6. Guardian Angel #2
Sure, there were fights during the first weeks.
But they were mostly because Inés wanted to listen to Metallica, while Marisa preferred Ricky Martin.
Dad laughed and said he would buy another stereo—Let there be peace, girls.
Three days later, Dad picked Marisa up at school and told her he had a surprise for her.
In the back seat there was a cardboard box and, inside, the promised stereo.
But the surprise lay elsewhere: Dad had doll’s eyes.
Marisa held herself back. She couldn’t cry or lash out; she couldn’t let them realize she knew.
She had to act her part. There was a reason the devil didn’t seek her out.
She was pure. She had never had a boyfriend.
No one had touched her. She needed to save her family, though she had been unable to save her mother.
She owed it to her, poor thing, who’d died with a nail in her heart.
Inés moved into their father’s room because, she said, she heard noises when she was in hers.
Marisa heard them, too. Running steps on the stairs, and again, the hammering.
Then there were Dad’s groans in the night, Kiddo, you’re divine, and then Inés, Daddy, eat it up, eat my pussy just like that.
Even when Marisa covered her ears, she still heard them.
She could hear the smacking of their kisses and their tongues, and she heard Dad a little while later, his low voice begging Inés, Suck it for me, sweetie, suck it.
What could she do? Guide them, perhaps, through suggestion. Over breakfast, for example.
“Dad, do you hear the noises Inés talks about?”
“Yes, who knows what they are; there are a lot of apartments here. You know how people are…”
“But do you hear the footsteps on the stairs?”
“Oh, I thought that was Rocky. Poor dog, he discovered the steps, and he plays at night.”
It wasn’t Rocky. Even Inés knew that. Her sister no longer had the devil in her all the time. Marisa could tell. Dad passed the doll to her when she went into his room. During the day, she was normal.
“Mari, let’s go ask the owner what’s up.”
The two of them went. Dad tried to make light of it, but he was clearly a little uncomfortable. I’m going to help you, Daddy dear, Marisa thought.
They asked the landlord, who lived in the apartment across from them, if anyone had died in the house.
He told them that no one had, at least since he had bought it.
Marisa was reassured until, a week later, their food started to rot.
Even the food in the freezer. They couldn’t cook.
They had to buy ready-made food at the grocery store and eat it fast because it would start to stink on the plate.
Dad insisted it was that shitty refrigerator, but without conviction, timidly, just to say something.
When he didn’t have the doll in his eyes, he seemed frightened.
Marisa convinced him to pray. “Come on, Daddy, let’s pray.
Strange things happen sometimes, and we can also pray for Mom.
” The three of them knelt down in the bedroom with Marisa’s rosary every night.
But the noises continued. And sometimes, even after praying, Dad got back into Inés’s bed.
Help them, help them. In the morning, Dad looked at Marisa with his real eyes, which seemed to plead with her.
She had seen him crying in a corner of the living room, saying in a low voice, “My God, what is happening to us?” To help them, Marisa took a bus downtown.
She was looking for the address of an angelology center.
A brochure she had found stuck to a wall on campus claimed they could help you cast out demons, find your Guardian Angel, end corruption, and find the Divine Light.
Marisa signed up without a second thought when she saw the place: silent, filled with white candles and with peace.
She also signed up Inés, though without telling her.
She would tell her later, if the course worked.
In the first class, the teacher said that every person was a being of light, and that everyone was capable of expelling darkness.
Marisa took notes. It was possible to help those who moved in darkness, whether from corruption or a curse, because the devil lurked everywhere, but he was not invisible.
She heard some wonderful stories of people who had suffered so, so much, and were now free through the grace of God.
But it was essential to invoke and find the angel.
We all have one who accompanies us in silence, but we can learn to speak to them.
The teacher said that he could even see a few there today, floating above the students’ shoulders.
Marisa asked if he saw hers. Not yet, the teacher said, but with a few instructions that he would give her, she could meet her angel soon.
She also asked him how a person reached the light.
The teacher personally handed her a small book—just folded photocopies, really, but it contained the method of Purification.
“With faith and the Angel’s help, it always works,” and he squeezed her shoulder with real affection.
