Chapter 2
"Ron, I'm heading to San Bernardo with Jimena in a bit." Herminia announced disinterestedly. "It's a girls’ evening. I'm letting you know because I know you wanted us to go to the pool. Javi will probably come along."
"Ah, but it'll be boring if we're not four." he protested. "And the twins went to Mar del Plata."
"What a bummer," she admitted, "But I'm sure you'll find something to do."
She brushed her teeth and tried to fix her hair. Her hair, which used to be a mass of frizz, curled with the sea salt, giving it a more or less decent look, until someone touched it. The stiffness from years of neglect materialized like this, at the tips of her fingers, but that was fine: she didn’t want to give the impression that she had tried too hard. That would be suspicious. So, she grabbed the beach bag, slathered more sunscreen on her face, put on some giant sunglasses, and went out to wait for Jime to visit San Bernardo.
The redhead was convinced it would be a girls’ outing. They would accompany each other to buy clothes and have tea at those extravagant and expensive cafes that men disliked. The bus crossed the road, and the pines, which grew like weeds in the sand, began to appear more and more frequently
Last year was really boring, Jime was telling her, because Lavanda came. Why the hell would someone name her kid Lavanda, she mocked. Well, she was the daughter of a hippie, but one of those really hippies, the kind that reads tarot, and she brought the tarot home. The death card came out, which obviously scandalized my mom, who wanted to throw all that paraphernalia away. A scandal, can you imagine? I know my mom is giving you problems, but I’m telling you, she’s really calm, she can be much more dense. The thing is, Lavanda got up from the table and screamed something like death meant transformation, but to me it always seemed like a sign. Something strange, I don’t know. We didn’t transform into anything the whole year, and now we’re back with you. Maybe you’re here to change something. Us, Ron, who knows.
The chatter sounded like elevator music, while the nervousness burned at the tips of her fingers, where she held the little paper with Tom’s address. The bus entered the city, the birds danced in circles above the sky, making whirlpools, like her own hair, like her own mind.
Then, I tell you, last year was so boring. Mom didn’t talk to Lavanda and Lavanda was offended with all of us, so she didn’t talk to us either. Ron was walking on tiptoes trying not to cause more conflict, so he wouldn’t join in to play tejo, chinchón, or volleyball. And I still wasn’t dating Javi, so I got really bored.
Herminia smiled. When Jime started talking, there was no human force that could stop her. She always had something to comment on. They had been friends throughout childhood, just like Ron and Javi, but they had grown up so differently. Jime played hockey in Tigre, and she was quite popular. She always had some plan, some party, some event, and every time she posted a selfie on social media, it exploded with hearts and comments, which made Javier get jealous quite often. On the other hand, Herminia had always been an activist. Following her parents’ example, she had been president of the student council at the Nacional, organized a protest demanding better building conditions, and went on national TV to give interviews. Although she had become quite popular because of that, which was why her ex-boyfriend had noticed her in the first place, she wasn’t an extroverted person. She preferred the tranquility of hangouts at home to going out to clubs. Maybe that was the tangential difference between the two of them and the reason why they were friends: an extrovert who felt the need to adopt the introvert.
They got off the bus in the center. The trip had lasted barely half an hour, but she already felt like running towards the destination written on the paper. She had memorized the address. Tucumán 1,688, Tom. She marked it on Google, and thought about sending her live location to her mom, just in case she disappeared. She wasn’t scared, though. Even though the guy was strange, he didn’t seem like a femicidal maniac. She had studied them quite a bit in criminology. If he was a psychopath, his object of perversion wouldn’t be to prey on women to slit their throats. It would be something more complex, more strange.
She dismissed the thought, puzzled. Where had that come from? The guy had been nothing but kind to her. It was her mention of historical books that had led him to offer the loan. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time she visited the house of someone she didn’t know. Involved in so much activism and militancy, it was common for her to end up at the house of complete strangers without fear of being murdered.
but never alone
Well, there’s a first time for everything. She would make sure to give Jime a time to meet, in case she took too long and had to look for her with the police. A quick visit to the guy’s library couldn’t mean more than a wasted hour.
