[fic] NaNo 2011 [2/?]
Title: NaNo 2011 Chapter [2/?]
Characters/Pairings: Martín/Luciano (Argentina/Brazil), Manuela/Micaela (fem!Chile/fem!Perú) and various other characters, but there are too many to mention here. Characters belong to their respective creators and latin_hetalia
Rating: PG-13 for now, but the rating will go up in later chapters
Warnings: Human AU, character death, general creepiness
Summary: After a terrible accident, Martín Hernández must do whatever it takes to stay alive, even if it means killing someone in his stead.
Chapter 1
When he entered his apartment, the first thing Luciano noticed was that the electricity was out. He flicked the light switch a few more times in the hallway before shrugging and thanking God that at least this happened while the daylight was still strong enough for him to see with the curtains open. He shrugged his bag off in the living room and flopped down on a ratty couch. His roommate, a theater major, was either still in class or at work-he could never remember her schedule-and he did not see any notes anywhere, so this power outage must have been recent. Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, Luciano called up their landlord and left the crotchety old bastard a message. The lights would probably come back on before the landlord did anything about it, but at least Luciano could say that he had tried.
Today had been all kinds of shit. First, his alarm hadn’t gone off, but at least Catalina had been kind enough to wake him up before she left at nine in the morning. Then the coffee maker blew a fuse. Maybe that’s what had caused the power outage? No, it was probably something to do with faulty wiring in the old building since the landlord never kept up on maintenance. At least it was a cheap place to live, especially split between two people, even if it was a little cramped. Catalina was sweet and kept things tidy, and they both had a good enough sense of humor to be able to survive living in such close quarters. It was a skill that Luciano knew would take him far in life-dealing with people even when he did not want to.
Take Martín Hernández for example. He was the third mishap of the day. He was always a mishap waiting to happen, and even if he didn’t start shit, Luciano could not help but be put on edge from just seeing him, waiting for him to start something.
And today had been alright, really. Luciano had made plans to play football in the park with some people, so no amount of broken alarm clocks and faulty coffee makers could dampen his mood, but then Martín Fucking God’s Gift to Earth Hernández had to go and spoil everything. What an overbearing-damn it, Luciano hated how he treated Daniel. He was so overprotective of his cousin, and it was only to suit his own interests. And then all those little snide remarks about ‘savages’ and ‘jungles’. It had taken all of Luciano’s willpower, and a little grounding from Daniel, not to strangle him. How easy it was for him to make such remarks, Martín Hernández who always thought he was on top of the world. He probably wasn’t even affected when people insulted him, beyond the initial reaction to throw an insult right back in retaliation.
Luciano was affected. He had to remind himself that Martín was just trying to hurt him and rile him up, that no one really thought that he was some backwards-ass kid from the jungle. He knew he was decent at the guitar-at least he tried to tell himself that. He had been playing since he was just a little kid, when his father had sat him down and presented him with his first instrument at the ripe young age of six and could barely fit his hands around the fret, let alone finger the chords. His father would sit on the porch on nice nights and play folk tunes for him and sing. Those were some of the nicest memories he had of his father, memories that warmed his soul and reminded him of why he was here studying music in the first place. It was something he loved, it was something he was good at, and it was something he could do to make other people happy.
Fuck Hernández. He put more energy into his art than that blond bastard ever would. He had to admit that the other boy was technically good, but not good enough to go anywhere. Luciano would stand by his statement that his music had no soul, that he was just playing what he thought people wanted to hear. Maybe he could make it big in mainstream pop-he sure had the face and the personality for it-but it would get him nowhere if he actually wanted to be proud of his work.
Luciano was proud of his work-or at least proud of his potential. He had so much potential, he knew he did, he just needed to hone his talent here at school.
Part of him wondered what his father would say about this song competition Dr. Villalba had proposed. He tried to imagine a conversation with him that did not end in them fighting. He wished they would not fight as much, that it could be like those nights on the front porch with just them, the warm stars overhead, the owls in the trees, and the guitars singing into the night.
His father had not been terribly keen on Luciano leaving to go study at the International Conservatory of Arts in a completely different country, and Luciano was still sometimes surprised at himself that he had actually gathered up the courage to make good on his dream. Sometimes he still missed his home, the sounds and the scents of the earth so different from the acrid stench of the city, but he kept telling himself that he would only be at the Conservatory for four years if he kept himself on track. Maybe by then his father would have given up waiting for Luciano to give up on a career in the music industry and return to take over the family store, but it was probably a false hope. Maybe his father would be excited to hear about this competition and the potential experience it could yield for him. It could be a chance to show him that this was not some childish fever dream, that Luciano could make a living out of this passion of his if he was just in the right place and knew the right people and could show everyone his magic.
Then again, if he told his father about the competition and then lost, which was highly likely-the odds were against him, and he really should not be getting his hopes up-he did not think he could ever live it down. It would be the topic his father would bring up at holidays. “Do you remember that one time that Lu thought he could win a songwriting competition? Don’t kids have their heads in the clouds these days?”
Who cared if Martín badgered him about losing-that oaf’s opinion meant nothing to him, but if his father, who he looked up to despite all the old man’s faults, Luciano did not think he could live with the disappointment.
Maybe he should not even compete, and save himself the time and sanity. He wished Catalina were here, she would tell him to stop thinking so fatalistically. He should just try, and even if he lost the competition, at least he had another song to play. And the chance was there, just beyond his reach, but still there, that he could win.
Scrapping the idea of calling his father, Luciano decided to get ready for the football match. Running around would clear his head, and it always seemed to give him some sort of flash of inspiration later, which might be helpful in songwriting. He really needed to write something extra special this time. His other songs were all a bit too mediocre, even if he loved them all the same.
Grabbing a few granola bars from the pantry, Lu chewed on one while he changed into a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt. He really needed some new cleats, but guitar strings took precedence at this time in his life. He checked the fridge for a bottle of water and pulled one out to throw in his bag. If Daniel showed up, which he probably would given his penchant for preferring enjoyable activities to work-something he shared with Luciano and Martín, loathe as Luciano was to admit-they could probably brainstorm ideas for the contest.
Maybe not now, but later Daniel could also tell him about Martín’s progress since they lived in such close quarters. It would be a good idea to keep tabs on the enemy, not that Luciano was planning on sabotaging him or anything, but at least he could have an idea of what he was up against. Not that he was worried.
Ok, maybe he was worried a little bit, but stress was healthy for work, wasn’t it? Catalina kept saying that a little nerves prompted people to practice until they were confident, which could apply to this situation, too.
Martín provided just another load of stress in Luciano’s life, but he could handle it. He thought about leaving another message for the landlord in the form of a sign taped to the front door, but decided against it, since the bastard might take longer to fix the problem out of spite. Grabbing his belongings, Luciano left his apartment and jogged to the bus stop to take him to the pitch. The day really was beautiful, not a cloud in the cerulean sky, and it was almost enough to lift his spirits despite all the mishaps from earlier. With luck, he would be Martín and broken appliance free for at least a few hours while he could enjoy himself.
-
After sending Martín away, Manuela settled down at the small, rickety kitchen table near the entrance of her living room to eat her ramen. Glancing to the corner of the kitchen near her toaster, she noted that the little girl was still sitting on the counter, dangling her legs off the edge and playing with the hem of her frilly dress. The girl looked up and made eye contact with Manuela for a brief second before flicking her eyes back down, her translucent skin flushing. Her hair fell in a thick braid down her back, and she had bows near her temples. Every color on her was off, like a faded photograph, and she looked out of place next to the bright yellow tiles of Manuela’s kitchen.
By the time Manuela had finished her ramen and was washing her dishes, the girl had jumped off the counter-or rather floated down from it-and was crouched on the floor in the middle of the kitchen, playing with a tiny, toy horse figurine.
Wiping her hands on a towel, Manuela bent down to the girl’s level and reached out her hand to touch the horse. The little girl whipped her head up. She had an overbite.
“Do you like horses, ma’am?” the girl asked in wonder, letting Manuela take the toy. It felt solid enough in her hands, so Manuela wondered if it was something the girl had picked up recently.
