When The Shadows Began To Dance

by Yamaya Cruz

  Alijondro drove me home, and I was happy that I had made at least one friend. I knew that God was looking over me and had sent him as my guardian angel. I had all of the intentions of walking into Maria’s house and confronting her about using me, about lying to me. I was at the point where I had lost all respect for her. I vowed that I would never be like her. I would never let a man turn me into a madwoman.

  “I am going to just wait out here.” Alijondro said.

  “No. I need you by my side when I do this,” I said, pulling him through the door.

  I entered the house and it was empty. Where did everybody go? I took a couple of steps into the living room. I felt my way through the room, fumbling around, caressing the walls, and trying to find a light switch. When suddenly, light flooded the room. I squinted and looked around.

  “Alijondro?” I said.

  I couldn’t see him. It took me a while to adjust to the lighting, but there were shadows everywhere. There was one lingering behind me. I gasped and took a couple of steps back. I caught a glimpse of a frameless picture of Jesus pinned up over the dining room table.

  Nelly, I swear, I thought that I was going crazy. He was looking at me. I blinked a couple of times and focused and realized that he wasn’t looking at me, but behind me. His eyes widen with fear as if He was warning me to run. I bumped into someone who was standing right behind me.

  He reached out and put me into a chokehold, as he leaned in close to my ear and whispered. “Welcome home bitch.”

  My eyes were popping out of my sockets; I could feel the steel from the knife stroking my jugular vein.

  There was a black hand that was clamped below my neck. It inched downward and began to fondle my breast. I could see the darken knuckles and the fingernails that look like coiled shells. There was a copper ring disguising itself as gold on his right pinky finger. His other hand crept out with the blade and slit across my breast. My knees buckled and I fell to the ground. The blood was gushing out of my chest; the pain was so intense that it made me dizzy. I felt like I was standing on a spinning disk at a fun house. I tried to regain my bearings, but I found myself being pulled around by some kind of centrifugal force.

  I smashed into walls. In my stupor I knocked a vase off a table; it fell to the ground, breaking into a dozen pieces. Its contents rose like a baneful cloud of black smoke. I hobbled over to the center of the room and threw myself down on the floor. The room seemed to be turning. I looked up and saw a figure looming above me.

  “Alijondro.” I yelled pleadingly. I couldn’t understand why he was doing this to me.

  He reached down and fondled my breast, buttocks and thighs. He stood up and simpered with glee when he saw that it was stained with my blood. He hungrily licked it off of his fingers and then pushed me back to the ground. I looked down and saw a loafer shoe holding down my chest.

  “Don’t try and resist me, Luisa.” His voice sounded strange, like he was screaming at me through a tunnel.

  He released his foot. And I started to shake from fear. He kneeled down and straddled me. He locked me down by holding my arms over my head. I tried to scream, but he stifled it by stuffing his tongue into my mouth. His fingers crept over my flesh like spider’s legs and my eyes widen with horror as I felt him unfastening the zipper on my pants.

  He pulled them off in one swift motion. I managed to break one of my arms free and grabbed a death hold on my panties. All I could think about was holding on. I needed to hold on to my sanctity, to my spirit, to my womanhood. My attempts were fruitless, and I cowered with defeat as I felt my panties being ripped off. I tried to keep my eyes shut, but they popped open against my will. I caught small glimpse of him on top of me. His eyes were burning with desire, his breath was husky and rampant, and his hair wildly disheveled. He reached down to unzip himself.

  I held my breath, and my body seemed to go numb as I felt my insides puncture from the rod of human flesh.

  I could smell the churning of sweat, the stench of lust. Mentally, I was still struggling to hold on, but my sanctity was perishing. And soon, it crumbled like a proliferated damn. The shadows rode the waves, and flooded my body, contaminating my soul, suffocating my spirit under a blanket of darkness. I turned my head from side to side as I grimaced from the repugnance of skin rubbing against skin. Suddenly, it was over, and I slowly sat up. All the blood in my body rushed to my face. My stomach was in knots and I leaned over and vomited on the floor.

