I nodded. Part of me felt bad for lying and preying upon Mrs. Garcia’s faith, but at least it would keep her busy and out of our new mission. I wanted space to try this without interruption.
“We will take good care of her. No witchcraft, just listening. I promise we will have Fernanda back.” I regretted making that promise as soon as it escaped my mouth. What if I couldn’t make good on it?
Fernanda was already up and walking towards the front door. Mrs. Garcia followed her with the look of a woman willing to travel to the end of the universe to end her torment. “Anything to get my daughter back.”
We spent hours at Dr. Camacho’s home in the following days, a welcome change from sitting outside. The two-bedroom home was decorated with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo prints alongside framed album covers from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. Papier-mâché Catrinas, masks from different parts of the world, and bookcases covered an entire wall. I could see books with her name on the front. My cheeks went hot as I felt myself becoming emotional.
Dr. Camacho sat Fernanda in a leather armchair that matched a two-seater sofa where we made ourselves comfortable.
“Lourdes, for now I will address the goddess and record everything. There isn’t much for you to do now but support me and your friend. After, you will help me with the translation. I hope you like to read, because that stack of books by the door is for you to take home.”
I knew this was a kind way of saying I would be the third wheel for now. If someone was thirsty, get water. This was fine by me. We were getting somewhere.
“Tlazoltéotl. Tell me what you want to say. Why are you here?”
Fernanda’s chin hung towards her chest, her hair covering her face. Upon the name of the goddess being spoken, she raised her head. Caiman eyes rolled in their sockets as they inspected our surroundings, and then fixed themselves upon us. A tear fell from the corner of one of her eyes, followed by another before she opened her mouth to speak. Dr. Camacho pressed record on her phone. Whatever sat before me was Fernanda and the woman in my dreams. Both on the verge of becoming. As Fernanda spoke in Nahuatl, Dr. Camacho translated in English.
“As I told Fernanda in her mind, my nature by birth is sin-eating for others to feel free. My mission is storytelling. I want to say that I no longer want to be seen as crazy or a thing to be forgotten. My existence is more than a bloody dirty rag you cast away every month. I am here because would you not answer a cry for help? I look different, my language is something not everyone understands, but the stories from the past are important. Human history has been one of chaos and in chaos many things become lost. People are subjugated and integrated whether they like it or not. I am here to revive those stories from the source. I have traveled a long way through light and volatile stardust. The stars in the night sky are moth holes in space-time and the bodies of the larvae between each hole are the means of travel. But here I am. In this place I feel like an indecipherable message in a bottle, but the messages could fill volumes. So many voices, so much blood.
“There are others like me, brothers and sisters of the old world. But the fire within needs fuel and oxygen to thrive and spread. Cataclysmic energy is needed to create change. You are a product of such a thing. I needed to find a way to get out. Her flesh was welcoming and her soul kind, but I cannot leave until my mission is complete.
“I have allowed the girl to taste sin only once, but I have to be careful with how much I show her. Humans are fragile things in mind and ego. In time she will know more. She will grow into a woman as the human life cycle demands.
“What drew me to these females was their love for each other. The strength within each of them to withstand the fires they live with and the fires to come. So many fires you will have to endure if your generation survives. I still do not know if I should show Fernanda the spectrum of time I hold in my hands. I see some of the future shared by others like me, and I hold all of the past memories of their ancestors.”
The inhabitant came alive through Fernanda’s voice and body. Her story began with cosmic wonders far beyond our reach of this universe. The goddess is from such a place. Before Christ or La Virgen, others existed. A cosmic crash gave birth to this world and soon they all made their way here to see the new creation. It had been an arduous journey because the universes do not reveal their secrets easily; neither do the gods.
She moved on to the tales from our ancestors before colonization. The Olmec, Maya, and Aztec stories in their purest form: tiny embers of inspiration from the original authors that the gods preserved. I sat in a dream-like state, feeling as I did whenever I saw an airplane leave a white streak across the blue Texas sky. Where in all the millions of places was it going, and how I ached to be up there instead of down here. Fernanda’s face turned downcast when history changed, and the colonizers arrived. My face, all our faces, wet from the tears of heartache and tragedy.
The stories that intrigued the professor the most were the ones about prophecy, the end. The cycle the earth was experiencing was like the cycle we went through every month, except this was accelerated, unnatural. Humans seemed to be on the brink of
