by Brit Jones
What if they took Eloy’s car? What if they took it across…
Eloy had a house in Matamoras, a second somewhere near Mexico City, and a third somewhere on the west coast. Or at least he claimed to. And per Carlos’s threats before the divorce, Eloy had connections with the corrupt Mexican police and government. He had Mexican citizenship. And his car, a Yukon similar to Carlos’, had Mexican plates. He had everything they needed to blend in, become instantly Mexican, disappear forever.
The smidgen of tension that had slipped off Sophie’s chest when she’d first seen Carlos’ Yukon not only returned, but also returned with vigor. She parked behind the Yukon, killed the engine, fished the 9MM out of the glovebox, and then glanced at herself in the rearview mirror.
She looked haggard, way older than thirty-one. Her skin was blotchy, eyes wired with nicotine yet puffy from crying. Her hair was wild and frizzy. Carlos would say she looked disgraceful. Trashy. Nasty. Like the strung-out transient hooker he’d helped get off the streets ten years earlier. That she should be ashamed to step out of the house like this. But fuck Carlos. She wasn’t here for him.
She wedged the 9MM in the back waistband of her jeans and marched toward the front door, scanning the windows on the first floor for signs of movement. When she stepped onto the porch, her stomach seemed to flip upside down. She hated this house. Had vowed never to step foot inside it again after what had happened last time she was here. For her girls, though, she’d do it. For them, she’d do anything. They were all she had in the world.
Sophie pounded on the front door five hard times. “Carlos!” she yelled, then pounded five more. “Cecilia! Monica!”
She stepped back and surveyed the second floor windows. Maybe they were upstairs. She’d spent enough time in the house to know you couldn’t hear much of anything going on downstairs if you were up there. She pounded on the door again, then tried the knob and found it unlocked.
The stench of ammonia—fucking cat piss—assaulted her nose when she stepped into the foyer, and her nasal cavities immediately collapsed.
Carlos’s mom, Aurora, had inherited the house in the mid-70s, lived there until her death, and in her will passed it to her twin sons, who now used it as a vacation house. She had insisted on keeping seven cats in the house at all times—the perfect number to ward off espiritus malignos and brujas maliciosas. She’d named the cats after saints, and Carlos and Eloy had insisted on keeping them after her death. Litter boxes abound.
Sophie hated the cats. She hated their dander, their stink, the way they watched her with callous, hunting eyes, seemingly eager to pounce and slash. And she absolutely couldn’t stand the noises the females made at night while in heat. Screaming and howling as though their warm insides were being ripped out. The nights she’d stayed there, she’d laid in bed and dug her fingernails into her thighs, praying for them to stop.
“Cecilia? Monica?” Sophie called out as she closed the front door.
A thick, unsettling silence swallowed her words.
She made her way into the sitting room and turned on the floor lamp. The room looked exactly as it had the last time she was here. Flower-patterned couches faced one another in the center of the room, two matching chairs between them, all four covered in cat hair. One of Aurora’s Santeria talismans hung on the far wall in the center of a slew of family photos, collecting dust.
Sophie left the room and walked past the staircase and entered the master bedroom, which was the lone bedroom on the floor. It was still crammed with the boxes Sophie and the girls had packed two summers ago, stacked five-feet high in places, all labeled with one word: AURORA.
She moved on to the living room. When she turned on a lamp sitting on an end table and saw her daughter’s Hello Kitty jackets draped over the tan sectional, the pink sleeves glistening in the halogen, she picked them up and pressed them to her nose, sniffing, hoping to catch a whiff of the girls’ strawberry shampoo, or Princess Perfume, but her nose was too clogged. Fucking cats.
Holding the jackets to her chest, she headed to the eat-in-kitchen and adjoining dining room. Two glasses with faint milk rings were on the island in the center of the kitchen. She touched one. It felt warm, unused for many hours. All the other dishes and cookware were clean and neatly stacked in the doorless cupboards. All the chairs pushed under the tables, place mats perfectly aligned, Carlos-Style. Aurora’s pouch of dried bay leaves—maleta de curacion— dangled from a hook above the sink, no longer fragrant.
