Marisol was a light sleeper—a consequence of her life before the safe home. It wasn’t so long ago that she slept in her own quiet room, with her dog Chewy, and with her parents in the room down the hall. Now, the creaking of bunk beds rang in her ears all night like tinnitus. Her dorm—the room for fifteen-year-olds—was a cold, damp concrete square that echoed every sound. Marisol imagined that the other girls had either come from noisy lives or had grown accustomed to it, like Valeria whom she shared a bottom bunk with. While Marisol struggled to find a moment of quiet at night, Valeria slept like a log. Every morning, Marisol would wake to find Valeria’s limbs splayed in every direction like a wild tree. That is what Marisol woke to when Jefa, their overseer, banged a metal ladle on a steel pan the morning of the escape.
“Wake up!” Jefa said as she clanged from bunk to bunk. “Up, up putas. A bañar bestias!”
Valeria had an arm hanging off the bed and another draped over Marisol’s stomach. “Vale, wake up,” Marisol whispered as she moved the arm and sat up.
Valeria groaned.
“Wake up,” Marisol said while shaking her. The rest of the girls in the dorm were already out of their bunks and headed to the showers. “Vale, come on, before the hot water runs out.”
Jefa finally reached their bunk. “Up!” Jefa saw Valeria in her deep sleep. There was a shadow of a smile on her face as she sat the pan by Valeria’s head. She scraped the ladle in hard circles at the bottom of the pan. The screech made Marisol hold her tongue against the filling in her molar. Vale opened her eyes.
“Hola Jefa. Good morning,” Valeria said as she blinked away her sleep. “You look very beautiful today.” Valeria flashed a sleepy, gap-toothed smile.
Jefa slowly ran a hand through the bulk of Vale’s curly hair. It was an oily, matted nest that sparked dandruff as the hand reached the heaviest part of the hair. Once, Marisol might have hoped that a kiss on the forehead would follow, or a casual fixing of Vale’s bedhead, but Marisol had been at the safe home—a place for orphans, delinquents, and addicts—for a year now. A year since her parents died. A year of bad sleep. Jefa yanked on as much hair as she could, lifted Vale’s head off the pillow, and dragged her onto the cold cement floor. Jefa looked at Vale on the ground, waiting, hoping it seemed, to see if Vale would say anything else before she continued again down the line of bunks. “Up! Everyone get up!”
Marisol waited until Jefa was out of earshot before helping Valeria off the ground. “Aye Vale, why do you do that?”
Valeria soothed circles on her head. “Do what? She was going to do it anyway.”
+ + +
Last night was a rare night when no girl was woken by a hairy hand and dragged from a moonlit dormitory. No girl was made to scream in the office of a guard or teacher. No girl needed the soft touch of her sisters to wash her body of sin, comb her hair, and hum to her lullabies until she finally slept. Last night was a rare night.
+ + +
The plan was to riot like angry ants. The safe home seemed built for this. The children were already packed into all the crevices of the place like a bug infestation. There were eight hundred of them, three hundred more than the home was designed to hold. They would use this misfortune as an opportunity.
“And what if the boys don’t follow through?” Valeria said at the lunch table.
“They will,” Paulina said as she drank chocolate milk. There were only so many milks that were given during meals. Mainly the pregnant girls got them.
Marisol couldn’t remember the last time she had something sweet. She stirred her rice in its Styrofoam bowl. She ate the grain despite the chalk of it all.
“But how do you know?” Valeria asked again. Valeria was not the one who suggested the escape—it was one of the seventeen-year-olds—but she was the most passionate of the girls her age. She played a part in almost all the planning—the food, the timing, the people.
“I just know! At two, we head for the roof. We’ll all gather around the side of the building with the tree on it. The big one that goes all the way up the side. Then, we wait for the boys. Javier, Esteban, and Jesús told me they have it all planned.” Paulina threw back the last of the milk.
“Oooooooh Jesús!” Valeria and a few of the other girls mocked.
“Oh, please,” Paulina said as she stood up slowly. Her belly had only just begun to swell. A subtle bump that one could mistake for a big meal. “I don’t have time to worry about boys. Me and my baby,” she stuck her belly out and rubbed it in big dramatic circles, “are headed to America.”
