Maldito & Tomás

When he first became aware of the scorn of those around him, Maldito only barely survived the spirit-crushing realization. Nobody, not a single soul, wanted or needed him.

But over the years, as he observed his parents and siblings through sullen eyes, he began to notice something different, something very odd. Their closeness as a family unit was not based on the scent of a common mother or the strong, comforting arms of a doting father. It was based on a mutual and all-inclusive battle for dominance. They did not remain together for the sake of love, but because they could not bring themselves to abandon the battle once it had been joined.

His mother would follow her husband from room to room, wailing or repeating herself in staccato outbursts until he gave in, usually after a minor, face-saving explosion of temper.

His father would glare or growl menacingly at any of his other sons at any time to force capitulation. Likewise he would speak calmly with any of his daughters through only one explanation. If that one didn't take he would raise his voice and simply overpower the girl, will for will.

And the girls were manipulative in their own right. With their eyes, they would exercise a flirting kind of pleading to ensure their father's approval, which he often rendered without realizing it. But they would never try the same gimmick on their mother. With her they would withhold affection or resort to name calling and yelling.

And the siblings exercised all sorts of control over each other: yelling, threatening, nagging, pleading and tattling. On those occasions when disagreements came to blows—and one argument or another came to blows at least a few times each week—tufts of hair were snatched from scalps, fingernails left red claw marks along arms and cheeks, and knuckles were skinned and teeth loosened and eyes blackened.

Even when the very young Maldito sought attention from the extended family—his grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins from only his mother's side of the family—he found only rejection. His mother, the indomitable Eufemia, would allow none of them to go near him or to display so much as a smile in his direction.

More than once his grandmother's face registered anguish. But his mother, in a voice harsher than usual, insisted, "Mother! One as accursed as he might well be contagious! Leave him be!" Witnessing their youngest sister's vehemence and having lived with it first hand for several years, his aunts and uncles didn't even try to break through it. And their children—Maldito’s cousins—naturally followed suit.

Over time Maldito pieced together the puzzle that was his mother.

Eufemia had thought that she—a daughter and the thirteenth child of a thirteenth child, also a daughter—had expected to break "the curse," as she called it, by marrying and bearing the children of his father, José, also the thirteenth son of a thirteenth son.

But alas, the curse could be broken only by a son, and there had been nothing special about the six sons she had borne before Maldito. So his mother, having failed to break the curse with a special child, had been determined to break it by not bearing another.

For almost three years after her twelfth child was born, her womb had remained dormant. Then, per her interpretation, she had been “cursed” by God with another pregnancy. When she bore her thirteenth child, she believed she had merely extended the curse through another generation. She had even named the child Maldito, which means Accursed.

She had then turned her back on him with such finality that she never noticed his soft-spoken manner or that he had  taught himself to read and write and to capture in his sketch pad things that others could not capture even in their imagination. She failed even to notice his determined self-reliance.

After his mother's comment about him being accursed, Maldito spent less and less time at home.

Eufemia would not enroll him in school, but she also did not want him around the house.

For the first, he spited her, but for the second, he was happy to oblige. He made sure he was on time for school each weekday morning, although he sat outside beneath the open window of the classroom, pencil stub and paper in hand. When assignments filtered out through the window, he would work on them until he was satisfied they were correct and that he fully understood the concept.

When he tired of completing assignments sitting beneath the window of a school from which he would never graduate and for a teacher whom he would never meet, he would practice sketching the farmacia across the street or the dapper gentleman and his well-dressed lady coming out of the bank on the next corner.

On days when there was no school, he stayed away from home as well. Sometimes he drew sketches of scenes in and near the village and sometimes performed odd jobs for people who required the assistance of a wiry young man.

Even those who hired him to clean their yard or move adobe blocks kept their distance. The word had gotten around town that he was accursed, and most found it better not to tempt fate.

Only Serafina, the midwife who had delivered him—she also was rumored to be the town witch—occasionally called him into her home. She would give him cold water or tea or chocolate and tell him stories that were remarkable, even fantastic. A few times he had  thought she was going to embrace him, but she always pulled away at the last moment.

