If I had to pinpoint the moment the cosmic gears began spinning, I would probably say it was our ride home. When we first crossed paths, destiny brought us together. It made us collide and hoped for the best, and watched as we bounced on either way. By that time, Mark's presence had burned a scar in my own presence, and I had made a decision. I wasn't aware of it the way you're aware of choosing a vanilla ice cream over the chocolate flavor. It wasn't an easy decision, nor was it a clear one.
The clock was already ticking, and Heaven knows I was too deaf to hear it. As blind as I had been when the first sign came about. With the softness of a butterfly batting its wings, I walked down the path that led me to him.
The bus drifted on the wet road, shaking violently. I lost my footing and fell the violent churn in my stomach as I realized I was going to fall. Only he was there, like a tree standing against the hurricane wind. He pulled me up by my sleeve, again making sure he wasn't touching me. Through both jackets, the burn on his skin was faint and warm.
"Sorry," I muttered, pulling myself away. "The bus driver is a maniac."
Mark offered me a half smile. "So, where are we going?"
"Your dad gave me a few ideas. There's Caleb Donovan."
He nodded. "The one that came before me."
He talked of death with such easiness that it reminded me of the stoic stance of his father. But he hadn't told me of the expiry date yet, and I was raking my brain trying to figure out the motive. You know what they say: it's bot about what you say, but what you don't say. Mark hadn't been saying a lot, I realized. "Yes. And then, there's—My granny. Your dad took you to her."
His eyebrows shot up. "Really? Did you know about that?"
I shook my head. "She kept her business private." That was a lie. Sabela shared with me everything, every act of violence was a learning lesson to her. And I wondered why she'd hide Mark's case from me. "She had a folder of all her clients. But you aren't there. Where's your file, then?"
I hoped she hadn't destroyed it. And if she had, I hoped what she had found wasn't worse than what I already knew. It was worth a try, at least. "We're going to my abuela's shop. This is the stop."
Since I had hanged the PERMANENTLY CLOSED sign, I had heard a few real state agents had eyed the building. The spirit of my grandma roamed the building, and she wouldn't let anybody touch her shop. It was abandoned, and it would remain so until the day it collapsed.
"You look for cops." I ordered, as I crouched down to pick the lock.
"Isn't it you grandma's shop? Can't you just walk in?"
"My grandma's dead, and I can't keep the business with the crippling debt I have." I couldn't hide my hatred, the memory of Peter's punches soured my words. "You look for cops, I'll get us in."
Mark turned his back to me, sheltering me from prying eyes. "Be quick. I look like an idiot here."
I laughed. The lock clicked, and I loosened the chain. The door had been opened since that time two real state agents had made the mistake of disturbing the place. They left in a hurry, but the door wouldn't close, like it didn't want to submit to their will. Sometimes I thought the building had been alive before Sabela had first set a foot in, and maybe that had been one of the reasons why she had chosen that rundown industrial place to install her business. "I'm giving you two options, and whether you take one or the other, I will accept as well. I'm a messenger and not an executioner, for I have no power over you. You can grant me access and help me, or you can kick my ass."
"That's—"
"You always need to give them two options. So they don't feel like you're forcing them."
When the door creaked opened on its own, I smiled. "Thank you, abuela." I stepped inside, and the door snapped closed. I tried to turn the knob, but it didn't move. "I'm trying to help him. I know you told me not to get mixed up with them, but didn't you help them, too?"
I turned to the darkness, my heart thrumming in my ears. "You tried to help him. Ray told me."
As if she responded to my insolence, a gust of wind hit my face. I coughed up dust. "Jesus Christ, abuela. If he doesn't kill me, you will with your petty tricks."
I flipped the switch. The bulb buzzed and exploded. "Good try. But I always come prepared." The trusty old flashlight bathed the place in yellow light.
The air was beyond polluted at that point, and thousands of particles danced in the halo of light. The floorboards creaked a worrying amount when I stepped in them, and I feared for my safety. Somewhere in the walls, a water leakage had eaten away the flowery wallpaper, revealing rotten wood underneath. The trapped humidity hurt my nose, and I blinked away the disgust. "I should've brought a mask, it's been a few since I was here."
