Chapter 3: The Blue Garden

Chapter 3 — The Second Light

Marisol stayed in the hammock long after the house had gone quiet, wrapped in its woven threads as if it could hold her together, the night settling gently around her while the last echoes of her parents’ voices faded into something distant and unimportant.

Salado rested on her chest, warm and sandy, his soft purring rising and falling like a second heartbeat, grounding her in a way nothing else could. One of her hands lay absentmindedly on his back, moving slowly through his fur, while her eyes remained fixed on the garden beyond the columns.

It’s was a beautiful night.

The leaves shifted softly in the breeze, brushing against each other in quiet rhythms, and the scent of flowers lingered in the air, sweet and heavy, mixing with the salt that always found its way in from the sea. Small points of light flickered between the bushes—fireflies, moving lazily, blinking in and out as if the garden itself was breathing.

Everything looked the same.

And yet… it didn’t feel the same.

Her thoughts drifted back to the ocean, to the moment the light had risen from La Azulita, to the way it had broken apart and fallen like something alive. A mixture between a firework and an atomic bomb. Beutiful and horrific.The memory didn’t sit right inside her. It pressed against her mind like something unfinished, something waiting.

She shifted slightly in the hammock, the fibers tightening around her as it swayed, and exhaled slowly.

“What was that?” she murmured, more to herself than to Salado.

He didn’t move, but his ear flicked once, as if he had heard something also.

Marisol’s gaze softened again, drifting across the garden, following the narrow path that slipped between the bushes and disappeared into the thicker growth beyond. During the day, it was just a simple path, one she had walked a thousand times without thinking, leading nowhere in particular. But at night, with the shadows gathering and the light fading, it always felt like it led somewhere else.

Somewhere deeper.

She narrowed her eyes slightly.

For a moment, she thought she saw something move—but when she focused, there was nothing there, only leaves and shadows shifting together.

She almost looked away. Then a thin streak of light slipped across the garden. It was quick. Quiet. Easy to miss. But she saw it. Her breath caught.

The light didn’t fall from the sky like a shooting star. It moved differently—lower, closer—gliding between the trees before disappearing somewhere beyond the path, swallowed by the thick line of bushes at the back of the garden.

“No…” she whispered.

Her body tensed, every part of her suddenly awake.

That was not a shooting star. For a moment, she didn’t move. She just stared, her heart beginning to beat faster, the quiet of the night shifting into something sharper, something that pressed against her senses instead of soothing them.

She had felt this before on the boat. That same wrongness and the same pull.

Slowly, she pushed herself up in the hammock, careful not to disturb Salado—but he was already awake, his head lifting slightly, his eyes fixed on the same place in the garden.

“Sal…?” she said softly.

His body tensed. Then, without warning, he jumped down.

Marisol blinked, caught off guard. “Hey—”

But he was already moving. Not wandering, running traight toward the garden.

Her heart dropped. “Sal!”

She swung her legs out of the hammock, her bare feet hitting the cool floor as she stood, a sudden rush of unease flooding her chest.

And then she saw it.

The necklace.

Her pearl necklace—the one her grandmother had given her—dangling from Salado’s mouth as he disappeared between the bushes.

“Salado!”

Fear snapped into place instantly, sharp and clear. Not for herself, for him. She stepped forward without thinking, then again, faster this time, pushing past the columns and into the garden, the soft earth shifting under her feet as the air around her seemed to thicken. The path lay ahead but it didn’t feel the same anymore. The shadows were deeper. The plants… closer. Alive in a way they hadn’t been before.

Marisol hesitated for the briefest second, her breath catching as something deep inside her whispered that she shouldn’t follow but Salado had already disappeared and that was enough.

She ran, hoping to meet the end of the garden, the wall where the hose connected to water the garden, but she didnt find it. instead the path alongated. The bushes grew thicker and greener, it slowly stopped looking like her granfathers garden and more resembeled a jungle. Her pase slowed as her fear rose. She walked through the path until she found an opening. The palm trees were taller there, there were other flowers she hadnt seen before and the sky was different. It was like in her old school astronomy books, the stars seemed closer, the constellations brighter and you could even see the purple and green galaxies, millions of years away. In the horizon a beach. The moon shining waves shinning through the perfect tunnels of the waves.