Marisol liked Paulina’s idea of heading north. Some of the other girls wanted simply to return to the towns they grew up in. Others talked of joining up in Guatemala City and working at restaurants or grocery stores until they made enough money to all move in together. None of them had families that were alive or would take them in. They would all have to start from scratch.
“And where is Jesús going?” Valeria asked.
“He can go where he wants,” Paulina said, waving her hand at the idea.
“Oh Paulina, follow me,” Gaby said in a forced deep voice. She was a new girl at La Virgen de la Asunción, only a few weeks, but she had bounced between safe homes for years. “Follow me and I will wash your feet each night and feed you tres leches in bed and muah muah muah!” Gaby made kissy noises and a chorus of other girls followed.
“Enough,” Paulina laughed as she pushed away the pursed lips that inched closer to her. “Well…if he wants, he can come with me.”
“Ooooooooooooh,” the table sang.
Everyone knew that Paulina loved that boy. They made elaborate plans to meet in the areas that connected the two buildings. One time, they even got caught and Paulina had to scrub the bathrooms by herself for a week. Jesús ended up with a black eye. Most of the girls assumed that Jesús was the father of this baby. But none would ask. The girls knew never to ask that question to any girl at the home.
“And what about you, Mari?” Valeria asked.
“Hm?” Marisol said, still laughing.
“Where do you want to go?”
Marisol didn’t have an answer. It was one of the many things that kept her up at night. She wished she had a city in mind, but her compass only pointed her away from the safe home. She wished she had an internal compass, like her parents. She heard so many times as a child the story of their love, how he met her in Villa Nueva on a trip for work, and then after his job was done, he would walk, bike, and hitchhike for hours every weekend all the way from San Jose. He did it for months. This is how Marisol thought of love—the distance one would travel for you.
“Mari?” Valeria said. The table was quiet waiting for her response.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll go wherever you go,” Marisol said.
+ + +
The barred windows make pews of the morning light. Some girls are lucky to sleep deep enough through the noise—the grunts and the screams—while others know what has happened to their sisters. These girls look at the windows and the shadows they cast, and they wonder what they did to deserve a prison like this.
+ + +
Marisol and Valeria were on their knees as they worked their brushes between the floor tiles of the bathroom. They knew they could ignore their chores—they would not be there tomorrow—but they needed something to do with their hands. It was almost time.
“And what if we get lost,” Valeria said.
“We won’t get lost. I know the forest really well,” Marisol said. It was true. Marisol went camping many times with her parents.
“But how will you know where to go?”
“We are following the stars.”
“And if it’s cloudy?”
“Then we follow the moss or go against the river.”
“And if…”
“Vale,” Marisol said, putting down her brush. “If nothing. We need to leave.” Marisol regretted her tone. She knew Valeria just needed someone to worry to.
Valeria scrubbed in silence.
Marisol wanted to promise Valeria that the plan would work, that by tomorrow they would have new lives, but she didn’t want to lie. Marisol didn’t know if it would work. “Vale,” Marisol said. “Look at me.”
Valeria scrubbed harder.
“Vale, please.” Marisol scooted closer. Her jeans got wet from the freshly cleaned floor. They were too big on her, but they had the most pockets of any of her other pants. She stuffed anything she could into them—the few papers of ID she had, some shreds of fabric they could maybe use as kindling or bandages, a half-used pack of matches.
Valeria had her face almost to the floor as she scrubbed, as if she were trying to erase a tiny spot in the tiles.
Marisol put an arm on Valeria’s shoulder. “Vale?”
Not even the scrubbing could mask the soft whimper that left Valeria’s body. Small uncontrolled breaths. They echoed in the bathroom. Marisol scootched right next to Valeria and rubbed circles in her back. She didn’t say a word for a minute. And when it sounded as if Valeria was done crying, Marisol lifted Valeria by a shoulder and hugged her. Then Valeria cried for a while longer. The bathroom, a large, tiled room with shower heads lining the walls, made its routine noises. The groan of a pipe, the trickle of a leaky faucet. Eventually, Valeria let go of Marisol and wiped her eyes.
“Vale, look.” Marisol held a pinky between them. “Let’s make a promise.”
