Page 5 of Morena

As I struggled to my feet, I saw the black porcelain urn. Shards of it glittered across the floor. When I knelt, I noticed the scratches carved into the pieces. They were not marks from outside. They came from within. Nails had scraped the name over and over.

MORENA.

Impossible.

The room grew colder. In the far corner, a mirror leaned against the brick wall. Its surface rippled as though something moved inside it. My heart hammered. My eyes widened. I took a step closer.

In the reflection, behind me, a shadow crouched low. Black curls hid its face. Long, blackened nails scraped the floor.

It was her. I knew it was her.

But she didn’t look at me. She remained still while I stood frozen. My body couldn’t move. Then her laughter broke the silence, louder and louder, crawling toward me like a voice with claws.

I could feel her cold inches from me, yet she didn’t touch me.

I couldn’t speak.

“Matteo.” Carlos’s voice drifted down from upstairs. “Matteo.”

“Here!” I shouted, eyes squeezed shut.

8 “ Dios mío, are you all right?“ His shadow stretched across the floor from above.

I turned, not for him but for her. She was gone.

This was a dream. It had to be.

“Yeah,” I managed, voice raw. “I fell.”

His eyes swept the basement as if searching for something that was not there. When he saw the ashes, when he saw the broken shelves, his face turned pale.

“You need to be checked,” he said, his gaze flicking back to me. He leaned against the remaining steps of the staircase and stretched out his hand. “Take my hand.”

I jumped, catching his grip. The moment our palms smacked together, he yanked me upward. I clawed at the wood of the stairs while he hauled me back until my feet found the steps again.

He kept staring at me, studying my face. When I showed no expression at all, he asked, “What happened down there?”

I shook my head. “All I know is that when I fell, I hit my head. I must have blacked out and woke up just before you showed up.”

His brows knitted as he glanced toward the shadows below.

“I forgot the basement was there,” he muttered. “I saw in the drawings that there was space beneath, but I’ve never been inside.”

I studied him, trying to decide if he was lying, but the shock in his eyes seemed real. His expression widened, and then he stepped back, turning to face me.

“Maybe it is best we finish the work for today,” he said. “My neighbor is a nurse. She can take care of that cut.”

“I am pretty sure I will be fine,” I answered.

“It is not a question, cabrón. You need to get checked.”

He was right. It would be better if I let someone look at it. But the house still pulled at me, whispering secrets I wanted to uncover. I needed to stay.

Then my legs buckled. My vision blurred. Before I could fall, he was at my side. His left arm slid under my right, and he dragged me toward the entrance like I was some drunk bastard who had almost passed out.

The sun outside stabbed my eyes. Heat pressed down like a weight, and sweat slicked across my skin within seconds. For the first time, I missed the cold of the house.

We sauntered to the end of the street. When we reached a small building complex, he led me into the yard, a narrow square where kids kicked a football against cracked walls.

The houses inside were connected, their windows crowded with old faces watching from above.

Their eyes followed us until we passed through the entrance.

The neighborhood was not what he made it seem. It was rotting from the inside out. Paint peeled from the walls. The floor tiles were cracked, and some were replaced with slabs of plain concrete. Doors sagged, their shattered glass patched with rags.

“I grew up here,” he said. “This place used to be new.” His voice had no warmth at all. At a brown wooden door, he knocked hard enough to rattle it.

“Maria!” he called. “Open the door, 9 por favor! ”

10 “?Espera, puto!” came the reply.

The door swung open, and the woman filled the frame.

Her hair was dark, streaked with gray, tied tight into a bun.

Bronze skin, green eyes that flicked over me like knives.

Hoop earrings glinted. She wore scrubs, though a cooking cloth was slung over her shoulder, and the sharp scent of 11 paella seeped from the apartment, heavy enough to turn my stomach.

She scanned me with no words. Behind her, two children burst out suddenly, twins no older than eleven, their laughter too loud, as they shoved past us into the yard.

“What happened to you, huh?” she asked at last, slipping beside me to take my arm. Her grip was firm, almost too firm.

The apartment was modest but vast in a way that felt hollow.

They led me into the living room. At the window, an elderly woman rocked slowly in her chair.

She was draped in black, her gray hair braided into a single line, a scarf of red roses across her shoulders.

She didn’t speak, she didn’t blink. Her eyes stayed on the window as if she were watching something outside that no one else could see.

“I fell,” I muttered, still trying to take in the room.

“Let me see.” Maria pulled my head against her chest and parted my hair with her cold fingers until she found the wound. “You will need stitches.” She released me and slipped away.

Carlos sat beside me and nodded toward the silent woman. “That’s my mother. Maria takes care of her.”

I only nodded. The old woman did not turn her head.

Maria returned with a first aid kit. She tilted my head back.

“Hold still,” she said. Her tone was clipped.

Then the liquid hit my wound. It burned so fiercely I hissed.

12 “Aguántalo como un hombre, chico.” She dabbed at the cut with a cotton ball, her lips almost smiling.

It did not take her long to stitch me up, though every pull of the needle felt like a hook dragging under my skin. Blood-soaked cotton balls were piled on the table. Her fingers pressed hard against my scalp, pulsing pain through my temples until my vision blurred.

When she finished, she tilted my head back again, her green eyes gleaming.

“You need to lie down.”

She gestured toward the sofa beside the old woman, who had not moved once, not even to blink.

I obeyed, too weak to argue.

The sofa sagged beneath me, soft after nights on hard benches. My eyes slid shut, but unease lingered. Even as sleep tugged at me, I could still feel the old woman’s silence filling the room.

1. Thank you.

2. Motherfucker.

3. God.

4. What a shame/ too bad.

5. Damned.

6. Lost boy, if you want me back, say my name two more times.

7. Oh, sad eyes, if you fear losing you vision, pronounce my name once more.

8. My God.

9. Please.

10. Wait, fucker.

11. Spanish dish.

12. Hold it in like a man, boy.