The Exquisite and Immaculate Grace of Carmen Espinoza

by Rebecca Taylor

  He took a breath. “Okay,” he sighed. “Watch carefully because here is where I try and just tell you what happened that day.”

  I stared at him.

  Ray opened his mouth—his whole face disappeared.

  I flinched. His face was like a blank skin canvas, completely featureless. A moment later his face returned. “Even if I try to tell you, answer a question, give you a hint, this place forbids me.”

  We stared at each other a moment more, this new understanding between us. Ray knew the truth. I had to find the truth. Then, as if we were connected, we both looked up into the sky and found the large orange moon, my ticking timer, so much closer to the setting horizon that I would have believed possible. “We need to get moving,” he said.

  “Yes,” was all I could manage to say.

  He took a step towards me and reached for my hand. “I would have told you, that very first moment in the dessert, if only I could.”

  “I know,” I swallowed.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, I think that’s going to have to be good enough. We need to get you to that pool soon, and we’re running out of time.”

  Every fiber of my body felt weak. “I’ve just been waiting on you,” I tried to smile.

  He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. With our hands together, we walked to the edge of the crater and stared down into an abyss of nightmares unlike any I could have imagined.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Eternally Damned

  There were limbs. Arms, jutting out of the earth, hands reaching, fingers stretching. Legs and feet. Heads. Halves of bodies. Eyes rolled in their sockets, mouths gaped in pain. An ocean of body parts lining the walls of the crater before us.

  This was where the sounds were coming from.

  “What happened to them?” I asked.

  Ray didn’t answer right away, he stood staring at the mass of writhing parts, the look on his face was a mix of horror and disgust and I realized that was exactly what I was feeling. “This is for those whose crime was so horrible, so offensive,” he whispered and I had to strain to hear his voice over the rising chorus of pain below us. “They are not even allowed to become faints.” Ray looked into my eyes. “Being allowed to just disappear, stop existing, is no punishment for the wrong they committed.” He looked back to the pit. “Eternal damnation. Infinite suffering. They will never rest, never be released.”

  I stared back down the hole, the cold chill of fear clawed at my back. “That’s horrible.”

  “It’s the least they deserve,” he said and led me closer to the edge. From here I could see that a thin path wove its way down and around the crater walls. We would be walking right through all of them.

  The place was different. Of course the whole of The Between was unlike anything I could possibly believe in the real world, but this side, the side beyond The Balancer, was very different than the place we had already traveled through. It was darker, deeper, the terrain more severe and desolate.

  Ray began making his way carefully down the steep path and only when the length of our connected arms had stretched long between us did I follow after him.

  This side was heavier somehow. I could feel the weight of it all over me. There had been offenses before, but somehow I knew they were the lesser evils compared to what lie ahead of us.

  What was in front of us?

  “Ray,” I asked, never taking my eyes off my feet and the rocky uneven ground beneath them.

  “Yes?”

  “You knew I didn’t remember exactly what happened to Daniel.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know we would have to come through this side of The Between.”

  “I hoped we wouldn’t. I hoped you would remember. Sometimes people do. Once they see their words forming before them, the pictures in their minds become clearer. I had hoped that would be the case for you.”

  Something pulled at my hair, “Ouch,” I pulled away and saw a bony hand at the end of its arm reaching from the wall. It fingered the strands of my hair it had managed to pull from my head. I let go of Ray’s hand and reached up to rub the spot on my scalp that hurt.

  Ray stopped and looked back to see what had happened. “Try not to get too close,” he warned. “They will want to touch you, talk to you. Ignore them as much as possible,” he said before he turned and started walking again. “But we need to move quickly. You can’t run out of time and we’ve wasted so much already.”

  I stared at the hand still blind and groping for me, I considered snatching my hair from its fingers, for some reason the idea of leaving any part of myself behind in this place disturbed me—but I didn’t dare risk possibly touching the thing again. Leaning away as I moved around it, I hurried down the path after Ray.

  The further we walked down into the crater, the more limbs and body parts littered and jutted from the walls. There were faces, sometimes whole and round, as if the rest of their bodies were only submerged beneath the surface of the earth walls, sometimes only an ear and the corner of a mouth. The ones with eyes always stared at me passing, like paintings in a scary movie, the eyes shifted with me when I moved.

  The mouths moaned. Cried and pleaded for help, to be let out. Some swore repeatedly at God or the names of other people I didn’t know, angry and vengeful, they promised to get even using methods and degrees of violence that caused me to hold my breath.

  Twice I had to pry my sleeve from hands that fooled me and were able to reach out much further than I had guessed.

  Finally, after what seemed like forever, we were near the bottom. For a moment, I stood still and looked straight up—the mouth of the crater was now high above my head.

  “Carmen,” a voice called.

  Instinctively, I turned towards the sound, a voice that knew my name. My eyes scanned the walls all around me, terror pumped from my heart and through my veins. What was I looking for? “Hello?” I asked.

  “Carmen!” Ray yelled from the bottom of the path. “What is it?”