She was careful not to over indulge him with human compassion, for to do so might have created differences within him that others would notice.

When a destiny has been established, it is not wise for mere humans to embroil themselves in attempts to alter it.

Maldito did experience a light, false version of human compassion when he interacted with the tourists who came twice a week through the village on the bus. He sold many of his sketches for twenty or thirty centavos each, and as his reputation grew he occasionally would be commissioned by a local for up to five or ten pesos. He used the first bit of his money to buy a small leather pouch, and a bit more for a notebook, a sketchbook, and a few pencils. He put the other coins inside his pouch and kept it well hidden.

The tourists smiled at him with a sort of condescending kindness, as if at a child playing a role for their entertainment. They spoke to him and at him and about him—but never with him—with a certain elevated reserve. Some of them even dug into their purses or wallets and bought a drawing or two from him.

Then, as the driver started the engine and the accordion door screeched open, they filed one after another through the narrow opening and up the steps into the bus. There they stowed their packages and themselves and settled into comfortable sense of having made a "real connection" with a "poor little boy." One whom they had forgotten completely before the bus passed the outskirts of the village.  

* * *

Over the next several years, the cumulative rejection caused the heaviness in Maldito’s chest to grow. He wore a dark frown more and more often. The townspeople attributed it to heredity, assuming it had come from his father.

He could hardly stand the sight and sounds of those in his so-called family, so he kept to himself. He never returned to the house until darkness had taken the land and after everyone else had eaten the evening meal and left the table. Used to eating only once a day, he would creep into the kitchen after dark and take what he could find without making noise or creating a mess. Then he would go off to his cot on the back porch, eat, and go to sleep.

He no longer cared that the once-ominous shadows still graced the windows of the neighbor's house. They were either harmless or they would end his misery. Either way he saw no harm in them. The next morning he would be up and dressed before sunrise and sitting beneath the window of the classroom before school started.

Such was his day to day life. But although it was the only way he had ever known, he had  seen too much in town to believe it was the natural way to live. There was laughter between other children and their parents. There was conversation between the parents themselves or between siblings or friends. There were many expressions of joy and anger and elation and melancholy. And far too many of them took it all for granted.

Maldito resigned himself to being alone and making his own way in the world.

* * *

Then came the day when Maldito's contemporaries left the little school for the final time and filtered off into their lives. Those whose parents had extra money went south to an academy where they would live and receive more schooling.

Of the others, the girls who had been allowed to attend school in the first place returned to their homes to learn to be women, to take care of a house and a husband and a family. The boys searched out apprenticeships in the village and in nearby villages and towns.

There was nothing more for Maldito to learn at the school.

He had very seldom even spoken with the others, but he thought of them as his friends. As they left to go their own ways, he developed a thirsty, boundless curiosity about them. That curiosity soon expanded to include all of those who lived luxuriously normal, mundane lives within an amazingly dull and wonderful routine of smiles and hugs and laughter.

Oddly, he also felt protective of them. Almost responsible for them.

Before long his resignation to a life of solitude dissipated. It was replaced with a strange sense of freedom. He began to set aside the heaviness he seemed to have always carried in his chest. Although at times he could feel it writhing about as if searching for a stronger hold. But being able to feel it at all was good. That he could sense it as a separate entity meant it had not replaced his soul.

Practically everyone had rejected him, but perhaps that was a good thing. Having no ties meant nobody could levy control over him.

He would embrace the world.

* * *

A few days after his fourteenth birthday, which had passed without ceremony like all of the ones before, he crept into the dark kitchen. A sliver of moonlight lay across the center of the room and part of the counter, illuminating a slice of uneaten toast left over from supper. Just as he reached for it, from a chair in the dark corner near the window, Eufemia screeched, "Thief! A thief in my house!"

He wheeled to his right. "Mamá! Mamá, it is not a thief! It is me! Maldito!"

She rose and stepped into the sliver of moonlight. "You are a thief and you have always been a thief! You stole breath on the day you were born! You stole lessons from the school! You stole a life you should never have had! You have always been a curse on this family, and now you have proven yourself a thief yet again!"

