Chapter 4
On the fourth day after the incident, Jimena woke up. She felt better, but was very weak and barely spoke. The Weasleys had planned to stay a few more days at the cabins before heading back, and Herminia had agreed with her parents that she would stay helping her boyfriend’s family as soon as she could. After all, she was on vacation.
Without Jimena being discharged, that same night, when the shift change occurred, Mónica gave her a big hug and thanked her for all her help.
“Ah, sweetie, I know I was hard on you, but you have to understand,” she confessed between tears and the warmth of her human body. Herminia stood still in the woman’s arms, uncomfortable with the closeness. “When I had Ron, I almost lost him, he almost went away. I had to endure belly shots throughout the whole pregnancy. He was always a bit weak. I worry about him, I just want the best for him.”
Herminia nodded, slowly pulling away from her mother-in-law’s body.
“No problem, Mónica. It’s all good,” she reassured her.
“Ah, Herminia! I hope you have many children and are very happy,” she added with a knowing smile. Herminia had to fake a small smile to hide the emptiness she felt upon hearing those words. Being a mother was not in her plans. “Well, I’m going to see Jime. She’s feeling down, says she ruined the vacation, the silly thing.”
She detached herself from her mother-in-law’s body and walked quickly toward the house. It was only ten blocks away from the cabins. To go there she needed to walk toward the beach. The sunset was beginning to stretch its fingers across the horizon, and the sea was turning golden. She appreciated the beauty of the moment, the sun melting into gold, the birds swirling and spiraling above her, the wind roaring furiously, carrying the freshness the day needed.
She was lost in the moment, absorbed in her full consciousness, when the hands of a man much taller than her grabbed her by the waist swiftly. His scent announced him.
“Hello, little portable destiny,” he said with a predatory smile. “Nice to see you strolling around here, so innocent.”
Herminia smiled, puzzled by his choice of words, but enjoying the poetry.
“Hello to you too, Tom. What are you doing around here?”
The young man was taking off his jacket, revealing the black t-shirt underneath. It was the first time she saw him with his forearms bare. She noticed he had a small tattoo, one that seemed completely out of character, on his left forearm. A tattoo of a skull with a snake tongue.
“I was meeting with... friends,” he said carefully, with a formed smile. Herminia pointed to the tattoo.
“The other day, I saw a guy near my house with one of those. What is it? From a band?”
“Oh, really?” Tom asked with interest. “And what was this guy like?”
“I don’t know. An older guy. Older than us. Graying, a typical dude in his fifties,” she tried to remember more details, but the tattoo was the only thing that had caught her attention. It was a really ugly design.
“I’ll tell you what it is only if you promise not to laugh,” he said, with a certain heaviness in his voice.
“I would never mock you, come on,” she told him, with a small smile drawn on her lips. She could hardly believe she was seeing him like this, slightly embarrassed.
“Well, if it’s a symbol of a band. My band.”
She let out an involuntary laugh.
“See! There it is, I knew you were going to laugh,” he scolded her, his soft voice not showing the embarrassment he tried to assume.
“No, no, not at all! You didn’t seem like a band guy, that’s all,” she said, laughing. “It’s a laugh of ‘ah, how curious,’ not mockery, I swear.”
“Ah, I hope so. The guy you described is our bassist. He’s a bit older, but in a small town, you take what you can get,” he said, shrugging.
“Did you just come from rehearsal?” she asked, wanting to see glimpses of Tom shine through his mystery.
“Yes, I just left my stuff there. I play the guitar, but since we always rehearse after work, I just leave the instrument at my friend’s garage.”
He spoke with a certain confidence in his words that made Herminia doubt. He was lying, she was sure of it.
“What kind of music do you play?” she continued with the interrogation. Tom smiled that peculiar way he had, where the curve of his smile never quite reached his eyes.
“It depends on the season. Right now we’re collaborating with a saxophonist, so we’re rehearsing a lot of jazz. I prefer blues, but the guys want to improvise, change the ideas halfway through. Last season, a guy came who played the bandoneon, so we had to play tango. If you ask me what I want the band to do, it’s rock. Progressive rock.”
“You’re kind of a poet, huh?” she asked him, with some interest. She wouldn’t have guessed this bohemian side of the man walking beside her, trapping her with his delicious masculine scent and aristocratic bearing.
“I’m an artist,” he asserted, with his head held high, heading toward the sunset on the beach. “My hands are my vehicle of creation.” He seemed satisfied with the answer, which sounded again like a riddle wrapped in words. But wasn’t that what poetry was? A way of hiding the true meaning of expression with metaphors?
