The Queen of the Cicadas Read online

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  I gave Pastor Rich a nod and left him staring at the empty pulpit. He was either praying or thinking about those days when the seats were always filled.

  Before we left, I wanted to see Milagros one more time. I kissed my fingers and placed them on the top of the simple headstone. This was more than just a macabre curiosity. I wanted some sense of truth. As a lawyer, it had been my job to seek justice. That, and I had so much to prove. Both Veronica and I were determined to make good on the sacrifices our parents, and their parents, had made. My mother graduated with her bachelor’s degree at twenty-eight after years of struggling to pay for it. She barely earned enough to feed us afterwards. Her father joined the Air Force to educate himself through the G.I. Bill. His parents were farm workers.

  I started off fresh and enthusiastic until it was clear what I knew mattered less than how tight my skirt was. Any ‘No’ that screamed in my mind was a breathless ‘Yes’ by the time it reached my lips. I thought the word ‘exotic’ was best used to describe a bird or a destination, not a human. When the business meeting moved from the office to dinner to the strip club, I was the one to stay out, giving the girls bigger tips than the guys. The only thing that separated me from them was two college degrees (only in some cases) and pumps instead of platforms. I had done worse to survive, to get ahead. To fit in. Hustler to hustler, I had to give them respect.

  By the time I was laid off I knew in my bones there was no such thing as justice in this world, not in the way I imagined it should be. My cousin was still locked up, having been denied parole countless times. His full sentence would only be up in a year. He missed what seemed like a lifetime. Unlike things like gravity and the sun, justice is a commodity, like oil or cotton or tobacco. Just like the things Hector bought and sold that made him a lot of money before he left banking.

  When my law firm began to represent a news agency that actively promoted the mistreatment of migrants at the border and the use of ICE, I spoke up. I said I wanted nothing to do with that client. Not a week later, I was told to leave. I took the coward’s way with a large check in my pocket. I was one person. What could I do? Trying to fit in and succeed in my adult life made me feel stripped of my identity. Poverty stripped me of advantages as a child. School debt stripped me of options after graduation. Being malleable and having a good time stripped me of my anger. Not having a father stripped me of my self-esteem.

  But something was changing in me. My inexplicable love for Milagros felt like love being sown in myself.

  “Hector, I know I’ve already overstayed my welcome, but I think I want to go to Mexico. That address could still be good, or the tenants might know something. If I could just hang out until I can arrange my travel? I’ll pay you, of course.”

  He wasn’t looking at me or Milagros or the church. His thoughts were far off.

  “You want company? You know, I haven’t left this place since I bought it. It might be time.”

  I was hoping he would ask. Secretly I hoped he would travel with me; his companionship was the most real relationship I’d experienced in a very long time. Hector had no obligation with the B&B for over a week; he just needed to be back in time for a team of ghost hunters from the SyFy Channel to film the house. They were paying a top rate for a show that would be aired on Halloween. I made him promise I could stay for that. My best friend in Philadelphia agreed to overnight my passport for the trip. I called my son to check in and tell him I loved him. He responded with single-word answers and grunts, the sound of video games in the background. In my desperation to spark a conversation, I told him we could take a trip together when I returned. His response was a tepid, “If you want.” All I could do was wait or pray for a miracle with him.

  It had been ages since I last visited Mexico. The first time was when I was nine years old. We drove all the way from San Antonio, Texas to Guadalajara, Mexico. I had never seen an out-house before and I remember crying when my enchiladas were covered in some type of fresh white cheese that wasn’t a bright orange goo that stretched like a never-ending elastic band. I was used to that in Texas. The candy was made from tamarind and the fruit covered in chamoy. There were no Nerds or Hubba Bubba. I wanted orange cheese and McDonald’s. But I loved the Coke. The Coke in Mexico is made with sugar cane that gives it a sweetness that is an opiate for the mouth. The other time I traveled to Mexico was with a boyfriend in college. The culture we experienced was mainly between the sheets or in a tequila bottle. Now, I was returning as a non-Spanish speaker trying to do something meaningful for a woman who deserved to have her name known to all. Hector’s flawless Spanish would be helpful in navigating our journey to San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

  Chapter Six

  The address listed next to Milagros Santos’ name was a whitewashed stucco building surrounded by a rusty iron fence. The yard was a beautiful mixture of large agave plants, hibiscus bushes and crawling bougainvilleas. A woman in her sixties or seventies with hair braided and clipped to her head in a bun stood in the front yard, feeding a dog that looked happier than the woman to see us. We might have shared the same ancestry as her; however, we still looked like tourists or intruders not from the neighborhood. Hector had to do the speaking.

  Without so much as a breath, the old woman shouted into the open screened door, “Benny!” The scowl remained on her face despite Hector’s ability to communicate fluently.

  A man dressed in fitted jeans, t-shirt and Timberland boots exited the house. Both arms were covered in tattoos. He looked close to Hector’s age. “How can I help you?” Hector and I were surprised he spoke to us in English.

  “We’re looking for the family of a woman. Her name was Milagros Santos. She left Mexico to work on a farm in the fifties. She never returned and whatever letters or money she sent might have stopped abruptly.”

