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Things were winding down at breakfast. The various Madrigal family members filtered out in groups, heading towards whatever their first task of the day would be. Finally, the only ones left at the table were Pepa, Antonio, and Alma.
Pepa was savoring her coffee, cradling the mug in her hands. She needed that first cup to be able to start her day. Otherwise, she was completely useless. Worse, she’d go on the warpath. People knew to keep Pepa supplied with her coffee.
Antonio chatted with his menagerie of animals that accompanied him everywhere he went now. Once everyone had overcome the initial shock of being trailed by tapirs, toucans, capybaras, and whatever other creatures Antonio brought around, it had just become another amusing detail in their lives.
“Did you eat enough?” Pepa fussed over her son, piling more food on his plate. She wiped some crumbs off the corner of his mouth with her thumb.
He scrunched his features. “Mami, I’m not a baby,” he whined, pushing her hand away.
“Of course not,” Pepa cooed, watching in amusement as her youngest asserted himself. “You are mamá’s big boy! You’re getting bigger every day!”
He puffed up with pride. “Abuela wants to talk to me about how to best use my gift,” he informed her. “She says I could really help people!”
Pepa narrowed her eyes. He’d had his gift for less than a week and already her mother was figuring out how to exploit him. She would keep an eye on the situation. She saw how ragged they were running Luisa; she didn’t want the same for her son. “Of course you can, cariño.” She brushed his cheek. “You are so wonderful and amazing!” She poked his side, making him giggle.
“Are you two done eating?” Alma’s question interrupted their moment. Her lips pressed in a thin line, and something hard glinted in her eyes. “We have a lot to do today, you know.”
“Almost, mamá.” Pepa ran her fingers over Antonio’s side, tickling him and causing him to erupt in another fit of laughter. There was plenty of time to get everything done. She didn’t see why her mother should rush them.
Alma’s jaw tightened. “Hurry up, you two,” she said finally, before walking away.
Antonio shoveled far too much food into his mouth, his eyes bulging as he realized he’d overestimated what could fit in there. Before Pepa could tease him about being around those animals so much he’d started eating like them, he swallowed and called out, “Coming, Abuela” then scampered off to find her.
Pepa sighed. He was too young to feel this kind of pressure. She’d seen what it did to the rest of the family. She needed to protect him.
She set off into town, finding a group of laborers in need of shade while they worked. Summoning up a cloud wasn’t a challenge for her, not with the worries currently swirling around in her head. After the first hour, she regretted not bringing a book with her; just sitting there was getting boring.
She wasn’t bored for long. A child’s scream pierced the air, quickly followed by that of a different child; one whose scream she knew very well from all the times he’d climbed in her bed after a nightmare. Her blood chilled. She shot up with a thunderclap, startling the laborers and causing a pile of bricks to clatter onto the ground.
“Sorry, sorry!” She yelled her apologies as she tore through town to find her son, muttering desperate prayers under her breath that he wasn’t hurt.
Finally, she came to a stop, panting for breath. The scene before her was strange and heartbreaking. Antonio and another little girl whose name she didn’t remember were bawling, a jaguar was skulking nearby, and a satchel of food had spilled out onto the ground. The girl’s dress was tattered, claw marks slashing through it, and Antonio- she held back her own sob. Her precious Antonio had a nasty gash on his arm, blood glistening on the surface.
Lightning flashed in the air menacingly, followed by thunder. The glower Pepa gave the jaguar was almost as potent. Whimpering, it bounded off towards the jungle. Taking a deep cleansing breath, she ran to her son.
“Antonio!” She cried out, wrapping him up in her arms and rocking him. “What happened?”
He choked out the story through his tears. “I-I was trying to be helpful, to use my gift,” he explained.
“Shhhh,” she soothed him. She removed the ribbon from her hair and dabbed at the blood, cleaning it off before fishing around the satchel for a clean arepa. “Healing first, talking later.”
He, understandably, didn’t feel much like eating, but she was able to force a couple bites into his mouth. His wound shrank and disappeared, leaving behind unblemished skin.
