Chapter Four

She remembered that it had rained that morning. When they told her to lie down she could feel that the dirt below her was still damp. Her eyes stung and it was hard to breath the hot smoky air.

When they laid her down she could hear everyone. The quick incomprehensible French from the tall stranger, the prayers from her cousin Rigo, and her father continuously repeating, “It must work. It must work.”

Her father wanted to fix her and so he brought her back to plantation where it had started. He kept it secret from his wife. He told Hilma he needed to take Marquita to see her ailing grandmother. He had been planning with Rigo for months. They decided they would be the ones to end the Moreno curse.

They had told her not to eat that day. The sweet metallic liquid they gave her was hard to swallow and instantly nauseating. When she vomited a stream of cloudy water soaked into her shirt and hair. The drink made her hallucinate and her mind could no longer grasp unto a single thought. It was then that all the secrets came out.

Every secret she had hidden was now exposed until finally she came to the one had hidden the deepest. Marquita looked her father and said, “Juan Acosta.”

***********************************

Marquita opens her eyes and chokes on a dry gasp. A shooting pain erupts from behind her eyes as she tries to catch her breath. Her vision is blurred, but she can feel that she on a small hard bed. She tries to move, but her legs are stiff and her chest heavy.

Marquita holds her head and finally breaths deep. Her fingers find the stitches and she quickly traces the long painful rows across her head.

Slowly her eyes begin to refocus. She looks down at her arms and sees that her IVs lines were gone. As she touches the inside of her forearm she notices that her skin is clear and free from the bruises and scars the needles typically leave behind.

Every voice from her dream is now gone yet she can still smell smoke. She looks up and sees a thin hazy smoke caught in the sunlight filling the room. She listens close and hears only the hum of traffic. The hospital was always filled with voices, yet this place is uncomfortably silent to Marquita.

Marquita looks around the small hot room. Every surface was dirty. The carpets were stained and large watermarks cover the ceiling and blot the walls. She looks over and sees a table with a small stack of newspapers, a cell phone, cigarettes and an ashtray overflowing with discarded butts.  By the bed a battered bag lies opened with its contents of clothes, papers and random items including a small wooden box are strewn on the ground around it.

            

Marquita searches the room for the origin of the smoke. Her eyes rise from the floor and follow the light of the room to a single window. Marquita muscles tense when she discovers she isn’t alone. From a chair by the window, Mechteld smokes and watches Marquita. She gets up from her chair and lays her still burning cigarette on top of the pile in the ashtray.

She casually says, “You’re awake. It’s Thursday, by the way.”

Marquita cannot breath as she stares at Mechteld. Her eyes race across Mechteld’s face and body. She takes in each horrible detail as she finally sees the person hidden behind the medical mask and scrubs.

Mechteld’s left arm is covered from the knuckles of her hand to her shoulder with layers upon layers of scars. Burn scars crisscross with scars from deep cuts and abrasions. Mechteld’s right arm is also scarred, but instead of burns, small scratches and wider marks randomly scatter her skin. Marquita can see on her upper arm a tattoo. The tattoo has writing that is unknown to her above bold letters that read “MCMXIV”. On her right hand Mechteld wears a ring with a band of green stone on her ring finger.

Above the neckline of her shirt, burn scars erupt and reach up to her left eye. On the right side of her face is a straight vertical scar that starts from under her nostril, over her lips to the bottom of her chin. By her right ear there’s a wavy horizontal scar that traces across her face, under her right eye, and over the bridge of her nose until it finally ends at her left eyebrow. The only beautiful features Mechteld possesses are her deep blue eyes and her golden wavy hair that she keeps in a loose braid.           

Mechteld stares at Marquita, waiting for her to speak.

“Go on, say something so I know you’re not damaged.”

Marquita’s ears begin to buzz and she can feel her body beginning to sweat. She begins to cry as she asks, “Am I alive or dead?”

“You’re very much alive.” Mechteld says as she reaches for her pack of cigarettes on the nearby table.

Marquita starts to breathe quick shallow breaths. She can feel herself getting sick. Breathlessly she asks, “Where am I?”

“A hostel in Astoria.”

“I’m still in Queens? But….” Marquita’s voice trails off as she remembers her prayer from the hospital. Was this God’s answer? Had she been cured? But why would God bring her here? Why would God send her someone like this?

“In the hospital…I thought that God had sent you. I thought…I thought…”

 “You’d be normal?” Mechteld asks raising an eyebrow as she lights another cigarette from the butt of her previous one. She takes a deep drag and adds, “Sorry, no.”

Marquita presses her fingers against her temples as she tries to focus.

“How did you get me here?”

“Wheel chair.” Mechteld answers, pointing to the corner of the room where the chair now sits folded up. “It was pretty easy once I got you on the subway.”

“No one noticed?”

“They noticed you’re gone,” Mechteld says, but pauses before adding, “but it took them a few hours.” Mechteld reaches over to the bedside table and picks up one of the newspapers.  She opens the newspaper three pages in, folds it in half and hands it to Marquita.“They’re examining the surveillance videos now, but it won’t matter.”

