by Alisa Valdes
“You can’t.”
“There’s no one around. I’m going out there.”
“Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Coyotes,” I said.
“I’m sure they won’t hurt me.”
“They might.”
“In your dream world, sure. But here in reality, where I live, and where coyotes are actually smaller than many overfed housecats, I will be fine,” she said, opening her door and bolting out before I had a chance to stop her. I began to tremble.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I said over and over. I couldn’t see where she’d gone. I turned my head and looked out of every window, trying to find her.
Nothing.
After ten more minutes passed, without Kelsey returning to the car, I realized I was going to have to go out after her. I took the flashlight from the glove box, for protection, and stepped out of the car, cursing under my breath.
“Kelsey!” I called out.
Nothing.
“Oh, God,” I mumbled to myself. Then I called her again. “Kelsey! Where are you?”
A moment later, her voice answered back. “Over here.”
“Get back here!” I screamed, furious with her.
“You better come over here,” came the reply.
“What? Why?”
“Just come,” she called back.
I walked toward the sound of her voice, and found her. Mercifully, she wasn’t squatting and making yellow snow. Terribly, however, she stood next to the two descansos that I’d noticed the day of my crash, when I’d joked to Demetrio about having been lucky not to be one of them.
“What are you doing?” I yelled at her. “Let’s go!”
Kelsey motioned me over with her hand. “Just come here!”
Reluctantly, I did as she bade.
“What is your problem?” I griped when I arrived next to her.
“That,” she said, pointing to one of the crosses.
“It’s a descanso. We have them all over the state. People put them up whenever someone dies in a car crash in a place. It’s not a big deal.”
“I realize that, dork. That’s not what I meant. Look at the name.” Kelsey fell to her knees in the snow.
I moved closer to the cross, and read the black old-English style lettering across the horizontal plank of white wood. It took me a moment to register what I was seeing, so enormous was my shock.
DEMETRIO ANTONIO DE LOS SANTOS VIGIL
I put my hand on Kelsey’s back, gently, and said, impotently, “It’s a common name around here, Demetrio Vigil. I mean, it’s a tiny town and I’ve already met two. Chances are there are - or were - three. Right?”
“He was eighteen when he died,” she said. “One year ago, nearly to the day.”
I stared at the birth and death dates, and said, “Maybe it was someone else.”
“The picture.” She pointed to the cross, shaking her head.
Stapled to the cross amid the plastic flowers and teddy bears was a photograph, weathered and faded, protected by a plain Ziploc baggie, barely visible anymore. I moved closer to it, and examined the photograph. It was a simple Polaroid, from a homecoming type of dance, a boy and girl. The girl was very pretty in that plucked-brow homegirl kind of way, with lipstick a couple of shades too dark. The boy, unbelievably, was the same one we’d just left in the church. The same one who called 911 for me. The same one who found me to return my locket. It was him.
“Maybe he’s a twin,” I whispered as goose bumps crawled up my arms and down my legs.
“No one gives twins the same name.”
“Sadists? A sadistic parent might do something like that. Right?”
Kelsey didn’t laugh at my joke. “What was the saint on the card he gave you again?” she asked, standing up, her face ghostly pale.
“Saint Anthony of the Desert.”
“Well, Maria, I’m no expert on the Spanish language or anything, but something tells me ‘de los Santos’ means of the saints, and I have a sinking feeling, you know, that Antonio might mean Anthony. Just wild guesses, of course.”
I gulped, hard, and tried to understand, but there was nothing in my brain that could wrap itself around what I was seeing. It was insane. It didn’t make any kind of sense. I just stood, for what seemed like an eternity, staring at the cross, and the photograph, remembering the magical feeling I got whenever he touched me, the way the old man had said he was gone, and Ulysses had said he was dead. I shook my head ever so slightly back and forth, hardly breathing, until the towing service arrived from Albuquerque, to help us fix the flat, and Kelsey was able to pull me, staggeringly, away.
