The 13 Secret Cities (Omnibus) Read Online Free PDF

saw when that woman died was also death, at a macroscopic level. You saw her take her last breath, and out it went, into the air, possibly in little spirals of air, just like the ones here."
    "Hurry," my mother said, and she brandished her phone in my father's general direction. "Dolores texted to say she’ll be here within minutes. Clara, be sure to keep your mouth shut when your aunt gets here."
    The odor from the petri dish corkscrewed its sweet and musty scent into my nose.
    "Thinking about that dead woman is making me sick, Dad," I said. "I wish you would take this thing away."
    "That's the whole point, Clara," he said. "I'm afraid I can't. After the riot, the woman that died in front of you, the hospital--I am sure you think morbid events are following you. This very scent is shadowing you.”
    "No, I think you're putting morbid thoughts in my head.”
    "That's my girl,” my father said. “You don't let anyone push you around."
    "Well, I'm pushing this fungus back to you," I said, and I put it back in his bag, which lay on the bed. It took me some time to do this, because my arm still ached, but I did it without his help. When I was done, my father reached inside the bag and placed it back on his lap.
    I knew we could go on forever like this, taunting each other.  
    My father stopped pushing the dish back.  
    "Do you recall the early hours of the morning of your thirteenth birthday?" he said.
    "Not really, no. Well, let me think about it," I said.  
    I thought hard. I still shared a room with José María back then, and my father had painted the walls bright green so we could have a color that suited us both. I went back to that memory, and a small fragment appeared, like a glint of metal inside a cave.
    I remembered waking up in the middle of the night, and I had looked at the clock. José María lay curled into a ball, snoring. It was about 4 a.m. My stomach stirred with hunger pangs, and my mouth was dry. At the far end of the room, a light flickered. Two figures sat in the far end of my bedroom, and they watched me from the corner.
    I remember wanting to scream.  
    My parents, my parents--now I remember. They were there with me.
    They sat side by side, lit by the glow of a veladora candle. My father waved at me, smiling, and I felt confusion, shock and fear.
    "Go back to bed, Clara; there's still more time to sleep," my father had said. We lived in Little Village, where street noise lasted all night, but I remember that night had actually been quiet.
    My mother had wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and tucked me back in bed. I wanted to ask what they were doing here, but I was mute, drowsy, inert.  
    This was not a happy birthday memory, no sir.
    My mother had leaned forward into the soft glow of the candlelight.
    "When you step inside the Palace of the Skulls, just remember we're always with you," my mother had said.  
    She had stood up then, and she crossed the room with an odd grace, as if her feet were being carried by a gust of wind. Her face above mine had calmed my fears a bit. I felt her dry kiss on my forehead, and then I was dissolving into deep sleep again. That cocoon of nothingness that arrives with sleep took over me.
    When you step inside the Palace of the Skulls.
    When you step inside the Palace of the Skulls.
    When you step inside the Palace of the Skulls.
    Surely this had just been a dream.
    Today was the first time the memory had sprang back into my hands, like a found object.  
    "That morning, I had a scary dream,” I said. “I woke up and you two were in the room with me. You tucked me back into bed."
    My mother nodded toward my father in silent approval. He looked eager now, excited. If he could, he would have lit a cigarette. He liked to celebrate with smoke.
    "It wasn’t a dream. We were actually there with you," my father said. "That night was as important as the day you were born. That night, you survived a rite of passage."
    "Come again?" I said.
    “A rite of passage,”