CW: Blood.

Even before my son was born, my village had made of me a black sheep. When I was young, I would slither between the grasp of the Elders and flitter into the jungle unabated. I would storm past the hills of fire ants to leap atop the trunks of fallen trees before catching ahold of a veritable vine like some kind of red-assed macaco. I did not see the forest for all its dangers then—the poison-skinned amphibians, the venomous vipers.

The Elders did not approve of my solitary wanderings and neither did the rest of the village inhabitants. “It is too perilous,” they would say. “You do not know all that lies beyond our village.” But I knew even then that they did not refer to the unknown fauna of the forest. From an early age I was aware of the cruelty of man. My own parents had been murdered by a cast of smugglers they’d happened upon while gathering açai. Killed for fear that they would alert the authorities, or perhaps some rival gang.

“You must stay here, you must stay close,” the Elders would go on. “You must stay where it is safe.”

But they were wrong. As I grew older, I saw more and more men slice their way through our lands with machete in one hand and torch in the other. We had never been safe. No one doubted the Elder’s wisdom but me, and though I rarely paid for my disobedience with any meaningful reprimand, I paid in the cold stares and pursed lips of the village populace.

Nothing has changed now that my son has arrived. Only now their shade falls from me to him. It is not fair. Not only because he has not earned their ire but because he is a good child. He is obedient. He is calm. He is so unlike me in every way.

The others do not know it, but he looks like his father, too. His skin is pale, sensitive to the sun. His eyes as blue as a lagoon. His hair is straight and the color of dusk, not the pitch night of my own. I hear whispers about the streets that his father is some gringo logger, that I have slept with the very force that destroys us. I do not give credence to these rumors. I know nothing about the man, but I know he is not that. He is not evil.

My son and I spend much of our time alone. I show him the things about the jungle I love. The sour fruits. The untamed flora. The silence that is not quite silence. The isolation. He listens closely and rarely asks questions, lets me go on until I realize I haven’t stopped speaking. Maybe this makes me selfish. Maybe this makes me a bad mother. I know what the others would say. My son never mentions that he minds.

We sleep together in the single room of our palafita. It is small but I am grateful to only have to share with him. I think he is, too. Some families live in stilted homes the size of ours with five or six people. Sometimes more. For us it is perfect. I lay with him in the dark as the rain patters atop the aluminum of the roof. I do this nearly every night.

It is on one such night, he is nearly six, and together we are drifting into dream when a sound startles me awake. I look down at him to see if he has also awoken but his eyes are closed and his breathing measured. I hear the sound again and notice it is coming from the balcony. But it is dark outside and inside too and the moon is shrouded by rainclouds.

I get up from the bed and walk over to the window. Again, footsteps, but from the other side of the palafita. I hurry over to the other side as quietly as I can and hold my hands up to the window to block a glare that is not there.

Footsteps. Again behind me, but louder. I spin around and run to the door, bursting outside onto the balcony. I see nothing but hear a splash from the waters below. I crane my torso over the railing to see only darkness.

My son, now awake and bleary-eyed, steps up behind me. “Mãe, what was that?” he asks.

I turn and guide him back inside. “Nothing, go back to sleep.”

• • • •

The next morning I chalk the incident up to a bad joke by one of the others in the village, though I cannot escape the feeling that it’s not.

A week later my son begins to lose his teeth. There is nothing strange about this in and of itself; he is of the age where these things start to happen, and the Elders tell me not to worry, as if their words mean anything to me.

But the teeth come in a torrent. The first day he loses three. The day prior, not a single one was loose. The following day comes five. He opens his little jaws and litters the teeth into my palm. A canine, two incisors, a molar, and one that falls into too many pieces for me to discern. His smile is all gummy and blood. He’s learned from the others that it is not polite to spit, so he doesn’t. Instead, he lets the blood dribble from the corners of his mouth down his chin. It drips to the dirt, leaving his clothing ruined.

I try to stop the bleeding with a thin piece of cloth. He bleeds through it in minutes. As a mother, I am worried, but as an observer, he is the same quiet boy he’s always been, only absent a few teeth. His face does not register distress. He acts as if this is natural. I tell myself that he is right. That, as the Elders say, there is nothing to worry about. Eventually the bleeding stops, leaving fleshy craters along the ridgeline of his gums.

