by Castro, V.
Perla was on the floor propped against a dining chair clutching her thigh and arm, her skin devoid of color. Dr. Camacho lay in a pool of her own blood, eyes wide open. My body, my heart, disintegrated in that moment. I didn’t need to touch the professor to know she was gone. I took out my phone and called an ambulance. Perla moaned. I ran to her.
“Perla! Who did this?”
She was weak, her white lips barely able to move. “Priest. Moreno. Go. Fucking go.” I looked from her to Dr. Camacho and then back.
“I can’t leave you!”
“Fucking cops will have questions; it will be too late. He will kill her.” I couldn’t ignore the flaring of Perla’s eyes, that female rage we are told to bury when it burns too bright or becomes distracting. Tears filled her bottom lids and then spilled over. “It’s going to be okay. Go.”
I knew exactly where I was going next. When I started my car, I could hear sirens and then the flashing lights of an ambulance. There was a wave of relief over the grief I had no time to feel.
The rumbling sky looked as if it was about to crack open to unleash some great terror. You could smell the impending moisture; perhaps the time for waters to break had come. Maybe the darkness of space would descend upon us. Lightning and thunder rolled within the clouds. Every car had their headlights on, blinding me more than I already was in my confusion. I had to think fast. My stepfather had a gun in a pocket in the backseat of his truck, but I didn’t know how to use it or even if there were bullets inside, and anyway if I wasted another second getting to Fernanda and Father Moreno it might be too late. With the goddess not making as many appearances lately, I wasn’t sure if she would protect Fernanda. Or what if the goddess did appear and killed the priest before I got to them? Fernanda would be blamed, her future forever marred.
The only plan I had my mind set on was killing this priest if it came down to us or him. I’d be hated forever. I would take the sin, accept hatred or death. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want Father Moreno or anyone like him to have the satisfaction of our tears or bodies. No, I wanted to strike like a predator in the wild.
The church sat on the corner of the street like a chipped headstone. It appeared rotten, choked by time and its own tangled intolerance. I parked hastily, not caring if I got a ticket, and then ran inside. The vestibule was quiet, but as I moved through the freezing church, I could hear voices in the back rooms. The office was upturned, the temperature far hotter than the rest of the church with the air-conditioning turned off. Broken pieces of statues were strewn across the floor. I couldn’t walk without stepping on parts of them.
The priest was shouting something from the Bible over the sound of laughter, the laughter of the goddess. I peered into the adjoining room, not making a sound. I had seen what she was capable of. Fernanda sat on a chair with her hands on her lap. Father Moreno stood before her with a camera propped on a tripod behind him. Bible in one hand and gun in the other.
“Why do you mock me? You are a vile temptation, you have no place here or inside this young woman, making her do things she doesn’t want to do. Show yourself! Show everyone what you are. Evil exists!” He tossed water from a plastic flask over her in the shape of a cross.
She laughed harder, louder. “Stop! It burns!”
He moved closer, flustered by her show of defiance. She continued laughing in his face as the water splashed across her body.
“Tell me your name, demon!”
The laughter stopped. A deep voice issued from her lips. “I am not a demon! Stop calling me that.” Her eyes flickered with animosity.
“Enough games!” the priest shouted.
“I agree, enough games. Now priest, you will confess your sin.”
His confidence turned to terror. It knew.
“I am not the sinner! Everything I have done is for the glory of God. You will see, all will see!”
Fernanda crept closer to him one step at a time causing the priest to back into the freezer, the gun outstretched in his trembling hand. I stepped out from the office.
“The police know it is you. It’s over.”
Against the freezer he waved the gun from Fernanda to me. His demeanor changed. “You won’t leave this place. I will kill you both.”
The freezer snapped open, bouncing off the wall with a loud thud. The sudden noise caused him to drop the gun. He looked back, then scrambled to the floor to pick up the gun again.
“Let’s go, Fernanda! Now’s our chance!”