The afternoon passed quickly as the girls enjoyed each other’s company. With the heat on their bodies, they headed down the first street parallel to the Costanera Avenue, where the stores crowded together and invited them in with their air conditioning and Saphyrus perfume. She accompanied Jimena to try on clothes, and the redhead convinced her to buy a knitted shawl at a very good price, for the cold nights on the beach. They found the weirdest places, like a store that sold gothic clothes only for children (To give to Flor and Guille’s kid! Jimena had added, amused) and another that sold rubber ducks in different shapes and sizes. Jime wanted to buy a duck dressed as a sailor, but when they asked for the price, they thanked the seller and left more scandalized than when they entered the sex shop.
The fair opened in the middle of the sidewalk, just a few meters ahead of the last shopping promenade. The vendors offered miniature goblins, ostrich eggs, top-quality salami, handcrafted agendas, stuffed animals in different shapes and sizes, and jewelry. Her friend ended up bargaining with one of the artisans who was making jewelry live, and she handed her a wire ring made of alpaca with a black stone in the middle.
“Look, the girl says it’s for good luck. And that you’ll need it,” she offered.
“Thank you so much, Jime,” she hugged her friend. “I bought us two agendas. This year you have to work harder at university.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah…” Jime rolled her eyes. “Thanks to you too. Do you want to go get an ice cream?”
Herminia checked her watch. It was almost seven.
“Actually, I need to go to a second-hand bookstore that’s over here, further from the center. They have some books for university…” Jime made a gesture as if she were going to vomit. “Well, hey, I’m almost done with my degree. I’m in the final stretch. I want to see if they have a Public Law book at a good price, I’ll be back in an hour.”
She kissed her friend on the cheek, put the bag over her shoulder, and left.
Tucumán 1,688, Tom.
She didn’t have to walk as much as she had expected. The cold wind had started blowing, and she put on the shawl she had just bought. The address led her to a huge, strange square that she hadn’t visited on her walk with Ronald. The house, facing the square, was part of a duplex. It was small, looked cozy, and didn’t have a car parked in front of it. She knocked the door with some uncertainty, but before her knuckles could touch it a second time, the door opened, revealing the man backlit, smiling at her.
“I thought you had stood me up, Herminia,” he greeted her. He wore a plain black long-sleeved shirt and light, straight pants made of a summerlike fabric, and his hairstyle, much more relaxed at the comfort of his home, allowed his bangs to fall over his forehead in waves. He looked much younger than he had appeared in the store, almost the same age as her. “A very curious time to come by.”
“You told me to come in the afternoon,” she replied, unsure, gripping her bag tightly.
“The truth is I was expecting you to come by for tea. Now I have nothing to offer you.”
“I’ve already had tea,” she cut him off sharply, suspicious. “I’m only here for the books, thank you very much.”
“Of course, come right in.” He led her to a room next to the kitchen, which was a relief, she thought, because if the house had been bigger, it would have been harder for her to escape. She felt some relief remembering he had left the door open.
Tom’s house was modest and elegant. The few pieces of furniture that adorned the place were old, dark wood, and carved. It was nothing like the paraphernalia in her ex’s house, where the little box they kept the matches in was made of silver, and the fridge was carved wood. She remembered the words of the Indio Solari, “luxury is vulgarity,” and he was so right.
“Well, the ones over here are about history, but only the top ones are about Argentine history,” he announced kindly. “Are you looking for something in particular, besides the historical period of 1940?”
Herminia’s eyes landed on the colorful selection of books that decorated Tom’s library. Philosophy, law, religion, physics, metaphysics, medicine—every title of a well-rounded academic formation was before her. On the right wing, the library displayed the titles of fiction books. Sartre, Dostoyevsky, Camus, Borges, Saramago—every work she loved was there. She felt a pang of desire in her stomach. Why the hell didn’t I meet a guy like this before I got a boyfriend, she thought selfishly.
“In fact…” she pondered the idea of telling him what she was looking for. She blushed, thinking it was childish. “No, never mind. I’ll look for it myself.”
But his hands grabbed the book she had snatched up quickly.
