Chapter 6 – Lily #2
Before I can change my mind, I reach out to her and take it, noting how firm and reassuring her touch is. Her nails are immaculate. Long, black, and glossy, filed into a coffin shape with blood-red tips.
“Cassini, you’ll wait out here,” she says, holding my gaze. “This is women’s work.”
She steps aside and gestures for me to enter the room behind her. It’s dark beyond the door, but I’m not afraid. When I cross the threshold, it takes my breath away.
It’s like stepping into another world—or maybe another reality.
The smell hits me first, sweet, floral, and heavy with incense.
On the ruby-painted walls sit rows of crooked shelves holding mismatched jars of herbs.
Between them, a gang of carved wooden saints—some I recognize from my childhood and others that are completely foreign to me.
Half-burned candles flicker everywhere, casting dancing shadows across altars laden with fresh fruit, flowers, and framed pictures.
On her table, light emanates from a crystal ball nestled in an intricate iron cradle. I lean in to get a closer look at the translucent white smoke inside that gently twists and curls around itself, creating ethereal patterns.
“What’s that?” I say, prodding at it.
“It’s a kind of alarm,” she says shifting it just out of reach like she’s moving a cookie jar away from an over curious toddler.
I take a deep breath to steady my nerves and inhale the heady smell of palo santo. It’s soothing here, and I’m shocked at how quickly I relax. Everything is bathed in blush-pink light that makes the tiny room hazy at the edges.
“Sit,” Paloma says, gesturing to a small chair across from her cloth-covered desk. “Please. You can be comfortable here.”
I melt into the weathered leather armchair as Paloma strikes a long match and passes the flame over two black tapered candles nestled between us. When I raise an eyebrow, she tells me it’s for protection, and even the most cynical part of me believes her. She has that kind of energy.
“So,” she says, blowing out the match and fixing me with an inquisitive look. “Why are you here?”
“Shouldn’t you already know the answer?” I say with a laugh. “Aren’t you some kind of fortune teller?”
She doesn’t laugh back, just watches me curiously.
My smile drops, and I shake my head. “I don’t know, really. I guess I’m just looking for answers.”
She leans in, her hands folded on the table. “I see. Then maybe you should begin by asking me a question.”
My phone has just enough battery left to get me through the next few minutes, so I take it out and swipe to the picture of the tattoo. The one that stopped me in my tracks just a day ago. I hesitate for a moment before handing it over to her.
“Have you ever seen this symbol before?” I ask.
She studies the image and furrows her brow. “Where did you see this mark?”
“It was on a patient at the hospital I work at, and my mom had the same one I think. Can you tell me what it means?”
She pauses for a beat. “It means whoever has it is involved with some very dangerous people,” she says, handing the phone back to me like it’s burning her fingers. “And if I were you, I’d leave this be. Don’t go searching for trouble if you can avoid it.”
My heart skips. “What do you mean by dangerous? Who are these people?”
“You’re a smart girl,” she says with a loaded look.
“I’m sure you understand that there are some among us who survive by preying on the weak.
Draining the life out of them until there’s nothing left.
These are not the kind of people you want to make an enemy of.
When I tell you to drop this, I only say it to keep you safe.
Believe me, no good will come from this. ”
She’s right, I think as I deflate. I want answers, but I don’t want to end up in a ditch somewhere.
Drug dealers are parasites who feed off the most vulnerable.
They don’t like people fucking with their money, and they’re notoriously paranoid.
Maybe I shouldn’t be exposing myself to that kind of danger. Maybe this was a mistake.
“Okay, well…thanks, I guess.” I babble as I stand up from the table. “Sorry for wasting your time. It was great to meet you.”
As my fingertips brush the handle of the door, Paloma’s voice rings out from behind me.
“Before you go, tell me something,” Paloma calls. “You came here for more than just this tattoo. You have another question for me? Something else?”
I chew my lip. “I did, but it’s not important.”
“Try me,” she says. “You are carrying a question. A heavy one. I can see it in your face. What’s the harm in just asking?”
The dam breaks and there’s nothing I can do to stop the words bubbling up in my throat, desperate for an escape. Dying to be aired out at long last.
“What’s wrong with me?” I blurt, shocked at how vulnerable I sound.
Before I can stop them, tears spring and tumble down my cheeks, angry and wet, as if the well of pain I’ve felt for months, maybe even years, comes rushing to the surface.
“I’ve been getting these headaches, and they’ve been getting worse. They started a few months ago at work. I remember that I’d had a really stressful shift and was taking some time out down in the basement of the hospital when I got this terrible pain.”
She listens without interrupting, nodding and making small sounds of understanding.
Then she does something unexpected. She reaches across the table and takes my hand in hers, sandwiching it between her palms. Her touch is feather-light, and when she looks into my eyes, I can feel a small buzz of electricity pass between us.
“Tell me about the voices,” Paloma says softly.
I consider holding back, but I feel strangely safe with her, so I opt for the truth.
I tell her everything. The voices, the shadows, the buzzing feeling that occupies my brain and confuses me.
I tell her about the tests doctors performed on me over and over again with no results.
I tell her about how frustrated I have felt and how I’d considered ending my own life to make it all stop.
The longer I talk, the faster the tears fall. Hot, wet, and spilling down my cheeks like a seam ripping under too much weight.. It’s the first time I’ve said much of it aloud. The first time I acknowledged that the pain I am in is too much to bear, and how desperate I am to try anything.
