(two)
Lucia
These people. They all thought they knew her, her heart, her soul. As if they’ve felt all she felt. They didn’t know her. No one did. No one could.
They all thought her an object, something they owned. A lodestone, or the town crazy, even a graven idol. Yes, that was more appropriate. They’d already joined her with their varied lords—not exactly real, not exactly what one could use outside the church. And oh, how she made them lie. But these simpletons called them prayers.
They never looked though. Their gazes were so strictly averted but she heard their longing still, that longing to look and see for themselves what a spectacle Lucia Galvez was.
Sometimes, though, she called them. To them, it might not be unlike a siren to a sailor. She knew this. She called them, yes, she beckoned, though she didn’t want to. She just drew and they just came.
But they couldn’t go near. She wouldn’t let them.
Once though, she let one. Once, just once, not so long ago. She had opened that heart, this soul, which everyone wanted to get into. She had allowed herself to be touched to her core.
And then he died.
Oh, how mortality pained her. It was so finite, so hopeless, so dark. So hauntingly dark. So doomed. What was life beyond death? Was there a life? What was this paradise, or, as was more fitting to her, this hell once you closed your mortal eyes a final time, breathed you last breath, beat your last heartbeat, thought your last thought? Perpetual wandering? Lost always? Or this eternal happiness that saints preached? Or would it all just end? Nothingness. Not even thought of nothingness. Just oblivion.
Ah, man’s eternal questions.
“From nothing I came forth, to nothing I shall return.”
Dark eyes—once so warm and alive, so loving, so soft, now so cold, so hard, so sad—looked into everything. Absorbing everything, feeling nothing. She looked at the immobile statues of marble and granite, at the carved, holy yet bestial faces of sneering saints, their eyes set in contemplative gazes.
And then the words came back, the way a soiled paper boat finds it way back to you.
“Mother… Mother…”
—How could she ever erase him from her mind? People left and right, strangers, told her to forget about him, about the babe she once held in her arms as he cried, the child she crooned to sleep, the boy she watched turn into a man. Her Marcus.
“Can you find him, Lucia? He that has drawn you to me? He that is keeping you here?”
And inside her, all this time, she’d been barren, hollow, empty. But she felt him. She knew he was there. The very air was charged with his presence.
What a sad, lingering pain that feeling was. Knowing, certain, that someone was there, waiting for you, watchful, but when you gathered up the courage to look, he’d gone.
Yet watching still.
Waiting for you.
I know you’re still here.
Because I know you’re still here. I’ve tried so long to rid of you but you won’t go. And so I try now to embrace you.
But why are you afraid to come near?
Afraid that when you would hold out you hand, you’d touch nothing?
She stood up and left, heels clicking against the marble tiles. As she stepped out of the ancient church, into the dark shades of twilight, she nodded at Eduardo, the sampagita seller, with a faint, almost indiscernible smile on her lips.
Eduardo reverently held out a garland to her.
“Thank you,” she whispered but she didn’t take the flowers. She never took them.
Flowers were too alive. What right did she have to hold beings of life when she had already felt life itself slip between her fingers, lost to her forever?
That was when she and Marcus held each other. On a night like this. The sky was bleeding then as it was now.
She looked away from Eduardo and gazed into the church, through the windows beside the altar, at the little chapel far-off. It was there that she’d held Marcus for the last time.
It was there that she lost him.
She went, leaving Eduardo staring at the untouched garland in his gnarled, weathered hands.
She didn’t know why she continued to go to church, why she kept on wearing that black veil; why she still kneeled, bowed and prayed; why she still continued to walk through the courts, teeming with people—some truly religious, some apathetic; why she still tolerated the stares.
She didn’t even know why she still believed.
Father—she couldn’t help but smirk a little at the title—Philip looked kindly at the congregation before him that night. He wore that special smile of his, the kind that reminded Lucia of sad sunsets and shy blossoms after a rainy day. And she remembered when he was a boy. Darling Marcus’s best friend. How many times had he and her son stormed around the house, being rowdy, like all little boys were? She remembered the dimpled smiles. What a wonder it was to see him all grown up, teaching people about the Lord! Padre Philip, indeed.
Her thoughts, before she could stop them, returned to Marcus. What could he have become?
Philip looked at the front row then the second row, and then the third row. He pointedly ignored her presence in the middle of the aisle, right between the pews, directly in front of his little stage. He ignored her, the way other people did. Although they all could see her, the kept their eyes forcibly averted. Although they were thrilled with her presence, they acted as though they disdained it. Although they wanted her to come, here they were pretending to chase her away.
Now, they thought she was crazy.
And so she looked straight ahead, a picture of haughty yet morose beauty—the epitome of an unreachable perfection. Beneath the dark silk of her veil, the red gloss of her lips was visible.
Like a blood stain.
Like a wild rose sprung from a land of ashes.
No one’s here. You can fall inside yourself.
Yet he was here. The soft breeze whispered to her: He’s here. He’s here.
She turned her veiled head.
And there he was.
Her Marcus.
“Marcus!” she cried out.
