Nobody knew how Miguel got sick. That morning he had been running wild through the streets with the other neighborhood boys, playing baseball and seeing who could run to the corner bodega the fastest. The July sun had branded a bold flush on his face and scattered little sparks through his black hair. But that night his parents found him shivering and pale, sprawled on the tiles of their bathroom. Dr. Chen came up from the first floor, but had no answers. The church elders came to pray over him in a murmuring black swarm, hovering around the edges of the bed. Pictures of angels were taped over the 15-year old’s bed, rosaries hung around his swollen neck, but he showed no sign of improvement and no one could explain why.

Except Juan. Juan had been awake the night when his brother’s voice seeped through the thin wall connecting their bedroom and bathroom.  

“What’re you doing, Miguel?” Juan called, low enough to keep from waking their parents.

“Go back to sleep.”

Juan craned his neck to peer through the open door. “What’re you holding? That a picture?”

“None of your fucking business, niño.”

“Tell me or I’ll tell Mama you cursed and you’ll have to go talk to Father Garcia again.”

Miguel’s reflection glared at him with black, bottomless eyes. “It’s Pepé.”

“Why you got his picture, Miguel?”

“You got your answer, now go back to sleep.”

Juan pulled his thin blanket up around his neck and closed his eyes. Miguel had been especially cranky that week, his mood tense and breaking like his changing voice, ever since he found out that a girl he liked was seeing Pepé instead. Miguel began muttering in a quiet voice. “Oyéme, Llorona…” 

The name shot through Juan’s body like a blast of cold, leaving him trembling. It was a word whispered among the children only on the brightest of days. She was a monster, a demon that climbed through mirrors and attacked children stupid enough to call her name in the dark.

“You can’t call Bloody Mary!” Juan hissed from under his blanket. “She’ll claw you up!”

His brother swung the door shut. Juan threw off the covers and crept up to the door. He tugged on the knob; it wouldn’t budge. He hissed Miguel’s name through the door, but the muttering continued. When he heard a thud, he ran and shook his parents awake.

Now Miguel was tucked up in his bed, feverish and ashen. Juan didn’t see any claw marks, but he knew that whatever his brother tried to do had backfired. His parents shooed him away as he tugged on their clothing, tried to explain. Instead, they ordered him outside.

“Hey Juanito! What’re you crying for?” Juan looked up from where he sat sniffling on his building’s stoop. “Skin your knee again?” Antonio squatted on the step next to him. Even though he was two years older than Juan, he didn’t pick on him all the time like Miguel’s friends did.

“Miguel went and called Bloody Mary last night and now he’s really sick.” Juan explained between sniffles.

Antonio’s eyes widened. “¿Porqué?”

“I don’t know! He just went into the bathroom with a picture of Pepé and closed the door. But I heard him calling Bloody Mary and—What? What, is it? ‘Tonio?”

The older boy had fallen onto his backside, pale and open-mouthed. “Niño,” he said quietly. “You don’t know…”

“What? What is it?”

“I heard the policía talking to his folks about it when I went out. Pepé’s dead, Juan.”

“W-what? How?”

“I don’t know. They found him this morning, under a bridge. I didn’t hear much.”

“I know Miguel didn’t mean it.” Juan’s bony fists trembled in his lap. “I don’t know why he did it…”

“And now he’s real sick, huh? It’s lucky he isn’t dead.”

“’Tonio, what do I do?”

“What can you do? La Llorona’s a demon.”

“I can’t do nothing!”

The two boys fell silent for a few minutes before Antonio finally said, “There’s Doña Nora.”

Juan never went into Doña Nora’s botanica. He’d listen as Miguel’s friends dared each other to throw eggs on her stoop. There were stories that she could tell the future and talk to pigeons. She could turn herself into a huge pit bull and tear babies to shreds if their parents cheated her. Miguel had sprayed paint on her door one Halloween and was in bed with a fever for a week afterward. “Do you think her brujería can get rid of Bloody Mary?”

Antonio only shrugged.

Juan stood. “Aren’t you coming with me?” he asked Antonio.

“No way.” The boy shook his vigorously. “She’s a creepy lady.”

Juan sighed and started walking alone.

