“Fernanda, I have a little surprise for you. The girls say hello.” I placed the phone in front of her.
“Hey, baby girl. I miss you and wish you were here. We will keep you in our prayers tonight.” Ana air-kissed the screen and then moved to make way for Perla.
“I’m lighting a candle for you, so you are here in spirit. Love you,” she said.
Pauline was the last to speak. “We want you back, Fernanda. Whatever you need to do to come back to us.” She was on the verge of tears.
Fernanda watched with a glazed look, black, full lips hanging open as she breathed through her mouth. Not a hint of emotion at seeing our little gang.
The rest of the video was of the vigil, until it came to the part with the couple at the ofrenda at the UTSA library entrance. Fernanda’s legs trembled. Her head shook and eyes transformed, dilating into different shapes. Droplets of green and yellow ink leaked from her tear ducts. It was the inhabitant. She took the phone from my hand, inspecting the image until it went black. A dirt-caked fingernail tapped on the screen. She recognized them.
“What is it?” I asked. “Who are they? Do I need to find them? Tell me?!”
My raised voice must have alarmed Mrs. Garcia because she came outside. Fernanda dropped her head, shrouding her face with her hair.
“Everything okay? Do you need more water? This heat is suffocating.” She looked around the yard, fanning herself with a Reader’s Digest. The patio was covered with a wooden trellis that her roses had once climbed. Now, there were only woody vines without a single rosebud left.
“Aye, my poor roses. They say that this might be a sign of things to come. I can’t watch the news anymore.”
“We are fine. Just showing Fernanda messages from the girls.”
She glanced at me and Fernanda with sad eyes before going back inside. When she left, Fernanda placed her lips to my ear. A raspy hiss, “No.”
“Please speak to me, Fernanda!” I said in the loudest possible whisper.
Fernanda rapidly blinked and shook her head. “What happened?”
“Well, for starters, she spoke to me after I showed you a video of the vigil for the missing girls. You know I will never leave your side, but this makes no sense. To me or the girls. The club scared me, but I thought . . . I don’t know. Things would be just like before . . . I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m an idiot.”
Fernanda’s eyes widened. “What did she say? Could you understand her?”
“She didn’t say anything. Made me feel like this is just craziness I don’t understand.”
We sat there in silence, listening to the sound of soaps coming from the TV and someone mowing their lawn nearby, until she perked up.
“Hey. You know what it’s like. You know how you never let Ana make you any mixed drinks?”
I chuckled thinking of all the dumb shit we experimented with. Ana came up with some nasty concoctions. All way too strong. “Yeah, because she doesn’t have the patience to measure.”
“Well, the inhabitant wants to communicate with you, but the stories she wants to tell must come from her own language, her own voice and words. Not diluted. She wants it to be strong. Straight from the bottle. And when neither of us can get through, it’s like your little sisters when they were younger. Remember how mad they would get before they could talk? Their frustration knowing but not knowing how to speak. Then you would be just as fed up trying to figure out that they wanted?”
I felt less dejected after her explanation and wrapped one arm around her. “You want to see the video again?” Fernanda smiled and I pressed play.
When I lay in my bed that night, I prayed to the dark for guidance. I don’t think purgatory is a place for people—it’s a space for all those prayers that seem to go nowhere. Just look at the faces of the families torn apart. After a while all those hopes and wishes spread like a broken yolk over our being. Where do those spoken manifestations go? Fucking purgatory, just like an ugly Bosch painting. That’s how I imagine it. So I’d fall asleep thinking of another day at Sonic taking orders in my pit-stained uniform, curse myself for being too stupid to figure this out, and then visit my friend.
There was no change in the situation for days after showing her the video. Fernanda allowed herself to be led to her room when she was lucid and then moved back to the garden when the thing made an appearance. Even in the sweltering heat, it wanted to be outside. She would squat in the damp earth in her white cotton with black lipstick and heavily lined eyes. You could tell when her mother had tried to remove the makeup because the stain of black extended beyond her lips and the edges of her eyes. I was still adamant she didn’t need a priest or an exorcism, but there was no question that we needed help. She couldn’t go around as two people, and it was imperative she start college in the fall. Time was running out and after seeing what she did at the club, I feared more for the safety of others.
The longer this carried on with no answers the more my heart broke for my friend. I called out for something ancient to show itself, though I didn’t believe anything would really show up. Nothing in my short goddam life amounted to anything worthwhile. Why would conjuring a spirit be any different?
I sat with Fernanda in the dirt and brushed her hair while her mother wiped blood from her thighs. Any attempt to move her before whatever was inhabiting her was ready to move ended with a snarl and gnashing of teeth followed by hysterical sobbing. At least she drank and ate when offered sustenance.
