Excerpt:
“Hush now, child,” said a voice
she recognized as that of her mother’s
closest friend. “The man cannot
harm you, mijita, as long as you are with us.
We will make him think you are
dead. But you must be very quiet. Ya no
llores,” the woman warned,
raising a finger to her lips.
The woman then carried her into a
dark cave illuminated by the light
of a single candle. The cave was
frightening, with shadows of what appeared
to be goblins and demons dancing
on the red sandstone walls. “I will return for
you soon. You will be safe here,”
the woman said. The girl watched the woman
walk away, shivering as a breeze
blew through the cave’s narrow passages.
Closing her eyes, she rocked back
and forth—imagining herself safe in
her mother’s arms—then opened her
eyes to the light of the full moon shining
through the mouth of the cave.
The shadows on the walls were just shadows
now, no longer goblins and
demons. As she slipped into a trance, images
flickered in her mind. She saw
the woman who had brought her to this place
scattering pieces of raw meat
around the open mesa where her mother had
struggled, helped by two other
women the girl could not identify.
Suddenly, the scene shifted to a
stone ledge jutting over the mesa, and
she heard the pounding footsteps
of a man running toward the women. The girl
felt her heart race and her
breathing quicken, afraid that the bad man would
spot them and kill them. Then the
image shifted again, and she now saw on the
mesa three gray wolves circling
the raw meat and the man walking away from
the granite ledge. As he left, she heard his
thought: The child is dead.
* * *
Inspiration behind the story by Paul
DeBlassie III
The Unholy's creative fires flow from
the recesses of the dark side of religion. I've treated people in depth
psychotherapy for over thirty years. They've suffered from the ravages of
religion gone bad. The Unholy delves into the secrets of religion's dark side,
what people suffer, how their lives are nearly ruined, and the challenges
facing the person who is face to face with evil incarnate.
The Unholy is the story of a young
woman, a curandera, a healer in New Mexico (Aztlan in the story). She witnesses
the murder of her mother and must decided if she's going to forever run from
her fears or face the ghost of her past. In the telling, we feel her terror and
wonder what the outcome will be as she confronts the black-hooded man of the
night!
No comments:
Post a Comment