Haunted Legends (19 page)

She wandered back into town, through the farmer’s market with its piles of fruit and vegetables, its stands with the sublime smell of steaming meat wafting out from them, the paintings made on bark, the silver jewelry and thick, brightly colored skirts. She bought a plate of fish tacos and ate them as she walked, washing them down with a bottle of ice-cold Mexican beer with a wedge of lime floating in it.

Maybe she could stay here, start a new life. Be someone new.

She took her time, exploring everything.

•  •  •

That night Karen waited again for the woman in white. Just before midnight, she threw a shawl around her shoulders, slipped into her tennis shoes, and went outside. She walked along the veranda, watching the silvery, moonlit water, breathing in salt and perfume and sea. Irene’s husband was likely watching her from some window—he probably worked in the kitchen, or in
the garden out front; she imagined they must live there, somewhere in the hotel—but she didn’t care.

Karen stepped carefully down to the sand. Listening to the sound of the water. She could get used to this sound, day and night, the constant breathing. She picked up a shell, felt its smooth, ridged surface. Took off her shoes and squashed her feet in the sand.

She’d almost forgotten about the woman altogether when she heard the sound of crying. She looked around, saw a flash of white in her periphery.

Karen turned then, and the woman in white was standing right there, facing the water. Not more than a few yards away. How hadn’t she noticed her? Yet there she was, in the flesh, oblivious to Karen’s presence.

She was younger than Karen had suspected. The woman’s skin smooth and brown, her hair thick, black, shiny in the light of the moon. The perfect curve of her cheek just barely visible, wet with tears.

Karen stood still, almost afraid to breathe, as the woman bent down and ran her fingers along the surface of the water.

The woman’s grief was so palpable, it was as if it carried over to Karen as well, like the breeze, the sound of the waves, the scent of the flowers and the water. She felt it move over her, and it was surprising, how comforting it was. Like it reached into a secret place in her, and held it.

For a moment, then, she let it all return to her. The crushing sadness, the pure pain of losing her baby boy.

And somehow, right here, right now, it was okay.

She knelt down on the sand, put her head in her hands, and missed him, and it was okay. The thought came to her with a strange force:
he’s here
. Ethan. He was with her, here. His pain was gone, the wound that had filled his little body, healed. He was at peace now. He was so close.

She cried there on the sand, letting it all push through her, and when she finally looked up again the woman was gone.

Above, the sky was a deep blue-black, almost as if it’d been painted.

Karen wanted to kick herself for not having said anything to the woman, for not having tried to comfort her. The way the woman had, without knowing it, comforted her.

•  •  •

The next morning Karen called the front desk for fresh towels. Irene arrived at the door a few minutes later.

“Are you ready for me to do your room, señora?” she asked, placing the towels on the unmade bed.

“In a little bit,” Karen said. “I’m leaving soon. But first I wanted to ask you about someone.”

Irene smiled. “Oh yes? And who is he?”

Karen laughed. “Not a he, a she.”

“A she?” Irene raised her eyebrows.

“No, no. I’m just curious. I’ve seen this woman at the beach, at night.

Always alone, walking along the water.”

Irene’s face changed then, became serious. “You have not gone down there again, have you, señora? At night? You must not go down there at night.”

“No no no, I’ve just seen her, from my window. Do you know who I mean?”

Irene backed away, toward the door. “What does she look like?”

“A woman with long black hair, wearing a white dress. Very beautiful. And always alone.”

Karen couldn’t understand the way Irene was looking at her. Like she’d just sprouted fins and shark’s teeth.

“Irene,” Karen said. “It is just a woman! She’s not going to mug me or rape me, believe me. She seems very sad. I think she’s always crying.”

“That woman,” Irene said, not looking at her now, “is La Llorona. The crying lady. To see her . . . It is not good, to see her.”

“You’re not making any sense, Irene.”

“La Llorona, she . . . she is dead, señora.”

Karen just looked at the maid. She could see Irene was serious, that she believed what she was saying. This really was another world, here. Despite herself, a chill went through her. The ancient part of her believed in such things.