Doña Nora’s botanica was sunk into the middle of the block. While other stores opened straight onto the sidewalk, a small flight of cement steps led out of the sunlight to a weathered, rickety door. The single storefront window had displayed the same choir of dusty Indian statues and angels since before Juan was born. There was no sign of anyone inside, but the door squeaked open under Juan’s hand anyway. Though the outside streets were bright and nearly bleached from the sun, the store was musty and dim. Plastic saints and angels stared at him from dusty corners and shelves. There were flaming hearts pierced with swords and thorns, gaunt figures on crutches, faces frozen in agony, St. Sebastian riddled with arrows and St. Denis cradling his head, tucked together into a cobwebbed corner with a crying Virgin, as if in conversation.

“What do you want?”

Juan jumped and whirled around. The voice sounded female, though he doubted the Virgin would have snapped at him like that. “Ummm, Bloody Mary came to my house and mi hermano, Miguel, got sick. I need some medicine from Doña….”

There was a clatter, this time from near the counter. “He’s good as dead.”

“Don’t say that!”

It wasn’t Doña Nora, but Luci, a neighborhood girl the same age as Miguel. She was Nora’s adopted hija. Though she couldn’t turn herself into a pit bull just yet, she could still send any boy on the block home crying for his mother. She stood in a shadowed corner grasping a broom, a fallen dustpan by her feet. Her mouth and eyes were wide and frozen. She almost looked like one of the plastic saints. “Don’t you know anything? Children’s souls make La Llorona stronger and once she’s seen your face, she can find you anywhere. You can’t hide.”

“Bu-but can’t Doña Nora do something?”

“Grown-ups don’t see spirits. Especially not La Llorona. Doña Nora can’t help you.” Luci shuffled the broom back and forth between her spindly brown hands. “What happened?”

Juan hesitated. Luci knew Pepé; she might not help him if she knew what Miguel had done. He told his story, leaving out Pepé. “Was the light on when your parents took Miguel out of the bathroom?” Luci asked, face intent.

“I-I don’t know. I think so. Why?”

“Doña Nora says light makes spirits weaker. Maybe Miguel turned the light on before La Llorona could get him. Could be why he’s sick and not dead yet.”

“You think so, Luci?”

“Maybe. But if that’s what happened, then she’ll be coming again for him, first chance she gets.” 

“Isn’t there anything I can do?”

She paused. “I knew a girl once that called Bloody Mary and is still alive. I think she’s alive, anyway.”

“Where is she?”

She shrugged. “We used to live in the same building, but her floor caught fire and her family left. I don’t think she died, but I don’t know where they are now.”

Juan let out a small huff. “Bu-but, how do I find her then?”

“I said I don’t know! And what’s a little shrimp like you going to do against Bloody Mary, eh?” Her eyes were beating into him now, trying to herd him back out through the door. “Look, if Doña Nora comes in and sees you here, I’ll get the belt, so if you’re not buying, leave!”

Juan looked up at the solemn face of Santo Jude, mostly so Luci would miss his watering eyes. Then an idea struck him and suddenly the saint wasn’t so grim. “Humph,” he made the sound as disdainful as he could, “you work for the best bruja in El Barrio and you can’t even find a girl you lived with. Bet sweeping was the only thing she ever taught you.”

He heard knuckles crack behind him. “Why…you, little—”

“You’re just a girl. Sweeping’s all you can do.” For a second, Luci looked ready to abandon her broom and break his nose barehanded. “If you could find that girl, then maybe you’ll be as good a bruja as Doña Nora.”

The red ran out of Luci’s face, but rushed back brighter than ever as she laughed, folding over and shaking from it. “That’s so lame! Like I’m gonna tell you where she is now!”

Juan couldn’t stop the water in his eyes now. “Fine! Then Miguel’s gonna die and it’ll be all your fault and I’ll—I’ll hate you forever!” He turned to the door.

Luci also wiped water from her eyes as she tried to get her breath back. “No, no, esperate niño, come back. I remember hearing that she moved downtown. If you ask Doña Maria in my building, she’ll know.” The girl’s face got serious again. “You’d better get going. The demons come out after dark.”

