Guabancex leads me to the courtyard where a magnificent woman sits on a wooden throne like royalty. Beside her stands a man just as menacing and fearsome.
“That’s you,” I say, pointing to the seated woman.
“Yes, it is,” Guabancex says.
Her smile offers no comfort. I’m suddenly hit with the realization of how much I miss my mother. How far I am away from home and those who love me, stuck in an evil place where a god can appear in two places at the same time.
The seated goddess wages war on a boy. She sends his body flying with nothing but a breath.
“Pheus!” I scream.
“He overcame such obstacles and managed to cross Charon’s bridge because he wanted to save you. Aren’t you impressed?” she says. “A knight traveling to the Underworld to be your savior.”
“He doesn’t deserve to be punished for it,” I say. “Please, don’t hurt him anymore. I beg you.”
What can I do to save Pheus, to save us? Guabancex watches the spectacle of pain like it’s a theater production. Pheus and I are not playthings. We are more than that.
I turn and face her.
“Let us go,” I say with determination. “We traveled through this hell and still found a way to come together. Our love for each other led us here.”
Out in the courtyard, the winds begin to pick up again. Pheus tries to stand, but he’s losing strength.
“I am not here to only witness something as impractical as love. What matters is disorder,” she says. “Chaos is where I find value. The unpredictability of humans. Case in point: Who would have thought the once-selfish Orpheus would have ventured to the Underworld in such a selfless act?”
The man in the courtyard pulls out a long knife. The goddess no longer negotiates with Pheus. What if all of this ends here?
No. This whole elaborate place is a set piece and el Inframundo is a large board game. We are pawns meant to entertain, and this game is not over.
“You won’t kill Pheus because he still has enough fire in him to scorch this place to the ground,” I say. “As do I. Together, we’re unstoppable.”
“You’re quite the alchemist too,” she says. “Aren’t you, Ato?”
I don’t have to turn around to know Ato stands behind me. I want to tear his face off. To grab the knife from the god in the courtyard and use it.
This is a form of cruelty, to present my abuser back to me. She is the Goddess of Chaos, and what she wants is unpredictability. I know my anger is exactly what she expects, but it’s the only emotion I have right now.
“Let Ato take Pheus’s place. Cut his tongue out instead.”
She clucks, a surreal human reaction coming from a god. “Poor Ato. He believed in love too, just like your friend Pheus.”
Love? Ato doesn’t understand what love is. He is a parasite. I turn away from him, because ignoring him is the one thing that will eventually destroy him.
“Ato is not important,” I say.
“Your eagerness to leave el Inframundo is misplaced,” Guabancex says. “Those above are incapable of helping you. It is part of your lineage to wallow in misery. At least here you can live in paradise.”
The goddess points to the computer screens. A young girl appears on one of them. Although it is daylight, she lies in her bed with the covers over her head. She’s been crying. Her mother enters the room and drags her off the bed. She yells at the girl and forces her to hold a broom and a dustpan.
“I don’t want to see you crying over una tontería. I’m tired of your laziness,” the mother yells. “We don’t have the luxury to be sad.”
The girl does as her mother says, but her shoulders stay slumped. Whenever someone tries to address her, she can’t meet their eyes. Those around her accuse her of pretending to be sad to get out of doing things.
The video jumps to another scene, and the girl is now a young woman. I’ve never seen Mami so beautiful with her long, flowing hair, but her face is pained. She rubs her belly, and I know I’m in there. She’s on the phone, trying to explain how her sadness seems unbearable. But the person on the other end just yells. Mami begs for the person to understand, how she doesn’t feel well. “I feel like a dark cloud presses down on me,” she says. The person she talks to continues to reprimand her.
Another cut. My mother stares at the crib where I lie as if she is looking at a stranger. Papi is in the hospital with her. He tells her to hold me, but she doesn’t want to. Papi doesn’t understand. He says harsh words to her that make her cry. Mami tries to explain how she feels, but eventually she gives up. “How can you not love your own baby?” Papi asks. He cradles me until I fall asleep in his arms. Mami stares out the window, wiping her tears away.
I’m filled with such despair watching parts of Mami’s life I’ve never seen before. Seeing her in such torment as a child. A depression no one understood. Not even her mother or her husband. I can’t stop crying. Mami’s suffering can’t simply be wished away by prayers, but it is not a source of weakness. My family’s legacy is not tied to hardship we must harbor inside of us like a rock.
“Your mother battles demons of her own,” the goddess says. “At least in el Inframundo you would no longer be afflicted like her. Isn’t that what you want? What your mother would want for you?”
I shake my head and try to stop myself from spiraling. El Inframundo isn’t an antidote to what ails me because a gilded cage is still a cage. My poor mother. She only wants to help, but I can see how even Mami’s suggestion to go to church and pray may have been wrong. But how can I fault her after seeing what she went through? My heart breaks for her.
“My mother only wants me to be well, and I want the same for her,” I say in between sobs. “You show me only snippets of Mami’s history, and perhaps they may be intertwined with mine, but we are not bound to them. El Inframundo isn’t reality, and I was never given a choice.”
I am running out of time. I dig deep within.
“Let me go so you can see how truly unpredictable my life will be. All of us. Mami, Penelope. My aunt. Everyone. Pheus and I are products of a world where we are not meant to flourish, but we will. With every single obstacle put in front of us, we still persevere. We will thrive in spite of it.”
Guabancex doesn’t change her expression. She is stone, but I continue.
“I’m not meant to be alive, and yet here I am. We will show you,” I say. “In the chaos you create, you will find our pattern of hope.”
The god slowly walks to Pheus. The hand holding the knife is raised. He is about to strike. Pheus lifts his chin as if offering it to him. I hold my breath.
“Perhaps.”
With that, the goddess in front of me vanishes. There is one goddess now, and she is still seated on the throne watching the fallen Pheus.
Let light shine over Pheus. Let grace guide us out of this place.
I pour my being into these sentences. I have only this faith to carry us.