“I think it’s fair that, in exchange for lending you my most prized collection, you tell me what you’re looking for”.
He held the book high, and Herminia huffed, annoyed. Who the hell did he think he was?
“You’re going to make fun of me.” she guarded herself, fearful.
“Try me.” he challenged her. She analyzed him with her gaze. Well, what did it matter what a stranger thought? She would see him once more to return the book, and they would never cross paths again.
“I’m looking for something that gives me information about a particular house in the area.” she said carefully. His eyes lit up, and for a moment, the girl thought she saw something red flash in them, as if the light from an alarm’s activation had suddenly reflected in his retinas.
“A house?” he murmured, intrigued. “Are you interested in the architecture of the Argentine coast?”
“It’s not the architecture itself.” she huffed. “There’s a legend about a house… never mind, it’s nonsense.” she admitted with some embarrassment. Tom took a step forward, put the book he had pulled from the shelf back, and grabbed her hands with intensity. Herminia felt even more embarrassed as she felt the soft touch of the boy’s skin, but she didn’t pull away.
“Legends are hardly ridiculous.” he admitted firmly, his voice steady. “They hide truths forgotten by time. I think I know the house you’re referring to.”
Herminia’s heart began to beat fiercely. Of course, he was from the area, maybe he had grown up hearing and chanting the song Angie had mentioned.
“But I must warn you that you won’t find anything useful in these books. I was thinking of writing a book about the myths of the coast, taking advantage of the literary orphanhood in this subject. Do you have time for a walk? I can tell you all about the area”.
Herminia checked her watch. She had forty-five minutes of freedom, and killing her in public would be harder than doing so in the solitude of his house. She nodded.
“Well, wait for me at the door. I’ll grab my jacket and be right out.”
The evening swirled its golden spirals with a cold wind, and her hair tangled in the air like the waves painted in Kanagawa. Walking alongside Tom was… exciting. She couldn’t stop thinking that if they were seen alone together, with a man who wasn’t Ron, it would be disrespectful to the family hosting her during the holidays. Well, at least this way I earn the title of slut that his mother arrogated to me, she thought. They walked through the middle of the square she hadn’t visited during her bike ride, a gray square, full of sand, full of forgetfulness. The thick roots of the trees protruded from the ground, taking the shape of hungry snakes.
“Do you know the story of San Bernardo?” he asked, as they made their way through that square that was more like a piece of forest trapped in the hands of a small child.
“No” she admitted, trying not to look him in the eyes or to seem too close: she didn’t want to give the wrong impression about whatever was going on. "The truth is that I don't usually vacation around here. My family prefers Brazil."
The corners of Tom's lips tightened into a small smile.
"Well, it was lucky that you decided to break with the habit, it's a pleasure to have you here."
She blushed. God, how dangerous was a man who knew the art of seduction. She tried to hide her face, but her cheeks stung like a slap. She sensed, without seeing it, that the boy was smiling.
"When you look in history books, it seems like the Argentine coast only began to exist in 1945, with the creation of the East Argentina Real Estate Company, which was run by some businessmen who wanted to build a summer villa, because if we go back in history, all this was mud. The gauchos called it ajó, soft land, you stepped and sank. It wasn’t much use, no one saw anything useful in this piece of land. The cities were built in San Clemente and further south, in Mar del Plata, because that’s where the British had arrived with their railways. All of this was part of a cattle establishment called San Bernardo."
Herminia let out a forced laugh.
"They didn’t put much effort into naming the city," she observed.
"No," he conceded, also smiling. "The legends say that the mystery of the cursed house of San Bernardo is there, in the estate that belonged to the Duhau family. The story is that one day, the youngest daughter of the family went out to play in the fields with one of the peasant’s sons, and when she returned, her eyes were like a yarará."
"How like a yarará?" she asked.
"Vertical pupils, green eyes. She came back speaking an unknown language and drove the animals crazy, the ones that were locked inside the estate. The mother went mad when she saw her little child like that, deformed, her daughter’s beauty locked behind the snake’s eyes. So, she took the shotgun and killed herself. The father, desperate, called a curandero, those magical healers that all towns have, who told him that the little girl was possessed by an entity that roamed freely in this area. That the only solution would be to sell everything."
