Marisol Guzman shut her bedroom door behind her so
hard the walls shook. She fell face-down
onto her bed in tears. She didn’t know
if her mother could hear her crying – part of her hoped she could.
A sophomore at Universidad Autónoma de Santa Ana, she had a full load
of courses and worked full-time waiting tables at Café Tejas on avenida
independencia. She’d been saving for a
long weekend vacation with her best friend, Ana del Castillo, for several
weeks. Marisol had been anticipating the
trip since they planned it just before that.
Now a cruel memory, she recalled when the trip first came up – Ana had
burst into the women’s restroom at the restaurant to give her the news,
beaming.
“Mari!”
Marisol
nearly jumped out of her skin as she checked her make-up in the mirror. “You scared me half to death, puta!”
“Sorry
sorry sorry. I just ran into my cousin
Benito and he said that he and Carlos are going to Lago de Amatitlán for All Souls’ Day!”
“Lago
de Amatitlán?”
“In
Guatemala, Mari.”
Marisol
sighed. “Good for Benito. Now get out of my way; I have tables to serve.”
Ana
coolly waited for Marisol to pass her and open the door before telling her the
rest of her news in a sing-song voice.
“He
said Tomás will be there.”
Marisol
stopped in her tracks. Ana grinned but
made sure to put on an aloof expression before Marisol turned back around.
“Tomás
from Geology?”
“No,
Tomás Jefferson, idiota. Of course Tomás
from Geology.”
Marisol
paused. “Does your father still have
that piece of shit Chevy he lets you drive?”
“Mhmm. And it’s springtime weather all year round.”
“I’d
need to get a new bathing suit.”
“Does
that mean we’re going?”
“And
I’d have to pick up some extra shifts for motel fare and food even if we split
it.”
“Does
that mean we’re going?”
Marisol
turned over the math in her head before finally an excited smile spread across
her face. “You better get ready to see
this hot bitch in a bikini!”
The
girls grabbed each other’s hands and tried not to squeal. After that, Marisol picked up every extra
shift she could. She got a new swimsuit,
set aside money for motel, gas, food and drinks and counted the days until All
Souls’ Day weekend. Now, three days
before the trip, her mother made the worst statement of Marisol’s young adult life.
“Your
abuelita fell in the bathtub and I have to go to Ciudad Barrios to look after
her this weekend, so I need you to take your brother to Guatemala with you and
Ana.”
She
screamed and fought, but in the end Marisol was stuck with her baby brother, Little
Miguel. They called him Little Miguel
because he was named after his father, Miguel Guzman, who apparently couldn’t
look after Little Miguel because he was stuck working all weekend. Yeah
right, Marisol thought, wiping the tears from her eyes. He probably
heard mama had to visit Abuelita Rosa and volunteered to work the extra hours. The only consolation was that Mari’s parents
were giving her money to cover her brother and then a bit extra for the
trouble. She was glad to have some extra
spending cash but it didn’t do much for her mood, especially with her thoughts
dwelling on Tomás.
To
make matters worse, Ana was thrilled to have Little Miguel come along. Ana loved him, since she’d always wanted a
little brother. From the time Ana picked
them up in her father’s Chevy until they approached the east side of the
lake, Marisol’s unhappiness with her brother was only exacerbated by how well
Ana treated him. Mari soon found herself
angry at the six-year-old taking up her front passenger seat. She stared at his shaggy, curly black hair
from behind and when he talked, she could almost hear how losing some of his
baby teeth had affected his voice. By
the time they’d checked in and got to their room, Marisol had to stop herself
from throwing her bags onto the floor.
Her brother followed her into the room and started jumping on the bed.
“Miguel!
Stop, dammit!”
He ignored her.
“Miguelito, now!”
Something clicked and he realized she meant
business. He stopped jumping on the bed,
so she took a seat in a nearby chair and took her smartphone out and started
looking at her Instagram.
“Good job.
Now sit down on the bed; I don’t wanna hear a sound out of you for like
an hour. Play your DS or something.”
Ana crashed on her bed and her thumbs flew all
over the screen of her smartphone rapidly.
Before long she was giggling and taking selfies to post on her
Facebook. Both girls knew they were
waiting for word from Ana’s cousin that the boys had arrived so they could all
meet up. In the meantime, there wasn’t
much to say. As time passed, Marisol
occasionally peeked up at her brother.
He drew in coloring books, played video games and made up scenes with
his action figures. Some of them were
even funny in that way that kids’ stories are – always awkwardly paced, no
context and sometimes using surprisingly grown-up dialogue or themes. Marisol chuckled. Little
weirdo, she thought. Maybe she’d
been too hard on him.
