The Fears That Followed Us Home

1. Blue Flowers

Blue Flowers

Agustina Bazterrica

Translated by Sarah Moses

“I make fans like small wings,

dragging my feet along the dry earth.”

—NICOLáS NUCCIARONE, “El Propósito”

“There are ghosts in the shed,” says my sister, placing her hand on the wood of the closed door.

She looks at me with eyes that always seem to be smiling, but her voice is serious.

I notice her clenched mouth tremble slightly.

“No,” I say, “there are no ghosts, ghosts don’t exist.” She moves her hand, and though it seems like she’s whispering, she yells: But I saw them.

She points to the pile of two boxes she climbed to reach the dirty window.

The morning sun shines on her, setting her hair aflame, as though it were made of something brilliant, almost unreal.

It’s the color of the golden nuggets we find on the riverbank when we gather blue lilies.

“All you saw were shadows, and shadows aren’t ghosts,” I tell her, even though I know that’s not true.

My sister bites her lower lip with her tiny teeth whenever she doesn’t believe me.

We see Mother go into the milking yard, and my sister runs off through the dry grass.

She raises her arms like a bird in flight.

Her dress has blue flowers on it and fades as she gets farther away.

She likes to pet the cows while Mother milks them.

I stop to look at my reflection in the stagnant rainwater we store in metal drums. I don’t like my eyes because they’re too big for my face, and my black hair is the color of a crow’s dirty feathers.

That’s why I keep it neat and tie it back.

I brush it in the water’s reflection because one day, all the mirrors in the house broke, and Father had to remove them.

My sister liked to look at herself in those mirrors, but I never did.

In one of Brother’s books, I’d read that the image in a mirror can kill you, that it’s not really you, but someone else, and you have to be afraid of that person, as they just want to take your place.

I look at my reflection in the stagnant water that lifts in small waves in the summer breeze.

On my face, I think I see a smile that isn’t mine, that’s not really a smile, and only looks like one because my lips are spread wide and my teeth show.

But it’s something else. The mouth in the reflection is trying to say something, but I don’t want to look, or know, so I touch the water and erase my image.

I hear Brother’s axe chopping wood. The sound hurts, as though the axe could wound me. With every strike, my body trembles.

It’s time for me to do my chores so Mother doesn’t get mad.

Before I leave, I touch the silver lock on the shed’s door.

Father locked it one day. Only he has the key.

Sometimes I climb onto the pile of boxes to reach the dirty window and look inside.

There’s a staircase with a broken railing, old furniture, things we don’t use anymore stored in two big trunks, a lot of dust, and the shattered mirrors.

Sometimes I think I see shadows like the ones my sister saw.

Sometimes, if I keep very still and quiet, I think I see the other girl in the broken mirrors, the one who lives in them. My other self.

I run off to collect the eggs, clean the chicken coop, count the hens, and check to make sure they’re okay, because one disappeared this year, and we found another with a broken neck.

I have to do the laundry and help Mother knead the dough.

We keep the dirty laundry in baskets in each room, but I don’t like to go into the house.

I like it better outside. It’s cold in the house, even in the summer.

The cold hurts like tiny, freezing teeth piercing my skin, biting me again and again.

Even with all the lights on, the gloom absorbs the brightness. And there are the voices. In the dark.

I go to Mother and Father’s room. They left two sets of sheets in the laundry basket.

The sun’s rays don’t penetrate the windows; it’s like they disappear on entering the house.

I quickly grab the sheets and though the room is empty, I hear someone say my name.

I don’t want to look around and I run to Brother’s room.

His laundry basket is full. Always full.

Brother hates me. He dirties more clothes than he should.

I sit down on the bed, a little frustrated, because I don’t understand Brother’s disdain.

The cold hurts my hands. Someone or something is breathing in the shadows.

I think it might be Brother, watching me in silence, but I hear the axe, the unmistakable sound of him chopping wood, the rage he unleashes with every blow.

I shut my eyes tightly and run off with the basket full of clothes.

I never go into my sister’s room because it’s Mother who washes her dress.

My sister is obsessed with the dress, the one with blue flowers on it, and she never wants to take it off.

Mother must have made a few dresses with the same fabric, because when they tried to get my sister to change it, she ran away, and they spent two days looking for her.

They found her asleep in the shed, in one of the old trunks.

The trunk was locked on the outside. My sister didn’t say anything to Father, but afterward, she told me that I’d whispered she should hide in there to teach Mother a lesson.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t remember saying anything to her.

Mother calls me to knead the dough, and I pull on an apron over my dress.

I like to touch the dough because when I move my hands I don’t feel the cold as much.

Mother doesn’t look at me, she barely speaks to me.

It’s better that way. I focus on the dough so I don’t look at the shadow behind her.

The shadow isn’t new, it’s been with Mother for a while, causing her to stoop beneath its weight.

The shadow is black, but it’s a black I’ve never seen before.

It’s a black that’s blacker than the black of the black stones by the river, blacker than the black sky in the dead of night, blacker than the black circle in Father’s eyes.

Father also has a shadow that follows him, but since he spends most of the day working the land, I only see it at night, and not always.

Sometimes I think Father’s shadow is now a part of him.

My sister is still too little to knead dough.

I remember when Mother brought her home in her arms. I was just a girl and I’d never seen anyone so fragile and beautiful.

I touched my sister, and she grasped my finger with her tiny baby hand.

Now she’s sitting on one of the stools and her small face comes up to the edge of the table.

I dust a little flour on her nose, and she laughs with her eyes, but her mouth is closed.

Mother doesn’t look at us, and I see the shadow place its fingers on her shoulder—stretching out, growing long, until they cover her chest like the legs of a deformed spider.

Mother stops kneading the dough for a second and dabs at her eyes with the edge of her white apron.

I think she’s crying, but I can’t be sure.

While Mother puts the bread into the clay oven, I go down to the river with my sister to gather water for the laundry.

Brother is still chopping wood, and when we walk by, he places the axe off to the side.

He looks at me silently, his eyes hard, filled with green stones like the ones covered in moss in the woods.

We nod hello, but he ignores us, as always.

I put effort into doing the laundry. My sister goes to look for flowers.

I watch her from a distance while I try to get the sweat stains out of Brother’s shirts.

Her image blurs among the trees. I stand up and shout her name, but she gives me a perplexed, unfocused look and disappears into the woods.

I run after her, look for her, call her, but all I hear is the water in the river flowing furiously.

She’ll be back, like always. I keep scrubbing and the sun warms my freezing body.

I throw myself into the work so I’ll be tired at night, so I’ll give in to exhaustion, so that when my body touches the sheets, my eyes will close and they won’t see what lives in the dark.

Night has fallen and I search for something to do indoors, to keep myself busy, but everything’s clean, all the chores are done. Everyone is asleep, and though I don’t want to, I go to my room.