“Why doesn’t Rolando pick you up from work?”
“He’s a bartender,” Jose says. That explains a lot. “So I walk along this big street, and then I get this feeling that something is following me. I get closer to home, and this feeling of dread fills me.”
“And?”
“This little stretch of road that connects Westheimer to my apartment. This is where the thing starts to follow me.”
“Have you ever seen it?”
“Yes. It’s hard to describe,” Jose says, rubbing his head with his hand, trying to stimulate thought.
“Look, I understand it’s hard, but I have to know what it is. Otherwise, I won’t be able to help you.”
“Okay,” Jose says, massaging his left bicep with his right hand.
This smaller road only goes a quarter-mile, and it wallows in a murky darkness. Garbage fills the ditch alongside it. The sidewalk is cracked with no indication of future repair. There’s no more sound from Westheimer.
“It’s when I walk on this sidewalk that I hear them—these footsteps—clack-clack-clack,” Jose says.
Xitlali can sense the fear running up his spine. Blood rushes into his head, reddening his ears and cheeks. “And what do you see?”
“I’m going to sound insane.”
“Mira, I’ve seen and heard crazy. Digame.”
“I-I look back and there’s this . . . this dog. A brown-coated, white-bellied pit bull with a human face . . . this face of extreme grief. It follows me, and it’s crying. What’s making the clacking sound are the heels it’s wearing. Bright red heels. It can walk perfectly in them, on all fours. It’s sashaying, dancing even, like it’s mocking my fear.” Jose trembles, a sheen of sweat on his face.
Xitlali nods. “Yes. I can feel a dark presence here. Let me inspect the area.” She pulls a flashlight from her bag and uses it to illuminate sections of the sidewalk, like a prison guard searching for a convict. There it is: another white cross, surrounded by McDonald’s wrappers, cigarette butts, and tall weeds. Xitlali approaches it and feels her pulse quicken, skin becoming cold. Yes, this is it. The cross has something written on it, smudged by time and rain: Gabriel Mendez. Xitlali is light-headed from the hunger and humidity and finds it harder and harder to think. Virgen, ayúdame, porfa. Dame la fuerza.
“Pues, Jose, I think I know what’s happening. There was a death here—an unresolved one. Many dark feelings have lingered here and grown. It seems someone mourned this death for a moment, but not enough to give this spirit peace.” Xitlali rubs her temples to ward off the forming migraine. “Could be because people around here move a lot. Or they lost hope.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“You’re already spiritually fatigued and carry traumas. That makes it easy for this spirit to feed off your fear and pain,” Xitlali says. I know, joven, because I, too, have a past to reconcile. Who am I to lecture anyone on that? “You being tired after work and the fear the night instills in you make it easier for this spirit to take advantage. It’s why it manifests into our reality, wearing the heels from your nightmare. It knows what gets to you. I will give this spirit peace. However, you have to make peace with whatever is happening in you, or it’ll only be a matter of time before something else happens. I can’t help you with that, but I know you can do it. You must. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I understand,” Jose says.
“Bueno. I need you to help me purify this space.”
Xitlali takes the holy water from a vial on her neck and sprinkles it over the cross. She pulls some of the weeds out and collects the garbage from the ground. Jose, as instructed, places candles around the cross and lights them. Xitlali says her prayer: “May God bless this space, la Virgen ayúdanos, porfa, forever and always, con safos, safos, safos.” She takes the sage from her other necklace vial and burns it so it emits a fragrant smoke. She hands a piece to Jose, then makes the sign of the cross on herself, thumb touching left shoulder, right shoulder, forehead, and heart, then a kiss to seal it all in.
When they’re done, Xitlali can sense Jose’s energy lift from his new peace of mind. She has him sign forms and gives him her bill.
Later, after she’s dropped Jose at his apartment complex, she sits in her car for a while to write notes.