"How convenient for the businessmen looking to invest," she observed. Tom let out a dry laugh.
"Yeah, pretty convenient," he conceded. "But then there were the shipwrecks."
"What shipwrecks?"
"In Mar de Ajó, four ships ran aground. In 1878, 1880, 1891, and finally, six years before the land was bought, in 1936. The bad tongues say there is a cyclical curse that runs through these lands, that drives the livestock and animals crazy, that confuses compasses and men."
"A curse that ended there, in 1936," she pointed out. "Because the Argentine coast is pretty calm. Especially this area."
"Do you really believe that, Herminia? That this place is safe?" he asked, in a cold hiss, different from the tone he had used until that moment. The girl realized that the square had ended and they were heading to a place empty of people and full of pine trees. She was alone with a strange man. Her heart stopped. "How many tourists come to vacation in these places? Do you know how many disappear without a trace and it doesn't make the news? The scandal it would cause if it became known?"
She tried to regain her composure. Psychopaths enjoyed instilling fear in their victims, if the guy was really a lunatic, she wouldn't give him the pleasure of being afraid.
"Well. The death and disappearance records go to a common register. It’s pretty easy to check on that," she announced, her voice feigning disinterest. "But it seems strange to me, because if it were really like you say, it would be public. All victims have a family that claims them."
Tom laughed openly.
"Ah, yeah, you're right. It would be pretty hard for whole families to die. And the missing always have family or friends who claim them. The coast is pretty safe, I just wanted to set the mood a bit. We’re almost at the house."
They had arrived at the place quickly, Herminia thought. It was as if the house appeared and disappeared at will. It stood like a crown of terror in the middle of a sand dune.
"A few years after the land was bought, a Nazi submarine appeared off the coast of Mar del Plata," he commented. "Did you know that? The Germans were captured by the Argentine military, and they surrendered to our militia."
Herminia furrowed her brow. Was Tom perhaps a right-wing extremist, like her ex’s family? She had a magnet for the weird ones, she thought.
"I didn't know that," she admitted. "Anyway, it seems more like a German escape strategy than a real military success."
"The conspiracy theorists think that Hitler was on that submarine," Tom conceded, amused. "But there are other theories. Theories that I think are more interesting."
He left the doubt burning. Herminia stepped into the trap.
"And what theories would those be?"
"That the Germans came to the Argentine coast with the goal of contacting whatever is loose in the area."
She looked at him, stunned. He was definitely into something strange, she thought. Maybe he was one of those guys involved in masonry like the Logia Lautaro. But he's an orphan, she countered in her head, and those places are accessed through family blood. Well, anyway, the guy was strange. He worked in an antique shop, had no family, and lurked around lonely girls.
"Well," he finally said. "Are you going to go in?"
His hand touched the worn gate of the house of riddles, which seemed to mock her, seemed like an invitation. Its black outline looked like a hole in the universe, a crack through which hell seeped in like a salamanca, those caves in the northwest of Argentina where witches and demons gathered.
"I don't plan to go in," she told him. "Don't you feel the... vibes?" she asked, embarrassed. The boy smiled.
"I didn't think you were a spiritualist. You didn’t seem like the type," he told her. "I thought you wanted to find out more about the house; it's easy to get in."
Herminia stopped.
"I don’t want to go into an abandoned house, alone, with a man I don't know," she announced loudly, defiantly. "I appreciate the walk, but it's time for me to go back. I have a friend waiting for me in the center."
"Ah, I guess you won’t want any of the books, right?" he asked innocently. "I have one about the history of the coast. It doesn’t talk about the house of riddles, but you can find all the information about the shipwrecks, the submarine, and the company that bought these lands. You can wait outside while I get it. My house is on the way to the center."
Herminia weighed her options. She didn’t want to make him angry. Well, she would accept his invitation, take the book, and leave. And let God return it to him, she thought. I’ll never see him again.
"Okay," she accepted, turning halfway around. The boy quickened his pace to walk just ahead of her, a way of showing that he didn’t intend to do anything to harm her. "But you didn’t tell me what I really wanted to know," she finished with a sigh.