She knew were she was, she felt it immediately. It was hers—her secret place—her blue island. And yet everything about it felt different, as if something had shifted just beneath the surface of what she knew. The sand was softer beneath her feet, the palm trees greener, fuller somehow, and the breeze carried something new, something that almost sounded like a melody, along with a scent of coconut, warm and sweet, like a memory she couldn’t place. It felt like a dream, but not quite; it felt more real than anything she had ever experienced, as if this version of the island existed closer to the truth than the one she knew.

Nearby, a pool of fresh water glowed with a soft blue light, shifting gently like a living constellation. Golden fish moved lazily through it, and smaller pink ones flickered between them, their scales catching the light as if they were made of it. Little glowing octopus and other crawling creatures of colors she hadn't seen before coexisted in the pool. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Marisol stepped back quickly, her breath catching as she moved backward without turning, until her back met the rough trunk of a palm tree. She leaned against it, trying to steady herself, trying to understand what she was seeing, but the feeling of wrongness and wonder tangled together in her chest. Something shifted above her, and when she looked up, she saw a small blue creature—something like a lobster—crawling slowly down the trunk toward her. For a moment, their eyes met, and Marisol let out a small scream before she could stop herself. The creature froze, its eyes widening as if startled too, but it made no sound; it simply watched her for a moment, then continued its slow descent and slipped quietly into the glowing pool.

Marisol swallowed, her heart still racing. She remembered everything her mother had once told her about magical creatures, how fascinated she had been as a child, completely absorbed in stories and possibilities, convinced that one day she would see them for herself. But she had outgrown that belief, or at least she thought she had, because she had never actually seen any—not like this, not in a way that felt so immediate and undeniable.

Not even Sal.

Sal.

Her chest tightened.

She began walking quickly, scanning the island, her eyes moving from tree to shoreline, from shadow to light. “Sal…” she whispered, her voice barely steady.

A witch’s black cat could communicate with their witch almost like two people having a conversation—but only when it mattered. When a witch was young, the bond was quieter, more restrained; the cat did not speak often, only when something was truly important. Marisol hoped, more than anything, that this was one of those moments. She searched between the trees, along the edge of the beach, whispering his name as she moved, until finally she found him sitting on a rock near the shoreline.

“Sal,” she said softly, almost afraid of being heard, “what’s going on? Are we in La Azulita… or what is this place?”

Sal looked at her, blinked once, then again—and ran.

“Sal!” she called, panic rising in her chest as she ran after him, following the curve of the island into a place she had never seen before.

And then she saw it.

Where the waves broke against the rocks, a woman laid stretched across the stone, still and unmoving. For a moment, Marisol thought she was dead, but then the mermaid lifted her arm slowly, absentmindedly twirling a strand of her auburn hair as if she had been lying there for a very long time with nothing to do. Her tail shimmered in silver and blue, catching the light in a way that made her look almost unreal, exactly like the stories—almost too perfectly.

Marisol froze, the same fear returning, the same stillness she had felt when she saw the island burn, as if her body no longer belonged entirely to her. Sal ran ahead and leapt onto the mermaid’s back, startling her for only a second before she let out a soft, effortless laugh. When she noticed Marisol, she looked surprised, but she didn’t move away; she simply watched her.

Marisol hesitated, then slowly raised her hand in a small, uncertain wave. It was all she could manage. It was too much.

She turned and began walking back the way she had come, her heart still pounding, hoping she could find her way out, and this time Sal followed her. As they moved through the trees, she noticed he was carrying something—her pearl necklace. She stopped. He stopped too.

And then she heard him. Not out loud, but inside her mind.

Take it.

Her breath caught as she reached out, took the necklace from him, and placed it around her neck. The moment it settled against her skin, the small blue lights appeared again, gathering in front of her like fireflies, forming a soft, glowing path that seemed to wait for her through the thickening trees, through the wild, unfamiliar growth that pressed in closer and closer around her, until suddenly— she stepped forward and found herself back in her grandfather’s garden.