♦
I’m sure Kelsey and I did not make a good impression on the tow-truck guy who fixed the tire on the Land Rover, because we basically just stood there trembling. I was crying, too, though not because I was particularly sad about the dead Demetrio; rather, I cried because of the overwhelming flood of emotions that had taken over my body. I still believed, somewhere, that I was losing my sanity - and if Kelsey had not been there to witness some of the things that had happened that day, I would surely have managed to convince myself they simply had never happened.
Because she was the calmer head at the time, Kelsey took the wheel of the Land Rover for the drive back to Santa Fe. We didn’t play music on the car stereo, because it seemed wrong somehow under the circumstances. Death required silence, did it not? We did talk, a lot, about what we’d seen, what it might have meant, and what could possibly be happening. I had the Saint Anthony of the Desert card out of my pocket and up on the dashboard in anticipation of a visit from the resident coyote psychopath, but none came.
Many questions came to us, but no answers. If Demetrio is dead, how can we see and feel him as though he were alive? Is he the coyote? Is he protecting us from the coyote? Does he live in the church, or just haunt it? Can ghosts haunt churches? When his grandfather said Demetrio was gone and didn’t live there anymore, did he know that the younger man was dead? If he really was dead, why was he still trying to get out of a gang? Did he know he was dead? Were the animals he carried around also dead? Did something happen to him after dark, or was that just an excuse he used to get away from us and turn into something else? Had he really been in the dream? Why did he sometimes speak ghetto and sometimes sound educated?
Then it hit me.
“Kelsey!” I screamed.
She jumped. “What? Maria! What is your problem? Don’t yell like that! God!”
“I know what’s going on.”
“Me, too. You’re yelling like an idiot and frightening the driver. That’s what’s going on. Please refrain from doing that again.”
“He’s faking it.” I turned my body toward her and smirked at my powers of reasoning.
“I’m sorry?”
“Demetrio. He faked his own death. Think about it. He’s trying to get out of a gang, but they don’t let you leave. They kill you if you leave. So he fakes his death, and they don’t have to kill him. That’s why he couldn’t let those guys see him, or us.”
She knit her brows in thought. “You know, Nancy Drew, that makes some kind of sense.”
“It makes a heck of a lot more sense than ghost stories, right?”
“Yes, of course. But why would he stay there? If he faked his death, he should do what all the other people who fake their deaths do, and move to Mexico, or Rio Rancho.”
“His grandpa,” I said, remembering how nicely put-together the old man was, and how awkward he was about talking about his grandson. “If Demetrio were really dead, the old man would have said that. But he didn’t. Demetrio probably takes care of him, and that’s why the old man didn’t say he was dead, exactly, because he probably doesn’t like to lie, but he didn’t want to give anything away, either.”
“Wow,” said Kelsey. “I know don’t exactly say this often, but I think you’re right.”
“He said those gang dudes are nocturnal, right? They do all their - whatever it is
they do -”
“Murder and mayhem.”
“Right. Whatever. They do it mostly at night. And Demetrio’s always hurrying to get home before dark. Kelsey! He doesn’t want them to see him! Right?”
“Wow. Yeah. You know what? I think you might be right. So who’s the other cross for?”
“I don’t know. Did you even read it?”
“No. You?”
“No. But I bet you whoever it is, they know he’s not really dead.”
By the time Kelsey pulled the Land Rover into the driveway of my father’s house, we had resolved to keep all of this a secret until we understood more what was going on. We holed up in my the crafting/Maria room, put the TV on for background noise, got into our pajamas, and spoke in whispers; we agreed that there was no way we could tell our parents, or even our friends at school, without looking crazy, or without them thinking we were in danger - which, under the circumstances, we probably were. My parents didn’t need to know about that.
Missy knocked on the door then, and told me the plumber was on the phone and wanted to talk to me. She held the phone with her fingertips, as though merely speaking to a plumber might make it septic. She seemed to think I was gross, like I’d seduced the plumber or something.
I took the phone, confused, and closed the door.
“Hello?”
