The Inca Prophecy

1 Obligation

Madalina reached for the vodka. It was unlike her to drink this much, but after what she had just seen, what she had just experienced, nobody would blame her. The rancid liquid blazed its way down her throat, rendering her momentarily stunned. As she choked for breath, she thanked God that soon the poison alcohol would make everything better. Tears impaired her vision as the vodka claimed her control, but she couldn’t tell whether her eyes were watering up from emotion or if they had fallen victim to the onslaught of the neat serving of fire water.

Rapidly she wiped at her face with a shaking hand, finding her wrist wet from the misdirected motor skills she would soon surrender entirely to a drunken state of consolation. Madalina was used to mild trauma, having been through the unrelenting hell of a violent mother all her life, but this was a fresh lashing of upset she was not used to. Sure, she had seen her fair share of domestic violence, but never before had she witnessed such a cruel reprimand visited on a child.

“I have to save him,” she told her brother, Javier.

“Shut it. Grow up and deal with it,” Javier snapped indifferently from across the kitchen as he grazed his sister’s shoulder to get to the sink. As he rinsed off the pasta, he glanced quickly in her direction, reading her expression in the reflection of the window she was staring out from. Her eyes were wild. “The boy will be fine, Madi,” he sighed as the food scalded his fingers under the worthless soothing of a cold tap. But he could see that she would have none of it. A quiver played on her chin as she stared out into the half dark of the street below. “They should not be getting away with it,” she muttered, unmoving.

“It’s none of your business,” he said, walking back to the stove. His sister said nothing, but she was seething. Another chug tormented her gullet while stroking her demeanor. Javier listened to the clink and bubble of the toppled bottle as she threw back another mouthful, her lips popping away from the vacuum of the neck.

“It’s not right,” she insisted. “We were treated like shit a lot, you know, but what that woman was doing to that little boy’s heart was just wrong. Did you see his face?” She scowled at her brother, who ignored her rant and buried her argument under the deliberate clamor of his spoon against the pot. “Javier!” she barked. “Those beautiful dark eyes of his were reddened with tears while that bitch scolded him like a leprous animal. Such a timid little boy, and yet she screeched at him as if he was a clump of dog shit she couldn’t scrape off her shoe! He just stood there shaking, crying softly. Jesus, I’ve never seen anything sadder in my life. He looked …,” she hesitated, swinging the bottle, “heartbroken.”

“So what?” Javier moaned. “Are you going to take him from his mother? Deal with it, Madi. This is life.”

“It’s because nobody gives a shit anymore,” she shrieked, again staring out the window. “Well, I give a shit.”

“That is clear as day, but that doesn’t mean you have a right to interfere,” Javier reminded her. “Come, it’s time for dinner.”

She had no appetite. Even with the vodka urging, she felt no need to eat. The vision of the skinny seven-year-old boy stayed with he, haunting her. She couldn’t shake the hopelessness in his face, the abject misery and sorrow of his fate evident in his big brown eyes.

Outside the window, the dusk fell shortly after the clock struck nine. The corner where Madalina had watched the child and his mother enter into the local motel beckoned, but she knew her brother would stop her if he knew what she was planning. This knowledge led the far-past-tipsy Madalina to play into her brother’s hand for the next hour, biding her time until he would retire to bed.

“You never drink vodka,” he remarked as she sat down at the small table, only half decked, as it had been since their parents departed this life together a year before.

“You never bitch this much about my drinking habits,” she replied snidely. “I just need to relive some stress.”

“You’ve never had to use that before,” he scoffed, nodding toward the barren bottle she had set down on the sink. “For fuck’s sake, Madi, you’re a teacher, not a social worker.”

“My vocation does not limit my compassion,” she muttered under her breath as she sank her fork into the mash potatoes her brother had drowned in gravy.

“I didn’t say anything should limit your compassion,” he retorted, “but you are becoming emotionally invested in people you don’t even know, people whose lives are none of your business. Stay out of it. You have your own troubles.”

She pinned him with a reprimanding glare for stepping onto that personal turf.

“My divorce?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, trying to sound cogent in the swaying vision of her surroundings. It was a sensitive subject. Her divorce was nearing finalization, yet it was still a sore spot for her and she had implored her brother not to mention it if he could refrain.

“Yes, your divorce. I know you want me to ignore the fact that you are hurt, but you’re my sister. I can’t just switch off my anger for Paulo because you need to be oblivious to the pig he is until you’re finally rid of him. And,” he unwittingly pointed his steak knife at her, “I will not pretend it’s all okay while I have to bear listening to your sobs every night.”

“That’s very sweet of you, big brother,” she snapped defensively, “but this little boy’s welfare has nothing to do with my divorce.”

