Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban - Two Moon Princess

“Who are you?” I said.

The boy spoke again in his incomprehensible language. I shrugged and was about to repeat my question when I heard voices calling, “John!” Looking up, I saw two figures coming toward us. The boy sprinted past me and, after picking up a ball from the sand, ran back to his friends. As he passed me again, he shouted something I took for a good-bye.

Once he had joined them, they all walked away laughing and talking in their foreign tongue, tossing the ball back and forth. They were similarly dressed in long pants and loose tunics and wore the most unusual white shoes. By their voices, I realized that one of them was a girl.

I waited, still frozen, until I felt confident they would not see me. Then I followed them along the beach, hiding behind dead trees resembling the antlers of gigantic deer that lay scattered on the sand. Soon they turned right, and after crossing the dunes, they reached a house that stood alone on top of a hill. The house reminded me of the dwellings the peasants have in my kingdom. Only this one seemed to have two floors, because it had two stacked rows of perfectly square windows.

As the young people entered the house, an incredibly bright light appeared in one of the windows. I could see the boys as clearly as if it were day, moving about in a room. The girl joined them, and then they all settled down in front of a wall where images kept changing at an extraordinary speed.

I watched them, fascinated. After a while my fingers felt numb, and my knees hurt from crouching behind the low bushes, the only hideout I had found on the bare sandy hill. My pants were still wet up to the knees where the waves had reached me, and in spite of my uncle’s jacket, I was cold.

Inside, the young people were drinking. I could see the steam dancing on top of their cups and their flushed faces laughing. I yearned to be with them. But I resisted. After all, this was not my world, and as far as I knew, they could be enemies. Yet they seemed so friendly. And they had no weapons. What harm could they do to me? Besides, I needed a place to spend the night, and—my stomach rumbled—I was hungry. Throwing caution away, I got up and walked to the house.

I was about to knock when the door opened, and the dark shape of a man appeared in the doorway. Instinctively I moved back, squinting to see his face. But the light coming from inside kept it in the shadows. After a brief hesitation, the man stepped outside and closed the door carefully. “Andrea, is that you?” he asked in a heavily accented voice.

“Tío Ramiro?” My lady manners forgotten, I ran into his arms.

Tío held me back. “Andrea, what are you doing here? Has your mother sent you?”

I shook my head.

“I see.” Tío frowned. “So it was your idea. After I warned you not to come here!”

“No, you didn’t,” I said, angry at his unfriendly welcome. “You never told me where you lived. So how could you have forbidden me to come?”

He sighed. “Well, I guess this was inevitable. At least I found you before you got yourself in trouble.”

“Found me? How did you know I was here?”

“I didn’t. Kelsey told me they had met a girl by the arch. And today being the full moon, I thought I’d check.”

I was about to ask more about this Kelsey, but Tío was already walking away from the house. “Come on, Andrea,” he called over his shoulder. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“For a walk? But I want to meet your friends.”

Tío turned. “No, Andrea. Not now. We must talk first.” His arm firmly set over my shoulders, he guided me toward the beach. “Andrea, how did you find the way here?” Tío asked as we crossed the dunes.

I struggled to put into words the strange events that had brought me there. “Don Alfonso told me about doors that opened into another world. And I remembered your coming through the arch. So I went to the Cove of the Dead, but there was no door, at first I mean, and then—”

“Don Alfonso de Alvar? Where did you meet him?” Tío asked. But before I could answer he continued, “Never mind. The fact is you are here. So I suppose it’s time for me to explain.”

He remained silent for a moment as if collecting his thoughts. “Andrea,” he finally started, “You are not in your world anymore. We are on a planet called Earth—but how could you understand this? Your education was not exactly heavy in science.”

I moved back, freeing myself from his arm. “Excuse me, Tío. But I didn’t come here to be insulted. I understand. Look at the sky. There is only one moon, and it is smaller and paler than any of ours. And the stars are all wrong. And the cliffs are gone. I know,Tío. I know this is not my world.”

“It seems I have underestimated you. I will not do it again.”

We had reached the arch as we talked. Tío stepped through the opening and disappeared. I hesitated. Was he trying to send me back to my world?

“Please, come in,” Tío’s voice urged me from inside. “It’s safe. The door will not open again, not tonight anyway.”

I took a deep breath and stepped inside. The cave was again an ordinary cave, a perfect copy of the one I had entered in my world, only darker. Leaning against the rocks, my uncle was waiting. I crossed over the dry sand and sat by his side.

“My involvement with your world,” Tío continued, his voice distorted as it echoed against the walls, “happened by chance almost thirty years ago. Your mother and I were kids then, younger than you are now. We had just moved here to California into the house you just saw.”

“California?” The word was familiar, and yet I couldn’t remember where I had heard it before.

“Yes, Andrea, California. That is what this area is called.”

Suddenly I remembered. The words written on Tio’s tunic. “University of California,” I said aloud.

Tío smiled. “University of California,” he repeated, correcting my pronunciation. “I see you have kept my jacket and had the good sense to wear it when coming over to conceal your clothes.”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?”

“Nothing. But handmade leather boots and tights are not in fashion right now here.”

I shrugged. Why did everybody always criticize my appearance? “Come on, Tío! Tell me how you got to my world,” I asked him, eager to change the subject.

Tío resumed his story. “That summer, my first one by the ocean, was magical.” Tío laughed. “Even before we found the door, I mean. Your mother and I had a wonderful time building castles in the sand and playing hide-and-seek among the dunes. Then one day, Jennifer—”

“Who is Jennifer?”

“Your mother. Jennifer was her name in this world. She changed to Jimena to blend with your people, as I changed mine to Ramiro.”

“You mean Ramiro is not your real name?”

“No, Andrea. My name is Raymond, Raymond Miller. And please stop interrupting.

“One day your mother hid from me under the arch. When after a long search I finally found her, I was a little scared. Jennifer, who was always happy to pick on me, insisted the cave was haunted and teased me into coming back after sunset to prove I was not frightened. Of course I accepted the challenge, and that night we returned to the arch.

“From the beginning, the cave seemed to hold an inexplicable attraction to your mother—or maybe it was just the fun of seeing me scared. In any case, from that day on, we escaped every night after supper and played inside the cave until dark. Then one evening, unknown to us, the door opened into your world. The next thing we knew, we were swimming for our lives. And no, Andrea, I don’t know how it happens. I only know that it opens once a month when the full moon of my world rises over the eastern horizon here, or Lua the copper moon rises in yours.