"And what would that be?"
"Why do they call it the house of riddles?"
"Ah," he said, with a small smile. "It's a silly thing. But the owners of the house were British, from the Southern Railway Company. The Riddles. That’s how it got the name, the house of riddles."
They walked in silence for a while longer, barely interrupted by the sound of birds flapping their wings, drawing circles above them, just like when she had first arrived in the city. She appreciated that the boy could walk in silence, without the need to fill every empty space, like the Weasleys did. The return journey felt longer than the first, as if the house still claimed her, still asked her to barely touch the gates with her fingers, and the key sank into her pocket like an inevitable sign. She didn’t know why she hadn’t gotten rid of it. There was a need to find out what was there, what that mystery meant, tangled up in the palm of her hands…
The houses began to appear around them, inviting her back to reality, where there was no house of riddles, no Riddles, no Duhau, and no girls with yarará eyes.
They turned the corner and arrived at Tucumán street. Tom's little house appeared like that, innocent, hidden behind some trees, barely lit by the streetlights.
"Wait for me here," he whispered softly, "I'll be right back."
She barely had a moment of solitude before the figure of the boy reappeared, his tall and elegant posture, his face framed by the moonlight. He was holding a small book in his hands. He handed it to her: “San Bernardo. A Bit of History” by Chiozza, Teresa Elisa.
"It's a hard book to find," he assured her. "So I expect it back."
She nodded, knowing that at most she would leave it at the door of his workplace.
"Yes, of course. Thank you very much, Tom."
The boy smiled at her.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're terrible at lying?" he asked. "Sorry if I scared you earlier, but legends always have bits of truth and lies, and the lies are usually more captivating than the truth."
"It was nothing, really," she assured him, a little relieved that the boy had apologized. Apologizing wasn’t a psychopathic trait. "I got nervous, I’m here on the coast with my boyfriend’s family, and I didn’t want to give the impression that I was looking for something more," she announced, thinking that maybe mentioning Ron would scare him off. Tom made a sound similar to laughter.
"I won’t steal any more of your time," he said, taking her hands again. Herminia didn’t pull them away, still knowing that it was terribly wrong, still knowing that she would regret it when she recalled the memory in her mind, when she imagined that anyone could be there, watching her, judging her, in the thoughts Moni might have if she found out... Tom raised the girl’s right hand to his face, and there, with a slight bow, he pressed his soft lips against the palm of her hand. The kiss lasted only an instant, and she felt it more intimate than all the sex she’d had with her boyfriend since the beginning of their relationship. When Tom lifted his gaze again, the boy found her face flushed, not from the sun’s strength, but from the softness of his lips.
"I expect the book back, Herminia. See you."
That night she dreamed of soft lips, of thunderstorms shaking the sea, of aquatic snakes coiling like krakens around English ships sinking them, of eyes with vertical pupils, and when she woke up, she was in the middle of the hallway, holding a serrated knife.
The heat of the beach multiplied in the vastness of the sand, which reflected and amplified it, as if they were inside a giant magnifying glass. She got up from her seat every half hour to soak in the sea, and when she returned and her wet hands went back to reading the book, she only thought that at least she had bought The Apocryphal Gospels and it was not the book Tom had lent her: the salty water was hardening the pages, and it seemed no longer like a book from Borges’ private collection, but rather a shabby handmade piece like the ones sold at fairgrounds.
She was reading the Cathar Gospel of Pseudo-John, about how the devil had created paradise, forming human bodies from clay and sculpting the temptation of sin: “And here is why they are called children of the devil and children of the serpent, those who commit the concupiscence of the devil, their father, until the end of the ages.”
She underlined it, remembering Tom’s story. The yarará girl with eyes of death, of madness. The dream she had had the previous night came back to her. How she had woken up holding a knife, wrapped in shadows. She sighed and exhaled.
Ron entered the tent and took the book from her. He made a strange grimace when he read the title.
"What the fuck are you reading?" he said. "If my mom sees that, she’s going to think you’re doing witchcraft."
Herminia laughed.
