Chapter 27
Chapter 27
"My mother thinks I'm going back," Samara said, lighting the cigarillo she got from a local shop, pulling her camera out of her bag to snap pictures of the surrounding beauty.
We were taking a break from swimming, enjoying the waterfall nestled away, sheltered by the dense greenery of the jungle, a location known only to the locals.
Samara stayed with me for the past few weeks, and I still couldn't believe she was here. The pain of that night was still fresh, and having her here was a comfort. We spent most of our days away from Monteverde, exploring the nearby village, hidden trails, underground sea caves, and tobacco and coffee farms. We stayed up to count the stars every night —reminiscent of days that felt so long ago.
"My mother wants me to marry Kerby. She wants the date to be three months after my eighteenth birthday." Samara scoffed. "I indulged her at first. Going on one date with him, I was bored, so I figured I'd play into her delusion so she would stop asking while I got a free meal out of it."
She shrugged, "But it went as well as you think it would with Kerby. He kept touching me and got physical when I didn't want to kiss him. He got it into his head that I was already his, so he could touch me. His father was going to make sure of it."
A flash of fear passed over her face as she looked at me like she was struggling to tell me something.
"Samara, did he?" I asked.
"No," she shook her head, assuring me. "I held my own against him." She tried to laugh it off. I wasn't surprised."I told him I'd rather drink arsenic than ever find myself tied down to a pendejo like him." her mouth curved in a smile at the memory."I'm not giving my life to a man. I'm going to see the world, meet new people, taste new things, go where I want, and do what I please," She shook her head. "I won't be my mother, trapped with an abusive alcoholic with a bad gambling habit." Samara inhaled the cigarillo's smoke deeply, looking up at the peaceful surroundings."I'm going to have the final say in what I do with my life." She looked over at me.Things were silent for a moment. "Why did he take that away from you?" Her eyes were blazing with anger now, and her hate for Meroveo was profound in her words.
"Promise me you'll do it for the both of us." I smiled at her, swallowing my emotions.
Meroveo had not been back since that night. Samara mentioned that he extended his invitation to my mother, but Demetria sent it back, vowing that she would die before ever stepping foot on this land.
He Left me naked on the floor. His invisible touch was branded on my skin. The bruises I found exposed his forceful cruelty, marks of his shame and betrayal. I buried it all inside.
"What's your plan?" I asked.
"I'm getting on a plane to New York and never looking back," she laughed with a devious smile as she began to plan Samara's last days together in Monteverde.
"Senora, you have a visitor," Cratilo's brooding voice interrupted our conversation. He acted as my bodyguard whenever we entered the village, an extension of Meroveo's control. Meroveo had ordered that I never go anywhere unescorted. We were given privacy but never left alone.
"Does the dark lord dare grace us with his presence?" Samara smiled at Cratilo, winking. She enjoyed getting under his skin. He just ignored her.
I stood to greet Hector, who approached us with cold, indifferent eyes beneath his glasses. He stood tall and menacing.
"Dove," he greeted me dully, glancing briefly at Samara. She greeted him with a scowl, openly showing her disdain. She hid her discomfort well, holding onto her tough exterior, but I felt her stiffen as Hector approached.
"What do you want?" Samara asked rudely. I sensed the tension between them. Hector's dislike was focused solely on my cousin, his eyes going up and down her body.
"Samara," he replied calmly, but his eyes raged like a bull, and his hardened composure slipped in his warning. How were they on a first-name basis? I looked at her with questions, and she looked at me silently, promising to answer when we were alone.
"You don't want to do this here," he warned her again. Samara continued to glare at him, her skin flushing in anger.
"What's happened, Hector?" I asked, sensing something was wrong, coming in between the silent battle between them.
His following words changed our lives forever.
"There's been an unfortunate tragedy concerning your family. I am here to escort you both to Salamanca."
I t was twilight, the sun fading from the darkening sky. The winds carried the cries and anguish in my family as Father Gamaliel gave the final rites. We all wore white, keeping with the tradition of burying our dead.
Samara's mother cried out and was huddled over, wailing as she mourned her only son. My aunts surrounded her in a circle, holding up her limp body as Julian's coffin was lowered into the ground. Amias clung to my side, his sniffles loud as he wiped away tears. My heart sank with the realization that Julian was gone forever.
Julian was gunned down ruthlessly, in broad daylight, violently murdered in front of several witnesses, and yet the police had no leads.
He was buried in the cemetery facing the ocean so that his spirit could rest and always be free.
My mother's strong voice rang out amongst the weeping and sobs, offering a prayer. The women hummed along to the sacred song in sorrow, praying to Our Lady of the Sea in lamentation.
Samara squeezed my hand silently and shaking as she watched them lower her brother into the earth. Refusing to move away even as people began to disperse after they began shoveling the dirt on Julian's grave.
