be.

    "What does it mean?"  The amusement was gone now. Sofi wanted answers.

Maya backed off a bit. "They are the ones enchanted. Shapeshifters. The Botos. The Tucuxis."

"I don't understand," Sofi said.

Maya's nostrils flared again. "River dolphins, child! They become like us, but beautiful. Dangerously beautiful. Oh yes. And they can make the sky do their bidding. They cast spells with their music that rob you of your willpower. And their hair . . . is the color of blood."

Sofi gave Maya a moment to collect herself. The quiet stretched for a long time before she finally broke it.

"These Encantados . . . you're sure they're dangerous, tia?"

    Maya's breath sounded unsteady. Her voice still raw. "They take people, Sofia. They use music to cast their nets and drag them back to the Encante."

"Encante," Sofi repeated gently. "What is it?"

"Paradise. Hell. It depends on who you ask. Humans that come back are never quite right. Young girls almost always return pregnant. Naturally, by the time the children are born, they are so deformed and misshapen that they rarely survive infancy." 

Sofi swallowed awkwardly at this new information.

Maya concluded, "So you see that no matter what happens, in the end, you will wish you had never fooled with an Encantado."

    "Tia, why do the Encantados come here if they have their own paradise?"

    Maya shrugged as she went back to sipping her tea.

"There's really no answer, child. Though I've heard some say that Encantados yearn to feel joy and pain much in the same way we do." She chuckled unexpectedly. "Personally, I don't think they're all that complicated."

Her gaze became feline again.

"Paradise or no, if you had the choice, if you could escape your own reality . . . child, wouldn't you at least try?"