When The Shadows Began To Dance

by Yamaya Cruz

  “I’m going to be back in two hours to straighten your ass out,” Maria said flatly. She looked at me and for the first time, I could see some warmth in her eyes. I didn’t look at Ali. I was way too disappointed. I felt like a pet owner who had been maimed and mutilated by her two hundred pound chimpanzee. Fortunately for me, I still had my face. However, the relationship that my brother and I shared had been torn to pieces and deemed utterly unrecognizable. I coughed in attempt to cover up a sob. I was upset and wanted to cry, but I knew that it wasn’t the best thing to do in front of Maria. She hated weakness.

  I had lived literally a half-hour from New York City my whole life. But it wasn’t until I was thirteen that I actually went there. I couldn’t believe it, all the lights and people. Night had fallen and there was a cold mist in the air. People walked about wearing spring jackets and some had scarves wrapped around their neck. They sipped on hot beverages and breathed out puffs of white smoke after every sip. There were skyscrapers, quant boutiques and outside cafes with round tables and large umbrellas. I loved it here, and I wanted to stop and look around, but Maria kept tugging on my arm.

  I was way too afraid to ask her any questions, so I walked in silence, making mental notes that I would look up any question that popped into my mind later. We took a couple of trains, got off and walked briskly to an old brownstone house that was located in Spanish Harlem. Maria struggled as she climbed up the stairs. She adjusted her coat and rang the doorbell. I stood and waited impatiently. I looked at Maria; her eyes were closed, as if she was deep in prayer. What the hell was going on with her? I looked at the door and fought back the urge not to ring it again.

  We waited for almost ten minutes before the door peeled open. A man with a baldhead and protruding belly peeked from behind it. I laughed to myself; he reminded me of a Black Buddha. Maria nudged me and sent me a look of death. Suddenly, I realized that I had laughed out loud. I didn’t mean to. I have to admit, I was a lot of things, but I certainly wasn’t rude. Maria grabbed me by my hoodie and shoved me into the door.

  “We’re just a few minutes late. We had some problems with the boy,” Maria said apologetically. She cleared her throat and continued.

  “Maybe you can see him at another time?” she inquired, again trying to inject her manly voice with a hint of softness.

  Chobo didn’t say anything. Instead he looked me up and down. I avoided his gazed and did what I normally did when I met new people. I looked down at the floor and focused on my feet. Chobo whistled.

  “Wow! She’s a beauty,” he said.

  “Yeah, she looks just like her mother,” Maria said, and I caught a hint of pride in her voice.

  “Almost like her,” Chobo said.

  Then they just stopped and stared at each other like they were sharing one single thought. What? I wanted to know what they were thinking. Chobo looked back at me and smiled.

  “Come in and make yourself at home,” he said.

  Maria struggled to take her coat off. I wanted to ask her if she needed help but I didn’t dare. Instead, I took off my hoodie and flung it over a coat rack. I flipped off my shoes and walked into his living room. Man, the place was huge. There were candles of all sorted colors lit and statues of Orishas that were placed on tables and on verandas. I walked over and picked one up.

  “No! Make sure that you clean yourself before you walk into my house,” Chobo said.

  I paused with the statute in my hand. I blinked a couple of times and realized that Chobo was talking to me in Spanish. I felt like a foreigner in my own country. My eyes shifted to the left as my brain worked to translate his words into English. Clean. Clean. Clean. Oh! Clean yourself! I looked over at a basin of water that was nestled in the corner. I rushed over and cupped huge handfuls of it and splashed it on my hair and face. I turned around in time to see Chobo stifling a grin. I caught my reflection in a mirror. I was soaking wet.

  “Come here, child,” he said in Spanish. I obeyed, but I was drawn back to the statue. I carefully picked it back up.

  “Nelly, don’t touch anything,” Maria snapped.

  Hurriedly, I placed the statue back down. Timidly, I looked over at Chobo in an attempt to apologize.

  “Don’t worry,” he said walking over to me and picking up the statue. “You were drawn to this one for a reason,” he said while examining it in his hands.

