Children of Chicago

by Cynthia Pelayo

  How were dull plastic kindergartner scissors a hazard? At home, she often used scissors to cut out shapes. When she needed to be more precise, she reached for an X-ACTO knife. Since she had neither available, she did what she could. Fin carefully folded the paper along the edges where she would typically cut. She folded forward and folded back; again, and again until the crease was so embedded into the fibers of the paper that she could then lay that fold against an edge of the small desk in her room, tug, pull and then rip along the line. It took time, but it was effective. Fin preferred to cut her shapes, then, once they were all prepared, she would paint them. Painting the pieces after they had been cut out was easier because if she painted them and then cut them away—or tore them apart—their color would rub off.

  This evening she was working on her dollhouse. It was a project she’d started working on at home. Since she was no longer at home, she’d started all over again from memory. The image was imprinted on her mind, burned behind her eyelids so that each time she closed her eyes there it was: the perfect home, and within the ideal family.

  It was a relatively simple design. A miniature house with miniature occupants. It was modeled after her own home; a two-level bungalow with a finished basement. She had created each level but did not yet attempt to stack them on top of each other. For now, the levels were separated, she liked it that way, compartmentalized.

  The basement was mostly an open space except for a bathroom and the laundry room. Then there was the first floor with kitchen, living room, dining room, a bathroom, a small den off the dining room and two bedrooms; hers and her baby brother’s room. Upstairs there was the master bedroom and bathroom. There was still a lot to shape and cut: beds, dressers, nightstands, sofas. She wanted it to feel as much like her home as possible.

  She took her time drawing the windows in her house. There were precisely seventeen. She had counted them, over and over before, just as she had the doors, walls, floors, and rooms. As she finished drawing the window to her room, it did not yet feel finished. She sat there a moment, looking at the window and knowing what it was missing.

  She reached for her black pencil and slowly proceeded to draw a dark figure that would loom over where she would place the dollhouse bed.

  He was always there. He would always be there.

  Even here, in this dollhouse, he belonged. He was as much a part of her, her home, and her life as anything else in that house. With her real mother dead, her father uninvolved, and her stepmother uncaring and busy with a new baby, he was more reliable than all of them. The silent member of her family who cared more for her than her own blood. He cared. He listened.

  Just like he had taken care of her real mother....

  Fin realized she was crying and wiped her eyes. She wanted to scream again, but she did not think she had any screams left, her throat was so raw. She had failed, and there was no going back now.

  There were footsteps outside of her room. She glanced up to the window in the door. It was just the evening attendant making their rounds. That is what they called them, “attendants”, but Fin knew they were armed correctional officers. Fin also knew she was not in an ordinary youth correctional facility. There were doctors here, psychiatrists here. In the morning, screams came.

  Fin called out to the woman, “I want to talk to Ruth.”

  “Is it an emergency?” Two eyes asked from behind the small glass.

  “No, but she said she was going to check on my friend.”

  “Dr. Margraff will be in tomorrow, and you can speak to her during your scheduled session.”

  Ruth had promised her that she was going to check in on Mo. That seemed like hours ago. She knew because she had written it down. Time here was becoming thick, like clotted cream. Fin stood up, abandoning her dollhouse pieces. The house would never be perfect, she suspected. Not now, anyway. She proceeded to pace the room, back and forth, back and forth. The room was small enough that she knew how many steps exactly she needed to take in each direction.

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Turn.

  She paced, and paced, her footsteps took her faster back and forth across the room, creating a breeze, rustling the tiny pieces of paper she had constructed.

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Turn.

  “Why are you doing that?” Her roommate broke her silence.

  “Because I’m thinking.”

  “You can’t sit and think?” The girl said from a seated position in the middle of Fin’s bed.

  “No.”

  “That’s a lie. You were just sitting there with your dollhouse, and you were thinking.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Fin said.

  “What do you call sitting there and toying around for hours with paper?”

  “A distraction from this place,” Fin said.

