“My mother would never do what you do,” I said shaking my head with disgust.
“Yeah! And look at her now. The bitch is one step away from her grave,” Nico spat.
“I didn’t start this shit. I am just a fucking man trying to survive, trying to make aliving for myself, for us,” he said with spittle flying out of his mouth.
“This ain’t right,” I said pleadingly.
“Half the shit that happens in the world ain’t right. Your momma worked all her life,poor and miserable, and for what? People are dying all over the world, in war, in famines,in fucking chains. And you’re bitching at me for doing a little bit of brujeria,” he saidwhile wiping his brow, he was struggling to maintain his composure.
“This is the power that God fucking gave me and I ain’t going let your momma oranybody else take it away from me,” he continued while rising up to his feet.
“What I do is natural,” When a fucking wild animal is hungry, he feeds; when hefeels threatened, he destroys. That’s the code I live by,” he said waving his fist. Hestopped and looked at me for a long time before he continued.
“What I do is real magic, not the fairy-tale shit you believe in. You need to get yourhead out of the clouds, because what I do ain’t for the faint of heart,” he said.
“But my momma,” I said.
“Maria,” he said lovingly as he rushed over and cupped my face.
“Your momma is weak and because of that, she deserves to die,” he said.
I slapped his hands away before I replied. “She’s not weak; she’s the best healer intown.”
Nico looked at me with an expression of pity.
“No she’s not, because if she was, she never would have let me take her down,” hesaid with a mischievous smile. I wanted to rip his eyeballs out of his sockets.
He just laughed, loud wicked cackles.
“Alright, that’s what I’m talking about. Show me that you’re worth keeping. Showme that you got the guts to do this shit,” he said handing me the bottle.
I hesitated.
“Maria, the world is a fucking jungle and if you don’t eat, you get eaten. Take ofcare of this for me, and I will show you things that will make your head spin.”
I looked down and focused on the ground.
“Tomorrow, it will all be over, you won’t ever feel pain again. I can promise youthat,” he said while caressing my cheek and chin. “I love you, Maria. I want to make youmy wife. I want to share with you all of my secrets, but I need to be sure that I can trustyou,” he said while raising my chin up so I can look at him.
“I’ll make all the pain go away. I promise,” he said with a wink. I took the bottle andfought hard not to throw it at him.
It was late in the night when Nico led me down to old stream that was right outsideof my old home. He was very careful and quiet. He did not want anyone to know that hehad snuck back in town. We walked by the river side by side. Nico had a death grip onmy arm. He looked at me in the dark and he motioned for me to follow him up a hill.Together we climbed, I was barefoot, hungry, and my white night gown was torn andsoiled.
I kept climbing and focused in on Nico’s dark figure that was moving in front of me.When we got to the top of the hill. Nico grabbed my hand and guided me to the center ofthe bridge. Nelly, we had to be about a hundred feet off the ground. I looked down andthe deepest part of me wanted to jump off. Nico seemed to have read my thoughts. Hepulled me toward him. It was a full moon, the wind whistle through the air. The riverbegan to ripple and stir. I supposed that it was sensing my animosity. The bottle seemedto slip out of my hand. My eyes were glued to Nico’s as it plummeted down into thestream. A body of waves that carried it out to sea then seized it.
I was in a trance again; it was almost as if something had taken over me. Likenewfound lovers, Nico and I climbed down from the hill and walked back to our secrethaven, hand in hand. That night, he made love to me. I lay with Nico, entangled in hisarms. I dreamed of your momma finding your great abuela’s dead body. In just a fewhours, the house was filled with people. Everyone knew that she had been sick, but theywere still in shock to find her dead.
When she died, I died because I was too stupid to go back and retrieve her book ofsecrets and uphold the knowledge that she was trying to pass down. She tried to teach methat positive and negative are on opposite sides of the same coin. You can’t have onewithout the other. In fact, you need to overcome the negative in order to experience thepositive. My whole life, I thought that Nico could solve all of my problems. I was a fool,who was tricked by a brujo who took all of my power. I believed in someone
