Chapter 90

            As the sky turned purple and the evening wind started to pick up, Hannah and Percy went on an exploration of the mansion and came across a room dedicated to Mr. Ross’ souvenirs from his many travels.  Neatly divided by country, the knick-knacks looked at once absurd and logical in their juxtaposition.  Percy was especially fascinated by the relics of Mr. Ross’ extended journeys through Mexico.  He examined his impressive collection of milagros, those tiny tin charms cut into arms and eyes and such, for the purposes of prayer.  Even better were the wax versions, meant to be melted, symbolically destroying the affliction associated with the represented body part.  The eerily beautiful organs, which included, to Percy’s delight, the large intestine, seemed magical and potent in this dusty room full of once-fresh memories. 

            “It’s almost a shame that the old religions are dying,” Percy said, holding up a wax foot.  “Some really creative stuff comes out of them sometimes.”

            “Percy, really now.  You know damn well that culture is perfectly capable of existing without requiring that people believe in something that isn’t true.”

            “I know.  But I just wonder what this new culture’s going to look like.  How do we make sure it happens?  Already, TV is eradicating local dialects.”

            “I guess it’ll just have to happen on its own,” Hannah said with a shrug.  She was pawing through the books in the Mexico section now.  She flipped through a book about La Malinche with interest.  “This woman rules, I love her.  Even though she killed her kids.”

            That night, Percy had a nightmare, but it was the kind where he was absolutely certain that he had woken up and was simply unable to move, which of course was terrifying in and of itself.  But then he looked at the foot of his bed, and saw that there was a woman standing there.  Believing that all this was happening for real, Percy freaked out, but couldn’t move or open his mouth to scream.  The woman was a middle-aged Mexican woman, but not a modern woman.  She was dressed in old-fashioned clothing, like Frida Kahlo, with a red shawl over her shoulders.  She was standing perfectly still in the dark, staring at him.  He looked over at the clock, but couldn’t find it, and when he looked back, the woman was gone. 

            When Percy woke up, he looked at his clock and noticed that it actually had fallen off the nightstand.  Too tired to lean over and pick it up, he fumbled for his cell phone, which was charging next to where the clock should have been, and saw that it was still fucking early.  He folded himself back in the covers, but a cold fear lingered, and he couldn’t help but wonder if something was lurking in the corners of his still-dark room.  He’d had had plenty of dreams like this over the course of his lifetime, false awakenings or whatever you want to call them, but somehow this seemed different, like it had actually happened.  Maybe it had, and she was actually a ghost.

            “It was La Llorona!” Hannah exclaimed later that morning after listening carefully to Percy’s tale.

            “Why do you think it was La Llorona?  Of all people?”

            “I don’t know.  She was wearing old clothing, for one thing.  And she’s only like the most common Mexican ghost.”

            “Doesn’t she steal people’s kids?”

            “Well, yes.”

            “I don’t have any kids, doofus.”

            “Well maybe she got confused because you’re such a fucking baby,” Hannah replied, returning her attention to The Price is Right.

            Percy couldn’t shake the weirdness of the dream, and so he decided to take another look at the Mexico stuff just in case there was anything there that might illuminate his vision.  Perhaps there was a picture of the woman in one of the books, something like that.  He liked to believe that the spirit world could be sending him messages at any time, though he was perfectly aware that if he said something like that out loud, he would sound like a total prick. 

            As he expected, his search yielded no new breakthroughs.    Silly Percy.  Today you believe in ghosts, tomorrow it’ll be God.  “Not bloody likely,” he muttered in answer to his own thought.  He shut off the light in the travel room and went to his room to feed Snuggles.  The grandfather clock chimed the half hour.  He’d rescued the clock from the eerily silent clock room, where all the clocks had been stilled long ago in order to keep the poor housekeepers from going insane from the incessant ticking and the cacophony of chimes and bells that had once announced the start of every hour like it was the Fourth of July.