  “It’s also thinking. You were thinking about things. You can sit down and think.”

  “Fine,” Fin plopped down on the edge of her unsteady foam mattress. “What should I think about?”

  “You don’t have to be rude,” the girl pushed strands of brown, greasy hair away from her eyes. “You can start off by thinking about why you were so upset that you had to stomp across our room so loud that you woke me up.”

  “I didn’t wake you up. It was time for you to wake up. You have been asleep all day. What are you planning on doing? Sleeping all night too?”

  A grin spread across her roommate’s face. “Maybe.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Keep saying those things. I’m the only person you’ve got.”

  “I’ve got Mo.”

  “Really? Do you even know where Mo is? Have you seen him around here? Heard his name? I bet he’s not even in this building. I bet he’s in another building altogether.”

  Her roommate leaned in closer. “You know what would be really messed up? If he wasn’t even being held anywhere. What if he placed all of the blame on you, and what if because of that, he was sent back home? Free, and you are here in your bloody chamber.”

  Fin stood up and covered her ears. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

  The girl giggled a musical giggle. “Tell me to shut up all you want, but you know what you did. You know what you did to Hadiya. You know what you did to Evie and Daniel and your mother. Maybe not all mothers from fairy tales die of sickness or go missing. Maybe some are killed by their own children.”

  Fin stopped. Looked to the stranger seated on her bed and shouted. “You don’t know anything!”

  The girl stood up, and moved close to Fin. Their noses nearly touching. “I don’t?” Her breath smelled of moss and dead flowers. The girl laughed, a loud, obscene, hurtful laugh. “You asked the Pied Piper to take your real mother. He did...”

  “And he kept coming back!” Fin cried, dropping to her knees. Mouth open, sobbing hard and heavy. Her shoulders shook. Her hands shook. Her body convulsed in the knowing. Tears ran down her face. Saliva rolled down the corners of her mouth. She did it. She’d had her mother killed, and for what? What did she get in exchange? A dismissive stepmother and a curse.

  “You don’t know anything,” Fin spat. “You’re here with me.”

  “I know everything.”

  Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound.

  Fin heard them on the other side of the door, trying to unlock the door but it would not open. The door shook in its frame as they pounded on steel.

  “I know about the mirror. The candle. I know who you called. The Pied Piper came back to town and told you to do your job,” the girl growled. “He asked for his payment.”

  “I’d already paid!”

  “No,” the girl grabbed Fin’s chin with sharp black fingernails digging into her skin. The veins in her face throbbed thick and black like worms swimming beneath her skin. “He gave you what you wanted. He got rid of your mother.”

  “But he came back and told me to kill someone else, or he’d kill me,” she fought th
rough tears. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know this was a deal with the devil.”

  The girl laughed. “He’s not a devil! He’s a god!”

  In the background, Fin could hear shouting. An alarm, a high-pitched whirling squeal. All sounds grew distant. Muffled cries followed.

  “You all right in there!?”

  “I’m trying to open the door.”

  “Where’d she get those scissors?”

  “I can’t open the door.”

  “Who gave her those goddamn scissors?”

  “Call Dr. Margraff now.”

  “Fin, open the door!”

  Her roommate covered her mouth. Silent giggles now.

  Where did these scissors come from, Fin wondered. Firm in her hand, the pivoted blades fully open, and carefully, carefully, one long blade slid down her throat.

  Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound.

  Time blurred. Time became water.

  The last thing Fin remembered was the screaming and blood. It felt like razor blades sliding down her throat. When she awoke, she was on her back in a different room, smaller, with a dim light in the center of the ceiling. She turned, looked and found she was on the floor. It was soft. She tried to call out but could not. Her throat was sore, aching, sharp from the screaming, or something else? It took a moment, but she was able to sit up, and eventually stand, uneasy on two legs—a new fawn learning to walk. She pressed her face against the door, and she welcomed the cold from the metal against her cheek. She was too tired to pound the door, but she tried. First, she tried hitting it with her fist, but it barely made a noise. Then, she just kept hitting her palm against the door, slowly, steadily until she could hear and feel the metal thud beneath her hand.

