Cala, the outcome: Cala and Yuma, #4

By Laura Pérez Caballero

Everything gets complicated when Yuma and Cala are unable to contact each other. Beatriz is willing to do whatever it takes to keep her sister with her, but Cala is only thinking of getting back together with Yuma.
Meanwhile, a change is taking place among the Tupis from which no one will emerge unscathed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Victor Morcillo Sevilla
• Release date: Feb 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201212780

Book preview

1.

Cala pressed Zale against her as she made gestures with her face that the girl tried to follow with her still squinting eyes. Strands of her hair fell on the girl and Cala brushed them away still marveling at the softness of her hair. Everything was new and everything seemed better than what she could have at home in the woods. What would her family think of her? And of Zale? Zale was half human, half Tupi. How would they take that? Would they be able to love a savage and a being that did not belong to their own species?

Cala heard the door open. She turned her body towards it, still sitting on the edge of that huge bed, sure that it would be Beatriz who would come in with something to eat. Under the frame, however, a slender woman in her fifties with shoulder-length brown hair stopped, and Cala immediately recognized her as the woman Beatriz had shown her in one of the pictures on her cell phone.

That was her mother. That was the woman who had given her life nineteen years ago. She was the person she had dreamed of meeting the most since she knew she was human and not a Tupi. She was the one on whom she had poured her hatred and frustration when she could not understand that she had left her abandoned in a garbage can, and also the one for whom she had cried whole nights, in silence, wishing she had known the warmth of her embrace.

Now she was in front of her and Cala knew that this woman had wanted with all her might to give her everything she had desired for so long. She knew that a stroke of fate had robbed them both of what they wanted most in the world.

And yet Cala was afraid. She hugged Zale tighter and sat still, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the woman who was everything she had ever dreamed of.

The woman also stood under the door frame. She watched her silently, confused. Her mouth had half-opened, as if she was about to say something, but could not find the words.

Cala thought that perhaps it was Beatriz's name that was about to escape her lips. That it was possible that she was confusing her with her twin sister, that this would be the most normal thing and that she was nothing more than a stranger, just lokking alike to her  other daughter.

The woman seemed to awaken from a long slumber and pushed the door slightly behind her, without closing it. She approached very slowly to the edge of the bed where Cala was sitting and Cala could hear the white dress rubbing against the woman's tanned skin. Cala breathed in sharply and smelled a soft perfume of flowers that she knew she would never forget.

The woman sat down next to her. She reached out a hand and placed it gently on one of Cala's cheeks. Tears came quickly to the girl's eyes. The woman ran her hand over her eyes, her hair, her lips.

-Aida," she said at last.

Cala nodded her head. Her mother's hand had reached her chin, and Cala bent her head to her shoulder to squeeze her mother's hand with her cheek. It felt like the most wonderful feeling in the world.

Then the woman quickly withdrew her hand and covered her face with her palms.

-I don't want to wake up, I don't want to wake up," she whispered.

Cala held Zale in her lap with one hand and with the other she pulled her mother's hands away from her face. She didn't want to stop seeing her, she didn't want her to become again a stranger whose face she could only imagine during all that lost time.

Then it was she who began to run her hand over her mother's features. Her broad forehead, her thick eyelashes, her marked cheekbones... Everything about her was perfect, precious, sublime in Cala's eyes.

The woman wrapped her arms around her neck and began to sob loudly, frightening Cala. However, she was unable to move her face away from the hollow where her mother had imprisoned her, between her neck and her chest. She breathed in that sweet smell and squeezed her mother's back with her only free arm, until Zale began to cry, possibly infected by the woman's crying.

-My God," said the woman, turning away to fix her eyes on the baby.

She reached over and took Zale carefully. She placed her on her lap and ran one of her hands over the little clothes Beatrice had brought for her. Cala thought she seemed to recognize her. She lifted the child and looked directly into her face, then placed her on her chest, her hand behind her little head.

This is how Beatriz and her father found them when they rushed into the room.

Beatriz advanced quickly towards them.

-Mom..." she said kneeling on the floor in front of her, putting her hands on her mother's knees and looking worriedly at her face.

The man, on the other hand, stood, as his wife had done first, very close to the door.

It was Cala who stood up, still dressed in Beatriz's white robe, and advanced toward him. She had always imagined him to look like Manuel, for he was the only human of about the same age as her father she had never met. And like that day, some three years ago, she stood in front of this man without daring to do anything but stare into his moist eyes.

