ROSA COMES BACK from the hospital and takes a bat to Jimmy’s windshield. I miss the entire thing because I’m working in my mom’s bodega on a Saturday morning. I’m pricing bottles of Head and Shoulders with a permanent marker when the air around me turns into an electric current. I hear the muted screaming and car alarms seconds later. I throw down the bottles and marker, running to the front of the store, before I hear my mom telling me to get away and get back to work. I miss the whole thing. I’ll always remember that Rosa came back from the hospital and destroyed Jimmy’s windshield with a bat, but I’ll never remember the look on her face, the rage on Jimmy’s, or the way his windshield went from solid to gummy as it sagged into the driver’s seat.
I curse not being able to enjoy my weekends the way my friends do. I could rebel more. I could put my foot down and demand to be allowed to have a social life. Even though I’m an only child, I have somehow disappointed my parents so deeply that nothing I do is right. If I can’t be what my parents want me to be, the least I can do is be obedient. Even my looks seem to offend them. My hair radiates from my scalp like a froth of brown curls, some days simply reaching for madness. My front teeth have a gap and instead of lateral incisors, I have short, chubby fangs. For all these reasons, I don’t really get away with anything. I don’t even try. When my mom wakes me up to go work in the bodega with her, I go. I stay there all day, even though I want to be anywhere else. I envy the customers who walk in to buy things, then head happily into the sunny, warm afternoons, the rest of their days filled with unknown possibility. When I bring this up to my mother, she mentions that I enjoy food and shelter, and this is what it means to work.
“But don’t people who work get paid and have days off?” I ask, a limp rag hanging from my hand. I have been cleaning coagulated soda from the bottom of a refrigerator. She gives me a dangerous look then goes back to the mail she’s beens sorting through.
“La nevera con los galones de leche necesita limpieza.”
I hate cleaning the milk fridge. There’s always some weird, slimy, black stuff that covers the gallons of milk when they’re delivered that makes me wonder if they’re stored in some kind of factory filled with rats that like to shit on the plastic gallons. I wipe them down, anyway. I organize them by expiration dates, The fresh gallons of milk in the back of the fridge and the older ones in the front.
I look at the clock and calculate another eight hours to go before we close. Even then, I’ll have to go home and do nothing. My entire life feels like a prison sentence. The next morning, my mom stands over my bed as I’m sleeping and asks me if I’m going to church with her. Whether I say yes or no makes no difference: Either way, I have to go with her. I sit up in bed and, without waiting for an answer, she makes her way to the kitchen to make my father breakfast.
As we head out, my mother frowns at my hair and starts muttering under her breath, so I walk ahead, waiting for her in the apartment building’s hallway until she’s ready. The entire walk is a litany of criticisms. I’m relieved when we make it to the church. The large sandstone cathedral has two bell towers and a center tower with a rose-stained glass window in its center. The towers spiral toward the sky like daggers, overlooking the neighborhood, standing in judgment over its people. The cathedral has stood for as long as I’ve been alive and stood before I was even conceived. It’s one of the most successful dioceses in the city, in part because of its flexibility and its acknowledgment of its changing flock. As the people who lived in the neighborhood changed, so did the faces of the gods and goddesses.
The singing from inside is soft, growing louder as we walk up the marble front steps. As I step through the first set of double doors, awe and humility rise inside of me almost immediately. I buy a thin, white candle and light it at the feet of the Mother as she rises in the dark foyer, sucking all the light to her body, her lily-white arms extended, her face peaceful, smiling, as she steps on the head of a man who is in the process of turning into a snake.
“Save us from the patriarchy,” a woman nearby whispers in prayer.
I look at the face of the man: battered, bruised, his face twisted in humiliation. I don’t feel sorry for him. My grandmother told me about those men. The things they did, the violence and the horror that they spread upon the world.
“They thought they would get away with it forever. And for a little while, they did. A long time, they buried our mothers, our daughters, our sons, and husbands. But we bided our time. We bided our time and we came back.”
She puffed on her cigar and closed her eyes, her face smooth.
We enter through the heavy, wooden double doors. The floor stretches in front of us, a green, marble lake flecked with spots of white and black. The pillars are giant gods of marble, leading the eyes to the ceiling, which is filled with frescoes of the rich history of our faith. Saints at writing desks; angels leaning over their shoulders, whispering secrets. Saints in long, red robes, radiant suns around their heads, their lips crimson smiles, eyes cast upward.
