Entry #24

Adan,

Since Pepita’s confession, I find my mind completely mixed, lost within its own thoughts, it struggles for a solution to question that nags me through meals, nags me through sleep, nags me at every step I take.

“I have chosen to kill Lope.”

Why would she tell me? She must mistake my habit for a gag - how can I possibly remain silent regarding this? My vows, my beliefs, everything I have devoted myself to would be as good as smoke. What would even the point of my visit here be? To reveal me a conspirator? An assistant murderer? That I even know is punishment enough!

Pepita’s decision… she could not possibly follow through. No, she is not a woman so out of control and beastly. She is not like Lope! A man like that, so long exposed to a woman like her could not transform her so ghastly, so heinously. Could this really be Pepita?

I go to her room almost every night these past few months. She draws sweeping curves, sharp lines and light shadows, thus creating a lonely, beautiful person alone and nude on what used to be a blank and altogether plain parchment. As she works she hums with a voice so different from the one she speaks with. Usually, she speaks so sardonically, and coolly, yet in that hum she is soft and melodious. Who is this woman and why would she do this? Why would she think to take the life of another man?

And yet…

And yet. Can I call Lope a man? Would a man truly debase himself into a creature that would attack someone of the fairer sex? Would a man bring himself to that, reduce himself so, in order to feel what? Power. Control. Worth. Self-worth! Lope is a soldier, whose power should have been proven in scars, his control in the way his fingers can manipulate a blade, his worth measured by his comrades, and his self-worth measured by what he sees at the end of such a victorious path. Instead, Lope sees power in the way we - the clergy! - shuffle past him, he sees control as a fist, and he sees worth not in how his men measure him but in how he measures up to their previous exploits. And self-worth.

His self-worth has yet to be discovered, thus he hits and brutalizes, attempts to diminish every living thing he meets into something that will fear him, respect him, ultimately do as he prefers lest they suffer his boot.

And I ask myself if helping Pepita exorcise such a demon from her life goes against everything that has brought me here. What if she is part of my coming to this place? That saving her from such a devil’s grip is a task. Is it so insane to imagine that what I would be doing, swearing myself to secrecy, is not as wrong as I first though?

I stood within the corridor, divided from feet were two paths. One would lead me to Father Leoncio, who I would inform probably breathlessly, hastily, tearfully. The other way leads me to Pepita, who I would promise my silence to. That I would stop my words up with liquid lead and cool such into a metal cork so that Pepita’s plan may never be caught by some stray ear.

I take the left corridor, and my steps are slow, not yet ready to yield the next inch to me though I force their progress. So continues such progression, the lead I have depicted to you earlier Adan has dripped into my stomach instead, where a heavy disk forms and settles there, slowing me, fermenting and rotting… a core of self-doubt where my meal used to be. Had I made the right decision? I asked myself this as I lifted my hand to the door, and before I could answer such a burning question, my knuckles had already made contatct.. Over and over again, I knocked. I stopped, I stepped back, and I waited.

Pepita answered the door, and found me with tears in my eyes, and my face pale. She quickly pulled me inside, and shut the portal behind me, bolting it. “Dear Nieve, what is the matter? Are you all right?”

“My heart is so heavy. I am afraid.”

“Sit down, please. Have a drink.”

“No, a drink would simply make me more sick,” I assured her with a nervous laugh, though took the offered seat on the side of her bed. She moved some drawings aside and sat next to me. I had never seen her like this, her face was somewhat concealed and unremarkable… save for her eyes. They were so dark, but in their centers I could see a faint glow, like the last spark of a match before it reaches the end of its brittle stalk. “I have thought about what you said.” Her head lifted into the light of the candles surrounding her bed.

“About… Lope?”

“Yes, Pepita. About Lope.”

“I should not have told you anything…”

“I will not speak of it.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“I will keep your secret.” I wept momentarily, tears drove their way down my cheeks, and I had to look away as she watched me so intently. So curiously.

“What changed your mind, Hermana?”

