Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

I know you’re not a religious man, Martín. I always knew as much, just by looking at you. But you’re not uncultured-- Andrés would never have been with you otherwise. Then do you know the requiem hymn? The lyrics to the funeral mass?

The first stanza goes like this: “Dies iræ, dies illa / Solvet sæclum in favilla/ Teste David cum Sibylla.”

Don’t laugh! I once had a beautiful voice, you know. It’s still beautiful by these new standards of mine. 

You know the mass then? Good. I’ve heard it so many times in my childhood. Even when I forget my Latin, I never forget the hymn. Andrés doesn’t like it when I sing it. I don’t do it on purpose. Sometimes it slips out of my tongue, like a serpent’s trill. He thinks it sounds like I’m mourning, and you know how much Andrés hates mourning. 

I think a part of me was mourning. Maybe because I always knew how this story would end. You know how it ends too, Martín-- don’t pretend otherwise. Don’t pretend you can change it.

This will take some time. Put your hand here, above my head, yes. Stroke it like that. Ah. 

Andrés would hate for me to tell you. The past is something to bury and forget, that’s what he always says. But that’s exactly what I’m afraid of. It keeps me up at night, the thought that all of this- him, me- will be forgotten. So I’ll tell you everything, Martín. Everything from the very start.

~~o~~

There was a church in our village. Erected by a saint in the middle ages. Polished through the years and centuries that followed. It had withstood war and storm and drought through the power of heaven’s favor. If you looked upon it, you would believe the legend too. It was beautiful, with pillars held by angels and ceilings of marble, chiseled to perfection by the masters of old. 

In contrast, the little village was a town of dust and mud. But as a child, I couldn’t have cared less. It was my home, and that was all it took for me to accept it. In fact, I was quite fond of how drab our little houses were. I especially liked to watch the sunrise from my window. How the light would wrap around the church that towered over us all.

I would get up each morning to watch the sun because of how early my uncle would wake. I had wanted to do everything with him. You see, I never knew my parents, so I clung to my uncle like any little girl would. 

Now, he wasn’t cruel to me. But he lacked patience. I was a burden to him more than anything else, though he tried his best to hide it. Yet I could always tell by the way he looked at me. He only ever hugged me once, you know, but that was even longer ago.

So because I knew how he felt about me, I followed him to work instead of playing on the streets, as he no doubt preferred. 

Uncle was the chapel’s organist. He played wonderfully, divinely. And I used to sit by his bench, listening to the echoes of his song. 

Yes, Martín, I know you don’t care about my life. Stop whining. You’ll hear the part you want soon. 

What else do you need to know first? Ah, yes. The church overlooked a cemetery, one as big as the village itself. I never went near it because something about it unnerved me, especially after the sun fell. I’m not sure what it was- the sinister curve of brambles, the way the trees watched me, or the stillness. No wind touched the graveyard. But if you listened closely, you could hear the whispers of the dead, kept at bay only by the divinity of the village priests.

Uncle told me never to enter the cemetery alone. It was a maze of stone and roses, hard to enter, impossible to leave. And the whispers beseech you near. The dead are lonely in their tombs, only with the company of wilting flowers. And it was no secret that they envied the living.

But the cemetery did have company, living company. I don’t quite remember his name or what he looked like, but I remember the first time I saw his backside, from the doorway on a day with light rain-- Señor Marquina, the groundskeeper. He was a quiet man, sullen, and he mostly kept to himself. 

He was the one who cleaned the grave stones, inspected the mausoleums, replaced the wilting flowers with fresh lilies and sometimes white roses. It was a job no one else dared take, for fear of bad luck, curses. Marquina feared neither. Rumor had it his heart was shattered. And only a man with a broken heart could wander through the cemetery unharmed. Spirits had no grudge towards dead men walking. 

It turned out the rumor was true.

Marquina’s wife had died the previous year, in a particularly cold December. Uncle had played at the funeral. She left Marquina an infant son, a babe I’d yet to see. But I knew his name- Sergio.

You stopped petting. I won’t speak unless you continue, Martín… all right, I’ll go on:

I was ten years old at the time. Still too young to do anything else, but too noticeable to sit by Uncle’s side at the organ. He arranged for me to join the choir, so for the next season, I sang Dies Irae at every funeral. There were other hymns, but that was the one I know best of all. Even then, I think, the mass was only telling me what would happen next.

After choir rehearsals, I usually wandered the church for as long as I could without being caught. Sometimes I lay on the pews, simply to gaze at the angels above. It was a dazzling place, Martín, intoxicating to look at, from the murals in the alcoves to the windows of stained glass. If there ever existed a place that at once touched heaven’s light and hell’s fire, this was it.

But something came over me that day in particular, the day I saw Señor Marquina. It was raining outside, so I was compelled to stay indoors. I went to a higher level, where the clergymen worked, to see what treasures I could touch before Uncle’s colleagues caught me in the act. 

