by V. Castro
But all that was for nothing, because they would lose everything anyway.
Then came the torment; the nights of sweating and scratching to the point she wished she could be a body without skin, a flayed woman, for just a moment, to enjoy some relief. It wasn’t just the sensation of wanting to claw at her skin and scalp all night; it was also the visions when she closed her eyes. She could see microscopic translucent eggs nestled within her pores, ready to burst at any moment, releasing ants, spiders, silverfish and roaches. Worms slithered between her toes and lice hacked at the roots of her scalp. She wasn’t wearing a hat for vanity these days; she was missing chunks of hair she’d managed to pull out as she slept. The Devil and God must be in league to make her pay. How much longer she could endure this test, she did not know.
That was when she decided to speak to the preacher. Perhaps he could help. She confessed all, showing him her patchy scalp, arms and legs. Betty wasn’t expecting an ultimatum. At first, she was angry at him, betraying his own, but it made sense; he was a man of God. Could this provide salvation? Yes. Who knew what would happen next? She would give Preacher as many of the documents pertaining to the less legal workings of the farm she could squirrel away. Her husband wouldn’t need to know. She returned home feeling better. The confession to Preacher gave her the energy to collect the necessary legal paperwork and write a letter detailing what she knew about the conversation she’d overheard between Tanya and Billy. She exhaled a deep breath when she put the pen down. She placed the letter and the paperwork in a plain box then wrapped it with brown paper. In large black letters she wrote, For Pastor Rich. She glanced at her watch. Still time before she would need to get supper started. She jumped into her car to head back to the church. With the engine still running, she stared at the steeple. She couldn’t face Preacher again. His car remained parked in the front. She killed the engine then grabbed the box from the passenger’s seat. His car would be unlocked. No one would ever steal from a man of God around here, not even the workers. She placed the box on the floor of the front seat. She exhaled again as she shut the car door. Time to go home for a hot bath. It would be in God’s hands.
The bath, filled with fresh, clear, warm water, reminded her of the day she was first baptized at ten years old around a congregation speaking in tongues. This would be a baptism of sorts. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror was more horror picture show than the woman she thought she was. She began to cry. Instead of tears, maggots squirmed from her eyes. Their fat bodies plopped into the sink and down the drain. Her scalp itched again; lice eggs caked beneath her fingernails and coated her shoulders like dandruff. She looked down, feeling a burning sensation between her legs. Pubic lice coated the sparse untamed fur left at this age.
“No, no! It’ll be fixed. Stop!” she whimpered as her hands clutched her face and scalp.
When she glanced at the mirror again, a figure lay just beneath the water in the bathtub. Betty couldn’t move or scream upon the sight of the most terrible thing she had ever seen as the body rose, torso first, then turned its head towards her. It had to be a demon. God Almighty would never permit something like this to exist. She blinked, hoping the skinless, bloody woman in the mirror was just another waking nightmare. Betty knew it wasn’t a nightmare when the woman grabbed her by the throat from behind. The flayed woman smelled like freshly cut grass after the rain and a hint of cinnamon. Water dripped from her body onto Betty, soaking her with pink wet tendrils. A string of jade and turqoise stones hung around the woman’s neck. Betty could hear the woman’s heart beating slowly, but there was the faint sound of another, much faster. It was coming from the belly of the woman.
“You will drink this, and you will die. My darling baby, Milagros, needs to be fed, and only your soul will do.”
“Am I going to hell? You the Devil’s slut to take me there?”
The flayed woman moved closer, sticking the tip of her sharpened nail in between two ribs. “I am the Queen of the Dead and my name is Mictecacíhuatl. Speak to me like that again and I will make this more painful than your human brain can even imagine. Why ask me of hell? What is hell? I’ve never seen it. I’ve heard of it but only on this world. Nowhere else in the many universes does it exist. I have come to believe this planet is the realm of hell. You want to believe in it so much, you have created it for yourselves. I am just a mother seeking nourishment for her child. And I am from Mictlan, a place of beauty and darkness.”
“What will happen to me…when I die?”