  A different attendant appeared in the window. This person was a man in a white coat. “I’ll call your doctor.”

  Fin turned around, pressing her back against the door, taking in the soft padding of the room, the soft light made the surface of the walls, ceiling and floor look gray. She slid down on her back until she sat down.

  A few minutes passed, and then she heard echoed footsteps approach.

  “Move away from the door. I don’t want you to get hit,” Ruth said. She must have looked down and seen Fin sitting there against the door.

  The door opened, and Ruth crouched down to where Fin was seated. Ruth held out a cup of water to her. “How are you feeling?”

  “My mouth, throat, it stings. I taste blood.”

  “You had an accident, but we were able to catch you in time before there was any major damage. It’s just a cut, but the physician who checked you out while you were out said it will heal. Drink the water slowly. That should help.”

  Fin winced as the water splashed back in her throat. “I don’t want it.” She held the cup back out to Ruth.

  “I understand. Are you ready to go back to your room?”

  Fin nodded her head.

  The door was opened, and they were back in the sickly yellow hallway.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” Ruth asked as they walked.

  “Why haven’t you told me anything about Mo?”

  “This is difficult for you, and I understand. But right now, you are getting the care that you need.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Let’s get you to your room where you can get some rest.”

  When they arrived at the door of Fin’s room, the attendant was standing beside it, glaring at her.

  “I’d first like for you to walk over to the window and look into your room and tell me what you see,” Ruth instructed.

  Fin approached the door and looked through the glass. She studied the room for a moment. Without turning her eyes away, she said, “A bed. A desk. A writing chair.” She turned around. “Where did she go?”

  “Fin, this is how the room has always been set up, just for one person. You’ve been in this room alone since you arrived.”

  The attendant motioned for Fin to step away from the door. The door was unlocked, and Fin entered without being told.

  “Your stepmother will be here in the morning for a visit, and afterward, you’ll be meeting with your lawyers.”

  “Stepmother,” she said. Her eyes widened. “Lawyers? Why?”

  “Fin, someone died. Don’t you remember? Daniel died. Daniel drowned. Evie was stabbed repeatedly, and she’s at a hospital recovering. You and Mo were arrested for involvement in that killing and attack. You’re seeing things, talking to people who are not there. That’s why you’re here while Mo is being held in a juvenile correctional facility.”

  Fin nodded silently as she sat down on her bed. She looked at the torn pieces of her dollhouse scattered across the floor.

  There were more words said, but she tuned them out, and after a while, she heard the door shut with a metallic clang. Ruth was gone.

  Fin bent down and gathered the pieces of the dollhouse, and as she did, she heard a giggle behind her.

  She turned around. He was there. He did not look happy.

  Tears welled up in her eyes. She could taste the blood more now in the back of her throat, thick and syrupy as the bleeding started again.

  “I’m sorry,” She stammered, coughing up blood, her teeth staining red. “I tried to tell Mo what we needed to do. That we had to commit. We can fix it. It won’t happen again. Let me try again.”

  Fin was trembling now.

  She had failed. She’d called the Pied Piper to take her mother, which he did. She did not know then that he would come back seeking further payment, another death—Hadiya. Then, when he was not satisfied with Hadiya, he demanded payment, yet again. And that is why she called Evie and Daniel out to the lagoon that day. If she killed them both at once then maybe the Pied Piper would leave her alone. Mo wanted the Pied Piper to kill the man who had robbed his family’s store. Mo did not need to know about the complicated terms: that he may be demanded to kill more in order to keep the life he wanted.

  He had gone willingly with her into the bathroom at school. He had lit the candle. He had recited the words, those words so secret and archaic. Hadiya had entered the bathroom. Hadiya wanted to see what they were doing, and Hadiya saw the man too. She’d screamed. She fled, while Fin and Mo smiled knowing they had succeeded. They’d summoned him. They had given him names, and he’d tipped his cap in agreement.

