by Gord Rollo
At last, Marcela said goodbye to Peter, and sighed deeply with relief when he was finally out the door.
***
The compelling need for solitude extended to everything, including her work. After settling in alone at her apartment that first day, Marcela had called the senior partner in the firm, Ronald Benoit, getting him at two o’clock just as he returned from lunch; and after describing her injuries, she explained that she needed more time off.
“…That’s right, Ron.”
There was a brief pause. “Well, of course, Marcela, take enough time to gather yourself. I understand. Why don’t you call back in a…oh, a month.”
Marcela smiled to herself. She knew that Ron was surprised by the request, because the expected thing, the company thing, would be to come right back to work after a day or two. Best to get right back on the horse, as the associates would say. Forget the unpleasantness. The macho thing. Of course all the associates were male, and as far as she knew none of them had ever been mugged, raped, or beaten. But, with the present state of her mind, Marcela didn’t really care what Ronald Benoit or any of the associates thought.
“I knew you’d understand, Ron,” she said, in her sweetest voice, and added silently, you insensitive bastard. “Who knows, I might even take a little trip, get away from this heat wave.”
“Now, that sounds good,” the senior partner agreed. “You do that. And take care. Just give me a call when you’re ready to come back.”
“Bye, Ron,” she said, hoping she screened the finality of tone. Right now Marcela didn’t care about the firm at all. She felt like she would probably never go back. And it was an uplifting feeling, bringing her a sense of freedom. But who knows what I’ll feel a month from now? she advised herself sagely, settling the phone in the receiver, justifying the hedging call to the boss. Maybe she should take a trip. Might not be a bad idea, the perfect way to put her troubled and unhappy past life behind her once and for all and make a fresh start.
A new beginning sounded wonderful, but at the moment all she cared about was getting some much needed sleep. Marcela’s 24-hour cycle had suddenly changed in the hospital. She wanted to sleep through the day, only feeling alert after dark. Strange, she’d thought, when she’d recognized the sleep cycle shift was permanent, even after leaving the hospital. Perhaps it’s all a part of some kind of mystical transformation, along with the attitude change, she told herself, half-jokingly, as she climbed into bed.
***
Running… her sleek body a blur in the night as she sprints toward an unusually strong scent that is tantalizing her senses. She follows it, head moving back and forth, sniffing constantly, the slight breeze blowing inland from the ocean guiding her closer and closer, urging her onward. She’s not sure what it is yet, or where it’s coming from, but her nipples harden and her mouth starts to salivate, anticipating the inevitable encounter.
Breaking through a row of low bushes, knowing she’s getting close now but she pulls up short, skidding to a complete stop, startled to see a black woman standing directly in her path. She recognizes her immediately, as the local Costa Rican woman who sold her the silver ball pendant. The large woman is dressed in layers of sheet, a rainbow of bright colors wrapped around her considerable girth. Her gray hair is braided in many rows using hundreds of hand carved beads.
The black woman raises her hands and smiles. “Peace, my child. Relax and come to me. Come to Semma.”
And then the strange woman is gone: a silent explosion of swirling light sucked up and swallowed by the canopy of moisture-swollen clouds handing in the dark sky above.
***
After four days and nights in the apartment, Marcela realized she was feeling bored, restless. The vivid dreams that she’d been experiencing since her rape kept recurring: She was always moving quickly through the Costa Rican rainforest, searching for something. She was searching alone, a solitary hunter. Moving quickly through the undergrowth, looking, looking…but she would always awaken just before she discovered what it was she was searching for. After waking, the mystery disturbed her otherwise tranquil sleep.
Though she never reappeared in her dreams, Marcela found her thoughts returning again and again to the strange woman who’d sold her the silver pendant.
Peace, my child. Relax and come to me. Come to Semma.
Semma? Was that the name of a village in Costa Rica? The woman’s name? Marcela had no way of knowing, nor should she care, but she couldn’t seem to shake the woman’s image or her soothing words from her head.
