Little Hidden Darknesses

Tense. Tense and awkward and uncomfortable. I listened to the sounds of cutlery ringing against plates, and Alejandro gulping down half a glass of water before wiping his mouth with a napkin. The atmosphere around the dinner table could be cut with a knife, which I practically did, considering my stupid enchilada wouldn’t budge. When at last it did, my knife screeched against the plate. Mrs. Perez visibly cringed, but her smile didn’t fade.

“So,” I said with strings of cheese hanging from my mouth. I covered it with my hand and slurped them up. “Alejandro tells me the motel’s been in the family for generations?”

Mrs. Perez swallowed, nodded and dabbed around her lips. Her movements, while completely casual, had an elegance to it that made me self-conscious. Embarrassed, almost. “Yes, Alejandro’s father’s family. I was only lucky enough to join the business after I got married.”

“Did they – uh – move here from Mexico?”

Alejandro choked on his food. He clutched his chest as he muttered, “Move is one word for it.”

“What Alejandro means is,” Mrs. Perez chimed in, casting something of a stern glance in her son’s direction, “our respected families originally arrived on the island as slaves. We were freed a couple centuries later, and I guess Nando’s family saved up to start the motel.”

“Nando?” I asked.

“My father, Fernando. It’s what my mother calls – uh – called him,” Alejandro clarified.

“Oh, I see.” My lips stretched into a smile, though my eyes wouldn’t follow in the gesture. I stabbed my fork into another section of enchilada and started to saw from scratch. The table wiggled a little – a lot – as I did so, and Alejandro pressed down his elbow to make it stop.

“Now that you know our family’s story,” Mrs. Perez went on as she arranged her cutlery in the centre of her plate and pushed it away. She latched her hands together under her chin, and balanced herself on her elbows. “What about you? You’re related to the Vinsants, right?”

I nodded mid-chew.

“How, if you don’t mind me asking?”

My eyes flicked to Alejandro, but he motioned for me to go on. To tell as much truth as his mum needed to know. “Of course not,” I replied. “I don’t mind at all. My mum is Lilith’s sister. She grew up here, on the island, but then moved away before finishing high school.”

I raked my fork through bits of scattered mince. “She – uh – passed away a while ago ...”

“Oh, qué trágico. I’m so sorry.” Mrs. Perez’s brows knitted together. “What was your mother’s name?”

“Piper. Piper Vinsant.”

“Piper, you say?” At first I thought Mrs. Perez might react with more condolences, but after repeating my mum’s name a couple times, she cocked her head and pressed her lips together. I saw it in her eyes – the lack of recognition – and wasn’t surprised in the slightest.

Mrs. Perez wiped invisible crumbs off the table. “Sorry,” she said, “but I don’t know any Pipers.”

Of course she didn’t.

“No one seems to around here,” I muttered, accidentally aloud. Suddenly the cheese sickened me, and the tomato sauce burned my gums. So much for a wholesome meal. I arranged my cutlery on my plate and sat back with my hands clutching the napkin in my lap.

Alejandro watched me the entire time as I did this. “Eira,” he started to say, but I forestalled him.

“It’s okay, though. Something went wrong in the family, so they pretty much wrote my mum off. I don’t know why – or how – but I feel like they’ve conditioned the entire town to forget her.”

Mrs. Perez got up and started to clear the table. “I’m still very sorry. Having lived on Evermist Island my entire life, I can’t believe I’d forget someone who grew up here in town. A Vinsant, nonetheless.” She stacked my plate on top of Alejandro’s, then brought them to her chest. “I’m sure they’ll come around, though. Family is family, after all.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Perez.”

A smile coiled around her mouth, but without it reaching her eyes. They scanned me, almost as if searching for something. For any indication of whether or not I was lying, probably. But I wasn’t. And I couldn’t understand why everyone reckoned otherwise.

Once Mrs. Perez had finished her investigation, she cleared her throat and set off toward the kitchen. Before vanishing through the door, she paused, turned and said, “You two head on over to the sitting room. I’ll be right back with candles for the ofrenda.”

“Ofrenda?” I asked.

“Oh, the altar,” she clarified, then waddled away.