My mother’s auburn hair shines in the soft light as she leads the way down the rows of pews. The fourth pew from the front is our place. We slide in and I pick out the program for the weekly mass from the hymn book rack. We both kneel and pray quietly. I ease off the kneeler and sit back in the pew, the program in my lap. The altar is being quietly set up by all the volunteers.
I recognize some of the girls from school and see Erica Francis among them. She volunteers in the church and is the head of the youth group. She also participates in school council and is the captain of the cheerleading team.
My stomach does flips when I see that Brother Jonah is going to be delivering the mass’ sermon. Erica moves over to Jonah, touching him lightly on the shoulder. My stomach lurches to my feet and my eyes sting. When Mass is over, I wait until almost everyone has filed out before I head towards the side of the church, which is made up of small, stone shrines that are architectural miracles in themselves. Each shrine houses a god, and enough space for penitents to light candles and leave offerings.
I can feel the waves of energy pulsating through the floor as I make my way to Marchosias’ shrine. She’s standing in the center of a low-set stone altar. All the candles around her have gone out. The small, stone cave is quiet and I work automatically, knowing by heart where all of the incense and fresh supplies are. I empty the censer with the resin-fused incense blocks. Pour fresh water into the chalice at her feet, sprinkling sweet-smelling spices into the water. A few drops of the oil I blended myself. I carry the charcoal between thumb and forefinger as I hold a lit match beneath it. When it begins to sizzle, flame moving like a tiny red worm around the diameter, I place it in the center of the censer, dropping the chopped resin in.
The smoke undulates, thick as hair in the dark. Fire comes last. I bring out fresh candles, knowing that no one visits this small stone grove except for me. I feel around for the glass bottles of candles and place them tentatively at her feet. I light them, my eyes adjusting to the flare of light, as the glow begins to slowly grow all around her, around me. She’s carved entirely out of red wood. The clear glaze around her body gives her the appearance of being covered in fresh blood. Her hands are extended on either side of her, one hand extended towards me, palm open.
I reach out and touch her fingers with mine. I take the biscuits from the ziploc bag in my purse, placing them in an empty silver dish at her feet. They look dark and cracked in the candlelight, but I know she will be pleased. I light one last candle, a dark maroon taper. I kneel on the cushion at her feet and cross my arms on my chest.
When I’m done, I dip my fingers in the lukewarm water, press them to her bare feet, then to my forehead and heart. I pull the golden bangle from my wrist and slide it on to hers. The necklaces that I have brought her throughout the years glitter around her neck and torso like chain mail in the flickering light. Her wolf eyes glow yellow. At the sound from the entrance, her snout furls and her eyes shift to the doorway. I am putting the supplies back in their place when Erica enters. My anger at her intrusion in my place of worship bubbles like a sulfur swamp.
“Hey, Sorha.” My name is chewed through her mouth, mispronounced, sounding sloppy and glib.
“It’s pronounced Sor-hah.” My voice comes out quieter than I’d like it to.
“You know, they’re thinking about opening up more space for more traditional saints.”
Her voice is saccharine, her perfume floral and too heavy. I shrug my shoulders with my back to her, placing the fresh carnations in the vase. They are pink, fluffy and baby-soft. I gently pass my fingertips over them, feeling the slight warmth that they emanate. A pity that they’ll be dried up and dead soon enough, but that is the nature of sacrifice.
“They might take her out of here. Empty out this entire shrine; put her in the dark storeroom.”
I unwillingly shiver at the thought of Marchosias being placed in a cold, dank basement, forgotten. I can tell that Erica has noticed and that it’s what she’s been hoping for.
“Kind of like you. Figures this would be your god of choice.”
I turn to her, the silver vase in my hand. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
Erica sneers and rolls her eyes, tossing her hair behind one shoulder.
“You’re the only one who believes any of this is real.” she extends one hand towards Marchosias. I instinctively tighten my grip on the silver vase. “Aside from the old people, I mean. No one believes in any of this in a non-metaphorical or non-ironic manner.”
Her smile is full of teeth and I find that I want to smash her face in.
“Welcome to reality.”
She turns on her heel and walks out, leaving me shaking with anger and hurt. I try to dispel the idea that one day, Marchosias won’t be here, that my tending to her shrine is a temporary thing. I place the vase with the carnations at her feet take one last look at her now-peaceful face before I walk out. My mother is waiting for me outside the gate and we walk home in stony silence. The sky has turned gray. The wind smells like leaves and overturned earth.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks.
I don’t know how to tell her that I am thinking about Jonah, the way his slender fingers hold the heavy book with the engraved, tentacled sea monster, that I saw him running at the park without a shirt on, that he has a tattoo on the inside of his well-formed bicep of a trident with two snakes coiled around the staff.