She stared at the freezer with caiman eyes and a wicked smile, her body frozen. Father Moreno rose slowly pointing the gun towards us again.
Crunching. Shifting. Something moved in the freezer. A bluish-white hand with chipped red nail polish and a spider web tattoo between her thumb and index finger lifted the lid. I blinked, not wanting to believe what I was seeing. However, after meeting the goddess, anything was possible. After the hand, a torso lifted up from inside the cold coffin, followed by the head of a woman. Her features were icy white tinged with purple-blue like a Lladró figure. Her wide eyes, polar ice caps, cracked and shifted as they adjusted to the light. They radiated enmity and heartache. My brain registered the sight in slow motion. I still wasn’t sure it was real until I glanced at Fernanda. Her lips were pulled back tightly against her face, showing all of her teeth. Flames in her eyes concentrated on the frozen woman with blowtorch intensity. This was Tlazoltéotl at work.
As Father Moreno reared his head to the sounds behind him, the woman in the freezer ripped the mantilla off her head and the robe off her body, revealing a red lace bra. The frozen woman reached for Father Moreno, and with both her hands gripped the sides of his skull. The longer Fernanda stared at the freezer, the more animated the woman became. She opened her mouth, sliding her tongue back and forth across her teeth. Water drained from her body. The priest was paralyzed in her death grip, and the gun slid from his hand. She placed a wet cheek against his rigid face.
“You have robbed me. You have robbed my children. And all you can speak of is God. You want to know of God? Let me show you!” she growled.
The priest’s body jerked and spasmed in her grasp. He wailed in such torment I almost couldn’t bear the sound. Father Moreno was no longer on this plane; he was somewhere else. In his agony, he screamed “Martha!”
Full blue lips opened, releasing frozen breath that shook in laughter. Black fingertips pressed hard into his skull before releasing him.
Her gaze moved to us. For a moment I thought she would climb out to attack. Instead she raised a hand, reaching out, water dripping from her fingertips.
“Tell them I love them.”
The life behind her eyes fled and her body went limp, falling back into the freezer. My brain still struggled to understand. I looked dumbly at Fernanda who was no longer grinning. Tears rolled down her cheeks. I shook her, knowing it wasn’t Fernanda.
“Tlazoltéotl, I know you can hear me, and I know it is you. We have been together long enough now I can sense when you are near. I can feel you. You have to let her go. There are rules here, maybe not where you come from, but we have to live by the fucking rules, or we get nowhere. You hear me?” I squeezed the sides of her arms tighter to get a reaction. It was a dummy smile with eyes you would see on a stuffed animal.
“You want this world to accept you and listen to you? You want to own this world? Then play the damn game that humans have to play if you plan on being in one of our bodies. We can’t go around doing shit like this. The world has changed. Surely you see this. Think of your mission!” I breathed heavily, not knowing if the priest would wake up any minute, but I didn’t break eye contact. I needed to get through to her.
The light that was Fernanda looked back at me. “She said you are right.”
Fernanda threw her arms around me, and I held onto her. Father Moreno lay on his back staring at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling quickly with erratic breathing. He wasn’t going anywhere. I dialed 911, said as little as possible, and th
en gave my phone to Fernanda to call her parents. It was over.
We walked out of the church to a downpour. A thick fog steamed the streets, blurring the street lights and headlights. Fernanda and I clung to each other in the cold. We didn’t want to go back inside. We heard the police and ambulance before we saw them through the fog. The ambulance took Father Moreno away. He was still alive, but unresponsive. Only time would tell if he would awaken to confess the truth.
Mr. and Mrs. Garcia arrived at the church. Both jumped out of their car in tears as they embraced their daughter. “Mija! What happened?”
Fernanda pulled away from her parents but placed a hand on her mother’s cheek.
“Mamá, I want to see Yolanda.”
Mrs. Garcia’s eyes wobbled with pooling tears. She kissed Fernanda’s hands and nodded without saying a word. The three of them gathered close again. Her eyes looked up at me as I stood there shivering, holding my arms. “Thank you,” she mouthed.
