It was the chill of the night that woke Maria. A window was open, some candles had been extinguished by a breeze, and the moon hung low in the sky. It was too early to be woken up, too late for anyone to be awake; those precious hours between night and dawn. She pulled the blankets further up on her shoulders, breathed in, and moved closer to where Manolo was.
Her hand pressed against the mattress and the young woman's eyes snapped open, staring at the empty side of the bed. Despite the chill she sat up and looked about the room—his guitar was missing from the stand and she sighed, wrapped herself up in the blanket, and made her way out of the bedroom.
The floorboards creaked under her feet as she padded through the house. Chuy looked up from his place by the spider plant hanging from the ceiling, yawning, saw who it was, and settled down again. Trailing out behind her, the blanket made Maria look like a spirit as moonlight danced upon her features. Pushing open the door to the garden, the young woman stepped out upon cold stone and saw her husband sitting under the sea of stars, his guitar placed behind him. He was wearing a night shirt and pants, shoes and other warm clothes forgotten. The plants around him swayed in a breeze—except for the cacti which stood like silent guardians.
"Manolo?" She called and the young man turned, eyes bright even though his face was shadowed. "Mi amor, why are you out here so late?"
His hand reached out for her and Maria took it, allowing him to pull her closer to the bench. "I couldn't sleep," Manolo pressed her against his side and she sighed, curling up against the heat of his body as the icy stone crawled up against her despite the thickness of the blanket.
"Oh, Manolo," Sighing, Maria took one of his hands in her own and pulled it under the long fabric covering her body. She rubbed her fingers over his knuckles, "Was it a bad dream?"
A coyote howled and was joined by a few more, yipping and singing their haunting melody. The couple sat, listening to the song for a few minutes until it tapered off like smoke drifting up to the sky.
"No," Manolo murmured when there was silence once more. "No, it's not that." He rested his cheek on her head and breathed in slowly, chest expanding and deflating again.
She wanted to ask him to tell her, wanted to demand it out of him—what were these dreams that kept him from sleeping? What haunted him at night? But the answer... the answer was far more terrifying than asking the question for she still dreamed about him, lying in that casket, dressed up in his finest clothing and waiting to be placed into the ground. Maria didn't even have the courage to wonder what had happened to the corpse; Joaquin had taken care of it before Manolo could even enquire as to where it was.
Shifting slightly, Manolo dragged her out of her thoughts by pulling her closer. "Have you ever had those dreams," he started, paused, and swallowed. One of his hands plucked at the guitar—just aimless notes drifting through the air. "The type of dreams where they're about something or somewhere and you think they're real?"
Maria tightened her hold on his hand, but she could not look up at him. She had dreamed of her friends while in Spain; imagining how tall they were getting, what they looked like, who they were becoming. She had dreams of them too during her lonelier nights or when she was too much of an outcast among the women that she had pitied during her time there.
During those days, she had thought those dreams were real.
"What do you dream of?" The young woman asked instead, because her 'yes' would have come out broken, betraying all the emotion she had felt during her time across the world. "Manolo," she urged, tugging gently on his arm when he didn't answer.
"I see them, sometimes," He said, "Mamá y papá."
Maria stilled and her breath hitched and stopped, filling her throat like it was a tangible object. "You," she swallowed and frowned a bit. "You see them? Do you mean you dream of them?"
"I do not know," he shrugged and looked down at her, his eyes as wide as they have ever been, biting his bottom lip in thought before opening his mouth again. "They have... never looked at me." Manolo's words broke a little, shattering in the cool night air and Maria pulled him down until his head was on her lap. "It's as if I am the ghost now; only allowed to watch them."
For a second, Maria wondered what would be more horrible; being able to watch her family but never speak to them, or to never see them at all. No, she decided with ease, her spine stiffening just slightly with her decision. Seeing them but unable to do anything would be far, far worse. "Do you think it has anything to do with—" Your death, she wanted to say. Your resurrection. But the words died in her mouth and tasted like ash before they could even form and Manolo—bless him, really—just sighed.
"I don't know," he murmured, and that was the end of that.
The younger Maria, the tiny voice in her head, demanded that she get more answers, more information. The older Maria pulled her husband up and led him inside, closing the doors and the windows, blowing out the rest of the candles, and went to bed with her husband at her back and the dawn on the horizon.
Joaquin, a couple of hours later, had simply just let himself in as—when Maria came downstairs, yawning and rubbing at her eyes—the young man was sitting in a chair and reading one of the many books that had been left out and about. She grumbled a greeting to him and fished through a cabinet for coffee while he snickered behind his hand.
The clock said noon, her body said eight in the morning, and time passed at a snail's pace before she was able to fill up a mug and sit on the sofa with her legs curled up to her chest and her life's essence cradled in her hands.
"So, where is your beloved guitarrista?" Joaquin grinned, placing the book on his lap and leaning back in his chair.
"He better be sleeping," Maria grumbled and glared at the smiling man across from her. "He's had a long night."
The soldier wiggled his eyebrows. "Oh?"
"Not like that you babuino!" She looked as if she was about the throw her mug at him before deciding otherwise, sipping at it and glaring at her friend over the white ceramic. Swallowing the bitter liquid, Maria relaxed into the cushions and sighed. "He hasn't been sleeping well," the young woman admitted, her voice soft.
Joaquin's smile dropped instantly and le leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. "Manolo? Not sleeping?" He waved his hand as she furrowed her brow. "He could sleep everywhere—I think his padre caught him taking a nap in the bullring once—during practice."
Maria dragged one hand down her face and knew, deep in her heart, that she couldn't have known, that she was gone for ten years, and yet... something burned deep inside her and it felt a lot like guilt. "He says he dreams about his parents—of watching them."