I found no holy grails, but I saw a boy on the balcony, suspended to the ceiling by ropes around his waist. He was lying in mid-air, as carefree as could be, face towards the sculptures on the ledge. He held a paintbrush in his hand, and when I looked carefully, I saw that he was polishing the Virgin’s face. I’d always wondered who kept the sculptures’ paint intact.

I just hadn’t expected it to be another child.

“Aren’t you scared?” I asked him, and because it was so quiet, my voice floated to his ears easily enough.

He turned his head. Perhaps if you were in my place, you’d say you saw a cherub. To me, he looked more like the offspring of an incubus. I was a child with rosy curls and rosy cheeks. His hair was the color of ink and coal. And when he grinned, his lips followed an impish curve.

“No,” he said, “it’s fun. I could fall and die.”

He kicked his legs. “But if I live, then it’s divine will.” 

I shrugged. “If you say so.” Then leaning over the balcony, I asked, “Did you paint these?”

He shook his head. “Someday I will. Right now they just want me to fix the paint that’s falling away.”

“Wow.”

He beamed at me, proud. Then he said, “Aren’t you the organ player’s daughter?”

“I’m his niece.”

“Oh.”

I didn’t like his ‘oh’ so I quipped back, “Who are you supposed to be?”

“I’m the groundskeeper’s son.” He went back to painting his sculptures.

“I haven’t seen you before. Neither has Uncle, so maybe you’re a nobody.”

That got to him. “I’m not a nobody.”

“Then prove it. What’s your name?” I think I smirked at him first. “I’m Tatiana.”

“Andrés.”

~~o~~

When I met Andrés, he was twelve years old and by all accounts, a boy no villager wanted anything to do with. He used to steal apples from the market and replace them with painted ceramic. That’s the kind of child he was. Andrés would do anything for a laugh, some semblance of attention, even if it ended with some old couple assaulting him with a broom.

That might be why we became so close. 

Uncle never paid me more mind than he had to. And Señor Marquina, even less to Andrés.

It came as some shock to me when I first found out he was the groundskeeper’s son. Marquina never walked with him, though Andrés insisted he’d accompanied his father to the cemetery many times. Then, I believe to get rid of him, Marquina arranged for Andrés to work within the church. I don’t know if he was aware of the height at which Andrés worked.

I said my uncle was never cruel to me. Marquina was not cruel to Andrés either. He kept Andrés clothed and fed, and to him, that was enough. As far as he was concerned, Andrés was not his son, not even in name. He let Andrés run wild because he could not bring himself to care. It didn’t matter to Marquina whether or not Andrés knew his Latin or skipped his studies. I doubt he even cared if Andrés came home for dinner.

Marquina, I think, only loved Sergio. Sometimes Andrés mentioned it to me, how his father would dote on his baby brother, but he was never bitter about it. More wistful than anything else. 

I went to Andrés’ house many times in the following year. Although Marquina always scolded him for it, Andrés could never resist taking me to Sergio’s cradle. Andrés doted on his brother as much as, if not more than, their father, and he could spend hours at a time coaxing the babe until he laughed. That was no small feat. 

Sergio had been born ill. He was often the victim of coughs and fevers, and besides me, the most frequent visitor to their home was the doctor. Marquina had been told it would be a miracle if the babe grew to see his next birthday, if he would ever be strong enough to walk on two legs. Every day, Marquina grappled with the grief of his dead wife and the pain of losing his second son. 

Perhaps to distract himself from Sergio’s impending death, Andrés began spending more time with me. We practiced Latin in his room and climbed the tree outside his window. Sometimes we snuck out to steal sweets. More often than not, we’d sing and tell each other stories of nonsense. We laughed. And- don’t you dare tell him- maybe I loved Andrés as more than a friend.

I loved his smile most of all. You know how he looks when he smiles. But back then, Martín, when he smiled, he meant it.

~~o~~

Andrés and I came to share everything with each other. I had always been told my parents had perished in a fire. But I had my doubts-- I suspected they’d died in some worse way, that perhaps they’d been driven mad by the smoke instead, that there was more my uncle would not say. It explained why the other girls never looked at me, as if they were afraid whatever misfortune that befell my parents had passed onto me.

“They’re scared,” Andrés mused, “they think you’re cursed.”

I shrugged. “I don’t feel cursed.”

“It’s not so bad,” he said with a grin, “it makes you powerful. Like me.”

I hadn’t thought much of his words- like me - then, but I would find out soon. He never tried to convince me I wasn’t cursed; he did the very opposite, and for whatever reason, it made me feel good. He made me feel that I had no reason to be ashamed, that I was better, not worse, than the other children. 

I never pried into Andrés’ life because quite frankly, I was never that interested. I knew he had a father and a brother, and that was all I cared about. And he never liked the focus on the mundane. He much preferred to share books about knights and dragons, and the occasional tale of a witch eating children. He had a voracious appetite for stories of that sort.

“Do you want to know a secret?” he asked me once.

“No.”

“Tatiana.”

“Fine, what is it?”

His grin was sharp, devious, when he told me what it was: “The shadows speak to me. I can hear them anywhere. It’s a special gift.”