  He began to clap his hands with explosive mirth. I suppose that watching me naked, bleeding, and rolling around in my own puke was amusing. I tried to stand up, but my legs were too weak and I fell right back to the ground. I crawled around befuddled and turned and looked up. Oh my God Maria!

  I reached out my hand for help. She just backed away muttering.

  “He’s back home now. Nico’s back and everything is going to be alright.”

  I looked into her eyes and saw them moisten from regret.

  “He told me that this was the only way he would come back.”

  I collapsed on the floor and closed my eyes. All I could see was darkness. And that’s when the voices started. “Luisa, we are here.”

  “We are going to make you do evil and wicked things, Luisa.” “No, No, this can’t be happening.”

  “Luisa, don’t try and fight it. You don’t got what it takes to beat us.”

  Maria walked over and grabbed one of my arms to try and help me up. I snatched my arm away. I knew that she had set me up. The man who had just raped me was her husband Nico, and she let him do it. She betrayed me. My own mother betrayed me. She was my flesh and blood, the only relative that I had left. I could not believe that she could do something like this to me. I could hear Nico laughing as he called out to me.

  “Luisa, it’s just how these things work. You either fuck or get fucked,” he yelled laughing like a mad man.

  I made my way out the door.

  “Wait. Hold up. You can’t go anywhere. You work for me now,” he snapped.

  But I couldn’t stay there another second. I rushed out the door, running from him and the shadows. I had no idea what happened next. I just remember running; I was always running. I spent my whole life blaming other people for my problems, but the truth of the matter was that Sister Abigail was right. I should have never believed in a false God, and I should have never lost trust in the Lord. It is now that I realized that I didn’t trust them because I didn’t know them.

  You see Changó and Yemayá are the mother and father of the soul. They are the basis for our existence, and if we don’t know them, then we simply can’t survive. Yemayá is mother earth; she is the land that we walk on and the gravity that gives us stability and holds us firmly together. She provides us with everything: food, warmth, shelter, and most of all, love. She gives unconsciously, and loves selflessly. I failed to make the motherly connection to Yemayá. Instead, I looked toward a false God. I thought that Maria could help me, but I couldn’t get help from anyone who was just as torn as I was. You have to understand that God exists within yourself. Everything starts and ends from within you. You need to work with life forces and the Orishas to understand your purpose and gain the power to create the life that you deserve.

  Don’t be sad or angry. Learn from me, because the ancestors are lessons from the past. We are here to provide you with guidance and to ensure that you don’t make the same mistakes we made. Nelly, take the time to know who you are. I lived my life with so much pain and regret, never embracing Changó. He was the one who could burn away impurities. I needed him to spit out fireballs to burn away all the things that were false about me. I needed him to reveal essential truths that I needed to learn. I didn’t know who I was. I spent my whole adult life running from the shadows, instead of facing them. Not realizing that I needed to use the pain to grow and make myself stronger. Instead, the shadows ate away at my very core; they started to spread like a cancer, infecting not only my life, but my children’s as well.

  Nelly
, you have to understand your roots. You need to have a strong connection with family, Yemaya and Changó so they can provide you with the foundation that you need to grow. Look to Changó, he will tell you your purpose, and with that you will have the strength that you need to go on without me. Please understand that we all have a purpose in life and if we don’t follow it, then we die. We wither away like a flower after a storm, because the forces of nature will just pound on us, until we gather the courage to fight back and become stronger and be the people that we are destined to be.