“Yes,” Manuela answered, handing back the horse. “Were you trying to talk to me when my friend was here earlier?”
The girl shrugged and resumed her play. “I was just watching. I’m good at entertaining myself-that’s what Mama always said.” She bent close to Manuela, inclining her head to whisper in her ear like it was a big secret. “It’s ‘cause I’m an only child.”
Just like Manuela. “Do you like to read?”
“Yes, ma’am! I used to sneak books into my room and read them by flashlight after I was supposed to be in bed. Mama got mad and told me I wouldn’t grow if I didn’t go to sleep.” The girl looked mournful and gripped her own ankles. “I guess I should have listened to her. I haven’t grown in a long time.”
Manuela hummed. Maybe someone else would have reached out to touch the girl’s hair in comfort, but Manuela had never been comfortable with such contact with strangers. She often wondered why someone like her would have such a gift-or curse, depending on how she was feeling-this ability to see things that other people could not. She had seen the way Martín had ignored the girl as if she were not even there when he had been over, even though he had nearly walked into her on the way into the kitchen. The simple fact had been that he could not see her, Manuela knew. Most people could not, which made it rather lonely not to be able to talk about this kind of stuff with other people. Well, except for…
Ok, so she could not talk about this kind of stuff with other people who did not drive her absolutely mad. Martín could sure be stupid over Luciano sometimes, but Manuela could not fault him since she had her own idiot to deal with.
“What’s your name,” she finally asked the little girl.
“Celia,” the girl answered. “I’m five.”
“My name is Manuela. And you don’t have to call me ma’am.” I’m not that old, she sobbed inside.
“Do you want to play with me?” Celia asked.
Manuela did not really want to play games, but the girl might stick around for a while if she was not satisfied. She had had one old man stuck in her apartment for a week before she finally gave in and looked up the ending to El Vuelo del Águila on the internet to let him watch.
“Why don’t we play in the living room,” Manuela suggested, rising and leading the way. “It’s nicer in there.”
And it was, when Manuela slid the window open and flipped up the blinds, revealing the warmth of the afternoon seeping in on every street corner. Her apartment had a decent view of the street, and if she stuck her head out, she could see the Conservatory on the hill to the east. She had classes in the morning and usually devoted her afternoons to schoolwork and writing, but that could all wait. Even so, she could not very well explain to her professors sorry I did not finish that paper for you or the corrections and revisions, I was playing with a dead girl so that she would leave my apartment.
Actually, any excuse would be mortifying. As it was, she tried to keep to herself in classes, only talking to people when absolutely necessary. Every time she handed a piece in for peer review, she would stay up the entire night worrying about how she should have changed this or added that, and how her classmates would think she was an illiterate idiot and that she might as well drop out now. And then they would return with the helpful bits of constructive criticism pillowed in praises, and Manuela would blush crimson and not make eye contact with anyone until she had arrived at the safety of her own apartment.
Celia was looking at her expectantly, so Manuela crouched down in the living room again and said, “What do you want to play?”
Celia ran a hand thoughtfully over her chin before exclaiming, “You be the horsey, and I’ll be the gaucho princess!”
That did not sound very appealing to Manuela, but the girl was already clambering on her back and over her shoulders, sending little tendrils of cold shivering through Manuela’s body wherever she touched her.
After plodding around on hands and knees for a few minutes and listening to Celia’s cries of “They went that way!” and “Ride like the wind!” Manuela collapsed on the ground, limbs splayed out. “Horsey is tired,” she explained.
Celia hummed and said, “It’s been a long day of riding across the plains, hasn’t it?” She brushed her frozen fingers through Manuela’s short hair, sometimes dipping them into her skull, but she did not seem to notice. “Your hair is really soft.”
Manuela tried her best not to cry out. The girl was so cold, but she was not doing anything wrong, so Manuela let her do as she pleased with her hair. After a while of getting used to the temperature, it actually felt kind of nice. It had been so long since her nightly ritual ended with her mother, brushing and braiding her hair in soft, methodical motions, until Manuela came back from Martín’s house one day with her hair hacked to her shoulders.
“I told him to do it,” Manuela had explained as her mother dragged her to the salon to get it fixed. “The long hair was getting annoying,” and while it was still true, she did miss the feeling of someone’s hands in her hair.
Celia leaned against her and hugged her around the back of her neck. “I’m tired too. Maybe I’ll take a nap on horsey’s back.”
Well damn, Manuela had not considered that option. “It’s dangerous,” she warned. “You might fall off.”
She could feel Celia shake her head against her back. “No, it’s safer here. I like your house. It’s not scary like outside.”
“Outside is not that scary,” Manuela said slowly. Interacting with so many strangers might be a little nerve wracking, but she did not want Celia to think she had an open invitation to stay as long as he liked. “You’ll have to leave here eventually.”
“But there’s things out there. Dark things. It feels heavy outside. Don’t make me go outside.” Celia pleaded. She clung to Manuela, burying her face in her neck. “Don’t make me do that. I thought you were my friend, please let me stay here.”
“We’ll see,” was all Manuela could think to say. She was not quick on her feet with words like some of her friends, which was a little embarrassing considering her field of study. Eventually she sighed and rolled over, letting the girl slide off her back. “There are scary things everywhere, but sometimes you just have to pretend they don’t exist.”
“I bet you’re not afraid of anything,” Celia mused.
“Everyone’s afraid of something, Celia, trust me,” Manuela sighed. “It’s okay to be scared. It just makes you understand what is worth fighting for.”
Celia nodded her head solemnly. “Wow. You should write books. I would read them.”
“I do write,” Manuela felt a small smile grace her bowed lips. “It’s what I want to do for a living.”
“Ooh.” Celia’s face was bright with wonder. “Show me!”
“Umm…” This was not going in Manuela’s favor, but she had to have something she could produce to appease Celia. “Wait here.”
Celia sat on the floor and hugged her knees, resting her chin on them and watching Manuela with expectant eyes as she tiptoed into her bedroom where she kept her writing journals. She knew that she had written a fairytale at some point in time, something about a little girl who was always being forgotten by others. It was probably not as optimistic as Celia was hoping for, but Manuela’s writing was rarely happy. It did not take long before Manuela felt a prickle at the back of her neck and turned around to find Celia standing in the doorway of her bedroom, obviously bored form waiting. Of course a five year old would have such a short attention span, but Manuela should have known.
“Do you have a story for me?” Celia asked, then became distracted by the posters on the walls of Manuela’s bedroom. “So pretty! I want to go there and there and there.” She dashed around the room, pointing at each poster, the ones with mountains and deserts and forests and cities. They were all from a travel agency that had closed down a few months ago down the street from Manuela’s apartment. When she had gone in, they just gave her a pile of posters, unwanted scraps of paper from someone else’s walls. Secondhand dreams dropped into her lap. She doubted she would ever make it to the destinations they promised, but they made for better scenery than the peeling, striped wallpaper that had been left behind by the last tenant. The one with the waterfall and the rock pool covered the huge, brownish red stain on the wall nicely, though Manuela still mused about what monstrosity could have left such a mark late at night.
Celia crawled onto Manuela’s bed and curled up amongst the pillows, mostly gifts from Martín who said that they would add mood to her otherwise crappy bedroom decor if she ever found someone who wanted to sleep with her.
Finally Manuela found what she was looking for, a folder with last year’s work. Looking through the stories, she grimaced. Well, at least she could notice an improvement, and it was not like a little girl would be able to comment on how good her writing was. She slipped out the pages with the children’s tale on them and sat next to Celia on the bed.
“Do you want to read, or would you like me to read it to you?” she asked.
Celia poke her head out from under a pillow. “Let’s read it together!”
Manuela let Celia crawl into her lap despite the searing cold on her thighs and held the manuscript in front of them. Pointing to each word, she let Celia read along and helped her with some of the more difficult pronunciations. After a few minutes, Manuela heard a knock on her door. She carefully slid Celia off her lap and stood in the doorway of her bedroom as she called, “Who is it?”
“Mica!” a bubbly voice cried back. “I have something for you.”