“That doesn’t make sense,” she said, and was annoyed to hear her own voice waver. More firmly: “The woman I saw was as alive as we are.”

“Señora, listen to me. These things I say, they are true. You do not believe me, but you must understand. It is very dangerous for you. You stay inside, when the sun goes down.”

“Irene, you’re saying the woman I saw is a ghost? Is that what you want me to believe?”

The woman had just appeared, out of thin air, hadn’t she? She shook the thought away. Since when did she listen to superstitious old ladies?

Irene took her hand, stared up at her intently. “Yes, señora. The woman you saw is La Llorona. She is a bad woman. She killed her own children. Her husband abandoned her for another woman, and she killed them to punish him. Now she wants to find them. You say she was crying. This is why.”

Suddenly, despite herself, she was shivering, as if the room had gone cold.

Irene continued. “They say she appears to people when they’re going to die. That is why you stay away from the water at night. She is always there, looking for her children.”

Karen pulled her hand out of Irene’s and sat down on the bed, hardly able to breathe.
Looking for her children. She killed her own children.

She forced herself to sound calm. “Thank you, Irene,” she said. “I will be careful.”

“Good, señora.” Irene nodded. “Good. I leave you now. I will come back.”

“Thank you,” she repeated, watching the maid leave the room. Everything was so strange here. The woman in white appearing and then disappearing. Or had she? She couldn’t quite remember. Karen was so distracted here, between the mesmerizing beauty of the sea and sky, the other tourists, the locals, and her own memories. And Ethan—Ethan!—who seemed so close to her here.

My God, she had loved him. From the moment they put him in her arms, his fragile little body, she’d loved him with a ferocity she’d had no idea she was capable of. She’d understood every cliché about motherhood at that moment. She would have died for him, one thousand times over. She would have done anything for him.

And she had, hadn’t she? Tried everything to save him. Everything the doctors had told her, to a T. There was not one more thing she could have done.

And he’d just gotten sicker, more and more consumed by a pain that seemed to extend past his wretched, suffering little body, that seemed to fill the entire world.

Her baby, screaming with pain, day and night.

•  •  •

By late afternoon Karen was sick to her stomach. She skipped dinner and took to her bed, clutching her belly. Immediately she was pulled into dreams, the same dreams, over and over, that she’d had every night since she’d arrived: the water pulling her down, filling her lungs, her baby there, at the
surface, and she can’t get to him, she claws through the water but it just pulls her deeper as he cries and cries.

Karen awoke to the sound of crying. She didn’t know how much time had passed. Just vague memories of dreams and darkness, water. Her son.

She opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the outline of the bougainvillea and gardenia against the star-spattered sky. Beautiful. She smelled the perfume, felt the warm breeze.

And then a face, right in her window, watching her, a woman’s face surrounded by thick black hair.

She screamed, sat up.

But there was no one there. Only the bougainvillea and gardenia.

She heard a voice then, a child’s voice, a soft cry.

“Ethan?”

There was a flash in the corner of the room, and then nothing.

“Ethan!”

She leapt out of bed. Frantic. Her baby boy! He was here! She’d known it, sensed it, she knew she’d come here for a reason, something had drawn her here. Made her pick up the Sunday paper—when had she last bought a Sunday paper?—and open it to that page, see that ad, and decide, on a whim, to just fly to a Mexican resort alone on a vacation. She’d taken all that time off to care for Ethan those last months, to cart him from doctor to doctor, to take him for every kind of treatment, even driving him out to a “healer” upstate who’d rubbed him with oils and claimed to pull the sickness out of him with his bare hands, and then there was the last, sad, pathetic trip she and Tim had taken to Italy, as if everything between them hadn’t died the moment that fucking doctor said “cancer” and then, here, now, a year later she’d seen this ad promising “romance,” promising “bliss” and “adventure,” and without hesitation she’d called a travel agent, put in her last-minute vacation request—of course they’d give it to her, even during the busiest month of the year, even though every person in her group would have to work so much harder with her gone, because
her baby had died of fucking cancer
—and then there she was, filling a suitcase with prebaby sundresses she doubted even fit her anymore and heading to JFK.

