Karina Dove Escobar

La Cantadora

There was something about singing that made her soul swell. As she gained momentum, her soul was high tide in a starlit sea. Pulled by the rhythm, pulled by the tones, just as waters are pulled by the moon. She was just the vessel.

In each sound, there was the disinfection of old wounds. The tonic tones pooled in her mouth like so many hurts healed in hot springs. This is how she tended her traumas. This is how she made them beautiful.

After each performance, she would step off the stage like a falling star and see the stardust in her audience’s eyes. The full moon gazes followed her as she made her way to her seat in the back of the room. She felt the whispered praises wash over her as she passed. The quiet woosh of them gathered in her heart like calligraphy. She clutched them, a little baffled and disoriented, but always overjoyed. It felt good to be a successful messenger, a hostess to something greater. She was just a vessel, and for a few precious moments, as she sang, they were all bobbing on the same sea. 

Still thrumming with a healthy shine, she made her way through the dark of the re-quieting coffeeshop, thinking: This…this is the basis of community. This is connection. And feeling so present, she would settle back into her seat and lose herself in the sway of the next performer, relishing the feeling of being part of the crowd. Week after week, it went like this. Until everything changed.

Suicide is one of many events that can destruct a Before and turn it into an After. For La Cantadora, it was her mother. Suicide. And now, everything felt off-balance. A tectonic shift. A planetary tilt. Even the atmosphere of the coffee shop changed. The dimming lights, once a method for coalescing with a crowd in shadow, now seemed to only emphasize her loneliness. Her performances became jumbled and disjointed. Her audience felt light-years away. Losing sight of the horizon, large waves of a once calm sea crashed over her head. She’d leave the stage drenched, sodden, looking sad and small as a tub-dipped kitten. She felt messy, sloshing salt water onto her audience’s faces. 

“You’re doing something different. I like it,” an audience member said after one such performance, their eyes all stardust even though she felt black-hole dark. The juxtaposition disturbed her and she promptly gathered her belongings and left. 

She tended to seek cavernous places after that. Deep rock, nothingness spaces. She dove into drink and hunger-crazed faces, resurfacing only as her numbness allowed.

It was in this chaotic time that he found her. He was all the wrong things and white in the way that silenced. He called her names she shouldn’t have tolerated, decorated her in descriptors too simplified by stereotypes to be humane. But in her almost drowned state, she barely registered the thunderclap of approaching danger. Rather, she plunged forward until he was sitting on her bed.

“Sing me a song,” he said.

They were in her room, her sacred studio, one-on-one. Here, in her room, the walls were plastered with previous lullabies, echoes laid into the brick from countless late-night practice sessions. There they were: the many, many layers of them: memories of the times she’d spin salves from the starlight. 

“Sing me a song.”

She started with a hum and the echoes began to peel off the walls. They danced as ghosts do, promenading into her mouth, transforming her hums into vocalizations. Steadily, a song resurrected from the phantoms. Una canción from the Before began to condense into words on her tongue. 

I used to be afraid of fire
Flames burning my home
Y aún tengo miedo al fuego,
But now it’s in my soul –

Yet, before she could lose herself in the medicine, before she could close her eyes and freefall into her heart’s chant, she watched his eyes flash red as a supernova, red as a dying sun. His mouth opened, ravenous as a new moon and as empty as dark matter.

She’d never known a vampire before. She’d never met a werewolf. Who knew what kind of warlock he was—

But her voice was gone by morning. 

The sun rose and her vocal cords felt the weight of the alchemy. A once smooth sanctuary was now fragmented by circumstance. She felt a tangle of static where there was once easy order. She tried to summon old songs, but they were irretrievable in the fugue. There was no more sea, no more crashing waves. There was no water at all. Just fangs embedded where they shouldn’t be.

Growing increasingly desperate, she searched her walls for more traces of lullabies, but the bricks and mortar no longer stored their old treasure trove of echoes. The walls were bare and glaring with the first rays of a new dawn.

That evening, she lay with the curtains thrown open. She slept, bathing in moonlight, balancing a piece of turquoise in the soft pit of her throat. She tried to rush her healing, yet she knew with a sick descent of her stomach that it was going to take time. 

In that period of healing, she became silent as a pause. She became a quiet observer. And when she could no longer handle it, she fled to her familiar coffee shop, hoping she’d encounter some phantoms. 

It’s eerie how some things continue through all the changes. When she was last there, she could sing effortlessly. Now, her own throat puzzled her. Yet, like clockwork, the coffee shop staff placed the chairs into their usual positions, semicircle around the makeshift stage and in rows along the sides of the room. The sound equipment was placed ramble-shamble on the stage, just as she remembered. And the clipboard with the sign-up sheet still gathered names at the front door before being whisked away by the coffeehouse hosts. As she passed the shop’s threshold that evening, she glanced nostalgically at this clipboard with its dangling pen, before passing it by for a seat in the corner. A woman in a cute red jumpsuit settled in a seat across the room at the same time. Her eyes flickered in La Cantadora’s direction just as the lights dropped. 

