Page 58 of Morena
She stumbled back, and her eyes started to bleed.
The thing is, eyes start to bleed when they see the truth, and God, I wanted to know hers.
I shoved her against the wall. My claws pressed into her temples. Her breath shuddered against my mouth. I leaned in, lips brushing hers, and the walls around us dissolved.
She was small. Six, maybe. Her shoes tapped across Carmen’s threshold. Behind her, Paco and his wife’s voices faded, wrapped in silk and perfume as they left for the night. Carmen’s hand was on her shoulder as she watched them leave. She guided her upstairs to her bedroom and placed dolls neatly in her lap.“Stay here. Be good.”She said.
The dolls lay still after she set them down. Curiosity dragged her out the door, down the stairs, past the kitchen. A door stood ajar. Darkness spilled up from below.
The wood steps groaned beneath her. The air turned damp, metallic.
A body swayed in the center of the basement, suspended by its ankles. Blood slid down pale skin, drip after drip into the bucket under the head. Beside it, a tub was filled with blood, and from it rose Carmen, hair plastered to her face, arms streaked in red. Each step left a bloody print on the stone floor.
Isabella’s scream tore through the basement. She spun and ran fast back to the room. And behind her, Carmen’s feet slapped against the stairs, a red hand reaching. The left one.
Isabelle dove under the covers, clutching it to her face. Sheets ripped away, and Carmen’s bloody palm pressed hard over her mouth.
“Close your eyes.”She said as she was slowly passing out.
When light returned, Carmen sat on the bed with Lucía, with a teacup balanced in one hand. The porcelain rattled as Isabelle drank.
But she was smart; she didn’t want to be fooled, so she searched when they left the room. And when she knelt, checking under the bed, she found a shallow box. She pulled it out and pried it open. Inside, there was jewelry that belonged to the missing women.
She ran to the window, shoved it open, and threw the box out in the dumpster below.
And the next morning her mall hands dug through rotting trash, pulling the box free. Clutching it tight, she carried it to her grandmother’s house.
I let go of her memory and pulled back. Isabella clawed for air, hands pressing at her throat like she could hold the world inside her ribs. Her face was streaked with tears and blood.
“Why?” I asked.
She opened her mouth. Nothing came. Her jaw worked like a trapped animal. The edges of her vision trembled. I thought of Carmen’s tea, the slow fog that ate at the edges of things. Her eyes slid over me and did not find the memory. She was hiding it, knotting it tight under her tongue.
“Very well,” I said, and shoved her.
She hit the floor and began to crawl, palms scrabbling at cold tile. Paco’s groan came from the stairs. He blinked awake. Isabella saw him and screamed. Blood pooled from her eyes, running down her cheeks. With each step I took, the white crept across her irises until the pupils vanished. She couldn’t see anymore. Her scream tore into wet sobs until she closed her eyes and passed out.
Paco tried to move, collapsing against the banister. I leaned into him.
“Oh boo-hoo,” I laughed. “Cry louder. Maybe God will hear you this time. I won’t.”
I moved to the kitchen and turned the oven knob. Gas filled the air. Once it spread all over the house, I struck a match. Thelittle flame hissed and grew. Fire climbed the curtains, ate the wallpaper. Heat pressed against our faces like it was alive.
“You’ll remember my silence louder than all the screams you ignored,” I told them as I walked through flame and smoke and out into the street.
The house behind me started to tear itself apart. Across the alley, the Carmen house, where Matteo had dug up that broken mirror, caught the light. The door opened, and Carmen was at her doorway, her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat.
“Morena.”
I came toward her. She whispered it again. “Morena, you are alive, mi vida?”
“No,” she breathed as she stepped backward, as if pushing the name away could close a wound. “No, Morena.”
She called three times. Her voice broke each time. On the third call, I was inside.
1. “Little tiny spider,
climbs up the wall,