After what felt like an eternity, Ana’s text
notification went off again and this time she shot up out of bed.
“They’re here!”
* * *
Marisol and Miguel followed Ana into the
restaurant. Ana’s cousin Benito,
Benito’s friend Carlos and Tomás
had already gotten a table; they flagged the girls down and Marisol made sure
that the new dress she got with her extra money was on straight before rounding
the corner around the hostess’s station.
Then
her heart sank.
Tomás
was sitting next to a girl – a pretty girl with cropped black hair and
reddish-purple highlights in a tube top shirt.
She was laughing at something Tomás had said and she playfully slapped
his bicep. Marisol did her best to stay
chipper, but the emotional rollercoaster of the last week exhausted her and it
was an uphill battle.
Introductions
were made as the girls and Miguel sat at the table. The other girl’s name was Carmen, a local who
Tomás and Benito met while shopping at a nearby convenience store. She was a cashier there and the guys had
asked her to be their unofficial tour guide.
It was clear that Tomás and Benito were both interested in her. Marisol had begun regretting the entire
trip. She’d spent as much time quietly
thinking about what else she could’ve done with her time and money as she did
talking to anybody. She was idly poking
her salad around with her fork when Miguel said he had to go use the
bathroom. She nodded her head upwards
and towards the restroom, gesturing Go
ahead.
“Don’t
wander off too far, little man,” Carmen teased while looking at her
fingernails, “or La Llorona will get you.”
Miguel stopped dead in his tracks. So did the conversation at the table.
“The fuck?”
“Who?”
“La what?”
“La Llorona,” Carmen repeated. “Everyone knows about the ‘weeping woman,’
yes?”
Miguel trotted over to Marisol and hid behind
her. Carmen looked around the table
waiting for a reaction. When none came,
she sighed in mock exasperation.
“Don’t they teach you nothing in El Salvador?”
“They teach us not to stare at our fingernails at
the dinner table; it’s rude,” Marisol said.
She hadn’t meant to say it; it just slipped out. Ana laughed and slapped her shoulder; the
boys chuckled and cooed in response to the burn. Carmen reddened and refocused her attention
on Miguel.
“You want to hear about La Llorona, Miguel?”
Miguel nodded shyly from behind his sister.
“Once there was a beautiful woman named María who lived in Guatemala. Some say she lived in Quetzaltenango, to the
west, but all of us locals know she really
lived right here in Amatitlán.”
“She
lived in the lake?” Miguel asked.
Carmen
laughed warmly at him to win his attention.
“No, the lake is named after the town
Amatitlán, which is on the
western edge of the lake just two miles from here. Anyway, María was married to a handsome trapper and together they had
four children – Alejandro, Camila, Valentina...and Miguel.”
Marisol
heard her brother gasp and she rolled her eyes and scoffed. She could tell Carmen didn’t know any of the
kids’ names but she let her keep going.
She was still angry about how the vacation had played out, confused
about her jealousy of Carmen and Tomás, bored of Ana’s and Benito’s endless
“Remember when” talk since they sat down.
“One
day María’s husband came
home from trading his furs and kills in El Obrajuelo just like usual and he
told María he had met a
woman there. Younger and prettier than María, the two began seeing each other and
they had fallen in love and were going to have a baby together. So he packed up his things and left her alone
with their children and some money to get by.
He promised he’d come by sometimes with money and supplies and to see
his and María’s babies, and
even though she told him she never wanted to see him again and that she didn’t
need his charity, he still visited. Only
every time he visited, it made María angrier and angrier to see him.”
The
table was silent. Carmen held a hand out
to Miguel, and as if in a trance, he slunk out from behind his sister and
approached her, offering her hands. She
brought him in close and continued her story.
“Now
remember I told you the lake is named after the town Amatitlán?”
Miguel nodded. “It’s because the
town of Amatitlán is so
close that they just named the lake ‘The Lake of Amatitlán.’
In fact, it’s so close you could walk to the lake from town. So since María was crazy with anger and jealousy, and her idiota husband visiting
their lakeside town every other weekend, do you know what she did?”
“Did
she drown him in the lake?”
“No,
silly boy, nothing like that,” Carmen said, comforting him. She paused for dramatic effect, taking a sip
of her ice water, then holding Miguel close.
“She drowned her children in
the lake.”
Miguel
shrieked and wrestled free of her grasp.
Carmen feigned surprise at his fear.