He said there were voices in the hollow of the tree outside his house. I thought he was hearing squirrels, but Andrés was adamant-- there were words in the shadows, distant whispers you can only hear when you’re alone. He said the same thing at the church. I remember that afternoon, when the sunset painted the chapel’s angels a shade of bright gold.

Andrés held my hand as he guided me through each alcove. He said he could hear things in the cracks, that those carved faces would look at him and move their lips. The light had completely faded by the time we reached the cellars, the catacombs beneath our feet.

“It’s strongest here,” he said.

And he pressed his ear to the ground. I did the same. I told Andrés I heard nothing, that he’d wasted my time with his stupid prank, but I was lying, Martín. Because there was something beneath the marble.

Like a flame in the water, something I wasn’t meant to hear. It chilled me to the bone. Because that was how it reached us, through the bones, into our heads, perhaps curling across our hearts. Shadows can speak, Martín, and the sound is enough to drive the strongest man mad. But Andrés relished in the sounds. I think he regarded them as his companions, things to keep him company when he had no one else.

“I want to go home, Andrés.” I said it to him again. And though he was disappointed I couldn’t hear the shadows, Andrés gave in eventually.

We went to his house and snuck biscuits from the kitchen as we always did. And because he knew talk of the shadows would upset me, Andrés spoke of them no more.

What did I hear, at the catacombs? They spoke in Latin, and I think I was too terrified to remember my words. But I did make out two words, and I know I wasn’t mistaken: “cemetery” and “Andrés.” 

How did they sound, you’re asking? Like they were laughing. 

~~o~~

Uncle had been pleased that I was spending more time from home. At first. When he learned that I was frolicking with the groundskeeper’s first son, he dragged me away. Uncle was livid. For the first time in my life, I felt that he cared for me.

But for the first time in my life, I wanted none of his attention. I begged him, I sobbed at his feet, I told Uncle I’d do anything, anything if he would just let us stay friends.

“That boy will be the death of you,” he’d hissed.

I can’t recall how much it hurt, but I do remember going to bed that night with a sore bottom. Uncle had smacked it with a ruler until I complied. Then I was a mess of tears on the bed, forbidden from seeing the only friend I ever had.

Later, Uncle- perhaps feeling that he’d been too harsh with me- would tell me what the village thought of Andrés. I learned that his mother was a sore subject among the adults, Señor Marquina most of all. They called her a witch, a servant of the devil himself. And to my memory, Andrés’ father did nothing to counter these accusations though they’d only come to pass after her death.

They said she was already carrying a demon’s seed when she met Marquina. She seduced him to complete her unholy union. And when Marquina finally came to his senses, he tried to leave her. In revenge, she set a curse upon the cemetery, one that the church was still fighting to reverse. She was the cause of Sergio’s illness and his mother’s death, for she’d traded her life for the end of theirs. But her tainted blood remained in Andrés, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind he’d grow up to be just as wicked.

That was what Uncle told me. 

Don’t roll your eyes, Martín. Here’s the truth-- Andrés was born out of wedlock. Then Marquina left Señorita de Fonollosa for another woman, Sergio’s mother. Unwilling to accept this, Fonollosa hung herself from a tree in the graveyard. And because she was dead and Marquina was not as heartless as this story’s leading you to believe, he chose to keep their son. I can’t say for certain whether any curse exists, but Andrés had come to embody every nasty superstition our village had gathered over the years.

Don’t look at me like that, Martín. Andrés isn’t some innocent victim. You’ve seen for yourself what he’s capable of. He’s done things, unforgivable things, and he- more than anyone else- deserves to rot in hell. But he was once a child too. A child whose only crime was being born to a woman his father didn’t love.

And I suppose he indulged in misbehavior because everyone said he would. Perhaps it was easier for him, to pretend he deserved his lot in life.

But I had none of these thoughts in my head that night. I only wept over my sore butt. It was near midnight by the time I heard the pebbles against my window. Still sniffling, I crawled over and opened it.

Andrés was outside, sitting atop a thick branch. 

“Don’t worry, Tatiana,” he whispered, “I’ll save you. I’ll take care of this.”

That sounds like him, don’t you agree?

He wanted to save me, but now I realize he was hoping I would save him.

~~o~~

Uncle no longer allowed me to leave home without him. I think he planned to keep me inside until he found me a husband. I shuddered at the prospect then, and I shudder at it now. To distract me from Andrés, he even brought a cat home to keep me company. It was an orange tabby. Don’t you dare laugh, Martín.

I named her Naranjita. Not a creative name, but I was hardly in the mood for creativity. The house was stifling, and I dearly missed the chapel, just as much as I missed going to Andrés’ home. 

In the daylight, I sang to myself lest I forget my hymns, but I spent more time playing with Naranjita instead. She loved yarn, and it was the only thing keeping her from scratching up what remained of our curtains. At night, Andrés visited from the window.

“Can I hold her?” he’d asked when he first saw Naranjita.

“Only if you come inside. I don’t want her running away.”

Then he grinned and snuck into my room. 

“You have to keep your voice low- Uncle will kill you if he sees you.”