“How the he-” Manuela glanced down at Celia, who clung with her cold, damp hands to her leg. “How the heck did you get in the building?”
“Mr. Santos Jimenez let me in. Isn’t he such a sweet man? He comes in for herbal treatments. He has a granddaughter in law school, you know?”
Manuela was sure that this was a breach of patient-practitioner confidentiality, though she was not exactly sure if such a thing existed in witchcraft ethics.
“Just because you made it up here doesn't mean I’m going to let you in!”
“Oh come on, Manu, get your cute tush over here and open the door. My arms are getting tired.”
Celia pulled on Manuela’s skirt and whispered, “She feels like rainbows.”
Manuela took a deep breath, counted to three before exhaling slowly, and said with an even voice, “Fine.” She tried not to stomp across the hardwood in case it might scare Celia. “You’re just like Martín-absolutely no patience.” Sliding the deadbolt back and undoing the chain, Manuela opened the door and held it so that Micaela Prado could enter with her arms laden with a large container of food.
“I just ate,” Manuela told her as she locked the door once more.
“I figured so, and I also figured it was some kind of slop you got from your school’s cafeteria.” Micaela set the container on the kitchen table and proceeded to unveil her cooking.
“I cooked for myself,” Manuela countered, intent on defending her culinary skills.
“Oh yeah? What?”
“…Ramen.”
Micaela groaned. “That's not cooking. That's an abomination to the kitchen,” she swept a hand through her hair, her bangles jingling and her sleeves flowing like flags. “See, it’s a good thing I came over. At least you’ll get one decent meal today, plus some leftovers for the next few days, too.”
“Ramen isn’t that bad,” Manuela protested. “I added scallions.”
“Trust me, this stuff is better. I would have included some anticuchos, too, but a customer finished them off.”
“You had a customer?” Manuela asked incredulously. “Is Hell freezing over?”
“I get customers,” Micaela protested. “Just…not a lot.”
“And yet you insist on spending your money on inane trinkets.”
“Ugh, Julio says the same thing. Oh,” Micaela raised her left hand and shook it in Manuela’s face, making the bells on the jade and gold bangle around her wrist tinkle. “Do you like it? I just found it at the consignment shop down the road.”
“Do you really need more jewelry?”
Micaela cocked her head. “But it’s pretty. And it didn't cost that much.”
“How much?”
“…I don’t want to say.”
“How much did it cost?”
“Why don’t you try one of these lovely tarts-”
“Micaela!” Manuela stomped, making Celia shriek. She turned to comfort her.
“Something wavered in the air next to you,” Micaela said. “Right there, by your leg. Is someone here?”
“It’s just a little girl,” Manuela explained. “Celia.” She patted the girl’s shoulders awkwardly in an attempt to calm her down.
“She smells good,” Celia said. “And she’s really pretty. I like her bracelet. Mama had a bracelet like that.”
“God, enough with the bracelet.”
“What about the bracelet? Did she say something about it? Does she like it?” Micaela’s eyes gleamed as she bent down near Manuela’s knees, staring into space just to the left of Celia’s head. “She’s right there, isn’t she?”
“No, she’s moved on already,” Manuela scoffed. “Of course she’s there, or is your touch failing you-” She paused in the middle of the word, wrinkling the skin between her eyebrows.
Micaela looked up into Manuela’s eyes. “Brain fart?”
“No, shut u-” Manuela inhaled deeply. “Have you noticed anything strange lately? Like, anything dark?”
Micaela’s eyebrows matched Manuela’s. “Dark? Why, have you noticed something?”
Manuela glanced down at Celia, and then at Micaela. “She’s too afraid to go outside. She said there’s something dark out there.”
“You know, there was a man that came into my shop earlier.”
“I think you already mentioned him.”
“Well, if you wouldn’t interrupt me, maybe my story would make sense.” Micaela frowned. “So anyway, this guy came into the shop earlier, while I was making the anticuchos-tall, blond, good looking, a total flirt.”
Oh God, Manuela thought, I can see where this is going.
“Anyways, I saw something dark around him. Well, not that it was him, just that I could see it in his immediate future, if that makes sense. So I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or something more, but maybe you should be careful?”
Manuela huffed. “What does this have to do with me?”
“Oh, nothing. You just seem to attract trouble.”
“I attract trouble?”
Micaela grinned. “Yeah, it must be that attitude of yours.”
“Are you going to help, or are you just going to act like an idiot?” Manuela growled.
“Hey! You shouldn’t say those kinds of things in front of little kids! But I’ll charm her away, if you’d like.”
Celia looked up fearfully at Manuela. “What is she talking about?”
“She’s going to take away your fears,” Manuela told her, looking at Micaela, who smiled softly. Then Micaela searched through her bag until she pulled out two small vials that she uncorked and, after following Manuela’s helpful finger-pointing, upended over the little girl’s head. One vial held an oily substance, while the other held dried flaked herbs. The oil glistened in Celia’s hair, while the herbs stuck to it like flies to honey.
“How do you feel, sweetie?” Micaela asked, grinning in Celia’s general direction as she stored her vials back in her bag.
“Umm…” Celia looked up at Manuela. Already her eyes had lost their focus, and she looked frayed around the edges, like a photograph that had been exposed for to long. Her colors faded even more, just barely above gray scale. “I feel…light. Like a butterfly. You know, when butterflies land in your hair and you barely notice their there, and they flap their wings and it’s like nothing?” Celia nodded her head definitively. “Yeah, it’s like that.”
Manuela looked to Micaela. “What did you give her?”
“It’s a mood lifting charm,” Micaela explained. “I usually use it on the living when people are anxious, but I find that it works well on spirits, too.” She smirked, the corners of her lips curling up like devil horns. “Say, you might be able to use something like this. Then maybe you wouldn't walk around like frowning was going out of style. Though I’m not sure if my herbs are strong enough to work on you.”
Manuela avoided kicking her simply because Celia was still attached to her leg.
Micaela went on. “And the other was to prepare her way out of here. Whether she moves on from this world is up to her, but she’ll leave soon.”
Manuela avoided sighing in relief for Celia’s sake.
“Watch out, Manu,” Micaela warned, rising again and rifling through the package of food. She pulled out several containers that she stacked on top of each other on the table until she found the one she was looking for. Opening it, she offered one of the alfajores inside to Manuela. “Young spirits tend to be more susceptible to their feelings and get scared more easily, but she could be sensing something out there. Just be aware.”
“Yeah, yeah, now leave,” Manuela ordered, pushing Micaela from the kitchen and toward the door. “You interrupted my writing time.”
Micaela dug her heels in and leaned her weight back against Manuela’s hands. “You weren’t writing when I came in.”
“Yes I was.”
“Swear it?”
Manuela let go of Micaela, who fell backwards. Catching her before she hit the ground, Manuela whispered in her ear, “Serves you right, witch.”
“I feel like you’re trying to use that as a synonym for another word. What is it? I think it starts with a ‘B’ and can be used to describe you.”
With one last growl of frustration, Manuela dragged Micaela to the door and threw her out. “Now get out. Let me know when you’re going to come over again before you just show up.”
“What, so you can put the building on lockdown?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll just have to wait outside until you come out. “You’ll have to leave your apartment sometime.”
“I’ll become a hermit.”
“Oh, come on Manuelita, you would miss seeing my sexy butt. I know you’re jealous.”
Manuela slammed the door in her face and locked it, ignoring Micaela’s indignant cries as she set about putting the food she had left in the fridge. It all looked and smelled delicious, and she left the alfajores out to eat. She really should be working on some schoolwork. She had already wasted enough time playing with Celia.
Now Celia was sitting on the floor next to her, playing with her dress. Manuela patted her head, and it took the girl a few moments to look up. She would probably be leaving soon.
After finishing up in the kitchen, Manuela went back into her room and sat at her desk to write. Celia followed her silently, and she drifted across the floor rather than toddling about like before. When Manuela sat down, Celia sat at her side.
“I think I want to go see my mama,” Celia said.
“Hmm, that’s good. She probably misses you.”
