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About the Author:
Zoraida Córdova was born in Ecuador and raised in Queens, New York. She is the author of the Vicious
Deep trilogy, the On the Verge series, and the Brooklyn Brujas series.
She loves black coffee, snark, and still believes in magic. Send her a
tweet @Zlikeinzorro or visit her at zoraidacordova.com.
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1
Follow our voices, sister.
Tell us the secret of your death.
—-Resurrection Canto,
Book of Cantos
he second time I saw my dead aunt Rosaria, she was dancing.
Earlier
that day, my mom had warned me, pressing a long, red fingernail on the
tip of my nose, “Alejandra, don’t go downstairs when the Circle
arrives.”
But
I was seven and asked too many questions. Every Sunday, cars piled up
in our driveway, down the street, and around the corner of our old,
narrow house in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Mom’s Circle usually brought
cellophane--wrapped dishes and jars of dirt and tubs of brackish water
that made the Hudson River look clean. This time, they carried something
more.
When
my sisters started snoring, I threw off my covers and crept down the
stairs. The floorboards were uneven and creaky, but I was good at not
being seen. Fuzzy, yellow streetlight shone through our attic window and
followed me down every flight until I reached the basement.
A
soft hum made its way through the thin walls. I remember thinking I
should listen to my mom’s warning and go back upstairs. But our house
had been restless all week, and Lula, Rose, and I were shoved into the
attic, out of the way while the grown--ups prepared the funeral. I
wanted out. I wanted to see.
The
night was moonless and cold one week after the Witch’s New Year, when
Aunt Rosaria died of a sickness that made her skin yellow like
hundred--year--old paper and her nails turn black as coal. We tried to
make her beautiful again. My sisters and I spent all day weaving good
luck charms from peonies, corn husks, and string—-one loop over, under,
two loops over, under. Not even the morticians, the Magos de Muerte,
could fix her once--lovely face.
Aunt
Rosaria was dead. I was there when we mourned her. I was there when we
buried her. Then, I watched my father and two others shoulder a dirty
cloth bundle into the house, and I knew I couldn’t stay in bed, no
matter what my mother said.
So I opened the basement door.
Red
light bathed the steep stairs. I leaned my head toward the light,
toward the beating sound of drums and sharp plucks of fat, nylon guitar
strings.
A
soft mew followed by whiskers against my arm made my heart jump to the
back of my rib cage. I bit my tongue to stop the scream. It was just my
cat, Miluna. She stared at me with her white, glowing eyes and hissed a
warning, as if telling me to turn back. But Aunt Rosaria was my
godmother, my family, my friend. And I wanted to see her again.
“Sh!” I brushed the cat’s head back.
Miluna nudged my leg, then ran away as the singing started.
I
took my first step down, into the warm, red light. Raspy voices called
out to our gods, the Deos, asking for blessings beyond the veil of our
worlds. Their melody pulled me step by step until I was crouched at the
bottom of the landing.
They were dancing.
Brujas
and brujos were dressed in mourning white, their faces painted in the
aspects of the dead, white clay and black coal to trace the bones. They
danced in two circles—-the outer ring going clockwise, the inner
counterclockwise—hands clasped tight, voices vibrating to the pulsing
drums.
And in the middle was Aunt Rosaria.
Her
body jerked upward. Her black hair pooled in the air like she was
suspended in water. There was still dirt on her skin. The white skirt we
buried her in billowed around her slender legs. Black smoke slithered
out of her open mouth. It weaved in and out of the circle—-one loop
over, under, two loops over, under. It tugged Aunt Rosaria higher and
higher, matching the rhythm of the canto.
Then,
the black smoke perked up and changed its target. It could smell me. I
tried to backpedal, but the tiles were slick, and I slid toward the
circle. My head smacked the tiles. Pain splintered my skull, and a
broken scream lodged in my throat.
The
music stopped. Heavy, tired breaths filled the silence of the pulsing
red dark. The enchantment was broken. Aunt Rosaria’s reanimated corpse
turned to me. Her body purged black smoke, lowering her back to the
ground. Her ankles cracked where the bone was brittle, but still she
took a step. Her dead eyes gaped at me. Her wrinkled mouth growled my
name: Alejandra.
She
took another step. Her ankle turned and broke at the joint, sending her
flying forward. She landed on top of me. The rot of her skin filled my
nose, and grave dirt fell into my eyes.
Tongues clucked against crooked teeth. The voices of the circle hissed, “What’s the girl doing out of bed?”
There was the scent of extinguished candles and melting wax. Decay and perfume oil smothered me until they pulled the body away.
My
mother jerked me up by the ear, pulling me up two flights of stairs
until I was back in my bed, the scream stuck in my throat like a stone.
“Never,” she said. “You hear me, Alejandra? Never break a Circle.”
I lay still. So still that after a while, she brushed my hair, thinking I had fallen asleep.
I wasn’t. How could I ever sleep again? Blood and rot and smoke and whispers filled my head.
“One day you’ll learn,” she whispered.
Then
she went back down the street--lit stairs, down into the warm red light
and to Aunt Rosaria’s body. My mother clapped her hands, drums beat,
strings plucked, and she said, “Again.”
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2 comments:
This sounds FUN. Will have to read.
@Sarah: It really was - a lot of Alice in Wonderland surrealism plus a lot of emotional ambiguity.
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