“He’s probably a morboso,” said the plumber, without so much as a hello.
“A what?”
“A morboso. A damned spirit who cannot move on, and stays near the site of his violent and unexpected death. Sometimes, if something very emotional happens in that same area, they can be shaken out of where they are, and conjured up as morbosos that some people can see and feel and others can’t.”
“Okay.” I rolled my eyes at Kelsey, and couldn’t wait to hang up and tell her.
“If you crashed where he died, it makes perfect sense. We’ve heard stories like this before. It’s uncommon, but not unheard of. Morbosos have to keep feeding on other souls. Their own soul is damned for eternity, but they’re stuck and can’t move on, so they eat other souls. They eat souls. He might have been disappointed that you didn’t die in your accident, and he came to find you again because he wanted to set things right.”
“You mean he’s a ghost that wants to kill me?” I grinned stupidly at Kelsey, and twirled my finger at my temple in the “loco” motion. Kelsey rolled her eyes in agreement.
“Yes. In fact, you should check the public record about accidents around there. Could be he does this a lot, and lures people to their deaths to sustain his own suspended state of being.”
“What can be done?” I asked with a hand to my forehead like Scarlett O’Hara.
“Call me in the morning,” he said. “I’ll make some calls, and we’ll work out a plan. There are ways to protect yourself. Don’t worry. We’ll get you taken care of.”
I hung up and told Kelsey everything.
“Eat my soul?” I asked, mockingly.
“If you had one, that could be a real problem,” she joked back.
“This is absurd.”
“Totally.”
“People are insane.”
“Yup yup.”
We busied ourselves getting a snack, brushing our teeth, and getting ready for bed then. When she stayed over we both slept in the queen bed in the guest/crafting/Maria room. I turned off the light, and the TV, and we lay there in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the nighttime house. My father’s master wing was far from our wing, and the twins had been asleep for a while. There were the usual creaks and groans of a house settling, and the wind outside whipping through the branches of the many trees that surrounded the house.
“What if he’s not faking it, though?” I asked her. “What if he’s, like, actually dead?” I shuddered a little, with a grin because the premise was wholly impossible.
“Then I bet he was here watching us undress. Which is kinda cool, if you think about it.”
“Kelsey!”
“I hope so. He might want to eat your soul, and his friends might be creepy axe murderers, but he’s still freakin’ hot.”
“For a dead guy.”
We laughed.
“You’re crazy,” I told her.
“Look who’s talking,” she said. “Miss ‘morboso’s gonna eat my soul’, with plumbers calling her in the middle of the night. I wish a guy would want to eat me. You get all the fun.”
“Gross.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Seriously, do you think he’s here?” I asked, feeling a chill.
“Let’s ask him.”
We giggled a little, half girls and half women, trying to understand, but also trying to joke this thing away completely.
“Demetrio, if you’re here, give us a sign, come to me, come to me,” I said, utilizing the language and ghostly-dramatic voice of girlhood séances and sleepovers, and one too many Scooby-Doo episodes. “Woo-ooo, wooOOOO,” I added, for dramatic effect.
“Dork,” said Kelsey, kicking me under the blankets. “You’re lucky I like you, because if I didn’t, it’d be way too easy to make fun of you. Like, constantly.”
“You do that anyway,” I reminded her.
“Not nearly enough, though.”
We waited, and listened, and beneath the covers Kelsey reached out and grabbed my hand, the way we’d done as very young children, even as we giggled and pretended to be way too mature to believe any of the nonsense we were saying.
“Are you real?” she whispered. “You sexy dead cholo, you?”
“Help us to understand,” I said. “And forgive my horny friend.”
“Shut up.”
“What? You are. You’re such a wanton hussy,” I joked.
“Whatever. Hard to be a hussy when you haven’t had a date in more than a year.”
“Not for you.”
“Shut up.”
Again, we waited, and again, there was no sound. I grew drowsier, and though Kelsey and I tried to continue talking, we both kept dosing off, and jolting awake again to babble a little more.