Sophie pushed the pouch aside and looked out the kitchen window to check the swing set behind the house. Nothing. No beautiful twins laughing and playing. Just ghosts swinging in the wind.
She moved on. Checked the main bathroom. The laundry room.
With each empty room and unanswered call, the silence grew heavier, Sophie’s chest tighter. Making it harder to breathe. Hard not to assume and embrace the heart-wrenching worst.
He did it. He took them to fucking Mexico.
She hurried back to the staircase and headed upstairs, calling out the girls’ names again and again.
She was greeted on the carpeted landing by two cats—Odilo and Stephen, called O and Steve, if she remembered correctly. Blocking her way, Steve stared at her like a hungry predator. She swung the girls’ jackets at him and told him to get, which he did, scurrying down the hall with O close behind.
The bedroom the girls used, the largest of three upstairs, was on the far end of the hall. Sophie hurried to the door, opened it, and turned on the light. The king-sized bed the girls shared was made. The same hideous grapevine bedspread covering it. A talisman with an azabache pebble in the center hung above the headboard. The blinds over the two windows were closed.
As Sophie’s eyes moved toward the adjoining bathroom, a slight simper found her lips. The girls’ Teen Titan Raven backpacks were leaning against the wall next to the door. And they looked full. She rushed over to them, unzipped one, dug inside. She found Monica’s Leap Pad, Snoopy doll, costume jewelry, and her notebook of drawings. Monica never went anywhere without her drawings.
But then where…
Suddenly, a horrific possibility seized Sophie’s heart like a clamp, squeezed down tight like a muscle. The blackness of it filling her lungs, the tentacles wringing her bowels.
Maybe they hadn’t gone anywhere. Maybe Carlos had…
She squeezed her eyes tight and shook her head as though she could jar the horrible thought from her mind. But she couldn’t. It kept growing, rooting deeper, demanding acknowledgement. She rushed into the bathroom. Two toothbrushes in the holder. Two purple robes hanging on a hook behind the door. A tube of Sparkle toothpaste and a hair brush on the counter. She cupped her mouth.
What if he killed them?
There it was. Out in the open. An option worse than the worst. One she’d been hiding from herself all day. But she’d watched enough ID Channel to know it happened. A spouse putting a bullet in everyone’s head for revenge. Out of spite. But Carlos wasn’t the type. He loved the girls. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—do that to them. Could he?
Oh, God.
Sophie ran out of the room and down the hall, screaming her babies’ names as loud as her dry throat would allow. She pushed open each bedroom door, flicked on every light. Found every room empty and silent.
When she reached the door closest to the staircase, the office door, she took in a deep breath before she flung it open. That room, too, was empty. Of humans anyway. A cat—Paul, she knew because of his striped tail—was standing on a desk next to Carlos’s laptop.
Carlos never went anywhere without his laptop.
Sophie screeched and knocked the laptop off the desk. It crashed onto the floor, the screen snapping off the base. Paul leapt to the floor and bolted up the open doorway leading to the attic.
The attic.
The girls’ castle.
Sophie followed Paul up the stairs and called the
girls’ names.
A stream of light shooting through th
e round window lit half the attic with yellow sunlight. The other half was dark. She could hear cats moving around. One skittered across the beam of light and jumped through a window on Cecilia and Monica’s playhouse. Carlos and Eloy had built the castle-themed playhouse when the girls were five. It was painted like stones, complete with a small plywood drawbridge that could be lowered by a flimsy crank. Carlos had even put a sink inside with running water. Battery-run torch lights hung on the walls inside, giving the place an orange glow.
Sophie was running her hand along the wall, searching for the light switch, when Carlos called out.
“Don’t turn it on.”
Sophie’s heart fluttered and her hand froze.
Seconds later, a lantern lit on the dark side of the attic. Carlos was sitting in a wooden chair holding the lantern, five feet from the castle. His hair was disheveled, not slicked back and gelled as usual. And his slacks and Guayabera were wrinkled, not starched, crisp as frost on grass, as he usually insisted.
