Page 18 of Morena

IV.

I woke up in bed. Bandages wrapped around my hands. Across the room, Francisco stood at the window, staring out like the glass might answer questions he couldn’t ask. My head turned toward the bathroom. The tiles were clean. He had cleaned all the blood.

I shifted, trying to rise, but I slid, and he turned, rushed to my side, and pressed me back down into the mattress.

“What happened?” he asked, trying to grab my hand.

His touch burned me. I pulled away.

He swallowed hard. “Carlos is in the hospital. He lost an eye. He said you attacked him.”

Tears slid down my face. I didn’t answer. When he reached to wipe them away, I flinched from his hand.

“Did he… did he hurt you?” His throat worked, his voice stumbling. “Tell me what happened, Morena.”

I kept my eyes fixed on nothing, my mouth shut.

“You know I can’t help you if you don’t tell me,” he pressed, softer now, almost begging.

Still, silence.

1 “Bien,” he muttered, standing.

That was when the house split open. The slam of the front door thundered up the stairs, followed by heavy footsteps.

“Where is she?”

Carlos’s voice.

My body locked. Breath stuck in my throat. I froze.

Francisco lunged for the bedroom door and threw his weight against it.

“You’ll fucking pay!” Carlos roared. “I’m fucking blind because of you!”

His fists pounded the wood. 2 “?Maldita bruja!” he screamed.

Carmen’s voice cut through. 3 “?Qué pasa?”

“She attacked me for no reason,” Carlos shouted. “I have no eye anymore!”

“Why don’t I believe you?” Carmen’s tone was calm. “What did you do, huh?”

Lucia’s voice rose from below. “He did nothing wrong. He just offered her a ride home!”

“Lucia, stay out of it,” Carmen snapped.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Lucia’s words cracked.

Voices collided, overlapping, filling the air until I couldn’t separate one from another. The noise pressed into me. It became so loud at the same time. I covered my eyes, my lip trembling, and the tears came harder.

A knock at the bedroom door.

“Francisco, let me in,” Carmen demanded.

The tension in his shoulders loosened just enough for him to step aside. The door opened, and Carmen slipped in. She crossed the room, knelt by the bed, and leaned close.

Her hand brushed my hair back from my face.

4 “Morena, dime la verdad.”

The words broke loose before I could cage them. “He... He... he touched me,” I whispered, my throat raw. “I only pushed back.”

Her expression didn’t change, not right away. It was the tiniest shift, the mouth tight, the eyes darkening. Behind her, Francisco turned. The muscles in his jaw jumped. His hands curled without him realizing. He didn’t say a word; he just moved.

He opened the door. His footsteps pounded along the hall, a hard beat that matched the thudding inside my chest. I heard the first sound of skin on skin, a hard crack like a snapped branch, and then his voice.

“You son of a bitch,” Francisco shouted. “You did it again.”

Again? This all happened before?

Lucia’s voice rose, struggling to pull her sons apart. Her words barely reached me. I stood frozen at the edge of the bed, waiting for something I could already feel pressing on the air.

I heard a sound. A dull, violent thud, the kind that told me a body had struck the ground. It was followed by a scream that split the air.

This time, it was my sister.

“No,” she cried, her voice breaking. “No, amor, no.”

The numbness shattered. My legs carried me toward the door before my mind caught up. I rushed outside, heart pounding, already certain something terrible had happened. And there he was.

Francisco lay sprawled on the floor below, his body limp, his eyes closed.

“Maria,” I whispered, stumbling toward the stairs, but Carmen caught me. She pulled me against her chest, keeping me from taking another step.

My sister had dropped to her knees beside him, her cries spilling out in broken sobs.

“Why?” she cried, again and again.

Carlos rushed down the stairs, then to the kitchen to find a phone. I could hear his voice as he called for an ambulance. Lucia was already with Maria, clutching her, both with tears streaming down their faces.

I lifted my head from Carmen’s chest, trembling, desperate for something to hold on to. She said nothing. She only held me tighter.

Not even a few minutes had passed before they were all gone to the hospital, leaving only Carmen and me in the house. She took my hand gently and guided me into the kitchen. I sat down at the table while she moved to the stove to set water to boil for tea.

“I know it is hard, mi vida,” she exhaled, “but you have to learn how to be strong.”