Come to me.
Without pausing long enough to let the rational side of her personality talk her out of what was surely a crazy, impulsive idea, Marcela found herself on the phone, credit card in hand, booking herself on the next available flight to San Jose, the vibrant and beautiful capital city of Costa Rica. Not sure if she was about to do something stupid or not, she fiddled nervously with the silver pendant around her neck. The perfectly round ball felt remarkably warm to the touch.
***
The Republic of Costa Rica was a small yet glorious place: a diverse, thriving country that had tropical beaches, eco-rainforests, and rugged mountain ranges in equal measure. In the center of this paradise, nestled between two of the higher mountain ranges and therefore protected from the balmy Caribbean and the often merciless Pacific winds, lay a postcard perfect valley, the Meseta Central, where two-thirds of Costa Rica’s population lived. San Jose, the vibrant capital city, was home to 300,000 friendly, hard working people. Most were urban dwellers, passionately in love with their city. They wore stylish clothes, were hip to all the latest fashion trends and proudly referred to themselves as Ticos. Most lived and worked inside the city limits, happy to leave the fishing industry, or the growing Coffee, Sugar, Banana, or Pineapple plantations to the country farmers. Ticos or farmers, Marcela wasn’t here to meet any of them. She was only here to find one person.
And she worked for herself selling trinkets and necklaces to the tourists.
Marcela wasn’t at all sure she would be able to track down the strange woman of her dreams in this busy, often chaotic city, but some awakening voice inside of her was adamant that she try. Spanish being her native tongue, Marcela had little difficulty communicating, although even within this small nation there were numerous different dialects spoken, some similar, some vastly different from the language she had grown up speaking in Santo Domingo.
Just steps outside of Juan Santamaría International Airport–located ten miles outside of the city–Marcela hopped on a bus and was soon standing in downtown San Jose. It was mid-afternoon and the city was alive and kicking: people scurrying everywhere, cars and buses honking and jostling for position, and street vendors on bicycles selling fruits and cold beverages out of wicker basket on wheels pulled behind them. It was far busier than Marcela remembered from her last trip here, but at least it would be easy to find someone to help her find the woman she was searching for. As it turned out, she didn’t even have to move. A man selling lottery tickets spotted her and rushed to her side before any of his competition beat him to the punch. He was tall, rake thin, very dark skinned and wearing a comically large hat woven from palm leaves that served the duel purpose of shading his bald head from the sun and also attracting customers. He had bad teeth but his smile was genuine so Marcela purchased two tickets and let him keep the change.
“Quizás puede usted ayuda mí, Señor? Trato de localizar alguien,” she asked. Perhaps you can help me, Sir? I’m trying to locate someone.
The street vendor was more than happy to help, if he could. Marcela told him how she’d been to San Jose last summer with a friend and how she’d purchased a necklace from a large black woman at the nearby local market. The tall man chuckled, explaining how there were a great many large black woman in Costa Rica, and that Marcela would have to give him more information than that.
“Dio se ella su nombre?” he asked.
Her name? Marcela thought. She was just about to say no, she hadn’t sa
id her name, but then decided to stretch the truth a little bit and try the name she’d been given in her dream. “Ella me dijo para venir a Semma.”
The smile vanished from the tall man’s face.
“Dijo usted, Semma?” he asked, his voice rising sharply on the last word as he quickly made the sign of the cross in the air between them.
Marcela nodded, more than a little taken aback at the reaction the man had shown to that name. “Qué es la cuestión?”
What’s the matter? she asked, but the man had heard enough. He told her to go away and leave him alone, packing up his tickets and walking away as fast as he could. He seemed genuinely spooked and in a hurry to bolt away from her. He started to do just that, running across the street before turning back to shout something over his shoulder.
“Salga de nuestra ciudad fina. Si es la bruja de vodú que usted busca, usted la encontrará en Puntarenas, pero no dirá yo no lo advertí!”