“You promised me the next time we met, you’d show me hidden places,” she told him, with some anxiety nestled in her throat.
“That’s right, I’m a man of words. I hope you won’t miss anything because we have, at least, forty minutes of walking.”
Herminia glanced at her phone out of the corner of her eye. It showed 7:06 p.m. The boys wouldn’t bother looking for her after the hospital. She always walked along the beach before reaching the house. Ronald would just receive her and then go to sleep, with the double trauma of having seen the corpse on the road and his sister’s unconscious body.
“No, no, I have a couple of hours to myself,” she replied quickly, watching as the last drops of sunlight spilled over the sea.
They reached the coastal avenue, and the cold wind hit her mercilessly. She shivered, remembering she had forgotten her jacket at the hospital.
“Come on, come on, don’t be stubborn. Here.” Tom carefully placed his jacket over her shoulders, and she felt his scent envelop her, marking her, unfaithful, unfaithful, unfaithful.
“Tom, you know I don’t...”
“If you want to be a martyr and suffer for love, you can always throw yourself into the icy sea after seeing me. But while I’m here, I don’t want you to suffer the cold. Let’s go.”
They continued walking along the sidewalk that bordered the beach, without entering the world of people who were starting to flee the cold of the Argentine coast.
“You didn’t tell me why you were at the hospital,” he said after a few minutes of silent walking.
“Ah, it’s not pleasant. Sorry, I feel like every time you see me something horrible happens. I don’t want you to think I’m jinxed,” she replied, a little hurt.
“Don’t change the subject and let me form my own judgment about your luck,” he replied, amused. “Why were you at the hospital?”
“A friend… it’s a silly story. I brought my cat to the beach, but for the trip, I had to give him some pills they sold me at the vet. And they only sold the whole blister. The thing is, I don’t know what happened, I don’t know if she got confused, I don’t even want to know, but she took the whole blister of my cat’s pills. She almost died, barely survived.” She recounted, a bit annoyed by the stupid reality she found herself in. She wasn’t angry with Jime, she just wished her summer had been different. Maybe with better things to tell Tom. But isn’t having him enough of a reward already? A voice whispered in her head.
“That... sucks,” he said, as if the word was hard for him to pronounce. “You’re telling me she survived, at least. It could’ve been worse.”
“Yeah, the doctors call it a miracle. Mónica, my friend's mom—” she clarified, not wanting to say “my mother-in-law” in front of him—“went to every curandero in town. She really believes in that stuff. Well, all that witchcraft, and in the end, it was the doctors who healed her.”
Tom looked at her, suddenly puzzled.
“You’re telling me you don’t believe in witchcraft, but when I wanted us to go into the house of riddles, you refused because you felt a bad vibe,” he observed, barely with any interest. “You also told me you’re not Catholic. So, what do you believe in, Herminia?”
“Ah, I’m very Argentinian, a little of this, a little of that…” she said, laughing. But Tom didn’t continue the joke. He stopped walking, frozen.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him.
“Do you believe in anything?” he demanded suddenly. “In God? In the Devil? In the soul?”
Herminia furrowed her brow. What a strange man, really.
“I don’t know. I believe in what’s in front of me. The house gave me a bad vibe, so I believed in the bad vibes. As for God and the Devil… good and evil exist everywhere. And the soul… I don’t know. When you die, you’re just pieces of things tied together in one body. A heart, a stomach…” She made a face, remembering the phrase she wrote in her book.
“Don’t tell me you think you’re a rolled-up steak, meat stuck to meat,” he whispered almost desperately. “Don’t you feel your soul? Don’t you feel it inside your body, alive, pulsating, hungry?”
Herminia let out a nervous laugh.
“God, well, I don’t know. One time, my ex confused the pills and gave me ketamine instead of ecstasy, and that time I felt like the soul was real and was detaching from my body. Or maybe I was dying, and my stupid ex saved me. That was the only time I felt something like the presence of the soul.”
To her surprise, this time it was Tom who burst out laughing.
“Ketamine? A woman as proper as you?” He took her hand and pulled her into him, shamelessly, in the middle of the crowd. “Ah, how many sides do you have, Herminia?”
She stayed in his chest for just a moment, feeling the warmth of his body and inhaling his scent, and then quickly pulled away, feeling the gazes of people piercing her—unfaithful, unfaithful, unfaithful!
“Your ex was an idiot,” he continued, resuming their walk. “Getting confused and giving you anxiety meds. It’s a miracle you’re here, then. Can I ask his name?”