"You’ve already got experience with witches. At least I’m not telling them that death’s going to enter their house."
She wasn’t sure if Ron blushed or if he was just sunburned.
"Well, hey, we all have a dark past," he defended himself. He waved at a vendor passing by and bought two corn on the cobs with salt and butter, and some really cold Coca-Colas. Herminia took the gift and smiled; the truth was, the custom of eating corn at the beach seemed charming to her.
"Do you want to go out tonight?" he said. "We’re going to Mar del Plata. Fede says he found a cool bar that doesn’t get too crowded."
"Mmm..." she started, with her mouth full, covering her face to speak. "I don’t know. I didn’t sleep well last night."
"Come on, silly," he said, giving her a warm hug. "It’s been a while since we did something together. You can keep reading heresies tomorrow."
She laughed. He was right, it had been a while since she did anything with him. The truth was, the intensity of his family made her isolate herself. She enjoyed him, his own excitement and strength, in small doses, but only his. Like that, fully exposed to the Weasley’s all at once, felt exhausting to her. But she had accepted going on this vacation, she couldn’t isolate herself and reject him.
"Okay, fine," she said. "But it better be chill. I don’t want to dress up too much."
"You’re beautiful just the way you are," he said, smiling. "Besides, you know I don’t like it when girls put on makeup. They look like clowns."
The comment upset her. She made a face of disgust, which was hidden behind the bottle of Coca-Cola. Now she was going to have to get ready, just to prove him wrong.
When her hands, with red-painted nails, opened Teresa Chiozza’s insignificant little book, the stamp of the National Archives Library appeared like a bad joke. Of course, she had to return it, but he wasn’t subject to the same rules as the rest of humanity, right? He was an orphan, and hadn’t had parents to limit his dreams, or whatever he had told her.
With even more horror, she realized that there were certain names underlined, and some notes scattered here and there, defiling the virginity of the binding. It wasn’t like she didn’t mark her books, but she marked her books, not the ones she borrowed from the library. She hated people who dared to defile a public book like that.
Well, maybe the fact that he had stolen it from the library made it a private object, she thought. But she couldn’t shake the idea that someone who seemed so proper as him had done something as mundane as stealing a book.
There were worse crimes, she thought, at least he didn’t kill me. She let out a sardonic laugh, but then Ron’s voice interrupted her.
"Wow, you look gorgeous," he said, open-mouthed. She had made an effort, after all, just to prove that he was wrong. She nodded silently.
"So it’s a lie that you don’t like girls with makeup," she retorted, narrowing her eyes.
"Well... I didn’t mean... it’s just that you’re the exception," he said, confident that he had saved himself.
"Sure, it doesn’t mean you said that just to make me feel better."
"Hey, I said something nice. Don’t fight me," he replied, a bit hurt. "I was coming to tell you that we’re about to leave, you’re ready, right?"
"Yes," she said, a bit embarrassed. "Yes, yes, I’m ready. Wait." She searched through her beach bag for the ring Jimena had bought her at the fair and put it on. The shiny black stone. "Jimena gave it to me," she explained, watching as the boy’s eyebrows raised in clear surprise.
"Alright, yeah. Let’s go, the Uber is outside," he said.
"Who pays for those Ubers? A trip from here to Mar del Plata for everyone must cost a GDP."
"The twins do well with the drugstores," he shrugged. "But if we take too long, they charge extra. Come on, come on, let’s go."
The trip, everyone packed into two Ubers, was quite uncomfortable for her. The drivers didn’t want to let them, at first, travel with three people in the back because the cars didn’t have rear seatbelts, and if they got stopped on the road, it would be a mess with the police. Besides, they had ordered the Uber when the fare was low, but after Jorge pulled out five thousand pesos and silently handed it to each of the drivers, the cars headed off in a row on the road, with Javi, Jimena, Ron, Fede, Jorge, Angie, Kati (Angie’s friend), and her. The night was unfolding around them, and the Uber they were traveling in played a compilation of Pity Álvarez's songs.