Helpless before her assault, he held out his bounty. "But it is—it is only a bit of bread, Mamá! It is all that was left. It would be thrown to the chickens in the morning!"

"Then you have stolen it from the chickens too! Take it and get out!" She pointed toward the door. "I do not know how you have survived this long! Go! Die and release this family from the claws of your curse!"

Maldito let the toast fall to the floor. His jaw clenched as he held back tears he thought had dried up long ago. Then he turned and walked out.

Behind the house, he bent double, hands on his knees, his whole body trembling uncontrollably as the darkness rumbled in his chest and sent messages to his brain: Return to the house! Kill the worthless bitch! She is hatred incarnate! Kill her and then kill the others!

He forced his breathing to slow, quelling the shuddering darkness.

Finally he stopped trembling, although he was cold from the sweat that caked his body.

He straightened and leaned back against the wall. Again the darkness surged within him, and he put a hand to his forehead, squeezed his temples. "Why? I have done nothing to her! Why does she hate me so? It is not my fault she allowed her soulless husband to soil her! It is not my fault I was the thirteenth child instead of the first or the fifth."

He looked up at the stars and shook his head.

Just over the mountain in the distance, one star flashed for only an instant.

Quietly, he said, “But I am free, like the light from the stars. No ties, no control. I am free.”

A lightness filled Maldito's heart, then radiated out through his chest, pushing the darkness back down into its own foul folds.

At last he understood. "That is it. That is the whole thing. None of this was of my doing. None of it is my fault."

A short while later, when he was certain the woman who had given birth to him had gone to bed, he walked back into the kitchen and stuffed his pockets with venison jerky and some folded tortillas. Then he went to the back porch, folded his cot and leaned it against the wall. That was where it belonged.

He threw his few extra clothes into a small bag and slipped out through the back door. Anxious to begin his new life, he ran hard for just over four kilometers before he finally heard the calm edge of the sea rhythmically lapping, lapping, lapping on the sand, some of which sparkled in the starlight.

He slowed, then stopped, breathing hard, and peered off to his right. A large, darker shadow loomed a short distance away: the coastal jungle. He turned and trotted toward it, his chest growing lighter with each step.

When he reached the jungle, he plunged into the foliage, then slowed to a walk. He carefully picked his way deeper into the brush, the sounds of the sea steadily growing fainter behind him. A half-hour later he stopped and nestled-in among the welcoming roots of an ancient samán, or rain tree.

He pulled his kit up under his head and closed his eyes.

Soon after he fell asleep the roots adjusted, forming themselves more snugly around him.

Cradling him.

Glad he had finally come.  

* * *

The sun woke him a few hours later, glistening off the green crystal dew droplets that coated most of the leaves around his makeshift nest. He lay very still for awhile, listening.

Later he rose to one knee, then cautiously stood, all the while peering through the openings in the foliage. He soon realized nobody was looking for him, either as a runaway or a thief. The darkness throbbed in his chest.

He shook his head lightly and murmured, "I am truly unwanted." Then he smiled. "That is a small price to pay for my freedom."

A moment later, he took a deep breath. "I should explore my new home."

But he had  taken only a few steps when something similar to a light breeze tugged at the back of his shirt. He took another step.

The force tugged again, a bit more insistently.

A mental image came to mind. The tree?

Slowly, he turned around and, for the first time, really looked at the samán tree.

It was magnificent. It rose a hundred feet into the sky, its canopy spread almost as wide as if shielding this part of the jungle. Its trunk was six feet across, and the roots that had formed his bed the night before were a half-foot thick. He had  slept on the west side of the tree, and on that side, it looked like any other tree, rounded and curving away, its gnarled, corky bark punctuated diagonally with ridges and fissures.

On the south side though—the side he was facing—and on the east side, although it was still covered with ridged and fissured bark, the trunk was nearly flat. It was as vertical as if it had been pressed. On the east side, not only was the trunk table-flat and perfectly vertical, but a broad, flat root ran away from the tree almost four feet before diving underground.

Maldito looked away for a moment, blinked his eyes a few times, then looked again.

The right side of the tree seemed to form a portal—at least the left side of a portal—and he felt drawn to it.