Carlos, Benito and Tomás all sighed or cringed in discomfort. Ana crossed herself and mumbled a
blessing. Marisol was still annoyed as
she comforted her brother, but she felt like if she told Carmen to stop her
story, everyone would think Marisol was scared and tease her. Worse, she felt like Carmen would win.
“Soon
she snapped out of her anger and realized what she’d done. María was so angry with herself that she filled her pockets full
of stones and waded into the water and drowned herself. Suddenly, her eyes opened and she was at the
gates of Heaven but St. Peter stopped her at the entrance. ‘Where are your children?’ he asked her. ‘Where are your children?’ Since she didn’t know where they could have
gone, she didn’t have an answer, so St. Peter told María that she wouldn’t be allowed into the
afterlife until she found them. Then he
sent her back down to the Earth, her spirit reborn as La Llorona, to look for
her children. He sent her here, to Lago
de Amatitlán, where her
ghost still searches for her drowned babies.
They say if you listen close at night you can hear her crying from the
lake as she wanders – ‘Mis hijos! Mis
hijos!’
“But
over the years, La Llorona has become so desperate to leave the lake that every
once in a while, she grabs a little boy or girl who gets out of bed at night or
wanders around when they aren’t supposed to, hoping that she can trick St.
Peter into thinking it’s one of her little ones. So don’t wander off, Miguelito, or La Llorona
may snatch you up.”
Her
story finished, Carmen’s apparent spell over the table was broken. Everyone quickly realized with the
supernatural element of the story that in all likelihood, the entire story was
probably made up. There had never even been
a María, of that they now
felt certain – everyone except Little Miguel Guzman. Marisol smelled something foul and turned
around and looked at her brother, who was making a small puddle on the floor.
“Jesucristo
Miguel!” Marisol groaned. The rest of
the table reacted empathetically to the boy wetting his pants; an embarrassed
Miguel began to cry. “C’mon, let’s get
you back to the room to change.” She
stood and picked him up and turned back to say goodbye when she noticed Tomás
stood anxiously from his seat.
“I
can help him,” Tomás said. “I mean,
since you can’t go in the men’s bathroom, I can at least help him get cleaned
up here first. It may be more
comfortable for him until he can get changed.”
Tomás addressed Miguel. “Hey,
capitán, you want to get dry quicker?”
From
her shoulder, she heard Miguel mumble, “Llorona…”
Tomás
stifled a laugh. “Don’t worry about La
Llorona. I’ll stay real close to you the
whole time, ok?”
After
a pause, Miguel nodded and Marisol set him down. As Miguel crossed over to Tomás, Marisol
reached out to Tomás and grabbed his hand and squeezed it, mouthing an emphatic
“Thank you!” Tomás smiled warmly and
nodded back to her before disappearing into the bathroom with Miguel, talking
the whole way in the manner that adults kindly and without malice patronize
children. Marisol sat back down and she
and Carmen exchanged glares.
Looks like you have your work cut out
for you, bitch, Marisol
thought.
Good luck getting him to sleep tonight,
puta, Carmen thought.
* *
*
When
Marisol was sure that Miguel was asleep, she crept out of their room and
crossed the parking lot to Benito’s van where everyone was waiting for
her. She knocked on the sliding door and
it opened, smoke billowing out and upwards, drifting over the roof of the
vehicle to the moonlit sky above. Carlos
giggled at the sight; Ana chided him for failing to roll the windows down
earlier so the smoke could leave the van less conspicuously.
“Estúpido;
someone will think the van’s on fire!”
This
made him laugh harder.
“Mari,
come in and take a hit before we finish smoking all this shit without
you!” Marisol was surprised that Carmen
had warmed so much to her, but between her glassy eyes and the empty beer
bottles clinking around on the floor of the van, it made sense.
Marisol
leaned into the van, her feet still planted firmly on the blacktop of the
parking lot, and wrapped her lips around the joint that Carmen held out to
her. She took a significant drag off it
and held her breath. Nearly everyone
waved her in, except Benito, who seemed incredibly zoned out. Marisol shook her head.
“I
gotta –“ The smoke caught in her lungs
and she coughed for a long time, much to the amusement of everyone in the
van. When she recovered, she felt
stoned. Oh great, she thought. I was hoping for a smoother transition.
“I
gotta keep an eye on the room in case Miguelito wakes up,” she said.
“Stop
worrying so much; he’ll be fine,” Carmen said.
Ana stood up for Marisol.
“Mari’s
probably right,” Ana said. “If she has a
feeling Miguel should be in eyesight, maybe he should.”