Juan’s footsteps leaving the botanica fell in rhythm with his heavy, half-sobbing breaths. If grown-ups couldn’t see demons, then it would be pointless for Juan to try asking his parents for help again. The girl Luci mentioned could be living anywhere and he wasn’t even allowed to go more than three blocks in any direction by himself. If he went off without telling anyone, he’d be locked in his room until he was as old as Doña Nora herself once he came back. But if he didn’t at least try to find this girl, the second it became dark in the house Bloody Mary would come back and take Miguel to join Pepé.

Antonio was still on the stoop. He waved as Juan passed. “Juanito, how’d it go?”

“Luci said to ask Doña Maria. Do you know what she looks like?”

“Sí. She lives over in building twenty-two. Come on.” Juan followed his friend and the two sprinted across the street.

Doña Maria was seated on a rickety-looking stool watching a group of men play dominoes. As Antonio ran up, she smiled around the thick cigar she was smoking. “’Tonio, mijo, how is your mother doing?”

“Fine, Doña. My friend Juan here heard that you know where the gringita whose apartment got burned moved to.”

The Doña’s eyes lit up and she leaned forward. “So our Juanito has a taste for gringas now, does he? She was a sweet girl, be good for you Juan.”

Juan carefully repeated back every word of the address as the Doña gave it to them. The girl’s name was Jennifer, and her building was on the southern edge of Central Park. “I don’t know how to get there, though,” he told Antonio as they walked away from the Doña.

“Your parents let you on the subway?”

“Not by myself.”

“I’ll go with you then. That way you won’t get lost.” Juan didn’t protest the company. The sun was already starting its downward swing in the sky.

The inside of the subway was gritty and clean at the same time; smooth, scaly, white tile walls coupled with rough, brown, gum-stained concrete floors. The tunnels snaked around and around in wide circles, the buzzing hoard of people passing back and forth until everything looked like everything else. The boys quickly lost track of where they were. Trying to stop a passerby and ask directions proved to be like trying to catch a drop of rain. Antonio and Juan squatted against a gleaming wall. “What do we do now?” Juan asked no one in particular.

“Stay here.” Antonio said. “I’ll try to find a map, or a token-booth.” Before Juan could argue, his friend vanished into the flood of people.

Juan traced designs on the ground with his finger, hoping that Antonio would return quickly. He thought of Miguel’s face as he locked himself in the bathroom, of the police finding Pepé under a bridge. Juan himself had sometimes dreamed about getting back at the boy after being teased or pinched or tripped, but never had any of those fantasies included being hunted down by a demon. What had Miguel been thinking?

“Psst.”

Juan looked at the people, but none so much as glanced in his direction. He tucked his head back into his arms.

“Psst. You lost, kid?” The voice came again. He glanced up and down the tunnel and saw a statue he hadn’t noticed before, only a few feet away. It was a tall stick of a man, white as the walls behind it, wearing a white suit, gloves, and hat. A white bucket half filled with coins and dollars sat at its feet. As Juan stared at the statue, it turned its head to look at him straight on. “Where are your mom and dad, kid?” Its stiff white mouth cracked around the corners as it moved. “You’re not here alone, are you?”

“N-no. I’m waiting for my friend.”

“I see.” The statue started to scratch at its chalky face, but quickly snapped into a pose as another wave of people rushed past.

“I couldn’t find a map.” Like magic, Antonio was standing next to him again, hands on knees, breathing hard. “No booths either.”

“What’re you kids looking for?” the statue asked. Antonio didn’t even look surprised.

“The 1 train.”

The statue, now standing on its head, pointed out a direction with its chalky white shoe. “Just keep following the tunnel. You’ll see a sign.” The hat slid off and tumbled to the floor, revealing soft-looking blond hair. Antonio nodded and dropped a crumpled bill into the can. “He wasn’t really a statue, was he?” Juan asked as they walked on. Antonio rolled his eyes and laughed.

They found the platform and followed the flow of people inside the waiting train. It shifted forward in short, slithering bursts, leaving its riders swaying on their feet.

“’Tonio, where do demons like La Llorona come from?”

“All sorts of different places. Some are bad angels and some are people who were really bad and died.”

“Was Bloody Mary a really bad person?”

Antonio nodded. “I heard a story once that La Llorona lived in a village on an island. A rich man from Spain came and said he wanted to marry her, but when she had a baby, he left her alone. She cried for a month, then got so angry that she killed the baby and all the other babies in the village. The village people burned her to death afterwards.”