He scoffed. “I’ll kill him first.” And the glint in his eye told me he was serious.

When these visits started, we passed the hours until daybreak playing with Naranjita. But as you know, it’s a cat’s nature to do whatever it pleases whenever it pleases. And when she was bored of scratching Andrés’ face, Naranjita went to sleep at the foot of my bed.

Then Andrés would tell me of his plans. They were elaborate, the kind of schemes only a child would think of. He’d hire someone to play my husband, he’d distract Uncle so I could run away, he’d burn my house down so we had to go outside, and so on, each plan more impractical than the last. But it reminded me of the way things used to be so I let him babble on.

And then he stopped coming.

~~o~~

When Andrés next visited me, he didn’t care for Naranjita at all. He was thinner, the cheeks a bit sunken, his eyes the slightest bit puffy. It’s hard to imagine, I know, the idea of Andrés looking desolate. But that was how he appeared- desperate, hopeless, inconsolable.

“You don’t look well,” I told him, “do you want to eat something?”

I was going to give him some of the sweets I kept under his pillow. But he shook his head. “Sergio’s sick.”

Sergio was always sick. So I knew the hour had come, there was no saving his brother this time.

“I’m sorry, Andrés.”

“I don’t know what to do.” He clutched at his head, and I wondered if he would cry. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What did the doctors say?”

He shook his head again, vigorously. “They say he won’t make it. But they always say that. So I know he’ll be fine-”

“Andrés, Andrés, calm down.” I grabbed his hands. “What does- what does your father think?”

He bit his lip. 

“Oh, oh,” I muttered. I tried to hold him in my arms, but he didn’t budge. “I’m sorry, Andrés, I’m so sorry.”

Eventually, he accepted my embrace. There was no point to his visit otherwise, if only to garner some comfort from me. Like I said, I was ten. There was not much I could do for him even if I knew how to help. But I think he’d made up his mind before coming. This was more of a farewell,

“There is something I can do,” he whispered after however long we hugged in silence.

“What?”

He looked at me, a hint of fear in his gaze, the profound type of fear one had before doing the unthinkable.

“They tell me to go to the cemetery.”

They. I knew who he meant, but I refused to indulge it. I refused to play along because those very words were conjuring panic within me, the likes of which I’d never had. 

“Who’s telling you?” I demanded.

“The voices, the things.” He glanced out the window, past the branches, looking much like a curled cage. “They’re getting stronger- I can hear them in my sleep now.”

“What do you think they are?” I already knew the answer. He did as well.

“I know it’s not something holy.” His gaze fell. “Maybe that’s why it’s calling to me.”

You should have heard the way he said it. I believed him immediately. And because it scared me so badly, I shook his shoulders, I shook and shook until I could shake those thoughts from his brain.

“You won’t help anyone,” I insisted, “not Sergio, not yourself, not your father-”

“But what if-”

“Do you want to leave Señor Marquina with two dead sons!? Is that what you want?!”

I was so angry, but he didn’t seem to care. He was even stupid enough to laugh, and I remember my skin prickling at the sound.

“But Tatiana,” he said, “I won’t be missed.”

~~o~~

I don’t know if Andrés went to the cemetery that night or not. In the morning, I was halfway tempted to sneak to the church and inform the priests. But I was afraid worse punishment would befall Andrés for speaking to the shadows.

It turned out my worries were for nothing because the worst was yet to come.

When Andrés visited me again, it was a week later. Uncle had allowed me into the chapel on Sunday, but Andrés wasn’t present, and after mass, I was sent straight home.

Andrés was already waiting in my room when I arrived. I slapped him for scaring me and he laughed like it was a funny thing to do. Some color had returned to his cheeks and he looked brighter than he ever had, as if he had spent the day celebrating some wonderful thing. 

“I went to the cemetery,” he said, proud, “and found my out. It was easy.”

Then he showed me a battered book, bound in cracked leather and falling apart at its pages. It bothered me, that book. And I didn’t like the way he clung to it. 

“Look at this, Tatiana. They left it for me, above Mamá’s grave.”

He never spoke of his mother with me. And I knew for a fact that his mother had no grave. No, he found that infernal thing in the branches of the old tree she’d died on. 

“Throw it away,” I told him, “it’s not going to help.”

“Yes, it will.” He rolled up his sleeves, and I saw a line of red on his forearm, a thin cut that was halfway healed. “See?”

He opened the book, pointing to a page with splattered brown. The smell made me flinch. Disgusted, I pushed it back at him.

“Andrés, what is this?” I hissed.

“Blood. I added a bit of mine, like it said I should. And I think it’s working-”

He rambled on, flicking through drawings of pentagrams and horns and whatever else made my stomach uneasy. 

“Sergio’s fever went down,” he said, grinning like he’d accomplished something great.

Had I known what I did now, I would have told him such things came at a price, that for every drop of blood he offered, he would be expected to forsake more, until there was no flesh left to give. 

“Then throw the book away.” I would have tossed it out for him, but I was afraid to touch it. “You don’t need it anymore.”

