La Noche de la Chankla: The Swarthy One
Chapter 17
Drained by their ordeal, the brujas could not help but need rest. They would meet the following day, and Luna would reveal what she had learned from the spirit of Sergio Harkness. But sleep beckoned so strongly that it could not be disobeyed, and they knew that rest was imperative to what was coming, whatever it may be.
Tossing endlessly through the remainder of the night, Luna was plagued by distorted dreams of what lay in wait within the bowels of the Silver Moon Church. Searching in vain within her mind for a clear view of it, all she could call up were flashes of darkness, obscuring something monstrous, something with glowing eyes like those the ferals bore before their release. But the dogs themselves kept appearing to her as well. She found them at her side as she pursued the foul entity that eluded her eyes.
Traveling deeper into the innards of the earth beneath the edifice, she chased it, unable to catch up, it being always ahead, lurking in the crevices. Finally she stopped and cried “Who are you?”
Fearful silence was followed by answer in a low, rumbling growl … “SURTR.”
* * *
Light impeded her vision as Luna opened her eyes, once again having overslept. She was awoken by a ringing sound that she was certain had been part of her dream, echoing through the caves. That was until she heard Luisa on the phone. Slowly crawling from her bed, her bones sore from the previous night’s soaking in the frigid rain, she dressed gingerly, before making her way into the kitchen, where she found Luisa making instant coffee. The sun was up, but it was still early and Luis had not yet left for work. Javi and Spider were still asleep.
“Buenos dias, mija. Who was on the phone?”
“Lila. They can’t come back until next week. There’s some problems with the work visas or something,” Luisa told her.
“Work visas? Pero Lila and Guillermo don’t need work visas.”
“No, mama. Some of the workers need them and pinche La Migra is keeping everyone there until they figure it out.”
“Ay, Luisa!” Luna chastised her for her foul language.
“Sorry, mama,” Luisa responded, actually giving the sincere impression of feeling chided, and handing Luna a cup of coffee. “Old habits, como sabes?”
“Yes, mija. It’s okay. But something doesn’t seem right about all of that.”
“Estoy de acuerdo. I don’t like it either. It smells. Mama, you need to get a cell phone … and a coffee maker.”
“No me gusta los cell phones. I do not want to be found all day. And I have a coffee maker, metiche,” Luna answered, playfully sticking her tongue out at her daughter.
“Ay, ay. I’m not nosy, and that coffee maker is like from 1910, mama.” Luisa didn’t find Luna’s facetiousness cute and looked at her sternly.
Luna could not help but laugh. Given the danger of the current situation, whether or not she had an electric coffee maker seemed to her like a useless gripe, but she had no heart to be serious at the moment. “You’re just lazy, jetona.”
“Mande!? Ay, ay!” Luisa said, finally cracking a smile. “Okay, I have to get going. I’ll be back at 7.”
Listening to the car pull away on the dirt drive, Luna positioned herself at the computer, wanting to research her dream before Javi and Spider woke up. She carefully typed in the word “Surtr.” She knew that it was something from Norse mythology, but she could not remember ever having heard that particular name. Surtr, as it turned out, was a Jötunn, found in everything from the Edda to Beowulf, and he was about as close to the Devil as the Norse myths came, the one who brought about the end of the world. Christianity, with its adopted Manichaeist notions of clearly defined good and evil, did not exist for the Norse. And, although Luna was a confirmed Catholic, she liked the older Milton-esque interpretations, wherein Satan, a fallen angel, was serving God as his foil, and evil was merely the coldness of having drifted from God’s grace.
She was surprised that she did not recall studying Surtr and, as she read, she grew perplexed. The Hounds swore allegiance to Garmr, the canine guardian of Niflheim, but Surtr was the de facto ruler of the fire region, Muspelheim. They did not seem to overlap in any of the myths. No matter what she read, she could not reconcile the two, unless it were the end of the world. But why a Norse god would be intent upon capturing a small desert town in a poor region of the United States, even if it were next to a major urban center, was beyond her. She wondered if recent affairs even concerned Surtr, or if her mind had filled in her dream’s question with the first thing that had come to it. But, whether it be Garmr or Surtr, whatever was in the Silver Moon Church wanted to ensure that Luna and the brujas ceased to exist.