As soon as she vanished, I couldn’t help but drop my shoulders and sigh. At last, sweet relief.

Alejandro noticed this and laughed. “I’m sorry about my mother,” he said as he got up and pushed in his chair. It scraped across the tiles, making me cringe. “She means well, although she struggles to hide her feelings sometimes. I never meant for an awkward dinner.”

“Awkward? I never felt like it was awkward,” I lied.

“Oh, yea?” Alejandro contested. “We didn’t talk for half the time.”

“That’s how family dinners go, isn’t it?”

Frankly, I hadn’t the faintest idea. My mum and I hardly ate together, and on the rare occasions we did, an episode of Friends diminished the silence. To be honest, though, the silence wasn’t all that bad. We spent time together, spoke without exchanging any words.

Perhaps we should’ve. Perhaps then I’d have known more about her life.

With a renewed lump in my throat, I followed Alejandro from the dining room to the sitting room. The two spaces were actually one and the same, though divided by a tattered green carpet. A standing lamp lit the entire space, including the altar with marigold flowers, snacks, photographs and slow burning copal incense in the corner by the window.

I padded toward it, a photo of my mum scrunched in my hand. Alejandro had asked me to bring it, to add it to the altar. Right now, though, standing here, I couldn’t bring myself to set it down. Tears welled in my eyes, so I glanced out the window at the forest.

The fog had already spilled over onto the parking lot, right on que with the setting sun. It seemed particularly windy tonight, which caused the woolly billows to wisp and swirl.

“What do you think it is?” I found myself asking.

Alejandro flopped down on the ragged sofa next to the altar. The cushions sank under him, emitting a whooshing sound. “The fog?” he replied. “I can’t even begin to imagine.”

Neither could I.

“It really is strange. Not deadly, but strange.” My fingers crawled across the window, clearing tracks in the mist from my breath. “Why does it only come out after dark, though?”

When Alejandro didn’t answer straight away, I turned and stared at him with raised brows. He shifted in the sofa and groaned of sorts. “If I knew that, Eira, I’d have told you already,” he insisted. “And it’s best not to question it, really. It’s just always been that way.”

But I couldn’t help but question it. Especially when I’ve never seen anything like it before. I spoke on, “Well, if people don’t want to enter it, how does anyone ever leave the island?”

“They don’t.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“But,” I pressed on, shaking my head in disbelief, “why?”

Alejandro sighed in frustration and got up. He made over to the window and pulled the blinds. The light from outside vanished, rendering the lamp in the corner the room’s only source of light. He dusted off his hands and turned to me. “No one needs to. The island’s got all we need. Food, electricity, running water. We’re pretty self-sufficient.”

“But what about technology? Clothes and equipment and such?”

“Lilith’s late husband took care of all that. He set up a shipping company that delivers stuff to the island every month.” Alejandro reached for a booklet on the liquor cabinet in the corner against the wall. He flipped through it, pages and pages of things available to buy. “The ship comes out at night, when the fog had cleared from the forest into town, and the workers leave the containers in a precisely marked spot. The next morning, when the fog had retracted, the containers are there for collection. Just shy of the fog.”

“What a system,” was all I said. My teeth gnawed through the chapped skin on my bottom lip, and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I couldn’t understand how anyone would accept living their entire life in the same town while surrounded by the same people.

Day in and day out.

Year after year.

Generation after generation.

Alejandro brushed past me and flopped back down on the sofa. I turned to face him again, forcing myself to appear less pissed off than I felt. “Anyway,” I said, “you know how we found my mum’s hoodie in that room this afternoon? Along with her bag and textbooks?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“Well, that proves she went to Evermist High. And the school might still have documents on her.”

Alejandro crossed his legs. “It’s a possibility, sure. But why are you interested in her files?”

“Seriously? That’s exactly the proof I need to catch the Vinsants in their lie. If I could find those documents and present it to them, they’ll have no choice but to admit they know my mum.”

“Okay, but the school’s closed.”

“So? That doesn’t matter. We can just sneak in.”

Alejandro considered this for a moment. His brown eyes seemed black in the dim, orange light, and I almost couldn’t see the patches around his eye and mouth. He rapped his fingers on the sofa’s armrest, his lower lip clenched between his teeth. The anticipation grew with every second he stayed quiet, every second he kept staring into my eyes.