I see more and more of these crosses along the streets. How many have been forgotten? How many spirits linger within the streets, within their cracks? As more of these traumas happen and stay unresolved, the more these restless spirits will roam within our reality and demand our attention, using our fear and anger. This spirit was more grotesque than usual and knew Jose’s traumas, even though Jose did not seem to know the name on the cross. Are these spirits becoming more desperate to agitate us?
Xitlali reaches down to take off her work shoes. She gets another call. She sighs.
“Bueno?”
“Curandera Zaragoza, we have another assignment.”
“I can’t. I’m exhausted,” Xitlali says, running her fingers through her hair.
“This is an emergency. You’re the only one who can handle this case.”
Puta madre. “It can’t wait?”
“It’s a woman and her children, and they’re desperate.”
Evil never rests. I can’t turn down a mother and her kids. I wouldn’t sleep.
“Digame,” Xitlali says.
“Trailer park out near Spring called Strawberry Glen. Contact’s name is Petra Ruiz. Three daughters. Recently separated from her husband.”
Fucking Spring? “Got it.”
Xitlali leans her head back and breathes in deeply. She turns on the car, opens a vial and sniffs the sage inside, rubs the exhaustion from her eyes, and drives. She looks at the road in front of her rather than at the spot where the picture of her daughter used to be.
* * *
During her drive, the purple sky becomes black. Xitlali has never been to this part of town before. She had heard about these recently established communities on the outskirts of Houston, where many Latinx families, immigrants and nonimmigrants, settled down to provide underpaid labor and expendable energy to the growing needs of white middle-class suburbs of Spring, the Woodlands, etc. At its outer edge, separated from the rest of the suburb by a band of tall pine trees, is the trailer park where her next client lives. The trailer park is so new that there are still logs stacked from all the freshly cleared trees, and proper streetlights haven’t yet been installed. Generators on wheels power scattered lamps throughout the dark plot. Cicadas scream through the hot night. Xitlali can imagine who lives here: the cooks and busboys that work in Spring’s restaurants, and the women who clean the mansions and schools. They live close enough to get to work, but far enough for those who benefit from their work to feel safe.
Xitlali drives slowly around the trailers, trying not to linger too much and cause concern. She doesn’t have to wander long. A woman sits outside the trailer with her three daughters in patio chairs, weeping, her tears falling into her bowled hands.
“Señora Ruiz? Are you Petra Ruiz?” Xitlali asks, getting out of her car.
“Sí, sí. Gracias a Dios,” Petra cries, shaking Xitlali’s right hand with both her own.
“Señora Ruiz, por favor, let’s go back inside. It’s very dark out here.”
“No. No me meto con mis hijas. It’s not safe in there.”
The oldest daughter, around fourteen years old, has a sheathed machete in her lap, the handle resting in the grip of her bitty fingers. She looks restless, eyes peering far into the night and her torso rocking back and forth in her blue pajamas. Her aura is dim and purple. Her sisters are playing near the trailer’s little light, shrouded in moths, giggling as they serve invisible tea at a small pink table. Their auras are bright and yellow, oblivious to what’s happening.
Xitlali remembers her daughter at that age. She didn’t play with tea sets, but collected crystals and spent hours organizing them, naming them, enchanting them, getting to know each and every one. She
used to beg Xitlali to bring her more during her supply runs. Then, at some point, she stopped. She turned fourteen and said she didn’t want a quinceañera. She would argue with Xitlali about it and give her that look—staring at nothing, especially not at her mother. Once she left a crystal on the windowsill, burning in the sun. That’s when Xitlali knew: her daughter didn’t want this work. She showed it through little things: not watering her herbs, her crystals gathering dust, her eyes rolling when Xitlali tried to teach her prayers. Until she left for college. And then, well . . . Xitlali forced herself to stop this train of thought, pulling out her notepad and pen. Anyways.
“Let’s begin. The sooner we finish, the sooner everyone can go back to sleep.”
“Bueno,” Señora Ruiz says. “Okay, pues, let’s not talk too close to mis hijas. Mijas, voy a hablar con la curandera. Aqui voy estar. No se mueven de aquí.”