The congregation had stilled, whispering empty, jittery speeches to each other. Philip had stopped his preaching. There was certainly no silence in the church. Yet one could feel the stillness.
She was, at first, unable to move. After what seemed like an eternity of limbo, since that night of losing him so irrevocably, she was content with merely gazing at his heartbreaking beauty with tenderness and love. The dark eyes, the windblown hair, the smooth marble cheek. Just stare, when for so long, all she had were memories.
Then he started to walk away.
“No,” she said in an agonized whisper. She walked briskly towards him, almost afraid to make a sound on the marble tiles, afraid to disrupt the moment. One imperfection, it seemed, would ruin everything. Why was he turning away?
Her eyes sought his, imploring him.
And then, with a careless toss of his head, he looked at her. His eyes, so much like her own then, showed nothing. A blankness.
The tears ran steadily down her face, when she’d thought that she’d long ago lost the ability to cry. Yet, undaunted, she threw open her arms and tried to put them around him.
Yet she couldn’t hold him. Her arms, imploring, went right through him.
She screamed as the unwanted memory invaded her mind—
The sky was bleeding. Crimson streaks of daylight warred with the raging blanket of darkness. The moon, so clear, so bright, was full, lending the land the light it needed so much to face the dismal shadows. The glacial evening winds sang a sad song. As if they knew what the night brought in its wake.
Inside the derelict chapel, with its climbing dark vines and blood-red blossoms of rose, Lucia stood in the dark, making no sound at all. As the winds howled outside, all that reached her ears were its echoes and the labored breathing of a man in terror, a man aware that the night might be his last.
—“Ladies and gentlemen, if you would all direct your attention back to this Holy Mass of our Lord…” Philip del Fuego’s firm voice resonated all over the church yet none paid any attention to him. Everyone had turned towards Lucia. After pretending for so long that she did not exist, all these people now acknowledged her presence with blunt stares and unabashed whispers.
Philip knew that they shouldn’t. It wasn’t right.
Lucia’s screaming drowned out everything else.
“Let us continue with the Mass!” Philip bellowed. “Reverence to our Lord! There would be none of that disrespect in this church, you hear me?”
Nobody looked at him. For still, she screamed and screamed. Screamed his name—
“Marcus?” she whispered. “Are you here?”
“N-No, querida. He’s not here.” Tremors. Lucia could feel his tremors.
“Why should I believe you, you beast? Why now when you’ve been gleefully doing all those monstrosities to me? Why now when I hold power over you?”
Lucia’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. He was like a cornered rat. There would be no escape from her. No escape. Just like when she was with him, all these years, those caged years.
Driven by hate, she clutched the handle of the silver dagger tighter.
—A little girl a couple of rows from the front pew asked her mother quietly, “Why doesn’t he hear her?”
It was an anguished scream. The scream of intense pain, the scream of the heart torn apart. It was the scream of a tortured soul—
“Can you find him, Lucia? He that has drawn you to me? He that is keeping you here?”
“Shut up, Franco.” Lucia raised the dagger. “Unless you want to feel this inside you.”
“P-Please don’t kill me.”
How fast this snake shifted from mocking to groveling. He was crying now. Pathetic. She never cried when he threatened her. What right did he have to cry? To beg mercy?
—The still image of Marcus Galvez lured the people. His immobility hurt Lucia.
“Marcus, darling, look at me!” She lost him once. Now, in this short, if not, single encounter, she will not lose him again. How many times had she wished for this image of his? This apparition of the person she loved most in the world? An impossible wish, then, for she knew she could never be with him again. Ever. Because of that nightmarish evening—
“Mother… Mother…”
“Lucia!”
She stiffened. What were they doing here?
“Well, well, Lucia.” Franco sneered. “It seems there’s a big, gaping hole in the master plan.”
“Hush.” She inclined her head towards the chapel door.
He ignored her. Smug now, because of this opportunity for escape. He knew she would never do anything this vindictive, this evil when Marcus was around. Idiot woman. “Now, would you just please put that dagger down? You wouldn’t want to hurt Marcus, would you?”
Lucia turned back to Franco. “No. But it would give me great pleasure to hurt you.”
The chapel door banged open the exact moment Franco screamed.
—Philip descended from the pulpit, his robes a gliding cape against the weathered marble floor. One arm was raised and the other cradled a beaten Bible by his side.
“Stop this nonsense!”
Lucia was kneeling on the floor, a fallen angel at the feet of Marcus, who know looked around him, indifferent, lost, unsure—
“Mother—no!”
Lucia closed her eyes, silently pleading at her son to stop, pleading at God to press his hallowed hand to impede her Marcus, pleading at herself to keep the anger inside. For the anger must never again be let out. Never again. Once in one night was too much.
She opened her eyes. The darkness should have clouded the vision of Marcus’ emotions. Yet streaks of lights from the crystal moon outside illuminated his face—
Dark eyes gazed at her with rage, fiery hurt and disbelief. Even disgust. Her Marcus… Of all people, it was he who was supposed to understand everything. Understand why she had to take this dagger from that witch-woman. Understand why she had to follow Franco to this chapel. Understand why she had to protect him. Understand how she had to protect the son from the father.