  The man shook his head then looked at the old woman, who stopped feeding the dog. There was no mistaking the woman understood what was said. She wiped her face with her cotton apron, then shuffled inside without giving us a second look. Benny looked back, torn between rushing inside and finding out what we had to say.

  “Milagros is dead? Why don’t we go up the street to a restaurant? My mother doesn’t like strangers in the house.”

  We walked a few blocks in a residential area to a bustling street of daily life activity until we faced a restaurant with an open kitchen in the back. I paused to watch the women making fresh tortillas. The smell felt comforting and delicious, like my grandmother’s house. I wanted to camp out in that kitchen to just sit and watch them methodically roll out dough on their stone slabs. Every movement was like an ancient ritual passed down generation to generation, a ballet of nourishment. The same can be said for making the perfect molé. Accordion-heavy music played from the main kitchen, with loud voices laughing and speaking. This restaurant had all the best things I remembered from my childhood.

  Benny ordered Tecate beer and menudo for all of us. The pungent broth awoke my senses. The different chilis rolled in my mouth, pricking the inside of my cheeks and the back of my throat. It delighted me in ways I’d forgotten existed. Hominy and tripe bobbed in the delicious liquid. My mouth felt alive. My body felt satiated the more I ate, like it had not been fed in years, and in some ways it had not. I was always the first to try any new diet that claimed to brighten my skin or shed quick pounds. I tried my hardest to drink my carbs and sugar instead of chewing them. My body didn’t want to be punished any longer. It needed to feed.

  “Milagros would have been my great aunt. I think. You know how it is in our families. Everyone is an aunt of a sister of a cousin once removed. I heard stories about her leaving to the States, but we never knew anything after her letters stopped. I went to the farm years ago when I was studying. It was in the hands of the bank and no one knew anything there either. As a young kid more interested in having a good time, I just left it and returned to my life. What do you know?”


  I was slurping the menudo when I noticed both men staring at me.

  “Oh, sorry. Well, it’s a long story, but your aunt was a victim of a hate crime. Though in some ways she still exists as a story.” Hector and I recounted every last detail to Benny. His foot tapped the floor nervously while he took long drinks from his beer, leaving the menudo untouched. I helped myself to the side of his corn tortillas once mine were finished to scrape my bowl clean. I’d never tasted anything as wonderful as a simple paste of corn that is flattened and grilled.

  “You should know Milagros was a twin. My great aunt was her twin.”

  Hector and I looked at each other. I wiped away the wetness on my lips left from my greedy eating. I felt something big in this entire puzzle might be revealed. “And where is your aunt?”

  Before Benny said anything, he called over the waitress to order three shots of Mezcal. “This is on me before we go to see her.”

  I felt confused, not that I wasn’t going to drink this, but the sense of mystery deepened. “Why do we need this before seeing her?”

  Benny took the shot of smooth liquid smoke, puckering his lips after. “When I’m there I feel there is a presence, a shadow. I can’t decide if it is good or bad, but I know I am not alone, and it scares me. As a doctor, to feel things I can’t study or explain makes me uncomfortable. When I was just a boy, I was fascinated by my aunt, how she could be awake and asleep at the same time. On one occasion when I was maybe eight or nine, my family prayed in Concepcion’s bedroom in the house where you found us. I played on my own in the living room, too young to join the prayer. I turned towards the bathroom because I was sure someone had walked out and watched me as I played. It was seconds, but the silhouette of a woman appeared then disappeared. I screamed and screamed, breaking up the prayer circle. Boy, did I get it for causing a fuss over nothing. Since then, whenever I’m around Concepcion, I sense whatever appeared in the doorway of the bathroom.”

  “I come from a family of curanderos,” Hector said, “and I’ve spent my adult life with numbers because I don’t like the supernatural. I know the feeling.” He gulped his shot first, squeezing his eyes as he swallowed.

  I had to ask. “What did she look like?”

  Benny peered into his beer bottle for remnants before answering. “A woman without any skin.”

  After that, I needed my shot. My dream. There had to be an explanation, something we all had heard or seen. I needed another shot after that first one but felt self-conscious ordering another to stop the internal hemorrhaging of confusion and fear, falling deeper into a black spot without any control over what happens next.

  “Hey, Belinda. Didn’t you tell me about a dream like that? A woman?”

  I nodded and looked at Benny. Hector’s head turned from my face to Benny’s. None of us wanted to say out loud that something strange had brought us together. Benny raised his hand to call the waitress over for another shot.

  Afterwards, I paid since I’d practically finished both Benny and Hector’s meals while they talked about their experiences in America. I expected to return to the house where we found Benny, but instead we walked for twenty minutes through a middle-class neighborhood before entering a smart apartment building with a doorman, who greeted Benny then looked at us with suspicion.

  “My aunt is in a state doctors can’t explain. She is basically catatonic. She suffered a stroke in 1952 at the age of twenty. It was completely out of the blue. Even today doctors can’t explain what happened. Every test I have had done on her shows no brain trauma from a stroke or seizure.”