I nodded and moved to the side waiting for the cops to question me, ask me what I did to the priest. I also wanted to alert them to the body in the freezer. Someone out there wanted to know where she was, whoever she was. She also proved Father Moreno was not a good man. It might have been us in another freezer. The cops insisted on escorting me home to make sure I was okay. I doubted that was the reason. My family’s hugs felt plastic.
I went straight to bed to message my friends for a meeting the next day. It would be all over the news by then. I needed a plan for the worst-case scenario of my ass getting blamed. Father Moreno had to wake up.
Two days later I was informed that Father Moreno had a brain aneurysm, but he would survive. They had determined I was telling the truth and no further action would be taken. It was also at this time that his secret was revealed. Martha had been missing for over a year. Everyone assumed she abandoned her children for a lover because of a note left in her car in the parking lot of the Target she frequented. All her belongings were found in the priest’s home neatly folded or hanging next to his own clothes. Even her shoes sat next to his. An album with photos ranging from their childhood up to the point she went missing lay next to his bed. She’d died from a head trauma, but there had been no sexual assault. Her body would be given a proper burial so her family could mourn their loss and her children would know she didn’t leave them.
Father Moreno remained in the hospital for weeks as they tried to determine how to treat him. He wasn’t well enough for prison or to stand trial for the murder of Martha Sanchez. As he became increasingly incoherent and disoriented, speaking in Latin and delivering sermons to himself, he was transferred to a psychiatric ward for the remainder of his life.
Fernanda stood at the farthest edge of Military Highway before it meets the freeway and undeveloped land. The moon was a bitten-off fingernail with only the faintest light illuminating the darkness. She breathed heavily, waiting. A single car approached, shining two lights on her, the engine still running. Her head hung toward her chin, her arms straight against her legs.
The car door opened. “You all right there, miss? Are you hurt? Can we escort you home?” A woman stepped out of the car. She held a cloth with chloroform in her hand behind her back.
Fernanda didn’t move or make a sound until the woman stood close enough for her to grab the woman’s head with both hands. Caiman eyes bulged with fury, her mouth opening wide to release the bulbous tongue ready to eat the woman’s sin.
The woman’s hand clenched as she tried to fight the strength within Fernanda.
“Tell me your sin,” Fernanda hissed.
“No!” screamed the woman as she tried to bring the cloth to Fernanda’s nose. Another car door opened, and a man with a Dallas Cowboys hat ran toward them. He stopped when Fernanda began sucking a black vapor from his girlfriend’s mouth.
The woman convulsed violently, her body burning from the inside out, beginning at the scalp line, then spreading to the rest of her body until it blackened to a charred thing. The smell of burnt flesh rose into the atmosphere, clinging to the still air. Flakes of flesh blew into the cool autumn breeze. The man doubled over to vomit. Fernanda dropped the corpse and began to calmly walk to the man. He looked up from the ground, chunks of food and strings of bile falling from his lips.
“Confess,” Fernanda whispered.
He pulled a Taser from behind his back. “I don’t know what you are, but I’m going to give it to you now, you ugly bitch!” He switched it on, lunging towards Fernanda.
She grabbed his hand, breaking it at the wrist. His scream drowned out the sound of the cracking of bones. As he looked at his broken wrist in terror, Fernanda shoved the Taser and his hand into his mouth. He fell to the ground as the Taser sent jolts of electric currents through his body. His forehead singed beneath the cap, smoke rising as the black continued down his body until it, too, was a burnt carcass.
Fernanda walked back the way she came. It would be a long distance, but she had Tlazoltéotl to keep her company.
“Should we call the police?” Fernanda whispered, a hint of cloud escaping her lips as she spoke.
I don’t want to. Do you?
Fernanda continued to walk at a calm pace. “It will be dawn soon. There will be enough traffic; they will be found. But it makes me sad.”