Where there was once the feeling of community, then the feeling of loneliness, La Cantadora now noticed an inner unraveling as the darkness settled across the audience. She was an empty vessel, but this time, her role would be to receive the medicine. The stage lights were adjusted by volunteer technicians, then the first name was announced. In response, the room exploded into hoots and hollers and applause. Then, the woman in the red jumpsuit appeared on stage. 

“We love you, Marisol!” someone shouted from the audience. 

Then, maybe only La Cantadora noticed the slight shake of the performer’s hand as she adjusted the mike stand to the correct height. The crowd was evidently awed by her, yet the woman’s nerves still buzzed with electricity. Anticipation. For that small moment before the music rose from the woman’s throat, La Cantadora’s body remembered what it once felt like to break the hushed silence.

She began softly, with a hum. Like La Cantadora once did, she didn’t seek to violently shatter the silence but merely to enter its embrace. To coax it into color and warmth. Softly, slowly. The fuzziness of her hums matured seamlessly into a rich full-throatedness, which only continued to ripen, descending into the hollows of her ribcage. With flawless gradience, the woman’s voice got stronger, louder. And by the time the song ended, the crowd was on its feet, the raw power of the singer’s final note searing the air, surging from her gaping mouth like a great spirit. La Cantadora’s eyes were misty as the music lifted her from the seat, her hands a frenzy of claps. Through the torrent, through the ecstasy of that final moment, La Cantadora watched as the red of a dozen roses flew through the air and landed with a flourish at the singer’s feet. 

Later in the evening, the darkness lifted, revealing very normal chairs and tables where magic once was…and as all the people shuffled to gather their belongings and face the outside world once more…La Cantadora noticed the woman in red approaching her. 

“It’s you!” the woman said, flustered, excited. “You’re back!” Then, confusion. Concern. “Why didn’t you sing?”

La Cantadora stammered, touching her throat, the empty pit of it.  

“I…I’ve been going through a rough patch,” she said.

“Oh. Have you tried drinking marjoram tea? It does wonders.”

“No, I’ll have to try that.”   

La Cantadora looked at the woman radiating before her and wondered if that’s what she used to look like. Constantly cloaked in a golden aura, not knowing what riches she could lose any instant. 

“You were amazing up there, tonight.” 

The woman before her beamed, blushed a little. 

“Thanks. But, yeah, it’s the kind of thing you do all the time! You know, I didn’t think I’d ever be brave enough. I saw you do it…when was it…a year ago? Wow. You were so stunning. Mesmerizing. You made me feel like I could do it, too, you know?”

La Cantadora really didn’t know what to say. The woman looked at her with a luminosity she was no longer used to. All she could do was smile back at her, shy. At this, the woman’s smile broadened, and her arm with the roses extended.

“Please. It would mean so much to me if you took these.”

“Wait, what? I—”

“Yes! You must. I was in a dark place back then. You really inspired me. Please.” She thrust the bouquet closer, practically into her arms. “Take them.”

La Cantadora opened her palms and received the roses. Their stems felt firm in her grip. Their aroma felt like a draught of wine. And like wine, they loosened her tongue a little.

“Do you ever catch a glimpse of the audience while you’re singing?”

The woman paused to consider. “Yeah, sometimes. All those open faces. Like a hundred full moons.”

“Exactly. But, do you ever see a flash of…I don’t know…something different. Something red and hungry?” 

“No…I don’t think so,” she said. Her eyes looked distant, imagining it. Maybe, in her mind’s eye, she was scanning the crowd for traces of red, for traces of a grumbling, growling appetite, and there was none to be found, until—

She blinked the thought away and looked back at La Cantadora. 

“No, it’s all just moonlight from up there.” Her face melted into a smile again, her cheeriness so childlike, it was disorienting.

La Cantadora suddenly felt very old and pressed the bouquet to her nose to hide it. 

Enveloped in the rosy smell (A gift…a gift), she looked back up at the woman, reached out, and gave her hand a squeeze.

“Thank you so much for these.”

* * *

That’s the thing with being objectified, no one tells you it could be hereditary. Her mother discarded herself like something inanimate. Now, La Cantadora existed like an object, too. Hollow. Too emptied out to be anything more than a vase just asking to be filled. 

* * *

Hear me, hear me. Listen, listen.

La Cantadora awakened, startled, at about three in the morning. She searched the shadows for a figure. Swatted at the air around her. Nothing. Yet, it felt like someone (or someones?) was just whispering in her ear. 

Come here. 

La Cantadora jumped. The voice (or voices?) sounded strong as perfume in the air. It wasn’t a dream. She pushed off her covers, pressed her feet to the floor until they carried her entire weight. She stood still in the viscous dark waiting for the voice (or voices?) to speak again. 

Here!

Sharp as thorns, soft as petals. She followed the scent (Hear me, here!) all the way to the table. The aroma of words was strongest there, hovering like a fog. They were definitely coming from the bouquet. Roses. Just a few days old, they were already wilting in their vase, heavy heads bowing, their splendor fading. 

Hello, hi. (Hello, there.)

It was a strange thing, witnessing words with her nose. She never knew a voice could be olfactory. That a chorus could be sniffed. And how to respond?

You already have.