He ran off without another glance back, leaving Marcela stunned. He’d told her to get out of their fine city and also that she’d find Semma in Puntarenas, a nearby city. Other than the insult to leave, it was actually quite helpful information, but none of that was what stunned her so badly. It was when he’d said, bruja de vodú.
Voodoo witch.
***
The trip to Puntarenas was relatively uneventful. The bus was fairly new, more comfortable that Marcela had expected, and she thankfully had the back seat all to herself. Puntarenas City was only an hour and a half ride from San Jose, a coastal resort used more by locals than by the tourists. Marcela hadn’t been there on her last visit and was looking forward to seeing the ocean. She passed the time taking in the scenery and being amazed that the locals actually used machetes to trim the weeds and high grass alongside the roads. Someone could make a fortune if they opened a weed-eater company around here, she thought, smiling.
She stepped off the bus as the sun was setting over Port Caldera, just north of the city, the country's most important port for importing and exporting goods. She had a magnificent view of the ocean and she stood still for several minutes just taking it all in. She was supposedly on vacation, after all. That’s what she told herself, anyway. In reality, she was stalling, a little afraid to speak to anyone here since the incident with the lottery ticket vendor back at the airport. Not that she had any choice–Marcela knew she had to ask for help again. She didn’t know what she was getting herself into, but she was determined to see this out. As luck would have it, an elderly woman was sitting on a wobbly wooden bench at the entrance to the bus terminal. It didn’t appear as if she was waiting for a bus–just resting her weary bones for a while.
Marcela gathered her courage and walked up to the old woman to ask her if she knew where to find Semma.
“Semma? El templo?” the woman responded.
The Temple? Is that what Semma was? The name of a voodoo temple? Marcela only nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The aged woman looked her up and down for a long time then simply pointed with a shaky, crooked finger in the direction of a dirt road leading away from the city and the ocean. Marcela couldn’t see any buildings along the path–not within eyesight anyway–just some scattered palm and banana trees lining the road. Marcela thanked the old woman and was quickly on her way.
She walked for half an hour and found the temple just as the last rays of light were disappearing over the horizon. Semma, if that was indeed the name of this place, was nothing more than a small wooden cottage with a garden full of fruit trees. The only way she could tell this house was different from several other small homes she’d passed was the large elaborate altar sitting on the front porch, and the strong scent of incense wafting out from the suspiciously wide-open front door.
Was this where she’d find the large black woman who’d sold her the pendant, or was she just playing a fools game, dashing off to a foreign land on the strength of nothing more than a dream. Marcela reached up to stroke the silver ball around her neck, taking comfort from its warmth that she was doing the right thing in coming here. She took a deep breath and headed for the porch. A shadow was waiting there to greet her. A large shadow, but it wasn’t the person she expected.
A young black man, maybe twenty-two years old, tall and broad shouldered, stood in the doorway waiting patiently for her.
“Welcome to Semma, our Temple,” the young man said. “You’re too late. My mother, Mambo Ranice has passed.”
“You…you speak English,” Marcela managed to speak, too shocked at the news of the dream woman’s death to say anything else.
“Of course. She taught me many languages, many things. My name is Miguel. She told me to wait here for you. Come. I’ll take you to her.”
“Take me to her?” Marcela was confused. “I thought you said she–”
But the young man was gone, disappeared into the temple.
“How did she know I was coming?” Marcela asked the empty doorway. Raising her voice, she tried, “Miguel? How do you know who I am?”
No answer, just receding footsteps.
***
Marcela knew that Mambo was the term used for a Voodoo High Priestess and as she followed the mysterious woman’s son inside the temple, all she could picture was the tall ticket vendor in San Jose making the sign of the cross in the air at the mention of this place. She wondered if she was making a dreadful mistake, but that tiny voice inside of her was urging her onward, a quiet strength flowing into her body even though she’d been traveling all day and should have been exhausted.