“I want you safe, and I do not think you are safe even avoiding him. The man is a predator, he would seek you out, and I believe end you. I would rather someone like you survive over someone like him. I have tried to change your mind as God would have me beg you, but your decision is yours. I cannot sway your choice, and what is more, I do not think I want to.” I wiped my tears away. “How will you do it, Pepita?”

Pepita stood from the bed. She went to her trunk, and pulled the lid back. A red rag was pulled from its contents. The bundle was cradled in her hands as she approached me again, and settled beside me. I could not take my eyes off her. The candle light was golden and smooth around her skin, the color of which was amber against her white dress and chemise. She was simply startling, and my decision did not seem so wretched.

“I retrieved this from the port the last time I was fetching drugs for Basilio. He is a very particular doctor. He may know one organ from the next, and he may know how to set limbs, but in the end the man cannot keep his papers together. I began to taking down the orders, and I also fetched them from the port. Before my most recent visit, I requested something from the apothecary there.”

She unfolded the rag, and revealed a vile no wider than my thumb, no longer than my ring finger. Inside there was a liquid of a bland color, not quite clear, but not gray, just this hazy yellow in-between that made chills run races up and down my spine.

“The venom of a barba Amarillo, a pit viper.”

I shivered. “What does it do?”

“The victim bleeds profusely, sometimes from his mouth and nose, other times from the bite itself… were he bitten. Blood cannot clot, so it disperses throughout the muscles and the rest of the body, even into the spine. The victim can hardly breathe, and his body will often shock before expiring. It is very painful.”

“Pepita,” I sighed, horrified. Her hands were shaking as she closed the bundle up again and left it on her bed.

“But I do not want to use it.” She folded her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking. I saw a tear drop off her face, though I never saw her blink to scattered the welling water in her eyes. The droplets simply fell. “I cannot kill him. I do not think I could kill anyone. My life is devoted to saving people. They may be bastards most of the time,” she wiped her eyes, “but I still must save them. I am sure you understand.”

“Of course.” Oh, what a relief, Adan! My spirits have lifted, I am rejuvenated. Adan, Pepita’s decision changed my entire soul. I embraced her tightly, we were golden together for that moment in the candle light and that was when we heard the loud bang against her door.

“Pepita!” A ragged voice barked from behind the door, which began to buckle and shake under the vigorous pounding it took from the balled fist beyond it. We instantly recognized Lope, and gripped tightly into each other.

Pepita’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You must hide.”

“I will not leave you with him, I cannot.”

“Please,” she dragged me off the bed and pulled me to her amoire. “This is deep enough. Please, stay here.”

“Pepita!” Came Lope’s demand again as he pounded on the door.

“Do not breathe a single sound,” she shut the armoire on me before I could protest. I was on my knees, and through a keyhole I could see her searching her drawings for the poison.

“Pepita!” There was a surge against the door, I could hear the bolt tinkling and ready to give, and just as she found the poison and stuffed it under the pillow, the door flew open. I heard it bash against the wall beside it, and then click shut. “Mmm,” Lope chuckled behind a hacking cough, “your lock is broken.”
“Yes,” I watched Pepita straighten from the bed, her hands sliding into the pockets of her dress’s skirt. “Someone broke in once.”

I heard Lope’s laugh stagger at the back of his hoarse throat, but I could not see him yet. “Funny. I love a funny girl. I love a girl that can make me laugh. You know you make me laugh so much, Pepita.”

“Lope, you look sick…”

“Doctor Basilio Gil,” he sounded drunk too, “says I have some sort of malaise. He cannot identify it, mainly because he is beast.”

“A beast, Lope?”

“You know a beast, right? A beast when you see it.” He shuffled closer, I could see him approaching her now at the bed. “Do you know a beast when you see it?”

“Lope, you have been drinking,” she turned her head away, but he caught her by the mouth and turned her back to him.

“Such a pretty little mouth for such an ugly little dog. You waste your time talking, you should be howling.” He pressed against her, his hands were laid across the front of her hips, and when he flexed his fingers he drew her skirts up. “What do you say?”

I could see the back of his neck, there was a warble there, just like the ones on Carmen’s back. I put my hands over my mouth, I was shaking all over.