“Just one little sign,” I said, finally, so, so sleepy. “Something to help me know I’m not crazy, and to tell me there are people in this world who can help me.”
With that, the faucet in the attached guest bathroom began to leak, loudly, as it had done that morning. Drip, drip, drip. Kelsey was already asleep, so I poked her. When that didn’t rouse her, I shook her.
“Do you hear that?”
“What?” she asked, groggily emerging from her slumber.
“The faucet! It’s leaking again. I asked him for a sign. It was leaking in the dream, or I heard the sound of it. Do you think it’s him?”
“If it is, he’s pretty damn annoying. Who the hell can sleep with that kind of noise going on all night? Apparently boys are as clueless about our needs dead as they are alive. All it shows is that the plumber your dad hired is as good at his job as he is at making up ghost stories. He sucks at both.” She buried her head under her pillow.
“I’ll shut the door,” I said, letting go of her hand and swinging one leg over the edge of the bed, to head to the bathroom. But I didn’t have to go any further, because as soon as I stood up and said “You should know better than to annoy girls like this, Demetrio,” the drip stopped. Just like that. Right on cue.
“Kelsey!” I hissed, hopping back into bed and burrowing into the covers.
“Ugh,” she grunted from under her pillow. “Leave me alone. I’m tired.”
“It stopped,” I whispered, pulling the pillow off her.
“What? Really?”
We lay in the quiet, listening to the astonishing, terrifying nothing.
“Coincidence?” I asked, tepidly, my heart racing.
“Bad plumbing,” she said. “Your dad acts all money, but he’s a cheap bastard.”
“Yeah.”
We lay in the dark, listening, freaked out, and scarcely breathing.
“Have I told you yet to
day how much I regret being your best friend?” she asked, scooting closer to me.
“No, but after the day we’ve had, I’ll assume it’s a given.”
♦
The sun was barely rising in a pink and turquoise glow behind the Sandia Mountains by the time I pulled into the long driveway at my mother’s house in the High Desert neighborhood the next morning. I’d left my father’s before dawn, because the dance team competition began at 8 a.m. in Albuquerque, and I needed to stop off at home first to get ready.
Like all other homes in the area, ours was large, but nestled discreetly into the natural desert landscape per zoning rules, with at least half an acre between it and the next closest house. Grass was forbidden up here as an environmental no-no, and the houses were restricted to either adobe or modern construction that blended into the sagebrush and juniper landscape. Ours was in the modern camp, two stories. It was situated in a small valley and wasn’t actually visible from the street. You had to pull into the driveway, and drive down a curved steep incline, around a few boulders and pine trees, before coming to the hidden four-car garage tucked tastefully out of sight, around the back side of the house. My mother found few things in life more repugnant than houses that looked to be “all garage” from the street.
Strangely, as I pulled along the driveway, a hawk circled overhead and swooped down as though it meant to crash into the windshield. I braked, hard, and it flapped around the car for a moment, before swooping to the ground and taking flight again, with a big juicy mouth in its beak. Ah, so that was it. Hunger was a great and universal motivator.
After parking the Land Rover in the garage between my mother’s champagne pink Lexus sedan and her baby blue Audi convertible, I went through the door that led to the mud room, used the powder room there, and then scaled the stairs that led directly to the kitchen pantry and laundry room area. I heard the comforting thump of clothes tumbling in the dryer, and knew my mother was up and waiting for me. This filled me with dread, because I had a hard time lying to her, and knew I’d have to.
I found her at the industrial-grade metal table, in her black gym clothes, her shoulder-length black bob tied back in a low ponytail. She was eating her usual banana and plain organic yogurt, while reading the Wall Street Journal. She greeted me with a smile and asked me how I had slept. She asked me this every morning, and every morning I said fine. Then I asked her the same question, and she tended to answer in the same way. Today she asked if I was ready for the competition, and I said yes. She asked about my night at my dad’s, and I answered as vaguely as possible. Pleasantry upon pleasantry.
