by Gaby Triana
GABY TRIANA
Copyright © 2021 Gaby Triana
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
ASIN: B08N3D1J8R (eBook Edition)
ISBN: 9798705802340 (Print Edition)
Characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by author.
Cover art copyright 2021 by Lynne Hansen, LynneHansenArt.com
Printed and bound in the United States of America
First printing February 2021
Published by Alienhead Press
Miami, FL 33186
Visit Gaby Triana at www.gabytriana.com
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Acknowledgments
About the Author
More Books by Gaby Triana
Author Links
She was, in fact, a child of the moon. Wandering around aimlessly in the dark. Bringing light to everyone around her.
– s & a
PROLOGUE
The little boy’s flower was made of yellow tissue paper for the petals and orange construction paper for the center. It was cinched at the base and fastened with a green pipe cleaner for a stem. A cutout construction paper leaf was taped to the middle, giving it, he thought, a realistic appearance.
He twirled it between his fingers. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever made.
“Go show it to Mommy,” Miss Katie said.
The boy pushed back on his wooden chair, which scraped against the cobblestones. He skipped out of the garden room where Miss Katie taught Art a few times a week. The boy loved it because he could see the moon high above them through the glass ceiling.
Bobbling into the hallway that stretched through the middle of the big hotel, the boy headed toward the kitchen. It was his mother’s turn to help make dinner with the other ladies. His flower would undoubtedly make her happy after such hard work. He loved nothing more than making his mama smile.
Ever since they’d arrived at the resort, life had been magical, if a bit strange. In the mornings, they sat outside to greet the sun. At night, they danced in circles, holding hands, around a fire under the moon. The women dressed in bright colors and wore their hair long, tiny flowers pinned to the strands. They wove tales of gods and goddesses, of mythical creatures, of trees and fairies, totem animals, and spirit beings who watched over them.
In time, he would learn to see them, they assured him.
What the boy never told them was that he already could. See the spirit beings, that is, in the upstairs rooms while they had cross-legged quiet time on the floor. The see-through people always stared at him with gaunt faces and soulless eyes, whispering concerns about the creature who wouldn’t let them pass. The clouds surrounding them were always dark silver or black. The boy was certain these beings were different than the ones the ladies had meant.
He was thinking about this, hoping he wouldn’t run into one of them now in the hallway, when an odd smell rose into his nostrils. Slowing, he inhaled a sweet, rotten aroma, like burnt electricity that did not smell like dinner. He paused outside the kitchen door, peeking around the door frame. The women standing by the stoves, ovens, and worktables smelled it, too. They sniffed the air curiously, speaking in hushed tones.
“Is that…” they asked each other.
His mother stood at the long worktable shaping bread loaves. She reached for a towel to wipe her hands clean. She looked over and saw him. “Honey, stay outside…” She and the other women hurriedly put down their utensils, abandoning their bowls.
The boy held up his flower. “I made you this.”
She didn’t look at it. She was trying to listen to all the women’s orders at once. “Honey, Mommy said to go outside,” she instructed.
The boy heard something in his mama’s voice he’d never heard before, an emotion, a hiccup he couldn’t name. “But—”
“Now!”
The boy staggered back, as he watched the women scatter like ants. He knew the smell was to blame for their change in niceness. His mother would never not appreciate his art.
Without warning, a blast of spitting light and heat burst from the kitchen, searing his tender skin. The boy fell to the ground, covering his face with the crook of his arm. A noise rang in his ears. The explosion’s wind blew his flower right out of his hand. He snagged it, scrambled to his feet but was knocked down again by an unseen force.
The kitchen doors slammed shut by themselves.
“Mommy!” he screamed.
On his belly, he tried to push open one of the doors when sheets of black smoke began pouring out from underneath. On the other side of the doors came the pounding of women begging to be let out. There was screaming. Coughing. The smoke burned the boy’s eyes and face, so much that he had to duck his face into his shirt to protect them. He tried to push the door open again, but the metal panel on the bottom burned his fingertips.
He cried out, drew back his hand, tried kicking the door instead. It wouldn’t budge. The door shook and rattled, as fists pounded on the other side.
Suddenly, one door swung open. One of the women ran out covered head-to-toe in yellow flames that stuck to all her clothes. Half her hair had burned off her charred scalp. One hand at her own throat, the other stretched out to him, she coughed and sputtered and collapsed beside him. A single blue eye stared at nothing.
A set of strong arms scooped him up and whisked him away. Miss Katie ran with him, as she hurried to corral the other screaming kids. They fled through the lobby out the front doors until they were a safe distance away, until Miss Katie couldn’t carry him anymore. She set him down to catch her breath. The children gathered, clinging and crying against her bell-bottoms.
