Chapter four is up!
From this chapter on, I'll be referring to Miguel/Hector as just Hector. Except when his dead family is talking about or to him, and when he's talking about himself with others—then he would be Miguel. Less complicated.
Chapter four. — A blessing in disguise
The dead Riveras walked further into the Department of Family Reunions as prior commandeered to them by the agent from Arrivals.
Miguel was looking at everything and everyone. He wasn't exactly curious or dumbfounded, but more like nostalgic. Every minute he spent here, Hector was reminded of the countless times he had been there as a skeleton—every year on Día de Muertos.
They finally reached who they'd been looking for. And she was beating a computer monitor with her boot while the terrified officer behind the desk tried desperately to appease her.
Papá Julio was the first to approach the intimidating woman in the purple dress. Not out of chivalry or boldness, mind you, but because Victoria had pushed him up front.
"Uhm... Mamá Imelda?"
The aforementioned woman turned around, one skeletal arm brandishing a sharply pointed boot. Papá Julio let out a yelp and hid behind his hat.
Seeing her family, Imelda's entire posture relaxed and her expression softened.
"Oh, mi familia! They wouldn't let me cross the bridge! Tell this woman and her devil box that my photo is on the ofrenda."
One last glare over her shoulder made the poor officer cower behind the desk.
"Well, you see, we never made it to the ofrenda." Nervously explained Julio.
"¿Qué?" Mamá Imelda stared blankly. Did she just hear what she thought she heard?
"We ran... Into... Uhm..." Papá Julio was stammering so badly he could barely get the words out.
Julio looked to where the twins stood tightly together. If they hadn't been so close when in life, Imelda might have thought they were hiding something.
As if to help their niece's husband, Oscar and Felipe moved each to the side, creating space between them and revealing Miguel to her.
Hector, who had been looking another way and had just started paying attention when he felt the twins move, gasped out loud.
He didn't know what he was expecting when he'd finally meet with Imelda, but being wordless wasn't in the plans. She looked as breath-taking as the first day he saw her in the Land of the Dead. Of course, dead people hardly changed physically anymore... But still. She was beautiful.
Hector wondered what she was thinking. The expression on her face could have matched his own, but he hardly believed it was for the same reasons.
"Miguel?" She seemed to snap out of her reverie.
He should have guessed. To her, he was her twelve years old great-great-grandson and nothing more.
Say something, bobo!
"Mamá Imelda..." He waved timidly.
Imelda turned to the rest of the family, questioning with her eyes as well as her mouth.
"What. Is. Going. On?"
They didn't get a chance to explain. At that moment, a door opened, and a short gangly skeleton poked his head through the threshold.
"Are you the Rivera family?" He asked them.
As in cue, the devil box short-circuited while the whole family stared at the clerk. They were obviously expected, but none of them had made an appointment.
"Well, you're cursed."
That was how the Riveras were received inside the office. To be fair, the clerk was speaking solely to Miguel but the whole family was startled upon hearing that.
"What?" Exclaimed Hector.
The clerk took his sweet time in responding, neatly stacking a pile of papers on his desk under the irritated glare of Imelda, the distressed one of Hector, and the expectant ones of the rest of the Riveras.
"Día de Muertos is a night to give to the dead. Not to steal from them."
"But I wasn't stealing the guitar!", Hector cried.
"Guitar?" Repeated Imelda. "What is this about a guitar?"
But the rest looked as clueless as her. Not one of them had thought to ask Miguel what he had been doing to get himself cursed.
"It was my Great-great grandfather's! He would have wanted me to have it—" granted, his tatarabuelo was actually himself, but the others didn't need to know his complicated story yet.
"Ah-ah-ah! We do not speak of that... Musician. He is dead to this family!"
Auch, that actually hurt. This family had an odd way of demonstrating love...
Outwardly, Hector answered somewhat snarky. Not unlike he had done with Victoria and the comment on the vitamins.
"Uh, you're all dead."
Just then, Dante chose to appear in the scene. He jumped with his front paws on the desk and snuffed around for the plate of pastries that was close to his nose.
The clerk sneezed.
"I am sorry. Whose alebrije is that?"
Hector was currently trying to pull Dante away from the treats.
"It's just Dante." He said, not knowing how to explain that Dante wasn't exactly an alebrije.
"He sure doesn't look like an alebrije," said Tía Rosita, pointed at a bunch of colibríes alebrijes flying past the window.
"He just looks like an old plain dog." Said Oscar.
"... Or a sausage someone dropped in a barbershop." Felipe chimed in, amused.
"Whatever he is, I am—" another sneeze. "Terribly allergic."
"But Dante doesn't have any hair," said Hector, looking puzzled from dog to skeleton.
"And I don't have a nose, muchacho." The Clerk answered cleverly.
On her part, Imelda was growing tired of the conversation swirling around the dog. She snapped her fingers to get attention, not unlike Hector himself had done so frequently to the same purpose.
"None of this explain why I couldn't cross over."
That was when Hector realized something. Something that was still in his pocket.
"Uh, umm... Oops." He unfolded the photo with a sheepish smile.