Have I, now? La Cantadora thought.

Yes. You’re here, aren’t you? Thank you for hearing us. Something strange is happening. Something is confusing our senses. Something is not quite right. Please. Could you explain?

La Cantadora blinked, looking at the roses before her, sitting in the darkness of her living room rather than awaiting a sunrise in a field, somewhere. How, exactly, do you explain to someone they are dying? How do you explain this when you were so proud to arrange them in a vase a few days before?

Oh. So that’s how it is. Is there no undoing this?

A sadness began to unspool within her as she imagined the roses’ snipped stems, severed from their life-giving roots.

Oh. That’s why we feel so strange. Disjointed. (Floating.) Disembodied. 

Yeah, I guess so, La Cantadora thought. A guilt was pulling at her belly, stronger and stronger, making her a little queasy. Is there anything I could do? 

Well, yeah. (Yeah!) Come closer. Close enough that we can feel your breath. 

And so, she leaned forward. As she did so, the words got denser, thicker. Her nose brushed up on the petals like an introduction, her breath close enough to rattle the drying leaves into further conversation. As she approached, the din of the floral chatter immersed her completely. She sensed an overwhelming need in the air, to be heard. She knew how that felt. And so, she closed her eyes and lost herself in the voices.

We felt alive in the fields, worshiping the sun, but the universe brought us here. Here, what are we? Are we anything other than beauty, captured? Beauty, observed? We feel so out of touch. So disoriented, hazy, confused. Can gifts be animate? All we know is…we’re not inanimate, but soon will be. We’re not objects, but soon will be. We can feel the life slowly leaving…(Slowly leaving…). All we know is we came into the world as perfume and would like to leave as perfume. Yes, we’d like to leave as perfume. Let our last breath be an aroma.

That was when La Cantadora knew what needed to be done. Politely, she excused herself from the roses’ presence. Wielding a flashlight, La Cantadora searched her backyard. She gathered some twigs and branches. She chopped large pieces into thinner strips, as her mother once taught her to do. Remembering, she also shaved a medium piece of wood with her knife so that layers of cellulose curled along the branch’s surface. Years ago, her mother called this feathering and guided her first clumsy attempts at it with warm, capable hands. 

The work was difficult, especially for the middle of the night, but she felt determined. Soon, she sat down before the tiny log cabin she built from the smallest twigs, the wood pieces balancing precariously over a piece of fluffy dryer lint, her improvised kindling. Then, she leaned her feathered piece of wood onto this structure and carefully reached in with her lighter. With aid from her puffs of breath, the first sparks smoldered in the kindling, then grew into bigger and bigger flames. Fire. It crackled with an appetite that both frightened and amazed her. She stacked bigger and bigger logs onto the quickly maturing flames. Then, she took up the bouquet of roses and leaned back into them, focusing her nose, once more, on their language. Already, the words were getting fainter, more difficult to detect as their scent dried up with their petals. 

Hello there, (hello). It’s you again. How lovely, how strange. The air feels different now, more familiar. Or are we just imagining? For it is dark all around, but somehow we feel the heat of the sun. But, we didn’t think we’d see another morning, no. No we didn’t think we would at all.

Looking up at the fire, La Cantadora watched the flames lick under and around the biggest log in the fire. Its underside was already charred.

Oh, They said softly. So it is fire, not the sun. We see. What is the meaning of this?

The Cantadora then visualized the idea that came to her earlier, imagining smoke rising out of the flames, up toward the sky. An aroma. A perfume. There was a pause before the bouquet responded to her, and for a moment, she wondered if she was too late. But then…

You really did listen to us. (You listened!) You did (you really did)…

And so, La Cantadora sat by the fire with the bouquet, listening to the last whisperings that the roses had to offer. She savored their fading presence, their unbelievably sweet and musky voices as they got quieter and quieter. Then, standing, she brought the bouquet to the firepit and tossed them in. Crackling, the fire seemed to chuckle as it swallowed them whole. Some petals turned to ash immediately and were carried up into the air, floating. The stems turned black and thin. And rising from the bouquet, there was a sweet, sweet smoke. Sweet as incense, this smoke rose in curls over the fire, and up into the trees. As she watched the smoke drift up and away, La Cantadora saw that the sky was starting to lighten.

* * *

A couple of years later, La Cantadora crouched in her backyard with her gardening tools. The rose bushes she planted along the edges of her property were flourishing. After two seasons of stretching out their roots, exploring the terrain, they were now at home. Accustomed and getting ready to bloom.

It was this morning that she noticed the spring buds. They were ripe, full, almost ready to unfurl. And so, she busily cleaned up the yard, as if to prepare for the arrival of guests. She raked up dead leaves. She spread fresh compost along the bases of each bush. La Cantadora worked the soil with gloved hands, eagerly anticipating the first scent of their intoxicating chatter. She knew it would be different to engage with roses whose roots were still firmly beneath them, who were excited to live a vibrant life beneath the sun. She was so ready, so eager to hear their voices again, she didn’t notice something else pushing its way through dark soil to a surface. There, low and steady beneath the scrape of her trowel, La Cantadora was humming a song.