I didn’t know how else to appeal to him. Neither of us were pious children, but I would never dabble in such vile things. And Andrés- or at least, the Andrés I knew as a child, was not so depraved as to gamble his chance at heaven away. But that was before what happened next.

“Tatiana?”

At the sound of Uncle’s voice, I forced Andrés to the window, hissing at him to run before we were caught. He scrambled away just in time. I, however, had nowhere to turn by the time Uncle entered my room.

“I heard his voice, the Fonollosa boy-”

“There was nobody here.”

But Uncle saw the mud on the floor, and fearing another beating, I ran before he could catch me. Uncle cursed at me then. He lost his temper for the second time and I was scared out of my wits. 

I remember Naranjita on the stairs.

I remember Uncle coming up behind me.

I remember his wrist on my hand.

I remember twisting away. 

And I remember tumbling down the stairs.

I believe I landed on my head. My neck snapped on impact but it hardly mattered by then. I can’t recall the pain. Only the sharp sting of my fall.

Then, Martín, I died.

~~o~~

You’d think I would remember more details about something as important as my own death. Sadly, I don’t. Death was like a dull dream, halfway between sleeping and waking with an empty head. I could sense what happened around me, but I felt nothing in return. Perhaps if I’d died more pleasantly, I would feel more at peace. For me, it was more of a suffocating stillness, the need to weep for no particular reason.

I heard Dies Irae for the last time at my funeral. 

I’m unsure if I would have gone to heaven eventually or if I would have remained in purgatory, if I was even in purgatory. Perhaps my spirit- the wretched thing- was too stubborn to leave my corpse just yet, so I had to suffer through each stifling bit of the village’s grief.

Uncle cried for me, as did the choir master and some of the Fathers. I was not a beloved child, but I was a child nonetheless and the village felt my loss. In my bones, I wondered when they would forget me, perhaps a month from then. 

I can remember my casket though. I was laid to rest in a black dress, a red ribbon in my hair. They’d even taken care to bandage my neck so I would not look so broken at the wake. 

Andrés wasn’t at the funeral. He had been forbidden from coming. And knowing Uncle, he likely blamed Andrés for my death as well.

~~o~~

A part of me lingered by Andrés afterwards, perhaps because he was the only one who knew me properly. But I no longer judged him, because I was too numbed to make sense of the world of the living.

Whatever he did to improve Sergio’s health, it was short-lived. His brother took a turn for the worse again, and it was evident that the babe would die. Andrés never left Sergio’s deathbed in those days, keeping vigil even when his father wept himself to sleep. It might be arrogant to say so, but I think my death was what broke him in the end.

Something snapped within Andrés the day of my funeral. He couldn’t pretend anymore. He knew how hated he was, what little he had. And he knew for certain there were only two people in the world that loved him. Me and his baby brother.

Now those two people were gone. And faced with that prospect, Andrés realized it was too much to bear. 

He made his decision quickly. Like a snap of a finger. He never hesitated over anything, no matter how agonizing a choice he was forced to make. And trust me, Martín, he did agonize. He was barely twelve, a boy with nothing and no one left, except a village that hated him and a father that wanted nothing to do with him. 

It was with these thoughts weighing on his shoulders that he returned to the cemetery. He followed the sound of whispering stones and rustling tongues, through the cracks in trees and wilting petals, until he came to the roots where his mother died above. Her bones lay buried in the dirt beneath his soles, twisted in ivy and festering with ghosts.

This time, however, the voices made themselves known. The branches gnarled, and like fingers, cupped his jaw. A figure loomed over him, a creature cold to the touch, misted with wood and shadow. If you looked at its face, perhaps you could see a smile.

“You came back,” it said.

“You lied to me,” Andrés spat, “Sergio’s still dying. And-”

He clenched his teeth, shuddering when those wooden claws twisted his head towards my grave. The creature bent, until its face was by Andrés’ ear, sharp teeth close enough to bite.

“You want her back,” it whispered, “you ask for a lot, boy.”

He breathed. Then, “Can you do it?”

It laughed at him. All the shadows did. “But what will you give in return? We know you, Andrés. You’re a selfish little thing, as rotten as they come.”

Andrés shuddered again. “I can give you anything.”

It poked at his neck, until a bead of blood slipped out. A leaf brushed his face, a kiss to the cheek. 

“Such a lovely face for such a wicked boy.”

They said the same things to him as the village always had. Andrés had long since stopped caring for the villagers’ words. But this was different. This time, he believed them.

“How do we know you won’t cheat us, Andrés? Isn’t that what you are, a liar?”

“I never lied to you.”

“You said you loved them, the girl and your brother. That’s a lie- do you know why, Andrés?”

The branches pulled him close, locking him in an iron hold as they scraped past fabric and skin. Until blood touched his chest.

“Because you’re a heartless, selfish thing-”

But the shadow grinned nonetheless, casting a palm over Andrés’ eyes. “Just like us. So we can help you. Do exactly as we say, and let us take our rightful dues.”