“Sí, ’amá,” they say in unison.
Xitlali and Petra walk to the end of the trailer. Petra leans against it and takes out a pack of cigarettes. She offers one to Xitlali before putting one between her lips and lighting it with a match. Her aura is thick and pulsating with anxiety, mostly purple and bordered with red.
“Pues, mi marido left about . . . hace two weeks, ya.” Petra’s eyes fill with tears. She wipes them away and takes a puff of her cigarette. “Y, pues, this started a week after he left.”
“What happened?”
“On Monday, I came back into my house after seeing mis hijas off at the bus stop for school. I was getting ready for work, when I felt this presence watching me.” Petra takes another drag of her cigarette, her exhaled smoke resembling a ghost’s hand moving through the air. The smell of the smoke exacerbates Xitlali’s headache. “I couldn’t shake the feeling. Like someone invisible was standing in the corner, watching me. I thought I could even see it in the corners of my eyes, sabes?”
“Lo siento, but what do you do for a living?”
“I clean houses in the neighborhood nearby.”
“Okay. Go on,” Xitlali says, marking in her pad. Typical work around here, I hear. I’ve been there.
“Sí, pues, it got worse as the week went on. While we were sleeping, I’d wake up to hear breathing that didn’t belong to my daughters. When I looked into the darkness, the breathing stopped, as though to hide itself. Soon, things started falling off the walls, and I started having these headaches that make me imagine the craziest things, like my daughters dying. Or from back when my own mother was sick—I think about her dying and I can see her right in front of me, dying all over again, with her graying skin and cracking voice. I’m scared it’ll get worse. Mi hija, mi mundo, my oldest tonight started crying, and I asked her, Qué pasa, mi linda? She couldn’t tell me. What if she’s seeing the same things? Tonight, she woke up screaming, saying she had a horrible nightmare that she doesn’t want to tell me about. I brought the girls out here and called your agency. Ay, Señora Zaragoza, I can’t let it get any worse. There’s something muy, muy evil in this trailer.” Petra’s cigarette is now two inches of ash, ready to crumble. She struggles to get another from her pocket.
“And this all started happening after your husband left?”
“Sí, señora. Where is he? He would know what to do. I can’t afford to move out of here alone.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, why did your husband leave?”
“Pues, la verdad es que . . . there’s a lot of reasons. He had problems with drinking and he didn’t like this place because it’s so small, and we started to argue a lot. What made him leave was that I told him my boss, un güero, kissed me and asked me to have sex with him. I said no, of course, but he made me promise not to tell his wife. Yo no digo nada a ella. I don’t want any trouble, me entiendes?”
Ah, I see. She’s powerless at work.
“My husband told me to quit, but I said that we just moved here. The schools are good in this neighborhood and mis hijas deserve that. It reached a point where, when he got drunk, he would keep bringing it up. He said if I wasn’t going to quit or let him confront my boss, it would hurt him as a husband and man. I said no, qué no, and, well, se fue.”
Shit. It goes beyond the workplace. The source is her boss, but the chain continues at home. “I see. Bueno, whatever is making you see these visions could be something strong at work. I will investigate. Your husband may be involved. You don’t know if he’s come back? Like while you are at work?”
“I wouldn’t know. Mis hijas stay with a neighbor until I get home from work at six en la noche.”
He can come and go as he pleases. “Okay, I’m going inside.”
Xitlali enters the trailer. She turns on the light and it gives a yellow tint to everything in the room. The trailer is small: a kitchen area with a sink, table, and hot plates; living room area with a love seat, shag rug, and HD television; and the bedroom area where futons and blankets are spread across the floor, disheveled from sleep. Xitlali sees that all the pictures on the walls are warped and worn, and all the crosses look loose, ready to fall. The good thing about this case is there isn’t much to inspect. She’s tempted by the tortillas on the counter and the soft blankets on the floor. All the day’s fatigue spreads through her muscles and bones like a possession. She has the urge to sit down, just for five minutes. Get it together, floja! Porfa, ayúdame Dios.
