EL DIABLO

I remember always playing with my grandmother’s tarot deck when I was five. My grandmother, also a witch, said that I could see things in a way nobody else could. My red hair didn’t match my dark eyes, but she said that the full moons in my eyes meant I had a darkness and heaviness that only someone who had lived many lives could have. I didn’t know that my eyes would grow darker over time, I had endured a lot, more than any child should. Every time my hand would hover over the deck, drawing a card, my fingers would tremble-that’s how I would know I drew the right cards. I remember the eyes on the pictures of the cards glaring at me, symbolizing different parts of the fortune being told. I would lay them out on blue silk, always drawing ‘El Diablo’. The dark eyes always scared others away, but the power they had could suck you in, tearing at your insides. The devil was a constant, a dark representation of change. I never knew what this meant, but I have learned the devil would always shadow me. He was there before I was born, a piece of me, a piece of my family’s past. I wouldn’t say I went through as much as a child who lived in a third world country has went through, but I have been a subject to a great amount of pain. The devil first showed up in the form of death and Illness. I had lost a plethora of family members and almost my father. While he was weak, I felt a great amount of guilt, silencing myself and retreating to the familiar darkness. My quietness was taken advantage of while the devil next showed up in the form of an abuser. All of this happened before I was nine, before I could comprehend what I had been through. I could never really find a way to cope, over the years my own demons covered my eyes, turning my iris’ as black as coal. The teachers noticed, but I was taboo to them. I was just a freak- a disturbed child that councilors wanted to prescribe Zoloft, Xanex, and psychotherapy to. They could never really recognize what my issues were, just that I had them. My father was the only one who understood and wouldn’t try to poke or jab at my issues, but just listen. At the same time as being the most understanding, he was the most sensitive to my situation. My issues hurt him as much as they hurt me. As I was triggered into inflicting pain on myself by little things, such as the smell of Miller Light, certain colognes, and programs in television, he was triggered by some of the things I would say I never knew why my words would bring sudden burst of anger, but it wasn’t just my words, it was my situation. I never knew why he called me Deanne. My situation was too similar to someone’s he had once loved, someone who had been half of him, someone who was half of me. The night I found out about my father’s twin my mom had had too much wine. She didn’t drink much, but that night was a celebration. While we sat under the cradle of stars on the porch, I asked my mother, “Who’s Deanne? Why does he get so mad when I say certain things? “ She put down her glass, fearing the conversation was so heavy, it would break it. “Deanne was your father’s sister. Your father’s twin sister. I don’t know what happened, but she died when she was young, he doesn’t talk to me about it, we never bring it up. I beg you, I shouldn’t have told you, don’t bring it up to him.” Out of curiosity, I broke my promise. The next morning while my mom slept off her wine I asked my father the same question, “Papa, who’s Deanne?” He then told me, “I will tell you about her as a lesson, she had taken the wrong path and I keep saying her name because I see you taking the same path, the path of self destruction. I see you getting progressively worse, you are fourteen now, the same age as her when she passed on. You say the same things as her, look like her, and might make the same mistakes as her. “ He seemed shaken, clutching his fist as he told me this, looking down at the ground. “Papa, what happened to her?” He paused, taking a seat on the couch and ushering me to sit on the floor by his feet. “Well, we were separated at a year old, I never told you this because it would make your grandmother (who passed) look bad. Deanne and I were born out of a sin. As you know, you never met your grandfather; he had three other children and got your grandmother pregnant with Deanne and me. Your great-grandfather was a minister and ashamed of his nineteen-year-old daughter having twins out of wedlock so he ran to another city with your grandmother and the twins. He even left his church. They decided they could only keep one baby, so they kept me; your grandmother kept me and named me ‘David’ after another man she was trying to impress. She gave Deanne to another family in their church, and for years we grew up together in the same church not knowing we were brother and sister. At church parties, they purposely used to separate us because we felt a connection with another but didn’t know why. They were scared me and Deanne, brother and sister, would make out or something so they would distract us but it was never like that, in a way I always knew she was my sister. “ “One day, we snuck into your grandmother’s safe, it was unlocked and we were searching through her room. Somehow we were drawn to it, as if we knew something was in there. As we looked through we found our birth certificates and paperwork signing Deanne over to the family she currently had lived with. Another one of the forms showed your biological grandfather’s name and permission to give Deanne up for adoption. While we were looking, your grandmother walked in. She denied it all, being Deanne’s mother, and grabbed the papers out of or hand. Deanne was devastated. She knew