It dropped him and Andrés crumpled like a doll. Perhaps he wept, but I’ve come to learn that there’s little difference between the sound of Andrés sobbing and Andrés laughing.

~~o~~

He uncovered the dirt from my grave and pried the coffin open.

~~o~~

Andrés returned to his home with a root from his mother’s tree. He pulled it in half and chewed the top. It tasted bitter, like copper and salt. But he swallowed regardless. The rest of the root, he ground to powder and dipped in sugar before sneaking it into Sergio’s mouth. 

He stole Sergio from his crib and took him to their father’s cellar. There in the dark, he tore pages from the leather book. He scattered and burned them with fire from the kerosene lamp. Sergio had been too weak to cry.

I was already in the cellar, a crumpled heap of dirt and decaying flesh. His fingers torn from defiling my grave, Andrés combed my hair with his bloodied hands, so close to the color my hair once was. He pulled the ribbon from my head.

I saw him wrap it around Naranjita’s neck, the last of what he was told to steal. And none the wiser, she nuzzled my cold head.

Then placing Sergio at the center, Andrés drew upon the floor, patterns and symbols made from his own blood. He sliced the same knife across his forearm, again and again until he had enough to paint across each board of wood.

Andrés worked for hours, oblivious to the passing of time or the daze of blood loss, lost only in the fever of his goals. 

~~o~~

When I woke up, it was to the sight of Andrés bent over me, his body racked with shivers. Every part of him trembled, that face more ashen than it had ever been. Have you ever seen someone with a damaged spirit, Martín? In the literal sense?

That was what the ritual had done to Andrés. He’d obeyed the shadows and bargained his soul away. But they didn’t take it all at once, no. Slowly, bit by bit. And I could see it then, where they had gnawed away at his spirit. This was a pain that would only get worse, not better, with time.

But he smiled when he saw me nonetheless, some blood on his lip, of which he’d no doubt coughed. It was a hollow grin, more of relief than happiness, but I doubt he could tell the difference. I, however, was horrified.

He was so pale, Martín, like a corpse himself, and so sharp in the dark. 

“Andrés?” I whispered.

“Tatiana, you’re alright, you’re alright now-”

Sergio was crying, cradled in Andrés’ bleeding arms, his cheeks rosy, a healthy flush to his skin for once. There was a vigor to him that Andrés now lacked. In one night, he and Andrés had switched humors. And if Andrés had it his way, Sergio would never know why.

“Andrés, what did you do?” 

“Tatiana-”

I sat up, light on my feet, overcome by the stench of blood and wood. Something was wrong with me, I knew. Something very wrong. Because I saw myself on the floor, still a crumpled corpse with the lips sewn shut.

I felt my neck, gaping at what I found. The ribbon.

My eyes flicked to what I had assumed were hands. I don’t think I quite processed the severity of how wrong this was. My mind was still much too numb after so long in disuse. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I had come back to life until I felt the senses assault me- sound, scent, sight, touch. But I had enough wits about me to know this was not my body.

Naranjita was nowhere to be seen. 

“Tatiana- listen-”

I hissed at him. A real hiss. My claws whipped across his face.

“I hate you!” I screamed, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

Andrés reached for me again, but I wanted nothing to do with him. In my blind rage, I ran from the cellar. I had nowhere to go and nowhere in mind. I only wanted to get away from him.

~~o~~

Of course you would side with Andrés. Let’s see how you feel when he puts your soul inside a pig. Fine, fine, I’ll tell you what happens next.

My reaction was nothing compared to how Marquina and Uncle reacted. My uncle had found my grave desecrated and my body gone, broken straight out of the casket. Señor Marquina had found Sergio missing from the crib on the night he brought a priest over to help the babe into death.

They found their answers in Marquina’s cellar. Andrés hid in the corner, holding Sergio to his chest. He was still shivering, rocking himself back and forth while Sergio slept. And my corpse lay on the ground, the floor bloodied with enough evidence to send Andrés to hell twice over.

“Get away from him!” Marquina cried, “get away-”

He snatched Sergio from Andrés’ embrace, and despite how weak the night had left him, Andrés grappled with him for his brother. As if afraid Sergio would die as soon as he left his grip. For those efforts, Marquina smacked him away and his first son’s head slammed against the floor.

It was the priest that cradled and cried over my body. Uncle had been too busy dragging Andrés up the stairs.

They caused such an uproar that nearly the entire village turned up to see the commotion. I watched from the bushes, unsure how I wanted this to end. I watched Uncle throw Andrés into the dirt, kick his ribs, throttle him and smash his face in soil. I watched Marquina do nothing, say nothing.

The villagers didn’t cheer this on, but they too watched. I heard the cries of horror when the priest arrived with my body in his arms, the yells for Andrés to pay for his sins. I suppose they could burn him at the stake or maybe lock him away forever, but what punishment could be worse than what he’d already endured?

There used to be a grudging tolerance for Andrés’ presence in the village. Because Marquina acknowledged him as a son and despite the rumors, Andrés was only a boy. The village lost its patience with him that night, and with it, any shred of tolerance. What he had done was unforgivable. 

