by Alfred Ávila
“You, young child, are a very bad girl!” whispered La Llorona. “You have caused the ancient Indian gods of your ancestors to demand an end to your vile ways. You have no respect for your mother or your elders. You do not respect the gods who gave you life. Therefore, it is their decree that this night you are cursed to go with me and forfeit the life given to you. Step into the moonlight where I can see you. I cannot see you in the shadows!”
Michela could hardly speak, but in a small squeaky voice she screeched, “NO! I don’t want to go with you!”
The face of the Llorona became twisted with rage, “I’ll take you with me!” she said. But as she reached to grab Michela, her bony clawed hands dissolved in the darkness. La Llorona of the Moon had no power in the shadows, only in the moonlight.
La Llorona moved as close as she could within the moonlight, very close to the trembling Michela. “You better give me your hand, girl. I only have to wait for the moonlight to reach your corner and then you will be mine. So why are you being a bad girl? Come give me your hand,” La Llorona said, her sharp teeth sparkling in the moonlight.
Michela flattened herself against the wall. She could not scream to her mother. She had lost her voice. She hoped that the moonlight that now was inching toward her feet would not touch any part of her body.
La Llorona of the Moon moved closer and closer as the moon, moving across the sky slowly, ate up the safety of the shadows. The woman’s beady eyes reminded Michela of a deadly rattlesnake’s before it struck and bit the desert mice. The mice, after they had been bitten, shook and died slowly when the poison did its job. She, too, felt strong fear as her time on earth slipped away. The moonlight was almost touching her toes, only a few centimeters left.
Suddenly, it started receding away. The moonlight had reached the far angle of the window and was moving away from Michela. The moon didn’t care who won or lost the battle for life.
La Llorona growled. Her prey, whom she had had so close to her talons, was now escaping. It filled her with rage. Michela was escaping in the growing shadows. La Llorona looked at Michela and said in an enraged voice, “You! You will not escape me. You have won tonight, but I will come back again and again.” Hatred filled the Llorona’s face. “I will return. You will not escape from me!” were her last words as she slowly faded into a thin mist and disappeared.
Michela sat down slowly on her bed. Her eyes were flowing freely with tears. She was still trembling from the horror-filled moments.
“And you ask, my child, what happened to Michela? Who knows? As for her fate, who can read the future? What will be, will be!” the storyteller exclaims.
THE OWL
THE OWL
It arrived every night and landed in the branches of the cottonwood beside the old weather-beaten house. Late at night it would start to hoot and break the silence of the darkness. The owl would hoot until the early morning hours. It was said in the barrio that if a man held a grudge against another person, he could—with the proper secret incantations—change himself into an owl and fly out at night, or even during the day, and bewitch his hated adversary. He could sit on a fence or in a tree and hoot to torment his victim to death.
The woman who lived in the house was startled by the sound. Fear came to her face. Her hands trembled. “Why? Why?” she said out loud to her husband and her four sons, who stared at her with puzzled eyes and fear. Her husband told her to calm down and pay no heed to the old superstition that the owl was a human in bird form. She would not listen to him.
Her husband tried every night to calm her fears, but with the passing of days she became more frightened. It was becoming a problem for the whole family. Perhaps it was a man who held a grudge or wished evil upon her, and in the night came to torment her with his evil hooting. Something had to be done.
So that night her sons waited for the owl with a small bore rifle in the shadows of a cactus patch. There was a quarter-moon in the sky, and bright glistening stars pulsed overhead. Suddenly, they heard the owl land in the branches of the cottonwood tree with a fast swishing sound. They all looked up toward the upper branches, slowly scanning them. Then one of the boys spotted the small silhouette of the owl on one of the branches. He tugged at his older brother’s sleeve and quickly pointed to the small shadow in the tree. They saw it!
The elder brother pointed his rifle very slowly and took aim carefully … BAM! He fired once. The bullet ripped the leaves and bark off the tree. A branch shuddered violently. The owl darted out of the tree and flew towards the distant forest across the field from the house.
He had missed! All of them felt disappointed. They had failed to avenge their mother. The evil owl had won the battle.
Their mother, still frightened, occasionally broke down and cried. Their father’s irritability was showing in his short temper. Despite their determination, the brothers had failed to destroy the owl and discover who their mother’s tormentor was. But their mother forgave their failed attempt and indicated that, at least for the time being, they could sleep in peace. But she feared the owl would return again.
On the following night, the brothers took their post by the cactus patch and waited. The youngest one looked up toward the upper branches of the prickly pear cactus and saw a fruit on the highest of them. It looked so much like an owl just sitting there staring at him in the darkness. He looked away a little frightened. For awhile he thought he saw the pear move. His brothers kept staring up at the branches of the cottonwood tree, but nothing came that night.
The following night the brothers waited again, and their patience paid off. A small dark object came fluttering in, sending a few dry leaves down as it settled on a branch in the tree. The oldest brother spotted the owl and slowly raised his rifle. Its long cold black barrel lifted up in a slow steady motion. A shattering sound came from the rifle as it discharged its deadly slug toward its target. The rustle of leaves could be heard as a small lifeless bundle tumbled and dropped down onto the earth. They had killed the beast. Never again would it bother anyone.
They picked the bird up by one of its claws, walked into a field away from the house, and threw it down on the ground on a patch of dry grass. They all looked down at the poor lifeless creature. Could this be an evil man? They would leave it lying there and would come back in the morning when the sun’s rays would transform this creature back into its human form. Then they would know who the evil person was who had been tormenting their mother.
They walked back to the house and informed their parents of their deed. Their father only shrugged his shoulders, but their mother was joyous. At last she was free from her tormentor and the owl’s curse!
In the early morning, the youngest brother ran toward the field in eager anticipation to see the transformation that should by now have taken place in the rays of the morning sun. He arrived at the spot breathing heavily and glanced down at the stiff bird.
It lay very still like the dead red-winged blackbirds he had often seen in the marshes. He waited to see the owl change in the sunlight, but nothing happened. It only lay there cold and lifeless with its large eyes open in death.
Poor bird, poor bird, he thought, as tears formed in his eyes. He would never again believe in the curse of owls, devils, or spirits. They were only stories. Owls were only birds, not humans.
Down through the centuries had come the tales and superstitions of our Mexican Indian ancestors. Here in the glowing sunlight, a young boy’s beliefs were dying, fleeing forever back through the portal of times past. No one would be left to pass on the tales of spirits who had once roamed unleashed in the world.
Death came not only to the owl, but to the ancient traditions of the elders who had lost the battle against the new gods of science and technology. Still, sometimes if you stop to listen, you might hear the soft murmurs and whisperings of the people of old slowly drifting by in the wind.