“Where are the girls?” Sophie asked, marching toward him.
He locked his tired eyes on hers, but didn’t answer.
She stopped in front of him, pulled out the 9MM, pointed it at his face.
“I’m so glad you came,” he said, his voice caged with stress. “I’m losing my mind here.”
“Where are they?” Sophie asked. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. And get that fucking slut gun out of my face.” Carlos swatted at the gun, but Sophie moved back out of his reach.
She had acquired the 9MM from a guy named Big Fly when she was fourteen and in foster care. Traded ten blow jobs for the gun and a handful of bullets. Carlos had always called it her slut gun. She called it the best insurance policy on the market. The big brother she never had. A guarantee she would walk out of any hotel room or car in one piece. Wouldn’t get robbed or cheated. And would rest a little better when sleep found her.
“Where are my babies, Carlos?” Her hands growing sweaty, voice desperate. “Where’s Eloy?”
“Eloy? He left yesterday morning. He had a meeting in Mexico. Why?”
“Are they with him?”
“No.”
“Then where are they?” A beat. “Did you hurt them? I swear to God if you—”
“I didn’t hurt them,” Carlos cut in, standing up and puffing out his chest in protest. “I would never hurt them. You should know that.”
“All I know is that you were supposed to bring them home yesterday and you didn’t. And that you haven’t responded to my texts or calls in twenty-four fucking hours.”
Carlos inhaled and exhaled loudly, combed his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t answer your calls because I didn’t know what to say without sounding bat-shit crazy, okay? I knew you wouldn’t believe me. You have to hear it for yourself.” He sat back down, shook his head, seemingly discouraged, beaten.
“Hear what?”
Carlos glanced into the darkness beyond the playhouse, back at Sophie.
Sophie’s chest began to burn, as though a fire had been lit inside her heart. “What?”
No reply.
“What!?” The flames hotter, doused with gasoline. She aimed the gun at the ceiling and fired.
Carlos dropped the lantern and jumped up, knocking the chair down as he back-peddled. “What the hell are you doing? You could’ve...We don’t know if…Don’t do that!” He rushed at Sophie, grabbed her arm with one hand, the barrel of the gun with the other.
“Where are they?” Sophie yelled as they struggled for control of the gun. “Where are my babies?”
“I don’t know,” Carlos said. “But if you calm the fuck down and listen, you’ll hear them. They keep calling for you anyway.”
Sophie gave pause long enough for Carlos to jerk the gun free. Then he threw his forearm into her chest, knocking her to the floor.
Teetering on the edge of Meltdown Cliff, she slammed her palms down onto the floor over and over like a tantrum toddler. “What do you mean calling for me? What are you talking about? What is going on? Where are they, Carlos? Where are they?” Her heavy breathing gave way to hot tears, and she pulled her knees to her chest.
Carlos picked up the lantern, crouched in front of her, and let her sob for a moment before speaking. “You have to listen to me, okay? I know this will sound insane,” he said. “I still don’t fully believe it myself.” He took in a shaky breath and pushed it out. “But I think they’re trapped in the darkness somewhere…in the corner.” He gestured with the gun toward the dark corner behind the castle.
“What?”
“I know…I know…I can’t explain it. I can’t…I don’t know. I don’t know what is…”
“You’re full of shit. You know where they are.”
“I swear to God, Soph, I don’t.” Tears formed in his eyes. “They were up here playing yesterday morning, and when it was time to go, I came up to get them and they weren’t here. I freaked out and searched everywhere and when I couldn’t find them, I came back up here and that’s when I heard them.” He pointed at the corner again. His hand and the gun trembling. “Over there.”
Sophie scrutinized him with skeptical eyes. He was good at pretending, acting. Lying. He’d majored in theater at UT, dreamed of making it big on Broadway someday. But he’d given up on that dream by the age of twenty-two and had decided to become a high school Theater Arts teacher instead. A decision he refused to discuss or expand on when Sophie brought it up. She had never seen him perform on stage, but Eloy and many others had bragged of his talent.
