Soucouyant

V. M., Trinidad and Tobago

My child was dying. In those days there were no doctors, no research. Just an old man who thought the world began and ended with ginger. What else was I to do?  

Desperate, I had ventured further from my little village and deeper into the forest.  Walking along the riverside, the water carried the flickers of hope gleaning off of the scales of the silver fish swimming upwards.  

One had found itself caught inside a leaf woven basket trap. I watched as it beat itself mercilessly trying to get out. 

Tradition demanded that one should not be left alone to die, for if he was, he would not be able to cross over to the other side. The fish had stopped moving. 

I had to get back to my child. 

I did not know how long I had been walking for. It was said that He appeared to you – but only if He wanted. A slight drizzle had begun to fall, and the wind played against my face drying my tears. 

A rancid smell had begun to coil around me, singeing my nostrils with each shallow breath I took. 

He was here, and God was no more. 

“Speak your purpose.” 

The words seemed to come from all around me and nowhere at all. 

Clutching my dress in fear, I tried to summon my voice. “My child. She is dying.”

“So? Dying is a mortal inevitability.” 

“Please, she is all I have. She is my greatest treasure.” 

“And if I were to aid you, what shall you give to me in return?” 

“Anything.” 

*** 

I hobble around my tiny one room apartment, the din of the Indian restaurant below me the accompaniment to my preparations. I am two hundred years old, but I barely look it. The merest hint of my age is in the stiffness of my gait or my habit of slipping into my old tongue if I’m not careful.  

I glance at my watch. It is nearly time.  

The restaurant below me has quieted, and for all intents and purposes the members of this  little block I’ve managed to ensconce myself in are asleep.  

Silently, I peel back my skin, layer by layer. Pinpricks of blood quickly bubble up and  swell, rolling off my limbs. They splash against the tiles of my shower, a stark contrast to the  porcelain.  

The pain is an overwhelming, burning sensation, pushing me to the brinks of lucidity. In these jagged moments I can feel His sour breath on me, goading me to bend and break. But I never do.  

I try to subdue myself by finding fanciful patterns in the blood spattered around me.

I step out the shower, every movement a herculean effort. My blood has stopped flowing now, and I make my way to my bedroom, leaning heavily against the wall for support.  

If you were to scour five inches above my bed’s headboard, you would see a small indentation on the wall, barely perceptible to the untrained eye. Pressing it would then reveal a  dark cubbyhole, containing a musty clay urn adorned with intricate symbols. 

The bed creaked as I heaved the urn onto it. 

Anointing some of the symbols with my blood, I whispered a short prayer. Ultimately, it would fall on deaf ears, as God had forsaken me the moment He spoke to me. But I couldn’t help  but beg for forgiveness for what I was about to do. I still had a sliver of humanity left in me. 

I fold my skin into a neat square and place it deep inside the urn, before returning it to its hiding place and vanishing.  

*** 

I am in the third house, two streets down from mine. Priyanka and Daoud have just had a  beautiful little baby girl, a tiny bauble of a thing.  

I know Priyanka from the Little Women’s Book Club, which despite its name is open to all. We meet on the second Thursday of every month, alternating between the houses of each member. I am to host the next meeting. I wonder if Priyanka will show up after what I’ve done.  

Daoud owns an eclectic bodega. He gives me the best prices on avocados, and we have a witty repertoire. I wonder when I next stick my hand into my brown grocery bag, if I will find it coated with rotting fruit and innumerous grains of rice, all of which I would have to meticulously clean, count, and line, along my chipping countertop. 

*** 

The baby is swathed in a lilac blanket dotted with dancing rabbits. I have refused to learn the baby’s name. Whenever her parents prattle on about her, I retreat into my mind, blocking out their voices. It’s better that way. 

She is snoring gently, her tiny hands crinkled around her blanket, her forehead creased with worry as if she already knows what is to come.  

Of course she does. Babies always know. 

The smell of her blood is heady, nearly irrepressible. The thrum of her pulse is deafening and I can already feel myself salivating. Before I can stop myself, a single tear drips down my nose, its saltiness stinging my inflamed flesh.  

Plop. 

It falls onto the baby’s forehead. She awakens, her big brown saucer eyes wide with fear. She does not recognize me as Aunty Nena, the one who got her that same darling blanket that she is swaddled in. For without my skin, I am nothing more than pulsating mass of raw tissue.  

I consume her before she can muster up a breath to howl.  

*** 

When the first drop of blood hits my tongue, I become undone. I cannot think. I am no longer Nena. I am no longer even a pink corpus. I am reduced to the most primal of instincts. I can only taste and feel. And her blood tastes like honeysuckle as it dribbles down my throat. 

***

There is neither humanity nor morality in what I do. I lose and regain myself every night, becoming the very thing that I despise. Him. 

*** 

I’ve been alive for a long time now. I hear my child in the hum of a bumblebee. I smell my child on early mornings when the bakery wafts her buttery scent towards me. I see my child in the eyes of each newborn, whose soul I must take to repay my debt.  

*** 

My daughter lived a long and healthy life, making children of her own. 

I look at other mothers and think, “How far would you go for your child?”

V. M. is a tired old crone. She enjoys long car rides late at night, preferably in the passenger seat singing along to the latest indie band. Oh, and she has also recently finished her Bachelor's degree in Biology and Biochemistry (Double Major) at The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago.