The Queen of the Cicadas Read online

  It was but a girl’s dream she could survive without being found. She was captured by one of her own and taken to a mission to do domestic work. After a year at the mission, she decided to become one with the church to keep from having her virginity spoiled without her permission. She said vows to the god named Jesus, who the church said wanted to marry her without consummation. That was good enough. No one had to know she still practiced her own faith in her own way in her mind. No one had to know she was really hiding in plain sight, blending in to avoid being harassed. The mission was a constant reminder of the terror that befell her people, but at least she could live out her days in relative peace.

  During this time, she learned the ways of childbirth. She pulled a new race of babies from the bodies of villagers and the invaders. She found it sad that she would not carry on her family blood. She hated the invaders even more for that.

  And then a young priest about the same age as her arrived at the mission. His eyes matched her own; they were heavy with sorrow and his skin was the same color brown. The vestments he wore were ill fitted. He did not look like he belonged. This young man was like a piece of seaweed uprooted and cast upon a distant shore. They both were. Both were trying to hide in plain sight. Ix Chel was mesmerized, curious. What tribe did he come from? He was as beautiful as a quetzal bird. She tried not to stare, but she ached to touch him, to be touched. To kiss him. To feel like a woman in his bed. She was now a woman of twenty. She had long grown weary of pleasuring herself alone, stifling her orgasm even from the moonlight. It seemed all the pleasures of life were forbidden by the church. Pleasing herself alone became another private thing no one had to know about. With all the pain of her world, she doubted Jesus even noticed at all. She doubted the priest noticed her either.

  He did notice. How could he not feel the gaze of the indigenous young woman with tattoos on her face and covered head to toe in the garments of a sister? She followed his movements when they encountered each other. At night he whipped himself with knotted rope for thinking of what her naked body might look like under all that cloth. This is what he was told to do. Deny yourself for the glory of one God. She must have been a witch to possess his thoughts and dreams the way she did. Many nights he awoke to sticky thighs after fantasizing about her. She would have to leave. He could not have her, therefore he could not be near her. If he heard her voice in his ear, he might go mad.

  Ix Chel would have him. This god, this life, this new world order was not worth living without love. She wondered why they punished themselves so. Why would a loving god punish as much as this god did?

  That night she wandered to where the priest said his evening vespers. Her heart and stomach somersaulted wildly. She stood behind a column, waiting in the shadows for an opportunity to catch him alone. When he emerged from the chapel to return to his room, she made her presence known and motioned for him to come close. He paused, looking at her if he was trying to work out if this was real or a waking dream. From the little light that illuminated the mission at this hour, she could see there was torment on his face. He looked around to ensure no one would notice what he was about to do. When they came face to face, the closest they had ever been, her hand found his hand.

  “Come with me. I want you to be with me now.”

  He knew he must be mad because he would do as she commanded. Under the cover of darkness, she led him to a place away from the mission.

  He could feel himself shivering at her touch. Her power was intoxicating. There was no fighting the sensation or his desire. He felt like Adam being led by Eve to eat of the fruit. He now knew how a man could betray everything.

  Ix Chel led him to a secluded spot, one that she had known. They didn’t need to speak, because when they came to a stop their bodies embraced, needed to be close. She kissed with all the passion left untapped all these years. All the yearning to be touched concentrated in her tongue, which slipped into his mouth. They both began to remove their garments, the foreign horrible things that protected them from the hell they were taught to fear. This moment they shared felt like the heaven their hearts needed. The young priest wanted to weep upon feeling her warmth against his. Her soft flesh was better than anything he had imagined. She led him to the ground and guided him inside of her body.

  The first time didn’t last long, but the vitality of youth kept them on the floor of the jungle until the early light of the sun could be seen. She looked at his body, his dark flesh and those eyes that could be from a nightmare but felt like a dream, like his body when he was inside of her.

  His cheek rested against her bare breast. “What is your name?”

  “Ix Chel, but the church has renamed me Isabella. Like a queen. And you?”

  “Santiago. What did we just do?”

  “Come to me.” He followed her instruction as he did before. Ix Chel kissed his perfect mouth. “We did what our bodies were meant to do. Love each other. It is natural. We both wanted it. This place is not meant for us.”

  He didn’t feel like he had committed a sin; he felt like he had been set free. They returned to the mission before anyone could see them. Both knew their fate had changed.

  They met as often as they could at the spot in the jungle near a grand ceiba tree with vines so long, they created a curtain they could lie behind.

  One night Santiago knew something was wrong when they promised to meet, yet he found she was not lying naked behind the vines. She was fully dressed, standing in front of the tree.

  “Are you well, my love?”

  Ix Chel smiled with tears in her eyes, fearing the worst. She had seen how the new people were. “We are a trinity now.”

  Santiago knew exactly what she meant. He fell to his knees and placed his face on her abdomen. His little seed was an apple growing inside of her. He stood to meet the eyes of the woman who carried his progeny. There was only one thing to do.

  “We leave this place. We become a family. I do not want this life without you or my child.”

  Ix Chel felt elation. She was so sure he would abandon her or worse. This first sin would lead to another sin. They would have to take from the church to survive out there. Ix Chel had already told one of the village women of her pregnancy and arranged to flee alone. She would go to the woman and arrange for clothing and supplies for the priest.

  Together they cast themselves from the mission and the ill-fitting clothing that hid them from the world. They would set out for a place where no one would know where they were from or what they left behind.

  * * *

  After traveling by foot for a week, they found a small village in Chiapas where they lived and grew their family. Santiago had been educated by the church and shared his knowledge with his new wife. Together they prospered in the village where no one knew who they were, only that they were kind folk who wanted to live their lives in peace. Ikal, the father of Ix Chel. Ix Chel and Santiago, the ancestors of Milagros.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Queen had visited my son and placed a story in his mind. Like everything from her, it was not fiction. There was no doubt in my mind it was the past. I had not feared her until now. I dug into my bag to find a compact with a mirror.

  “La Reina de Las Chicharras chicharrachicharrachicharra.”

  I waited for her to show her face in the mirror. Nothing. I closed the compact. In my periphery vision, there she stood. Her flayed body was adorned with jade, gold, feathers and turquoise.

  “Hello and congratulations on the birth of your daughters. You have done so well. I want to reward you.”

  If I wasn’t in so much pain from my stitches, I would have stood to face her.

  “Tell me your plans. If you want to claim another soul, take mine.”

  She cocked her head and frowned. “I have not harmed any of your children. It is not my intention now or ever. Jacob is an apostle of sorts; you must have read the tale he wrote. Isn’t
it beautiful? It tells you the roots of Milagros and her special ancestral blood. In time your son will be a priest like Hector. Jacob is still young and has much life to live. Hector’s bloodline, my bloodline and the blood of Ikal are immensely powerful. Not in a hundred universes did I think this was possible. Three outstanding strands of DNA. And your daughter with Arie will recover. People have great regard for her father but she will eclipse him in many ways. Milagros Ix Chel has her own special path.”

  For a moment I doubted myself. Maybe I was wrong not to fear this goddess taking over the world by captivating people’s hearts and imaginations. “What are you doing? What is any of this? It makes no sense to me. I have given of myself freely.”

  I think she sensed my desperation and anger. She stepped closer, leaving bloody footprints in her wake. An ankle bracelet of tiny bird bones and shells clinked with her every move, which were as smooth as trickling water.

  “I’m rebuilding my church and this broken, wayward world. You see, I was sacrificed as an infant in the universe that I call home. Milagros was sacrificed without her consent. You might choose to make a sacrifice and your offspring will be blessed from all of this. Milagros Ix Chel and her siblings will save humankind before the ash of your bones is all that covers this world. There won’t even be bones for me to claim or enough for the god you call Jesus to blow life into. Don’t you want your bloodline to herald in a new cycle for humankind? Because this world needs to see that we must all sacrifice for each other to survive.” The Queen was now at my bedside, both pairs of our breasts leaking colostrum.

  “I am death and I see death. As you know, I have shown potential worshippers their own final breath so they may prove their devotion to me and live in a way that will make a difference for themselves or those around them.” She leaned in, pressing her lips against mine. It was what I wanted since kissing her in the bathroom. Her mouth nearly took my breath away as she opened her jaw wide enough to swallow me whole, yet it was just her tongue that danced with mine. I swear I could see the stars, the place where she was from. And then my next purpose was revealed the deeper we kissed. My son wrote ‘The Book of Ikal’, Hector would write ‘The Life of Milagros Ix Chel’ and I would write ‘The Book of Mictecacíhuatl: Queen of Bones’. My words were not meaningless fragments.

  All this had to be done before it was too late. But I knew I couldn’t accomplish this work on Earth, in this form and held back by my skin. Her story needed me elsewhere. I needed to see in a way that humans were not allowed to see.

  Then she gave me a parting vision that broke my soul. I had a decision to make. Do I leave this place to give my children and future generations life? Watching their death was like a small death inside of me that I won’t ever forget, but it was also a gift. Many times, I had felt I had failed Jacob, and I would not fail him now. I had the power to change the course of horrible events that he would experience with his sister. Jacob would soon be a man. My daughter had her father. Not once did Arie and I say we loved each other. In some ways we did, but we loved each other’s bodies more, for the time it lasted. How long before that faded as all things do? He was a good man. I knew he would care for and cherish our daughter, whom I had not even named.

  The Queen pulled her mouth away from mine, allowing me to taste my tears. “Now you can forever be with your children and they, along with Hector and Milagros Ix Chel, will be in our care. Always protected.”

  With tears still flowing from my eyes, I shook my head. I hadn’t had the opportunity yet to touch my daughter with Arie, who was in an incubator. Making this sacrifice would mean I never would. However, my fate was in the stars all along, and it was that place I would return to. I had to accept that Jacob and I would never go on that vacation; I couldn’t hold him one last time; I would never be flesh at any of the big events of any of my children’s lives. These experiences could only be mine in spirit. But I was still their mother and would always be their mother. The decision was made.

  “I’m ready, but I need to say goodbye.”

  I wrote letters with double breast pumps attached to my breasts to leave little Milagros Ix Chel and my daughter a parting gift. Hector and my son would need some explanation for my sudden departure, as would Arie for our child. I assured them I would always be near even if they could only hear and see me occasionally. Hector and Arie would understand because they were believers. This world was spinning out of control in a universe that would continue to expand without it in it, without us in it. Everything moved in cycles and our Queen was here to help usher in a new cycle before the final destruction occurred. There was a reason Arie and I met and created our daughter. The stars. When I finished pumping and writing, I called the Queen from my compact mirror.

  Mictecacíhuatl appeared at my bedside. She moved close enough again to kiss me hard. A searing pain erupted from within my chest. I looked down to see my beating heart in her hand and a hole through my ribcage, yet I was still alive.

  “Come with me,” she whispered.

  I placed my hand over hers as my heart continued to beat. We squeezed it together, the blood running down our forearms. It began to shrink and harden until it was a smooth stone of jade in my hand. This would go to my son.

  “We can go now.” I left the stone next to the note for Jacob. My body slumped in the hospital bed, breasts still leaking milk from my bloody, open chest. My time as a vessel was over and it was time for me to become a storyteller.

  Without skin I will fly.

  Epilogue

  “Don’t! Don’t! Please, I’m pregnant! My daughter is here! We have papers! Please! I only work at the chicken factory part-time,” shouted Mommy.

  “We’re investigating everyone. If everything turns out fine you and your children will be reunited. For now, you’re coming with us.”

  Manuela’s body shook with terror. She thought she might wet herself, and she hadn’t done that since she was a baby. She was a big girl now, a smart and brave girl as her mother liked to say. But today as she got ready for school these strange men in black knocked on the door loudly and now tried to take her away from her mommy. Her father was at work making his deliveries. How would he know where to find them? They already took Mommy’s phone away, so she couldn’t call anyone for help, including their lawyer. Whatever a lawyer was.

  Mommy stood defiantly in front of her, legs spread wide like a pyramid, chest moving up and down from heavy breathing. The flap where her shirt was torn from the struggle waved at Manuela. The men tried to tear them apart, but Mommy wouldn’t let them. Another man with black rubber gloves that made his hands look like something from a monster film entered the house through the open front door.

  “Come on. We don’t want to press charges. We can make your situation worse.”

  “Worse? What is worse than strangers ripping a family apart! ¡Pinche tu madre!”

  Manuela could see their faces turn to stone or empty Halloween masks. They would be rough now. In her hand she clutched a doll that held a pink plastic mirror. It was a sticker, but she could still see the reflection of one eye. Manuela didn’t want to be taken away, not now or ever. This was the only home she knew. She remembered a story her auntie told her mother during one of their family barbeques.

  Both men pulled at her mother’s arms.

  Mommy screamed like a wildcat or a bear on one of those nature shows she liked to watch. “No, no, no!”

  Manuela was beginning to panic, her body still shaking. She was going to cry and wet herself. She yelled with every breath left in her eight-year-old little lungs while looking in the doll’s mirror, “La Reina de Las Chicharras! Chicharrachicharrachicharra! Help us! Kill these bad men!”

  The men ignored her, still pulling on her mother, leaving red marks on her arms. Then the lights flickered above their heads, the front door slammed in the face of the social worker about to walk in. The locks clicked.

  “The fuck?” One
of the ICE officers let her mother go. The other followed his lead.

  “When my name is called, I must show myself.”

  A woman emerged from the kitchen in dirty clothes not from this time, a red bandanna around her mouth. Parts of her skull and skin were missing.

  “Miss, are you all right?” one of the officers asked. “We’re here with ICE. You’ll come with us now. How many more are in the house?”

  The voice of another woman that was neither human nor animal spoke to them. “Just me.”

  Mommy crossed herself and pushed her body against Manuela again. Manuela could still see. This other woman had no skin, but she wasn’t scary; she was beautiful, with green feathers in her hair and necklaces around her neck. She looked directly at Manuela, giving her a smile and a nod with her hand over her exposed beating heart. Manuela wanted to run to her and touch it. Just like in science class.