Marquita takes the newspaper and holds it examining the article’s title, “Body Snatchers?” Her eyes scan over words such as “negligence”, “impersonation”, and “unidentified”. Marquita’s eyes rest on the two side by side photos accompanying the article. The first is what Marquita recognizes as her seventh grade school picture and the second is of her parents, sitting on the couch in their apartment. Her mother’s head is bowed, crying into a tissue while her father looks down and away from the camera. To Marquita it looks as if he had been crying.

        

    Marquita turns to Mechteld and timidly asks, “Where are my parents?“

            “Last time I checked they were at home.”

            Still cautious, Marquita then asks, “Do they know I’m here?”

            “No. Nobody knows you’re here. Everyone thinks you’re dead.” Mechteld says, gesturing to the paper.

            Her body feels numb as Marquita stares forward and shakes her head.

“But I’m okay. I need to let my mother know where I am. She’ll be worried.”

“Did you not hear me? You’re dead to her.”

Not listening, Marquita continues, “I should call her.”

“And tell her what?”

With wide eyes Marquita turns to Mechteld, raises her voice and forcefully says, “That I’m alive!”

            Mechteld looks over her shoulder and her eyes quickly dart between the wall and door. In a calm voice she requests, “Please don’t shout. People might think you’ve been kidnapped.”

“I have been! You’ve taken me and won’t let me go home.” A sharp pain begins to spread in Marquita’s chest as her starts heart pounding again. Her breath now comes in panicked swallow gasps as her arms and legs begin to quake.

 “Marquita, if you’ll just relax, I’ll explain things.”

             “I want to see my parents now!” Marquita says through clenched teeth.

“You can’t see them Marquita.” Mechteld’s voice was blunt. She looks deep into Marquita’s eyes as she says, “You can’t see them ever again.”

Mechteld holds the contact with Marquita. The blue Marquita before thought as beautiful was now unnerving to her. Mechteld continues, her pace slower, but each word carrying a deep seriousness.

“Right now not only do they think you’re dead, but they’ve been told your dead body is missing.”

Racing thoughts fill Marquita’s mind. She attempts to absorb the information, but the words “dead body” bring images from stories she heard from her grandparents. Stories that they would tell her to scare her into being well behaved when she visited them in Santo Domingo. They told her they’d sell her to a man who used resurrected dead bodies as slaves on his sugar cane farm. Had she been dead? Was she truly alive now? Her scattered mind jumps between her last dream, her prayer at the hospital, and the article title, “Body Snatchers?” She’s now certain that the Moreno curse wasn’t finished with her. It wants more than her constant mental torture, it wants her body now.

“Oh God, am I a zombie?”

Panic overtakes Marquita as she searches the skin and her fingers and arms for answers. When she sees her young, unblemished toffee skin she asks, “Am I gonna look like you?”

Mechteld’s jaw clenches and her eyes narrow. Under her breath she mutters, “ik haat kinderen.”

Mechteld tries to keep her voice calm, but her irritation seeps into her voice as she continues, “Marquita, if you’ll just relax, I’ll explain things.”

Marquita begins to scream, “Somebody help me!”

She lowers her feet from the bed and attempts to step away but her legs crumble beneath her. She reaches out her arms to brace her, but instead lands hard on her belly. She looks back at Mechteld and cries, “Oh God, what have you done to my legs!”

Mechteld watches Marquita writhe on the dirty carpet. Before answering she lets out a long exhale.

“Nothing, you’ve been laying in a bed without moving for three days. Your muscles have probably atrophied a little.”

 “I don’t believe you. I’ve been drugged! What do you want with me?!” Marquita shrieks as she rolls unto her back and tries to stand.

Suddenly, Mechteld’s body goes stiff and she quickly looks to the door. She doesn’t breath focuses on the hallway. Marquita watches Mechteld’s shift in composure and begins to inhale deeply to scream. Before she can, Mechteld quickly takes a pillow from the bed and forces it over her mouth.

“Shut up! Shut up!”

Marquita can feel the stitches on her scalp begin to give away as Mechteld repeatedly smashes her head against the ground. Mechteld then pauses and harshly whispers, “Listen, you can either get in bed and I’ll tell you everything you need to know or you can kick and scream and I’ll knock your teeth out before tying you up. Either way, you’re going to listen to me.” 

            Marquita can feel Mechteld’s hot cigarette tinged breath enunciating each word against her forehead. She screams into the pillow and tries to thrash against Mechteld. She throws her hands up, grabbing at whatever part of Mechteld she can reach until she finally makes contact with the bare skin of Mechteld’s arm. The touch Mechteld’s skin is like an electric shock to Marquita. In Marquita’s vision she can only see static as she feels a force holding her down that she knows isn’t physical.

            Now Marquita knows that Mechteld is different, just like her. She now knows that Mechteld is a psychic too.