Maria Santiago

Not part of Riordanverse The following article/section is from the Paola Santiago continuity under Rick Riordan Presents and not the Riordanverse canon.

Maria Santiago
Biographical information
Gender	Female
Family	Unnamed mother César Santiago (husband) Paola Santiago (daughter) Dante Mata (adoptive son) La Llorona (mother-in-law) Unnamed father-in-law Ondina (sister-in-law) Luis (brother-in-law)
Residence	Silver Springs, Arizona
Status	Alive
Physical description
Eye	Hazel
Hair	Dark
Species	Human
Behind the scenes
Appearances	Paola Santiago and the River of Tears Paola Santiago and the Forest of Nightmares Bruto and the Freaky Flower Paola Santiago and the Sanctuary of Shadows

“	My old-souled baby, you’ve always been more the adult around here.	”
–Maria Santiago to her daughter in, Paola Santiago and the River of Tears.

Maria Santiago is the mother of Paola Santiago.

History

Paola Santiago, her daughter.

Maria was born to a mother who crossed the border illegally when she was twelve. At one point, she was married to a man who she had a daughter with, but he walked out on her and she and her daughter moved to the Riverside Palace Apartments in Silver Springs, Arizona. Maria would put on a brave face for her daughter but would cry in private. She befriended an elderly woman in the apartment above hers. She worked long hours as a waitress at a bar, leaving at 8:30 in the morning and often returning close to 3:00 in the morning. Her daughter would stay with neighbors until was ten.

Maria would often give others healing sessions, with half of the clients playing her in things other then money such as food, massages, and IOUs.

Paola Santiago series

Paola Santiago and the River of Tears

As Maria was reading her tarot cards she lost track of time and Paola reminds her to make dinner when she returns at sundown. She throws in leftovers tamales into the oven. The following day she brings Pao cold pizza for breakfast and has her leave before her client arrives. When Maria gets home she finds a broken jar on the floor and thinks a break in occurred. When her daughter revealed she broke it after the police called her crazy and superstitious due to people like her giving Latinos that impression. She tells her daughter that the problems between the police and Latinos goes beyond superstition and orders her to clean up glass before going to bed.

The following morning two policemen come to her apartment to ask Pat and Dante questions about Emma. She goes with the children and police to their meeting spot and chastises one of them for suggesting the children should have talked to the mysterious figure. She watches as her daughter walks to the river bank with an expression that says turn around. After her daughter finds Emma’s ring and the police mount a search, she offers to call in sick but Pao insists she is fine. At 3:39AM, she returns and picks her daughter up to take her home, when Pao says she had a dream but forgot about it, she lets the topic drop.

When Pao returns home she hugs her daughter and allows her to keep Bruto. She, the Lockwoods, and Dante’s grandmother keep the three under tight surveillance for three days before letting them meet up at her apartment to watch the SpaceX launch. When a story about Pao and her friends on the news includes children that have yet to be found, she lights a candle for them with her daughter.

The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities: New Stories About Mythic Heroes

Bruto and the Freaky Flower

A few weeks after her daughter "finds her way out of a cactus field", she tells Pao she is heading to work and that Señora Mata will know if she leaves.

Paola Santiago and the Forest of Nightmares

About five months after Pao and her friends became “lost” in the cactus by the Gila River, Maria meets a man named Aaron at the bar she works at. Six weeks later she introduces him to her daughter. He comes over under the excuse of helping to fix something or finding a lost dog. After they reveal the truth to Pao, they have bonding time at Pizza Pete's. During the dinner, she focuses mostly on Aaron and occasionally glances at the bored looking Pao to at least act interested. When her daughter's glass explodes, she initially scolds her until she points out that that it was teenagers playing video games who flung a quarter at them. They leave after Pao cleans up and head home. As she is about to berate Pao, her daughter hugs her and says she doesn't want things to change to fast. She hugs her back saying the bond between parent and child is forever. When they return to the Riverside Palace Apartments, they run into Dante Mata and she leaves him and Pao to talk as she heads inside. Early the following morning, Aaron arrives and they make smoothies and decide to go on a hike. When Pao wakes up they ask her to join them but she declines. She gives her daughter money for the movies before heading out.

Later she frantically calls and texts Pao after the Silver Springs Hospital is attacked, but her daughter ignores her calls.

A few days later, she is with Emma and Bruto when they are suddenly surrounded by green lights. Emma calls Pao to tell her and the three are brought to Oregon by Pao. She and Emma stand aside when Pao tells them to as she takes on The Hitchhiker.

She and Emma are led to Beto's trailer by Estrella and she gets him to take control of his body again. After he explains his plan to sacrifice himself to close the void, she leaves to let Pao help him. After her husband is purged of his other soul, she goes to him and is overjoyed that he is okay. She rents a van to sit all fifteen of them and drives back to Silver Springs, breaking up with Aaron upon returning home.