The next day is when the new ones start to slice through, before all the old residents of his inner mouth have had a chance to vacate. The new teeth are steepled, sharp, and sprouting quickly. By the day’s end they have firmly taken root in his mouth’s empty spaces. I ask him to open wide and he obeys, as he always does, and I poke at the newly formed enamel. I pull my finger out quickly to find blood caping my fingertip, but it is not his blood, it is my own, his teeth now sharper than thorns. Only two baby teeth fall this day. There are not many left.

The fourth day, I stop counting teeth. They all will be gone soon anyway. What falls I toss into the river tide and let it be swept away. I make him wash his wounds with swishes of saltwater. He spits brackish saliva the color of wood. As more time passes, I become increasingly worried about his placated indifference. Perhaps I am putting on a good show of confidence? I have never been good at hiding my feelings beneath my sleeves. No, it is almost as if he is the one consoling me. His eyes traverse my face as if I am a specimen, something he needs to figure out. We both remain silent.

That night, I am sure the teeth are all gone. I feed him tambaqui soup and hope the fish is soft enough to slide down his throat. As he parts his lips, his mouth looks like a graveyard of shattered tombstones, each new tooth jutting awkwardly into the meat. He gnaws strangely, as if he is learning to eat again. He has no trouble finishing his bowl.

I wash the dishes and put him to bed early, not because he is tired, but because, if I am being honest, I am frightened. I need the day to be over, so I end it.

My son lays down his head and I turn out the lights as soon as dusk falls into night. I lay down too, but I am restless, and sleep does not seem to wish to come to me. I rustle in my sheets, toss and turn loudly. If my son hears me, he does not make it known. He sleeps as soundly as always. I tussle with my own insomnia until eventually my eyes close.

I am not asleep long. I awake to what I think are the footsteps of the week before, but quickly I see my son through the door left ajar. He is outside on the balcony staring off into the distant river.

I call his name. “What are you looking at?”

He does not turn to me, does not so much as twitch, so I get up to go to him and repeat myself. “What are you looking at, querido?”

Still, he does not turn to me, but I can tell by a flicker of his eyes that my voice at least registers. “Can’t you hear it?” he asks.

“Hear what?”

“The singing. Can’t you hear the river singing?”

There is nothing, no sound but the waves lapping at the shore and the cicadas cawing from the trees. I don’t know why, but I don’t want to tell him this. I don’t wish to break his trance. Instead, I tell him, “Come inside. Come back to sleep.”

He does not move. He stands there, uncharacteristically disobedient.

“Come, filho,” I repeat, but still he stays. For a moment I think he is going to leap into the water.

I yank his arm and wrench him inside. He stumbles along dolefully without taking his eyes from the darkness. I throw him in bed and toss the covers over him. He resists no further, though neither does he close his eyes.

“There is no song,” I say.

I do not sleep for the rest of the night, and neither does he.

• • • •

On his sixth birthday, the boy asks about his father for the first time, a week from when his last tooth fell. I do not expect to be gutted by the question but I am. For years he has been mine, and only mine, and suddenly I feel like some part of him is leaving me. I have never particularly taken to motherhood; I’ve never felt pride in the act the same way the other mothers in the village do. They’ve always seen motherhood as their duty, as their contribution to this world. I’ve never felt like I’ve owed this world shit. And yet I do feel like my son is owed. I feel like there is something I must give him, something only I can give, though I do not know what that is.

So when he asks me to tell him about his father, it feels like he is taking something I have not given him permission to hold. My initial response is fury, to bark at him like a starved vira-lata. But I hold my tongue and swallow my anger. It is his birthday, after all, and I do not want to ruin it. Instead, I tell him the truth, a truth at least.

“I do not know much about your father,” I say.

He frowns, not liking my answer much. He puts his head down but does not ask more, even though I can see he wants to.

I sigh and cave in to his boyish demeanor. “He was suave, and charismatic, and a good dancer. Just as I’m sure you will be some day.”

My son perks up a bit at this, but still does not seem satisfied. He considers this deeply and for a moment there is silence between us in our palafita. He opens his mouth then hesitates, repeats. He is scared to say what he will, but eventually finds the courage. “Sometimes I think I feel him,” he says. “It’s like I know he is nearby, watching, but when I look around, I never can find him.”