Now she knew why.

She heard his cry again, and now it came from outside, outside her window.

She pulled on her clothes and ran into the hall, out the door and onto the veranda, down to the sand and water.

“Ethan!”

He was here, she knew it. Where was he?

“Karen.”

The voice was soft, kind. She turned, and the woman in white stood in front of her. Tears streamed down the woman’s face, yet she was smiling. She was beautiful. Karen had never seen a woman more beautiful, or more sad. She felt a peace move through her, the same sense of calm.

“Karen, it’s okay,” the woman said. “He is here.”

“Ethan?”

“Yes. Yes.” La Llorona smiled. “He’s here. Follow me.” As she spoke, she moved backwards in the water. She looked just like the Marys in the front yards, the Marys carved into the boxes Karen had bought at market. Radiant and pure.

“Full of grace,” Karen whispered. The water spread in front of her, silver under the moon, magical under the huge star-spattered sky. The air full of flowers, the smell of those luminous white flowers. What could be more wonderful than this? This gorgeous night, this peace blossoming inside her, her baby boy returned to her. She couldn’t wait, couldn’t wait to see him again.

La Llorona moved back into the water, spreading her arms on either side of her, her white gown shifting in the faint breeze.

Karen followed her, into the water. “Where is he?” she asked. She tried to see below the surface, but it was so dark, too dark to see anything at all. “Is he here?” Her feet sank into sludge as she waded farther out.

“He was in so much pain,” La Llorona said.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.” The water turned colder as they walked.

“You sent him to a better place, where there is no pain at all.”

“Yes,” she said, moving closer to La Llorona, to her son—where was he? “He was suffering so much. I couldn’t let him suffer.”

“I know, my child.” La Llorona’s hands on hers, pulling her. “Come.”

La Llorona said something else, but her voice was too soft for Karen to hear. And then La Llorona’s arms were around her, and they were falling together into the sea. Water filled her lungs, she thrashed and clawed, unable to breathe, and then La Llorona, too, was gone, and there was nothing under
the surface of the water, nothing at all, and she was falling and alone, the way she had been ever since he died, and she remembered those first moments when she’d held him in her arms and he’d looked up at her with those Elizabeth Taylor eyes, and she’d thought
I will do anything for you, anything at all.

She saw him then. Coming toward her. Smiling, and happy, and whole.

Her son.

•  •  •

The stars were brighter than she’d ever seen them, the sky right on top of her. Karen blinked. Sat up.

She was on the beach again, staring out at the black water. She had no idea what had happened.

She twisted her head and looked back at the hotel. Took in the sprawling veranda with the bougainvillea dripping down, the small trees with dark leaves and blooming gardenias, the luxurious, sprawling building itself. A few windows were still lit. Behind one, she could see the silhouette of a couple embracing. Behind another, a lone woman staring up at the sky. She followed the woman’s gaze to the lush, almost-full moon.

Something wasn’t right.

She looked back to the water, to her son. “What is it, Ethan?” she whispered. She stood up and walked slowly along the shore, slowly enough for him to follow along.

A breeze swept over her, ruffling her long white dress, her black hair. She breathed it in. But there was something missing. The perfume. There was no perfume. No heady scent of gardenia. She couldn’t smell any of it. She couldn’t even feel the breeze on her skin.

“Shhhh.”

She turned, and La Llorona was there, suddenly, looking right at her with those wet, black eyes.

“It’s okay, Karen,” La Llorona said. “You’re not alone anymore.”

“I know,” Karen said. “Look.” She pointed to the water, to where her son was playing, laughing, but now there were other children, too, alongside him. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, in the water. As many children as there were stars in the sky.

She looked back to La Llorona, confused, and now she saw, stretching out behind her, countless other women, all of them crying, reaching out toward the water, toward their children.

For a moment Karen felt panic, terror.

And then it passed, and she understood, and the most glorious sense of joy entered her.