“You better not be lying to me, Carlos.”
“I swear on my mom I’m not lying. Or playing or teasing or acting. I’m either losing my mind, or something fucked-up is going on here.” He licked his lips, shook his head. “I heard them, Soph. In that corner. I heard them calling for you. But…they’re not there. I don’t know if…I just don’t know, okay? I don’t have any answers. You need to go over there and listen. Please.”
Sophie glanced at the 9MM, and he followed her eyes. “If I wanted to shoot you, I would’ve already,” he said. She stared at him, and eventually, he tossed the gun to the opposite side of the attic, sending cats scurrying in the darkness. “There. Happy?”
Sophie stood. “Give me the lantern.”
“If you take a light over there they won’t talk. I’ve tried.”
A long silence spooled out, then Sophie took a step toward the corner. Another step. Another. Looked back at Carlos. He hadn’t moved, was watching her. As they held eye contact:
“Mommy?”
“Mom?”
From the corner.
Sophie’s heart leapt up into her throat.
“Did you hear that?” Carlos asked, standing and pointing.
Sophie couldn’t find her voice to answer. She could barely breathe.
Though the words landed faintly in her ears, barley a whisper, Sophie could tell the twins apart. Only a mother could. The first voice was Monica. Cecilia, the second.
“Mom? Are you there?”
“Mom?...Help us.”
Help—a word Sophie both loved (they need me, they need their Mom) and hated (dear God, they need me).
“I’m coming, baby,” she said, making her way deeper into the darkness, closer and closer to the voices coming from the corner.
Help.
She put her hands out in front of her, found the wall, the sharp angle of the corner. It sounded like the girls’ voices were coming from somewhere far beyond the wall. Like Carol Anne in that scary show Sophie and the girls had watched on Netflix. In the house, yet somehow not.
“How do I get there?” Sophie yelled, slapping at the wall as though it were purposefully blocking her from her girls. She had to be dreaming. She ran her hands along the wall, probing for a secret doorknob or magical button. Anything. She glanced back at Carlos. He was staring her way. “Where are they?” she yelled.
He didn’t answer. When she turned back toward the corner, somethi
ng cold suddenly seized her by the neck. A hand. A cold strong hand attached to a cold strong arm extending from the wall.
She frantically grabbed at the hand, trying to wrench it loose. Then a second arm looped around her waist and jerked her against the wall. The hand grabbed at her love handles, pinched down like a pair of thick flat pliers. Twisted the flesh a bit. She cried out in pain, in fear, in absolute shock and disbelief. She called out for Carlos as the hand around her neck squeezed tighter, pulled her head against the wall harder.
Carlos was there in a second. She felt his warm hands on her shoulders. But he didn’t try to pull her away from the corner, away from the cold arms and hands. Instead, he shoved her into the corner, pinned her to the sheetrock like a poster. “Take her! Take her now!” he yelled, smashing her face into the wall so hard her bottom lip split open, leaking the taste of copper into her mouth.
The corner’s hands held tight, pulled, pinched, choked. Carlos pushed and jammed, using his knees as well as his hands now. As Sophie struggled, the wall began to feel cold and wet, soft, giving way in places. A porous portal opening between two worlds. Her daughter’s calls grew closer, louder, clearer.
Sophie’s left leg and arm slipped into the unnatural softness first, sending gooseflesh skittering up her skin. The darkness seemed to have ten hands on her now, tugging, pulling. Wanting.
Carlos reared back and shove the back of her head, forcing the rest of her body to dip into the softness.
Somewhere between the Hernandez attic and her daughter’s desperate calls, she stumbled forward, arms outstretched, pushed by the hands now, blinded by black, hollering back to her girls.
* * *
When she emerged from the disorienting darkness, she fell to her knees. She was still in the attic, though it wasn’t the real attic. The entire place, every object in sight, the girl’s castle playhouse, the walls, the door leading downstairs to Carlos’s office, all seemed to be covered in a thin sepia film. Like the photo they’d taken in western clothes at Six Flags two years ago.