Today we have an excerpt from Cara Lopez Lee‘s Candlelight Bridge, a historical novel about family heritage during the Mexican and Chinese Revolutions. Published tomorrow, by FlowerSong Press, here’s the synopsis:
In 1910, twelve-year-old Candelaria Rivera and her family flee across the Chihuahuan Desert to America to escape the rising storm of the Mexican Revolution. Meanwhile, twenty-year-old Yan Chi Wong flees the Chinese Revolution and a shattering loss, also bound for America, where he’s nicknamed Yankee.
The unlikely pair meet in El Paso, Texas, where they fight to make a home in a world that does not want them, until a terrible desire threatens to destroy their lives.
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1. Pilgrims
Christmas Eve, 1910 – Chihuahua, Mexico
Her heavy braids bounced up into cold blue sky and dusty feet pounded down into warm red earth as she darted out from between the adobe houses to splash through the trickling acequia. She ran round the pueblo of Mata Flores as if this weren’t the last day of her childhood: Christmas Eve, 1910, when she was twelve, back when Papá still called her Candelita, his little light in the dark.
The squish of mud between her toes made her laugh till she was too breathless to keep up with Juliana, her dearest friend in the world, fastest of all the girls, wild, strong, and fleet-footed as a pronghorn. Juliana’s long ponytail always impossible to catch.
Candelita’s feet were strong but her legs too short to run fast. Her shy brown eyes saw everything, but her tiny wolfberry mouth was made for quiet. Yet she never envied Juliana’s bossiness or talent for escape, never minded following or struggling to keep up. She was only sorry she wasn’t allowed to tell Juliana that next day she would run someplace her friend couldn’t follow. It felt wrong, keeping a secret from Juliana, keeper of all her secrets.
Candelita left muddy footprints as she ran. She always went bare- foot, so her soles were always deep red with Chihuahuan desert clay. Caliche. Her big brother, Miguel, taught her the word for it. She hat- ed the way Miguel, a restless boy of sharp angles and outraged eyes, always added, “Didn’t you know?” as if he was smarter than her—just because she had only finished sixth grade while he’d made it to eighth.
He got away with so much conceit, got away with everything, because he was a boy.
Maybe that’s why, when Juliana’s brother, Angel, threw the raggedy ball to Miguel, Candelita snatched it in midair before he could catch it. Why she rolled with Miguel in the caliche till it painted them both red, head to toe. Why she passed the ball to Juliana, who would never surren- der. Why she and her friend now led their brothers on a breathless chase.
Served those pendejos right for saying, “Girls can’t play ball!”
“Ball” was a generous word for the knotted rags the boys had taken to tossing and kicking around the plaza, closest thing they had to a ball in the days leading to the revolución. Their brothers used to throw around an old baseball. An americano had given it to Juliana’s father, foreman of the ranch where Candelita’s father used to be a cowboy. Nobody had seen that ball since the leva, when the military swept through Chihuahua’s villages to steal anything that wasn’t hidden: rub- ber, metal, guns, chickens. Boys. Both armies had descended on Mata Flores to conscript soldiers for their cause.
First came the rebels, without uniforms. The Ramirez twins next-door were among the many boys who had volunteered, left their moth- er lying before her door, grabbing fistfuls of dirt and crying into her palms as if hoping to make enough mud to shape into two new sons.
President Díaz’ federales followed, wearing dusty blue uniforms and hats like upside-down buckets. The few boys left in the pueblo had run to hide in the hills, but Guillermo Sanchez was slow. A soldier tackled him, hit Guillermo in the head with a gun and dragged him away crying. His mother never cried, though, just walked into her hut like she didn’t hear.
That’s when Papá decided home was no longer safe. He and Mamá explained this to Candelita and Miguel a few nights ago, around the glow of the hearth-fire, the only light in their one-room casita. Her younger brother and sister spent that night with cousins. She could barely see her parent’s faces in the smoky dimness. Maybe they’d planned it that way.
Like most people in Mata Flores, her parents were mestizos, but Mamá was darker, with limbs, body, and face all straight and firm as tree trunks, while Papá was paler, a man slender, quick, and shy as a coyote. Her father once told her his light skin came from a long line of Spanish caballeros, men with horsemanship in their blood. Maybe he would’ve spoken of it more if not for the horse that had thrown him and stepped on his back, ending his cowboy story. Mamá often boasted her darkness came from her ancestors: the wandering Suma and bold Apache (great horsemen in their own right), people who worshipped the red earth that guided their steps.
Candelita listened in silent shock as they explained their decision, but Miguel was quick to argue as always. He moaned that if they went to America he’d never finish school. She envied his rage at every in- justice, a feeling she wasn’t allowed to express, especially over losing something nobody expected her to have: an education.