“Really?” Juan whispered, wide-eyed. “Mi abuela told me that Bloody Mary was all the bad stuff Dios took out of the Virgin so she could be maculate. The bad stuff became another Mary who claws up kids because the Virgin got to have Jesus and she didn’t.”

“That’s not it.” The new voice, sharp and shrill, came from between the pinstriped butt-cheeks of a pair of suited bankers. A short, round boy with a wide brown face pushed his way through them over to Juan and Antonio. “That’s not where Bloody Mary comes from.”

“Where then?” Antonio asked.

The strange boy looked around, then leaned in. “It’s the biggest secret in the world.”

Antonio was frowning. “Then how do you know?”

“When my dad and me lived in Florida, I heard the story from some kids there.” The kid puffed his chest out. “This is the real story about Bloody Mary. She’s the Virgin Mary gone loco when Jesus died. Now she kills children.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Antonio snapped. “Christ was grown up when he died, why would she kill kids? You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The train doors slid open and Antonio pulled on Juan’s arm. “Come on, Juan. This is our stop.”

As the doors closed again, they saw the boy press his round face against the glass and stick his tongue out at them. Antonio muttered some words that Juan had only heard his father use when he thought he and Miguel weren’t listening and they continued on.

Jennifer’s building was taller than any Juan had seen, a bluish-white tower that disappeared into the clouds above. Inside, there were no kids playing, no dogs yapping, no music, just a white clock above the elevator chiming gently six times. The shiny floors had the tangy smell of chemicals, not the aromas of arroz con pollo or smoking chorizo. All the doors looked the same; only the numbers on each one marked them as unique.

The woman who opened door 17 blinked wide blue eyes at the pair, as if she had expected something completely different. “May I help you?” she asked slowly.

“Is Jennifer home?” Antonio asked just as slowly.

“Are you…friends of hers?” The lady’s mouth twisted down over her teeth.

“We just want to ask her something. Real quick.”

She stared at them for another long moment—long enough that Juan wanted to run away—and slammed the door shut. Juan tugged on Antonio’s sleeve. “No nos le gusta, verdad?”

The door creaked open again before he could answer. A single, smaller blue eye and a wisp of blond hair were all the boys could see through the crack. “I don’t know you.” said a younger girl’s voice.

“You knew Luci, back in El Barrio, right? You lived in the same building.” Antonio explained.

“Yeah, so?”

Antonio nudged Juan with his elbow. “Pregúntele, niño. And hurry up, we can’t be here all day.”

Juan stepped out from where he had huddled behind his friend. “Luci said you called La Llorona,” he whispered, “but she didn’t take you. Why?”

The single blue eye narrowed down to a crack as wide as the door it peered through. The door slammed again. “Gringas.” Antonio muttered.

“Should we go?” Juan asked. Chains rattled behind the door and for a third time, it opened, this time wide and inviting.

The girl came out into the hallway. Underneath the long blond hair, her face—just right of the nose—was a muddy red, rough and twisted. The scars continued down her chin and neck until they vanished under the neon green cloth of her T-shirt. The untouched side of her face was even paler in comparison. Juan felt his jaw drop open, and couldn’t bring himself to close it. “Did—”

“Bloody Mary did this to me.” Jennifer said. “I had a bet with some boy. If I called Bloody Mary and survived a week, he’d give me this ring he stole from his uncle. Said it was worth a hundred dollars.”

“Why a week?” Antonio asked.

“After that I would’ve had my Sweet Sixteen and not been a kid anymore.”

“What happened?” Juan whispered.

“I left all the lights on to keep Bloody Mary away. I even covered the mirrors with blankets so she wouldn’t get in, but my Mom took them off. After a few days though, there was a storm, and the building had a blackout and she came into my bedroom. Fire came up from the floor where she walked and my whole room went up in smoke.”

Juan was wide-eyed. “How’d you get out?”

“My mom came in and dragged me out. But . . .” She trailed a thin white finger down her disfigured cheek and shrugged. “I don’t mind. Bloody Mary doesn’t recognize me anymore. We moved here and she hasn’t come back.”

“Because of your face? That won’t help Miguel much.” 

Jennifer shrugged again. “Look, I got to go and eat dinner now.”

Antonio nodded. “Gracias. Come on, muchacho, your parents are probably wondering what happened to you.”