Our priesthoods are compatible. His dedication is recognized by the church but I still have to pass the tests, and finish my volunteer hours. When I become dedicated, our gods and priesthoods would be compatible, it would be one thing we would never have to argue about, if we were together, if we ever had children… I shake my head to dispel the dreams that cut me like sharp little knives when I’m alone. I can’t tell her that everything inside of me feels like white fire when he comes near me, or that I hate Erica Francis for taking away from me everything that I want for myself. I shrug. She doesn’t insist and we talk about the sermon instead. .
“I’m very impressed with the new young priest. Jonah, is it? It’s a very intelligent choice on the part of the Council to add him to the roster.”
“How so?”
I never considered that there was anything strategic about the priests that were chosen for sermons.
“He’s going to draw more people to church, obviously. He’s young, good-looking. You should have seen all of the women that were flirting with him on the way out. Even married ones!”
She’s scandalized.
It makes sense, I suppose. If the women were filling up the church, then their children would follow. I remember Erica Francis’ words and a violent shiver moves up my spine.
Monday is a gray day with a white sky and nothing but crows move in the trees. I can smell the rain that’s coming. I put on a thick, white Rogue t-shirt underneath my school uniform’s sky-blue blouse. I pick my silver necklace from my own statue of Marchosias. It’s coiled around her neck and draped over her wings. She sits on her haunches and peers ahead, as if suspicious of what the future could bring. I uncoil the silver from around her and clasp it around my neck.
The pendants are a gold wishbone, a wolf’s head, and a heavy locket with a crescent moon on it. I let it hang outside of my blouse and slip gold bangles on my wrists.
School itself is a blur. I sit with my friends Katie and Salazal during lunch. I don’t discuss Marchosias with them. Instead, I nod and smile at the stories they tell about their boyfriends, concerns over exams, things that in all fairness, I should be concerned about, as well. Whatever the cost, I know: Marchosias has to stay.
My blood runs cold, and then boiling hot, as I see Brother Jonah walk in through the cafeteria’s double doors. He’s wearing blue jeans and a dark burgundy polo shirt. I stare at him helplessly as he walks in with Brothers Peter and Saul at his side. They’re laughing about something and I feel that he’s detected my gaze. I duck my head when he turns to look in my direction.
I count to ten before I look up again and my stomach drops in horror. He’s looking straight at me, unsmiling. I look away first, my ears burning. I feel his gaze on me until well after I’ve left the cafeteria, finished eighth period, and am making my way to the rectory office to look at the schedule.
Marchosias’ shrine is on the list in need of cleaning. I sigh in relief. It means there have been a number of offerings made, which bodes well for her and her popularity. I sign my name next to Marchosias’ slot as caretaker, giving Susan the secretary an exhausted smile. I walk down to the basement where the lockers are. St. Magdalena’s is more open than other churches to keeping its doors open after hours, sometimes well into the night, allowing us volunteers free rein of the grounds while we work. I slam the locker door, tying my apron on. It has a tag with the word ‘Volunteer’ and my name on it.
I walk down the silent and dark hallway, hands in my pockets, challenging myself to not fear the dark. The church is transformed after hours. It’s all dark except for the candles flickering from the altars, a few wall lamps that are lit so we can see. Outside of those spheres of light, the darkness swarms heavy, and this place of worship and safety suddenly seems sinister. I grab the metal pail at the head of the stairs and make my way over the sea of silent marble to Marchosias’ shrine.
I can smell the blood biscuits going stale, some meat that’s beginning to go bad. I light the match and touch its flame to the wall torque, lowering the stained glass covering the torque so the light is dimmed to a purplish, pinkish glow.
It settles around the shrine and around her body. Her belly is rounded beneath her flowing robe, her hands settled around the soft mound. Her wolf grin is pleasant in the glow of the shrine. Her penitents this week are putting me to work tonight; her offerings are raw steaks, already beginning to turn black, some breads and pastries.
The goblet is filled with milk, some of it sloshed out of the cup and onto the stone beneath. I dump the food into the pail, using a piece of biscuit to clean off each plate. It makes a wet sound that slightly disgusts me when it hits the rest of the food in the pail. I pull my rubber gloves out of my apron, making my way with a full pail back into the basement, this time turning left where I turned right previously to go to the lockers.