“Oh Mari, don’t be childish,” Valeria said as she dried her nose with her shirt.
Marisol took Valeria’s hand and interlocked their pinkies. “I promise I will always protect you if you promise to always protect me.”
Valeria looked at Marisol for a second, and then smiled. “Yeah, okay.” They gripped their pinkies together tight.
“No one will ever hurt us ever again.”
Before Valeria could say anything, they heard noise outside the bathroom. Fast steps and the beginnings of shouts. It was time.
“Are you ready?” Marisol said as she got up and began to jog to the door. Marisol turned to see Valeria running the opposite direction.
Valeria ran to a shower, the leaky one that never worked, and ripped out one of the connecting pipes. Valeria smacked the pipe against her palm. “Ready.”
+ + +
The girls chant on the roof for the world to hear. They yell, Do to us here what you do at night! Show the world what you do at night!
+ + +
Marisol held a large plank of wood that someone handed to her. The boys followed through. They fought the guards in their building. They kicked and scratched and bit. There were only a dozen or so guards on the roof that tried to usher the girls back inside. Jefa yelled from behind a line of guards. They waved their batons in the faces of the girls. Marisol guessed there were more than a hundred girls on the roof. She had lost Valeria in the crowd.
“Vale!” Marisol yelled.
The rest of the girls chanted. Paulina, Gaby, and a few other girls from Marisol’s dorm were at the front. They could reach out and touch the guards if they wanted.
“Vale!”
No one had made a move yet. Almost every girl had something in their hands. Something sharp or hard. The guards knew they were outnumbered.
“Vale!”
Marisol couldn’t push her way to the back of the group. They were all packed too tightly. There was nowhere to go but into the wall of guards who blocked the one entrance to the roof. Or, off the side of the building. It was high, about three stories, but the big tree was just a few feet away from the ledge. Its thick branches posed as ladder rungs. They could make the jump and climb down. And if they missed, there were bushes and smaller trees that the girls could aim for. After that, they had a whole forest to run into.
The chanting grew louder. It drowned out Marisol’s thoughts. She couldn’t think of the next steps of the plan. All Marisol managed to think of was that it was beautiful outside. They only got to spend an hour outside a day. Most days it was too hot to enjoy, but that day had a nice breeze to it. Marisol looked up at the sky. There wasn’t a single cloud. The clear sky made it easy to track the rock that flew from behind her head. It seemed to travel in slow motion. One second she was looking at a cloudless sky and the next a rock, a hefty dagger shaped one, hit a guard in the head. The guards rushed forward. One of them grabbed Marisol by the wrist. Her instincts made her drop to the ground to prevent herself from being dragged away. Marisol’s other hand held the plank of wood. She tried to swing it, but before she could the body of the guard engulfed her on the ground. He struck the baton on her face. She couldn’t move.
“Help!” Marisol yelled. She looked around for Gaby or Paulina, but she had lost them, too.
Then the door to the roof opened. Jesús and a flood of other boys rushed in. They began to jump on the guards. Many of them were more concerned with revenge than escape. Someone hit the guard holding Marisol down with some piece of metal—she felt the vibrations through his body—and Marisol freed herself.
Instincts became her. She ran to the edge of the building. Some girls had already made the leap. Marisol looked down and saw a few scattered bodies on the ground. They weren’t moving. But many other girls swarmed into the forest that surrounded the home. Some waited for their friends to jump.
Marisol knew she couldn’t leave without Valeria. She screamed one last time. “Valeria!” Marisol saw someone turn their head. It was Valeria, with scratch marks across her face, standing over Jefa. Valeria held that big steel pipe over her head. The two girls locked eyes. Marisol didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t blame Valeria for bringing that piece of metal down onto Jefa’s skull. Jefa deserved it. She was the one who fed the girls up to the teachers and guards. She was the one who dragged the girls out of the dorm.
Valeria’s arms shook, either from the heft of the pipe or the adrenaline in her body. Valeria looked back at Marisol. She dropped the pipe besides Jefa’s head and leaned down by her ear. Valeria said something to Jefa and then ran over towards Marisol.
“Let’s go,” Valeria said as she reached the edge of the roof. “On three.”
