A Fierce and Subtle Poison - Samantha Mabry Page 0,2

the thinnest cotton dresses with the tiniest straps we could slip off their shoulders, and their long dark hair was always curled from all the moisture in the air.

I was kissing one of those girls when the witch who grants wishes first threw stones at my face.

Part One

The Disappeared Girls

One

I MET MARISOL on a Sunday night, two days before her body washed up on Condado Beach. We were sitting across from one another in a field near El Morro drinking rum from a bottle I’d lifted from the hotel. She was one of Ruben’s cousins, and he was there, too, along with Rico, Carlos, and some girls they all knew from school.

This is how things typically went: A girl would come over and run her fingertips across the back of my hand or the top of my knee. She’d look at me, her eyelids heavy, and say something about how her older brother or her uncle would kill me if they knew that she was hanging out with me. She’d mention my blond hair, my dad, and how she and the other locals didn’t know whether or not he was saving their island or ruining it. She’d give me some version of some lesson she learned from her cousin in New York or Chicago or wherever about how white guys really know what it meant to treat a girl the way she deserves to be treated.

Eventually, I’d take her by the hand and lead her either into one of the narrow alleys between the Spanish-style buildings or down to the footpaths outside of El Morro near the ancient mangrove trees that reminded me of the gray ghosts of giants. In the attempt to convince her that I was cultured and interesting, I’d tell this girl about all the places I’d traveled and sights I’d seen. I’d tuck the stray hairs that fell in her face behind her ear. I’d be gentle, my touch featherlight. I’d look her in the eye and ask permission to kiss her.

She’d always say yes.

Marisol was different, though. She didn’t mention anything about my blond hair or developer dad. She did come and sit by me, but after telling me her name, she said she remembered me from last summer, when she and Ruth—a giggling girl who was currently pawing at Rico—saw me at a party. She asked if I remembered her. I told her I did even though I didn’t. Which was a shame. I should’ve. Marisol had a generous, loud laugh, a distinctive heart-shaped face, and straight, waist-length coffee-colored hair, the shade of which almost exactly matched her eyes.

She shifted onto her knees and nervously plucked at a blade of grass.

“I was hoping you’d come back,” she said.

My head was already swirling from the rum, and I was only half listening. The way Marisol was sitting caused her butter-yellow dress to ride up high on her thighs. I wanted to reach out and touch the place where hem met skin.

“Let’s take a walk,” I suggested.

We snuck away and stumbled down a steep path that would lead us closer to the water. We faced a murky expanse of sea. Behind us was a section of the original walls of the city, built hundreds of years ago to protect San Juan from invaders. Forty feet up and on the other side of that wall was the dark and silent courtyard belonging to the house at the end of Calle Sol.

This spot was a favorite of mine, quiet and isolated. I could stand there for hours and wonder if I had the nerve to jump into that inky water and start swimming. When my arms got tired, I’d float. I sometimes couldn’t imagine anything better than being alone in the ocean, carried along by the currents, with my arms out wide and the light from the moon and the sun bathing my face.

I never told any of the girls about my dreams of floating in the ocean. I also never mentioned how I always wondered if the wish on a scrap of paper I’d tossed into that nearby courtyard five summers ago was still up there, waiting to be granted.

“I grew up in Ponce.”

Marisol’s voice startled me, and I turned. She was leaning against the stone wall. Her fingers were lifted to her throat, where she was twirling a gold charm. It glinted twice in the moonlight. The rest of her was in shadow.

“My mom moved me and my little sister out here last May. I don’t