Carmen
dismissed the conversation and reached for a beer from the cooler. Tomás noticed this and decided to reach out
to Marisol. He could tell she was upset
about something – probably having to take her brother with her – and he hated
seeing people so down. He grabbed two
beers from the cooler and got out of his seat, moving carefully through his
friends and towards the door.
“Where
you going Tomás?” somebody asked.
“The
night air feels pretty nice,” he said.
“Maybe I should step out and breathe in something a little less
pungent.”
“It’s
just weed, Tomás!” Carlos said.
“I
was talking about that little matchstick you call a dick, pendejo! Why don’t you rinse that fuckin’ thing off
sometime?”
Everybody
laughed except Carlos, who looked humorously down at his crotch. “I showered yesterday…”
Upon
exiting the van, Tomás handed a beer to Marisol. She held it curiously and then he remembered
it wasn’t a twist-off. He retrieved his
green Bic lighter from his rear pocket and opened both their beers then leaned his
back against the front door of the van.
“Thanks,”
she said.
“How
are you liking Geology?”
“It’s…”
Marisol searched for polite words but soon they were both laughing.
“Boring
as shit,” Tomás said.
“Right?! Oh my God; I feel like I spend half the class
poking myself in the face with a pen to stay awake.”
They
both laughed and took sips of their beers.
“What’s
your major?” she asked.
He
shrugged. “I don’t know yet. You?”
“Business,”
she said. “I want to run my own business
after I graduate.”
“What
kind of business?”
“Sex
toy store.”
Tomás
nearly spit out his beer.
“Or a
brothel,” she said.
“Like
a whorehouse?”
“More
like a whore Wal-Mart.”
He
laughed. “Ooh! You could advertise a ‘buy one poke one free’
sale!”
“Nah,
man. ’Everyday ho prices guaranteed,’”
she said.
When
they stopped laughing, she remembered her brother and cast a furtive glance to
the door and window of their room.
“Thanks
again for helping out with Miguel earlier,” she said. “You’re his new best friend, y’know. You may be stuck with him for life.”
“He’s
a good kid,” Tomás said.
“He’s
a little shit,” Marisol said jokingly.
“Any
news about your abuela?”
Marisol
checked her phone. “No. I think mom would have called if something
serious were happening.”
Tomás
nodded towards her room. “It’s really
good of you to watch him for your parents.”
“I
mean, it’s the least I can do…”
“They
made you, didn’t they?”
“Oh
yeah.” Again they both laughed.
The
door slid open behind them and they both jumped. It was Ana.
“Mari,
I think Benny’s having a pretty bad high.
Carlos is gonna take him down for a walk around the lake; can you help?”
“I
can’t, Ana, I –“
“I
can stay here and watch for Miguel if you want,” Tomás said.
“No,
no, it’s sweet of you to volunteer again but Miguelito will lose it if he can’t
see me. And I couldn’t ask you to watch
him again.”
“It’s
no trouble,” he said.
“Thank
you. Even still, I really need to stay
here. What about Carmen?”
“She
passed out,” Ana said.
“Too
bad,” Marisol replied, not feeling the least bit upset about that.
Ana
turned to Tomás. He knew what she was
going to ask before she said a word.
* *
*
“Marisol?”
Miguel
woke up thirsty for water – so thirsty he could barely speak. He realized with a start that he was alone in
the room. Carmen’s story came back to
him and he froze. After a moment, he
heard what sounded like two women’s voices and he remembered that Carmen said
if you listened you could hear La Llorona crying for her children. But he realized since there were two voices,
they had to belong to real people. He
crept out of bed and cautiously looked out the window to their motel room. He spied Benito’s van in the parking lot –
and Marisol and Ana sitting on its hood, talking. In a way he was comforted, but now that he
had a goal in sight he was terrified and desperate to get to it.
In a
flash he was at the door. He twisted the
knob and ran out of the room.
“Mari!”
Marisol
spun around and acted as sober as she could.
“Hey, Miguel! We just stepped out
to, y’know, talk…”
He
seemed spooked. Fucking Carmen, Marisol thought.
Miguel was closing the distance between them quickly.
“It’s
ok, buddy; I’m right…”
Miguel
stopped in his tracks and his face got calm.
“…here,”
Marisol said. She started walking
towards him instinctively. “Miguel?”
He
blinked and a black wisp of shadow the size of an adult human appeared behind
him and reached his back, then disappeared along with him just as quickly,
leaving only a quickly-dispersing mist of gunpowder black in its wake. The entire thing happened in a half a second. Miguel Guzman had vanished.