I bow my head and sob, my shoulders heaving as I struggle to catch my breath. Paloma makes calming shushing noises as she reaches up and wipes a tear away with her thumb.
“I’m sorry,” I say between sobs. “I didn’t mean to go off like that. I just feel so… so…. broken.”
“You are not broken, querida,” she says, resting her hand against my cheek. “You are a medium. And a very special one at that.”
A what?
The words barely register as real. My vision tunnels, and for a moment I can’t breathe. Medium. The word echoes in my head, pulling up half-forgotten memories—whispered conversations between adults when I was small, the way people gawked at me after Mom died.
“That’s not…” I start, but my voice cracks. “That’s not real. Mediums aren’t real.”
But even as I say it, pieces start clicking together. The voices. The shadows. The way I always knew when something was wrong in the hospital before anyone else did.
Paloma leans back, assessing me. “You have a connection to the spirit world, and it’s strong. But you’ve built walls around it, tried to shut it out.”
“I’m a nurse,” I bleat defensively. “I believe in science, in things that can be tested and proven. This is not possible”
“And yet here you are.” She smiles, but it’s not mocking. “The spirits are trying to reach you, but because you resist them, they come through as…leaks. Unpredictable. Dangerous. Painful.”
I want to argue, to tell her she’s wrong, but I don’t. I want to understand this.
“Lily, trust me when I say, if you do not tear down the wall you have built around your gift, learn to control and harness it, one day it will come crashing down and flood your mind. It could drive you mad. It could even kill you.”
The matter-of-fact way she says it sends ice through my veins. “That’s…that’s not possible.”
“Close your eyes,” she says instead of arguing. “It is better if I show you.”
“I don’t think—”
“Close your eyes, Lily.”
The room goes dark behind my eyelids, but I can still smell the incense and essential oils, still feel her warm hands holding mine. A bell rings through the room and reverberates through my body. Rearranging my molecules and tingling all over my scalp.
“Con permiso, espíritus de luz,” she says, her voice soft and hypnotic. “Picture yourself in an empty room with a single window. Can you see it?”
I nod. Yes, I do. Despite myself, I can. In my mind’s eye, there’s a large window with old-fashioned panes, and beyond it…something. Not darkness, exactly, but something vast and shimmering.
“Good. Now you’re going to walk toward the window. Place your hands on the glass.”
I do as she says and I’m surprised when I can feel my hands pushing against the cool surface of the window.
“Put your ear against the glass and listen. Go on. Tell me what you can hear.”
At first, there’s nothing. Then, faint as a whisper, a voice, far away but clear and resonant.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
“Hello.”
My heart speeds up. I can’t believe it’s actually working. Paloma’s voice drifts in too, but it’s muffled, like she’s trapped underwater. I can feel her right next to me, but her words are slippery. Bouncing off the walls and dancing in the distance.
“Concentrate. Take it slow. All you have to do is listen,” she encourages from somewhere far away.
I lean in and try again.
“Hello?”
“Liliput.”
My breath catches. I know that voice.
I try to focus, but a searing pain shoots through my head, like someone driving a stake into my eye socket.
I gasp and jerk my hands away from the imaginary window, and my eyes fly open as I’m metaphysically catapulted back to Paloma’s room.
I blink, adjusting my eyes to the light, and wipe the tears from my cheeks with the sleeve of my cardigan.
“What the hell just happened to me?”
“Shhh,” she soothes. “It’s okay. Don’t be scared. I am told it can be very intense the first time.”
“I can’t believe I just—”
“With practice,” Paloma continues as if I haven’t spoken, “you’ll be able to open the window when you need to and close it when you don’t. You must learn to maintain the balance between the worlds.”
The crystal ball’s light dims rapidly, and we watch the white smoke darken to deep red tendrils that thrash so violently against the glass the ball rocks in its cradle.
Paloma’s face betrays a flash of fear before she composes herself.
“That can’t be good?” I say, transfixed.
“No. It’s not good. It means that someone already knows about this.”
“Who?” I ask.
“No one good.”
She gets up and moves to one of the altars, hastily gathering herbs and small items and stuffing them into a little pouch.
“That’s enough for today. For now, practice listening against the window before you attempt to open it.
Go slow. Light a black candle for protection, use salt around your space. Do it just a little at a time.”
“Okay, and then what?”
“Eventually, you’ll be able to tune in and out without all the need for ritual.
” She hands me a small cloth bag tied with red string.
“This is a bolsita—for protection. Carry it with you always. It is most important. What you are is very rare, and there are those who will try to harm you—and me—if they find out.”
“Why would anyone hurt us? I don’t understand.”
“No more questions tonight. You must go.” She’s rushing me now, ushering me out of the chair and toward the exit. She flings open the door and calls out, “Cassini! Time to pay. Cash only. Give it to Maria in the front.”
Cassini nods and heads toward the exit in search of the old woman who greeted us. When he’s out of earshot, Paloma grips my hand and whispers in my ear. Something in her voice sounds spooked, and it sends a horrible jolt of ice through my spine.
“He can help. You should practice with him, but you must be very careful, and you must tell no one else.” She gathers my face in her hands and kisses me on both cheeks. “Do not trust anyone, and do not trust him. Not completely.”
And with that, she nudges me out and slams the door shut behind her. Leaving me dazed and terrified in the hallway.