And they would make sure he knew it.

So I watched the boy who I once loved, rise on his bruised knees, already so wounded and weak, and face the rage of men and women more than twice his age. They threw stones at him, spat at him, cried for him to leave town if not for his death, and the whole while, he never said a word.

His attention was on his brother only. And somehow- through the last bit of strength he had- Andrés stole Sergio from his father’s arms. 

And he ran.

He limped away, in spite of the stones at his back, the crowd crying for his capture, the threats of damnation. In spite of it all, he escaped their blows, if only by a fraction.

~~o~~

His feet brought him to the church, perhaps by blind instinct. But I believe otherwise. I think this was this final gambit, a last act of desperation. It had dawned on him the gravity of his actions and now he sought forgiveness, and if not that, some thread of light to pull him from what he’d done, away from the path that was now so clear.

And even that thread was denied him.

A drop of rain hit my head. And his as well, because Andrés looked up. What should have been the first rays of daybreak was replaced by grey clouds. And what should have been rain came out red.

Droplets fell, bit by bit, until the rain began to pour. And the scent of iron, neither of us could mistake. It rained blood.

Crimson splashed upon the towering church, into the tears of its saints and martyrs. That was how the mob found Andrés, standing before the church, cradling Sergio in his trembling arms.

“You did this,” Uncle accused.

And perhaps fearing retribution, the villagers stopped moving, unwilling to pursue Andrés further. Only Marquina remained at the front, urging Andrés to return his son, his real son.

Andrés, I think, was trying to make sense of the scarlet rain as well. It drenched him, his clothes, his face, his cuts. He tilted his head skyward, just enough to face the sun that no longer existed for him. And the church that would never welcome him again. That perhaps never did. He sighed, soundless, as the blood slipped past his lips.

“I love you,” he whispered to the babe, “I love you, hermanito, don’t forget it.”

Andrés pressed a kiss Sergio’s brow, at last assured that his brother would not die without his presence. Because he now realized his presence would do more harm than good. Sergio was unlike him. Sergio still had a chance to enter heaven’s gate. An ironic statement, no? 

So Andrés limped to where his father stood. He gave the babe up and when Marquina took Sergio back, he looked to Andrés. Weeping, he ordered the boy to never return.

“I won’t,” Andrés said.

~~o~~

They abandoned Andrés in the rain. It poured through the day and only let up by dusk. Andrés would have no shelter from the rain, not if he stayed near the village, but I knew where to find him.

He was lying atop a gravestone, a large carving dedicated to his grandfather, when I arrived. He was still shaking, pallid as ash, and covered with blood, some wet, some dry. And in a trembling hand, he held a match, the flame above his swollen eye.

He looked utterly pathetic, like the very life had been cut out of his being. And you could say that comparison wasn’t far from the truth. I assure you Andrés made sure he would never be so unsightly again. That was the first and last time I saw his clothes reduced to tattered rags, every bit of skin and hair soaked in red.  

“Andrés?” I ventured softly, coming to rest by his head.

He smiled, but he didn’t turn to look at me. And again, there was no smile in his eye, only a loose sorrow that I would come to recognize over the years. 

“You came back,” he said, losing breath with each word.

I licked away the blood at the edge of his hairline. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

“You’re my angel,” he mumbled. It sounded like he meant it.

“Bleh. If I was an angel, I wouldn’t be friends with you.”

He chuckled at that, the barest hint of a laugh. The match almost slipped from his grip, but he held tight, even as the flame burnt his thumb.

“What are you doing with that?” I asked, and to my irritation, I instinctively nuzzled Andrés in the jaw.

He shut his eyes, that false grin coming back, and for a moment I thought he’d fallen asleep until he spoke again. “It’s my birthday. I thought maybe, it’s not too late to make a wish.”

“What did you wish for?” 

“To die with dignity.” He blew the match out. And I came to rest upon his chest. “I can’t die here, not like this, not yet.”

“Now that you told me, your wish won’t come true.” I nudged him with a paw. “You’ll be run over by a horse.”

He laughed again, a spot of mirth returning. Then he hugged me close, and we remained that way through the night, curled together on a dead man’s stone. It was the coldest night of my life, but what little warmth we had was enough. And at the very least, the damned shadows left us alone.

~~o~~

“This place was never meant for me,” Andrés had said, some time after we left his grandfather’s grave.

At dawn, we took one last look at the church before we left the village behind for good. It rained blood once more when we took our leave, as if the sky itself was bidding Andrés, good riddance. 

But it was not the last time we walked under crimson water. I’ve come to realize that the rain was bound to Andrés, as if those wretched demons were making a point. Perhaps to taunt him with what they’d taken, they turned his flesh and blood to rain. Blood from the sky came to signify his arrival. It always rained red before Andrés arrived at a new town, just as it rained when he left. 

Looking back, I have reason to believe Andrés hoped for a different outcome. There was a line between him and everyone else, we always knew, but I was unaware of just how badly he’d wished to cross that line.