“Certainly this is the source of the power I felt a moment ago.”

He took a step back, then centered his gaze on the trunk of the tree, slightly higher than his own head, where he fancied its face would be if it had one. "I cannot stay now, but I will be back. I—There is something I have to do. Though I am not sure what it is."

He glanced at the ground and shook his head, then grinned. “I am talking to a tree.” Then he looked up again and murmured, "But then, you probably know more about that than I do."    

Although he hadn't felt confined, suddenly he felt released.

Apparently the same force that had tugged at him earlier had formed a kind of cocoon around the area, enclosing him and the tree in a safe environment. He hadn't noticed it before, but he certainly noticed its absence. For a moment, he missed the security.

The warm comfort it had provided.

* * *

He backed away from the tree almost reverently, said a silent Thank you that he was certain the tree could hear. Then he turned away and began exploring the jungle patch.

All morning he crossed diagonally from the edge of the strand to the base of the rolling hills, then back. After a few hours he encountered a small stream. It trickled happily over polished stones, seemingly repeating a soft, joyous refrain: Come along home, the road to home. Come along home, the road to home. Come along home, the road to home....

Maldito listened and almost becoming mesmerized. But eventually he remembered himself and shook his head. “Just finding the Portal Tree—" for that's how he had  come to think of the samán tree he had  found the night before, “Was amazing. It must have used up that one chance in a million. To find two such miracles in a single lifetime, much less a single day, is too much to believe.”

Still, after a few minutes, he decided to follow the stream to its source.

* * *

The trip up the mountain was remarkably easy. With only a couple hours of daylight left, he came across a crystal-clear pool about twenty feet across. He lay on his belly at the edge of the pool and cupped his hand to drink, then sat up and took a piece of jerky from his pocket.

As he looked around, his gaze fell on what appeared to be the corner of a thick rock wall.

Envisioning strong men defending the walls in battle, he clamped his jerky in his teeth, pushed himself up from the ground, and went to investigate.

An ancient stone structure stood about thirty yards from the stream, and it was concealed in brush beneath the low-hanging limbs of trees.

He walked along the wall, which was three feet thick at the base. It rose to a height of six feet where it was less in need of repair, and it fell to as low as two feet where it had been knocked down and eroded.

He soon came to an arched opening a few feet wide that apparently had been the main entrance to a courtyard. Inside, other stones had been fitted and stacked snugly to form two side walls that appeared to jut directly out of a hill.

Again the walls were almost three feet thick at the base. The front wall was intact as well, and was breeched by another arched entrance that had once framed a door. In the corner to the right of that doorway, what appeared to be a walking stick leaned in the corner.

He stepped through the doorway.

The main room was about sixteen feet by sixteen feet. Part of the thatch roof had deteriorated and crashed to the dirt floor to the right of the entrance.

He continued and stepped through a narrow entryway in the back wall of the main room. That led him into a second room that had been dug into the hillside and was almost as large as the first.

To one side through an even smaller passageway that seemed to have been carved out of solid limestone, there was another, much smaller room with a small opening in the roof. Through the opening filtered a thin, dim shaft of light.

He looked hastily around both rooms to be sure he was alone, then stepped back through the door and passed through the main room and into the courtyard.

He glanced out at the sea, which he could see plainly from his new vantage point.

After a long moment he went back into the main room, put down his kit and used some of the old thatch roof to fashion a bed. He slept on the floor of his new living room that night.

For the first time in a very long time, he was not visited with dreams.

The shadows he encountered were friendly and protective instead of frightening.

He had  left all of that behind.

* * *

The warming rays of the newly risen sun slanted through the courtyard entrance the following morning.  They felt particularly good, as if they were coming from a sun Maldito had never encountered before.

He stretched and smiled. For the first time ever, he felt as if he were home.

He rose and went out into the courtyard, then out through the main entrance.

As if being guided, he felt drawn to turn left, then left again. To climb the slope of the hill on the north side of the small compound.

He did so and then stopped, looking about the top of the hill. At what he thought must have been the approximate center of the roof of the second room, he discovered a circle of stones.