Do you feel remorse?
“I am sad because there are so many other sinners like that out there. Like the stars, doing bad things that are only seen long after the deed is done.”
Don’t worry, Fernanda. We will continue to bring justice, though not like this. Humans have created a system to process wrongdoing, to weed out the guilty and innocent. It is imperfect, but it is all you have. You can lead the way for change. Bring a real sense of equality and justice in the way humans need. Look at how big the night sky is. That should be your ambition.
Fernanda stopped and looked above her head. The sky didn’t end.
“You are right. Let us work together. And I like the idea of making it official one day.”
Fernanda could hear the TV volume higher than usual that morning when she walked out of her bedroom. Her mother turned to her. “Mija, listen.”
If you are just joining us, here are the headlines. Father Moreno, the man convicted of the murder of Martha Sanchez, has been moved to a psychiatric facility where he will serve his sentence. It is unknown if this was a single incident or if there are other victims.
Another tragedy unfolding is the raiding of a trafficking ring led by Paul and Corinne Maddox. It also appears they have murdered young men and women, whose bones were found in their home. Ten children kidnapped at the border and South Texas have been taken into care. The couple’s involvement was only discovered after their bodies were found outside their car off Military Highway. It appears they were set alight. We will keep you updated on this case.
And now to Damien Pierce for the weather.
Well, folks, it looks like our prayers have been answered and we are expecting thunderstorms throughout the week. This couldn’t come at a better time because the reservoir is at dangerous levels. Flooding alerts are expected to be issued.
The letter I posted for the professor was a recommendation for a scholarship for entrance to her department and a paid work-study under her. I cried for days after receiving this news, the image of her body in my mind entangled with a feeling of overwhelming gratitude.
The university respected the professor’s wishes and I was admitted with a full scholarship as long as I kept my grades above a 3.5 GPA. I thanked the heavens for this gift and wasn’t about to fuck it up. On the weekends I made sure to visit Dr. Camacho’s grave. Beneath the auburn trees that signaled the change of season and the welcomed cooler weather, I grieved for her. It was also time for my interview with the history department to see if I could keep my work-study and continue deciphering the stories.
Pauline accompanied me, ready to stand by my side if needed. My body was a live wire, the fear threatening to make my legs run away. But I could
do this.
“You ready?”
I looked at the cover page of the first translations with Dr. Camacho’s name next to mine and Perla’s. “Yeah, as ready as I will ever be. I promise Dr. Camacho will never be forgotten. Tlazoltéotl and all her knowledge will be in the world.”
“If anyone says you can’t hold a dream in your hands, you can show them that. No one can take it away.”
“Don’t make me cry, Pauline! Not now.”
We giggled like we were back in school sharing gossip. We were women, finding our way in a world that didn’t give us a second glance.
“No! I’m sorry. Don’t cry. Find that strength you have shown all this time. I know it’s there. You go in there and kick some ass. Don’t curse. And after we’ll go get some Whataburger. My treat.”
“I better not fuck up then.”
The door to the conference room opened.
“We are ready for your presentation.”
Pauline and I looked at each other with wide eyes and smiles. She gave me an assuring nod before I turned to follow the department head through the door that changed the course of my life.
After three weeks I learned the work-study was approved. I thanked the goddess in my mind for her blessing of the stories. We didn’t know what the future would look like for any of us, only that it was ours.
Fernanda started college as planned. She sent us regular updates about her classes and new friends. She decided to run for student government, something she was asked to do many times in high school by various teachers but had always declined, claiming she didn’t have enough time with her school work. Now she made the time. This was the beginning of a Fernanda who seemed happy and enthusiastic about her future. It would be okay. Whatever worries she harbored the year before were all but gone. Her self-assuredness blossomed.
Tlazoltéotl remained in hibernation, only coming out when she was called by Fernanda. There she worked through her, with her; they listened to each other in harmony, achieving their goals with the help of the other.