The boy watched as a monstrous fire consumed the roof. Smoke billowed out the top of the building into the evening sky, pluming toward the moon. The flames reminded him of a sea creature’s tentacles wrapped around an ill-fated submarine. He watched in morbid fascination, waiting for his mother to come running out and scoop him up.
When she didn’t, he hugged Miss Katie’s leg and dried his tears on her pants.
She never even got to see his flower.
ONE
From His cross on my pink wall, Jesus stared at me. Painted blood dripped from His palms, feet, and side where they’d pierced Him. I’d always understood the message behind His dejected gaze—Be good, so I won’t have to do this again.
There were sparklier versions of the Holy Cross, of course, but my grandmother bought all her religious effigies at Dollar Tree in Little Havana, where tall glass prayer candles wrapped in plastic images depicted Jesus’s heart beating on the outside of His body, glowing like the sun, eyes trickling with crimson tears.
Underneath
Him, atop my bookcase peppered with lit candles, was another childhood staple—my ceramic Virgin Mary lamp. It was painted pastel blue and gold, and at night, switched on, the Holy Mother, with her incandescent bulb buried deep inside, radiated nightmares. Her youthful appearance was replaced by the yellowing crevices of her cloak. Her cheek lines resembled a forest hag’s. As a child, I called her Scary Mary.
But it wasn’t just her appearance that creeped me out.
An unwanted, intrusive thought always flitted through my mind whenever I touched her. It was my grandfather, sitting at his office desk, signing the greeting card to go with the lamp, which was to be my First Communion gift. He nervously awaited…something. I never knew what exactly, or why it unsettled me.
Tonight, I turned her on—quickly so my fingers wouldn’t conjure up the image.
I sat down cross-legged and took out the square basket containing my tools: a black candle to symbolize tonight’s New Moon, my abalone shell, my palo santo, my lighter, and my tarot cards wrapped in red silk. I laid it all out across my worn pink and purple rug woven with shreds of glittery thread. Then I waited.
In the corner of the room, a glow-in-the-dark peel-and-stick full moon emitted a soft, green glow, as I waited for my grandmother to finish closing up for the night. Soon, all was quiet. Here we go… I lit the candle first, then picked up the three-inch stick of palo santo, charred on one end from multiple use, sticking it into the flame. It crackled as it caught fire.
For a moment, I heard Abuela shuffling through her room next to mine, as she entered her bathroom, slippers padding across the tile floor. My breath caught in my throat. I heard sink water rushing through the walls, then the springs of her bed creak as she settled again.
Taking a deep breath, I blew on the lit end of smoldering wood. The flame went out, releasing a thin stream of smoke into the air, unpredictable curls swirling as it rose. I wafted the smoke over the cards, clearing them of stagnant energy. I would’ve used sage to cleanse them, but sage smelled like weed, which definitely would’ve brought Abuela investigating.
“Smoke of air, fire of wood, cleanse and bless these cards for good. Tell me what I shouldn’t or should…” I whispered.
Tomorrow was the Youths for Jesus retreat, a two-week camping thing my church did every summer out in the Everglades. I was supposed to be praying to the Virgin for a successful trip. Instead, I was hoping tarot cards would fix my life.
I’d been a member of Youths for Jesus for thirteen years now. I couldn’t remember a time when Ministerio Jesus hadn’t been a part of my landscape. Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes, First Communion, Confirmation, youth group picnics, youth group assemblies, youth group retreats, and everything in between. There was no escaping church. Not when your grandfather had been the school’s principal for twenty-four years.
Tomorrow, they’d be making me an assistant leader. I knew, because Camila, my best friend, already a YFJ leader, told me after their meeting two nights ago. I was supposed to act surprised and be happy about this.
“Just telling you so you can be ready,” she’d said.
I’d feigned excitement.
After Camila went home, something inside of me died. I’d been naïve to hope this retreat might be my last. After all, I was starting college in August. I wouldn’t have much time to devote anymore. But no—they were reining me in tighter. Closer. I could almost feel the invisible choke collar around my neck.
I stopped shuffling the cards. “What do I do?” The air conditioner turned off, as an eerie quiet settled through my room.
Who was I talking to? God? I wasn’t sure anymore. Maybe my own conscience. Maybe the Universe was God. So were these cards, this candle, this room, these walls, the cross around my neck that my father gave me. All of it. Maybe everything was made of the same energy, vibrating at different rates. Maybe religion was a thing of the past, and it was time to follow my own beliefs.
I lay down the first card—the Ace of Cups, a tall, silvery Holy Grail overflowing with glistening water. It symbolized new beginnings, an emotional new start. Was tomorrow the beginning of a new life in the ministry? If so, I didn’t want it.
But how could I get out of it? Saying no to my parish would be like denying my family. There was no easy way out. If I didn’t show up in the parking lot at 7 AM tomorrow, there’d be hell to pay.
I lay down the second card—the Fool, a naïve young man teetering on the edge of a rocky cliff, his dog trying to warn him of the dangers ahead. I sniffed a laugh. “Yeah, no shit.”
