Esperanza

by Trish J. MacGregor

  Tess and her mother glanced at each other. Holy crap, her mother’s eyes screamed, and she said, “Charlie? He’s here?”

  “He’s nodding,” Mira said. “That’s his name.”

  Tess considered it ironic that she could interact with strangers who were dying or dead, but couldn’t see her dead father.

  “Tess, Charlie’s insisting that you can see him,” Mira said. “That you can talk to him, interact with him. He says you have that ability now. He’s mentioning something about hummingbirds. That’s how you’ll see him sometimes.”

  The flock of hummingbirds this morning.

  Mira sat forward, her intense gaze pinning Tess. “Charlie’s saying that you saw spirits at an accident scene yesterday.”

  “The accident on the turnpike?” Lauren asked.

  Tess nodded. “But that happened spontaneously.”

  “Charlie suggests that when you’re consciously trying to see a spirit, you should use your peripheral vision. Or roll your eyes upward, toward a spot between your brows, and try alternate nostril breathing, like what you do in yoga.”

  “Is that what you do?” Maddie asked Mira.

  “I don’t seem to have much of a choice,” Mira said. “I’ve been seeing spirits since I was a kid. Fortunately, Nadine was my teacher. Lauren, Charlie apologizes for leaving when he did. But he says it was necessary for certain events to unfold. He hopes that you’ll forgive him and that by the end of this reading you’ll have a better understanding of why he had to leave.”

  Lauren looked on the verge of tears. “I forgave him a long time ago. But his reasons better be damned good.”

  Tess felt a breath of cold air on her left, between her and her mother, but didn’t see anything in her peripheral vision.

  “Charlie is telling me that you died, Tess. That you were in a coma for a while.”

  Tess wondered if Lauren and Maddie had given Mira this bit of information.

  “He wants you to know that he didn’t meet you then because you were supposed to experience something, so that you could return with this ability you now have. This place you went. He’s trying to tell me the name, but I’m only hearing the sound esp. Does that mean anything to you?”

  This woman was definitely not some wacko carnival Gypsy. “Esperanza. In Ecuador.”

  Mira’s eyes glazed over. “All right, he’s confirming that. He says that when you were on the first bus, you and an American family were booted off at a store. One of the kids, a young girl, got sick. You gave the mother something to alleviate the girl’s nausea and, later on, the girl thanked you and said something about her bear. Do you remember that?”

  Sweet Christ. The memories came fast and furiously now. Tess felt the blood drain from her face. “Yes.”

  “He was the girl. Your father assumed her shape.”

  “How could he do that?” Maddie asked. “Assume a shape?”

  “That family was dead and Charlie knew how to assume the child’s shape.” Mira paused and cocked her head, as if listening to something Tess couldn’t hear. “He’s telling me, Lauren, there’s a key on your key ring that has puzzled you since his death. You found it among his things. It fits a safe-deposit box here on Tango. Box thirteen. He left money in an account to pay for the annual fee for a dozen years. You need to get to the safe-deposit box as soon as possible. You’ll find enough cash to get the three of you to Ecuador and do whatever else needs to be done. He’s been waiting a long time to tell you this. And he knows you’re going to be pissed about it, about how he managed to tuck away so much money.”

  “Fuck,” Lauren said.

  “Charlie’s laughing. He knew you’d say that,” Mira said.

  “What bank?” Lauren asked. “It would be helpful to know that.”

  “He’s not sure. It has changed hands several times and the hurricane altered the landscape so that he seems confused about the location. I think it’s in the northern part of the island.” Mira’s eyes darted to Tess. “Has the number thirteen recurred for you since you died, Tess?”

  Where’d she get that? “Numerous times.”

  “Esoterically, the number thirteen represents someone who is reborn into a higher level of consciousness and has reached a state of transmutation,” Mira said. “It’s one of the patterns, the synchronicities, that will continue to be important for you. Charlie says it’s vital to keep the police confused, so you may have to book several flights to Quito. Also, Lauren and Maddie will be vulnerable to—” She stopped, gasped, her eyes bulged, and she suddenly doubled over, arms clutched to her waist.