The Queen brought the bottle of insecticide to Betty’s lips. “Drink and find out. Just as everyone’s journey is different in life, so it is in death. It is futile to fight me. Surrender to your sins, because I will take you whether you like it or not.”
“I deserve this, I know.” Betty allowed her body to lean into the woman as she brought her lips to the bottle. There was no escaping this demon or the fate that awaited the farm. She sobbed quietly with the opening of the bottle resting on her bottom lip. The taste was acrid, the salt of her tears washing it away. The only emotion in her heart was guilt, for what she knew and what she wanted. She wanted the emotional agony to end, no worries about the farm, no physical torment. Without wasting any more time, she gulped the bitter liquid that caused her to heave. The Queen of the Dead placed her hand around Betty’s mouth to prevent the poison from escaping. Betty dropped the bottle and clutched her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Her esophagus burned with hell’s fire while her legs lost control. And then there was nothing.
The Queen watched Betty convulse on the floor with a bloody foam oozing from her mouth. As Betty died, the Queen placed her hand on her lower belly, feeling it swell. She smiled, knowing her baby, Milagros, was satisfied. She began to sing in a soothing tone, “La Reina de Las Chicharras chicharrachicharrachicharra.”
* * *
I wanted to look through the storage room even if it was a bunch of old paper we would chuck in the recycling. Hector thought there might be photographs he could use in the house or other remnants that might be useful. The back room of the church was a sweltering tomb of paper, smelling of dust and mold, spiderwebs blanketing everything. Silverfish scurried from underneath the boxes as we shifted them around, our lungs revolting in coughing fits from the room’s contents.
“Those in back,” the old man shouted between sips from a bottle of Coke as he sat in the pews behind us.
We brought the boxes into the main part of the church, which felt cool from the air conditioning. I hoped God looked down upon us and would guide us to who Milagros was. Maybe she had family somewhere. As I suspected, there wasn’t much but ledgers on cotton and booze, books that didn’t have much meaning anymore.
It was late in the afternoon when I came upon a box of handwritten documents with a different penmanship and photos. Most of the photos were of the family while the farm flourished. Then by some chance there was a notebook labeled Domestic Help and Undocumented that listed workers with their names, ages and where they were from. In ink that was nearly too faint to read, I saw Milagros Santos – Undocumented female. We knew where we could start. There were also old newspaper clippings. On the front page was the photo of a dead Milagros on the tree with people on either side of her body. They stood next to her as if she were a dead trophy animal instead of a murdered human. It reminded me of the migrant bodies washed up in Europe, and more recently other bodies in the Rio Grande river, a mother and child. I wanted to cry, to rip the paper in half at what they did to Milagros. In my heart I could feel a wicked desire to see the woman in the hospital and pull her life support out in front of her eyes. I would whisper, “This is for Milagros, you cunt.”
I took the clipping with me and burned it in the sink of the church kitchen with a lighter I found in a drawer. That photo was never meant to exist. I needed to do something. I watched it burn through the name of the man who wrote the article and took the photo. Henry Doyle. I hope he burned too.
>
* * *
Henry returned home still early in the day to start his article and develop the photos. He was eager to get this out the door the same day. News like this couldn’t wait. This was his story. Sheriff Don made the narrative clear. There would be no need to ask around the camp about the young woman or possible suspects. Just a short piece with just enough fear to keep people locking their doors and looking behind their backs. When you planted that first seed, readers would come back to see if there were any new twists in the story. This photo would surely shock. Henry began the process of developing the photos in his bathroom before starting the article. Between multiple drafts and the time required to develop the photos, the entire day went by fast.
The small bathroom doubled as a developing lab as it was easier and cheaper than venturing to a bigger town. Henry quite liked the solitude of it. When he developed photos beneath the red glow was when he got his best writing ideas. The room was dark and quiet as he watched the photo of murder turn to an image that could hardly capture the grotesque nature of the scene. Who knew what had happened to the young woman? It concerned him little; this would never happen to him or someone he knew. Look at the case of the Black Dahlia in 1947. She was a girl looking for trouble and found it, but what a sensation it caused. Maybe this would be his Dahlia. But there were two main differences: the Black Dahlia was pretty and white, and it was a ‘stars in her eyes’ story. But it didn’t hurt to try with what he had. It was still morbid. He left the rest of the photos to develop and walked to the main room with the developing chemicals he would leave in the sink for the time being. He placed the completed headline with the photo in a manila envelope ready to post to the editor in San Antonio. Alice was not large enough to warrant its own press, so they had a deal for a small local paper with the company that published the San Antonio Express News.