“I haven’t seen her in a long time. I miss her.” Celia lay on the floor and stretched her limbs and arms and legs out. Her dress was splayed around her, and her hair stuck out from beneath her shoulder. She looked much more translucent than before, and Manuela could see the wood grain through her stomach.
Turning back to her desk, Manuela turned her lamp on and opened her latest writing journal. She wrote the day’s date in the top right corner of the first clean page and started writing a warm up, writing for five minutes non-stop about a little girl who was trying to find her mother. When she looked back at the floor after she was finished, Celia was gone, drifted on to some other place. The room felt empty without her. Manuela sighed and tapped her pen against her lips a few times in thought. She hoped that whatever dark things the girl had been frightened of would either be only in her imagination or, if they were real, would leave her alone.
As much as she had fought against Micaela, part of her wished that she would have given her a bit of those herbs for her nerves. Encounters with ghosts tended to shake her up, especially when they said strange things like Celia had. Ever since she could remember, she had been able to see spirits, souls that wandered the earth, the things that other people could not see. She had gotten used to it as well as she could, but she still felt on edge after encounters in which she actually touched spirits, though she was no longer afraid of their coldness.
She wrote for a few more hours until she hit a wall and decided to take a break. After jotting down some notes for the rest of the story, along with some lines of prose that she liked but that would not fit, she rose and stretched. Micaela’s food was calling to her, and though Manuela felt like she should make another attempt at her own cooking on principle, because damn it she could cook if she wanted to, she really wanted to try the lomo saltado.
After eating dinner, she went back into her bedroom and curled up under her covers. Reaching over, she pulled a book off her bookshelf, one of the stories she was in the middle of that she had read ten times already, and opened it to the page with her little bookmark with the pressed flowers in it that Martín’s cousin, Daniel, had given her for her birthday last year. After reading for a half hour, she marked her place and closed the book again, setting it on the floor next to her bed and turning off the lamp behind her head. She rolled over and closed her eyes, counting backwards from one hundred until she lost consciousness.
-
When Martín opened his eyes again, everything ached. It was as if he had just been in a street fight, one giant bruise from the top of his head right down to the tips of his toes. He groaned, only to realize that there was an oxygen pump running into his nose and looped around his neck. His neck was in a brace, and there was an IV drip connected to his inner elbow. Tucked into the hospital bed and hidden from the rest of the room by a stained white curtain, his only company was the low, rhythmic beeps, clicks, and whirs of the machines around him. His back was killing him, his head felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton, and his mouth tasted like he had just licked the bottom of someone’s boot. Did he mention yet how much everything hurt?
And he was not quite as alone as he had first assumed. He blinked again, and there was a sharply dressed man standing near the corner of his bed, staring at him from behind dark rimmed glasses. Martín stared back, and then demanded. “Are you my doctor? Or a nurse?”
“No,” the man answered in a voice as smooth as a radio announcer’s, deep and precise. “The third shift nurse made her rounds twenty minutes ago. Why, do you need something concerning your physical well being?”
Martín groaned and shifted a little, hissing at the sharp pain in his ribs. “Then are you from school? I don’t recognize you. Were you…” In one of my classes? Or did you happen to see me before the accident? I hope it didn’t mess up my face. He hissed at the sudden wave of nausea and brought a hand up to touch his nose and chin, which seemed to still be there.
“You know,” the man said, rubbing a smudge of grease from the sidebar of Martín’s bed, “most people would have jumped on the fact that they suddenly woke up from being dead.”
“Well, I’m not most people…I mean, what?” Martín’s blood ran cold. The bus…and the blood and the people how many meters away from him and the cold- “What are you talking about?”
“You’re obviously not in the right state of mind to be talking about this,” the man said, inclining his head to the IV drip attached to Martín’s arm, “but time is of the essence.”
Martín stared at the IV for a few seconds, wondering how much more pain he would be in without the drugs, before looking up at the man again. “Who…”
“You may call me Sebastián.”
“And you’re not a doctor?”
“We’ve established this already.” Sebastián adjusted his glasses. “Think of me as a…messenger. A guide, if you will.”
“Messenger? From where, the bus company?” Something was hammering inside Martín’s temple, the pressure building whenever Sebastián spoke. “I think I deserve a little peace after what I just went through.”
“And what did you just go through, Martín Hernández?”
“I-”
“You don’t even know, do you?”
Martín’s pallid skin flushed as much as it could. “Well, how do you expect me to? I tried to save a lady, got hit by a bus, and ended up here.”
“And in between….?”
And in between…what? He could remember the charm vial clenched in his hand, the bus and the people.
Martín blinked. So he had died, just like Sebastián said. It kind of made sense, what with the whole out of body experience, and seeing his own bloody body lying on the pavement in front of the bus. His own bloody corpse.
He was going to be sick again. Maybe his retching would actually bring something up now that he had body again? The world began to spin, stars flashing in the corners of his vision. This was all too much for him to handle right now. He wanted to go to sleep and wake up in his own bed and go to class and flirt with his classmates and loathe Luciano, and he would write a song about the joys of being alive and he would never have been dead.
Sebastián broke through his thoughts. “You were right when you said that it was not supposed to end up like this. There’s a power in words that even the best of us don’t understand.”
A familiar voice in his memories hissed Would you really give anything?, and Martín shivered.
“And yet it did end like that-with you dead. Or rather, it began like that. Now you must finish it.”
“What are you talking ab-”
“You need to find a soul to take your place. One of your emotional ties must die.”
“Emotional ties?” Martín’s vision swam as a sudden spasm of pain shot through his abdomen.
“You have twenty-eight days in which to provide us with a replacement who is connected to you emotionally in some way. If you fail to do this, we will be forced to revoke your second chance at life.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Martín shook his head, and then stopped because it ached too much. “So I have to find a replacement to fix your problem? Why do I have to do anything?”
“Well, if you don’t really care about dying again…”
“Alright, alright. So, what do I have to do? What’s this whole replacement deal? Can it be someone I really hate? Do I have to…do I just bring the person to you?”
“Yes, that would fall under strong emotional tie, and no, you must extract their soul from their body first.”
“So…I have to kill someone to take my place?”
Sebastián stared unflinchingly into Martín’s eyes. “That is one way of putting it.”
Martín’s head reeled. He barely saw Sebastián as he checked his watch and clucked his tongue, too busy with his own ethical dilemma.
“I have somewhere to be right now,” the man said. “I’ll be back sometime soon to check up on you. Remember, time is running out as we speak.” And then he was gone, not even a puff of smoke or a sound, simply vanished, as if he had never been in the room in the first place. The molecules of air did not crackle. The screen around his bed did not brush in the unseen current of his leaving.
Breathing in deeply, Martín relaxed back against the pillows. What a nightmare. Having to kill someone to take his place within the next twenty eight days? This was like something out of a crappy horror flick. And it probably was, nothing more than a vague memory that his drug addled mind had latched onto and embellished in the dimness of the hospital room.
But if it were real-and that was a big if-could he even bring himself to kill someone? Who would he choose to take his place? When the figment of his imagination had said that the emotional tie could be that of hate, one person had surfaced in his mind.
No. But...Luciano had once said that his father did not pay much attention to him unless he could get something out of him, so it was not like he would be leaving behind a grieving family. And sure he had friends at school, but he was a little air headed, so how close could those friendships be? They would move on eventually. If Martín himself were to die on the other hand, just thinking about all the people who would be devastated about the loss pained him. No. Someone had to make a sacrifice. And maybe Martín would not even have to actually physically kill Luciano. Sebastián had only said that he had to find a replacement for his soul. He could just…put Luciano in a situation were he would die and then be done with the entire thing.
If Sebastián and his task were real.