The dark hallway leads to several doors, but the one I’m looking for is to my right. The courtyard is dark and silent. I bite the handle of my flashlight between my teeth directing the light towards the compost pile. Flower beds rise and fall on every side of me. I pull open the gate and it creaks, leading me into the wilder parts of the garden. Where the things that rot go. The compost pile is in the center of the clearing, a large wooden fence built all around it. I make my way to the fence and climb up on the lowest rung. I turn the pail upside down, dumping the food in. There are maggots as long as my fingers wriggling in the soil. There are so many that it looks as if the soil itself is moving, heaving up and down. Breathing. Sacrifice taking on new life.
I turn away from the mound before I feel the retch forming in my mouth, walking back the way I came. I am cleaning the goblets and silver offering plates in the kitchen when I hear Erica’s laugh. I turn off the water and listen. I shut off the kitchen light and stand very still. She wasn’t on the list of volunteers for the night. Her laugh is mingled with someone else’s. It’s low, seductive, and the man is aroused. I can taste it in the way he breathes in before he speaks. His laugh is a galaxy of blue with specks of darker blue in nimbus clouds. Hers is the white of winter, a cold slash in the dark. It’s Jonah. And Erica. I close my eyes and my soapy hand closes around the moon locket hanging from my neck.
“Come on,” she croons. I can see their bodies framing the doorway to the Paula shrine. Goddess of the light. I watch as Erica caresses the side of Jonah’s face, watch the way his body sags toward hers.
Thief.
“That Marchosias shrine is in the best spot in the church. Paula deserves it more.” She places a kiss by the side of his mouth. “Think about it. All that rotting meat and food in the best place in the church? Paula demands sweet things, perfumes and incense.”
Jonah is uncomfortable, but he doesn’t move away when her mouth finds his. As he is a priest of the blood gods, I can imagine his discomfort at the way Erica has framed her argument.
“Marchosias is a great goddess. She belongs in that shrine and she has followers, even a priestess in the making.” My heart catches in my throat at his words.
Erica sucks air between her teeth. “Do you mean that puny Sorha? If that’s the priestess that Marchosias chose, then I can see why she’s going to lose that shrine before she can even be dedicated.” Jonah moves away from Erica, but she doesn’t seem worried.
“You like her. I can tell. She has that old quality to her. Like you.” Erica presses her palm to Jonah’s chest. “But you know how we operate. We’ll see who wins the spoils of war.”
She enters the shrine as Jonah walks away from her. I turn on the kitchen light, turning the water on again. The silence in my mind is deafening. I finish washing and drying the plates, bringing them up the stairs with me. The church is quiet as I make my way to my shrine. I put away the dishes, finish cleaning the stone beneath Marchosias’ feet. Gone is the contented look. Now her head is lowered, her muzzle furled, revealing sharp teeth. I tip some of the jasmine oil over her head and on her feet. It fills the shrine with its aroma.
“Well, that’s a change.” I whirl around and Erica is at the entrance to the shrine, her long, dark hair in a low ponytail. Her dark eyes look over Marchosias and there is almost a tinge of envy in them. “If only most of her offerings smelled as good as that oil.”
I say nothing and continue to wipe down with the oily rag. She moves into the shrine, kicking the pail at the foot of the statue.
“You should stop.” My voice is clear, strong. Every cell in my body is vibrating to some distant hum. I feel it radiating from the statue, inside of me. “Please stop,” I say again.
I’m not sure if it’s the ‘Please’, but suddenly, Erica is in my face, her long finger in between my eyes.
“You have no business being a priestess! You and this abomination have no place here. She’ll be out of here before the end of the month and you with her. There isn’t another church giving the cult of the Fallen a chance.”
Her smile is sharp.
I know she isn’t lying. I know the power that she and others hold in the church. I move faster than I feel. I pick up the ceremonial blade, slashing it across her throat as arterial blood sprays me in the face. I wind my arm back, bringing it forward with all the force I can summon, finally burying the blade in her stomach.
Her face is a mask of confusion but only for a few moments. I drag her by the hair and place her bleeding neck at the statue’s feet. There is so much blood that it pools around the statue, dripping down the altar, all over the shrine floor. The blood creeps along the marble, turning the green lake black.
When the pools of blood stop moving, I hoist the body on my back, carrying it out into the garden. With a shovel, I make a place for her beneath the mountains of maggots, and watch as the moving earth and garbage cover up her limp body. There is no trace of blood in Marchosias’ shrine the next day. Erica’s body is not found and Paula’s shrine is destroyed that same night. The goddess is found crumbled, teeth marks along her white neck, her eyes hollowed out. When I look at Brother Jonah now, as helplessly as ever, I don’t look away when our eyes meet. My ears and lips burn, but I don’t look away.