  “I think that I like this Orisha the best,” I said softly. He stopped, looked at me and then at Maria. He chuckled softly before he asked.

  “You’ve seen it before?”

  “Yes, it’s Changó,” I said while gently taking it from his hands. He released it and let me hold it for a while. I knew the story, but I didn’t know how I knew. Changó was a great African King from the city of Ile Ife. He had powers and magic beyond belief and, he was always successful in getting his enemies to succumb to his will. The statue was heavy, about twentypounds and carved out of clay that was painted black. Changó was seated on his throne cross-legged with colorful jewels at his feet and a red double edge axe clutched in his hand.

  “Yes, that’s true. But Changó is much more than that,” he said, thankfully in English.

  Changó is the Orisha that sets the groundwork for all the other Orishas,” Chobo said.

  I looked at Chobo. For some odd reason I felt really comfortable around him. I decided to ask him a question that I hope wasn’t dumb. I cleared my throat and looked at Maria. She glared at me warning me to be on my best behavior. Chobo looked at me with kind eyes before he said.

  “Go ahead. You can ask questions. That’s why you’re here,” he said.

  I couldn’t look him in the eye. Instead. I looked down at my feet and mumbled the question under my breath. I was a little surprised that he even understood me.

  “An Orisha? That’s not a stupid question,” he said while waving his hands in the air. He reached over and lifted my head up and then continued.

  “Orishas are forces of energy that live both inside you and in the universe. Over the years, man has given them names and human bodies but in the end, they’re just energy that we call ashé,” he said.

  “But, what do they do?” I asked timidly.

  “Well, everything. Energy, ashé is everything and everywhere,” he exclaimed. I looked at him. I was a little confused.

  “Come with me,” he said motioning for me to follow him. I did with the statue in my hand, for some reason, I couldn’t part with it. Chobo gripped his cane as he struggled to sit in an old rocking chair. I could hear his bones crackling. He adjusted his feet and elongated his legs before he began to rock gently in the chair. He lifted his cane and motioned for me to sit cross-legged in front of him. He cleared his throat and began to speak like a college professor.

  “Energy rises from the earth. It starts from here,” he said, leaning over and placing his hand behind his back. I leaned over to my side and realized that his hand was in between the top of his buttocks. There’s energy in my butt? I wanted to ask. I covered my mouth in an attempt to smother the spurts of giggles, they managed to come out like muffled farts, quiet but insidiously offensive. I looked up and saw Maria glaring at me, quickly I wiped the smile off my face but I froze when I looked over at Chobo. He was looking at me, or through me. His eyes were as black as onyx, and I could have sworn that I could see my reflection in them. I was hypnotized and silenced by his gaze.

  “Do you know why you’re here?” Chobo finally asked. I shook my head no. I had an idea. My mom said that I needed help, but I felt okay now that I was away from Nico. I wasn’t having nightmares anymore, and I tried not to think about him and what he made me do.

  “You’re here because your soul has been ripped into a thousand little pieces.” I looked back at him aghast. He was leaning over in his chair now, staring at me like he was a priest about to perform an exorcism. I cupped my head in a weak attempt to stabilize it from spinning.

  “In times of turmoil and trauma you soul innately sacrifices pieces of itself in ord
er to survive. They run and hide in the world of the dead,” he continued. Okay, he was making me feel really bad now. I wiggled around on the floor. I felt very uncomfortable. Then he said something that really scared the shit out of me.

  “You see them in your dreams. They are the shadows,” he said leaning back in his chair slowly. My mouth was ajar as I sat and stared at him. He stunned me into silence. His voice, once warm and jovial had become strident and penetrating. I felt like a snake had bitten me and loaded me up with venom.

  “Your soul cannot develop or progress without its lost parts, making it more susceptible to external influences because it does not have the strength of the whole to ward off evil.” He continued while gripping his cane and gently pounding it on the ground. He was looking into the fireplace now. There were flames lit, beguiling flames.