  Nadine hurried over to Mira, whispered something. Mira shook her head. “It’ll pass.”

  Tess and her mother exchanged a glance, no one spoke. Minutes ticked by, then Mira said, “I sometimes pick up . . . physical stuff. And right then I was hooked into a man whose name starts with D—Don, Dick, Dan, Drake, something like that. One syllable. He’s sick. There’s something inside him that’s . . . making him do things.” Another pause. “Does any of this make sense to you?”

  Tess couldn’t speak around the rising tsunami in her throat. She wanted to leap to her feet and shout, Who the hell are you that you know these things? “Dan. His name’s Dan. And what’s in him? What is it?” She already had figured it out, knew that the brujo who had threatened her was making good on her promise. I will take everyone you love as much as I loved Ben and will make sure their deaths are excruciating.

  “It’s a . . . a hungry ghost, that’s the phrase Charlie is asking me to use. My understanding is that it’s a spirit, a lower astral being that stays close to our physical level of existence. These kinds of souls cause hauntings and poltergeist activity, and can sometimes attach themselves to the human energy field and create all kinds of problems. There’re different reasons for their inability to move on—a traumatic or sudden death, a lack of belief in an afterlife, a refusal to accept guidance from other spirits. Those are the most common reasons. But these beings seem to have developed in an unusual way.”

  “They . . . invade people,” Tess said. “Possess them. Take over their bodies, use them as hosts and force them to do things.”

  “Not unheard of. Charlie’s telling me these entities have a name for themselves and they number in the millions.”

  Millions? “They call themselves brujos.”

  “The spirit that has taken Dan intends to kill you, Tess, and needs Dan’s body to do that. He’s trying to come to Tango. But Charlie and his group are preventing Dan from coming here because of this entity inside him. They make him sick every time he tries to get on the island.”

  “A group,” Tess said. “What’s that mean? What kind of group?”

  “Of energy. Of souls. Charlie is part of this group.”

  “Good and evil?” Lauren asked. “That’s what it sounds like.”

  “These brujos don’t see themselves as evil any more than Hitler saw himself as evil. This battle between the brujos and Charlie’s group has gone on for centuries. It’s about control of Esperanza and other places like it. You and a man figure prominently in this battle and the brujos intend to stop you any way they can. Does the word wayra mean anything to you?”

  Wayra was the name of an independent record label that specialized in Incan music. But as she repeated it to herself, the word became a magical abracadabra that hurled open yet another door to buried memories. A greenhouse. Two men. One of them begins to change, body transmuting, shifting from human to dog. Wayra/Nomad, shape-shifter.

  “Charlie’s telling me Wayra is a part of his group. They call themselves . . . light chasers, yes, I think that’s the phrase. Wow, this stuff is . . . incredibly strange. Powerful.” She brought her fingers to her right temple. “Over here, there’s a channel about the chasers. And over here . . .” Her fingers slipped to her left temple. “There’s other stuff. Which do you want?”

  Panic. What did she want? AM or FM? “Other.”

  “A man whose name starts with a T or an I. Do you have
any idea who he is?”

  “Ian. I met him when I was . . .” Dead. “In Esperanza.”

  “This man is like . . . your other half. Charlie seems to have a deeper agenda for the two of you, but I can’t interpret what he’s trying to communicate about that. He and his group can help to manipulate events, to shield you and Ian, but they’re as limited in their way as the brujos are in theirs. They can’t physically fight this battle.”

  Mira paused again, shut her eyes, and was silent for so long that Tess thought the reading was finished. Tess realized she was sitting forward, her body rigid, muscles tight, and finally forced herself to sit back. She felt that cold breath of air intensely on her left side, and when she turned her head, her dad took shape between her and her mother. Charlie, poking his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose.

  Hey, Slim.

  You’re freaking me out, Dad.

  C’mon, hon. I’ve been talking to you since the day I left. Now listen real well. You need to get off the island with your mother and Maddie. It won’t be safe here much longer.