When the apartment was out of earshot Antonio said, “I remember the news about the fire. The news said that lightning caused some old wires to catch fire and that’s why the building burned.”

“You mean it wasn’t Bloody Mary?”

“I don’t know.” Antonio answered, sounding irritated.

Juan walked back to the subway station in silence, rode the train in silence, and followed his friend back to their block without a single word. His head felt so full of swarming thoughts that his temples throbbed. The sun sat low in the sky, but the streets and sidewalks were still crowded. Juan started up the stoop of his building, but turned when he noticed that Antonio wasn’t behind him. “Juan…I got to go home now.”

“Pero…pero, you got to help me save Miguel. You can’t go home now!”

“You’re loco if you think you’re going to fight Bloody Mary.” Antonio’s face was tense. “You got a plan?” When Juan didn’t reply, he added. “Miguel tried to trick her, and he still got caught. Do you want La Llorona to catch you too?”

Juan’s lip set itself into a stubborn line. “I have to do something. I don’t care what he did.”

“I-I’ll light some candles at the church for your brother. And for you too.” With that, Antonio ran off down the street, leaving Juan alone in the doorway.

Juan’s parents didn’t scold him for coming home late; they were busy dressing to go and bring back Father Garcia. Miguel lay buried under several blankets, shivering and sweating at the same time. Bright red droplets trailed down Miguel’s chin; his skin had gone from yellowish to a beige-gray, his coughs stained the blankets with blood. He looked dead already.

As long as the lights nearby stayed on, Miguel would stay safe enough, but that hadn’t helped Jennifer for long. Miguel wouldn’t be sixteen until the winter, so that wasn’t an option either. But La Llorona had killed Pepé and she’d only seen a picture of his face. Did that mean that the demon couldn’t tell the difference between a picture and a real face?

As soon as his parents had fled out the door, Juan inched his brother off the bed, grunting under Miguel’s weight. Halfway through, Juan’s legs refused to keep him upright and both boys tumbled to the floor with a hard thud. Juan lay dazed for a moment, then edged himself out from under his brother’s body. He pushed Miguel underneath the bed, hiding him behind a veil of toys and books. He stuffed pillows under the blankets on the bed in his place. From under his own bed, Juan dug out an old hockey mask from a past Halloween as well as some digital photo prints he had taken of Miguel with a friend’s Christmas present. At the time, Miguel had been in bed with the flu and the fitful slumbering expression in the photos was an echo of the death- mask he had now. Juan hoped it was close enough to fool Bloody Mary.

He taped the picture carefully over a basketball and tucked it in with the pillows in Miguel’s bed, wrapping everything in blankets. He draped a thin sheet over the bed’s edge, making sure that his brother’s face could not be seen and put the hockey mask over his own face. Juan pulled the chain in the bathroom, shutting that light off first, then turned off the desk lamps and hallway lights, leaving the light by Miguel’s bed for last.  His hand hovered over the switch. He didn’t know what he’d do if Bloody Mary didn’t come or if she discovered his trick. There would be no second chances. Juan turned off the last light, hid in the bedroom closet and waited.

Despite being cramped and cluttered, Juan felt cocooned by the walls and hanging clothes and suddenly the weight of the day broke on him. In the dark, there was no difference between eyes open and eyes shut so Juan wasn’t aware that he was sleeping until the dream began. He was running through dark, empty streets, a rising wave of blood chasing him and coating the buildings, sidewalks with a red-black gloss. He passed a storefront window and saw Pepé’s reflection staring back at him, mouth open in a silent scream.  

A heavy sound, somewhere between a shuffling and an animal snort, snapped Juan out of his exhausted snooze. Had Miguel woken up? Juan cracked open the closet door.

The bedroom was flooded with a deep red light. The light trailed syrupy rivulets down the walls, over tacked-on posters and report cards. On the floor, a pool of red light spread out from the bathroom, towards Miguel’s bed. Very faintly, the sound of crying drifted through the open door. Juan squinted through the crack, one shaking hand on the edge of his mask, the other over his wildly pounding heart.