“Oh, but it does,” he came back with a quick counter, the gravy lining his chin as he hastened to speak. “It does, you see. Since you and Paulo officially began to sever your bloody sinews from one another, you’ve been exceedingly emotional… protective, even.”

With a befuddled frown and a fork on high, her face questioned his logic. But before she could say anything, he continued with, “You are projecting your own need to feel safe onto this boy. Paulo, let’s not deny it, is not above physically hurting you and you know well that any time he could arrive here and start some bad shit again at any time. You need to feel protected, to feel safe,” he said, looking decidedly worried, “and for some reason you don’t see me as guardian enough.”

“I never said that! I never said that, Javier,” she protested, feeling sorry for inadvertently causing her brother’s assumption. “I trust you with my life. You are presuming these things because of your psych classes.”

“What?” he scowled, taken aback.

“Sí, those classes you’ve been taking for extra credit, the psychology studies at the night college,” she said shrugging, trying to alleviate the tension with casual observation. “They’re clouding your perception with all that terminology and analysis.”

“Bullshit,” he snapped.

Madalina calmed down somewhat as the food settled the onslaught of the vodka in her system, and she decided to acknowledge Javier’s attempts, if only to pacify him. Her hand reached for his. “You know I appreciate everything you do, right? I really do, Javier. Just, I just,” she hesitated, trying not to spoil a good moment, “try not to act like you are Papa, okay?”

He looked surprised at the comparison, but took a moment to realize that he was being a bit bossy of late, though only out of concern for her well-being. Admitting it, he slowly nodded, facing his food without meeting her eyes. “I’m just worried.”

“I know, I know,” she smiled. She finished her meal before him, which was quite unusual, but she lingered to make him feel that the effort of his cooking was appreciated. “Should I make the coffee?”

“Gracias,” he smiled, content.

Madalina was happy that she could appease her brother while consolidating her trust in him. Now she would not feel guilty about feeling for the little boy with the dark eyes. Now she could peacefully weave her plan to spring him from the terrible mother he was cursed with. Still, the alcohol drove her to absurd expectations of what she was and was not allowed to do to save the boy. Kidnapping is illegal. You know that, right? her inner voice warned. But her answer was already fixed. But I’m not planning to abduct him, am I? I just think his mother needs… a talking to, a polite warning.

After dinner the brother and sister did the dishes together in their small kitchen in the center of Sagunto while the hot Spanish night breathed into the open windows of their apartment. Below, the streets were alive with partygoers and secret lovers, but the din they caused by no means bothered Javier. He was exhausted. After some casual conversation over the last coffee, he gave his sister a kiss on the forehead and ruffled up her hair, just as he had done when they were teenagers. “Don’t stay up too late. You have an early day tomorrow,” he muttered as he walked away down the dark hallway.

“Sí, Papa,” she teased, swallowing the last of her cold coffee.

Fifteen minutes later, she was stealing along the stairs of the three flights down that led to the street below. Outside the scent of the sea melted into the smell of the take-away around the corner, but Madalina’s usual fetish for their spicy chips had no effect on her tonight. All she could think of was to make her way into that motel, to find that bitch, and to scare her into being a more compassionate mother than she would ever be without the rap on the knuckles she was due.

Under Madalina’s coat she harbored her late father’s pistol as a frightening aid. It was an antique heirloom she’d inherited from her father, a rusty old thing that looked scary to the untrained eye, though it was completely useless, as her father had assured her. And why wouldn’t it be? The thing’s barrel was rusted and the hammer was missing, but Madalina knew how to hold it in such a manner that her target would be none the wiser.

At five past one in the morning, the thirty-seven-year-old teacher found her way into the average little establishment. She had worked at the old, redone former brothel as a waitress several years before when it had been a restaurant and pub, so she basically knew the floors and stairs. By now, the place was almost void of movement with everyone asleep, but she knew where the awful woman and her boy stayed.

Still over-confident with the lingering effects of the vodka, Madalina decided that it was the perfect time to set the woman straight out of sight of her son. When her common sense begged to know why the small incident of the day before had made such an impact on her need to admonish the stranger, Madalina’s mind dismissed all reason. She had no idea why she was going to such extremes to execute this unnecessary plan, but she felt compelled to take it to its full fruition.

On the second floor the teacher stopped in the softly lit hallway, her shoes tracking on the newly vacuumed red fibers.

Room 208

The vision of the number made an imperceptible click in her brain as her heart sped up. The moment had arrived. What exactly she was going to do, or say, still eluded her, yet something urged Madalina on. In her conscious mind she was convinced that whatever she should do when the woman opened the door would come to her at that moment. She knocked on the door and stepped back to check both directions for any activity in the corridor. With no witnesses present, she felt more focused.

But when the woman opened the door, Madalina’s mind went blank.