Page 31 of Morena
Carlos was a murderer. He was El Trece.
I snatched up the album again, rifling through the pages for more. I searched for articles, desperate for details, but there was nothing I did not already know.
Knots at the ankles. Black nail polish. Hung upside down. Rope tied to theleft ankle.
The same pattern. Over and over again.
Left.I said it again to myself.Left.
Carlos is left-handed.
I turned, and the phone started to ring.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. He said he would call only twice a day. It was nine at night. It was not him, and still I walked to the phone to answer.
It rang three times and stopped. I waited for one more ring that never came. When I stepped back, it rang three times again. I went to it, and this time I picked it up.
3“Hola,” a woman’s voice said, then in a whisper,4“ella espera.”
The line cut out. I looked up. The mirror behind me had changed. The plaster on the wall wept dark, slow streaks. Someone had written Morena three times, the letters smeared in blood.
Something lodged in my throat, and I couldn’t move.
I managed to run to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed.
All these photos, girls between eighteen and twenty-five, skin and hair similar to hers, hair black as coal, eyes green or blue. Backgrounds changed but not the faces. Each one a daughter, each one with a life that someone stole. They were allmorenas.All of them were dead, just one had been taken and turned into a curse. Killers think they can take lives and walk away.AndEl Trecehad walked away. He had never been caught.
A monster, I thought. He was a monster.
Then the thought turned inward. I am a monster. I killed someone, too.
A scream tore out of me.
Two choices stood in front of me. One, go to the police now and tell them everything I know and risk deportation, because of my immigration status. Two, go to Morena, let her take me, let me pay for my sins, let someone else find out the rest.
Maybe Maria would tell.
I ran down the hall, into the living room, searching for paper and a pen. There was a scrap on the dining table. Back in the bedroom, I took Maria’s note, folded on the same kind of paper, and I wrote quickly.
“Take all of this to the police. Carlos es El Trece.”
I left the jewelry and the album on the bed, then pushed through the hallway toward the front door. Children still played outside. Their voices rose and fell, little songs, the slap of feet on the ground. Their noise didn’t touch the thudding in my skull.
Everything pulled me back to Gabrielle and I.
A single tear slipped down my cheek.
I was a terrible person.
Guilt sat heavy in my chest. I deserved whatever end Morena wanted for me.
She deserved to know. It was time to tell her I knew. This had to end for both of us.
I stumbled into the street like I was drunk. I went behind the haunted house first. I knelt where I had buried the mirror and dug with my bare hands. Dirt packed under my nails, but I kept going until my palms hit glass. I wrapped the mirror in the cloth I had brought and hauled it with me. I clambered up the dumpster, hoisted my body to the window, and eased myself back inside.
“Morena,” I shouted.
Silence swallowed the name. The house breathed empty around me. I ran down the hallway, the mirror wrapped in cloth digging into my palms, and called again.