  I have allowed the shadows to destroy me. Now, I leave you behind and alone, much like I was. I never intended for anything like this to happen. I never wanted you to grow up alone. I made a promise to myself, to the Lord, to the Orishas, to the Universe, that I will guide you and provide you with all things that I couldn’t do when I was alive. I want to be the mother that you deserved and give you the love that you need to put the pieces of your soul back together.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nelly It’s been four years. Four whole fucking years and I have been going through life strung out on Ritalin. I’ve already given up on life, at just seventeen years old. I can’t sit still, and I run around like a Wall Street yuppie strong out on coke. I have nothing, no mother and father, and my own brother betrayed me. He betrayed us. That motherfucker. If I saw him again, I would spit in his face, and if I ever caught sight of that little bitch Blazen, I would take a fucking shovel to her head.

  I am not angry. I am fucking pissed off. How would you feel if nothing in your life ever went right? How would you feel if there was no light at the end of the tunnel? How would you feel if everything and everyone that you ever loved was taken from you? How would you feel if you never went to your momma’s funeral? I am a wreck, damaged beyond mending and I just don’t know what to do. Maria won’t take me back to see Chobo. She says that I am way too angry. So she drags me to these anger management classes, where I have to sit in a room with a bunch of fucking rejects and explain to them why I beat up a fucking police officer.

  Well, it all started when I walked into a room and found my mother dead. Yeah, and I didn’t take well to someone trying to pull me off of her at that time, I didn’t give a shit if it was a police officer or a fucking monk! No one was going to take me away from my mom. Not ever again. I couldn’t sit still in classes. I kept having visions of Nico. I just couldn’t forget all the nasty things he made me do. I could only imagine what he was doing to my brother. But I kept telling myself that I didn’t care, that he belonged to Nico and wasn’t part of my family anymore. However, I kept envisioning him as a sad and lonely boy who needed my help more than ever.

  I failed all of my classes and really didn’t give a shit. Thank God for the No Child Left Behind thing, if I am going to be stupid then so is everybody else. Wasn’t there someone who said something about people liking equality more than freedom? Hell. I can’t think of his name and I really don’t give a shit either. I looked at the clock and grunted. It was time to go home. I had been living with Maria for four years now, and the bitch was colder than a frigid whore. I think that the woman said a total of four words to me since my mom’s death. Mainly, she barked at me to do this, to do that. She really got on my nerves. I just couldn’t wait until I was old enough to be on my own. I stomped into the house and flipped my shoes off after slamming the door shut.

  “Nelly!” Maria yelled.

  “What?” I spat.

  “Don’t slam the door like that. What are you crazy?” She yelled from the kitchen. Did she really want me to answer that question? I adjusted my bookbag and was

  heading to my room, when she called me again.

  “Nelly.” “What!”

  “I need you to clean out the basement,” she yelled from the kitchen. “The basement? For what?” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “Don’t worry about what, just do it,” she snapped.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. I wanted to run away. I wanted to be free from it all and belong to a family that actually gave a shit. I stomped down the basement stairs and took a look around. Oh Hell no.

  “Maria, you want me to clean the whole basement by myself?” I asked, walking into the kitchen. It seemed that I had taken her by surprise. She turned around abruptly placing her hands behind her back. Was she hiding something?

  “There’s a heavy dresser, not to mention big boxes that I can’t move by myself.” “Well, move what you can and then leave the rest for me,” Maria said. That was a bunch of bullshit. The only thing that she could move was a fork and

  spoon. Frustrated, I shook my head and slammed my book bag down. “Hey, girl don’t get no attitude with me. Your little ass is the one living in my house.”

  Here we go again, more talk about me being ungrateful. I knew that no one wanted me Maria, but you didn’t have to throw it in my face every second.

  I marched down the stairs and into the basement. There were boxes everywhere. There was a large dresser, an amour, and even a set of bunk beds that was buried in the corner. I shook my head. This was a task that was almost impossible to finish, even with Maria’s help. I sighed.

  “This is absolutely ridiculous.” I said to myself as I continued to look around the room. There had to be some kind of child labor laws that Maria was violating. I envisioned myself sneaking into the kitchen and making that forbidden phone call to child services. I would speak quickly, faking a strong Spanish accent so no one would ever guess that it was me who tipped off the authorities. I would watch the clock, making sure that the call lasted approximately two minutes and then slam the phone down as if it were going to explode.