The sound of running water could be heard coming from behind the closed bathroom door as he readied himself to leave. He put down the folder to have a look. He could swear he didn’t turn it on, certainly not when developing photos. He opened the door and saw the water running at the maximum flow. The bathtub was nearly filled, threatening to spill over onto the floor. He turned off the water, glancing around in confusion. He unplugged the tub and turned towards the door to grab the folder and make it to the post office before it closed. He would grab dinner out tonight to celebrate.
* * *
The excitement of the day and three beers at dinner sent him to bed early that night. His deep sleep was disturbed by a single drop, followed by another, then a gush of running water. Henry thought it was a dream until it persisted. Then his bladder cramped, and he needed to relieve himself. He reached to the bedside table for his glasses. They weren’t there. His vision was so poor everything appeared a blur, including the silhouette in front of his bed.
“Who’s there? I don’t have money or anything of worth. Take what’s in my wallet if you must and the car keys are on the dining table.”
The fuzzy shadow didn’t move, then it was gone. He rubbed his eyes and blinked. The water was still running. He set his feet on the cold hardwood floor and peered towards the bathroom. The shadow stood in front of the door. He blinked again, feeling the sleep in his eyes become a sticky, scratchy goo. His eyelashes tore from the lids the harder he tried to open them. He ran to the kitchen sink to splash his face with water. He could barely make out the tap. Instinctually, he thrust his hands into the sink to catch the water. He’d forgotten a basin of developing chemicals lay at the bottom. A mixture of chemicals and water bathed his eyes. The burning was worse than the time he touched a hot baking sheet of cookies. He clutched his eyes, screaming from the fire eating away at his pupils. The neighbor must have heard his cries because there was a banging followed by a woman calling his name. Henry had lived in this apartment for years; he could navigate blindfolded. He opened it to Myrna.
“Oh, Jesus, Henry! Oh my God!”
“Call for help! There’s someone here! I can’t see!”
The single woman in her forties ran to her apartment. He could hear her frantic voice on the phone with someone, most likely the ambulance service. There was nothing but darkness. His face was going numb from the torrid pain, as was his mind, which focused on the person at the foot of his bed. Who was in his apartment? He did notice the water had stopped. But there were footsteps nearing him. “Myrna? Is that you?”
A faint hint of cinnamon and smoky chocolate filled his nostrils. “No, it is not, and you will not profit from death. Death is my domain.” A wet hand grabbed his chin and cheeks, squeezing hard. He could feel his lips puckering to the shape of an O. With a forceful thrust, the hand threw his head to the side. “You act like a blind fool, then you shall be a blind fool. La Reina de Las Chicharras. Write about that.” The female voice was low, almost seductive if not for all the anger he could detect.
He suddenly knew what this was about. The ghost of the murdered girl, it had to be.
“Myrna! Myrna!” He thought he would have to shout until he went hoarse, but he could hear her slippers pattering towards the open door.
“They’re on their way! Are you bleeding now? There’s blood on your face!”
“I need you to do something for me. I need you to call Donald Johnson at the San Antonio Express News. Tell him not to run the story I sent him. Please! As soon as it hits ten a.m.! He’s in his morning meetings until then.”
“Okay. I will. Just hold tight, everything will be fine.”
Henry never recovered his full vision and the photo was published in the local paper.
* * *
I didn’t have a job, had a decent severance package and alimony checks, so a little vacation to Mexico to bring closure to Milagros’s family could be in the cards. There was nothing to return to except my two-bedroom condo, with one room being mostly an empty reminder of the child who was moving on from me. I didn’t want to go home, or rather the place where I slept, but I didn’t want to overstay my welcome with Hector. The probability of Milagros’s family still living at that same address was pretty low, but at least the idea felt like a positive action in the world instead of my continual, narcissistic negative spiral. It was a long shot, but so are many things in life.
