"Come on, we have to walk from here." she points to the horizon.
If someone asked me a question based on what the hell I'm going through. I'd tell them stress. My brother and I watched our mother, Childhood gets killed when we were kids. They cut off her hands so she wouldn't climb the rope. Things she used to tell us at a young age. If you ever get rope around your neck. Climb up the rope. Grip the rope, squeeze with your feet, and climb. Steady your breath, don't rush.
My mama could do that. Black vampires are subjected to the punishment of lynching. The other way is hanging a vamp by the feet. They haven't done feet hanging in years. The answer as to why they hang vampires by the feet is obvious.
I get out of the car and jog to Thankful. I'm gazing at her skinny frame which appears thicker due to her heavy black and red flamenco dress. Despite not having hair, she has two paper flowers sitting on the sides of her head, yellow and orange. Reaching out, I bring her face to me. "Thank?" I could question the origins of her name but her sister or herself has called her Agradecida. "What did they do to you?"
She shies away from me, a bigger question, why don't I remember. "It's me." her voice is hollow. I put both hands against her face. "The circus uses children as midgets to perform. If the child is too tall, they take the ankles." well that explains that. Ankles are important but it isn't enough to make a midget. "I have to get the rest of your memory back, Magna..."
A pinch in my head causes me to flinch. "What?" I twitch. "Magna Carta..." her voice is barely audible, a ghostly echo.
Magna Carta...
"Do you remember your real name?"
________
Toda de Limonsin
Toda stood a good six feet in heels. She flounced her dress in the mirror. Adjusted her pigtails for the umpteenth time and pushed up her double D breast. After posing in the full-length accent mirror. She went across the room and sat at the dressing table. "Es hora de preparase para la muerte." she grabbed the one-eyed, stitched mouth doll from the corner of the dressing table. "That means, it's time to get time to get ready for death." Toda pulled at the pigtails of the doll. She set her back down and picked up a doll with a short bobbed hairstyle. "Should I be Toda de Limonsin or Agradecida. But I don't wanna be fat." she groaned.
"Let me go!" Agradecida wails through the doll, the toy squirming in her hold. "Se queue estas afuera. I know your outside. Estas aqui pero usando una illusion para ver la Carta Magna. You are here but using an illusion to see Magna Carta." Toda shakes the doll in her hand. "Chica intelligent. Clever Girl, though, it is impressive that you've reached him. We're in Mexico. How did you do it?"
"Charm!" shouts Agradecida inside the doll. "step on a lucky penny and you'll be crossed with luck!"
Toda snorts, throwing Agradecida to the ground and stepping on her. "Childhood's amulets?"
"Where is she!"
"This is such a classic bad guy versus the hero. Let me go, where did you put it, I won't let you win... shut up." She pressed her foot down further. "Childhood's soul went back to her body. which, let me remind you, I've been hearing about. As well as Headcount."
"That's such a stupid ass name!" Toda stepped on her repeatedly, Agradecida yelped as the doll's fabric began showing bruises. "Voodoo is an old African Trik. It is also Headcount's favorite and..." Toda looked to the ceiling, placed her hand on her hips. "Childhood's. She always bitched about, if I die because of something stupid. I will take the world with me."
"And she's right to do! She stole her childhood from her!"
"and?" Toda glances at her toes. "Are you implying because tortured a negro child years ago. That we aren't supposed to get mad because she tricked us and used her African hoodoo on us?"
"Fuck you!"
"Likewise..." Toda removed her foot and scooped up the doll. "She fucked with all of us. THat vampiric bitch needs what's coming to her." she squeezes Agradecida. "She put me in a radio and smashed it to pieces. Then fed off me!"
"So!"
"So?" She squeezed around the head of the doll. "I'm so sick of everyone worshipping that fucking black whore! She's terrible!" As Toda screamed her body changed from young to old. "I don't care how long it was. I'm tired! I'm tired! I'm tired!"
"Then go to bed!"
Her rage would blow the top of the ceiling away. Scrunching up the doll, she tossed her at a window. "You date one of her son's. Clearly, your just using him. You came from a bad house, father used to drink. Mom was on drugs, used to be a dedicated crackhead. And grandma--"
"SHUT UP! Don't disrespect my abuela!"
"Why not?" Toda paced toward's her animated body. "What's her name again? You call her Curioso but what is it? Ndidi Alheri--Maybe it was, Ilaria. I'm pretty sure it was Ndidi. Also Yahoska--however Illaria Dorotea? That sounds oddly... fucking familiar."
"BECAUSE IT'S MY FUCKING GRANDMOTHER'S NAME."
"Oh... right." Toda bent down. "And I took the name of her sister."
________
Thankful grips her stomach, hands grabbing her head. She's stumbling, I pull her to me. "Stop it! Thank--Agra--" I sigh, I never could form my mouth to say her full name. A-grade-the-sea-hoe, no, I-grade-the-sea-duh. Licking my lips, I remember the simplest way she taught me, "Agradecida! Baby, stop!"
"She's in the castle..." She holds her head and falls to the ground. I bend to her level and briefly see bruises appear around her cheeks in eyes. Her lip is bleeding. "Deidre--Magna, I'm not here!"
"What do you mean your not here! I can see you!" I pick her up bridal style. "Hang onto me." Her body keeps changing before my eyes. I'm holding the little girl I knew back then. "Magna! It's all revenge!"
"Revenge?" I didn't care what the reason behind it was. My mother was attacked and the DOHRCC raided our home. They hung my mother in front of us and had the nerve to cover it up as if she just quit.
Her eyes spread wide, she falls limp in my arms. "Witch Trials...?" she utters. She lifts slightly to see me, "Magna... she's talking about the Witch Trials?"
"My mother died at 14--"
"She lied about her age." I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to drop her right now. "She's 14, Thankful."
"She's not! Magna, you're mother has been lying for years." She grips my collar. "Do you even know your mother's real name!"