What Luna was unaware of, what almost everyone in El Paso, Las Cruces, Agape, and the entire region were unaware of, was the existence of missile silos embedded within the Franklin Mountains and other high-powered ordinance positioned at Fort Bliss and Holloman AFB. It was no coincidence that White Sands was in the area as well. The church was strategically positioned between all of these military targets, and, based upon the land deeds Luna had already found, was buying up all the land around them. If Garmr, or Surtr, were looking to end the world, the area surrounding the one-horse town of Agape was as good a place as any.
Taking notes on everything she found, in her old style, with a notebook and pen, and given that the information began to repeat itself, she decided that her work was completed for the time being. It was getting later and breakfast needed to be prepared. She felt bad that she had not made it a few times recently, having delegated the job to herself as the dutiful abuelita. The contradiction between the mundane chores and her role as a bruja battling an unknown evil never entered her mind. Wanting to make up for her neglect, with a small feeling of needing to show up Spider’s chili, she decided to make Javi and Spider … and Heuso … huevos rancheros. She also wanted to use up the crema before it went bad. The eggs and tortillas did not take long, and she decided to make some fresh salsa and to fry up some chorizo to go with everything else. Before going to wake Javi, she mixed up some apple juice from concentrate. She didn’t like concentrate as much as fresh, but she also didn’t trust what was sold in the stores in bottles labeled “natural,” and she figured the companies would be less concerned with putting chemicals in what would be frozen.
Setting her hand-crafted kitchen table with the tile inlay and using her cherished stoneware dishes, she went to Javi’s door and knocked. “Mijo, desayuno.” She could hear Javier shifting in his bed and knew that his belly would not let him fall back to sleep. Then she knocked on Lila’s door, where Spider was sleeping, and gave the same call. Javi was up in no time and came to the kitchen in his pajamas, yawning. The school still hadn’t opened back up, and Javi had reverted to summer mode. Hueso followed him out of his room and sat under his chair, also yawning.
Luna served her nieto and watched as he ate. It made her happy to see him enjoy her food and to watch him grow, although she wanted him to exercise more. But she made sure to turn toward the stove often enough that Hueso was sure to get secret helpings from the table. When Javi asked for seconds, it occurred to her that Spider still had not come to breakfast. It was unlike him, as his appetite was equal to Javi’s and required far more food.
Leaving her nieto to his second helping, she went back to Lila’s door and knocked again, the rap on the solid wood door echoing through the house. There was no answer. She figured that Spider must have left early to go somewhere, and Luisa had forgotten to mention it. The brujas had agreed to meet late in the afternoon, all having affairs that needed tending to, so, once Javier was full, she ushered him off to the shower while she cleared the dishes off the table. After he bathed, Javi took Hueso outside to play, although Luna insisted that they play in the backyard, fearing the Hounds might take advantage if they were too accessible out front. She wished that her grandson had more friends, but Victor and Jorge did not live on their street, and, since the trouble had started, the neighborhood chavos were kept at arm’s length, especially the little ones, the peques.
So Luna, having little else to do, and having lost any care for watering her sad, straw-colored lawn, decided to clean. Although to a stranger’s eye, the house would have appeared immaculate, she thought it was a mess and swept and dusted everywhere in sight. While some might have thought that her current troubles would have preoccupied her mind, Luna cleaned for precisely that reason. It didn’t stop her from thinking about the ills, but it helped her focus and, in an odd way, unwind.
Having scoured the house, she came again to Lila’s door and, still presuming that Spider had gone out, entered and started sweeping.
As uncharacteristic as it was for her, all Luna, the powerful bruja, could do was … scream.