Hector and I loaded his car with the boxes for recycling and a single box of documents we wanted to keep. We returned to the church to say goodbye to Pastor Rich, who felt as lonely and forgotten as the church.
“Thank you, Pastor Rich, for allowing us to tear apart your storage and take a few things.”
He hadn’t moved much from his spot on the pew. “You’re doing me a favor taking some of it away. I’m always here if you need anything.”
“Tell me. What happened after she was found? How did she end up here?”
He wrung his hands while looking at the chipped, splintered cross that was just as age-ravaged as the statue of Christ hanging limply on the cross. His eyes were just as devoid of hope as those of the wooden Christ. “Let me rewind a bit. Start at the day of the untethering from that tree.”
* * *
The bumpy ride back to the farm from the hospital barely registered to a numb Guadalupe. Her stomach felt empty after vomiting the breakfast she’d been forced to eat. She’d hated eggs since she was a child. Milagros had been taken from this world in a way Guadalupe would never forget. When Guadalupe kneeled before the cross after bursting into the church, she told Jesus he was dead to her unless he sent a sign. And quick. Sodom and Gomorrah-style vengeance. This place was worse. What a useless deity he was if he stood idly by. In that moment she wanted to rebuke her faith and sacrifice Billy to the heavens. It had to have been him.
Once at the empty camp, she ran straight to the shanty she shared with her father and brother. To her surprise, they were there. “I thought you would be in the fields!” she screamed, and began to cry into her father’s chest.
“No. We stayed ba
ck because we couldn’t find you! Some said there was a dead girl. We tried to ask questions about what had happened, but Billy told us to leave the farm. He gave us a day.. We are leaving for California, now.”
Guadalupe pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket before crying again, her insides ripping anew. Pangs of pain radiated from her heart. “I found her. She will never leave me. Milagros is dead.”
Her father held her tightly. She could hear him sniff and wet drops fell upon her shoulder. “Come. We go now. I’ve packed everything already. We will honor her in La Causa. Our struggle is still her struggle. For now, we must leave this cursed land.”
Guadalupe kept that letter until her dying day and read it every year on the day of Milagros’s passing. On Dia de Los Muertos, the letter sat in the center of candles with the bowl of the same caldo they shared, a recipe handed down for generations. The last supper. Only the freshest chrysanthemums without bruise were allowed on the altar for Milagros. She prayed that Milagros would be reunited with her loved ones and find a place of peace. Guadalupe also prayed for a day of reckoning.
* * *
The workers pulled together a small collection to give Milagros a proper burial, as she had no family. The one person she had been seen with, Guadalupe, left with her family in the chaos. Not a soul knew where or who Milagros’s people were in Mexico. The newly appointed local Southern Baptist preacher, Pastor Rich, agreed to bury her body in his cemetery because, despite being a Catholic, she was still a child of God. He decided to hold the service outside so they could bring in extra chairs for the workers. His sermon was an angry, impassioned rant with parts said in the little Spanish he knew.
Pastor Rich couldn’t recall so much sweat and spittle ever flowing from his body. The Holy Spirit made itself known when he needed it most. Afterwards, he made it a point to shake the hands of all the workers, trying to persuade them to stay for sweet tea. They were honest working folks who helped out during the war when the rest of the boys were fighting those Nazis. The Bracero program aided his own family when they struggled to keep up their farm in Kansas. The workers never gave his family or anyone trouble. Sure, every now again they would fight amongst themselves, but people were allowed to disagree. His own brother wanted to take swings at him for following God instead of his duty to his family. Now he watched the workers shuffle away, hats in hand, speaking amongst themselves with sagging shoulders as the rest of the flock gathered elsewhere. They were clearly not welcome after bringing such a perceived disgrace to the town. But he couldn’t get the image of the dead young woman out of his head. He would say a quiet prayer for her soul whenever her bruised face would cross his thoughts, because this thing that happened wasn’t just a disagreement or lust. This was far worse, and scared him more than the thought of the Devil.