  I looked at him and shook my head, “Nothing. It’s nothing…I just thought I heard something.”

  He gave me a strange look and motioned with his hands over his ears as if to say, You heard something in all this noise? and motioned for me to hurry up.

  I nodded back and turned one last time to scan the walls around me. It bothered me. Had I heard my name? And if I had, it wasn’t so much that one of these damned creatures knew my name—it was that I could have sworn I recognized their voice.

  “Daddy?” I whispered.

  But none of the faces answered back.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lust

  The bottom of the crater was only the beginning of an underground world. As the ground beneath us continued to fall away, our journey, I could now see, would take us further and further down.

  “How far does it go?” I asked.

  Ray stood beside me as we stared out over the landscape of the next portion of our journey. “I don’t know for sure.” He turned his head to face me. “Maybe forever.”

  “Impossible,” I said.

  “Nothing is impossible Carmen.” He turned back. “Especially here.”

  “Well how far to the Epiphany Pool?”

  Ray shook his head slightly and my heart froze in my chest.

  “What does that mean?” fear made my voice shrill.

  “It means I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve never been to the Epiphany Pool. I’ve never even seen it. She keeps it hidden.”

  “Why?” I asked but the answer came to me almost immediately. “She doesn’t want anyone to find it,” I said. “Because, when they find, if they find it—”

  “They can account for their life and death,” he finished.

  “And she doesn’t want that,” the words fell dead from my lips. “We’re never going to find it, are we?”

  “Don’t say that,” he turned
on me. “We will find it. If it exists, and it has to exist, we will find it.”

  I looked up, past the mouth of the crater and found the moon hanging near the edge. “Before I’m out of time?”

  “We don’t have any other choice.”

  “If only you could—”

  “I can’t, Carmen! Don’t you think I would tell you if I could? Don’t you think I would give anything, do anything in my powers to help you? It kills me that I can’t tell you what I know.”

  “And it may actually kill me,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything at first, only stared straight into my eyes. “You might remember before we get to the pool. The offenses are supposed to help people. Their original purpose was to help guide people to understanding their mistakes.”

  “They seem more like traps to me.”

  “Now, yes. She uses them, constrains them as much as is allowed. Once, before she came, the whole of The Between was filled with Epiphany Pools. Waters of opportunity for souls to gaze back on their lives and comprehend its meaning. Before her, most souls passed through this place and there were very few faints.”

  “And now there is only one pool?”

  “One pool. The only one she is not allowed to touch. The deepest spring hidden in the depths of this world. And if traveling through the remaining offenses does not restore your memory, then we will find it. I promise you Carmen. I won’t lose you like this.” Without another word, he started walking again. Down this new path that dropped away from the earth ceiling hanging above us.

  I followed him, down the craggy path winding through the rough terrain that reminded me of the Mexican dessert outside of Oaxaca. In the distance, around scrub brush and large black boulders, faints wove and whispered, hovering at the edge of us. Some floated closer and then drifted away—they were waiting for me. I could feel their desire for me, for my energy. They collected, like a swarm of insects attracted to my scent, and followed us.

  In the distance, I could see a stone archway spanning the path. Overhead, the dirt ceiling that had been receding higher and higher as we descended deeper and deeper, ended. I looked up and could again see the moon in the sky. Behind us was the sheer wall of a ragged cliff and I realized we had come down inside of that. Somewhere, high at the top and hidden from my view, was the iron castle of The Great Balancer.

  I imagined her, way up there, watching Ray and I far below her, like ants scurrying in the dirt.

  Ahead of me, Ray waited outside the entrance to the offense. When I was closer, I could see his expression heavy with dread.

  “What is it?” I asked as I walked up.

  When he turned to me, his eyes were closed, as if the stress was too much to bear. “I wish…” he started but his voice trailed off.

  “Wish what?” I asked and peered past him and the archway to the scene inside. Almost immediately I looked away. “Oh,” I said suddenly understanding.

  “Wish you didn’t have to go in there,” he whispered.

  Inside this offense, bodies, naked and sweating, strained and pressed against each other. When I could bring myself to dare to look again, I saw clearly, hands caressing, groping, mouths kissing—licking.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered and turned away again. My heart thundered in my ears as my blood rushed hot and embarrassed to my face.

  “Carmen,” Ray said.

  I couldn’t even answer him, couldn’t even think about entering this offense while he stood here, waiting for me—watching me.

  “You need to go in and you’re going to have to hurry.”

  I nodded my head without looking at him. His hand picked up mine and held it for a moment before he brought my palm to his lips. “Try to keep your head in there,” he said.

  I took a breath and gave him a tight smile. “I will,” I said forcing a light tone. “Be back out in a flash.”

  “Okay,” he nodded and dropped my hand.

  When I turned and faced the arch, my body trembled. I kept my eyes low and avoided, as best I could, looking directly at the bodies in front of me, and stepped over the threshold.

  Immediately, I felt it. Like a warm vibration at my core, a hot liquid running through my limbs. My lips opened and a soft pant escaped me.