“You say a wise man plans for the future, Papá,” Miguel said. “Maybe a brave man also fights for the future.”
“How can a man live with honor in the future, son, if he must kill to get there?”
“Maybe that man’s not afraid of killing but dying,” Miguel said. “Maybe he’s a coward.”
“Show your father some respect!” Mamá’s voice sliced through theirs like a machete. “He’s fighting to keep our family safe.”
“From the federales?” Candelita asked.
“Federales, Maderistas, Rurales, Villistas—no importa,” Mamá said. “Bullets don’t care which side we’re on. Death doesn’t care which side we’re on. This revolution will change nothing for people like us.”
She worried if she argued, Mamá would scold her to behave like a lady, but the scarier prospect of leaving home made it hard to keep her mouth shut. “Mamá, didn’t the rancheros steal the land from us—I mean, from all the campesinos? Isn’t Pancho Villa fighting to get it back?”
“Ay, mija, who do you think is paying for this revolution?” Mamá said. “Just different rancheros. When this is over, you think they’ll give us campesinos the land they win? They’ll keep it as their payment for freeing us. You’ll see.”
That explanation only confused her more, but she asked no more questions. Maria Rivera’s standards for obedient daughters were high, and a single challenge to authority was all Candelita dared. Once her parents made up their mind about anything, there was no changing it. If only Miguel would learn that lesson, life in the Rivera household might be peaceful.
But, for a boy who was supposed to be so smart, Miguel could act so stupid. “You can’t make me go! I won’t abandon our people. I’ll join the rebels myself.”
“If you’re eager to die, maldito, keep pushing me,” Papá said.
“I thought killing was beneath you,” Miguel said.
Papá raised an open hand. He did that sometimes, but never swung it, at any of them. The threat was always enough. Miguel fell silent. The hand lowered. Miguel ran outside.
“Get back here!” Mamá twitched as if to bolt after him.
Papá laid a hand on her arm. “Let him go. Don’t worry. He won’t go far.” He winked at Candelita like he always did when a family upheaval unsettled her. Like the time they lost her little brother Lalo at the mar- ket or the night baby Graciela had a fever so high she almost died.
She winked back at her father, but the exchange gave her no com- fort. She knew Eduardo Rivera was the most honorable father in the pueblo and would never lie. But might he be wrong? Might he believe all would be well when that was impossible?
Right or wrong, the six of them would sneak away in the waiting hours between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, when soldiers were least likely to be on the move, when the village would be sleeping off the feast of the ninth night of Las Posadas. Till then, they must act like it was any other Christmas, so nobody would suspect they were leaving. They must tell no one, not even her little brother and sister, too young to trust with secrets.
Not that eight-year-old Lalo cared where they lived or whether he ever went to school. With his wild green eyes and talent for making people laugh like crazy, Lalo never seemed to notice the dirt underfoot or to conjure any dreams in his head.
As for three-year-old Graciela, the baby of La Familia Rivera, she would never remember the red desert sunset or the slap of bare feet on hard red caliche. Unlike the rest of them, Graciela wouldn’t have to work at forgetting.
Candelita found it easy to keep secrets, except from Juliana, closer to her than her own sister (who could barely speak after all). With Juliana, silence felt like betrayal. Still, Candelita did what she always did: obeyed. Maybe that was the real reason she stole the muddy “ball” and threw it to Juliana: if they were running they couldn’t talk and she wouldn’t have to lie.
Juliana’s ponytail wagged ahead. The boys closed in. Candelita fell behind in the dry grass that scratched her legs. The pueblo shrank as the shoulders of the Sierra Madre rose ahead and behind, a mother who never let her children out of sight. Crackling gold desert opened before her, making her feel exposed. Nowhere to hide. A stabbing sen- sation struck like a knife in her side. She halted, doubled over, and cried out, “¡Espérame, Juliana! I can’t run anymore!”
Juliana stopped, let the boys take the ball, and trotted back to her. They walked home hand in hand as the sun sank behind the moun- tains, a dying fire at the end of the world. It seemed too much to hope she might share such friendship with an American girl. Who knew how long it might be before she returned to Mexico? She might never see Juliana again.
Tears rose in her chest. Fearing a flood, she blurted, “I have to get ready for Las Posadas or my mother will kill me!”
“Me too,” Juliana said. “Let’s race! Whoever gets to the procession first, wins.”
Off they ran in opposite directions.
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Cara Lopez Lee’s Candlelight Bridge is out today, published by FlowerSong Press in North America and in the UK.