I shook my head, tears spilling freely down my cheeks.

“Your mother, before she passed, came to visit,” Carmen said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out an old photograph along with a boat ticket, laying them gently on the table in front of me. “She wanted you to go to La Maddalena. She wanted you to find your happiness.”

“Why?” I whispered, my throat tight. “What about Maria?”

“Maria will stay here with me.” Carmen’s breath caught, and she exhaled slowly. “There are a few more things. I did not want to burden you before, but after all that has happened, and after seeing the way Francisco looked at you…” She reached for my hand. “You have to know.”

“You are scaring me.”

The kettle whistled softly as the water began to boil.

Carmen rose, moving to the stove. The quiet clatter of cups woke me up even more as she set them on the table, pouring hot water over chamomile tea bags before turning off the stove.

She slid one cup toward me, then sat again, her eyes locking on mine.

“Maria is pregnant,” she said finally. “With Francisco’s child. He promised to marry her, but only when she turns eighteen.”

A tear slipped down my cheek. “She is not ready, Carmen,” I cried.

“Lucia will help her,” she said. “But I want you to be far away when it happens. I want you to begin a new life, far from here.” She brushed away one of my tears with her thumb, her hand trembling now. “Be happy, mi vida. Fall in love. Try something new.”

A tear slid down her face then, breaking her calm.

“It feels like betraying myself,” I laughed, a sound that broke into tears. “It feels like I do not deserve it.”

She pulled me into a hug. “Just live, Morena,” she murmured against my hair.

There was something in the way she spoke, as if she already sensed something coming for me and wanted me far away until the air cleared. I could feel it in the squeeze of her fingers.

What is happening?

It was around three a.m. when I heard a weird scraping along the walls. I climbed out of bed and walked to the wallpaper. One corner was peeling, and when I pressed my face to the plaster I heard it again, a slow, patient scratch, like something trying to claw its way out.

I peeled the paper back a little and found a thin cut in the wall, barely wider than a fingernail. When I leaned closer, I saw something move inside the dark slit.

I gasped and took a step back. When I looked again, an eye slid into view, wet and round, then a tongue. A male voice said,

“She is coming.”

I screamed and shut my eyes.

The scraping stopped, and footsteps crossed the hall. Carmen opened the door and ran to me. I pointed to the hole in the wall, and she covered my eyes, guiding me out of the room and back to her bedroom.

“I will make some tea,” she said, nodding, and left for the kitchen.

My body shook. I bit my fingertips until the taste of blood crowded my mouth, and went to the window. Outside, Francisco stood below, watching.

“I thought you were in the hospital,” I whispered as I cracked the window.

“They let me go. Just a concussion. I have to rest,” he said. “But I can’t sleep.”

“Maybe you should have fallen harder,” I said, a faint smile breaking through.

He laughed then, his voice soft. “Maybe.”

He wore a black blouse and black jeans, hair slicked back. His green eyes found mine and didn’t look away.

“Will you dance with me tomorrow?” he asked.

“Dance?” I raised an eyebrow. “You should rest.”

“Please,” he said, palms pressed together like a child asking for something.

“What time?” I asked.

“Nine,” he answered.

My boat left at eleven the following night. Maybe this could be a last goodbye. Maybe I owed myself one.

“Okay,” I said, and left him smiling.

“Meet me at Malorca,” he murmured as Carmen returned with a cup of tea.

Turning, I noticed a small heart medallion on her nightstand. It looked familiar in a way I could not place, but I said nothing.

Carmen came to the bed and set the tea on the nightstand. She slipped the necklace into her pocket, but I pretended not to see.

5 “?Me estoy volviendo loca?” I asked.

6 “No, mi vida, claro que no,” she said.

I lay down with my head in her lap. She brushed my hair with long, sure fingers. “Then why do I see things that are not there?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” she said, “we get sight when we are close to something not of this world.”

“Like death?” I whispered. “Am I going to die?”

She shook her head. “Do not say that.”

“Then?” I pushed.

“Maybe you have seen it too many times,” she said.

She was right. Death followed me, and I did not know how to stop it. Maybe that was my destiny, wishing for death, but seeing it only through someone else’s eyes.

1. Good

2. Damned witch

3. What's up?

4. Morena, tell me the truth.

5. Am I going crazy?

6. No, my life, of course not.