He wondered how long he would be stuck in the hospital. Being hit by a bus had taken a lot out of him, and now he felt weighed down by exhaustion. Or maybe that was the drugs. Either way, Martín really wanted to sleep. Maybe when he woke up again, he would find out that he was a hero for saving someone, taking their place in front of the bus. Maybe his friends would be there to greet him instead of an imaginary tightass messenger
He drifted off to the sound of the whooshing oxygen and the beeps of the machines.
tbc
Characters/Pairings: Martín/Luciano (Argentina/Brazil), Manuela/Micaela (fem!Chile/fem!Perú) and various other characters, but there are too many to mention here. Characters belong to their respective creators and latin_hetalia
Rating: PG-13 for now, but the rating will go up in later chapters
Warnings: Human AU, character death, general creepiness
Summary: After a terrible accident, Martín Hernández must do whatever it takes to stay alive, even if it means killing someone in his stead.
Chapter 1
When he entered his apartment, the first thing Luciano noticed was that the electricity was out. He flicked the light switch a few more times in the hallway before shrugging and thanking God that at least this happened while the daylight was still strong enough for him to see with the curtains open. He shrugged his bag off in the living room and flopped down on a ratty couch. His roommate, a theater major, was either still in class or at work-he could never remember her schedule-and he did not see any notes anywhere, so this power outage must have been recent. Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, Luciano called up their landlord and left the crotchety old bastard a message. The lights would probably come back on before the landlord did anything about it, but at least Luciano could say that he had tried.
Today had been all kinds of shit. First, his alarm hadn’t gone off, but at least Catalina had been kind enough to wake him up before she left at nine in the morning. Then the coffee maker blew a fuse. Maybe that’s what had caused the power outage? No, it was probably something to do with faulty wiring in the old building since the landlord never kept up on maintenance. At least it was a cheap place to live, especially split between two people, even if it was a little cramped. Catalina was sweet and kept things tidy, and they both had a good enough sense of humor to be able to survive living in such close quarters. It was a skill that Luciano knew would take him far in life-dealing with people even when he did not want to.
Take Martín Hernández for example. He was the third mishap of the day. He was always a mishap waiting to happen, and even if he didn’t start shit, Luciano could not help but be put on edge from just seeing him, waiting for him to start something.
And today had been alright, really. Luciano had made plans to play football in the park with some people, so no amount of broken alarm clocks and faulty coffee makers could dampen his mood, but then Martín Fucking God’s Gift to Earth Hernández had to go and spoil everything. What an overbearing-damn it, Luciano hated how he treated Daniel. He was so overprotective of his cousin, and it was only to suit his own interests. And then all those little snide remarks about ‘savages’ and ‘jungles’. It had taken all of Luciano’s willpower, and a little grounding from Daniel, not to strangle him. How easy it was for him to make such remarks, Martín Hernández who always thought he was on top of the world. He probably wasn’t even affected when people insulted him, beyond the initial reaction to throw an insult right back in retaliation.
Luciano was affected. He had to remind himself that Martín was just trying to hurt him and rile him up, that no one really thought that he was some backwards-ass kid from the jungle. He knew he was decent at the guitar-at least he tried to tell himself that. He had been playing since he was just a little kid, when his father had sat him down and presented him with his first instrument at the ripe young age of six and could barely fit his hands around the fret, let alone finger the chords. His father would sit on the porch on nice nights and play folk tunes for him and sing. Those were some of the nicest memories he had of his father, memories that warmed his soul and reminded him of why he was here studying music in the first place. It was something he loved, it was something he was good at, and it was something he could do to make other people happy.
Fuck Hernández. He put more energy into his art than that blond bastard ever would. He had to admit that the other boy was technically good, but not good enough to go anywhere. Luciano would stand by his statement that his music had no soul, that he was just playing what he thought people wanted to hear. Maybe he could make it big in mainstream pop-he sure had the face and the personality for it-but it would get him nowhere if he actually wanted to be proud of his work.
Luciano was proud of his work-or at least proud of his potential. He had so much potential, he knew he did, he just needed to hone his talent here at school.
Part of him wondered what his father would say about this song competition Dr. Villalba had proposed. He tried to imagine a conversation with him that did not end in them fighting. He wished they would not fight as much, that it could be like those nights on the front porch with just them, the warm stars overhead, the owls in the trees, and the guitars singing into the night.
His father had not been terribly keen on Luciano leaving to go study at the International Conservatory of Arts in a completely different country, and Luciano was still sometimes surprised at himself that he had actually gathered up the courage to make good on his dream. Sometimes he still missed his home, the sounds and the scents of the earth so different from the acrid stench of the city, but he kept telling himself that he would only be at the Conservatory for four years if he kept himself on track. Maybe by then his father would have given up waiting for Luciano to give up on a career in the music industry and return to take over the family store, but it was probably a false hope. Maybe his father would be excited to hear about this competition and the potential experience it could yield for him. It could be a chance to show him that this was not some childish fever dream, that Luciano could make a living out of this passion of his if he was just in the right place and knew the right people and could show everyone his magic.
Then again, if he told his father about the competition and then lost, which was highly likely-the odds were against him, and he really should not be getting his hopes up-he did not think he could ever live it down. It would be the topic his father would bring up at holidays. “Do you remember that one time that Lu thought he could win a songwriting competition? Don’t kids have their heads in the clouds these days?”
Who cared if Martín badgered him about losing-that oaf’s opinion meant nothing to him, but if his father, who he looked up to despite all the old man’s faults, Luciano did not think he could live with the disappointment.
Maybe he should not even compete, and save himself the time and sanity. He wished Catalina were here, she would tell him to stop thinking so fatalistically. He should just try, and even if he lost the competition, at least he had another song to play. And the chance was there, just beyond his reach, but still there, that he could win.
Scrapping the idea of calling his father, Luciano decided to get ready for the football match. Running around would clear his head, and it always seemed to give him some sort of flash of inspiration later, which might be helpful in songwriting. He really needed to write something extra special this time. His other songs were all a bit too mediocre, even if he loved them all the same.
Grabbing a few granola bars from the pantry, Lu chewed on one while he changed into a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt. He really needed some new cleats, but guitar strings took precedence at this time in his life. He checked the fridge for a bottle of water and pulled one out to throw in his bag. If Daniel showed up, which he probably would given his penchant for preferring enjoyable activities to work-something he shared with Luciano and Martín, loathe as Luciano was to admit-they could probably brainstorm ideas for the contest.
Maybe not now, but later Daniel could also tell him about Martín’s progress since they lived in such close quarters. It would be a good idea to keep tabs on the enemy, not that Luciano was planning on sabotaging him or anything, but at least he could have an idea of what he was up against. Not that he was worried.
Ok, maybe he was worried a little bit, but stress was healthy for work, wasn’t it? Catalina kept saying that a little nerves prompted people to practice until they were confident, which could apply to this situation, too.
Martín provided just another load of stress in Luciano’s life, but he could handle it. He thought about leaving another message for the landlord in the form of a sign taped to the front door, but decided against it, since the bastard might take longer to fix the problem out of spite. Grabbing his belongings, Luciano left his apartment and jogged to the bus stop to take him to the pitch. The day really was beautiful, not a cloud in the cerulean sky, and it was almost enough to lift his spirits despite all the mishaps from earlier. With luck, he would be Martín and broken appliance free for at least a few hours while he could enjoy himself.
-
After sending Martín away, Manuela settled down at the small, rickety kitchen table near the entrance of her living room to eat her ramen. Glancing to the corner of the kitchen near her toaster, she noted that the little girl was still sitting on the counter, dangling her legs off the edge and playing with the hem of her frilly dress. The girl looked up and made eye contact with Manuela for a brief second before flicking her eyes back down, her translucent skin flushing. Her hair fell in a thick braid down her back, and she had bows near her temples. Every color on her was off, like a faded photograph, and she looked out of place next to the bright yellow tiles of Manuela’s kitchen.
By the time Manuela had finished her ramen and was washing her dishes, the girl had jumped off the counter-or rather floated down from it-and was crouched on the floor in the middle of the kitchen, playing with a tiny, toy horse figurine.
Wiping her hands on a towel, Manuela bent down to the girl’s level and reached out her hand to touch the horse. The little girl whipped her head up. She had an overbite.
“Do you like horses, ma’am?” the girl asked in wonder, letting Manuela take the toy. It felt solid enough in her hands, so Manuela wondered if it was something the girl had picked up recently.