“No,” she said firmly. “It’s better that you don’t know who he is.”
“Why? Is he famous?” Tom asked. “It’s just curiosity,” he promised, not pushing further.
“Eh… no. His family is, unfortunately, which I didn’t know when I started dating him in the first place. He ripped me off.” She remembered the anger when she took the ID from his wallet and read his full name, Massera. She couldn’t, of all people, be dating a military family member.
Tom looked at her with genuine interest.
“Let’s do something,” he proposed. “I’ll tell you one of my little secrets, and in return, you tell me who the guy is.”
“Oh no, you’re not fooling me,” she shot back. “How do I know your little secrets are worth it?”
The man smiled, sharp.
“They’ll answer some of your questions,” he affirmed. “But I won’t give you more details than that.”
She didn’t want to lose Tom if he judged her for having gone out with someone raised in a military family. His poetic and strange soul would surely reject her.
“No, sorry, Tom, I can’t do that,” she replied, although curiosity was nibbling at her soul. “I’m happy with whatever you feel comfortable sharing, I won’t pressure you into anything.”
The boy clicked his tongue, signaling displeasure.
“Such a shame,” he remarked. “Because then, I’ll have to do something you’re not going to like.”
“What are you thinking…?” But then his long fingers caught her hand and held it firmly. She saw a wide smile spread across his face.
“No, hey, I don’t want you to…”
“No one’s going to see us, Herminia. Besides, how many more days will I have you here, with me? Let me enjoy us.”
The girl didn’t resist the words “let me enjoy us” anymore and allowed the boy’s hands to guide her in procession. They walked in silence, savoring each other’s presence, until the street ended and turned into sand. There, after passing the dock, the boy led her, turning slightly to the left. Only dunes rose in that direction.
“Where are we going?” she asked unsure, as she was convinced that Tom would guide her toward one of the wrecks buried on the beach.
“Do you remember the shipwrecks of Mar de Ajó?” he inquired.
“Of course.”
“Well, they’re much more than simple shipwrecks. The Marghareta, that German ship that ran aground in the 1800s, had no crew aboard when it was found. While they were inspecting it, they discovered that the ship had barrels of wine inside. They say that after they found them, the barrels disappeared, like magic, just like the crew.”
“You should leave that antique shop and become a tour guide,” Herminia said. “Because the truth is, I had never considered coming to Mar de Ajó, and after talking to you, I never want to leave again.”
The boy smiled while continuing to lead her, venturing deeper and deeper into the dunes, into the sleeping turtles of sand.
“But you didn’t even let me tell you the best part. They say that the barrels of wine carried the blood of God, and that’s why, when they touched the cursed coast, they disappeared.”
He laughed. The boy had an undeniable gift for mystery, for ghost stories.
“And where are we going now?” she asked. “The barrels are gone.”
“Oh, there’s nothing lost that I can’t find, Herminia,” he assured her, triumphant. “After all, it’s my job to track rare and ancient objects and put them up for sale.”
They had reached a dune with a particularly strange shape, much smaller than the others. Tom released her hands to clear the sand from an old door that was opening, in the middle of the sand pile, with the moon barely shining in the sky, like a lost lament.
He tugged at the iron handle with strength, and the door opened suddenly, barely wobbling from the effort.
Tom composed himself and invited her to enter.
“Ladies first.”
Herminia wanted to say something like “I’m not going into a warehouse with a guy I barely know,” but the open gap in the middle of the dune had a strange magnetism that called her, as if someone had wrapped a rope around her and was pulling her in. She stepped forward. If the guy wanted to kill her, he would have to face the relentless search that Draco would unleash. She had the direct location on, connecting both phones permanently.
Tom closed the door behind him, and the smell indicated that he had lit a match. With a lantern carrying a melted, old candle inside, he guided her into that underground bunker with brick walls.
"Tom... this is..." she began to say, but couldn't find the words. "Does anyone else know about this?"
The boy shook his head, getting closer to her body like a predator.
"No," he affirmed, without guilt or fear, with that cold voice of his that sometimes came out, hissing. Suddenly, his hands grabbed her lower back. "Come with me," he whispered.
They walked a few more meters, descending some stairs toward the center of the earth. The cold enveloped them, and a chamber opened before her, carved from stone, with different inscriptions on the walls. Some seemed like Latin words, others appeared to be written in languages forgotten by men. There, leaning against the walls, were countless wine barrels, one on top of another, filling a room of impossible size. Tom handed her a clean glass, which was resting on a wooden seat, as if waiting for her.