  “The lost pieces of your soul come back and haunt you; they want to pull what’s left of you back into the world of the dead where you will ultimately be destroyed.” He lifted up his cane and placed it into his lap and just stared at me.

  “So I suggest that you take this seriously because this is a life and death situation.”

  I hovered back like a turtle retreating into the comforts of its shell. I saw him differently now. Suddenly, I felt like a meandering toddler, who he had placed over his knee and beaten with a birch rod. I made a few mental notes to never speak to him again, to never open up again, to never trust him again. I didn’t like him, and I was never going to like him, because I hated the way that he made me feel.

  “They’re the shadows. They are going to tell you that I am bad. That I want to hurt you, but I am just here to help you,” he said in a lighter warmer voice.

  “They want you to cower back and hover into a shell, so you can never deal with your issues. So the shadows will never see the light because then they would be destroyed,” he continued.

  I looked up at Chobo and suddenly, his voice, his tone, even his mannerisms reminded me of the elderly woman who visited me.

  “You don’t have to have nightmares anymore, Nelly. All that can end, but you got to work with me,” Chobo said.

  I closed my eyes and opened them again. Suddenly, I could hear the elderly woman’s voice. I could see her again leading me down into the basement where I saw them. I saw all of the Orishas. They healed the sick and the poor. They healed Indians, whites, and slaves. Suddenly, I could feel Changó’s rage. I balled my hands into fist and looked over at Chobo. I needed to take control of my life. Chobo looked at me and smiled.

  “Yes, that’s it. Remember your dreams. They were all there,” he said.

  I heard the springs of the sofa squeal as Maria sunk deep into its fibers. She lowered her head and placed her palms over her face. Was she crying? She was sitting like a man, with her legs wide open; her dress barely covered her knees, exposing black briskly hairs, cankles, and hairy hammertoes.

  “The shadows have a long history in your family,” Chobo said while looking at Maria and then back at me.

  “The only way to heal ourselves is to unite the tattered pieces of our soul by balancing the Orishas, the forces of energy that’s inside of us,” he said. He rocked himself forward and struggled to get into a standing position. He walked over to the veranda to pick up another statue.

  “Once the soul is united, it becomes powerful beyond belief and can withstand everything, even the spirits of the dead,” he explained.

  He turned around and pointed to the statue that was now seated next to me.

  “And that’s what Changó represents, the fight between the bad spirits and the good. He works with flames to burn away impurities. He is the father, who provides a strong foundation, so all the other Orishas can stand on top of him.”

  He walked back over to me and handed me a statue of a mermaid wearing a bright blue headdress with clamshells covering her breast.

  “Yemayá is mother earth and is located in the womb. She is the nurturer. The Orisha that will give you the love needed to heal.”

  “We’ll talk about all the Orishas later,” he said kneeling over to pick up the two statues that he had placed in front of me.

  “First, you need to start with these two. Work with them, master them and then we can go on to the rest.” Chobo paused; he seemed to be in deep thought before he turned around to face me again.

  “You’re a bright girl. You have good ashé and a lot of potential. Who knows how far you can go.”

  “What?” I said.

  Chobo looked at Maria. She sat up in her chair and wobbled as she struggled to get up to her feet.

  “Well, we took up a whole bunch of your time. Are we still on for next week?” Maria said as she made her way to the door.

  “Yes, and bring the boy too. He really needs to be here,” Chobo said nodding his head.

  Maria shoved me toward the door.

  “And Maria, make sure Luisa is here, this needs to be a family thing,” Chobo said while wiping some invisible dust off one of his statues.

  “Yes Chobo.”

  “Maria?’ “Yes”

  “Don’t be late again.” “I won’t. I promise.”

  Maria was silent for the rest of the ride home. But for some reason, right before we reached the door, she stopped me.

  “Nina, you did good today.” She bowed her head and covered her mouth and grimaced. She coughed and banged against her chest a couple of times. It was like saying a few kinds words to me was actually making her sick.

  “Thanks,” I said dryly.