“Fine,” he said at last, then broke away. “It’ll be hard, and we might get into trouble, but if it helps, I’ll do it.”

A spark of excitement fluttered down my spine. It tickled the soles of my feet, prompting me to leap forward and latch my arms around Alejandro, but I settled for a simple, “Thanks.”

“It’s nothing, really,” he replied with reluctance, then scratched the inside of his neck. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning after breakfast. There’s not much to do around here with one guest.”

“It’s settled, then,” I agreed.

“Where exactly will you be going after breakfast?” asked Mrs. Perez as she emerged from the kitchen with two lit candles in her hands. The scent of citronella and smoke followed her through the room, all the way to the altar. She carefully placed them on the purple cloth.

“I’m showing Eira the school,” Alejandro promptly replied, then leaned over and helped his mum arrange the offerings – a bowl of water, glazed bread, and more marigolds. A fresh, perky batch.

Mrs. Perez pushed her hair behind her ears as she came upright. “Are you thinking of enrolling, Eira?”

“Perhaps,” I said. “If I’m still in town once break’s over.” I avoided Alejandro’s gaze as I stepped in to prop my photo against one of the candles. It flickered as I did so, and for a moment my mum’s eyes seemed to regain their sparkle, a miniscule trace of life.

“Do you feel it?” Mrs. Perez whispered. She peered over my shoulder, her shadow obscuring the altar.

I swallowed and stepped back, right into her, and she latched her hands – cold but soft – around my upper arms. When I shut my eyes, it felt as though my mum was holding me.

“I do,” I muttered, strikingly close to tears.

“That’s what the ofrenda is for,” she went on, breaking the spell. “To welcome spirits back to the realm of the living.”

Mrs. Perez motioned for me to sit down, and I complied. I sank down on the sofa opposite Alejandro and right in front of the window. I watched my mum’s photograph, the way the candle made it glimmer. A framed photo of Fernando stood little to its left, a man who could easily be mistaken for an older Alejandro, but without any patches.

“She’s beautiful,” noted Mrs. Perez as she lowered next to her son, her hand covering his left knee.

“Thanks.”

“You look so much like her.”

“So people always say.” I tried to keep my voice light, to banish any warbles, but they surfaced on their own. Even when I didn’t feel like crying. When all I felt was numbness.

Mrs. Perez parted her lips and paused before she asked, “If I may be so bold, how did she die?”

“Mamá,” Alejandro hissed.

“It’s okay,” I assured them. “My mum suffered from Werner syndrome. Her body rapidly aged without explanation. When she died, she resembled a ninety-year-old woman.”

At first, neither of them showed any reaction. Then, Alejandro licked his lips and said, “Eira –”

“Please, no condolences. I’ve received enough of those. She’s gone, and that’s the end of it.”

Mrs. Perez turned her head in pity. “Mi querido, you’re so strong. What about your father? Where’s he?”

“I – uh – don’t have one.”

A moment of silence passed through the sitting room. This prompted me to explain, to clarify.

“I mean, I have one,” I said, crossing my legs on the sofa. “I just don’t know who he is. My mum never married, and chose to undergo artificial insemination. Picked him from a vial.”

Even after I explained, Mrs. Perez didn’t seem to understand. She understood, but didn’t comprehend. At first I thought she might shun me again – the product of science instead of nature – but then her eyes glossed over. “You’re so brave, surviving on your own.”

“Mamá,” Alejandro hissed again, only this time I didn’t forestall him. “Eira isn’t by herself.” We shared a glance in which the corners of his mouth turned up. “She’s got us now.”

Once he said this, I broke away and glanced at Fernando, at his pearly smile and espresso brown eyes. Alejandro had no idea what he was saying. We only met two days ago, and knew next to nothing about each other. About what lurked beyond our smiles.

In an attempt to veer the attention off me and my mum, I asked, “Mr. Perez, how did he die?”

I half expected Alejandro to scold me like he did his mum, but he merely shifted in his seat. He put a hand over his mum’s, and the two of them shared a look. Silence passed between us. It was Alejandro who spoke, “He – uh – walked into the fog one day and vanished.”