Father sun, who art in heaven, guide me if my life is not right, Pity sang, while Ron said, "Hey man, please, pass it, pass it, my girlfriend is a little mystical, and I don’t want her talking about God tonight," and then Javi turned around and said, "Herminia mystical? The last time she went into a church, the crosses turned upside down." Jimena laughed, and she did too, a little, remembering that the only times she really went to church was because of Javi and his uncles, who held a memorial mass for her parents every year on Halloween, the day of their disappearance. Javi wasn’t Catholic; it was just a tradition from his aunt, who had gone a little crazy after the death of her sister, with whom she had had a turbulent and somewhat strange relationship. She figured all families were their own world.
She rolled down the window and stuck her head out, the roaring wind muffling the music, Pity singing that he wanted rock, the chatting about the night, and the talking about the girls in the cabin next door, when she felt Ron’s hands pulling her back inside.
"Hey, get inside, look out or you’ll end up like in that movie you made me watch the other day," he said. She laughed, referring to Hereditary, the movie where the little girl sticks her head out the window and gets decapitated by her brother’s utter incompetence at driving and a wooden post.
"It’s fine," she excused herself, starting to stick her head out again, but then the cold window glass began to press against her neck, and she, scared, returned to her seat.
"See, it can happen," the redhead reprimanded her. "Sit down, because..."
But at that moment, the car’s brakes slammed into the pavement, and everyone was thrown forward with the violence of the speed. Herminia hit her forehead on something hard that seemed to be the metal of the headrest and then she felt blood starting to ooze from her forehead. She heard Jimena’s scream, who was next to her, as she was thrown forward, and Javi’s curse from the front seat. She tried to catch pieces of the conversation, but her eyes were still closed and scrunched in pain, and she only reacted when she felt Ron’s hands grabbing her face and yelling, "You idiot, look, my girlfriend is hurt!" And hearing the silence from the Uber in return made her sure that something horrible had happened.
"Ron, Ron, I’m fine," she heard herself say, quickly wiping the blood that was oozing from her face. "We have many tiny veins on the face; it looks like a lot, but it’s just a bump, I’m fine." She took off her jacket and pressed the fabric against her forehead, trying to stop the bleeding. "What happened?"
She looked around. Jimena was fine, she was getting up because she had been thrown forward with the impact of the brake, Ron was also fine, he had managed to grab onto something in time to avoid hitting his face. Javier, who was wearing the seatbelt, was arguing with the driver, who was pale in the moonlight.
"What happened?" she repeated, but no one answered her. She opened the car door, unable to hear or understand anything. She got out and walked toward the hood of the car. There, in front of the vehicle, there was a mass of flesh, because that couldn’t be a person, she told herself. No, that wasn’t a person. Not at least not now.
Her mind drifted to the last sessions of Civil Law I, the last of the year. The voice of the tired, old professor scratched her brain again. "Can the human body be the object of legal relationships?" But yes, all the time, you'll tell me, when I force myself to do something, to accomplish a task, I am obligating my body to carry that out. But I mean something else, can a part of my body be the subject of a contract? Can I sell an arm? No, article 17 of the Civil Code, guys, the human body has no commercial value, only emotional, therapeutic, scientific, humanitarian, or social value, they are objects outside commerce, the contract would be null, of course. But what about organ donation? What about egg extraction? That’s when we realize the great hypocrisy of our civil system, because once the body is separated from oneself, it becomes a thing, which can be the subject of specific legal relationships”.
What was in front of her was not a human being. They were things scattered across the street. It was a chewed-up heart, lungs pulled from the ribcage, pieces of flesh unrecognizable. An eyeball, like a marble thrown by a child. A trail of blood that indicated the body had been left there.
And when she heard the screams of her friends and Jimena’s crying, she knew that it would be up to her to call the police to explain everything that had happened.
The recurring dream with Ron was clear. From the chest of the redhead, yararás emerged, having devoured the flesh from within, and they came out, pushing through with his heart in their mouths. She grabbed the knife to chase them, to kill them, to administer justice, and just as she was about to plunge it in, the large, white hand of the demon grabbed her wrist, pulling her and holding her close. When she struck the chest of the man, the son of the demon, she heard his laugh, soft, melodic, and smelled his perfume of bergamot, wood, and rosemary.