I brush my son’s hair from his eyes. “I know what you mean. I felt the same way when my parents died, like they were watching over me all the time. Maybe in a way they were. It’s okay to have feelings like this. It is how we connect with the ones who cannot be with us.”

This does not seem to settle him. I cannot tell if he does not agree or does not understand. He stares off blankly ahead with a look I cannot read. I wonder what has stirred such sudden curiosity in him. Whatever he feels, it seems to be enough to abate his questioning for now.

We celebrate his birthday, just the two of us, with dinner in our palafita. I make him moqueca with shrimp and bake bolo de mandioca. We do not have candles, so I hold a lighter over the cake as I sing to him. He blows out the flame and we eat, bathed in the drowning light of dusk. He has not completely forgotten our conversation, but he seems amused by our modest celebration.

I tell him he can stay up late if he wants but he is out not long after dark. I have not been sleeping well the past few weeks. My eyes flutter like butterflies as unconsciousness waxes and wanes. From time to time, I yawn, let my head droop heavy before it snaps back to attention. Time becomes loose as I drift into an unspace and come back again.

This is why I do not realize when my son goes missing. Only that he is gone. I shoot up to my feet and tear the sleep from my eyes as I look around the empty palafita. He is not here.

I race out the door and search the balcony. Nothing. I try to look out over the water and down below, but it is too dark for me to see anything. I bound down the steps to the ground and shout his name. No one calls back. I shout again and am hit with the same silence.

I wade into the water, gripping the stilts raising our home above me. He is not there either. I do not cease my screams for him. I dart down the riverbank, first to the north. The river is lazy, and I do not expect him to have drowned, and yet I cannot see the other side. I go south, my mind conjuring endless permutations of horror.

A couple hundred meters farther down the river I see him. I call his name. I call his name. I call his name. But he does not reply. He is waist-deep in the current and bent over. His back is to me. All around him there is an unnatural splashing of water, as if it is raining a million tiny pebbles I cannot see.

Wading into the water once more, I go to him. He still does not respond. As I get closer to him, I feel something writhing beneath the surface. I push back my fear and concentrate only on reaching him. The splashing becomes more intense the closer I get. Soon, I realize what is causing it. They are fish, a thousand different kinds, large and small, thick and thin, leaping to the surface uncontrollably.

I finally reach my son and stretch my hand out to his shoulder but before I can yank him around, he turns on his own volition. Blood sluices from his mouth like water from a broken dam, and between his shattered jaws, a long-whiskered bagre wriggles for its rapidly fading life. I hear the gnashing of his teeth on the white flesh, the snapping of bones as the spine breaks.

“What are you doing?” I stutter. “What is happening?”

The fish slips from his lips and lands limply back into the water. He smiles as he speaks. “Papai told me to come to the river.”

• • • •

Night turns to morning, morning to afternoon and afternoon to dusk. Time passes by him like a brook. I am a brutal boulder engulfed in rapids. Every second feels like drowning and yet I do not move.

It isn’t until the sun finally sets that my son appears as though he is getting restless. As darkness settles, he rises from the bed and begins to pace about the palafita. He walks to the window, peeks outside, then returns to me. Sits down briefly then repeats.

“What are you looking for?” I ask him.

He looks at me plainly. “You still don’t hear it, do you?”

“The song?” I ask, shaking my head. “No, I don’t hear it.”

My son walks over to me and grabs my hand to lead me to the window. He tells me to close my eyes and listen. I do not want to. I do not see what good it will do. But he pacifies me with his childish eyes and I cave in to him. I still hear nothing, only the water lapping at the stilts of our home as it always does. I try, I really do, but there is no music.

Though there is something out of the ordinary. A splash, solitary but strange. I open my eyes and squint through the dark to see something emerging from the waters beneath us. Panic erupts from within me and I shake my son by the shoulders until his eyes open too.

“You have to hide,” I tell him.

A wave of confusion crosses over him. “Why? There’s nothing to hide from.”

I feel a new kind of anger I have never felt before. Never has he so openly and so intentionally defied me. “Do as I tell you,” I say, trying not to shout.

He shakes his head and shrugs my hands from his shoulders. My eyes widen. Who is this child in front of me? I do not know him. This cannot be my son.