  My eyes closed. I wanted to be touched.

  I felt like hunger. No—starvation. My body was starving for touch. And then, as if this feeling alone had the power to draw in a remedy, someone touched me and it felt like lightening traveling down my arm.

  My eyes flew open.

  In front of me, a beautiful boy with dark hair and piercing eyes smiled down at me as his finger finished tracing a path from my shoulder to my wrist. Without a word, he twined his fingers with mine and tilted his head like a question mark. When I didn’t resist, he stepped closer and used his free hand to brush my hair from my neck.

  I wondered, for a moment, if this was what feeling drunk was like, and then melted into his arms.

  His mouth was hot beneath my ear.

  His hands ignited a fire as they swept down my back and landed on my hips. When he pulled me into him, I reached up and took his face in my hands and our mouths met. My tongue played against his lips and then stretched deep into his mouth. The more we kissed and pressed against each other, the hungrier I felt.

  Suddenly, a red couch appeared beside us—or was it always there? My brain felt fuzzy and far away. Where was I again? The boy fell into the soft swell of the plush cushions and pulled me down after him.

  My hands landed on his muscled chest—he was naked, and with a glance I noticed that his exposure was complete. Brazenly, without embarrassment, I stared at the whole of him, every last inch of him—and wanted him.

  He smiled, as if he could read my desire in the air around us, and pulled my body down on top of him. His fingers pressed into the small of my back, his mouth opened against mine, and I could feel his hard desire against my now naked thigh.

  I was naked too?

  The shock of this jarred my mind and as this strange exotic boy continued his unrestricted exploration of my body, my eyes opened to the scenes beyond us, to the others around us, and what I saw stopped my rapid heart in mid beat.

  Bodies, most looking like little more than lumps of flesh, stretching towards each other. Melting, yawning limbs without form, mouths gaping, tongues licking, eyes rolling—masses of skin rubbing against one and other, all in varying degrees of becoming less and less human.

  A hot shiver ran over my breast. When I looked, I saw the boy, no longer beautiful in my eyes, his grotesquely long and pointed tongue wrapped around my bare nipple.

  I screamed and pushed his mouth away.

  His eyes, bare sockets, empty holes turned absently towards my face for only a moment and then forgot what, or even if, there had ever been anything beyond himself. His hands, webbed and club like, ran down each side of my body and tried to pulled me closer.

  Panic expelled any lingering lust from my thoughts and I held up both of my hands against his chest trying to keep him as far from me as possible. His skin was soft and cold, like workable clay, and when he pulled harder and tried to close the small distance between us, my hands disappeared into him, folded into his flesh until only my wrists were visible.

  Like the others around us, our bodies were tangled, mixing—molding into one senseless mass of nerves that rolled into and over on themselves. Trapped in ecstasy that was never satisfied.

  “Lust,” I breathed, finally understanding exactly what this particular offense was about. But how to escape it?

  Disgusted by the mere sight of him, I turned my face away and struggled to free myself from his taffy like embrace. With every pull of resistance, I felt his body harden, like drying cement, my hands seemed permanently set inside of him.

  His mouth stretched towards mine.

  “No,” I cried and tried to squirm away from him but his shifting flesh countered my every twist, driving us closer, burying me deeper.

  His hands had taken root
at my waist and were creeping deeper and deeper into my body. A hard ball of horror swelled in my throat and I choked on the rising sob of fear. I didn’t know what to do, how to get out, I was sinking further and further into this place—I would be trapped here forever.

  With eyes so wide they felt ready to burst, I stared at the monstrous perversions all around me. The strength I’d been using to fight with the boy drained from my body and my muscles felt limp against their bones.

  When his thigh brushed against mine, I felt it attach like an anchor to mine. The skin began to fuse between us.

  Instinctively, I fell back, my body still trying to escape what my mind had practically surrendered to. We were now so enmeshed, so almost one thing, that the boy’s body simply moved with mine. Flailing backward, tripping over feet and legs that were not only my own, we tumbled backwards with him landing on top of me completely.

  Near my ear, he moaned. For a second I wondered if our fall had injured him, hoped for a brief second that there may be an opportunity to escape. Then he arched his back and I felt a shiver run over him, his enormous mouth opened wide with euphoric intoxication, and he came down on top of me, burying me with his weight. His skin began to spread out over us like a suffocating blanket and I cried.

  When a thousand tiny heads of his flesh began stretching out towards me, reached out to completely envelope me, I screamed.

  Wild, desperate panic, a raging fire in my brain, my head, the only part of my body I could still move, shook spasmodically from side to side. My screams pierced the air all around us.

  But no one else seemed to even notice.

  Ray would notice.

  Ray was watching.

  My eyes, frantic and almost insane, found the space where I knew the entrance arch was, even though it was invisible on the inside of the offense.

  Ray was there, standing, waiting, watching me disappear and helpless to do anything about it. Even though I couldn’t see him, I felt him, desperate—he would do anything to help me if he could.

  But he could not.