  His form flickered, then disappeared. Tess thought it likely that she was now in complete mental meltdown.

  “Maddie and Lauren,” said Mira. “The two of you will be going to Ecuador with Tess.”

  Maddie frowned. “I’d like to go. But is there some particular reason to do so?”

  “Because you’re young and see what they can’t, because they’re your family. And I think your ultimate destiny lies there, Maddie.”

  “My ultimate destiny as what? To do what?”

  “I don’t know. Tess, Charlie is insisting that Ian contacted you, but there seems to be . . .” She frowned, her hands in front of her, as though she were holding something. Then her hands moved away from each other, as if the object were growing. “A space like this between you. I have absolutely no idea what that means.”

  “I think I do. Ian lived in 1968, died, ended up in Esperanza in 2008, and . . . and . . .” And then he vanished mysteriously in April 1968 and now his son is sixty-one years old.

  “Wow,” Maddie breathed. “This is so unbelievably awesome.”

  “Awesome?” Lauren balked. “This is confusing. Even if you both make it back, Tess, how will you end up being together if you’re from different times?”

  Tess felt small, miserable, uncertain. “I don’t know.”

  “Uh, Charlie’s assuring me there’s a way.”

  A breath of cool air brushed the back of Tess’s neck, goose bumps sped up her arms. The three of you need to be gone by tomorrow, Slim.

  “Charlie just left,” Mira announced.

  Lock me up. Her dad had just left, Mira said, but he actually had left ten years ago, left her mother in the lurch—single mom, one daughter in law school, the other not doing well financially. Her dad’s death had reduced them to statistics. But now she was supposed to believe it had happened for a reason.

  Fuck this.

  “Give me a call in the next day or so,” Mira said. “Let me know what you decide, Tess. If I pick up anything else, I’ll call you.”

  They exchanged cell numbers and e-mail addresses, and a few minutes later, the three of them went into the café. They claimed a table, and once they were seated, Lauren spoke in a soft, conspiratorial tone. “Reality check. What we’ve just heard is so far out there that we need to reach a consensus here. Are we nuts? Is Mira a wacko? Was Charlie really talking to Mira? Did Tess see Charlie? Hello, I’m losing it here.”

  “My vote,” Maddie said, “is that we move forward according to the information she gave us.”

  “Tess?” Lauren looked at her.

  “I’m not sure what I want to do.”

  “Wait a minute.” Maddie’s face turned to stone. “You’d actually stay here, Tesso? And do what? Resume your work as a field agent with a partner who’s possessed? Hope that whatever weirdness seized Dan will get bored and move on? What kind of solution is that?”

  “I need a café con leche,” Tess said.

  “This isn’t a Cuban bakery,” Lauren pointed out. “I’ll get us cappuccinos. Then I need to check three banks before five this afternoon.”

  “I’m hungry,” Maddie said.

  They both got up and left Tess alone at the table. She quickly went online. There were two e-mails from Luke.

  Wow. I am so sorry I was such a presumptuous shit. So many of Dad’s predictions came true thru the years, beginning with King’s assassination, then RFK’s, then Nixon & Watergate & everything else. The Internet, Yahoo, cell phones etc. He seemed to have incredible recall of what he’d experienced while in a coma, but admitted that his time in a mental facility had wiped some memories clean. He knew, for instance, that he wasn’t remembering some vital detail about Nomad. He couldn’t recall yr line of work. That made it tough for me to find u the several times I tried to track u down. Yr phone # was never listed. I figured you’d left the Miami area.

  Yes, the brujos did try to attack him—and couldn’t get near him. But one of them took my mother—an experience from which she never really recovered. The brujo used her until Dad fled to San Francisco to search for Sara Wells, a cultural anthropologist who went to E in 1969. I think he needed her as a validation. He also seemed to return from the dead with the ability to see the dead.

  The last time I heard from him, he was @ the ExPat Inn, Otavalo. I told him I would be there in a few days, but when I arrived, he was gone. I spent months traveling around Ecuador, looking for him, but never saw him again.