The circle was about six feet across and very old. It was formed of four arcs: yellow stones in the east, red stones in the south, blue stones in the west, and white stones in the north. It apparently had been left by the ancients.

He entered the circle reverently from the east, as he sensed he should do. Then he sat cross-legged, facing west, and stared out over the sea. It was the broadest panorama he could ever have imagined.

He placed his forearms on his knees and closed his eyes. As if he had  done this many times before, he automatically attuned his senses—or perhaps they attuned themselves—to the breeze.

Wafting up the hill were scenes of warriors and men and women and children, all going about their assigned tasks. There were also the aromas and flavor of corn meal and fish, bread baking and meat cooking over fire or boiling in water. Sounds came to him of laughter and singing and the crack of the children's sticks on wooden hoops as they guided them over the sand along the beach.

And voices. Somber, ancient voices, bade him welcome home.

He quickly opened his eyes, certain he had  trespassed on another's dream, but the gentle weight of the sun on his shoulders forced his eyes to close.

Over and over again, images of strong warriors came into focus four abreast. Welcome, our king, the ancients whispered. Welcome home.

They faded as they bowed and backed away with reverence. And each time, four more approached. Welcome, our king. We will walk with you. As those bowed, faded and backed away, four more appeared. Those repeated the first greeting, and then four more appeared and repeated the second.

 They continued to come until he had been welcomed by one hundred and forty-four warriors. Before half of them had appeared and faded, a heartening warmth began in his center and moved along his spine. He physically straightened as it did so. The warmth radiated out over his shoulders and arms, down through his hips and legs and feet.

He shut out all physical sensations, even the breeze on his skin, and strived to listen to the world beyond this one. It was important to listen.  

Messages filtered in from ethereal voices, solemn but rejoicing, whispering reverently through joyful lips. Welcome, our king. You are home. Here you will unburden yourself and become yourself. Here you will let the other go and become who you are. The one called Accursed is the promise. You will enter the portal and walk the path. You are home.

Maldito had never seen or heard anything so comforting or reassuring.

As the voices finally began to fade, he smiled, then opened his eyes without trouble and without guilt. "This is my family," he said quietly. He looked out over the sea. "And who needs anything more when he has the world for a front yard?"

After what he thought had been perhaps a half-hour, he stepped out of the circle and descended the hill on the south side, where he realized the sun had completed half of its climb to zenith.

He followed the wall around the corner to the entrance. Just as he entered the courtyard and approached the large front room of the house, the sun's rays reflected from the back corner of the second room.

He went to investigate and found a shiny half-circle on the floor.

A magic glass!

He had heard of such things in tales around town, but he had never seen one up close.

The half-circle was about six inches across the jagged, broken base. Other, much smaller bits were scattered around his feet.

He picked-up the mirror and turned it over and over in his hands. He marveled at the smoothly changing scene reflected in the bright side contrasted with the flat, dark, leaden shade of the other side.

He carried the glass through the front room and into the center of the courtyard, then turned himself so the sun would illuminate the glass over his shoulder.

He peered into it.

It was the first time he had  seen his own reflection.

So this is me. This is Maldito.

In the glass was a striking young man with warm, olive skin, raven hair and dark-brown eyes sprinkled with black and golden specks.

His young face was solid and angular, with high cheekbones, a solid nose and full lips. For a moment his vision clouded and a warrior with a gold band around his forehead peered out at him. He sensed an ethereal connection and remembered the dream he had experienced on the hill.

He blinked his eyes and shook his head slightly to clear the vision. In doing so, her  reverted back to being a fourteen year old boy. He wrinkled his brow and ran his fingers along his hairline. He brushed his hair aside and watched it fall back into place across his forehead.

He grinned broadly, then hooked one finger into the corner of his mouth to spread it to the side. He stuck out his tongue, then pulled it back in. He opened his mouth wide and studied his teeth. He extended his arm a bit, moving the mirror farther away so he could see his whole face.

And his grin faded to a closed-mouth smile and then a dark, scowling frown. He growled and watched his lips pull away from his teeth. Then he pulled the glass closer again. He traced one finger carefully along the scar beneath the corner of his left eye.

And part of another face—a dark, hooded face—appeared next to his in the glass.