I held the last card in my fingers.
Suddenly, I heard Abuela’s door pop open, followed by the hallway’s fluorescent light glowing underneath my door, the scraping of slippers along the floor. I grabbed a pillow I kept nearby in case this should happen and quickly covered the cards and shell. She knocked then flung open my door.
“O, estás despierta?”
“Obviously, I’m awake, Abuela. I’m on the floor.” I added a smile, so she wouldn’t think I was sassing her.
“Valentina, what’s burning?” She stepped in, the edges of her bata de casa swishing against the floor. She sniffed the air like a police dog.
My heart pounded. If she saw the tarot cards, she’d tell me I was asking for trouble. They were not a sanctioned part of our faith. “Uh, I opened the window. Maybe smells came into the room?” I lied. I’d been lying for a while now. They gave me no choice when my real words were never the ones they wanted to hear.
She scanned the room with sharp green eyes, which fell on Scary Mary. “Ay,” her tone brightened. “Qué linda la lamparita.” She moved towards it, her foot a couple of inches from my hidden card spread. Her fingers gingerly touched the lamp. “I remember when we gave it to you. How come you never turn it on?”
“I mean, look at her, Abuela.”
“But it’s so pretty. Cuco used to leave it on for you every night.”
“And I used to turn it off the second he’d leave.” I never told her about the weird thoughts I’d have whenever I’d touch it.
She sniffed again. “It’s stronger around here.”
“It’s the candles. They’re cedarwood. Actually? I’m praying right now, so could you…” I waited for her to realize she was intruding.
She shrugged and turned to go. But then, her slipper caught the edge of the cushion, dragging it a few inches. The corner of the Fool card slid out from underneath. Abuela stared down at it. She looked at me. It was hard to tell what she was thinking.
“What are you doing?” she asked suspiciously.
“Writing my retreat letter,” I lied again. The “retreat letter” was an anonymous inspirational note we were asked to write every year on the eve of the trip. The letters got scrambled then passed out, and you were supposed to get someone else’s letter while they got yours.
For the first time ever, I wasn’t writing it.
Abuela scowled. I braced, but she only tucked the Fool back under the cushion with the toe of her slipper. “Don’t you have to be awake early?”
“Yes. The sooner I finish, the faster I can get to bed.”
She shuffled to the door, and for a moment, looked like she was going to say something. She began closing the door, giving me a tight-lipped smirk. “Goodnight, Vale.”
“Nite, Abuela.”
The door closed all the way…almost.
She opened it back up. “Vale?”
“Yes, Abuela?” I held my breath.
“I would not consult the esoteric, if I were you. God has laid out his plan for each of us. Your job is to follow that plan.”
My heartbeat pounded in my ears.
“Catholics don’t dabble in dark arts. You understand?”
I stared at her disapproving glare. I could tell her she was wrong, that I was eighteen and could decide for myself what I believed in, but did I want to start a fight at this late hour?
Quietly, I swallowed. “Yes, Abuela.”
She waited a moment, gauging
my sincerity. “Now, put those cards away and pray for forgiveness.”
Forgiveness? For what?
I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
“Okay,” I said. “Goodnight.”
She watched me another moment, then closed the door. I listened for all the sounds of her going back to bed, for all the good it did me the first time, then let out a major breath.
This was why I needed to come out of the broom closet. I couldn’t read cards, sit under the moon, burn herbs, meditate, or any of the other unsanctioned things I did as long as I was in this house.
I couldn’t keep living this way.
This wasn’t a phase. I wouldn’t be growing out of my spiritual curiosity anytime soon, no matter how wrong it seemed to them. The more I read, the more I learned, the less God could be a bearded, robed Father in the sky, judging everything everybody did. That didn’t sound like love to me.
I couldn’t become assistant leader either. I couldn’t go on the retreat. I wasn’t the person they thought I was. But my bags were packed, and Camila was expecting me to give her a ride tomorrow.
“What do I do?” I whispered. I was still holding the last card between my trembling fingertips. I slid it out from underneath my leg where I’d tucked it and flipped it over.
The Moon—Hecate the Crone, Goddess of the Crossroads, stood in the foggy road, holding a torch. Her silver hair flowed in the cold wind, signifying truth and power. The Moon card was about deception, intuition, secrets. Together with the Ace of Cups and the Fool, I faced a new beginning. Adventure and magic, but not without peril. Moonlight revealed hidden truths. And sometimes, like Scary Mary, we wouldn’t like what we see.
I wrapped up the cards and placed them back in the basket, along with the shell and palo santo. Standing, I blew out the candles, then turned off my bedroom light. I was about to turn off Scary Mary, too, when I paused to stare at her dark, creviced wrinkles, under-eye bags that’d make any kid cover their head with a blanket.
“Do you agree?” I asked her.
