“Why doesn’t Rolando pick you up from work?”
“He’s a bartender,” Jose says. That explains a lot. “So I walk along this big street, and then I get this feeling that something is following me. I get closer to home, and this feeling of dread fills me.”
“And?”
“This little stretch of road that connects Westheimer to my apartment. This is where the thing starts to follow me.”
“Have you ever seen it?”
“Yes. It’s hard to describe,” Jose says, rubbing his head with his hand, trying to stimulate thought.
“Look, I understand it’s hard, but I have to know what it is. Otherwise, I won’t be able to help you.”
“Okay,” Jose says, massaging his left bicep with his right hand.
This smaller road only goes a quarter-mile, and it wallows in a murky darkness. Garbage fills the ditch alongside it. The sidewalk is cracked with no indication of future repair. There’s no more sound from Westheimer.
“It’s when I walk on this sidewalk that I hear them — these footsteps — clack-clack-clack,” Jose says.
Xitlali can sense the fear running up his spine. Blood rushes into his head, reddening his ears and cheeks. “And what do you see?”
“I’m going to sound insane.”
“Mira, I’ve seen and heard crazy. Digame.”
“I... I look back and there’s this... this dog. A brown-coated, white-bellied pit bull with a human face... this face of extreme grief. It follows me, and it’s crying. What’s making the clacking sound are the heels it’s wearing. Bright red heels. It can walk perfectly in them, on all fours. It’s sashaying, dancing even, like it’s mocking my fear.” Jose trembles, a sheen of sweat on his face.
Xitlali nods. “Yes. I can feel a dark presence here. Let me inspect the area.” She pulls a flashlight from her bag and uses it to illuminate sections of the sidewalk, like a prison guard searching for a convict. There it is: another white cross, surrounded by McDonald’s wrappers, cigarette butts, and tall weeds. Xitlali approaches it and feels her pulse quicken, skin becoming cold. Yes, this is it. The cross has something written on it, smudged by time and rain: Gabriel Mendez. Xitlali is light-headed from the hunger and humidity and finds it harder and harder to think. Virgen, ayúdame, porfa. Dame la fuerza.
“Pues, Jose, I think I know what’s happening. There was a death here — an unresolved one. Many dark feelings have lingered here and grown. It seems someone mourned this death for a moment, but not enough to give this spirit peace.” Xitlali rubs her temples to ward off the forming migraine. “Could be because people around here move a lot. Or they lost hope.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“You’re already spiritually fatigued and carry traumas. That makes it easy for this spirit to feed off your fear and pain,” Xitlali says. I know, joven, because I, too, have a past to reconcile. Who am I to lecture anyone on that? “You being tired after work and the fear the night instills in you make it easier for this spirit to take advantage. It’s why it manifests into our reality, wearing the heels from your nightmare. It knows what gets to you. I will give this spirit peace. However, you have to make peace with whatever is happening in you, or it’ll only be a matter of time before something else happens. I can’t help you with that, but I know you can do it. You must. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I understand,” Jose says.
“Bueno. I need you to help me purify this space.”
Xitlali takes the holy water from a vial on her neck and sprinkles it over the cross. She pulls some of the weeds out and collects the garbage from the ground. Jose, as instructed, places candles around the cross and lights them. Xitlali says her prayer: “May God bless this space, la Virgen ayúdanos, porfa, forever and always, con safos, safos, safos.” She takes the sage from her other necklace vial and burns it so it emits a fragrant smoke. She hands a piece to Jose, then makes the sign of the cross on herself, thumb touching left shoulder, right shoulder, forehead, and heart, then a kiss to seal it all in.
When they’re done, Xitlali can sense Jose’s energy lift from his new peace of mind. She has him sign forms and gives him her bill.
Later, after she’s dropped Jose at his apartment complex, she sits in her car for a while to write notes.
I see more and more of these crosses along the streets. How many have been forgotten? How many spirits linger within the streets, within their cracks? As more of these traumas happen and stay unresolved, the more these restless spirits will roam within our reality and demand our attention, using our fear and anger. This spirit was more grotesque than usual and knew Jose’s traumas, even though Jose did not seem to know the name on the cross. Are these spirits becoming more desperate to agitate us?
Xitlali reaches down to take off her work shoes. She gets another call. She sighs.
“Bueno?”
“Curandera Zaragoza, we have another assignment.”
“I can’t. I’m exhausted,” Xitlali says, running her fingers through her hair.
“This is an emergency. You’re the only one who can handle this case.”
Puta madre. “It can’t wait?”
“It’s a woman and her children, and they’re desperate.”
Evil never rests. I can’t turn down a mother and her kids. I wouldn’t sleep.
“Digame,” Xitlali says.
“Trailer park out near Spring called Strawberry Glen. Contact’s name is Petra Ruiz. Three daughters. Recently separated from her husband.”
Fucking Spring? “Got it.”
Xitlali leans her head back and breathes in deeply. She turns on the car, opens a vial and sniffs the sage inside, rubs the exhaustion from her eyes, and drives. She looks at the road in front of her rather than at the spot where the picture of her daughter used to be.
During her drive, the purple sky becomes black. Xitlali has never been to this part of town before. She had heard about these recently established communities on the outskirts of Houston, where many Latinx families, immigrants and nonimmigrants, settled down to provide underpaid labor and expendable energy to the growing needs of white middle-class suburbs of Spring, the Woodlands, etc. At its outer edge, separated from the rest of the suburb by a band of tall pine trees, is the trailer park where her next client lives. The trailer park is so new that there are still logs stacked from all the freshly cleared trees, and proper streetlights haven’t yet been installed. Generators on wheels power scattered lamps throughout the dark plot. Cicadas scream through the hot night. Xitlali can imagine who lives here: the cooks and busboys that work in Spring’s restaurants, and the women who clean the mansions and schools. They live close enough to get to work, but far enough for those who benefit from their work to feel safe.
Xitlali drives slowly around the trailers, trying not to linger too much and cause concern. She doesn’t have to wander long. A woman sits outside the trailer with her three daughters in patio chairs, weeping, her tears falling into her bowled hands.