Excerpt from Archive of Unknown Universes by Ruben Reyes, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"No," Luis said. "I got a grant to do thesis research. And who wouldn't want to see Cuba?"

"I'd love to," Elena said. Luis regretted his choice of words. They both understood she couldn't fly wherever she pleased, even if she had the money.

"I've been thinking about Neto," Luis admitted slowly, desperate to change the subject, but also prying open a conversation he'd been stewing over for weeks. The trip had unlocked an old memory. He was young, around seven or eight, which made the memory unreliable, though it felt true. His mother was at work, and his grandmother Esperanza was frying plantains in the kitchen. Esperanza could still talk back then, years from the disease that would devour her brain from the inside, but she wasn't paying Luis any attention, which was probably why he ended up snooping through her closet. His stringy elbows knocked a box over, and a handful of envelopes fell out. As he bent over to pick it up, he noticed his great-uncle's name scrawled on the lid: Neto. Luis pulled out one of the letters, the first line still clear in his mind: I woke up thinking about Cuba.

The memory blurred here, overrun by the shame of being caught. Esperanza yanked the brittle envelopes from his hands and told him never to touch them again. Luis didn't know why she'd reacted so hotheadedly, so unlike the gentle caretaker he knew. Now, given how the Alzheimer's had progressed, he'd never be able to ask. All he had was the memory of her, eyes ablaze, clutching the paper close to her chest.

"Abuela used to have a box of his things," Luis said.

"Your grandmother has a bunch of junk," Elena said. "Anyway, she never talked about Neto. Better to leave it all alone."

Somewhere between booking the flight and boarding the plane, Luis rewired the story he told himself. His great-uncle had referenced Cuba, a fact that felt preordained. If Neto had known the world, Luis should too. Ana wasn't drawing him to Cuba, though it'd be nice to spend the summer with her. It was Neto, calling out from the afterlife, asking that his nephew follow in his path, walk the streets he had, smelling the exhaust and ocean breeze. Luis wanted to see what Neto had seen.

Perhaps his uncle was not actually a factor at all, and the allure of Cuba was completely unrelated to the letters that'd popped into his head, but Luis chose the story he wanted to hear. Neto pulled him here, to Havana. Luis repeated that to himself until it felt real.

Excerpted from Archive of Unknown Universes by Ruben Reyes. Copyright © 2025 by Ruben Reyes. Excerpted by permission of Mariner Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.