she was adopted and always felt a missing place in her heart. She always wondered where her mother was, but that her mother could have seen her grow up in the same church and ignore her, not acknowledging her existence, hiding everything for her- it broke her heart. After that she tried to fill the gap in her heart with different things, finding herself on the leash of a boy who was abusive to her, numbing herself by inflicting pain on herself. One day, her boyfriend took her to a party; he kept forcing her to drink with a goal to get her wasted. She didn’t get wasted though, instead she choked on her own vomit and he panicked, watched her die, and did nothing. We looked for her the next day; she was nowhere to be found. Then we finally found her; Her boyfriend had hidden her under some clothes in the guest room at the party. I had walked in the room, it smelled horrid. I rummaged through the clothes. And on top of the pile I found the St. Jude (saint of lost causes) pendant she always wore around her neck. It was attached to her lifeless body. I tried to resuscitate her but her ribs broke from under my hands, she had already been gone a day, they wouldn’t let her be buried with the St. Jude pendant, even though she always wore it. They were about the throw the pendant out but I begged to have it. It was all I had left of her. “ My father held out his hand and gave me the pendent, hooking it around my neck with love. “You are not a lost cause, remember that. These times will past. You have the red hair; you are a warrior, a strong Castilian Queen. You are not timid, you are not one of the abused, and you are strong. People fear your strength and try to oppress you; they will try to do this your whole life. I am sorry you were so quiet, I feel so guilty your mother and me never exactly knew what storms you have been through. But you were good at hiding things, except like Deanne, you show all your emotions in your eyes.” At that moment, I learned the devil that shadowed me had followed my father, dancing in our past, laughing at our misfortunes and me. The events that happened to us were brutal, and to a degree that is hard to mention. “Papa. How do you deal with her being gone?” I said. “I made a promise to Deanne’s family. If you noticed, I leave an hour a week. In that hour I go prey for Deanne, due to the circumstances of her death, it is believed she would be trapped in purgatory. To get a family member out, you must prey for them. While you prey, you get peace of mind, you are showing you respects to the family member. It’s how I never forget her.” I clasped the St. Jude pendant, rubbing it between my index finger and thumb, making it warm and no longer cold. “Can I go for you next weekend? She is also half of me, and I feel like I have a bond with her, even though she is gone. She is half of my genes.” A tear fell from his eye, hugging me he said, “Yes, please do go, it would benefit both of you.” The morning of that weekend, I wore my formal dress, the brown one covered in little bows. Like a good catholic girl, I pulled my hair back, leaving no traces of red waves and covered it with a scarf. St. Jude accompanied me into the old church, and as I entered, a chill flew over my spine and bounced off of the cold rock walls towering feet above the pews. My feet tiptoed down the isle to the prayer bench. I passed the giant wall tapestries with saint Jude and made the sign of the cross. I remembered my father saying Deanne signed the cross especially touching the left side because she felt it was closest to her heart, I held the pendant close and knelt down on the bench, my knobby knees regaining balance and I closed my eyes, kissing the Saint Jude and tasting the metal in my mouth. With my eyes closed, I envisioned a meadow. It was the one I grew up in, covered in yellow buttercups and horsetails. The church seemed less cold as the sunshine from my dream warmed my heart. I looked down and my feet were hooves, I was a deer, the sweet soulful animal I connected with. I looked across the meadow and saw another deer in a beam of sun. The other deer ran over to me and nudged the side of my face, and then it turned back and disappeared into the beam of sunlight, turning to dust in the sky. I tasted salt in my mouth, tears poured down my face, blurring my vision. I was blessed with this empathy and compassion; the shadow in my life was a gift. It was a certain beauty, but I realized, it put me on a different planet than others. I could recognize others pain too, and I realized that me inflicting pain on myself was not using my gift wisely. If you channel your pain and control your devil, you can give back to the world. You can be ahead, alive, and beautiful. I felt a sense of freedom then, my heart had lightened, and the spirit of Deanne was no longer a shadow, it was a ray of sun that sat on my shoulder, warming me with its light and kindness. The smells and triggers that once reminded me of my body being degraded and torn apart by the shadows were nothing to me, the light overpowered it. The light reminded me that although many people in my family had passed, I was lucky my dad was sill alive, even though my dad still was in pain; I was incredibly lucky he was here. My dark eyes may intimidate some, but they make me who I am. They do hold secrets, and bitter memories of the past, but they are beautiful. My first love told me they were beautiful. My eyes can sense things and look deep inside others, they can listen and help absorb your pain, pooling the sorrow into the abyss of my pupils. My eyes were the ones Deanne had, she was half of my dad, she was half of me, and she was and is remembered and beautiful.