"You took my photo off the ofrenda?!" Imelda cried disbelief, staring wildly at Miguel.
"It was an accident!" He tried to excuse himself.
With the fire in her eyes, Imelda turned to the clerk.
"How do we send him back?"
The clerk searched in a book: "Well since is a family matter... The way to undo a family's curse is to get your family's blessing."
"That's it?" Hector asked doubtfully.
Okay, what's the catch?
"Get your family blessing and everything should go back to normal. But do it before sunrise!" Said the clerk.
"Why? What happens at sunrise?"
"Hijole! Your hand!" Exclaimed Papá Julio.
Hector looked at his hand... And almost fainted right then and there at the sight: His finger was almost all bone, with a tread of skin barely visible up close.
"Cuidado, m'ijo! Now is not the best time to faint," Papá Julio grabbed his shoulders and stabilized him, gently slapping him awake.
"But not to worry! Your family is here, so you can get your blessing right now." Continued the clerk, and left his sit to track something on the floor.
He muttered as he went, exclaiming a triumphed affirmative when he came upon the petal trapped in the floral dress of Tía Rosita.
"Perdóneme señora," he asked permission with his eyes and a gallant smile.
Tía Rosita giggled like a schoolgirl and allowed the man to take the petal of cempasúchil.
The clerk returning to where Hector and Imelda, in the front of the office, and gave the woman the petal.
"Now you look at the living and say his name." Instructed the clerk.
Imelda turned to Miguel with a severe expression.
"Miguel."
"Nailed it! Now you say: I give you my blessing." The clerk continued to guide her through it.
"I give you my blessing." The petal started to glow in Imelda's hand, and Hector's face illuminated with it. "I give you my blessing to go home..."
As Imelda continued her blessing, the petal grew brighter.
"To put my photo back in the ofrenda..." Each condition was making the petal glow a little more. Imelda was delivering it like a scolding, but Hector nodded along with each condition as if she was telling him the market list. He was spellbound. "And to never play music again!"
"What?!" What did she just say? "She can't do that!" Hector stared helplessly at the clerk. He felt like pouting. Why did Imelda have to be so...
"Well, technically she can add any condition she wants." The clerk was useless.
Hector stared her down, though he knew it was hopeless. Imelda wasn't one to be intimidated easily—or ever. Indeed, bigger men than she had cowered under her cold glare.
He felt the childish urge to pout.
"Fine." He accepted only because he was anxious to going back with his mamá and papá.
"Then you hand the petal to Miguel." Instructed the clerk.
Imelda offered him the petal still in her hand. Hector reached for it, the tip of his bone finger brushing against hers. He wondered if Imelda had felt too that electricity running through her body as he had.
In a violent explosion of petals, he disappeared from the Land of the Dead. Only then, did the rest of the family could breathe properly again. Felipe voiced what everyone else was thinking.
"Thank God that's over."
His twin nodded along.
The whirlwind of petals stopped and fell to the marble floor, leaving Miguel behind. He felt his body; he was solid. There was no bone exposed on his finger, and he wasn't glowing like before.
He spied outside from the window.
"Sí, no skeletons." He whispered relieved.
He was just about to leave, but one glance at the guitar planted the idea on his head. A mischievous smile came upon his lips, and he fumbled forward for the instrument.
"Talent show, here I come—"
He didn't make two steps and he was disappearing again. Of course, he didn't realize until his stomach slammed first against the edge of the desk in the clerk's office.
Caught red-handed holding an invisible guitar, Hector turned a guilty smile when he was once again face-to-face with his dead family.
"Ups?" He didn't know what else to say.
"Two seconds and you already broke your promise!" Imelda cried out.
"This isn't fair, it's my life! You already had yours!" Hector snapped back at her.
He took the petal that had fell to the ground when he first disappeared and ran to Papá Julio.
"Papá Julio, I ask for your blessing."
But the man was too terrified of his suegra to comply with Hector.
"Tía Rosita?" She denied him too, but she seemed to pity him. "Oscar? Felipe?" The twins tried to hide behind each other, backing away from the petal Hector extended towards them. "Victoria?" The woman didn't even bother to uncross her arms or try to hide, she just shook her head with a bored expression painted on her face.
Bunch of cowards.
"Don't make this hard, m'ijo." Said Imelda, her tone almost soft. "You go home my way, or no way!" She delivered as a final sentence.
Hector's shoulders sank. The petal escaped his grasp and fell to the floor. So that was it, then? He was going home, just as he wanted to, but he could never play music ever again unless he wanted to get stuck in the Land of the Dead as a child skeleton forever.
"Listen to your Mamá Imelda," said Tía Victoria in a quiet tone.
Or… he could find another way out of this curse and still play music whenever he wanted!
"F-fine," With courage he didn't know where it came from, Hector turned on his heels and faced the family, but specifically Imelda. His voice trembled, but not precisely from fear. "I-I don't need your stupid blessing anyways! I'll find another way to go home!"
He left the family speechless, and even he was stunned of his third outburst of the night. His breathing was hectic and his chest felt heavy. He stared wide-eyed at Imelda, who stared back with equal astonishment.