Marcela had never stepped foot inside a voodoo temple before, and it was nothing like what she had expected. It was just a comfortable little house but the main room was adorned with colorful curtains and hanging flags that draped all the way to the spotlessly clean wooden floor. Around the room were several different altars, all with incense burning and various eclectic items on them. Marcela noticed photographs of native people, a small stuffed teddy bear with a pink ribbon, a dinner plate loaded with a collection of smooth stones, tree twigs tied together with a thin leather strap, stamps resting on a letter, yellowed with age, and much more. What she didn’t see was blood stained sacrificial knives, terrified animals tightly bound to wooden posts, mindless walking zombies wandering around in search of flesh, or any of the other silly Hollywood images that she’s always associated with the Voodoo religion. There was an 18 inch indigo lizard stretched out on the room’s only sofa, but it was half asleep and seemed friendly enough so Marcela didn’t let it bother her. She breathed a sigh of relief and let herself relax. It was easier than she thought it might be. Crazy, perhaps, but here in this strange little temple Marcela soon felt totally at peace–at home.
Miguel wasted no time, getting right down to business. He marched over to a doorway, pausing halfway through a set of curtains made from string after string of red beads. “Follow me, she’s in here.”
Marcela stepped through the beaded curtain, half expecting someone to jump out and yell surprise at any moment, let her in on the game they’d been playing but the young man had spoken the truth–the large black woman who’d sold her the silver ball pendant a year ago, Mambo Ranice, was lying in bed covered in blankets, dead to the world. Her hands were folded respectfully across her chest, and the sheets had become a simple altar, covered in flowers, a few small pictures, and some of the necklaces she’d made. She looked happy, content.
“I’ll try and come back to check on you in the morning,” Miguel said, bowing slightly, starting to back out of the room.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Marcela briefly panicked, but her inner voice spoke up again and she was sure she knew the answer before the young man replied.
“Lay down. Rest. My mother wishes to speak to you.”
With that, Miguel left the room, leaving Marcela with a dead woman she barely knew. Lay down? Rest? Surely he was kidding. There was no way–
But before Marcela could object, she yawned, suddenly fighting to keep her eyes open. She d
idn’t panic. In fact, an overwhelming feeling of calmness washed over her, soothing her doubting mind and letting her see she had nothing to fear in this place of death. The voice within her told her to trust her instincts. She lay down beside the voodoo priestess, and within seconds, was fast asleep.
***
Running…running…
Searching in the dark, sniffing the air, knowing she is getting close.
Her nostrils flare, a new smell replacing, overpowering the old scent. She bursts through the tree line, comes upon a small house, recognizing the temple, recognizing the burning incense, recognizing the lizard…and recognizing the large black woman standing on the front porch. These sights trigger an avalanche of memories and she momentarily forgets about the hunt. Memories breed awareness, and she remembers not only where she is and who stands before her, but also who she is and why she’s here.
Mambo Ranice looks exactly as Marcela remembers her: wrapped in layers of bright colorful sheets, her hair braided with small beads. She is smiling and holding her arms out in greeting.
“Be at peace, child. Stay with me awhile.”
“But you’re dead, aren’t you?”
“Maybe, maybe not. On sacred ground, it really doesn’t matter. That’s why I needed you to come here. I couldn’t stay long enough, me coming to you.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Nothing, child. Just to talk, to explain what’s happening to you. I know you feel the coming change, but you don’t need to fear it. Your protector comes.”
“I, I don’t understand?”
“You don’t need to. You just need to believe. There’s a power within you, child. I don’t know what it is, but I felt it the moment I met you last summer. Your Anifantia spoke to my soul that day, asked me–“
“My what?”
“Your Anifantia. It’s your animal within, your spirit guide and protector. It lies dormant within most humans, but yours wants to be set free. That’s why I sold you that necklace.”