The voice was quiet. "That must have hurt a great deal."

* * *

Maldito dropped the mirror and crouched, spinning out of reach on his left heel. He backed away until the stone wall of the front room was at his back. Without taking his gaze from the shrouded stranger, he grasped to his left for the old walking stick and brandished it. "I am not going back! I will not! I am not a curse and I am not a thief, and I will not go back!"

The man's face shifted beneath the hood of his dark-brown robe. But a sorrowful kindness seemed to settle over him, and he smiled warmly. "Oh my son, I am so sorry I startled you. Of course you do not have to go back." The man spread his hands before him. "But go back where? And of course you are not a curse! How could such a fine young man ever be considered a curse?"

Maldito stared at him.

He appears to be a priest. "Who sent you here? I do not remember seeing you in Agua Rocosa." He leaned to glance past the man. "Are there any others with you? I have done nothing wrong."

He paused and took a breath, trying to calm himself. Then he remembered the vision on top of the hill. The ancients had welcomed him. Not someone else, him. They had said he was home.

A steely fire filled his young eyes, seeming to connect and reflect from the ebony and gold specks. He raised his chin slightly. "This is my home, and I will not leave! I have done nothing wrong!"

Still standing near the center of the courtyard, the man in the robe pushed the hood back off his head so it lay on his back, then turned his hands so his palms were facing up. "I apologize. Nobody has sent me. Truly, I have come alone."

The boy remained silent.

"I come here occasionally to meditate, but I did not realize I was trespassing." He paused again and put his right hand on his chest. "I am Tomás. And you?"

"I—I am called Maldito." He looked at the ground and shook his head lightly, fighting back tears. "I am called Maldito by a mother who believes me accursed and a hateful father who is angry that he was born with no soul."

A moment later, he seemed to have gathered himself. He lowered the walking stick and gestured in a short arc with his left hand. "I came here only yesterday, Father. You did not trespass."

The lightest hint of a smile curled the corner of the man's lips. He nodded. "Still, I was only a visitor. It is your new home. May I come in and sit? Perhaps we can exchange tales."

Maldito studied the man's face for a long moment. His skin, which seemed of the finest leather, bore only the slightest olive tint. That plus the normal weathering of wind and sun that resulted from a life spent in honest labor. The bald spot on his head was fringed with black and grey hair cut very short. When relaxed, his eyes were narrow slits, having grown used to yielding to the intensity of the sun.

Maldito felt drawn to those eyes for a moment, as if he should study them. But he released the thought.

“Not now,” he said quietly.

From somewhere, a voice came into his mind. Not yet.

The priest seemed not to hear either voice.

The lines leading outward from the corners of Tomás' eyes indicated that he had laughed a great deal. His square jaw framed the lines leading down from the corners of his nose and mouth, which were perfectly parallel, making his face seem balanced. Overall he radiated a calm wisdom.

Maldito was sure, for some reason, the priest had not been disturbed for a very long time. As if he himself were ancient. Something about the man, something about him being in this place at this time, felt right.

This man is supposed to be here. Perhaps he is here to help me. To assist me.

He frowned. Assist me with what? But I will trust him.

He nodded and gestured toward the door.

Tomás walked past Maldito into the front room and sat, his back against the smooth wall opposite where Maldito had made his bed the prior evening. When he was comfortable, his forearms on his knees, the fingers of one hand lightly interlocked with the fingers of the other, he looked up. "I am a bit tired, so why don't you tell me your story first? First, please, tell me about the place to which you would rather not return."

That was the last thing the priest said for three hours.

* * *

Maldito sat cross-legged in front of the man, facing him, and the story began to flow out of him at the natural beginning. His birth. He was so relaxed that he felt almost as if he were simply reciting memories he had purposely stored in chronological order. They flowed smoothly from his mouth as if he had rehearsed this moment of release over and over.

He had reached the part about his mother naming him and the venom in her voice when a fiery, sharp pain scraped across his ribs.

He caught his breath, abruptly stopped speaking, and frowned.

Wait! How could I have remembered that?

But as he continued, he realized that he remembered all sorts of things he should not have been able to remember. He remembered everything. Even the actual birth itself. Even the only kind woman he had ever known.

