Dead Awake: The Last Crossing by hades Read Free Book Online Page A

the note anyway. Irvin translated and wrote
down the poem for me in Spanish. He nodded his approval of it, and
smiled to me as if the spirits had blessed and poured out their
mirth on me. Most likely he hadn’t brushed his teeth since he was
twelve, and the putrid smell that came from his mouth with that
smile diverted all my attention from the gestures of fortune he was
giving me.
    He went on to explain what
the poem was about. In his broken dialect of Spanish and bits of
English, (which was a surprise), he told me that the poem was a
sort of blessing. It had magical and spiritual qualities that would
foretell the future for me, and in some cases forge it. He
explained that I would still be left to make certain decisions, but
that the poem would stop the consequences of any wrong decision and
correct my fate to run its proper course.
    In this case, he said, it
was all good. I asked Irvin if the poem had anything to do with
“The Malagra”. He stopped for a moment, and then told me that this
was not “El Malagra”. It was like it, except that “El Malagra” was
a curse, and this was, in opposite, a blessing. He told me that I
had probably found favor with some other, much stronger, “Worker of
the spirits,” and that it had probably been that person who had
sent me the blessing as a gift for some kindness. He then asked me
if I had done something kind for someone lately. I thought for a
moment, and then remembered I had helped a woman carry her
groceries at the market. She had looked like a witch... Or maybe
the two boys.
    He told me that it couldn’t
be any one of those persons; that on the island neither young boys
nor women would be the ones to cast such a spell. Children could
neither cast nor be affected by any type of magic that he knew of,
except in the case of healing, where even children had been known
to cure their parents using prayers and other omens. Women, on the
other hand, could wield magic, but not the type nor rite that these
blessings required. It could only have come from some very powerful
and old “Worker of the spirits.”
    There was that phrase again
“Worker of the spirits.” It had such a ring to it, and it sent my
imagination soaring. I couldn’t, for the life of me, think of
anyone who met that description whom I had made a good impression
on. There was that old magician I had plundered just some days ago,
but he would rather have sent a curse than a blessing. I asked
Irvin again if he was sure that the poem was good, but again came
the reassuring explanation that it was indeed a blessing and that
no cursing could bring such good luck. He explained that the poem
read that I would find, or had found (I couldn’t make out if he was
using past or future tense), the love of my life. Such a blessing,
he said, could only take me to places where I would feel complete
and true about myself.
    Even though I was not
superstitious, and believed nothing about the magic and spirits,
and was only talking to this man to set Blanca’s mind at rest; I
couldn’t help but be affected by Irvin’s fortune telling. If
anything was to be said about these types of people (soothsayers,
fortune-tellers, and palm readers), it is that they almost always
have something to say that comes close to home, out of the many
generalizations they speak.
    In any case, I had been
correct. The poems weren’t curses of any kind. Instead, they were
omens of good fortune – blessings from above. I was glad Irvin had
come, and had translated the work for me, even though I couldn’t
understand all of it yet. But to find someone to translate from
Spanish to English would be much easier, than to find someone to
translate it from Guarani. I could even get Blanca to translate it
for me, now that I had proof that the poems weren’t
evil.
    Irvin left and was on his
way to Blanca’s door to explain the outcome. I didn’t feel the need
to gloat over my correctness, but I’d probably go over there as
soon as Mr. sewer-breath was