She walked in thudding, shuffling motions, curled in on herself so that no face was visible. Blood ran and dripped off the shredded black rags she wore. Juan couldn’t tell what they had once been. Her hair was clotted with blood, as if she bathed in it, and it snarled around her head in a black cloud. Hands, withered and twisted into claws, stretched out towards Miguel’s bed. As she approached, the sound of crying children grew louder, filling the empty space around her. Juan thought he heard Pepé among them, sobbing “¡Veté! Go away!”

Silent herself, Bloody Mary paused over the bed, slowly raking her claws over the bulging blankets. She scooped up the dummy, blankets and all, off the bed and started scuffling her way back towards the bathroom. Slowly, as quietly as he could, Juan crept out of the closet and followed her, silently praying to every saint he could remember that La Llorona would be long back inside the mirror before she discovered the trick. 

Bloody Mary touched the cocoon of pillows and blankets to the mirror. Juan didn’t know what was supposed to happen, but when it didn’t, Bloody Mary’s hunched figure shrieked. Juan didn’t wait; he rushed her with hands outstretched to push her back into the mirror. Bloody Mary’s flesh, if she indeed had any, gave way and cracked under Juan’s hands like brittle wood, giving off a charred smell. The demon teetered forward and melted into the mirror’s surface. He ripped the mirror off the wall and threw it onto the floor. It burst into more than a dozen fragments that skidded across the floor with a bright, jingling sound. There was no more crying; the room was thickly quiet except for Juan’s shallow panting and the muted tapping of the swinging light bulb chain clinking against the bulb. The red light was gone; the house was cool and gray.

A faint wheeze caught Juan’s attention. Under the bed, Miguel coughed softly. “Mamá? Papá?”

Juan let out a little burst of laughter as Miguel’s head emerged from the shadows. “Juan? Was that you crying?” His voice was hoarse, but clear. The older boy clambered back onto his feet and looked at his brother with surprise. “What are you wearing?”

Juan’s heart was racing again, but not from fear. He did it! Miguel was awake. Everything would be okay. Grinning wildly beneath the mask, Juan moved forward to hug Miguel. When his foot refused to budge from the floor, he looked down. A gnarled burnt brown hand held his ankle, its wrist attached to a small mirror shard. Juan felt a dry, heavy weight grip his other ankle. Another hand had sprung out of a piece of glass on the other side of him.

A forest of hands and arms stretched up from the scattered pieces of glass on the floor, all grabbing at Juan’s feet and legs. Some dug nails into his clothes, leaving pinprick holes in the cloth as they crept higher and higher up his body. His skin stung where the claws touched him. The crying came back full blast, as if each fragment of glass was a loudspeaker.

Near the door, a gnarled shadow bubbled up from the biggest piece of the mirror. Underneath the tangled hair, glowing coal eyes weeping clotted black streams glared at Juan. A mouth of bloody teeth growled at him.

In the doorway of the bathroom, Miguel stood frozen, his eyes tiny black dots set in a glaze of white. Juan tried to reach for him. “Miguel!” Juan screamed. “¡Ayudame!”

Bloody Mary’s claws swiped at the edge the mask, clunking against the plastic. A second arm fingered the band encircling his head while another scraped against his neck and another ran through his hair. Juan waved his arms wildly to keep the groping hands from stealing his only defense.

Something brushed his hand from above and Juan looked up. In the dark, he just could just make out the dangling chain that connected to the light bulb. Luci said that light makes spirits weak. Juan strained up and latched onto the tiny ball at the very end of the chain. At the same moment, one of Bloody Mary’s arms latched onto his wrist. The arms yanked Juan’s body to the floor, pulling the chain down along with it.

Light tore through the room, causing Juan to squeeze his eyes shut. He heard Bloody Mary shriek, a shrill sound that was like shattering glass. The arms fluttered against him, tearing, pulling, but weaker than before, gliding off him. Juan opened his eyes just in time to see the last of the waving arms fly apart into ghostly shards. The screaming head dissolved last, sucked back into the glass. The crying faded as well until the room was quiet once again.

Curled on the floor among the broken glass, Juan lay trying to suck in the breaths that forced their way out of him in tearful little coughs.

Ro Molina is a career chimera who's freelanced in several fields and one day might just settle on one. Writing, however, has always been a constant and she enjoys crafting stories that explore the magical and the monstrous in everyday life. This story is one of her oldest and Ro's happy that the world finally gets to see it. She gives no contact information because she does not want to be found.