Serafina. Yes, Serafina, She who is called both a midwife and a witch.

He seemed to hear and recited the exact words his mother had said to Serafina on the day of his birth. And what she had said later about her.

And I have already conveyed all of that to this priest! What must he think, knowing my own mother proclaimed me stillborn so she wouldn't have to deal with me?

For a moment he paused and stared, wide eyed, at Tomás.

To his credit, Tomás allowed only the slightest smile to cross his face.

And somehow, Maldito heard the priest’s thoughts too:

He is the one. He is the one for whom we have waited.

Yet despite the priest’s apparent excitement, he maintained his calm demeanor. In an attempt to comfort the boy, he only nodded. Then he simply waited for Maldito to complete this necessary purging of the creature he had been. The creature that had been forced upon him.

Calmed and reassured by Tomás' demeanor and the absence of any sort of judgmental expression, Maldito began speaking again. It was as if he were witnessing the events of his early life through a distant lens.

He fairly sped through the more tedious parts of the tale, but something told him he had to include them. One must endure even the most mundane, wearisome legs of a expedition to reach the destination.

Although he didn't yet know it, the recounting and purging of his life up to this point was the most important journey Maldito would ever undertake. Until he eradicated the persona others had forced upon him, he could never assume his rightful place in the world.

The purging went fairly smoothly until he encountered, conveyed and thereby expelled a major emotional or  spiritual injury. At those times he physically shuddered as another firebrand sizzled inside his chest. Then one more harmful, jagged piece of the story was torn loose and exorcized.

The pain flowed out through his mouth from where it had been imbedded next to his soul. From where it had attached itself to the back of a rib or the front of his spine. Or—like the ensuing cruelty when he was only three years old and the rusted, headless nail had slashed across his cheekbone and scraped along beneath his left eye—wrapped tightly around his heart.

As he struggled through the telling, it seemed a battle between himself and his past. As more and more major, harsh parts of the story were torn loose and siphoned up and out through his throat and mouth, he realized with horror that the story itself was a kind of parasite. It had been living within him, sapping his strength, killing him. And now the very act of purging it was draining him, and that was almost as frightening.

Somehow he knew he must continue. That this would be his only chance. Retaining the pain of the story would destroy his soul. Purging it might kill him, but if he survived he would be new and whole.

The ancients had spoken to him and he had seen himself in the magic glass, both as this old self and as the self he was to become.

And the priest! The priest came to me for just this purpose!

Resolve flooded through him.

Tomás had noticed the painful spasms that periodically wracked Maldito's body as he expelled one part of the story and then another and another. Silently and with no outward expression, he called to the ancients for strength for the boy. He remembered his own trial and how excruciatingly painful it had been.

But at least he was born an adult. He sensed that making the transition from earth to flesh was nothing compared to what his young charge was going through. Or what he had yet to endure.

A strong, evil frown settled over Maldito's trembling face as he neared the end of his tale.

His voice slowed and softened into a mumbling growl even as he forced out the final sentences. He forced himself to his feet as he continued, growing weaker by the moment. "She—the woman, Eufemia—"

His skin reddened. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and beneath his eyes. His entire body trembled. "She called me—thief—" He shuddered again and heaved violently as if he would vomit. "She screamed—I should die—That—that I should die!. And I ran...."

He stopped trembling all at once. His head and then his shoulders sagged. As if the darkness that had been imbedded in him for fourteen years had abandoned him to seek out a weaker soul.

He was finished.

Tomás leapt to his feet to catch Maldito as he fell. He turned him, then lowered him to the ground so his back was against the smooth back wall of the room.  

* * *

After he had rested awhile, Maldito looked at the priest. “I-I slept in the roots of the mother samán. She is the Portal Tree, you know." He paused. "And when I awoke, she spoke to me. A little later I found the stream. And—and I could have sworn—"

"It spoke to you as well, yes? About it being a path?"

"Yes. I remember, it repeated, ‘Come along home, the road to home.’ Over and over.” He paused. “But how did you know that?"

Tomás ignored the question. "Go on, please."

