Entry #30

Lope was ready to charge like some enraged bull. Snorting, snot caked along the edges of his widening and then deflating nostrils. Heaving, every breath a heated inhale and exhale, breathing in the smoke, exhaled a burn that set my throat, as well, ablaze. He ran for me, drawing his dagger, and swinging. I cried out, and dove for a pew, hitting the flat of the seat before rolling onto the ground to cradling my arm. He lunged for me again, but I had rolled onto my stomach and was crawling beneath the wooden seats. He began to laugh deeply from the pits of his chest, and started to heave pews off the ground. They would fly through the air, colliding with the walls and
shattered into sharp chunks that cartwheeled through the air behind me. I crawled though, as fast as I could, while he teased and played with me like a fat cat would with a tiny, cornered mouse. I came out at the end of the aisle, and was by Father Leoncio's side.

“Father, please. Rise. Please!”

Pieces of the roof were collapsing, as if Father Alvarelo's death had been the signal the entire structure had been waiting for. Debris clattered all around Lope, who at first reacted with a violent roar before we both realized the roof was about to give out. I quickly shoved my hands under the pits of Father Leoncio's arms and started to haul him off outside. I looked up only once to find Lope straightening from his bestial slouch. He sneered, and drew his thumb along his thick, muscular neck as the roof caved in.

I stumbled down the steps just before the collapse, falling to the sooty courtyard as the chapel collapsed. I held Father Leoncio close. He was still unconscious, and probably for the best. I know he poured hours, weeks, sweat, and tears into building this stately mission. I know only this surface that he sacrificed, and nothing more. I could only assume that beneath this durable veneer were things and other precious unknowns he had fed into making sure this place stood among the Tairona. Still, I was tearful for him. How could this fall? After everything the Fathers had done before my arrival, and after everything we had done toghter? I could not help but think of the day Carmen and I arrived, or my first day with the children, seeing Doctor Gil and Pepita in his garden, and the day the Fathers and I planned the curriculum in the library.

I took a deep breath and hauled Father Leoncio up again. I began to march backwards, trying to tug him as far away from the deteriorated, burning mass. I looked over my shoulder to make sure nothing was behind me, but I was wrong. There was. I saw a curvaceous woman standing near the gate. Her back was to me. Long red hair tumbled down her back. She was not standing, so much as balanced on her toes. When she turned, these toes rolled and cracked under the weight that could not be fully lifted off of them. Though maybe that was the sound of the several bonfires around us still popping and crackling. Upon her fully facing me, however, there was no mistake this time.

I saw Carmen.

“Father Leoncio,” I whispered frantically, and shook him, but there was no response. The wound on his head was gushing, and already a lump had formed about half the size of an apple. When I looked up, Carmen was still there and watching me with solid black eyes and a grin spread across her face so wide that her skin had split along the creases. She resembled a puppet, both in her behavior, her experiences and soon enough, her speech.

“Nieve. Little, sweet Nieve. He cannot hear you. You are all alone. We have some time to spend together.”

“What do you want?” I stammered, and she cocked her head sharply.

“What more could I ask for? You. I want you. Come away to the jungle with me. There is no fire like this. There is a lake that is beautiful and cool.” Her body began to sweep across the courtyard slowly, dragged as if by strings. Her broken toes rattled and bumped along the courtyard floor. Now that I could see her up close I could see that her nightgown from the infirmary had been ripped. Her skin was pale and wrinkled, as if she had been in the water too long. Her hair was wild and wet, drops collecting at the tips of her locks before cascading across her chest, down one exposed breast.

“Stay away from me,” I tore Father Leoncio's rosary from around his wrist, and held the cross out to the creature. “I drive you from this place, demon. I drive you out! In the name of the Son - ”

“That will not work.”

“And of the Father - ”

“It did not work for her either,” Carmen rasped, her hand playing along her belly in a tempting rub.

“And of the... Holy Spirit.”

“Admit it, my girl. You have no control. You never did.”

“Why? Why have you done this?”

“When a ship is sunk, and when a lover is taken, do you not ask God the same questions, girl?”

“I tell you leave this place!”

“And just like God, an answer is not one you will receive.”

“These were good people - ”

“Good!” Carmen's head cracked when she threw it back to bellow a loud and lasting laugh. Good? Let us begin with your precious Father Alvarelo? A lustful man who thought he could control his urges, who hid his want behind innocence. Doctor Gil, the man who could not do math because he abused his own drugs far too ceremoniously.”

I stared.

“Ah, I see some of these may not be ones you know. Like Pepita, though you knew her a whore. Did you know she was pregnant with a bastard boy? Let us not forget Lope, the rapist, the beater. The Captain, the adulterer, and you. The murderer, the insane girl who cannot face what she is.”

“Stop it!”

“A killer. You killed your brother! You pushed him down the stairs, Nieve, sweet Nieve. Did a part of you enjoy it?”

“I am no killer, these were good people.”

“You keep saying this, but you do now know.” She reached down to me, I had buried my head in Father Leoncio's shallowly rising chest. Her hand curved under my chin and she lifted me to see her, that face lined in blue veins, those red-purple lips, and solid black eyes. “I want you to join my side. You have a potential for such horridness, child. I have seen it since you were young. Such viciousness that would fit the devil himself. You would have the world to yourself. Take this place, this Heart of the World as they call it, and you control ever beat it makes to power this earth. To keep it together. Take this place with me. You are fully capable.”

I spat in her face, and the spit sizzled and hissed in such a manner as the demon before me. She recoiled, as I screamed no and no and no, but then seized my neck. I was lifted my feet, and brought face to face with her in mid-air.

“You would deny the promise of immortality and the known world, the known universe that floats beyond even the deepest banks of your imagination.”

“I would deny you. Again. Again. And again.”

“I will not stop,” she hissed, drawing her finger down my cheek. “And if God has not answered you now – oh, yes, little one, I have heard you pray for such aid every night – he will never answer you later.”

“Then have me,” I sputtered, shivering from head to toe and wracked with tears. “Have me, and no other.”

Carmen canted her head again, her voice was not her own as it rasped along my lips. “You mean this.”

“Recruit me, and have me, and let me be yours. Only me,” I whimpered, and my mouth was seized in hers. The demon kissed me through her, a searing union that sealed my fate. The hand tightened around my throat momentarily, and Carmen's eyes widened.

“Devil take you,” she snarled and threw me to the ground. The stone of the courtyard split under my back, and I gasped blood across my lips. A piece of my inner lip had been bitten off on contact. “You tricked me! You... you – no!”

Carmen began to wither before my eyes. She wilted and bent like a swiftly dying flower, all the while lowering slowly to the ground. She writhed and spasmed, vomited water and drooled blood, and in a matter of moments it was over. We were both laying beside each other, Carmen an empty husk and the demon nowhere to be seen... except inside of me.