“One,” they counted. “Two.” Marisol looked back and saw a new batch of guards coming. “Three!”
They jumped together. Marisol jumped on the biggest branch she could see. The tree caught her about halfway down. Something scratched her but the branch held her weight. A large cut ran down her bicep. She could feel blood pulsing out from the wound. Marisol looked up to find Valeria dangling from a branch. It was already beginning to break. Marisol dropped to the ground. She landed in a bush that scratched her legs even through her jeans. She looked up and tried to get under Valeria, but by the time she got out of the bush Valeria was already falling. Valeria went limp the instant she hit the ground.
Standing over Valeria’s body, Marisol thought it looked like Valeria was sleeping. Her limbs in every direction. One arm was around her back, one leg tangled with the other.
“Valeria,” Marisol whispered. She was afraid to call her name again. “Valeria…” Marisol tried to turn Valeria on her stomach, but her body was dead weight.
“Marisol!” Someone called out to her from the distance. It was Paulina. She was with Jesús and Gaby and a few more girls. They all waved for her to hurry and join.
On the roof, the noise began to settle. It sounded as the guards were beginning to gain control. If she had to drag Valeria’s corpse to the woods she would. Marisol managed to get under Valeria’s arm and began to lift her. “God, please,” Marisol prayed. It had been over a year since she last went to church. She hated to admit that she’d stopped believing in anything. What kind of God would take her parents, and now her sister? She felt guilt in her stomach for thinking this and started to drag Valeria toward the forest. She couldn’t think of anything else to say but please. “Please, please, please, please, please…”
Valeria let out a soft groan. “Marisol? How did you get here?”
The fall only knocked her out. Marisol and Valeria limped into the forest.
+ + +
At nightfall, the girls hide in holes and behind trees. The guards, with their dogs and flashlights, hound after them. The State has come to give their aid. There is nowhere left to run. The girls are recaptured. Fifty of them are locked in a school room. The cold cement of their dorm too much of a luxury. They are given mattresses, but no blankets. They are given sleep, but no dreams.
+ + +
The school room they were locked in was the one for the eight-year-olds. There were pictures of farm animals and fractions on the wall.
“Valeria, let me see,” Marisol said as she rolled up Valeria’s pant leg. Her ankle had swollen into an oversized pomegranate.
“I’m okay, stop,” Valeria said as she batted away Marisol’s hand. They had not spoken since they were thrown into the room. It had been a few hours now. The sun already started to peek through the windows.
“Vale, it’s really bad.”
“It’s fine!” Valeria said.
It was Valeria’s ankle that caused them to stop so many times. Marisol was strong, but she was Valeria’s crutch for hours, and they could only walk so fast. At the end, Marisol told the other girls to keep going. She would stay with Valeria.
“Maybe I can get some ice?” Marisol said.
Valeria said nothing.
Marisol tip-toed between sleeping girls to the front of the room. There were hardly any gaps between them. Marisol wondered who actually escaped. Gaby was thrown into the room a few hours after they were. Only Paulina from their group wasn’t there. Marisol knocked on the large metal door of the school room.
“Hello?” Marisol whispered.
No one answered.
Marisol knocked on the door a few times. She heard a chair scratch against the floor. “What?” It was Jefa’s voice from the other side of the door.
“Jefa, Valeria twisted her ankle. Can we have some ice?” Marisol said.
There was silence.
“Please, Jefa,” Marisol begged. “Give us something.” They had not been given water, or food, or bandages.
“Is that you Marisol?” Jefa said.
“Yes, Jefa,” Marisol said.
“Oh, okay,” Jefa said. “And what’s wrong with Valeria?”
“She twisted her ankle, and it’s getting worse.”
“Oh, I see.” Jefa let the silence sit for a second. Without the creak of bunk beds, Marisol could hear every small sound. Groans, small crying, and the harsh breathing of bad sleep. “And what do you want me to do?”
“Can you help us!” Marisol was surprised by her volume. She heard some of the girls behind her startle awake. “Can you give us anything, you fucking bitch! Pinche perra pendeja!” Marisol began to hit on the door. The room filled with the steady banging of Marisol’s fists. Marisol even tried to open the door, to beat on Jefa instead, but it was locked. They were all trapped inside until Jefa, the guards, the teachers, and the State were ready to let them out. This made Marisol hit the door harder. “Valeria should have taken your head clean off!” Marisol kicked the door as an exclamation. The room was silent, but everyone was awake now.