S amara was finally sleeping peacefully. Over the past three days, Mami and I have tended to her, fighting to bring down her fever. She fell ill after staying in the graveyard the night Julian had been buried. They found her the following day, sleeping on his grave, burning up with fever, her body chilled to the touch.
Mami said it was more a fever of the mind, brought on by a broken heart, the attack more spiritual than physical. She had one foot in the world of the living and the other in the realm of the dead. Samara tossed and turned, refusing any medicine, as she muttered incoherent sentences, talking in her sleep, afraid of whatever plagued her dreams. Mami said it was her grief driving her to wander in the in-between, where the spirits of the dead walked, where there was no distinction between the good and evil spirits. It didn't come as a surprise when the medical doctor, who came at Samara's mother's insistence, could not find a cause for her dangerously high fever. The medication he tried to administer did nothing to bring down her temperature.
We all took turns watching over Samara, my aunts, the twins, and Anthea. Her mother was distraught, spending her days in prayer downstairs, terrified of losing another child. I barely left her side and stayed with her during the nights when her fits were the worst - keeping her body calm, wiping it with water blessed from the sea, yarrow flowers, and yerba buena. We lit white candles as we prayed to Our Lady and burned black sage to purify the air around the veve my mother drew out on the floor.
My mother performed a ritual, asking for intercession between Our Lady of the Sea and the Lady of Death. The latter was the guardian of cemeteries, and calling upon her was taboo to novices and the uninitiated. Mami supplicated to the saint of death, calling for her and the protective spirits to guide and protect Samara and bring her back to the waking world.
The fever finally broke on the third day.
"Dove," Samara called hoarsely from the bed, struggling to sit up, pushing the covers stubbornly off her legs. I smiled, relieved to see her stubborn nature back.
"I'm here," I assured her, moving away from the window and to her side, checking her for any lingering signs of fever.
She tried to get up, "You need to rest." I gently ordered, nudging her back towards the bed.
"You're always mothering me," she joked, her dry lips spread into a begrudging smile. I was relieved she was recovering, the color returning to her pale skin as the dark shadows under her eyes slowly disappeared.
We were in my old room, the light breeze coming in through the windows carrying the familiar songs of the night - sounds unique only to Salamanca.
"My dreams, that place, everything felt upside down. I could feel everything. It all seemed so real." She paused to take a sip of the strong brew I offered her. Samara took a shaky, uneasy breath before continuing as she struggled to hold back her tears. "Julian came to tell me goodbye," she wept, looking at me. "We were in the cane fields, at the place we used to go to as kids, by the old gates, calling me to come look for him." She smiled, but it was full of heartbreak. "I found him standing across from me in a river. He told me it wasn't my turn to cross yet, that I had to return. He said he would miss me and promised he would be okay." I held her, wishing I could soothe her anguished sobs. "But then everything changed," she broke away to look at me, her eyes uneasy. "I remember running, trying to find a way out, surrounded by trees." She shook her head as if trying to get the memory out. "Voices whispered from the darkness, warning me that something was coming, looking for me," Samara swallowed, squeezing my hand in fear. "I felt it moving. I couldn't see it, but I felt it. Reaching out to rip me apart." Her eyes were distant, lost in the terror of reveries. "But then I felt a wind, heard a woman's voice calling for me to come back, to wake up." Samara wasn't easily scared. She was always the brave one, the daredevil who chased the mysteries. But I had never seen her so distraught. The fear in her eyes was difficult to forget. "Dove, there's something," she whispered, fighting with herself to tell me. "Something happened -" she paused as the screams pierced through the air, interrupting our conversation. I rushed to the window, looking out, seeing multiple family members running down the road, yelling and shouting, pointing towards a fiery blaze in the distance.
B y the time we reached the factory, the walls and wooden beams of the buildings were being swallowed by a raging fire. The sounds of the blaring sirens were deafening, and the police cornered off the area from the spectators who had gathered.
The smell of heavy smoke poisoned the air. As firefighters battled to contain the blaze that was engulfing everything in its path, dangerous embers spiraled, creating more of a threat that the fire would spread into the dry surrounding fields. We stood helpless, unable to do anything but watch in horror.
I stared, unable to look away, shaking in shock. I felt the rolling heat on my skin, my eyes watery from the smoke. My throat burned from the sharp, acrid smell of the rum mixed with burning wood and sugar, searing the scent forever into my mind. Samara stood beside me, watching in muted agony, weakly comforting Tia Carmen, who was hysterically repeating the same eerie prophetic words loudly into the air. “El diablo ha maldecido esta tierra!”
My mother stood out against the backdrop of the frantic crying and whirling chaos, staying silent and solemn, her face blank of emotion, the angry flames reflected in her eyes.I followed the direction of her gaze to find Tio Franco on his knees, pulling at his hair as he cursed the night sky like a madman. The sins of his greed burned alongside our family's legacy.Everything he thought he worked so hard for was now turned to ashes.