19. IV.
IV.
MORENA
I stepped into the basement, leaving Matteo in the fifth circle of hell.
Stories had grown over the years, some true, most twisted.
I let them believe whatever version they wanted to believe.
None of them ever wrote the ending. None of them knew how I burned alive, how my screams clawed through the door while my sister stood on the other side listening.
No one noticed when the flames chewed me down to dust. They swept me into an urn, set me on a shelf in this basement, and sealed the door shut.
Being forgotten for years taught me that the real horror isn’t fear. It’s the silence. It’s the loneliness.
“The monsters you made in others live in me now. And I am not afraid of becoming one.”
I slid into the corner, watching Isabella bend over Matteo’s corpse. She loved him. I had never been loved like that. The moment I looked into his eyes, I knew what he was. Death. I only played along because I liked the part.
Paco stood near her, staring at the body. Maybe he had felt it all along, the reason he wanted Matteo away from his daughter. He put his hand on her shoulder. His voice cracked. “He is gone, Isabella.”
I rolled my eyes. So fucking dramatic. Everybody dies.
Blah blah blah. Who cares?!
I clapped, stepping out from the shadows. My skin was bare but smeared in black mud, torn streaks hanging like strips of rotten cloth.
Francisco froze when he saw me. His eyes went wide, his breath stuck in his chest, while Isabella screamed and ran. She saw me before; this wasn’t her first time.
“Remember me?” I asked, circling him, watching the rise and fall of his chest, shallow, panicked.
I laughed. “Cat got your tongue?” Then I moved my fingers and dragged them around his shoulders from left to right.
1 “Aranita chiquitita, sube por la pared, cuando baja la lluvia, La vuelve a caer…”
I sang as I circled again, claws dragging the opposite way, slow enough that he felt every line.
2 “Aranita pequenita, teje su red, cuando viene la sombra, ya no se ve…”
He shook, face pale, eyes rolling white. I leaned close and pushed him down. He scrambled, hands clawing the floor, crawling backward until the wall stopped him cold.
“What’s wrong?” I laughed, crouching over him. “Did you see a ghost?”
“I… I…” he stammered, his voice breaking apart.
I mocked him, “Yo... yo... tú qué, eh?” 3
I yanked a chain with a hooked end off the wall and drove the hook into his left foot.
He screamed. I raised an eyebrow and shrugged as pain turned his face inside out.
I placed the chain across my shoulder, and I dragged his body across the basement, all the way up the stairs.
As we reached the hallway, I kept pulling until we reached another set of stairs, and I kept pulling until I reached the last step.
. I jammed the chain against the railing and sat down on his crotch, feeling him gasp beneath me.
“Tell me why you did it,” I said.
He howled when I twisted the hook deeper. “Huh?” I asked.
“I... I...” he choked.
“Okay, you don’t have to say.” I lifted him by the chain, and as he was on his feet, it was easier to shove him so his body dangled from the rail. Then I went down the stairs and grabbed his wrists, ripping them toward his ankles until flesh tore again.
“It was for my son,” he screamed. “I regret it every day. I left you in that room when I saw you alive. I went for Carmen to help, but when we came back, the room was on fire.”
Glass shattered somewhere above us. I moved in close. My claws found his eyes, and I dug. He screamed. Blood streamed down his brow, then from his forehead to his hair. I tore his eyes from their sockets and held them to my lips, tasting the salt as he screamed.
“I heard they taste good,” I said, bringing my lips and kissing,
Then I put them in my mouth and swallowed.
I licked my lips and said, “They were right.”
My hands locked around his throat. Cartilage cracked under my grip. His kicks slowed, then stilled.
A scream broke the silence upstairs. Footsteps pounded the staircase as Isabella rushed toward the front door. When she yanked at the handle, I was already there.
“Going somewhere , preciosa?” My laugh slid across the room.
She stumbled back, and her eyes started to bleed.