“Mari…” Jefa whispered behind the door.
Marisol huffed from her exertion.
“Marisol,” Jefa said again, this time in a bit of a song.
Jefa’s calmness sent something cold down Marisol’s spine.
“Marisol… I hope Valeria’s ankle gets infected and it kills her.”
This sent Marisol into a frenzy. She beat on the door until her fists were bruised. She might have broken her hand if Valeria hadn’t limped over to stop her. “Mari, enough.”
They sat down on the ground. Some of the other girls were standing now. They tried to open the door themselves.
“It’s okay, Marisol, we’ll be okay,” Valeria said.
Marisol could do nothing but clench her fists and cry. Valeria put an arm around her.
“We’ll get another chance. We’ll escape and next time we’ll burn this place down,” Valeria said.
The thought of fire made Marisol conscious of how cold she was. Her clothes were still damp from the forest. Her socks had gotten wet some time in their escape and her feet were numb. She wished they had some blankets, or even a small fire they could huddle around. Then, Marisol remembered the matches in her pocket.
+ + +
The girls chanted from inside the school room, if our bodies mean nothing, let our ashes prove that we lived. This is a fire of their choosing. This is not a fire stabbed into their bellies at night.
+ + +
The first match didn’t light when Marisol hit the match head against the brown strip. A few other girls huddled around Marisol. They saw the match and thought it meant warmth. Only Valeria could have guessed what Marisol thought. Today, the girls would be let out. They would be punished with chores, beatings, and worse. No one would come to help. They would still be seen as women in the hungry eyes of a man. But if the room burned, if it filled with smoke, if it caught onto the whole building, and maybe even the forest, then someone would look. They would have to.
“Marisol, are you sure?” Valeria said. This would mean death and they both knew it.
“No,” Marisol said. She held the lit match in her hand until the flame reached her fingertips and she dropped it. It flickered out on the ground. “But if this place burns, then we won’t ever have to come back.”
Marisol lit a new match. This one danced in a wild way. “If our bodies mean nothing, let our ashes be proof that we lived,” Marisol said. Valeria repeated it. Soon the whole room chanted.
Jefa, from outside the door, banged something against the door to get them to quiet. They chanted louder.
Marisol looked around the room. Not a single girl showed a tear or a frown. Marisol looked at Valeria who smiled her gap-toothed smile. Marisol dropped the match on a mattress and soon the small match head turned into a bonfire. Marisol felt calm despite the growing flame in the locked room. She even enjoyed the warmth it gave off.
The fire grew. It went from one mattress to another. Soon half the room filled with fire and smoke. Marisol waited for it to start burning. The fire was at her feet now. It caught on her shoes. She waited for her skin to char and her hair to smoke. The fire burned all the clothes from her body. She thought she should scream, but nothing hurt. Marisol looked over at Valeria who was feeling the same thing. She spotted Gaby from across the room and saw her laughing. Every girl in the room was covered in fire, the flames dancing on their skin, but none of them burned. Marisol began to laugh as well. Soon the room filled with laughter the same way it did with smoke. And then a hand, or what felt like a hand, rested on Marisol’s shoulder. She thought it was Valeria, but she looked over to find Valeria still laughing. Then an arm reached across her body. It took her in a hug. She looked around to try and see who it was, but now she could see nothing; the fire had grown into a blinding light. She felt the arm on her body turn into a million arms. She felt her body turn into no body at all. She simply let herself go and felt herself rise like smoke. First her feet slowly hovered above the ground, then she slowly rose until she nearly reached the ceiling. She braced herself for contact, but she went straight through the concrete of the first floor, then the second. Soon she was above the building. From her rising vantage point, she could see the fire begin to spread onto the rest of the safe home. A new hand touched her. It locked fingers with her. It was Valeria, or what felt like Valeria. And then in her other hand, another girl locked fingers with her. She couldn’t see anymore, she couldn’t even see herself, but she felt all of their souls touching her body. Marisol felt a restfulness that she thought she had forgotten. Marisol felt her family.