Hector couldn't handle it anymore—he bolted out the door.
He didn't stop running until he was far away from the office where he left his stunned dead family. He hid under a staircase and pulled Dante with him as to not be discovered via his dog. From in between the spaces of the steps, he could see Oscar and Felipe talking with a patrolwoman and gesturing with his hands—presumably asking if she had seen a living boy about the same height as Hector was now.
Pulling the hood over his head and tightening it, Hector motioned for Dante to follow him.
"Vámonos."
Just then, the voice of the patrolwoman resounded through the speaker.
"We got a family here looking for a living boy."
Hector tried to act a certain way as to not attract unnecessary attention to him. He kept his eyes ahead, not making eye contact with anyone.
"Come on, Dante, we have to get out of here quick." He said to the Xoloitzcuintle dog.
The door was closer now. And Hector allowed himself to hope that, for once, he was getting off the Department of Family Reunions scot-free.
"Hold it, muchacho."
So much for that. He turned around slowly, and the hoodie came loose around his ears. He smiled guiltily at the skeleton before him, who immediately went on a frenzy and struggled to get his comm of his belt.
"I've got the living boy! I repeat I've found the living boy!"
But by the time he finished reporting to his superiors, Hector was nowhere to be found. The former skeleton-now-a-living-boy had mingled with a crowd that had happened to pass next to them, minding their own business, and both preteen and dog managed to slip off without being noticed.
He was near the department of corrections—a place he had visited often while dead—when Dante wandered off to inspect a room.
"No, no—Dante!" Hector helplessly called after the dog and ran after him when it became apparent he wasn't going to come back.
It was a holding cell. Dante was sniffing some forgotten offerings on the desk while a skeleton behind bars watched him amused.
"Dante!" Hector chastised from the door, and both dog and skeleton turned their eyes on him. "You need to stop running off on me, boy… and you shouldn't eat someone else offering, either." He added as an afterthought.
"Hey, you're the livin' boy they lookin' for," the skeleton said with evident surprise. "Okay, what's the story? Kick an officer's shin and ran away?"
"¿Qué? No!" Hector denied, silently wondering how much should he say to this stranger.
He opted to appeal to the pity and put on his best-kicked puppy face to do so.
"I'm just looking for a way back home," He sobbed for good measure, staring wide-eyed at the skeleton with a pout.
"Well, you just need a blessing from your family for that! Didn't they tell you that?" The skeleton motioned with his head to the door, signalising that 'they' were the officers in the Department of Family Reunions.
"B-But… I don't have—any family… that I know of." Hector muttered through his fake sobs.
"Oh…" The skeleton looked visibly taken aback. "Hey, don't cry, chamaco, I'm sure there's another way for you to go back to your land…"
Drying his crocodile tears, Hector looked up with a hopeful shine on his eyes.
"You know another way?" His voice matching the bright look of his irises.
"Me? Oh no. No, no, no…." He stopped his frantic negation when Hector's face fell again. He sighed. "I might know a someone who might know someone who can help you."
"Really!?" Hector brightened again, for real this time. There was another way for him to return and be a musician! "Would you help me find them?"
"Woah! Hold your horses, chamaco!" The skeleton said, holding his hands in front of him to emphasize his words. "I was just going to tell you how to find this person yourself. Why should I help you? I don't even know you, and I don't know if you noticed… but I'm kinda locked in right now." He gestured to his prison cell.
"I could break you out." Hector shrugged nonchalantly.
The skeleton seemed doubtful. "You can break me out? These bars were designed for some of the most renowned blacksmiths of the history of Mexico."
"I'm pretty good with locks," Hector said confidently.
He searched through the clerk's desk, finding a paper clip that he could use to force the lock of the prison cell door. It took several tries—by which point the skeleton was looking smug and Hector was getting frustrated, but he finally heard the click that told him the lock had given in. He stood back and opened the door. Now it was his turn to look smug.
"Don't be cocky," the skeleton chastised him. "Now. We have to get out of here before the cops find out I got you. I'm not on their good graces right now, and I know for a fact they would love to lock me in until hell freezes over." He said gathering his belongings the cops had emptied from him when they locked him in. "So, keep the cops off my back and I'll keep my part of the deal. Are we clear, niño?"
"Clear!" Hector answered a little too chipper.
They were sneaking around halls and corners, keeping an eye out for any officers that might be patrolling nearby, when Hector saw something from the corner of his eye.
"I'm Antonio, by the way." The skeleton was saying.
"Miguel!" Imelda had seen him. Hector let out a little-panicked scream.
"What's your name?" Antonio continued, not even realizing they had been found.
"Miguel!" He blurted out, taking the skeleton by the arm and start running.
Suegra: Mother-in-law.
Yerno: Son-in-law.
Cuñado: brother-in-law.
Don't you hate it when your estranged wife wants for you to submit to her conditions in order to NOT get stuck on the Land of the Dead as a child skeleton for all eternity?
EDIT: Four chapters edited and corrected! ;) now comes the harder part D= ...