Paola Santiago and the Sanctuary of Shadows

Eight months after her husband returned, she and Beto talk about their daughter, but stop when Pao enters the apartment and she leaves father and daughter alone. The following morning she hears her daughter crying and goes to see what is wrong. Pao tells her how frustrated she is with everything and Maria tells her that her father is doing this to keep her safe, that he is grateful for everything she has done but hates that she had to do it at her age. Pao then asks her mother to perform a reading from her tarot cards. They go to the kitchen and Maria tells Pao to think of her question as she shuffles the deck and to tell her when to stop. Pao thinks of why she cannot dream tells her mother to stop. Maria places five cards on the table and gives Pao her reading. She tells Pao she is dealing with major issues and something about her family is blocking her dreams, which Pao believes is her family legacy. Maria also tells Pao she has always stuck to certain beliefs, and she has refused to try new things. Maria also informs her she will experience something that will throw her into adulthood, and is experiencing something that is also blocking her dreams. Maria flips over the last card, but Pao ignores what she is saying and thinks of everything that has happened to her in the past thirteen months before getting up and leaving the apartment.

A couple of days later, she and Beto get a call from Emma's mom about Pao joining her daughter on a trip and vanishing in Texas with three other girls. Later that day they rush outside when Pao returns with Dante, much to their shock. After Pao's parents greet everyone, they go to the living room where Maria tells Pao they know about her trip. As her husband is uncertain what to reveal in front of Robin and Kit, Pao informs them that it is El Cucuy who is behind it and explains how he is building an army. Beto scolds Pao for disobeying him as Pao berates that she took action as he and the Niños just stood around. After she and her husband talk, Beto gathers somethings and tells them he is taking them to the Niños's warehouse.

When Pao alerts her to Beto keeping a girl hostage, she calls Robin's fathers and brings them to the warehouse.Upon arriving she demands Beto let them in. Beto tries to keep them out and says it is a delicate matter that they are dealing with as Maria forces her way inside. The Longs are shocked to find their daughter tied up. Jonathan demands they call the authorities while Todd says to hear them out. Pao says they need to think of a memory with very little emotional attachment Robin might have and they ask her what she called the cat belonging to an old neighbor of theirs. Robin answers sprinkles and they are happy she answered right and untie her. Franco protests as Marisa returns and scolds Franco for his behavior before pinning him against the wall. She hugs Pao as Beto apologizes to their daughter, calling her a true leader. Soon the ground starts to shake. When it stops and Dante is revealed to be a copy, El Cucuy threatens to force Pao's allies to watch their loved ones die before they are killed. As everyone in the warehouse panics, Pao gets everyone’s attention and reveals that she is the granddaughter of La Llorona. Most of the crowd is shocked as Pao holds out her magnifying glass and says she will fight for them. Naomi, Marisa, Beto, and half those present stand with her while the other half declare their loyalty after Franco does. After the Longs reappear, Jonathan puts something about the fight on social media hoping some people come. After Maria and Emma are tasks with taking the younger kids to safety, she starts rounding up the kids.

Soon the shadows start coming out one at a time and the Niños manage to hold them off for a while by forming two defensive rings and switching positions that takes out most of the shadows. However El Cucuy traps the Niños in illusions of their worst nightmares. Pao manages to slap her, Naomi, and Franco awake and they go back to fighting, After learning the town is overrun with shadows, Marisa decides their forces between town and warehouse. However she fails to evacuate and tends to the injured as Bruto guards her. Soon Pao comes through a portal holding a cube, the source of El Cucuy's power, and she and the others each take on some of the fear as the enemy vanishes when the cube disintegrates. When everything is over, she tells Pao someone is asking for her. After Señora Mata passes on, she comforts Dante.

After searching Señora Mata's belongings at the assistant living facility, it is revealed she was actually very wealthy and left specific instructions on how it was to be divided. She insisted Pao, Emma, and Dante attend therapy until they come of legal age. Dante is adopted by her and Beto, who also receive enough from Señora Mata to buy the Riverside Palace Apartments and renovate it so that the residents have clean water, working temperature control, and windows they can look out. The Santiagos put the residents up at the town’s best hotel and are combining their apartment with the Mata's old apartment to fit their new family. On the first Día de los Muertos since Señora Mata died, Beto and Maria greet the Emma and their children when they reach the Riverside Palace and tell the three to place the food on Señora Mata's alter.

Appearance

Maria is a grown Hispanic woman with long dark hair and hazel eyes.

Personality

Maria is a very spiritual and superstitious woman. Often reading tarot cards and practicing folk healing. She does not focus on what most would think as necessities, such as groceries and working for money.

However when need be she can be stern, such as telling Pao the problems between the police and Latinos goes deeper then stereotypes and superstition.

After she starts dating Aaron, Maria suddenly became very focused on her daughter, not wanting her to embarrass her in front of her new boyfriend, such as chastising her daughter when a group of teenagers destroyed the girl's glass and doused her daughter is soda. She also takes a liking to outdoor activities when she turned her nose up to it before.