  When the man demanded more death Fin had known who to bring him.

  Now, however, the words were difficult. She opened her mouth again to try to apologize. Black blood spurted out. She continued to try to talk, spurting, spraying black and red. “I’ll do better next time. It will go right.” She coughed more blood, trying to clear out her throat, but the more she coughed the more it flowed. Liquid rolled down her nostrils. Her vision blurred. She wiped and looked, more bleeding.

  The more she strained to speak, the closer it came. The only sound in the room was her gasping and gurgling for breath, and the clicking of its two hooves.

  Click, click, click, click.

  Like the tapping of nails on a chalkboard, its hooves clicked sharply on the hard floor. Its yellow eyes drilled into Fin.

  Click, click, click, click,

  It was neither from this world or any other. It was both beast and man. Wild and rustic. Black curly hair, and two curved pointed horns which sprouted from his head. A deeply lined face, framed by thick hair. A bare torso, dusted with dirt and dry leaves rested on hindquarters. Two black, cloven hoofs moved forward again. Half man. Half goat. This was the man in his true form.

  Click, click, click, click,

  The walls fell away and they were surrounded by green. Trees that crashed against each other, straining for space. The sun struggled to fight through branches and leaves, leaving shadows dancing across her body. She looked up and saw that canopy strangled the sky. Blood flowed down her orifices, eyes, mouth, nose, ears and pooled on new fallen leaves around her feet.

  Its hooves shuffled across the
forest floor. Closer.

  Nothing more needed to be said, and nothing more could be said as she fought the onslaught of liquid flowing out of her body.

  It reached out its hand towards her, caked in dirt and leaves. Its hands were red, covered in liquid. Long, sharp black fingernails were inches from her eyes. It reached further, the nails resting against the skin of her forehead, and then hot pain as its nails bore down into flesh, puncturing through scalp. The crack of breaking bone. Splitting the spongy folds of her brain. Breath became liquid, swallowing salty, bitter iron.

  It lifted her up to meet its eyes. Deep black pools.

  Sight lost to a curtain of red.

  Tremors shot through her arms. Legs shook violently.

  Her hands were no longer hers as they shook and waved. Her body fought to stay connected.

  She could not scream.

  She could not see.

  Breath became lost to blood and water.

  And at that moment, right before the here and now, much like that space in between sleep and awake she thought she heard music—vibrating, wafting, bright, then shrill and penetrating.

  Her trembling stopped.

  The beast released its hold, knelt down and placed a gold coin in her mouth.

  CHAPTER 22

  Early in the morning was the only time of day Lauren felt she could get a hold of this city. After her session with Jordan ended she came here, to this too familiar place—Humboldt Park. Lauren felt like she knew each and every piece of this place. She knew the trails, the prairie gardens, multiple baseball diamonds, and playgrounds.

  Lauren had buried her father just days ago, but in a way, it felt like he had been gone for months. While she found Rosehill Cemetery beautiful, she felt like Humboldt Park was the place she could connect to him, the old him, and really talk to him. She drove to Cafe Colao for a cortadito, a double espresso with milk. There, she left her car and walked down to Humboldt Boulevard. As she did, she passed one of the large, steel sixty-foot Puerto Rican flags that stretched across Division Street. One at the corner of Division and Western and the other at the corner of Division and California. Installed in 1995, they were made to look like they were blowing in the wind. At the time, the neighborhood had been about eighty-percent Puerto Rican, but many of them had left. Some died. Some moved to Florida, and others moved back to the island, fulfilling their dream of returning to their home, to Borinquen — the name originally given to it by the indigenous Tainos before Christopher Columbus came and took everything, including their name, away. Those flags that stretch across this major street, weigh fifty tons, can withstand winds up to seventy miles per hour, and on cold, silent winter days provide some warmth of the memory of those who came before her, like the first wave of Puerto Ricans who came to this city in the 1940s to work in the steel mills in Chicago, to whom the flags are dedicated.