I should have known from the day I met him on the balcony. He allowed himself to be strung from such a great height because he yearned for great heights. He chased heaven because he was told he was bound for hell. And the higher he aimed, the worse he fell.

There was no one to catch him as he fell, but there were plenty who watched. But by then, Andrés had turned his fall into an art. He would never fly, but he could glide. He could at least land in hell with grace.

“Tatiana, you can’t live life without pain,” he often said to me, “it’s a matter of perspective. The greater the weight of death, the greater the value of life.”

So Andrés took to his new life with a twisted passion. My uncle was the last man who ever laid a hand on him. Andrés never let anyone pound his face into the dirt again. He’d sooner kill a man himself.

Because there was nothing to limit Andrés now. He knew he was dying and he knew there was no respite after death The demons that led him there were a cruel lot. We knew they would never allow him to die a dignified death, that they were biding their time to tear him to bits. They only allowed him to live so long because he would not be missed. Or maybe it was more fun to break apart his soul little by little rather than all at once.

He grew sicklier by the day and his pain, worse. But Andrés learned to live with it, as he had learned to live with many other things. Until those pains meant nothing. For decades even, he never complained of it. He laughed, he danced, he did whatever pleased him because, not in spite, of what plagued him.

I don’t know how much of Andrés remains. The eternal soul is not something to trifle with, as anyone can attest. It’s what lies at the core of us all, the essence of a person, if you will. If we were to lose our brains, our livers, our limbs, I have no doubt we’d be changed- fundamentally. Then what of a soul? How much of someone could possibly survive if he lost something like that? 

I don’t know the answer, Martin, and I know for a fact that Andrés would never tell us.

But I’ll tell you this. I still wonder how much of me remains in this body. When I hear my thoughts, is it Naranjita or is it Tatiana? Am I a cat who thinks herself a woman, or a woman trapped in a cat? My senses are Naranjita’s, my sentiments are Tatiana’s, but my life? I’m only certain that I live on borrowed time.

And Andrés was doing the same.

He had already given the core of himself away-- he had nothing left to lose. You can’t expect Andrés to value life, not when he never saw any reason to value his own.

I’ll share another anecdote with you. Andrés murdered a man when he was fifteen. I don’t even remember the poor fellow’s face. Just imagine a cobbler, average height, perhaps around forty, amused by the sight of a cat and a boy bound in a raggedy cloak. Andrés had wandered in as if the man owed him, despite his bare muddied feet and the rips in his trousers.

“I want a new pair of shoes,” Andrés had instructed him, “leather.”

The idiot laughed. “Really, boy? You can pay for that? Look at you- you’re a rat without a coin to your name.”

“I’ll pay you back when I have the money. I’m a man of my word.”

“I don’t do business with filthy liars.”

One of those words set Andrés off- filthy, or perhaps liar. I’m not proud to say I cheered him on when he dragged his knife across that man’s throat. While the cobbler lay choking, Andrés took his pick of shoes. He tried on each pair and when he found the right one, he said to the dying man, “These shoes aren’t to my taste, but they’ll have to do. How much do they cost?”

When he heard the pained gurgles in reply, Andrés smirked and said, “Really? A gift? How kind of you, sir.”

Then we left. Andrés whistled, hands behind his head, and told me he would swipe some fish from the lovely little market ahead. I don’t know if the cobbler had a family to mourn him, but I doubt Andrés cared.   

Ironically, it was because he valued the living so little that he learned to value the dead. 

True, he could have gotten by through stealing and killing. He was talented at both, but he would always demand respect. A damned man would never earn anyone’s respect, but fear was another matter. And for Andrés, fear was just as good a substitute.

So he claimed to speak with the dead for one year. One year became two, and two became ten.  For a price, he could conjure spirits and sometimes expel them. The dead got along with him because he was already halfway a ghost himself. On occasion, when the reward was alluring enough or if he found himself bored enough, Andrés would raise his clients’ loved ones from the dead.

All it cost him was another chunk of his soul. So long as he lived, these corpses- silent and rotting and mere shades of their former selves- could stay on Earth. For the ones that loved them, it was a fair price to pay. 

Andrés always left with a tip of his hat, me burrowed in his coat. He was never welcome anywhere for long. But when they called him the necromancer, it was out of respect. When they called him a demon, it was out of fear. And when it rained red in his wake, they shut their doors and prayed.

For Andrés, it was all in good fun, a brief distraction from his declining health. I can’t say I enjoy this manner of living, but I made my choice that night in the cemetery. I’m not one to second guess myself. And I suppose that’s how I was able to stay with Andrés until now.

I often wonder what would have happened if things were different for Andrés, if his mother never died, if I never fell down those stairs, if his father had loved him, if his brother was not so sickly, if just one person in the whole of our village had been kind enough to offer him a smiling face-

Perhaps he would still be in the church now, painting the ceilings with his expert brush instead of bandaging the scars on his arm. But I never saw the point in crying over spilled milk.

Maybe Andrés would have lived to be eighty years old if we continued wandering with no end in sight. He had nothing to lose so the demons had nothing to take. So what changed, Martín? That’s an easy answer.

He met you.