Across from her, Joaquin said nothing, his eyes burning like the coffee in her hands.
"He believes he's seeing them."
There was a moment where confusion crossed over the soldier's face and he rolled the words around in his head before light eyes widened and his fingers were digging into his knees. "Is he?"
The look Maria shot him was as cold as cracking ice and burning like the desert on a midsummer's day. It was a glare that had easily silenced him in their childhood, but they were grown now and Joaquin was used to looking at swords and down the barrels of a gun, so the young woman sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I don't know."
Stairs creaked and they turned to look at the man walking down into the room, rubbing at his face and blinking blearily. Chuy got out of his bed and scrambled towards Manolo, almost making the poor bullfighter trip onto his face. Giving the pig a pat on the head, the torero walked over to the nearest couch, scrambled up on the cushions, and curled into something that was almost a ball shape but not quite.
"Good morning, Manolo," Joaquin grinned when his friend groaned loud enough to make Maria smile. "How is the sleeping beauty?"
"Cállate, Joaquin," the younger man groaned out, throwing one arm over his face and yet using the other to pet the pig begging for his attention. He scratched behind the floppy ears, moving over the round head until Chuy was on the verge of purring like a cat. Each time his hand stopped the animal snorted and nudged against him until he started again.
Maria and Joaquin watched him, snickering to themselves as Chuy woke the poor guitarrista over and over again each time Manolo seemed like he was about to drift off. Finishing her coffee, the young woman set the mug on one of the nearest flat surfaces and crawled onto the couch with her husband, bracing her hands against his chest and grinning when he groaned.
"Honestly, mi amor, if you wanted to keep sleeping you should have stayed upstairs," Maria laid across his chest and smiled up at Joaquin.
The soldier chuckled, shook his head slightly, and leaned back in his chair.
Manolo wrapped his arms around his wife's waist, pulling her down closer and burying his head in her shoulder. He breathed in against her, sighing softly and relaxing with each deep inhale.
Maria started to pet her hands through his hair, soothing down the wild strands, easing the mess back against his head. "Manolo," she murmured. "Did you even go back to sleep?" There was silence from the guitarrista and she leaned back, bracing her hands against his chest and frowning down at him. "Manolo—"
"I couldn't," he said, hands brushing over her arms and carefully gripping her shoulders.
"Are they nightmares?" Joaquin spoke up and met his friend's eyes when the guitarrista turned his head to look at him. "A few of the soldiers couldn't sleep," he said, remembering a moment from long ago when his father rode back with a couple of men. Many that he had left with had been missing and those that had returned... their screams still echoed in his own dreams. "They were... remembering."
Sitting up, Maria still on his lap—her arms now wrapping around his neck—Manolo looked Joaquin over, frowning and biting his bottom lip. "They aren't memories," he said, hands moving from his wife's shoulders to her waist. "They... they seem real."
"Real?" Joaquin stood up from his place on the love seat and joined Manolo and Maria on the couch. "How so?"
The guitarrista's hands tightened and loosened again, his eyes focused on the floor, a wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows as he thought. "It's a feeling," he murmured. "It feels like..." There was a long moment in which the only thing to fill the house was the ticking of the clock and the noise coming in from the street. Manolo never answered them, his feet shifting on the hardwood, his gaze avoiding theirs.
Taking one of his hands off her sides, Maria held it and gently squeezed. "Like what?" She prodded, her voice no higher than a whisper.
"Dead," Manolo spat out and looked just as shocked as they when the word fell like a bundle of bricks from his lips. "It feels like I'm dead."
Joaquin flinched as if the man beside him was a snake, his pale eyes wide and watching the guitarrista as if he would become the skeleton once more and the flesh was an illusion. "You dream of the Land of the Remembered?"
Maria frowned when her husband shuddered and rested his forehead against her shoulder. "Manolo," she urged again. "Tell us," Her hands cupped his jaw, making him look up and meet her eyes. "Por favor, mi amor."
He took a great, shuddering breath and closed his eyes. "Sometimes," Manolo breathed out. "Only sometimes."
"And the other times?" Joaquin brushed his hand over his friend's shoulders and pulled him close so the guitarrista was sandwiched within a cocoon of his two best friends.
He was going limp between them, leaning back and forward, somehow, at the same time, each breath growing slower, deeper, as they sat there, waiting for his answer. "I see the Land of the Forgotten," Manolo managed at last with their arms around him, their bodies supporting him, their eyes gentle and touch just as soft. "And the people there—" the words were cut off and he pressed his lips together.
Trying to get more out of him was like trying to squeeze juice from a prune so Maria and Joaquin sat there with their friend between them, two pillars of support for a young man who was more tired in spirit than body.
The world kept spinning around them and a knock came at the door. The three friends raised their heads, peeking up like little meerkats and watching the wood as if it would suddenly turn to glass and show them who was on the other side.
A knock came again, more insistent, and Manolo groaned, pulling himself out from the pile of living blankets and moving towards the door. He opened it, hair a mess, his eyes blinking slowly, and looked down upon the small girl that barely reached up to his kneecap. "Oh," the young man murmured, and Maria was at his side, looking over his shoulder and frowning. Clearing his throat, the guitarrista continued. "Can we help you?"
"Señor Posada asked for Joaquin," the girl was staring at Manolo, eyes quickly moving across his face. "You're—"
Gently moving past Maria and her husband, the soldier saluted them and urged the girl along the street, talking about a horse and the church though the young woman standing in the doorway was pretty sure that was nowhere near what the child was going to say.
I'm pretty sure you've all realized I'm making this up as I go. La Muerte might be in the next chapter or the one after that, I'm not sure.
Thank you for reading and review if it pleases you,
Gospel.