Pepa turned to examine the little girl, but she didn’t appear hurt, just shaken up. “Now tell me what happened,” she said, looking between the two children.
“I was trying to use my gift, to be helpful.” Antonio’s lip quivered. “Tía Julieta spends all day giving out her food, and she gets so tired, so I thought I could speed it up and use my jaguar to help her out. They run really fast!”
Pepa pursed her lips. “You thought you could help out your tía by handing out her food, with a jaguar?”
Antonio nodded. “It was going fine at first. I gave out food to so many people! But then Cecilia wanted to pet him.” He gestured to the little girl, whose tears were finally starting to dry. “All of a sudden, he pounced on her!”
Pepa frowned. “That doesn’t explain how you got hurt.”
“Well obviously after he attacked her, I jumped in to save her. I thought I could reason with him since, you know, I can talk to animals.” The frustrated expression on his little face reminded Pepa so much of her own that she cracked a begrudging smile.
“And then you got caught in the claws,” she surmised. She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Antonio, do you have any idea how dangerous what you just did is??” Panic was a luxury she could afford now that she had ensured he was safe.
His eyes swam with tears again. “I was just trying to help!” he insisted.
Pepa sighed, rubbing her temples. This one was going to give her more than a few grey hairs. “Mi niño, you are so caring, and you have such a big heart,” she started, taking him back in her arms and running her hands over his back soothingly. “But you can’t be using wild animals to help out with chores. It’s not safe.” She brushed the hair out of his eyes, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “You have to promise me you’ll never do that again.”
“Okay, Mamá,” he sniffled. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
“I know, mi cariño, I know.” She lulled him back and forth. “But you still got hurt. Cecilia could have been hurt too. We are very lucky she wasn’t.”
“I understand.” Antonio peeled himself away from his mother’s arms. “I’m sorry, Mami. Please don’t be mad at me.”
Pepa’s heart shattered. “I’m not mad, Toñito. You just scared me. Don’t do that to your poor Mamá.” She wiped a stray tear from the corner of his eye using the pad of her thumb. “All I want is for you to be safe.”
Once she’d taken care of her own child, Pepa turned to check on Cecilia, who had been watching the situation unfold. “Are you okay?” she asked gently.
Trembling, the girl nodded. She fidgeted with the scraps of fabric on her dress.
“You should go home, get changed,” Pepa encouraged, running a frayed strip of fabric hanging off the dress through her fingers. ”Everything is okay now.”
She didn’t need to be told twice, running off to her family as fast as her little legs would carry her.
Pepa squeezed her eyes shut, exhaling hard. The adrenaline was starting to leave her system. “You’re okay now,” she repeated, mostly for her own benefit. She clung to Antonio, letting the shuddering gasps pass through her body. His heart thumped erratically against her chest.
“Mami, you’re suffocating me,” he complained, wriggling out of her arms.
Pepa laughed through the tears shining in her eyes. “I’m just so happy you’re okay,” she whispered, her throat seizing up with emotion. Reluctantly, she forced herself to release him from her crushing embrace. “Let’s go home.”
He took her outstretched hand. “And the jaguar?” he asked hopefully.
“No jaguar!” Pepa shot that idea down right away. “He’s caused enough trouble for today.”
“Worth a shot.” Antonio shrugged.
At that moment, he reminded her so much of Camilo. When did her kids all get so big? No, she couldn’t dwell on that now. “Out of all the animals to use, you had to go for a jaguar?” she grumbled good-naturedly.
“Hey, he never caused any trouble before!” Antonio protested. He paused, eyes gleaming mischievously. “Wait. Does that mean that you would’ve been okay with me using other animals?”
“I never said that,” Pepa denied vehemently. “You shouldn’t have been doing that at all.”
The wheels in his head were turning. “What if I used toucans instead?” he thought aloud. “They’re not dangerous.”
Pepa barked out a laugh. “You think it would be better to divebomb people with arepas?”
“I would train them first,” he assured her.
“They are less dangerous than jaguars,” she conceded.
“So that’s a yes?”
“I didn’t say yes.”
“You didn’t say no either.”
“You’re too smart for your own good, conejito.”