Page 52 of Mortal Desires

“What’s that?”

“Those are the souls who never came to the underworld. The ones who ascended. Here to mock me.”

The skulls clung to the wall like horrifying decorations. I never liked to think about this wall. It made me feel like the other immortal gods could count my failures.

“I don’t think they’re mocking you,” she said as she took a step forward coming face to face with a skull.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t think it’s about you at all.” She turned to me and smiled.

“I am the god of the underworld. Most things in the underworld are about me.”

“Not all.”

I swallowed a reply and moved, pointing to a skull to the left of where she stood.

“Look at this one?” I kept pointing.

“Why?”

“That’s your mother.”

She made a startled sound and I wondered if I made a mistake. I thought she would want to see it, but she was a human. Maybe she thought it was crass to look at her own mother’s skull.

“She ascended.” I tried to correct my mistakes. “As all of your family before her.”

“I never saw Abuela ascend. She visited me though, years after her death, Vic.”

I wasn’t sure how to react when she shortened my name. Confused, someone would even consider using a nickname of the terrifying name I gave myself.

“How did that happen?” she asked, fingering the red ring she always wore.

A soul that lingered? That was impossible. No one lingered without my consent and I never allowed a Morales to stay. I looked to the right, where the dark forest stood. This smelled like the fates.

I almost laughed. Talk about them more than once and they’ll make themselves known.

“The fates.” I sighed.

She followed my eyes. “Why the fates?”

“It reeks of their musings. They like to mess with my rules. That’s why all the spirits dream of visiting them. They all think of themselves as an exception to the rule.”

“If anyone was the exception, that’d be Abuela.” She smiled softly at me, before turning to her mother’s skull again. “I don’t remember her, but I’ve seen pictures. All of us have something from her.”

She traced the skull with her fingers. “Elisa has her eyes. Lucia has her smile. Elena and Emilia have her frame. Florencia has her golden-brown skin, and Marnie has her high cheekbones.”

“And you?”

“I got her hair.”

Today her hair was falling all the way down to her small waist in dark brown curls. Soft and enticing.

“We all feel so connected to her, but only the older girls really knew her. Flo, Marnie, and I…” she shook her head, “only heard stories.”

“I shouldn’t have brought Adrian to the ceremony.”

It wasn’t a question, I knew the answer, but I had to say it out loud.

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