“Miguel!!!” Marisol screamed. She ran to where he had been. Ana was shrieking. The last of the vapor trail dissipated just
as Marisol reached it. She threw her
hands out and felt through the air, as if her brother were merely invisible but
still within arms’ reach. She called his
name several times as Ana collapsed on the parking lot in a fit of hysterical
tears, skinning her knee on old asphalt.
It
was no use. He was gone. Marisol scanned the horizon for any sign of
him, still refusing to believe what she’d seen.
Her brain scrambled for a rational explanation but found none. Had she imagined the whole thing? No, Ana saw it too. Could two people imagine the same thing at
the same time? She ran to the motel
room, flipped the light switch on and ripped the sheets off Miguel’s bed. No luck.
She
ran back out to the parking lot, to the van, guided by loosely-formed notions
of finding her brother. Maybe she could
drive down around the lake if he’d somehow moved (or run, or – Jesus,
flew? Been transported?) down there
somewhere. But no keys were in the
ignition, which meant one of the boys had them.
The boys, she thought. Oh my
God.
Marisol
scooped Ana up from the floor and started walking her briskly to the path that
led to the lake. “Come on, Ana.”
“Where
are we going?”
“I
don’t know. But we have to find –“
The
call came from the lake bed and froze the girls stiff. “Benny?
Where’d you get to now, puto?” Then another voice. “Benito? Stop playing games, man! Don’t make me leave your ass out here!”
Marisol
and Ana called out as loudly as they could, beginning their panic and tears
anew. They heard a quick and frantic
exchange from Carlos and Tomás, somewhere in the dark, then hurried
footsteps. Moments later, Tomás arrived,
followed by…
No
one.
“Wasn’t
Carlos with you?!” Ana asked frantically.
“Yeah,”
Tomás said, spinning around. “He’s
right…”
Tomás’s
gaze shifted around quickly.
“Carlos?” He took a jogging step
or two to start running back to the lake to find Carlos but Marisol and Ana
screamed for him not to go and the terror in their voices stopped him.
“What’s
going on?” Tomás asked. “Why are you so
upset?”
Marisol
and Ana both tried to recount their story as quickly as they could, speaking
over each other in hurried and half-screaming tones of horror. They’d barely gotten a word out before Tomás
started shaking his head and drawing a breath to tell them to slow down. In that moment, the black wisp came for Tomás
just as it had for Miguel, but this time it was inches from their faces. A faint breeze reminiscent of freshwater and
seaweed reached Marisol’s and Ana’s faces and both girls clasped both their
hands over their mouths, instantly shocked silent and motionless.
With
eyes like saucers, they slowly turned towards each other. Neither of them wanted to blink. Neither of them wanted to move. Neither of them wanted to breathe. Seconds passed like hours. In her state, Ana almost idly realized that
the only thing left to know was which of them would go first. She didn’t know that Marisol was thinking the
same thing. Then Ana felt a strange,
grainy tickling at her back. Then Ana
felt nothing.
Carmen’s
first waking thought was that she was in danger. Disoriented as she was in the dark van, she
knew Marisol was charging at her enraged.
Carmen raised her hands in defense and closed her eyes. She felt one hand grip her hair – a lot of her hair – and another hand grab
the waistline of her jeans at the back.
Marisol dragged Carmen kicking and screaming out of the van and threw
her down onto the cold, hard parking lot.
“What
the fuck, you –“
“This is all your fault," Marisol
said. “María! María!!! Come on! Come take her! Do you want another daughter or not?”
Carmen
struggled to get to her feet. She
started to piece together what Marisol was talking about. Adrenaline was on Marisol’s side, though; she
easily kicked Carmen back with her foot.
Nothing else happened for several seconds. Carmen saw the fury and the feral energy in
her enemy’s eyes. She decided to stay
down and stay quiet.
“María!” Marisol shouted again.
“My
God,” Carmen said. Marisol met her
gaze. “It was just a story, you crazy –“
In an
eyeblink, a grainy black mist appeared at Marisol’s back as though she were
smoking from having recently been on fire.
In another eyeblink, Marisol and the mist both vanished into thin air. Carmen froze.
She couldn’t move, uncomfortable as the ground was. She was scared stiff. She put two and two together much more
quickly than her new friends had.
“Marisol?”
Carmen whispered. “Tomás?” She crawled forward on all fours as though
the floor were cracked glass that would break under her weight at any
moment. She was in the middle of quietly
calling for Carlos when she heard the faintest whisper in her ear with a chill
breath.
“Mi hija…”