The thing is, eyes start to bleed when they see the truth, and God, I wanted to know hers.
I shoved her against the wall. My claws pressed into her temples. Her breath shuddered against my mouth. I leaned in, lips brushing hers, and the walls around us dissolved.
She was small. Six, maybe. Her shoes tapped across Carmen’s threshold.
Behind her, Paco and his wife’s voices faded, wrapped in silk and perfume as they left for the night.
Carmen’s hand was on her shoulder as she watched them leave.
She guided her upstairs to her bedroom and placed dolls neatly in her lap. “Stay here. Be good.” She said.
The dolls lay still after she set them down. Curiosity dragged her out the door, down the stairs, past the kitchen. A door stood ajar. Darkness spilled up from below.
The wood steps groaned beneath her. The air turned damp, metallic.
A body swayed in the center of the basement, suspended by its ankles.
Blood slid down pale skin, drip after drip into the bucket under the head.
Beside it, a tub was filled with blood, and from it rose Carmen, hair plastered to her face, arms streaked in red.
Each step left a bloody print on the stone floor.
Isabella’s scream tore through the basement. She spun and ran fast back to the room. And behind her, Carmen’s feet slapped against the stairs, a red hand reaching. The left one.
Isabelle dove under the covers, clutching it to her face. Sheets ripped away, and Carmen’s bloody palm pressed hard over her mouth.
“Close your eyes.” She said as she was slowly passing out.
When light returned, Carmen sat on the bed with Lucía, with a teacup balanced in one hand. The porcelain rattled as Isabelle drank.
But she was smart; she didn’t want to be fooled, so she searched when they left the room. And when she knelt, checking under the bed, she found a shallow box. She pulled it out and pried it open. Inside, there was jewelry that belonged to the missing women.
She ran to the window, shoved it open, and threw the box out in the dumpster below.
And the next morning her mall hands dug through rotting trash, pulling the box free. Clutching it tight, she carried it to her grandmother’s house.
I let go of her memory and pulled back. Isabella clawed for air, hands pressing at her throat like she could hold the world inside her ribs. Her face was streaked with tears and blood.
“Why?” I asked.
She opened her mouth. Nothing came. Her jaw worked like a trapped animal. The edges of her vision trembled. I thought of Carmen’s tea, the slow fog that ate at the edges of things. Her eyes slid over me and did not find the memory. She was hiding it, knotting it tight under her tongue.
“Very well,” I said, and shoved her.
She hit the floor and began to crawl, palms scrabbling at cold tile.
Paco’s groan came from the stairs. He blinked awake.
Isabella saw him and screamed. Blood pooled from her eyes, running down her cheeks.
With each step I took, the white crept across her irises until the pupils vanished.
She couldn’t see anymore. Her scream tore into wet sobs until she closed her eyes and passed out.
Paco tried to move, collapsing against the banister. I leaned into him.
“Oh boo-hoo,” I laughed. “Cry louder. Maybe God will hear you this time. I won’t.”
I moved to the kitchen and turned the oven knob. Gas filled the air. Once it spread all over the house, I struck a match. The little flame hissed and grew. Fire climbed the curtains, ate the wallpaper. Heat pressed against our faces like it was alive.
“You’ll remember my silence louder than all the screams you ignored,” I told them as I walked through flame and smoke and out into the street.
The house behind me started to tear itself apart. Across the alley, the Carmen house, where Matteo had dug up that broken mirror, caught the light. The door opened, and Carmen was at her doorway, her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat.
“Morena.”
I came toward her. She whispered it again. “Morena, you are alive, mi vida?”
“No,” she breathed as she stepped backward, as if pushing the name away could close a wound. “No, Morena.”
She called three times. Her voice broke each time. On the third call, I was inside.
1. “Little tiny spider, climbs up the wall, when the rain comes down, it makes her fall…”
2. “Little little spider, weaves her web, when the shadow comes, she can’t be seen…”
3. I… I… you what?