“Yes,” Manuela answered, handing back the horse. “Were you trying to talk to me when my friend was here earlier?”
The girl shrugged and resumed her play. “I was just watching. I’m good at entertaining myself-that’s what Mama always said.” She bent close to Manuela, inclining her head to whisper in her ear like it was a big secret. “It’s ‘cause I’m an only child.”
Just like Manuela. “Do you like to read?”
“Yes, ma’am! I used to sneak books into my room and read them by flashlight after I was supposed to be in bed. Mama got mad and told me I wouldn’t grow if I didn’t go to sleep.” The girl looked mournful and gripped her own ankles. “I guess I should have listened to her. I haven’t grown in a long time.”
Manuela hummed. Maybe someone else would have reached out to touch the girl’s hair in comfort, but Manuela had never been comfortable with such contact with strangers. She often wondered why someone like her would have such a gift-or curse, depending on how she was feeling-this ability to see things that other people could not. She had seen the way Martín had ignored the girl as if she were not even there when he had been over, even though he had nearly walked into her on the way into the kitchen. The simple fact had been that he could not see her, Manuela knew. Most people could not, which made it rather lonely not to be able to talk about this kind of stuff with other people. Well, except for…
Ok, so she could not talk about this kind of stuff with other people who did not drive her absolutely mad. Martín could sure be stupid over Luciano sometimes, but Manuela could not fault him since she had her own idiot to deal with.
“What’s your name,” she finally asked the little girl.
“Celia,” the girl answered. “I’m five.”
“My name is Manuela. And you don’t have to call me ma’am.” I’m not that old, she sobbed inside.
“Do you want to play with me?” Celia asked.
Manuela did not really want to play games, but the girl might stick around for a while if she was not satisfied. She had had one old man stuck in her apartment for a week before she finally gave in and looked up the ending to El Vuelo del Águila on the internet to let him watch.
“Why don’t we play in the living room,” Manuela suggested, rising and leading the way. “It’s nicer in there.”
And it was, when Manuela slid the window open and flipped up the blinds, revealing the warmth of the afternoon seeping in on every street corner. Her apartment had a decent view of the street, and if she stuck her head out, she could see the Conservatory on the hill to the east. She had classes in the morning and usually devoted her afternoons to schoolwork and writing, but that could all wait. Even so, she could not very well explain to her professors sorry I did not finish that paper for you or the corrections and revisions, I was playing with a dead girl so that she would leave my apartment.
Actually, any excuse would be mortifying. As it was, she tried to keep to herself in classes, only talking to people when absolutely necessary. Every time she handed a piece in for peer review, she would stay up the entire night worrying about how she should have changed this or added that, and how her classmates would think she was an illiterate idiot and that she might as well drop out now. And then they would return with the helpful bits of constructive criticism pillowed in praises, and Manuela would blush crimson and not make eye contact with anyone until she had arrived at the safety of her own apartment.
Celia was looking at her expectantly, so Manuela crouched down in the living room again and said, “What do you want to play?”
Celia ran a hand thoughtfully over her chin before exclaiming, “You be the horsey, and I’ll be the gaucho princess!”
That did not sound very appealing to Manuela, but the girl was already clambering on her back and over her shoulders, sending little tendrils of cold shivering through Manuela’s body wherever she touched her.
After plodding around on hands and knees for a few minutes and listening to Celia’s cries of “They went that way!” and “Ride like the wind!” Manuela collapsed on the ground, limbs splayed out. “Horsey is tired,” she explained.
Celia hummed and said, “It’s been a long day of riding across the plains, hasn’t it?” She brushed her frozen fingers through Manuela’s short hair, sometimes dipping them into her skull, but she did not seem to notice. “Your hair is really soft.”
Manuela tried her best not to cry out. The girl was so cold, but she was not doing anything wrong, so Manuela let her do as she pleased with her hair. After a while of getting used to the temperature, it actually felt kind of nice. It had been so long since her nightly ritual ended with her mother, brushing and braiding her hair in soft, methodical motions, until Manuela came back from Martín’s house one day with her hair hacked to her shoulders.
“I told him to do it,” Manuela had explained as her mother dragged her to the salon to get it fixed. “The long hair was getting annoying,” and while it was still true, she did miss the feeling of someone’s hands in her hair.
Celia leaned against her and hugged her around the back of her neck. “I’m tired too. Maybe I’ll take a nap on horsey’s back.”
Well damn, Manuela had not considered that option. “It’s dangerous,” she warned. “You might fall off.”
She could feel Celia shake her head against her back. “No, it’s safer here. I like your house. It’s not scary like outside.”
“Outside is not that scary,” Manuela said slowly. Interacting with so many strangers might be a little nerve wracking, but she did not want Celia to think she had an open invitation to stay as long as he liked. “You’ll have to leave here eventually.”
“But there’s things out there. Dark things. It feels heavy outside. Don’t make me go outside.” Celia pleaded. She clung to Manuela, burying her face in her neck. “Don’t make me do that. I thought you were my friend, please let me stay here.”
“We’ll see,” was all Manuela could think to say. She was not quick on her feet with words like some of her friends, which was a little embarrassing considering her field of study. Eventually she sighed and rolled over, letting the girl slide off her back. “There are scary things everywhere, but sometimes you just have to pretend they don’t exist.”
“I bet you’re not afraid of anything,” Celia mused.
“Everyone’s afraid of something, Celia, trust me,” Manuela sighed. “It’s okay to be scared. It just makes you understand what is worth fighting for.”
Celia nodded her head solemnly. “Wow. You should write books. I would read them.”
“I do write,” Manuela felt a small smile grace her bowed lips. “It’s what I want to do for a living.”
“Ooh.” Celia’s face was bright with wonder. “Show me!”
“Umm…” This was not going in Manuela’s favor, but she had to have something she could produce to appease Celia. “Wait here.”
Celia sat on the floor and hugged her knees, resting her chin on them and watching Manuela with expectant eyes as she tiptoed into her bedroom where she kept her writing journals. She knew that she had written a fairytale at some point in time, something about a little girl who was always being forgotten by others. It was probably not as optimistic as Celia was hoping for, but Manuela’s writing was rarely happy. It did not take long before Manuela felt a prickle at the back of her neck and turned around to find Celia standing in the doorway of her bedroom, obviously bored form waiting. Of course a five year old would have such a short attention span, but Manuela should have known.
“Do you have a story for me?” Celia asked, then became distracted by the posters on the walls of Manuela’s bedroom. “So pretty! I want to go there and there and there.” She dashed around the room, pointing at each poster, the ones with mountains and deserts and forests and cities. They were all from a travel agency that had closed down a few months ago down the street from Manuela’s apartment. When she had gone in, they just gave her a pile of posters, unwanted scraps of paper from someone else’s walls. Secondhand dreams dropped into her lap. She doubted she would ever make it to the destinations they promised, but they made for better scenery than the peeling, striped wallpaper that had been left behind by the last tenant. The one with the waterfall and the rock pool covered the huge, brownish red stain on the wall nicely, though Manuela still mused about what monstrosity could have left such a mark late at night.
Celia crawled onto Manuela’s bed and curled up amongst the pillows, mostly gifts from Martín who said that they would add mood to her otherwise crappy bedroom decor if she ever found someone who wanted to sleep with her.
Finally Manuela found what she was looking for, a folder with last year’s work. Looking through the stories, she grimaced. Well, at least she could notice an improvement, and it was not like a little girl would be able to comment on how good her writing was. She slipped out the pages with the children’s tale on them and sat next to Celia on the bed.
“Do you want to read, or would you like me to read it to you?” she asked.
Celia poke her head out from under a pillow. “Let’s read it together!”
Manuela let Celia crawl into her lap despite the searing cold on her thighs and held the manuscript in front of them. Pointing to each word, she let Celia read along and helped her with some of the more difficult pronunciations. After a few minutes, Manuela heard a knock on her door. She carefully slid Celia off her lap and stood in the doorway of her bedroom as she called, “Who is it?”
“Mica!” a bubbly voice cried back. “I have something for you.”