In the bedroom area, Xitlali feels a presence—a strong energy pushing against her. The energy travels up her arm, into her head, as though someone put a wet cloth on her brain. Not good at all. I can see how they get visions. To someone not ready for this, it’ll cause some bad shit. I have to find the source. Xitlali looks under the futons and on the walls to see if there’s any point of connection for a spirit or a conduit of evil energy. Right there! On a wall next to the futons, there is a hanging black-velvet blanket with a snow tiger majestically standing at the top of a mountain. Xitlali notices a bulge near the bottom, where the blanket meets the floor. She lifts the blanket and sees an egg.
The egg is white and seems to be breathing, the shell straining and relaxing, almost seeming to emit a wheezing sound. Xitlali taps on it, and a muffled sound resonates. She grabs the egg and its shell seems to stiffen, as if it doesn’t like being touched. It feels less like a shell than a layer of warm skin. What the hell is this thing? Xitlali picks at the shell. The white peels off and the egg begins bleeding. The egg’s energy surges through her body. Fuck! She feels it release more energy. She can’t fight it . . .
I can see someone, off in the white distance. It’s my daughter! I see her as she is now. She’s so gorgeous. Her brown hair is long, reaching down to her lower back. She’s aging like me, Dios mio. I don’t miss her father’s nose. She’s wearing nice jeans and a green sweater. Ay, she’s always wearing the wrong thing! It’s summer! Ay, mija, why do you always wear a sweater in the summer? Pues, I guess it doesn’t matter. She’s here! Mi vida, she’s here! She seems to be talking to people. I’m going to walk up to her and surprise her. Mija! It’s me! Tu mamá, la unica qué tienes, mi vida! Dígame! Tell me everything. Oh, how I’ve missed you. Digame todo. Qué pasa? What are you doing now? Where do you work? Where do you live? Are you seeing anyone? You’re not married, are you? And your studies? Hey, por que . . . why are you looking at me like that? That’s no way to look at your only mother. Twelve years and this is how we start? No me mires asi. Mija, where are you going? Where have you been? Please, mija. Don’t go. If I reach out to you, will you hold me? I’m trying to hug you, mija, but you only go farther away. Please stop looking at me like that. Please stop going away. I can’t take it. No seas cruel, mija. I can’t see your face. I can’t. I can’t—
Someone bangs at the trailer door. Xitlali opens her eyes and finds herself lying on the floor, on the blankets.
“Señora Zaragoza! Is everything okay?”
“Yes!” How long was I out? Holy shit, that was strong. Xitlali sits up and rubs the tears from her face. She sees the egg lying where she dropped it, on the
blanket next to her. Whoever did this really wanted this family gone.
She takes a pair of tweezers from her bag and uses them to remove the tiny doll from the vial on her necklace. She places the doll on top of the egg, says a bendición, and gives the doll time to absorb the egg’s energy. Then she burns sage near the doll and egg. The smoke surrounds the egg but doesn’t touch it, pushed away by dark energy. Xitlali waits a bit, then uses the tweezers to pick up the doll and hold it near the burning sage. Like the egg, the doll repels the smoke. The energy transfer was a success.
She puts the doll back into the vial. She puts the egg in a black pouch with sage, rosemary, and hierba santa. She blesses both, egg and doll.
As Xitlali steps out of the trailer, she thinks about advising Señora Ruiz to leave. But she knows that if the woman could do so, she would’ve already. There’s no use telling her the obvious. There’s only so much we can come to terms with. Así es . . .
Instead, she says, “Someone cursed an egg and placed it near your beds, Señora Ruiz. It was a strong curse, done by someone either inexperienced or evil. Your daughter must have slept too close to it tonight, causing her nightmares. I got rid of it, but someone put it there. I don’t want to say it’s your husband, but that’s the only person I can think of. He may have paid someone to place the curse. I don’t know. What I’m saying is, it’s gone for now, but he might do it again. You need to talk to him and tell him he’s hurting your daughters.”
Houston Noir Page 9