“Lope, find me when you are sober,” she caught his wrists gently and began to push them away, “and I will show you just how what a beast is. Yes?”

“Come come. It is a quiet night, one I would make loud with you.”

“Leave me be, Lope, I am far too tired, you are far too drunk - ” And I saw his hand slice across her face in a resounding smack. Her head whipped to the side, she held her cheek, and peered back at him.

“I can get you drunk. I have much that you can drink. You have to be on your knees though,” he gripped her shoulders to push her down, and she shoved him away and made a break for the door. Yes, Pepita, escape! Please, escape! Your door is so close. He lunged out of my field of vision. I heard the door open, and then slam. There were two sets of breathing, both deep. One was strained with sickness, the other frightened and thin. Pepita had not escaped, in fact, I could hear her whisper:

“Please. I want you to leave.”

“I want to stay, and you want me to stay too, you just will not admit. I can convince you if I am wrong. I can convince you one way… or another, or maybe another, or another until we find the way that makes you like me most.”

“I will scream.”

“Then I will snatch out your tongue, and I will break your jaw should you clench your teeth to stop me, should you gnaw on my knuckles so.”

There was movement, I heard him strike her again, and then she must have struck him back because I heard him stagger and snarl.

“You whore,” he seethed, and I watched her stumble away before stopping suddenly, and putting her hands on her chest.

“Stop, stop, stop!” She pled, and drew her body near to his as she began to pull him toward the bed. “Perhaps I have been unfair.”

“Hmph.”

“Perhaps I have been unkind to you,” she took his mouth to hers, rolling her lips across his, and pulling at his trousers, loosening them. “Perhaps I could be sweeter?”

“You angel,” he chuckled derisively, and bit her lip as her hand pressed past the waistline of his trousers. I saw his body folded against her, his teeth gnawing at her shoulder as he tugged her shirt away from this skin. Her arm was pumping slowly, rhythmically.

“You see? I can give you just what you want, but you must go when you are done. Do you understand? Now, break my bed.”

He shoved her to the bed, and he was on her like a beast upon the fawn. He pried her legs apart, he ripped her shirt. I saw her hands raise over her head, fingers slowly stealing away under the pillow. I could not help but pray in the darkness of the armoire that her ruse succeeded. My prayers were not answered, his hands caught her wrists, and fingers flooded over hands beneath the pillow. All movement stopped.

“What is this?” He pulled the vile out from under the bed, and before she could even lunge he had hooked both of her wrists in his one large and free hand. “What a peculiar little trinket this is I have found in your hand. Was this,” he turned his head slowly down to her, “for me?”

Pepita was breathless, speechless. Her once golden form was engulfed in the shadow he poured over her as he bent closer.

“Is this for me? In case I am thirsty? In case I am parched?” He snarled in her face, pouring that sickening breath over her. “Put it in your mouth.”

Pepita’s mouth tore open, her scream short lived as he released her wrists to grip her lower jaw, the crook of his thumb and forefinger pushing between her teeth to force her mouth to stay open. She gagged, her body buckled, and he shoved the vile in her mouth.

“Bite it.”

Pepita tried to scream again, and her fists flew against his face, but he caught both of them again. She managed to spit the vile out, but he caught it off her chest, and forced it in again before controlling her arms once more. He slammed the heel of hand into her chin and I heard a fragile snap. The vile had burst open, and Pepita’s eyes were wide. He snickered, and pushed off the bed to storm from the room. I was immediately out of my hiding place.

I threw the doors to the armoire open just as Pepita had reeled over the bed. She spat out a mass of poison, glass and blood. She spat over and over again, shoved her fingers in her throat to try and make herself vomit. The venom had seeped in though. Soon she was bleeding, and I held her as I screamed for help. I tried to move her out into the hall, but I knew I would not make it into the infirmary. “Someone, please! Help me! Help me, please!” She was twitching, convulsing, and sobbing, reaching for me, and dying in my arms when Father Leoncio found us. The little lights I had seen in her big, dark eyes had gone out, and I saw instead an unending black.