On the shore beneath us the splashing grows louder. We are running out of time. I grab him again, this time lifting him into the air and onto my shoulder. He fights me. Slams his fists against my back with surprising strength. I carry him to the closet and toss him in. It’s barely big enough for the clothes it contains but I force him in all the same and lock it. He pounds on the door with an unrelenting fury, but I ignore his screams and burst through the front door to get a better look at the sand below.

A pink dolphin has beached itself. It cries out, but the noise is nothing like music. The boto writhes up and down, as if in pain, and I have no doubt that it is. Its tail has already begun to split in two at the median notch, though there is no blood. The skin splits into newly formed skin as the flukes shrink into something like feet. Its side fins elongate, grow thinner, meeker. Its body grows flat and its head becomes human-like.

Before long, the thing is pushing itself to its hands and feet. It stands and takes a few feeble steps as it learns to walk again. I do not need it to walk any farther to know it is coming for me. For us. My son.

I run back inside, locking the door and closing all the shutters. They are made from softwood and not very strong. I know they will not hold but I hope they will buy me time. I hear the footsteps coming up the stairs and scan the home for something to defend myself. I settle on a dull kitchen knife I pull from one of the drawers.

Knuckles rap against the door as the thing announces itself. It will not knock again. I stumble back toward the closet, where my son still bangs on the door, and hold the knife before me as I wait for the thing to break through.

The shutters splinter into kindling as the boto breaks through with his fist. As he climbs through the window, I see that he looks exactly as he did the day we met. I feel as though I have aged decades and yet he is as spry and smooth-faced as ever. He wears the same white suit and suave wicker hat. As his feet slide to the ground he smiles and I am almost disarmed, yet I hold the knife steady in his direction.

The boy’s father does not come closer once he is inside. He stands there looking at me with his hands at his side and I wonder if he expects me to speak first. But he does not wait long to say something. He has had his sermon prepared. “You must know that the boy has to come with me,” he says.

I want to spit in his face, though I know that would make me vulnerable, so I try to stay as calm and still as I can. “He’s my son. I raised him.”

“And you’ve done well, despite never having asked for this burden,” he replies. “I knew the moment I saw you. You have always been bigger and better than this place, but you have lacked the confidence to sever the proverbial umbilical cord. Is that what you want for your son? To drown in this fatal riverside town, to be taken by the beasts of the forest just as your parents were? Let him come with me. Let him witness the world you always dreamed of.”

I feel the knife shaking in my hand. I open my mouth to argue but nothing comes out, only the rage of hot breath.

“Whether you like it or not, the boy in the closet behind you may be your son, but he is not the boy you raised. He is something else. Something bigger. Just open the door. See for yourself.”

It is then I realize the pounding on the closet door has stopped. I do not want to obey this devilish creature, but I wonder what choice I have. The boto knows me, perhaps better than I know myself.

Without lowering my knife, I reach behind me and unlock the closet door. The boto is right; the boy that emerges is not my son. His skin has grown pale and clammy. His face elongated into a beakish maw. The hair on his head is falling out in clumps. When he opens his mouth, it is not his voice that emerges but the shrill cackle of dolphin song.

“He must get to the water,” the boto says. “Will you help me bring him down?”

My gaze oscillates between my son and his father. “Will he die if we don’t?” My voice is now soft and pathetic.

“One way or another,” says his father.

I inhale deeply and hold my breath. I do not want to breathe. I do not want any of this to be happening. But as I exhale, I drop the knife and step aside. My son’s father steps forward, cautiously at first, then with more urgency once he realizes that I have been defanged. Together, we carry our son outside, down the steps, and into the water. It feels like he is shrinking in my arms, but I cannot say for sure. His body feels so foreign to me.

When we are knee deep, we lower him into the tide. I watch as he sheds his clothes and the rest of what is human in him fades. His arms now fins, his feet flukes. I glance up at his father as he reaches his final formation.

“What happens now?” I ask.

His father sighs. He knows the pain I feel. “You let him go.”

I place a hand on my boy, for what likely will be the last time. His father, the boto, dives into the water and disappears. My son swims a circle around me, then takes off deeper into the river. A moment passes. Off in the distance, I see two great beasts leap from the water in unison. It’s almost like they are dancing.