The Last Offering, by Jaime Alejandro Cruz
Manuela's hobbling silhouette cut through orange dusk light like a parting veil and continued into the mouth of the forest as a faint prayer dribbled from her mumbling lips. The tree shadows swallowed her, and she and her basket and sighs limped the uneven dirt path until she arrived at the spot and heard the snickering.
Manuela knew the spot well. A small clearing where a picnic table used to be. The table and benches were plucked away to dissuade mischief in this most desolate area, and no more picnics were held there. It was now a bald spot of earth surrounded by leering trees and the taunts of child-like voices any time she arrived. Child-like, but not quite. Yet when Manuela set her basket down, she exhaled her anguish and inhaled relief. She gripped the side of her knee, which grew weary with every weekly pilgrimage. The burden of her trek seemed heavier now that she was truly on her own. No matter. Her husband Alberto grew colder with age, anyway. He is hopeless. ¿Quién lo necesita? She muttered. She spread the blanket on the ground, and prayer continued. “Dios te salve María, llena eres de gracia, el Señor es contigo. Bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres, y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre––”
And then she stopped. For the first time in a long while, Manuela listened to them. Her Tio Manuel, her grandfather's brother on her mother's side, the side of the family who graced Manuela with her unfortunate name, sturdy brow, and weak knees, swore from the montes of Poncitlán to the bars in La Barca that he had seen them and their snickering since 1977 and they were nothing but trouble—the little ones.
No good will come from falling asleep in the woods. You leave with your eyes open. ¡Asegúrense! Great Uncle Manuel said. Although it seemed solid advice when she heard it as a child, she somehow forgot as the years passed, and it altogether became impossible to take the family drunk seriously. Descanse en paz, Tio. Manuela thought it a blessing that the dead have no means to gloat with a jaja te lo dije, I told you so. The troublemakers got you, didn't they?
No. Not yet.
She didn't have the patience for them and their bullicios. Their little whispers, giggles, and scheming. They were on the move, as always. She saw them, lighter shades of darkness prancing in and out of the breathing room the pines left for each other. She felt their presence. The duendes.
In the seventeen years she had been coming here, she had yet to discern what they were saying. Seventeen years. She couldn't breathe at the burden of time, and she sat before her legs gave out. She winced at her body, all of it choosing to betray her with age.
She took a peluche from the basket, a somewhat dented, trash-rescued stuffed bear powdered with dirt. Its color now started to blend into the blue aftermath of Manuela's fading day.
“¿Está bonito, no?” She pressed into the bear to redistribute its uneven plush. She wondered if she could do the same to herself, then she couldn't see the light anymore. This place gave nothing in return. She knew it was too late for another offering. She couldn't stand that this was the best she could do. She asked herself the same question her mother asked of them: Who will look after you when I am gone? Manuela slumped, feeling there might not be much left to care for.
How was she to show her face at home again? How many curanderas, brujos, and mediums did she bring up here? She even brought Father Quintero to the site, and even he dismissed her as indulging in fantasy, not faith. The question from the usually tolerant priest snickered in her mind to this day: “How could a nap in the forest ages ago possibly be affecting your son, Manuela?”
“That soul-less body in the facility is not my son,” Manuela said to Alberto time and again. “My son is out here. His soul has been taken from him!”
Her husband had made peace with his son's condition, and Manuela saw nothing in it but betrayal. Her baby, now verging on adulthood, had no milestones. No memories. No words. No response. There, in a care facility owned by the San Vicente Hospital, convalesced a body that she gave everything to and gave nothing in return.
“Nothing has been the same since we came here that day.”
Alberto stopped praying a decade prior. Stopped believing. Since then, she couldn't stand him, and he couldn't stand her. How dare he stop believing after he was the one who let the baby fall asleep? Tio Manuel constantly blared, “Wake the babies up before you leave, or you will leave something behind, se los juro, ingratos!”
Seventeen years ago. That day, they left something behind.
“His little spirit wandered off after them. How could you not see that, ¿Alberto? Su espíritu couldn't find his way back. But I am his mother: I will get it back.”
The woods grew dark.
"I will get it back." Her tone searched for strength, and though it was all but gone, she closed her eyes to find more in some hidden part of her own soul, like the day she found a new compartment in her favorite purse.
When she opened her eyes again, the stuffed bear was gone.
Maybe they took it to bait her. To continue the ridicule. She didn't care. As long as her lungs drew breath, she filled herself with hope that she would bring her son home.
Her heart and son are one and the same. This place was tethered to her, and the duendes knew it. Her heart, forever wandering these parts: caught in eternal play with the duendes, or bound to eternal helplessness once they grew tired of him. Her heart, a lost soul alone in the woods, to wail for his mother until the end of time. And the pang of her long penance finally spilled from her.
In the dark, Manuela screamed her son's name, and it bellowed from one tree to another and cut through the canopy between this world and the unknown beyond.
That was when the duendes stopped snickering, and for the first time, they listened.
Jaime Alejandro Cruz (he/him) writes and records. He produces the Arts Calling Podcast and founded the Coalition for Digital Narratives, an online collaborative space showcasing short-form literary works and media projects. Cruzfolio.com.