Page 30 of Morena
“What happened?” My throat was raw, my words unsteady. “Where am I?”
“I found you this morning when I came to unlock the house. The neighbor helped me bring you here,” she said.
I glanced around, and recognition struck. Carlos’s house. I was lying on his sofa.
“You must have fallen,” Maria said, holding a cold compress to my head. “Luckily, it is only a small cut.”
Her hand lifted, two fingers raised. “How many do you see?” She waved them across my eyes and then back toward her face.
“Three,” I said.
She frowned.1“Coño. You might have a concussion. I was holding two.”
“I will be fine,” I answered, forcing myself to stand. “Mira, bien.”2
Maria exhaled sharply. “No work for you today. Carlos already left, and I prepared the bedroom for you.” She slipped her arm under mine and guided me toward the hallway.
Each step made the world tilt further. The dizziness spread like water through my skull, and all I wanted was the bed she promised.
She opened the door. The room was bare except for the bed and a closet. White walls, dark wooden floors, and one small window that looked out over the garden.
“Carlos never brings much with him. He cleared it so you can use the space,” she said as she lowered me onto the mattress. “I changed the sheets as well.”
The scent of clean linen rose around me as I sank into the bed. My eyes closed almost instantly. Before I could thank her, before I even heard her leave, sleep pulled me under.
This time, there were no dreams of her. For once, my sleep was peaceful. When I opened my eyes, the sun had given way to the moon. I must have slept through the entire day because the room was already wrapped in darkness.
On the nightstand beside me stood a bottle of water and a small note tucked against a strip of pills.
“I took Lucia to my place for tonight. Rest and recover. — Maria”
The house was silent. Empty. I was a stranger alone in someone else’s walls.
I pushed myself upright and sat on the mattress before crossing to the window. Outside, the moonlight spilled silver over the garden, touching the blooms of the oleander. I turned back toward the bed with a sigh. My body felt lighter, steadier, as though the long sleep had rinsed me clean. Rubbing the weariness from my eyes, I glanced around and froze.
The mattress was uneven. The left side sat straight, but the right bulged with a small rise.
Curiosity stirred. I pressed my hand to it, and it felt hard beneath my touch. I lifted the mattress against my knee and steadied it against the bedframe. And tucked inside I found a box.
It was wooden and shallow, the size of a portrait frame, and worn with age. Not the kind for storage, but the kind meant for something like jewelry.
I pulled it free, set the mattress back in place, and sat down with the box in my hands. My pulse ticked hard as I opened it.
Inside was jewelry. Earrings, bracelets, necklaces, all tangled together. But one piece drew me in. A small heart-shaped medallion. I lifted it, pried it open, and the air caught in my throat.
A photograph. A face I had seen before, staring at me from one of the missing posters in the album Lucia showed me on the very first day.
The medallion trembled in my hand as I dropped the box on the bed. I carried it with me into the living room, went straight to the cupboard, and pulled out Lucia’s album. Then, I rushed back to the bedroom.
I laid every piece of jewelry across the bed in a crooked line. Then I opened the album and searched through the pages. Piece by piece, I matched each necklace, each ring, each earring to the women in the posters. One after another, they aligned.
The last belonged to Morena. Two silver hoop earrings.
They were all trophies. Every single one.
As I lifted the box again, something moved at the bottom. A small bottle of black nail polish slid from it and landed on the floor.
My chest rose and fell too fast. My palms pressed hard against my head. The bed was covered in faces, in trinkets, in proof.