  The vision was kind of a guilty pleasure. I smiled to myself as I watched the details unfold. It all started with military humvees with bulletproof body armor pulling into her driveway. Maria would look out of the window and then scream as she watched a fleet of soldiers dressed in battle fatigues climb onto her porch.

  She would run and hide in one of the back rooms of her house, while the soldiers busted down her door with an A2 Bazooka machine gun. They would then enter, climbing through a mountain of debris and sifting through a cloud of dust. They would have their M16 rifles loaded and would be more than ready to spread led into anybody who posed a threat.

  They would search virtually every room, breaking down the doors with one violent kick. They entered the last room to find Maria hiding in a corner like an illegal immigrant about to be deported. The commander in charge would point his barrel at her head and demand for her to lead them to the subject in question.

  A shivering Maria walked them through the house to the basement. She would fumble with her keys as she struggled to unlock the door. The soldiers would become impatient with her and then break the lock by shooting it with a live bullet. They would shine their flashlights and spot a pair of luring eyes peering over a huge heap of brown boxes.

  The commander would plunge forward, and I would leap into his arms like a baby panda longing for captivity. His eyes would melt, as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. I would then point at Maria and began to scorn her, like I was an official labor inspector. Shame on you Maria! Shame on you! Maria would be on her knees begging God for redemption and asking the soldiers to spare her life.

  The commander would look at her with disgust and then walk out of Maria’s home with me in his arms, guiding me into the light, like a POW returning home. Yes, that would be the life. I looked down and kicked one of the boxes. I jumped when I heard a loud thump. Curious, I kicked it again, but heard nothing. I shrugged my shoulders but became startled when I heard it again. I looked around the room and realized that the sound was coming from upstairs.

  Warily, I climbed up the narrow stairway holding the rail. I walked into the kitchen and saw that the door was left ajar. I walked over and examined it and found that the screen latch was broken, it flapped clumsily in the wind, like a bird with a broken wing, slamming against the doorframe with a loud thud.
I caught hold of it and tried to pull it shut but the wind was too strong. Then I thought that I heard something.

  “Help me.”

  I walked out to the porch and looked around. Everything was covered in white! I stared, with an innocent amazement as I watched flurries fall down and blanket the earth. The trees seemed to have come alive, basking with glee, as they proudly brandished the powdery substance on their bark and limbs. I held up my hands. I smiled as I felt the snow flutter from the sky. They seemed to vanish, as they dissolved into the confines of my skin. I had been so angry before, but now there was a sudden peacefulness inside of me. I couldn’t understand why.

  “Yemayá,” I said as I turned around in slow circles. I didn’t know why I said that. Her energy was tingling my body like wind chimes.

  “Yemayá.” I yelled again. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.

  I opened them and my jaw dropped. I was in complete and utter disbelief as I stared at a three hundred plus pound Maria, hanging from a thick tree branch. Her neck was grossly distorted and positioned in an awkward angle from the noose that was tied around it. Her feet grazed the top of a tall stool that she had used to secure the rope to the tree. Her face was turning beat red, and she was prattling like a whale trying to get back to the sea.

  My body was moving in slow motion as I ran toward her. There seemed to have been a dormant alto ego that began to rage inside of me. It took over, and I frantically plunged forward, sticking out my chest and moving my limbs at an accelerated pace. I was high off of adrenaline and with time against me, I decided to slide in like a batter stealing third base.

  Unfortunately, I was short stopped by a vicious kick in the fore head by Maria. I rolled over, and struggled to block out the pain, when I realized that I had mistakenly knocked the stool from under her legs. Her body was now suspended in the air. I moved to action by grabbing a hold of both of her feet and tried to push her up. Maria was huge, and trying to push her up was as useless as holding a brawler’s bunching bag.