ENCANTADORA (PART 3)

For someone who works in an unusual time where most of the people are already dreaming with drippings on their lips, Arnold is one of those who can easily sleep soundly. The friction between his skin and the bedsheet is a natural sedative for him. No need for him to gulp several teacups or even the dead old counting of sheep.

 

But tonight, surprisingly his usually deep sleep was intermittently roused for an unknown reason; as if there is this unseen hand that shakes him at random and he has no choice but to open his eyes that are revolting against him now for easily giving up the much-coveted slumber.

 

The simultaneous shift from sleeping to being wide awake finally reached a conclusion when Arnold decides to rise from his bed when he heard a sound coming from their living room.

 

It was the voice of someone talking in a hushed tone. Arnold would consider it nothing but a fractal of his forgotten dream in the first place and yet after a moment, the voice becomes all too familiar with him.

 

It was the voice of his wife who apparently is missing beside him.

 

“It’s alright now Maria. I’ve got plenty of these now to water you down.”

 

Arnold wonders where on earth did Emma get some water especially the water interruption will cease by tomorrow at 8 AM. They don’t even have any water supply now on their gallons.

 

“Come..drink all of it. Just like what you say, these will make the colors of your flowers sharper and vivid.”

 

There is a pang of sadness that once more takes a nibble at Arnold’s heart upon hearing such endearing words from his wife albeit it was directed to a plant and not him.

 

He went outside their room and went towards their living room where Emma is busily pouring something into the pot of the Encantadora plant where he harbors an uncommonly jealousy that is getting stronger and stronger as the day passes by.

 

But just when he is about to get near, a stench overpowers his senses that made him step back out of natural repulsiveness. He quickly covers his nose but it was all too late for the scent completely plagues the air he breathes.

 

“What the hell is that?”

 

Emma was caught off guard upon hearing the snide of his husband; her reaction was a mix of surprise and horror as she saw her husband uncover her secret.

 

Now any alibis won’t work this time around; not even begging on her knees for she was caught red-handed literally with bright, warm liquid spilling all over their floor and staining his hands; permanently marking her for the gravest crimes she had done.

 

It was blood; freshly extracted from the bodies of dogs and cats she kills every single night.

 

“EMMA!!”

 

Arnold didn’t wait for any lame excuse or absurd explanation. A violent beating is echoing right inside his ears as his pent-up fury went into beyond its border. With his palm outstretched, he takes a quick stride towards Emma and ready to give her the discipline that he might regret in giving her after.

 

And yet his emotions are now unchained. This has gone out of control. His wife is becoming some sort of a monster that he needs to restrain else she might never recognize her anymore as his better half nor a human.

 

But his hand that supposed to land on Emma's cheeks never made it to her as the deranged wife of Arnold throws at him the container that is still half full of blood.

 

“Stop Arnold! Stop!” She pleads and cowers like a child while putting his body between his raging husband and the Encantadora whom she will probably reason out as the one who told her that it needs blood as nourishment like some sort of a floral vampire without fangs but roots that slurp blood to survive.

 

“No..this is enough Emma! Using our money for our plants is bearable but this. This is something I can never just take even with my eyes close!” Smeared from head to toe with blood, Arnold walks with all boiling wrath towards her wife with his hands now clenched into a fist.

 

“You killed all animals nearby and then what next? What will you kill next once every single dog and cat are already dined by that damned plant of yours!?”

 

The mild-mannered Arnold now has some murderous fire on his eyes as getting near and near to the trembling figure of Emma who opted to close her eyes and beg not his husband but Maria, the docile colorful plant that she adores religiously like a god underneath the leaves and flowers. The moral of the god, however, is yet to be defined but to Arnold, it's no God but a demanding, capricious devil in disguise.

 

And ending its life is quite easy at this moment: he can pull it by the roots and throw it in the fire until there its obnoxious colors turn s to black and soot.

 

“MARIA!!! HELP ME!!! PLEASE!!”

 

Blinded by anger further fueled by how his wife dotingly calls for help to the plant, Arnold is ready to do what must be done. But he can even lay his hands on his wife and Maria, something bizarre just happened that halted his steps for a second.

 

Call it a miracle or the work of devilry but the encantadora plant seems finally respond to her sole devotee’s pleading as the colorful blooms it wears starts moving in a slithering motion much like the biblical tempter that coils around Adam and Eve in the garden where sin and death were first made. It moves with grace until all its flower is now pointing towards Arnold.

 

And right in the pistil of each of its bursting flower, an eye suddenly open its lid. Bulging eyes all with crimson iris-like fresh blood drips glaring at him with vicious intent on them without a blink. Without even shifting their stare at him.

 

Arnold froze and felt all the anger that banging his bones wash down the drain upon his eyes met the unnatural gaze of Maria. His blood becomes a glacier on his veins while his mind is reeling all of sudden; being taken over by rattling horror that those eyes that pin him on where he is standing as if he was a deer caught not in the headlights but also about to get crushed mercilessly by menacing force.

 

Something akin to clawed hands of a beast that will leave in pieces; bones and flesh in tidbits in any moment.

 

“You will pay dearly, Arnold…”

 

The eyes finally spoke and it was seething not with hatred but malice as it proceeds in trapping Arnold right into its bottomless unholy domain; smothering the hapless with its eye until Arnold found himself being eaten by those blood eyes until he can’t see anything but red that which flow on his vein coating his entirety.

 

And then the sound of bursting left a final echo in his ears.