The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (47)

“This one?” she asked, dragging her finger around the beauty mark. He shut his eyes and lost himself to the sensation of her on his abdomen, his erection, his entire being. She was going to run out of excuses to not drive twenty minutes to meet his family, who sent her food and socks to make sure she was warm in that little shed of hers. The Sandovals were Mexican before there was an America and new borders to modify their identity as Mexican American. Like her, they didn’t speak Spanish either. But there was something warm and familiar. Familiar enough that she should have wanted what Chris was offering her.

She would have given in, too, if she hadn’t scared herself that night when she was astride him, his fingers digging into her hips harder than he’d ever done before, so hard she felt the indentations they’d leave. She reeled her head back and looked at the shower of stars, felt his hands wrap around her throat. The sweet, bright pain of it unraveled something within her, and when she opened her eyes Chris was screaming and pulling out of her. Thick vines of ivy had wrapped around his ankles and up around his muscular calves, all the way to his inner thighs and his perineum. Needles prickled at her throat and when she touched the bud, she felt it opening.

“What the fuck?” Chris breathed hard and scrambled for his pocketknife on the floor to cut the vines off. The skin was instantly red, and yellow pustules bloomed where the poison leaves had touched him.

She drove him to the hospital with him lying on his belly in the bed of his truck because he was too tall and wouldn’t fit anywhere else and she couldn’t stop crying as several people had to get him on a gurney. Without having to ask, he lied and told the doctor he was clearing a patch in the valley, even though no one gardened in the middle of the night while naked. And if they did, it certainly wouldn’t have been the pint of vanilla ice cream that was Christian Sandoval. The doctor cocked his brow at Marimar, mouth still swollen from kissing him. He wasn’t a complete idiot, but it was like he’d decided he didn’t want to know the truth when a Montoya was involved.

Chris got a shot and some cream and slept in his own house after dropping Marimar off.

She called Rey right away. “Has anything weird happened?”

“Define weird.”

She hesitated, shoving a log into her stove. Then she told him everything. Marimar hadn’t known what to expect from Rey. A mild joke. Gratitude for having brought Chris into her life in the first place. Anything but unadulterated laughter. She’d watched cartoon witches laugh with less glee.

“Oh, Mari,” he mused.

“Fuck you.”

“I’m serious, you have mildly rough hetero sex, and you try to kill the guy.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me. And miss me. Though I’m glad I’m not there for your sexcapades.” She heard him sigh. A clatter like he dropped brushes or something. “Do you need me to come out there?”

“Where are you?”

“Enrolled in an art class at Hunter. I hate the teachers, but I’ll give it a shot.”

“No, I’ll be fine. Just let me know if anything weird happens to you.”

“My sex is always weird, Marimar.”

“Goodbye,” she said and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. The bud at her throat shut once again.

Six days later, Chris showed up again, even though it clearly pained him to get out of his truck. She took one look at his crooked smile, pressed her hand against his chest. He was ready to forgive her, to turn the occurrence into a funny, strange story he might tell at a bar one day. She didn’t want that, she’d decided. Before he said anything, she ended it, and he left quietly and softly. His sad smile was imprinted in her, like the heat of the kiss he left on her shoulder every morning for a month and day.

She watched him disappear up the hill and turn onto the road. Orquídea had warned her to not make the same mistakes. To love. But she’d also warned her to protect her magic. How could she do both, if letting Chris near her meant unraveling a part of herself she wasn’t ready to face? Maybe not ever.

She stood at the bottom of the hill so long she was startled by the first flurries of snow dotting her cheeks where her tears should have been. But she didn’t cry for Christian Sandoval. She smelled winter approaching and got to work instead.

Marimar found an axe and hacked up the dead trees for firewood. Stacked the logs neatly in the corner of her shed. She left the window open to air out the scent of leather and sandalwood that Chris had left behind. She hung her sheets in a line, and they smelled like unseasonable lavender that had sprung up in the valley over the last month.

When it was so quiet that she couldn’t bear her own thoughts, so quiet not even Gabo doled out a song, Marimar tried to talk to the ceiba tree that used to be her grandmother. She pressed her palms against the bark. She begged, first in quiet whispers.

“Please, what am I supposed to do?”

Then in screams. “Tell me what it all means! What am I supposed to do with a fucking flower growing out of my throat?”

When her questions continued to go unanswered, Marimar started talking to her instead. Confessing things she never would have as a girl. Sneaking out with Rey and going into town to watch movies with the other kids. Drinking Orquídea’s liquor stash in junior high. It occurred to Marimar that Orquídea must have known all of those things and more. She talked to a tree because it was easier than calling one of the Montoyas. And saying what? Nothing has changed. Some progress on the house. I think I broke a good man’s heart. Our magic hurt him.