"Do you like wine, Herminia? We could drink maybe the richest and most expensive wine in the world right now until we're completely full."
The brunette hesitated.
"Who built all this?" she asked, with fear. Tom shrugged.
"Clearly, whoever built it is dead because it's forgotten. I’m the only inhabitant this chamber has had in the last one hundred years."
"How did you find it?" she asked, as Tom took a silver knife and with it opened a tap in a very impractical motion. Wine flowed from the barrels like the blood of Christ filling the glass.
"Hand me your glass, and I’ll answer," he assured her. She extended her glass towards him, which he took with both hands, looking at her meaningfully before placing it under the wine stream. "As I told you... I have a gift for finding lost things. I heard the whispers hidden in the sand dunes and let them guide me."
Herminia received the glass, trying not to let panic engulf her. The man in front of her was completely crazy. He was beautiful, interesting, but irrevocably insane.
She thought she saw something slithering out of the corner of her eye, a yarará, she thought, but pushed the idea from her mind. She was already scared enough without adding strange dreams and urban legends.
Suddenly, the man clinked his glass with hers, and with that blessed knife that only God knew where he had gotten from, he stirred the wine inside it.
"When they are this aged, you have to stir them a bit," he excused himself, handing her the weapon. Herminia took it, unsure, while a voice inside her said, this is your chance, run, run, run.
But she didn’t. She barely mixed the wine with the dagger. Tom looked at her, his eyes hungry, his eyes wild.
"Cheers, my love, to destiny," he announced, smiling, as he brought the glass to his mouth. Herminia imitated him. The aroma that emanated from the drink was magnificent. She wasn't a wine connoisseur, but the presence of oak made its way through her nose, easily identifiable, and when the drink touched the inside of her mouth, the taste of cherry and blackberry kissed her, licked her from the inside. She opened her eyes, in ecstasy. She had never tasted anything so delicious. Tom looked at her, his triumphant eyes, his stretched smile.
"God, this is..."
She began, but then the boy’s enveloping body trapped her between his hands, letting the glass fall, which bounced on the stone floor before shattering. His mouth collided with hers, and she felt, just as she had fantasized, the thickness of his lips press passionately against hers as their mouths searched for each other, hungry, eager.
She let out a faint groan, and the man’s hands gripped her waist fiercely, pressing his body against hers. Maybe it was the wine or the overwhelming sensation of feeling his arousal against her skin, but she lost her balance and leaned against the cold stone wall. The fear of regret poisoned her mind, so she gave in, unwilling to wait for the inevitable guilt to settle over her. She lifted his shirt, trying to pull it off with impatience and anger, and when her fingers brushed against his hard muscles and soft skin, she thought she could let him have her as many times as he wanted. She could come back, she could bind herself to him forever—to his body, to the sea, to the secrets.
Tom’s hands moved as well, urgently unbuttoning the linen dress she was wearing, and when their bare skin finally pressed together, fitting perfectly, like their lips locked in battle, quenching their hunger, she felt the vibration of her phone announcing a call.
Tom grabbed her phone with his free hand and flung it away.
“Hey!” she protested, but then he gripped her waist again, pinning her against the wall as his mouth descended toward her neck, like a vampire seeking his prey.
“No. I’ve waited an eternity for you,” his voice was guttural, otherworldly, and she offered no resistance as his fingers untied the top of the bikini she was wearing.
She had to endure at least fifteen minutes of Ronald's yelling when she finally arrived at the cabin. She had taken Tom's advice and submerged herself in the salty night water, emerging renewed, baptized, stripped of the original sin they had committed just moments ago. But above all, she wanted to come out without his scent, which clung to her body as tightly as the night clung to the earth.
Ronald greeted her, stroking Crookie on his chest, wearing a food-stained Simpsons t-shirt and plaid pajama pants, in the small kitchen of the cabin they shared with Javier and Jimena. The tiny kitchen, yellowed by the naked bulb hanging above them and years of neglect, was filled with his yelling and scolding: "I thought you’d been killed, that you’d been kidnapped! I was about to call the police! You could’ve at least let me know!"
“Well, I’m sorry!” she snapped, exasperated, slamming her fist on the table. Crookie let out a protesting meow and left the room to hunt outside. "I’m sorry if I wanted a moment for myself! I’ve spent the entire week taking hospital shifts you didn’t want to do! But no, you need me to always be behind you! I’m a person, Ronald, and I need a break!"
The redhead stared at her, dumbfounded.
"I thought... I thought you didn’t mind going to take care of her..."