  Just in case you’re going thru the same kinds of doubts he did, I’m sending an attachment that should put your doubts to rest. Start yr search in Otavalo, Tess. Kim Eckart used to be the ExPat owner. My contact info is at the end of this e. Please stay in touch & and when u find Dad, ask him to call. He’ll be thrilled to know he has a 31-year-old granddaughter!

  Best,

  Luke

  Tess eagerly clicked the attachment. The first image was of credit card receipts dated April 6, 1968, and appeared to be for ads Ian had taken out in three South Florida newspapers. The second image was a photo of the man she remembered—the same warm smile, those eyes like dark pools, a beard sprinkled with gray. Not exactly a dead ringer for Clooney, but close enough so when she’d seen Clooney’s face on the cover of the DVD for Michael Clayton, it had resonated. The third attachment was from the personal ads of the Miami Herald, dated April 8, 1968. In the middle of the page, in large, bold letters, was an ad that read:

  Slim, it’s real. Am leaving 4/8/1968, Frisco-Quito. Love, Ian Ritter from Minneapolis

  Tess pressed her fists against her eyes.

  Twenty-one

  Dominica refused to release him. If she couldn’t get onto Tango Key in Dan Hernandez’s body, then she would use his body to force Tess, her mother, and niece off the island.

  She spoke to him through his limbic brain, associated with pleasure, sexual arousal, rage, a hunger for revenge. Atavistic urges, that was her understanding. It seemed to work. Dan Hernandez drove much too fast to Tess’s mother’s house.

  It was early evening when he pulled into an empty lot half a mile from Lauren Livingston’s place. He retrieved his bike from the rack on the back of the car and pedaled through long, narrow shadows, a man on a mission. He rode into the deserted cul-de-sac, then into an overgrown field, and dismounted. Gun. Cell. His needs were simple. He took his time, walking up the road, enjoying the smells of early summer in the Keys. Night-blooming jasmine, the ocean, the day’s warmth trapped in the asphalt. He felt happier as the day surrendered to twilight. He was less visible now.

  The half-dozen snowbirds who lived on this street had departed after Easter and the other residents wouldn’t pay any attention to a guy out for his evening constitutional. No one would remember him. She kept working on his limbic brain, stoking the fires, conjuring images of how he had been used by Tess, victimized, wronged. Revenge, revenge became his mantra.

  Before he crossed the street, he picked up a lar
ge branch, tore off the leaves, swung it through the air. He wasn’t sure yet how it would serve him, but sensed he might need it. For what? his conscience asked. He didn’t know yet, but the question caused him to hesitate. Dominica felt his sudden uncertainty, the doubts that seeped through him. He looked at the house on the other side of the road, down at the branch he clutched. “What the . . . ?”

  Dominica quickly ramped up her own efforts—revenge, revenge—and his anger roared back. “Goddamn bitch.” He trotted across the street.

  At the top of the steps, he set the branch against the wall, unlocked the door, took one last furtive glance around, and slipped inside. Dan went directly into the kitchen, turned on the gas oven and the four burners, just as she had tried to do. She urged him to open the cabinet doors under the sink, to remove rags and two cans of lighter fluid. But he knew what to do now and didn’t need prompting from her.

  Dan twisted off the top of one can and backed into the living room, saturating the couches, chairs, throw rugs. He moved through the bedrooms, bathrooms, utility room, squirted the lighter fluid on bed, clothes and shoes, towels and bath mats. When he’d emptied the first can, he opened the second and went through the rooms again. He made a deliberate trail of fluid to the front door, stepped out on the porch, and wrapped rags around the end of the stick. He soaked the fabric, held a lit match to it.

  The rags burst into flames and Dan hurled the burning branch into the house, certain it would ignite the gas escaping from the stove. He slammed the door and made it down the stairs and out of the cul-de-sac before two convulsive explosions lit up the dusky sky, catapulting burning debris that cast the street and houses in an eerie orange light. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t stop. He hopped on his bike and pedaled madly for the lot where he’d left his car, threw himself inside, and took off. The distant squeal of sirens sent his blood pressure soaring, he drove like a madman.