One of her porcelain plates that decorated the walls fell off, smashing into a million pieces on the floor. "I know, I should've visited you sooner. And I'm sorry. Will you help me find Mark's file? I know you kept one."
Dead silence. Not even the scurrying of a rat inside the walls, or the buzzing of a fly caught in a spider's web. I narrowed my eyes as I scanned the antechamber. "If you don't help me, then I'll find out myself."
My phone buzzed. Mark was texting me.
ARE YOU OK?
YES, I responded. MY GRANDMA IS HERE. What could I say? My grandma hates you guts? I discovered I was looking dumbly at the screen while I composed a message in my mind. I tapped, SHE'S IN A BAD MOOD. NOTHING DANGEROUS. BE BACK SOON. LOOK OUT FOR COPS, SHOUT IF YOU SEE THEM. BE SAFE. When I was happy with the set of instructions that I deemed would ensure Mark's survival, I hit send and slid my phone back. I didn't want to use my phone under my granny's scrutiny, and the thought she'd be able to read my texts did make my skin crawl in embarrassment.
"Where would you hide something you didn't want anybody to see? And why?" I asked the darkness, but mostly to myself.
I kneeled down, feeling the boards. Some crumbled under my force, but none revealed a hidden treasure. I checked behind the cabinets, under the tables and between books. Her library was extensive and probably contained volumes that didn't exist elsewhere. She once told me one of them was bound in human skin, a practice that may o may have not been popular in medieval Europe. I flipped the books, hoping the manila folder would plop down like a miracle, but I was disappointed. "You're too good at this."
I looked at the cabinet where she locked the other cases, in case I had missed it. Two times. It wasn't there. The increasing desperation made me more careless—more reckless—as the search failed time and time again, and I paced back and forth like a feral cat. "Where did you put it?"
I knew she couldn't answer, even if she wanted to. But as clever as she had been in threatening me with the porcelain plate, I hoped she'd finally give me a clue. Anything. A broken glass, a strange noise, a statue crying tears of blood...
I tilted my head, walking my steps back. When I pointed the flashlight to the bust, I confirmed I hadn't imagined it. The statue was filthy, a thick layer of dust covered it completely, but the blood, the blood was fresh. A bright red that reflected the light like glitter. The woman—statue— was crying blood.
I laughed nervously. "Good job, grandma. I'm officially scared shitless."
Slowly but surely, I approached the statue. "Is this your way of saying I made you sad?" With trembling hands, I inspected the marble that had once been white. I shook away the spider webs, and wiped the dust away. I remembered the sculpture the same way I remembered everything about Sabela's shop: I recognized it, I knew it belonged there, but I didn't quite picture the minute details as if I had been living with a hazy veil over my eyes all those years.
The blood kept running, overflowing the stand and splattering on the floor. I tried to wipe the tears away with my thumbs, but failed. Now I had blood all over my hands. "What the heck?"
You see, I had always believed it was a replica of Venus' bust, and it wasn't until years later, at that exact moment that I dared examine it close, that I realized she had three faces. Birth, life and death. Life was crying, Birth's face was crumbling, and Death...
I got a sudden feeling that didn't belong to me the way my thoughts do, but it sneaked past me and settled in my mind. It spoke with a voice that wasn't mine. And so it begins, it said. With the same immediacy, I knew for sure it wasn't grandma who had been with me.
Damn, I should've known.
I bolted for the door as a piercing pain penetrated my skull. Instead of a scream, my mouth produced a horrified gasp and my knees buckled. I fell with a crash, hitting the table in my futile effort to regain my footing.
The porcelain plates crashed around me. I felt the prickles, the shards tearing at my skin. If I couldn't run, I'd crawl. I slithered over the broken porcelain, ignoring the pain on my knees, on my palms.
Where I had felt the warmth of abuela's otherworldly existence, I now felt the worst of cold. A shadow ascended. It had always been the shadow. I couldn't feel her. Not a little bit. Northing at all. "You annihilated her," I muttered with a broken voice. "Abuela."
The flashlight blinked.