—illuminated the dagger she held posed above Franco, who was still sniveling at Lucia’s feet, illuminated her face, drawn, hurt, exhausted, scared. Bestial.
—“Marcus, hijo, look at me… Please!”
Philip had to stop this evilness right now—
Unbridled chaos.
The next moments were a haze. Silver glints of a dagger flashing against the moonlight. Screams from Marcus, Franco, Philip. Only an unnerving silence from Lucia…
…as the night bled…
…as the dagger embedded…
…as the chapel held witness to a woman’s hate…
…as the crimson tides of love, anger and regret poured all over the stained wood floor…
…as the wrong flesh was scarred…
Voices shouting.
Tears.
—She was the only one there now.
She sat still, black suit immaculate, black veil firmly in place, hands neatly folded on her knees, black-stockinged legs crossed at the ankles. She sat still and let the lights close around her one by one… one by one.
Just like the sparks of life in Marcus’ eyes when she held him. One by one… they went… Slowly. Like candle flames blown by a deferential whisper.
One by one until all were gone.
The comfortable darkness settled around her. Philip, her adoring Philip, would, as always, give her ten more minutes. And, as always, he left a single lit candle at the far end of the front pew.
She sat in that front pew and stared at the flickering flame of the pristine white candle. She knelt and looked up.
There was Jesus, his face in agony. The impressive image of a man torturously hung on the cross. There he was, pain, suffering and all.
Was Marcus’ face like that when he had looked into the eyes of the Angel of Death?
She stayed there until the candle melted, until the light flickered…
Until it died.
Philip nodded to Eduardo, handing him a 5-peso coin in exchange for a sampagita garland. Eduardo, in turn, bowed his head to Lucia and whispered an Ave Maria under his breath. Philip smiled at him. Eduardo allowed himself to return a morose smile. They walked ahead, Philip crushing the garland in his fist. The scent rose and blended with the coming night.
“He’s awed by you,” he whispered, sticking a forbidden cigarette between his lips. He left it unlit. “Many people are.”
“People tend to fear the things that awe them.”
“People tend to fear the things that covet them.”
Lucia didn’t acknowledge his statement. She just looked sideways at Philip beneath her dark veil, surveying him in the moonlight. “Are you one of them?”
He didn’t answer her.
They had reached the small, hidden chapel, almost fully covered with creeping vines with cheerless, blood-red roses for blossoms. Only the single bleeding oak door was left uncovered. Philip opened that door using the ring of keys that he took from his pocket.
“Go.”
Lucia breathed deeply. “I will never have him again, will I?”
“Leave him alone. But don’t forget him.”
“How can I, Philip?”
“I saw what happened that night.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Philip took the unlit cigarette from his mouth and threw it to the ground. “Rest, Lucia.”
“I will.” She lifted her veil and Philip was able to see the face that captivated so many once again. She held a porcelain hand to his cheek. Her red lips breathed into his ear, “Thank you, Philip.” Then, she pressed those lips to his temples momentarily. “I’m sorry.”
Philip had closed his eyes.
Lucia replaced the veil and stepped back from Philip, beholding him for a long while, until he finally opened his eyes. He gave her a morose, wobbly smile and she smiled back.
Then, she turned and walked inside the chapel and then closed it behind her.
For a long time, Father Philip del Fuego stood immobile, staring at the chapel door. He held a hand to his now-cold cheek. The other hand, the one that held crushed sampagitas, opened. The broken white petals fell to the ground.
In his mind, he recalled that last image of an ethereal lady, almost translucent, fading into the moonlight as she entered a dismal, abandoned chapel.
“Mother!”
Lucia lay immobile in Marcus’ arms, as her wounded body created a pool of blood as dark as the roses in the vines covering the chapel. The dagger was embedded in the middle of her bosom, piercing her heart. The silver handle glinted maliciously in the moonlight.
“Marcus…”
Lucia could do nothing but stare at her son’s eyes, watch the life, the light, disappear from them as she felt her soul being gripped by an invisible hand.
Lucia…
A silent whisper by a stranger. So alien to her yet so welcome.
Marcus could do nothing but hold his mother silently. He couldn’t even cry.
Lucia…
“From nothing I came forth, to nothing I shall return.”
Marcus looked up, his face an agonized mask… As he met a stranger’s vivid gray eyes, he felt his mother’s soul slip from between his fingers.
The angel had come.
Franco didn’t die. If there was injustice in the world, that was it. He had fainted.
Lucia smirked.
She held out her hand, wispy now, almost nothing. A ghost. She touched the walls of the small chapel with the tips of her flimsy fingers and sang a sweet, lonely song.
She had told her Fetcher to wait… she had to say goodbye to her Marcus.
But she hadn’t been able to. She couldn’t.
And she wouldn’t be able to stop the angel the second time around either.
She turned around at the distinct sound of someone’s presence. That resonating vibrancy of someone living. No, not living. Existing.
Her angel was here.
“I tried to stop the hurting but still the wounds opened.”
Labels: Dark Fiction
posted by Sasha Martinez @ 9:13 AM
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