The following is a sequel to the author’s piece, Bruja, from the last issue.
I first bonded with my mysterious neighbor, Flor, over our communal care for local stray cats. The decrepit garage we kept them in became a shared point of contact and a sacred space where we would cross paths at feeding times and random intervals. An unspoken bond developed where we could merely exist in each other’s space. Sometimes, she would initiate chit-chat, but most times, we were perfectly content in silence, surrounded by one dozen felines of every shade, age, and size. Her occasional questions were discreet about my school and home life. I reciprocated with basic inquiries about her background.
She had been born in the rural town of San Cristobal, notorious as the birthplace of dictator Rafael Trujillo, who dominated every facet of Dominican life from 1930 until his assassination in 1961 when Flor was still an infant. In a placating effort for their endorsement, Trujillo threw his full support behind the Catholic church, eradicating any “fringe” religions that existed on the periphery. Flor’s father had been a cacique, or rural shaman, who treated locals for ailments with oils and spells. Her mother was a high priestess in the town’s Santeria sect. Trujillo made it a point to have them both slaughtered by his military in what was supposed to be a “well-being check.”
She was raised by an already ailing grandmother. After she passed on, Flor decided to start anew in Providence, Rhode Island. My mother eventually grew curious about where I would disappear to at regular intervals. I very honestly answered that I was helping Flor, the neighbor, take care of the neighborhood strays. My mother has been raised under the same dark cloud of Trujillo’s iron fist. She was an Evangelical Christian herself, which meant that three nights a week, she was in church alongside others who sang loudly, waved their hands in the air, and spoke in tongues.
“Be careful of her,” my mother warned. “I don’t want you spending too much time with her. She’s strange … demonic even.”
“That’s not true,” I shot back in a very rare and vocal assertion.
“Flor is nicer than most people I know.”
“Don’t let her fool you. Just let me know if she ever asks you to do anything strange, and don’t step foot in her house,” she relented.
She worked two jobs. She knew she could only restrict me so much.
“Do you hear me?”
I nodded solemnly. “Yes, mami.”
The next day, Flor asked me if I could help her with something easy in her apartment; she offered me twenty dollars as payment. I accepted with no hesitation. It wasn’t as much about the money as it was about genuine curiosity and how rare the invite felt. My mother’s warnings would go unheeded; I felt no fear, only a nurturing sense of calm from a fellow solitary soul. Her apartment was immaculately clean as expected, and as I had seen from my next-door window. Furnishings were sparse, and decorations were few. The smells of faded incense, seared wax, and cinnamon hung in the air. She gestured towards a living room closet. “You’re going to help me set up for a client. Get three candles out of there, two yellow and one black. Set them up on that throw rug in the center, then light them with the green-tipped matches, not the red.”
I performed as directed under her thoughtful gaze while the slightest smirk spread across her face. The closet was stacked high with prayer candles of every color imaginable, encased in glass and etched with saintly imagery or rambling messages. There were also random trinkets tucked away among the rainbow of colors, things like feathers, vials of oils, and what appeared to be the bones of a baby bird. As I lit the last candle, there was a knock at the door.
“Kneel on the edge of the rug there,” she ordered. “I’ll be right back.”
In the next room, I could hear her welcoming a guest. “Bienvenido, Gabriel. Please come in.”
“Thank you for seeing me,” the gruff voice offered back sheepishly.
As he stepped in further, I could see his appearance matched his cadence; he was burly and bald but hunched so that he appeared smaller. He wore navy blue overalls and carried a plain brown paper bag. “Please,” she directed, “Kneel before the candles.”
Gabriel obeyed, and then she joined us on the rug so that they knelt facing each other while I was in their peripheral between them.
“Did you bring what I asked?”
“Yes, of course.” Gabriel reached into the bag and came out with a worn, brown leather baseball mitt.
Flor finally acknowledged me. “This is Toby. He will be assisting me. Give him the glove, please.”
I took the offered heirloom into my hands and somehow understood how significant it was. It felt heavy, as if weighed down by sadness and uneasiness.
“Close your eyes and concentrate,” Flor said.
She was addressing our visitor but I complied nonetheless, compelled to really. She did the same. We sat like that there, the three of us, with the singe of candle wicks hissing softly and our collective breathing slowly drowning it out. I felt Flor’s hands cup over mine and squeeze. The battered mitt compressed within our shared clasp. She spoke slowly and methodically, still in Spanish but her inflection bore a subtle switch. Her tone was lower, almost guttural, as if she’d shifted into someone, or something else. “Your boy was … thirteen when he passed?”
Gabriel almost immediately began sobbing.
“That’s right.”
“It was a disease. It hit hard and fast. There wasn’t much time. Cancer?”
More sobbing, “Yes.”
“His name was,” she quickly corrected herself. “His name is Javier.”
Gabriel could only muster a mutter and a nod. My hand felt electric between the warmth of her palms and the ruggedness of the glove, and in an instant, I understood what my intended purpose had been. I was to be a conduit, a similar-in-spirit cousin to a recently lost soul. I didn’t question it. I understood it. Javier briefly existed in the space between us all because we had willed it. He was the fourth guest who filled out the quartet and I could undeniably feel his presence. Flor carried on in her trance-like state.
“He wants you to know that he is at peace. He felt no pain. There was a day at the park last year. You screamed at him because he almost rode his bike into traffic. He cried because he had never heard you scream like that. You felt terrible after. He wants you to know that it’s okay. Don’t feel bad. He understands now. He misses you terribly and loves you ‘to infinity,’ as you two would say.”
Gabriel broke down at this point, his shoulders shuddering with heaving gasps. He struggled to stand, either unable to take any more or satisfied with what he’d heard. It was difficult to tell which. He shuffled off back towards the exit. Flor retrieved the glove from me and followed him out.
“He loved this mitt,” I could hear her say softly from the next room. “It reminds him of hours long catch games with you. Keep it somewhere safe, close to where you sleep.”
I could then hear currency exchange hands, and an awkward goodbye before I was alone again with her in the living room, the candles still flickering.
“Why did you lie to him,” I asked simply.
A slow smirk spread across her face and she kneeled again, this time right beside me.
“What parts exactly did I lie about?”
I wasn’t entirely certain where my assuredness and indignation were stemming from, but I spoke confidently. “That boy is not at peace. He is confused and alone. He felt massive amounts of pain at the end.”
Tears inexplicably swelled in my eyes. I heard her chuckle knowingly.
“Everything else was true?”
“Everything else was true.”
“You are sensitive to things, Toby, more so than I thought. I had a feeling you were.”
“Why did you lie to him?”
“That poor man is already hurting deeply, Toby. I told him what would bring him peace. His boy will find it too.”
All I could do was cry as a wave of sheer exhaustion washed over me. It was as if Javier, our fourth guest, had vanished once again. I felt Flor’s arms wrap around me and squeeze.
“Rest,” she beckoned softly. “You will feel tired for some time.”
The warmth of her embrace was beyond motherly, almost ethereal. •
Look for part III of the Bruja trilogy in an upcoming issue
Illustration by Olivia Lunger