Marisa went home with her book and her instructions pressed to her chest; she didn’t dare read them on the bus.
She ran up the stairs and started to read sitting on her bed.
There were so many angels to contact! She hadn’t expected that.
Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Chamuel, Jofiel, Zadkiel.
She had to choose one. But first she took note of the purification rite.
She copied it in full into her notebook so she would remember it, the way she did with readings at the university.
That way she memorized them better. She was struck by the words at the end of the instructions for the rite: “Sometimes it is frightening.” She was very afraid. But she had to help them, help them.
Before going to sleep, she invoked Zadkiel.
“May the evil spirit be definitively annihilated
and may love reign among us
as Your love for us is manifested fully and inexhaustibly
Amen.”
She found him in the morning at the foot of her bed. He didn’t look like what she’d expected. No mantle or wings or youth. He looked to be around forty years old, with black, gelled hair, a dark blue suit, and a white shirt.
“Zadkiel?” Marisa said, and she tumbled from her bed to the floor. There, kneeling, she prayed.
“But my dear, I’ve been waiting years for your call. Stand up, please. Or sit on the bed, it doesn’t matter.”
“Zadkiel?”
“No, he’s busy. I’m Nicholas.”
“ ‘May your love…’ ”
“Thanks, hon, but there’s no need for all that ceremony.”
The angel gave a snort. He had green eyes and a broad forehead. He looked around while he waited for Marisa to stop crying and sit down on the bed.
“Oh, Lucifer, Star of Morning, you are obsessed with this neighborhood, aren’t you?
You’re so obvious! It’s clear that your sin was pride.
‘There is a border region where the city and the desert come together in a combative embrace, like two giants engaged in a singular battle. Saavedra is the name that cartographers assign to this mysterious region, perhaps to avoid its true name, which must not be uttered.’ The geography has changed a little, to be sure. Not that you care, I know.”
Marisa was staring at him, entranced and terrified.
“Sorry for the tangent, my dear. But who thinks it’s a good idea to live in Saavedra, just tell me that. Anyway, let’s get to work. How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Whole life ahead of you. Good. Lucifer Morningstar has been cruel with your family, right?”
“We need your help, beloved Zadkiel…”
“Nicholas. Of course you need it, and I have no choice.”
The angel stood. He was very tall and thin. He did not radiate light.
“It’s going to be hard, Marisa. Very hard.
Unfortunately, you’ve gotten caught in the middle of a battle between angels and demons who are fighting for the soul…
Well, to work. I am Nicholas, the Purifier.
You and I must work together until the end.
Take heed: your father and your sister, with their lust, have been filling the city with incubi and succubi.
For a long time. They don’t even know they’re doing it.
I am going to guide you, every step of the way. ”
Marisa was sobbing with fear and gratitude. She cried so much that soon she heard knocking at her door. “Marisa, are you okay? What’s wrong, honey?” Dad asked.
Marisa looked at the angel, who shrugged.
“He can come in,” Nicholas said. “He can’t see me. I’m your guardian angel. Invisible to other people.”
Marisa opened the door, and, trembling, she saw the angel was telling the truth. There he still was, sitting on her bed; her father sat down beside him and didn’t notice his presence at all.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
He had the doll’s eyes. Marisa looked at the angel, who nodded.
“Daddy, we need to pray.”
“Marisa, that’s enough. Enough!” He stood up angrily, his eyelids rigid.
Marisa trailed after him. “Leave me alone, I’m going to the bathroom.
” But still, Marisa followed him. When she went in, she saw the true doll reflected in the mirror, the one she had previously seen only in her father’s face.
It was smiling. “There he is! It’s the devil,” she screamed.
Dad, furious, punched the mirror and it broke.
Then Inés came in, half-naked. Marisa began to scream and call Nicholas’s name.
Dad started talking about psychologists and sedatives.
Inés murmured, “Crazy-ass bitch,” and left.
The angel floated over Marisa, who was screaming as she lay on the bathroom floor.
“To bed,” he said, and for the first time his voice sounded powerful. It filled the world, shook the mirror shards on the floor, and made Rocky start to howl as he went up and down the stairs. “To bed. Tomorrow is another day.”