Page 32 of Morena
“Morena.”
No answer. I went into the kitchen, found the loose floorboard, and lifted it. I took the clothes she had worn, and I set them on the floor beside the mirror and shouted one more time.
“Morena.”
Cold slid through the room. The air smelled like old smoke. My skin prickled, but nothing moved. But then a shadow twitched. A hand appeared, a finger moved. She was calling me.
I followed it without thinking. My feet carried me past a staircase I hadn’t noticed before. Doors that had been closed now hung open. The steps creaked as I went down. A basement opened beneath the house, the same one I had fallen into before, but different. Chains hung from the ceiling. Shelves stood empty. On the right wall, a tall mirror stretched from floor to ceiling. Its black frame twisted and hunched around the glass. In places, the frame pushed so hard that the glass had spiderweb cracks.
I stopped in the center of the room, and the lights snapped on. She crouched in the corner. The fabric she wore was torn and dark, barely covering her breasts and slipping at the hips. Shemoved like an animal, shoulders dipping, then rising. Her arms were streaked with dried blood that darkened into black near the elbows, the color like old cherries.
She crawled toward me. Her hands left wet prints on the floor. Her head tilted, and her eyes rolled back until the whites showed, then snapped forward. She smiled, a sound spilling from her.
I couldn’t move. My legs refused.
But then I could. Each time I stepped back, she matched it. Each space I gained left as she crept closer and closer.
My back slammed against the cold wall. The chains around me shifted and rattled. A hook above my head slipped loose and plunged at my shoulder.
I screamed.
Warm blood spilled down my chest and soaked the white of my shirt. A fire burned through my shoulder, then a numbness stole it away. The pain was unlike anything I had known. It felt as if my arm were ripping off from my body. But she did nothing.
She just stood on her feet and sang.
5“Oscura, oscura, estrella cruel, ¿qué secretos guardas en tu piel?
Desde las sombras me miras brillar, un ojo muerto en el negro mar.
Oscura, oscura, estrella cruel, guía mi alma directo al infierno.”
Her voice was soft, making the words sound like a lullaby. The last line echoed in the room and then in my head, and I heard nothing else. Her song was the last thing I heard before everything went black.
1. Fuck
2. Look, good.
3. Hello
4. She's waiting
5. Dark, dark, cruel star, what secrets hide beneath your skin?
From the shadows you watch me burn, one dead eye in the blackened sea.
Dark, dark, cruel star, lead my soul, send me down to hell.
X.
Iwokeupchained,hooks sunk into both shoulders, holding me in place. My hands were numb, but there was still a tingling in my fingers. My eyes were wide open now, my body shaking from the pain. When I looked down, I saw I was completely naked.
“What did you do to me?” I asked, searching for her, but she was nowhere around.
A mirror hung on the wall in front of me. I saw myself chained. I saw how broken I looked. My hair was braided, my beard unkempt, my eyes hollow with exhaustion. The tattoos covering my skin were now crossed with cuts, scars carved deep enough to last forever.
She leaned against the mirror, watching me. “I know what you did,” she whispered before stepping into the middle of the basement floor.
I swallowed hard, hissing at the pain tearing through me.
