Page 11 of Morena
The song changed,Time After Time.The crowd melted into pairs, moving slowly, but she only circled me like a predator, biting her lower lip and keeping her eyes locked on mine.
“Wanna dance, Morena?” I asked.
“If you say my name again…” Her laugh was a taunt, warm breath brushing past me as she slipped around my shoulder.
“If you promise you’ll stay, Morena.” My hand shot out, seizing her arm.
The last syllable tasted like a curse.
Her skin drained of color beneath my grip, fingers blackening and nails lengthening like talons. Her eyes rolled white, hair wilting as curls fell limp across her face. Still, I clung to her, desperate, believing I could drag her back.
I was wrong.
Her nails plunged into my arm, deeper, until the pain split me open. She screamed with a high pitch that rattled the walls. My ears filled with wet warmth. I was bleeding. Then darkness swallowed me.
I woke up choking, gasping, my hand clamped to the other arm. Blood stained my palm, leaking from ragged crescents gouged into my flesh.
2¿Coño?How could this be? How was I bleeding from a dream?
Before the question could form, the old woman came above me, her face hovering above mine. Gray hair hung in tangled ropes, and her teeth were yellowed and jagged.
Her shadow bent over me, just before she said, “You saw her, didn’t you?”
“Who?” My voice cracked as I pulled away, curling my legs up against the couch.
“Morena.”
I froze.
She shuffled to a cupboard behind the sofa, hand pressed against her back for balance. The door creaked as she pried it open and dragged out an old album. It was thick, with a brown leather cover, filled with yellowed newspaper clippings, curled photographs, and missing posters pressed flat against its pages.
She carried it to me and set it on her lap. Her fingers, trembling, turned the pages until she stopped. And there she was.1984. Morena.
“I remember it like yesterday,” she began. “She was the most beautiful girl in town.3Pero muy extraña.”
“Strange?” I asked, staring at the photo. For a second, I swore the picture moved.
“I heard she was into dark things,” the old woman said. “Some claimed they saw her dancing naked beneath the full moon, that she drank salt water. That she knew what was coming before it ever happened.”
4“¿Cómo la bruja?“ I asked, my brow lifting.
She nodded slowly, whispering,5“Ajá.”
“When she disappeared, it rained three days straight. The streets turned to swamp, and even the air felt rotten. No one left their homes.”
“What happened to her?” I asked.
“She metEl Trece.Some say she made a deal with the devil so he could die. Others believe he killed her, and her curse was loving him back.”
“And the truth?”
6“Nadie sabe,”she murmured. “But her body was never found. Stories grew instead, and through those stories, she came back. Some say a mirror is the door between our world and the spirit world. If her name is called, she will answer. She will come.”
I watched her trace the photograph with her fingertip. The album was full of clippings, missing posters, and scribbled notes. She kept them all.
“If you did something you regret,” the old woman said, “she will feed on it. She knows what you’ve done. She will haunt you for it.”
I stood too quickly, tension clawing at my chest. “I did nothing.”