“How the he-” Manuela glanced down at Celia, who clung with her cold, damp hands to her leg. “How the heck did you get in the building?”
“Mr. Santos Jimenez let me in. Isn’t he such a sweet man? He comes in for herbal treatments. He has a granddaughter in law school, you know?”
Manuela was sure that this was a breach of patient-practitioner confidentiality, though she was not exactly sure if such a thing existed in witchcraft ethics.
“Just because you made it up here doesn't mean I’m going to let you in!”
“Oh come on, Manu, get your cute tush over here and open the door. My arms are getting tired.”
Celia pulled on Manuela’s skirt and whispered, “She feels like rainbows.”
Manuela took a deep breath, counted to three before exhaling slowly, and said with an even voice, “Fine.” She tried not to stomp across the hardwood in case it might scare Celia. “You’re just like Martín-absolutely no patience.” Sliding the deadbolt back and undoing the chain, Manuela opened the door and held it so that Micaela Prado could enter with her arms laden with a large container of food.
“I just ate,” Manuela told her as she locked the door once more.
“I figured so, and I also figured it was some kind of slop you got from your school’s cafeteria.” Micaela set the container on the kitchen table and proceeded to unveil her cooking.
“I cooked for myself,” Manuela countered, intent on defending her culinary skills.
“Oh yeah? What?”
“…Ramen.”
Micaela groaned. “That's not cooking. That's an abomination to the kitchen,” she swept a hand through her hair, her bangles jingling and her sleeves flowing like flags. “See, it’s a good thing I came over. At least you’ll get one decent meal today, plus some leftovers for the next few days, too.”
“Ramen isn’t that bad,” Manuela protested. “I added scallions.”
“Trust me, this stuff is better. I would have included some anticuchos, too, but a customer finished them off.”
“You had a customer?” Manuela asked incredulously. “Is Hell freezing over?”
“I get customers,” Micaela protested. “Just…not a lot.”
“And yet you insist on spending your money on inane trinkets.”
“Ugh, Julio says the same thing. Oh,” Micaela raised her left hand and shook it in Manuela’s face, making the bells on the jade and gold bangle around her wrist tinkle. “Do you like it? I just found it at the consignment shop down the road.”
“Do you really need more jewelry?”
Micaela cocked her head. “But it’s pretty. And it didn't cost that much.”
“How much?”
“…I don’t want to say.”
“How much did it cost?”
“Why don’t you try one of these lovely tarts-”
“Micaela!” Manuela stomped, making Celia shriek. She turned to comfort her.
“Something wavered in the air next to you,” Micaela said. “Right there, by your leg. Is someone here?”
“It’s just a little girl,” Manuela explained. “Celia.” She patted the girl’s shoulders awkwardly in an attempt to calm her down.
“She smells good,” Celia said. “And she’s really pretty. I like her bracelet. Mama had a bracelet like that.”
“God, enough with the bracelet.”
“What about the bracelet? Did she say something about it? Does she like it?” Micaela’s eyes gleamed as she bent down near Manuela’s knees, staring into space just to the left of Celia’s head. “She’s right there, isn’t she?”
“No, she’s moved on already,” Manuela scoffed. “Of course she’s there, or is your touch failing you-” She paused in the middle of the word, wrinkling the skin between her eyebrows.
Micaela looked up into Manuela’s eyes. “Brain fart?”
“No, shut u-” Manuela inhaled deeply. “Have you noticed anything strange lately? Like, anything dark?”
Micaela’s eyebrows matched Manuela’s. “Dark? Why, have you noticed something?”
Manuela glanced down at Celia, and then at Micaela. “She’s too afraid to go outside. She said there’s something dark out there.”
“You know, there was a man that came into my shop earlier.”
“I think you already mentioned him.”
“Well, if you wouldn’t interrupt me, maybe my story would make sense.” Micaela frowned. “So anyway, this guy came into the shop earlier, while I was making the anticuchos-tall, blond, good looking, a total flirt.”
Oh God, Manuela thought, I can see where this is going.
“Anyways, I saw something dark around him. Well, not that it was him, just that I could see it in his immediate future, if that makes sense. So I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or something more, but maybe you should be careful?”
Manuela huffed. “What does this have to do with me?”
“Oh, nothing. You just seem to attract trouble.”
“I attract trouble?”
Micaela grinned. “Yeah, it must be that attitude of yours.”
“Are you going to help, or are you just going to act like an idiot?” Manuela growled.
“Hey! You shouldn’t say those kinds of things in front of little kids! But I’ll charm her away, if you’d like.”
Celia looked up fearfully at Manuela. “What is she talking about?”
“She’s going to take away your fears,” Manuela told her, looking at Micaela, who smiled softly. Then Micaela searched through her bag until she pulled out two small vials that she uncorked and, after following Manuela’s helpful finger-pointing, upended over the little girl’s head. One vial held an oily substance, while the other held dried flaked herbs. The oil glistened in Celia’s hair, while the herbs stuck to it like flies to honey.
“How do you feel, sweetie?” Micaela asked, grinning in Celia’s general direction as she stored her vials back in her bag.
“Umm…” Celia looked up at Manuela. Already her eyes had lost their focus, and she looked frayed around the edges, like a photograph that had been exposed for to long. Her colors faded even more, just barely above gray scale. “I feel…light. Like a butterfly. You know, when butterflies land in your hair and you barely notice their there, and they flap their wings and it’s like nothing?” Celia nodded her head definitively. “Yeah, it’s like that.”
Manuela looked to Micaela. “What did you give her?”
“It’s a mood lifting charm,” Micaela explained. “I usually use it on the living when people are anxious, but I find that it works well on spirits, too.” She smirked, the corners of her lips curling up like devil horns. “Say, you might be able to use something like this. Then maybe you wouldn't walk around like frowning was going out of style. Though I’m not sure if my herbs are strong enough to work on you.”
Manuela avoided kicking her simply because Celia was still attached to her leg.
Micaela went on. “And the other was to prepare her way out of here. Whether she moves on from this world is up to her, but she’ll leave soon.”
Manuela avoided sighing in relief for Celia’s sake.
“Watch out, Manu,” Micaela warned, rising again and rifling through the package of food. She pulled out several containers that she stacked on top of each other on the table until she found the one she was looking for. Opening it, she offered one of the alfajores inside to Manuela. “Young spirits tend to be more susceptible to their feelings and get scared more easily, but she could be sensing something out there. Just be aware.”
“Yeah, yeah, now leave,” Manuela ordered, pushing Micaela from the kitchen and toward the door. “You interrupted my writing time.”
Micaela dug her heels in and leaned her weight back against Manuela’s hands. “You weren’t writing when I came in.”
“Yes I was.”
“Swear it?”
Manuela let go of Micaela, who fell backwards. Catching her before she hit the ground, Manuela whispered in her ear, “Serves you right, witch.”
“I feel like you’re trying to use that as a synonym for another word. What is it? I think it starts with a ‘B’ and can be used to describe you.”
With one last growl of frustration, Manuela dragged Micaela to the door and threw her out. “Now get out. Let me know when you’re going to come over again before you just show up.”
“What, so you can put the building on lockdown?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll just have to wait outside until you come out. “You’ll have to leave your apartment sometime.”
“I’ll become a hermit.”
“Oh, come on Manuelita, you would miss seeing my sexy butt. I know you’re jealous.”
Manuela slammed the door in her face and locked it, ignoring Micaela’s indignant cries as she set about putting the food she had left in the fridge. It all looked and smelled delicious, and she left the alfajores out to eat. She really should be working on some schoolwork. She had already wasted enough time playing with Celia.
Now Celia was sitting on the floor next to her, playing with her dress. Manuela patted her head, and it took the girl a few moments to look up. She would probably be leaving soon.
After finishing up in the kitchen, Manuela went back into her room and sat at her desk to write. Celia followed her silently, and she drifted across the floor rather than toddling about like before. When Manuela sat down, Celia sat at her side.
“I think I want to go see my mama,” Celia said.
“Hmm, that’s good. She probably misses you.”