He raised a trembling hand and brought it slowly to Cala's head, until it rested on her hair, very close to the nape of her neck, and then he pulled her close and hugged her tightly as she began to cry compulsively. Her body, shaken by the spasms, made Cala stagger to the point that she thought her heart was bouncing in her chest because a pain ran through her chest and she also began to cry.

Beatriz took Zale from her mother's arms and the woman moved closer and joined in the embrace of her husband and her recovered daughter as she whispered

-Now, now, now, now," trying to reassure them.

And against all odds, they realized that the mother easily adopted her role and that it would be she who would take the reins to normalize this new and unexpected situation.

2.

Again, Zale decided it was time for some attention to be paid to her and began sobbing in Beatrice's arms.

Cala's father separated from her and approached his other daughter to look at the baby in her arms. Beatriz held the child out to him and the man picked her up carefully, almost fearfully, and looked closely at her little face. She looked very much like his daughter, but it was evident that her features were not entirely human. The baby reached out a little hand and the grandfather reciprocated by letting her take his little finger and squeeze it tightly.

-How old are you?

-A few days," answered Beatriz.

The man remembered the description of the tupis in the boy's novel. He didn't understand much about babies, but it wasn't necessary to realize that their size was larger than usual for a human baby. Instinctively he looked up and looked around the room as if expecting to find someone else.

The mother was recovering from the encounter with Cala and it was clear that questions were starting to build up in her head.

-It's your baby, isn't it?

Cala nodded.

-Yes, it's a girl. Her name is Zale.

The mother looked down at the girl.

-But... how? Where have you been all this time?

Beatriz intervened quickly.

-Mom, it's a very complicated story. It's clear that we have a lot of things to talk about, but I think we should take care of Maite now," she said, referring to the maid.

The mother was even more confused.

-From Maite? What does Maite have to do with all this?

-Mom, you'll have to trust us," she said, including Cala. For now, it's best that no one knows that Ca... Aida has shown up.

It was very strange for Cala to hear her being called by her birth name, the name she herself had christened human.

The mother shook her head. She was making a tremendous effort to assimilate everything that was happening.

-But what about the police? Haven't the police found her? I don't understand anything, I need someone to explain to me what is happening.

-Mom, I found Aida. The important thing is that Aida is here, and she's fine. The rest can wait. We have to get rid of Maite for a while, believe me.

The father handed the baby back to Cala and walked toward the bedroom door.

-I'll take care of that. I know more or less the story, at least most of it, it's time for your mother to find out," he said, turning to Beatriz.

He left the room and closed the door behind him.

The mother was unable to take her eyes off Cala and little Zale. She took Cala by the shoulders and together they walked back to sit on the edge of the bed. The mother then took Zale in her arms.

-My God. She looks so much like you..." she said looking at her newly recovered daughter. And then she turned to Beatriz. I think you were going to tell me something, weren't you?

Beatriz tried to summarize as best she could everything that had happened in such a short time. How she had stumbled upon the boy by chance during the trip she had taken with her father. That curiosity had led her to read his novel and that she had quickly connected the facts. That she knew it would have been crazy to go to the police telling that story of some beings that lived in the forest and that she thought they might be holding her sister, so she had started to investigate on her own and had followed the boy until she found the whereabouts of her twin.

Her mother was silent throughout the story, and when her daughter finished speaking, she turned her gaze to Zale.

-If it weren't for the fact that I have this child in my arms, I would think you had gone mad, Beatriz.

Cala began to laugh and Beatriz looked at her with her mouth open.

-The disbelief of humans is what keeps the Tupi safe.

The mother caressed Zale's face.

-I knew there was something about her that didn't fit... She's a beautiful girl, so much like Aida, but something in her features..." She lifted the girl a little and kissed her on the head.

Beatriz watched her mother cry again, this time silently, as she hugged little Zale to her chest.

-Mom, are you okay?

Her mother was nodding her head, pursing her lips, tears sliding meekly down her cheeks. Cala squeezed her arm lovingly.

-My God, I'm so grateful, I'm happy, I just don't know, I don't even know where to begin to assimilate all this. It's as if I need to make up for all the time I've lost.

Beatriz sat on the other side of her mother and also took her by the arm.

-Well, I think it should be the other way around, I think you should take it easy and enjoy the moment.

The mother left a light kiss in Beatriz's hair. She had her two daughters, one on each side, just as she had