Maldito shrugged. "I follow the stream, and it led me to the pool. Then I saw the corner of the wall. And then my home."

The priest nodded. "Tell me, have you been to the circle?"

Maldito only looked at the priest for a long moment. Then looked at the ground and nodded. "I heard things while I was there too. I heard and smelled and felt and tasted things." He looked up. "At first I thought I was experiencing a vision meant for someone else. I started to leave, but—well, the sun would not let me. It—it kind of held me to the ground. Warm on my shoulders."

Tomás smiled and nodded. "I am very familiar with the impetuous sun. Please, go on."

"It also—it sort of closed my eyes, and then the vision continued. Señor Tomás, I really hope I didn't—"

Tomás smiled. "No, no... you did nothing wrong. And please, just Tomás. You will understand why soon enough. Anything else?"

Maldito thought for a moment, then shrugged. "I don't think so. I found the magic glass, and then you came.” He paused in thought. “No. I am sure there is no more."

Tomás rose and Maldito followed suit. Tomás bowed slightly, then grinned. "It will be all right now, young one. As for the burden placed upon you by others—You have carried it with honor. You have borne it like a king. And now you have tossed it aside, as well you should. In the vision, did you see warriors?"

"Yes. Four at a time. They kept coming and coming. I think there were thirty-six rows of them. They said—"

Tomás raised one hand. "You do not have to tell me. They were reporting to you and swearing their allegiance, young one. I will tell you more about that later. Did others speak with you before the vision ended?"

Maldito's eyes lit up. "Yes! They said, 'Here you will unburden yourself and become yourself.’” He frowned. “Whatever that means. And they said, ‘Here you will let the other go and become who you are.' Something like that."

Tomás smiled. "Exactly like that. And the rest was 'The one called Accursed is the promise.'"  

"But what does it all mean? Do you know who I am? Or what I am? Are you here to help me?"

Tomás nodded. "I know well who you are, and yes, I am here to help you. I have been here, waiting, preparing the way for a very long time. But that is a story for another time. For now, I will tell you this: As the ancients said, you have unburdened yourself and now will become yourself, or as the ancients also put it, 'the one called Accursed is the promise.'

“As they said, you have let the other go, and you have become who you are. You were the one called Maldito. Now you are the promise. You are Gervasio. And as the rest of their greeting went, 'You will enter the portal and walk the path. Truly, you are home." Tomás stepped back, knelt and looked at the ground. "With your permission, my king, I will work with you to prepare you for the tasks that lie ahead. I will endeavor always to remain worthy of you."

A strength welled up in Gervasio's chest, more than filling the space once taken by darkness. He wanted to tell Tomás not to bow before him, that he was a mere boy, the unwanted offspring of a lowly fisherman.

But he knew the truth. He put one hand on Tomás shoulder, and his voice seemed at once ancient and his own. "Rise, my friend. Know that all the trust of my heart resides in you. I will follow your lead in all things until you tell me otherwise."

Tomás rose and embraced his king. "No others should know yet, my king."

"Please, call me Gervasio. As I said, I will follow your lead in all things."

* * * * * * *

About the Persona

Gervasio Arrancado was born in a small shack in Mexico and raised in the orphanage at Agua Idelfonso, several kilometers, give or take a few, from the fictional fishing village of Agua Rocosa.

He is fortunate to have made the acquaintance of Augustus McCrae, Hub and Garth McCann, El Mariachi, Forest Gump, The Bride (Black Mamba), Agents J and K, and several other notables. To this day he lives at that place on the horizon where reality just folds into imagination.

About the Author

Harvey Stanbrough was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas and baked in Arizona. For a time, he wrote under five personas and several pseudonyms, but he takes a pill for that now and writes only under his own name. Mostly.

Harvey is an award-winning writer who follows Heinlein’s Rules avidly. He has written and published over 75 novels, 9 novellas, and over 230 short stories. He has also written 16 nonfiction books on writing. and he’s compiled and published 30 collections of short fiction and 5 critically acclaimed poetry collections.

To see his other works, please visit HarveyStanbrough.com.

For his best advice on writing, see his Daily Journal at HEStanbrough.com.