"God, it doesn’t bother me," she replied, annoyed. “I offered, but just because I offered doesn’t change the fact that I did it in the first place, for crying out loud." Her boyfriend looked at her, puzzled.
"Then if you offered, you can’t hold it against me. I didn’t force you to—"
"See what I mean?" she yelled, furious. "You’re incapable of thinking about anything other than whether or not you’re to blame for something! You can’t think of anyone but yourself!"
Ron crossed his arms.
"I invited you to come on vacation with me—not because I wanted to." He said it with disgust. "You’d already turned down going to France with your mom and the trip to Brazil with your dad. I thought getting away from the city and that idiot ex of yours would do you good. Because yes, Herminia, I know you’re still writing to each other. And I know that whole situation is hurting you. So yes, sometimes I am capable of thinking about more than just myself."
The room grew heavy. Suddenly, as if all her senses had been switched on at once, she noticed the electric hum of the refrigerator and the constant dripping of the faucet that never quite shut off, both numbing her brain. She felt the damp chill of the flowered plastic tablecloth beneath her fingers and thought that if it weren’t for the massive legal and relational trouble she’d face afterward, she’d love to drive a serrated knife straight into his hand.
"Whatever, Ron," she replied coldly. "Thanks for the charity. I’m going to bed."
She got up, pushing the plastic chair aside and turning her back on her boyfriend.
"No, no. You’re not going to bed," he continued angrily. "Because while I was going crazy thinking something had happened to you, I messaged that fucker, Massera. I figured if you’d been with him even for a bit, at least it meant you weren’t dead. And no, he’s still in the city, but we had a very interesting conversation."
She felt her blood pressure drop. She turned to look at him, narrowing her eyes. What could Draco have said?
"Do you want to tell me why the hell you were in the middle of nowhere? Who are you hanging out with?"
Herminia blushed.
"The GPS is crap, Ron. I was at the beach," she said, sitting back down in the chair, knowing she wouldn’t get out of this so easily.
"And why did you share your real-time location with Massera?"
"He knew I was going to the beach alone at night, and I didn’t want to worry you guys more than you already were," she replied quickly. "And yes, I know it’s a little weird that I’m still talking to my ex, but I swear it’s not what you think. It’s convenient to stay friends with him. Whenever I need something, he throws me a lifeline."
That was partly true, she thought. Whenever she needed a contact—like someone who could instantly get her a record from the civil registry—the temptation was always just a chat away. The blonde never asked for much in return, maybe a coffee to catch up on their lives, just to maintain a semblance of familiarity. She knew it was his way of feeling like he had some kind of power over her, over the activist, the feminist who had been on national TV at just seventeen. That was the perversion that had driven him to seek her out, to lie to her, to try to entangle her with his own troubled legacy. And she let him feel that way. It worked for her, of course, just as much as it worked for him.
"Oh, I see. So it has nothing to do with you asking him for information about that crappy house in San Bernardo, right?"
She closed her eyes. Draco, you son of a bitch, she thought.
"Why are you so obsessed with that house? What happened to you?"
Herminia made a face, one that clearly showed she didn’t want to talk about it.
"Could you trust me a little, at least? I mean, I’m your boyfriend, right? I know we’ve been a little distant on this trip, with all the crap that’s happened, but if something’s going on, you could tell me."
"It’s late, Ron," she said flatly, glancing at the clock, its face dulled by years of accumulated grease. "We’ll talk tomorrow."
When her boyfriend stormed out of the kitchen in frustration, she knew the progress their relationship had made over the course of the week had just crumbled like a house of cards.
"You're still not going to talk to me? I already told you I replied because I thought you’d been kidnapped, lol."
"You spent three and a half hours in the middle of nowhere, like totally lost.”
“Even I got worried."
"Fine, ignore me if you want. But I’m not giving you the info. It was a pain in the ass to find that surname."
Herminia picked up her phone nervously. She had spent the whole day ignoring Draco's messages. She was furious with him for betraying her like that. But if he had the information she’d asked for, she couldn’t just let it go.
"Tom Riddle died in 1972. The house has belonged to the state since then. He never had children."
"Did he have a middle name?"
"No. At least not a declared one. Oh, and the cause of death is super weird."
"What’s the cause of death?"
"They couldn’t determine it. They found his body completely consumed. Look, for the doctors to bother describing it, it must have been shocking. His organs were outside his body, and he was, like, split open from the inside. I’ll send you a photo of the death certificate inscription."
Herminia didn’t need to read it. She had seen the same kind of corpse just a few days ago. And then, as the photos started arriving as notifications, panic shot through her entire body.