  When we walked in. I felt a draft. A cold draft, as if something or someone had sped past me. Maria turned on the light and the shadows lined the walls. They were behind chairs, tables, and the sofa. A chill ran down my spine. I had experienced this way too many times before. It was happening again. I didn’t take my shoes off. I raced up the stairs; I could see my own shadow out of the corner of my eye. It was a lot bigger than me, meaner, faster. It moved menacingly, taunting me, reminding me of its power. I burst into Ali’s room. It was empty. The window was left open. Frantically, I raked my fingers through my hair and made my way down the hall into my mother’s room.

  I paused. The door was left ajar. I pushed it open and walked in. The room looked like a New Jersey garbage dump. Clothes had been ripped off the hangers, left and right shoes were oddly flung about, and pieces of jewelry were mangled and tattered. There was a bare mattress that was lying on the floor, separated from the box spring and headrest. It was bedraggled with loose feathers that had been ripped from the pillows. The mattress was half dressed, with a yellow stained sheet wrapped around the bottom of it. There were hoards of dirty clothing piled on to it. I walked closer and moved a small pile over and felt cold dead flesh. I jumped.

  “No! No! No!”

  I covered my face. I wanted it to be dark. I didn’t want to see the image that was in front of me. I closed my eyes tight and prayed. I prayed to God, to the Orishas, to the saints, to the shadows to please let this not be real. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again. The body was still there. It was my mom, lying on her back. Her dress was soiled and torn. Her legs awkwardly straddled the mattress. Her neck looked grossly distorted. The bottoms of her feet were hard and covered in black soot.

  My heart was pounding. A siege of tremors caused me to rock back and forth. All the emotions inside of me erupted and I fell to my knees. Tears streamed down my face like hot lava. I crawled to the mattress on all fours and buried my head into my mom’s cold bosom.

  I don’t know how long I was there. All I can remember was that it was pitch black in the room when Maria and the police officers arrived. People were talking to me, but I couldn’t hear them. I didn’t want to leave my mom. I didn’t want to leave her ever again. I lay there on the mattress with my arms wrapped around her corpse and my head nuzzled into her chest. A woman with stringy brown hair tried to pull me off. I screamed and latched back on to my mom. She pulled me from my torso. I released my grip, turned around, and began to lash out
at her. I threw out loaded blows in an uncontrollable black rage.

  Although the woman was twice my size, she was no match for my agility and stealth. She tried to control me by pinning my arms down to my sides, but I quickly turned and managed to grab a fist full of her ratty brown hair. I maneuvered her neck, positioning her directly at eye level as I hammered punches into her face. After about two minutes, Maria moved in and ambushed me with a sneak attack. Her three hundred pound frame was a formidable force, and in just two quick movements, she was able to scoop me up and carry me out of the room. The police were downstairs.

  Their eyes widened with disbelief as they watched a big-bone woman gingerly carry a thirteen year old kicking and screaming girl down the stairs.

  I woke up in a cold sweat. I looked around me and realized that I was back at the children’s shelter. I scanned the room. It was pitch black. My pupils dilated and I began to make out a few objects in the room. There was the dresser, the nightstand, a bookshelf, and a long mirror that hung on the back of the door. It was after hours and I wasn’t supposed to be awake. I wanted to turn my light on and read a book, but I looked over and saw that my roommate Sky was sleeping in the twin bed next to me. I sighed and flopped back down onto the bed. I needed to think happy thoughts. No more memories about the past.

  I opened my eyes and saw a black silhouette moving towards me. Nico! I flinched. I looked around the room befuddled. Then I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. No, this could not be happening, not to me. I rushed out of bed, my hand knocked over the desk lamp. It rocked back and forth before stabilizing itself. I looked over at Sky, she was still sound asleep. My heart was pounding. I wiped my brow. I was sweating. I jumped when I saw something else scamper across the room. They were taunting me.

  “Leave me alone.” I heard myself say.

  It seemed that I had given them exactly what they wanted.

  “We are here and we ain’t going away.” “LEAVE ME ALONE!” I screamed. Suddenly, the room was flooded with light.