My breath snagged. Okay, not quite what I was expecting. But at least now I understood why Alejandro and Mrs. Perez feared the fog so much. Why they so strongly believed in its curse. I sat forward as I said, “Oh, wow. Has many people died this way?”

“Most people in the cemetery, yes,” Mrs. Perez replied, dabbing her fingers under her tear-stained eyes. “They were accidents, mostly. Drunk youngsters or folks who thought they knew better. Nando wasn’t like that, though. He’d never risk losing his wife and son.”

“Were either of you ... with him at the time?”

“No, we don’t know how it happened,” Alejandro said. “But we suspect it was an accident.”

I nodded, even though I struggled to understand. If they didn’t know how it happened, did they really know anything at all? For one thing, it proved nothing regarding the fog.

“Anyway,” I said when the grandfather clock in the corner struck six, and its thundering dongs rattled everything along the wall. “I think I better head off to my room now.”

Mrs. Perez leapt up. “Oh, of course. Before the fog covers the deck and you’re stranded here.” She plucked a balled-up tissue from her apron and blew her nose in it. “You can leave your mother’s picture here. It’ll keep her spirit present for the rest of Día de los Muertos.”

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Perez.” I studied the photograph a final time before I rose to my feet and started toward the front door. “For the dinner as well, it really was delicious.”

“Oh, you’re welcome any time.”

I thanked her again and was just about to turn, when Alejandro slinked around his mum and placed his hand on my bare upper back. The bottom of his palm felt rough in comparison to my skin, yet his touch had a gentleness to it, hesitation almost. I straightened my spine.

“I’ll see Eira out,” he offered – actually instructed – before beckoning me to the front door.

I only realised my cheeks were scorching when he opened it and the outside air met my skin. Crisp. Fresh. Dewy. The scent of dusk. Of rain, but without any clouds in the air. I breathed it in, allowing it to fill me up. With each breath I took – each inhale and exhale respectively – the fog appeared to move. It approached as I inhaled and withdrew as I exhaled.

“Eira, listen,” said Alejandro as he closed the front door on a screen. He briefly peered inside before adding, “I know what you’re thinking, and that’s not what happened.”

Another peer into the dining room.

“It’s not the same.”

“W – What are you talking about?” I asked, my attention mostly on the fog, which had gone back to moving on its own. I turned around to face Alejandro, and his hand left my skin.

The look on his face startled me, the way his eyes had widened and his dimples had vanished. His jaw worked, his eyes wandering about my face without once meeting my eyes. “My father. It’s not like your mother. He didn’t leave us. He didn’t run away from here.”

“Alejandro,” I said, “I never even thought of that.”

But he didn’t appear to believe me. His eyes narrowed, almost as if trying to look into my soul. Whether or not he succeeded, I wouldn’t know. I turned away my head before his expression revealed anything. This made him reverse across the deck to the front door.

“I didn’t, Alejandro,” I repeated. “I promise.”

“Okay,” he said in a voice so hushed, it sent chills down my arms. “Good night, then.”

“Night.” I dared another glimpse at him, something of a smile creeping around my bottom lip. When he didn’t return the gesture, it vanished, along with any sense of composure.

Not that I ever felt I had any.

“Until tomorrow morning,” I added, desperate for any kind of response. Before he even attempted a reply, though, I whirled around and marched across the deck to my room. This way, he couldn’t leave me hanging again. Couldn’t shower me in more painful silence.

My steps were brisk and quick – not a jog, but pretty close. I avoided gazing at the fog, or even thinking about it, as every time I did, I fell prey to its allure. Its ability to entrance.

Entrance, but not kill.

If only I could convince Alejandro this. If only he and his mum didn’t believe as passionately in Fernando’s death. After all, the story didn’t make sense. I’ve entered the fog multiple times. Not just me, but Branka too. And my mum when she caught that ferry.

If she had managed to leave town, who said Fernando couldn’t have pulled the same trick?

My mum left behind her family, everything and everyone she ever knew. With the right motivation, anything was possible. And as tragic as it was to admit – even to myself – the odds were there. Fernando’s body was never found, nor did anyone actually see what happened. He might not have vanished in the fog after all, but instead abandoned his wife and son.