“I haven’t seen her in a long time. I miss her.” Celia lay on the floor and stretched her limbs and arms and legs out. Her dress was splayed around her, and her hair stuck out from beneath her shoulder. She looked much more translucent than before, and Manuela could see the wood grain through her stomach.
Turning back to her desk, Manuela turned her lamp on and opened her latest writing journal. She wrote the day’s date in the top right corner of the first clean page and started writing a warm up, writing for five minutes non-stop about a little girl who was trying to find her mother. When she looked back at the floor after she was finished, Celia was gone, drifted on to some other place. The room felt empty without her. Manuela sighed and tapped her pen against her lips a few times in thought. She hoped that whatever dark things the girl had been frightened of would either be only in her imagination or, if they were real, would leave her alone.
As much as she had fought against Micaela, part of her wished that she would have given her a bit of those herbs for her nerves. Encounters with ghosts tended to shake her up, especially when they said strange things like Celia had. Ever since she could remember, she had been able to see spirits, souls that wandered the earth, the things that other people could not see. She had gotten used to it as well as she could, but she still felt on edge after encounters in which she actually touched spirits, though she was no longer afraid of their coldness.
She wrote for a few more hours until she hit a wall and decided to take a break. After jotting down some notes for the rest of the story, along with some lines of prose that she liked but that would not fit, she rose and stretched. Micaela’s food was calling to her, and though Manuela felt like she should make another attempt at her own cooking on principle, because damn it she could cook if she wanted to, she really wanted to try the lomo saltado.
After eating dinner, she went back into her bedroom and curled up under her covers. Reaching over, she pulled a book off her bookshelf, one of the stories she was in the middle of that she had read ten times already, and opened it to the page with her little bookmark with the pressed flowers in it that Martín’s cousin, Daniel, had given her for her birthday last year. After reading for a half hour, she marked her place and closed the book again, setting it on the floor next to her bed and turning off the lamp behind her head. She rolled over and closed her eyes, counting backwards from one hundred until she lost consciousness.
-
When Martín opened his eyes again, everything ached. It was as if he had just been in a street fight, one giant bruise from the top of his head right down to the tips of his toes. He groaned, only to realize that there was an oxygen pump running into his nose and looped around his neck. His neck was in a brace, and there was an IV drip connected to his inner elbow. Tucked into the hospital bed and hidden from the rest of the room by a stained white curtain, his only company was the low, rhythmic beeps, clicks, and whirs of the machines around him. His back was killing him, his head felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton, and his mouth tasted like he had just licked the bottom of someone’s boot. Did he mention yet how much everything hurt?
And he was not quite as alone as he had first assumed. He blinked again, and there was a sharply dressed man standing near the corner of his bed, staring at him from behind dark rimmed glasses. Martín stared back, and then demanded. “Are you my doctor? Or a nurse?”
“No,” the man answered in a voice as smooth as a radio announcer’s, deep and precise. “The third shift nurse made her rounds twenty minutes ago. Why, do you need something concerning your physical well being?”
Martín groaned and shifted a little, hissing at the sharp pain in his ribs. “Then are you from school? I don’t recognize you. Were you…” In one of my classes? Or did you happen to see me before the accident? I hope it didn’t mess up my face. He hissed at the sudden wave of nausea and brought a hand up to touch his nose and chin, which seemed to still be there.
“You know,” the man said, rubbing a smudge of grease from the sidebar of Martín’s bed, “most people would have jumped on the fact that they suddenly woke up from being dead.”
“Well, I’m not most people…I mean, what?” Martín’s blood ran cold. The bus…and the blood and the people how many meters away from him and the cold- “What are you talking about?”
“You’re obviously not in the right state of mind to be talking about this,” the man said, inclining his head to the IV drip attached to Martín’s arm, “but time is of the essence.”
Martín stared at the IV for a few seconds, wondering how much more pain he would be in without the drugs, before looking up at the man again. “Who…”
“You may call me Sebastián.”
“And you’re not a doctor?”
“We’ve established this already.” Sebastián adjusted his glasses. “Think of me as a…messenger. A guide, if you will.”
“Messenger? From where, the bus company?” Something was hammering inside Martín’s temple, the pressure building whenever Sebastián spoke. “I think I deserve a little peace after what I just went through.”
“And what did you just go through, Martín Hernández?”
“I-”
“You don’t even know, do you?”
Martín’s pallid skin flushed as much as it could. “Well, how do you expect me to? I tried to save a lady, got hit by a bus, and ended up here.”
“And in between….?”
And in between…what? He could remember the charm vial clenched in his hand, the bus and the people.
Martín blinked. So he had died, just like Sebastián said. It kind of made sense, what with the whole out of body experience, and seeing his own bloody body lying on the pavement in front of the bus. His own bloody corpse.
He was going to be sick again. Maybe his retching would actually bring something up now that he had body again? The world began to spin, stars flashing in the corners of his vision. This was all too much for him to handle right now. He wanted to go to sleep and wake up in his own bed and go to class and flirt with his classmates and loathe Luciano, and he would write a song about the joys of being alive and he would never have been dead.
Sebastián broke through his thoughts. “You were right when you said that it was not supposed to end up like this. There’s a power in words that even the best of us don’t understand.”
A familiar voice in his memories hissed Would you really give anything?, and Martín shivered.
“And yet it did end like that-with you dead. Or rather, it began like that. Now you must finish it.”
“What are you talking ab-”
“You need to find a soul to take your place. One of your emotional ties must die.”
“Emotional ties?” Martín’s vision swam as a sudden spasm of pain shot through his abdomen.
“You have twenty-eight days in which to provide us with a replacement who is connected to you emotionally in some way. If you fail to do this, we will be forced to revoke your second chance at life.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Martín shook his head, and then stopped because it ached too much. “So I have to find a replacement to fix your problem? Why do I have to do anything?”
“Well, if you don’t really care about dying again…”
“Alright, alright. So, what do I have to do? What’s this whole replacement deal? Can it be someone I really hate? Do I have to…do I just bring the person to you?”
“Yes, that would fall under strong emotional tie, and no, you must extract their soul from their body first.”
“So…I have to kill someone to take my place?”
Sebastián stared unflinchingly into Martín’s eyes. “That is one way of putting it.”
Martín’s head reeled. He barely saw Sebastián as he checked his watch and clucked his tongue, too busy with his own ethical dilemma.
“I have somewhere to be right now,” the man said. “I’ll be back sometime soon to check up on you. Remember, time is running out as we speak.” And then he was gone, not even a puff of smoke or a sound, simply vanished, as if he had never been in the room in the first place. The molecules of air did not crackle. The screen around his bed did not brush in the unseen current of his leaving.
Breathing in deeply, Martín relaxed back against the pillows. What a nightmare. Having to kill someone to take his place within the next twenty eight days? This was like something out of a crappy horror flick. And it probably was, nothing more than a vague memory that his drug addled mind had latched onto and embellished in the dimness of the hospital room.
But if it were real-and that was a big if-could he even bring himself to kill someone? Who would he choose to take his place? When the figment of his imagination had said that the emotional tie could be that of hate, one person had surfaced in his mind.
No. But...Luciano had once said that his father did not pay much attention to him unless he could get something out of him, so it was not like he would be leaving behind a grieving family. And sure he had friends at school, but he was a little air headed, so how close could those friendships be? They would move on eventually. If Martín himself were to die on the other hand, just thinking about all the people who would be devastated about the loss pained him. No. Someone had to make a sacrifice. And maybe Martín would not even have to actually physically kill Luciano. Sebastián had only said that he had to find a replacement for his soul. He could just…put Luciano in a situation were he would die and then be done with the entire thing.
If Sebastián and his task were real.
He wondered how long he would be stuck in the hospital. Being hit by a bus had taken a lot out of him, and now he felt weighed down by exhaustion. Or maybe that was the drugs. Either way, Martín really wanted to sleep. Maybe when he woke up again, he would find out that he was a hero for saving someone, taking their place in front of the bus. Maybe his friends would be there to greet him instead of an imaginary tightass messenger
He drifted off to the sound of the whooshing oxygen and the beeps of the machines.
tbc