  I didn’t want the elevator to stop. I didn’t want to see his great aunt, and the menudo was a twisted ball of pigs feet and chili in my stomach.

  The apartment was small, with one bedroom, but clean, full of natural light from large windows that extended the length of the wall. A nurse stood in a galley kitchen preparing coffee. Strangely, I didn’t feel any presence or bad vibes. It was quiet and calm, like entering an empty church. In the bedroom, Concepcion lay in one of those adjustable beds, which was in an upright position surrounded by flowers and glass column candles of various saints. Watery, wide eyes stared out the single window that faced her bed. Her hair was tightly braided, and she wore a long, pale yellow nightgown. Her fingers were manicured. Over one eye, extending from the top of her eyebrow to the bottom of her nose, was a raised strawberry birthmark. Unlike those of people with fair skin, the birthmark was a deep shade of red, almost purple. It reminded me of an exploding star. A sepia photo of two identical women sat next to her bed in a gold frame. The women were beautiful, with dark brown skin and lustrous black hair resting on their shoulders. Their hands were intertwined as they stared directly into the camera. The four eyes were so large and black they were almost frightening in their stoic gaze. It was like four eclipses happening at once.

  I garnered the courage to sit next to the woman in a chair I suspected Benny and the nurse had spent hours in. Before I could get any words out, a small sound escaped her grooved lips. At first I thought I imagined it, but I knew it was real when Benny rushed to her bedside.

  Her eyes shifted towards me. “Lo se.” I knew enough high- school Spanish to understand she was saying, “I know.”

  What did she know? That her twin was dead, and I knew what happened to her? Did she know I was trying to do something decent, for once? I just blurted it all out.

  “Milagros is no longer here. She was murdered and I want to bring her body back to you, her family, and erect a marker at the tree where she died. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  The old woman’s eyes grew larger as tears fell from the corners. She repeated, “Lo se.”

  There was something dark beneath the saggy eyelids that I couldn’t read. She was a helpless old woman unable to move, but in that moment, I feared she might jump from the bed and rip out my throat.

  Benny was weeping. I couldn’t read if he was happy or confused. “Can you please leave us alone for a moment? I’d like to do a check on her.” Hector and I left the room, closing the door behind us.

  The nurse sat at a small table against the window, staring in her coffee cup. I thought she would have shown more emotion after her only patient spoke for the first time since 1952. Instead she motioned for us to come over.

  “I will speak English since you are not local and that is what you are speaking to Benny. Mexicans from America, I take it. Anyway, that woman is not what she seems. I heard you talk about her twin, Milagros. This is a small town, you know. The families have been here for years. I was told about those twins. Sweet, but strange. Her people are originally from Chiapas, if you couldn’t tell by how dark she is. I think one of the men was a Zapatista. So that means trouble already. And that birthmark. Dios. They never ever went to church, kept to themselves. People whispered they were witches. The neighborhood strays would whimper away when they approached. Milagros left after a boy kept hounding her for a date. Now, this wasn’t just any boy. His father was the chief of police. She and her sister were waiting for the bus one day when the boy came looking for trouble. He got rough with her, trying to steal a kiss and grab her body. People looked on but did nothing. When the bus arrived, he let go of her. People at the bus stop remembered seeing the twins’ faces side by side in the back of the bus window with their lips moving, eyes unblinking. Not a few minutes later that boy was struck by a different bus. The investigation went on and on. That is why the town started whispering about them. After the accident they were ill for days. Then miraculously they were better than ever. There was too much talk after that, so she left. They had a family friend working in the States through the Bracero program who would come back and forth between jobs. When he was heading back north, they paid him to take Milagros along into Texas, where he said he knew she would have an easier time than in other farming states. Her family hoped to leave too with the money Milagros would send back. Concepcion stayed to help th
eir parents.” She paused and craned her neck past us to be sure the door was not opening.

  “My mother told me that the family was forced to seek an exorcism after the stroke because there was nothing wrong with Concepcion. They thought it could be black magic or something evil at work. When the priest arrived at their home he immediately left after he found out not only was she not an active Catholic, but she wasn’t even a Christian. In her bedroom, on an altar she made with her sister, they found a depiction of Santa Muerte. The priest did not like that. They begged him to come back, saying they did believe in God, but also practiced the old ways. That was not a sin if their intent was good. The priest also said he felt like they were not alone in her room. Something breathed down his neck during his entire visit. He never wanted to go back.”

  “What do you believe? Have you ever felt like you were not alone here?” I asked.

  She sipped her coffee, drilling holes into my eyes with her own. “I have my faith and it protects me. So, no. I have never felt anything here. Let me ask you, are you only here to bring Milagros rest?”

  Hector tapped his finger against the table. “I own the farm where she was murdered. Milagros has become something of an urban legend. La Reina de Las Chicharras.”

  “Is that so? Haven’t heard of it. Well, then, I believe those twins brought something into this world that doesn’t belong. You mentioned Milagros was murdered? Who knows what she might have done with her dying breath? Maybe she made a pact with the Devil.”

  Before she could speak again, the door opened. Benny’s eyes were red. He held a rosary in his hand and a stethoscope around his neck. “You know she is the reason I became a doctor.”