Flowers of Cerrado

FLOWERS OF CERRADO

by H. Pueyo

(Content warnings: Miscarriage, abortion, and related themes) 

It happened every day before dawn, again, and again, and again. Priscilla called it the time that never passed, but the others thought it was the crooked-mouthed demon Jurupari. She had only heard of Jurupari once, years ago, in a book about Tupi-Guarani mythology: he was the son of Ceci, and the representation of darkness, nightmares, and the rise of masculine power. Missionaries had once associated him with the Catholic devil, but now she knew none of those things to be true. 

There were no demons. There was only time—their time—blocked, suspended, forever stuck in the same day.

Priscilla watched herself fall, like she did many times before. Her knees hit the ground, and blood stained her battered white dress. Again, she thought, looking at the distortion that was Jurupari, at the crashed cars, at the broken buildings. 

And again the day started.

 •••

The sun blazed down over her face and shoulders, making her head ache and her tawny skin turn red. Priscilla wiped the already-forming sweat off her forehead, and stood up slowly, trying to recognize her surroundings. The curve connecting residential and commercial blocks had a sign reading 209/210 South, and the avenue led to a subway station. 

With a wave of her hand, her clothes changed from a delicate bobbin lace dress with ribbons to jeans and a cotton t-shirt. Our Lady of Fátima, the first brickwork church to be constructed in Brasília, was fifteen minutes away, and would have at least a small group of survivors.

“Come on, Priscilla,” she told herself, tying her wavy hair in a bun. “They’d want you to help them.”

The entrance of the subway was abandoned, like everything else around her. Empty apartments, empty restaurants, empty playgrounds. Just a cement opening in the ground, the orange tiles adorning the stairway, and constant, heavy silence.

Priscilla flicked her fingers, and a white sphere of light formed, illuminating the underground corridor. There was a chance that the farmers’ market would be set up near the church to feed survivors, as it was some of the days, and she hoped that she would get to eat. She followed the light down the underpass, whistling, and the gleaming ball disappeared when she reached the surface a few streets later.

“Priscilla!” Someone called in the distance, but there was no one there, only the rustling leaves of the trees above her head. Priscilla walked through a row of blooming bougainvilleas and bright palm trees, and stretched her neck when she heard her name again. “Pri!”

She ignored the faint voice and touched her abdomen, feeling the baby moving inside of her. 

“Good morning, love,” she said.

If she closed her eyes, she could see another woman’s daffodil dress, and if she tried hard enough, she could even feel the wooly lines of the crochet. Are you fine? The woman would ask, petting her hair. Are you two hungry?

“Not hungry,” she answered. “But we will eat.”

 •••

Our Lady of Fátima was packed with people. There were survivors praying inside the construction, and the benches had been brought outside to help the wounded. A woman called her name right by her ear, and Priscilla jumped, her heart racing. An elderly couple huddled together on a bench looked at her warily. What’s wrong with that girl? they probably thought.

Priscilla hugged her torso instinctively, the veins in her hands bulging as they clasped her shirt.

“You’re not here,” she answered in a low voice, hoping no one would hear her. The colourful branch of a bougainvillea rested near a trash can, and she focused on what she had to do: Help others. We are here to help others.

A group of teenagers talked around the fire built behind the church, while the grocers from the farmers’ market handed out fruits and vegetables to anyone who came by near the entrance. Nearby, an elderly man laid on the grass, groaning.

 “Where does it hurt?” Priscilla knelt in front of him. His clothes were stained with dirt and dried blood, and his left arm was pale and purple. There was a compound fracture near his wrist, cracked bone appearing through a gash in the flesh, and he trembled, unable to talk.

She clasped her hands together, and a soft light enveloped her body, from her frizzy hair all the way down to the tips of her toes. It blinked, at first, until it became stable and strong. When she opened her palms, a graceful white flower appeared, its green stalks sprouting in every direction like a shower, like its name: chuveirinho.

Fragments of bone rejoined as the light enveloped his arm, red tissue sewed itself together, and the skin closed, leaving nothing but faint stains of dried blood. The man moaned in response, still in pain, but bewildered by the sight. Priscilla smiled, and the chuveirinho faded slowly, retreating back into her hand.

“Let me know if you need anything else.”

 •••

Brasília was plagued by encostos. Priscilla knew that for a long time, first from her mother, a firm spiritist believer, then from the maned wolf. Her mother said that they were deceased souls attached to living people, draining their energy away, but they were in fact low forms of energy, invisible to the untrained eye, created out of anything negative. She could see them and she could neutralize them; she had been doing so for the past ten years.

When Priscilla was nineteen, she traveled to Pirenópolis, a small town near Brasília, to study local flora. More specifically, she went to visit Cidade de Pedra, a natural labyrinth of stone and quartz that sheltered plants and flowers unique to the region, a dream to a botanical illustrator like herself. Armed with a bottle of water to fight the blisteringly dry weather, Priscilla continued walking between giant stone structures while her guide rested, marvelling at the sight of plants she had only ever seen in books. Ipomoea procumbens. She touched the pink petals with the tip of her fingers. Pilosocereus machrisii.

She sat down on one of the stones and took out her sketchbook to draw the plants around her. There was nowhere to hide from the sun in Cidade de Pedra, and the heat was nearly unbearable, but it didn’t matter. It was a unique chance to appreciate the Cerrado vegetation, characteristic of the central-west region of Brazil.

Crack. The noise made a shiver run down her spine, and Priscilla stopped drawing to look over her shoulder. A lava lizard climbed the trunk of a tree.

Nonsense, she thought with a sigh, splashing water against her sweaty face. There’s nothing there. Before she could continue drawing, a helmeted manakin landed in front of her feet. Priscilla took her cellphone from her pocket, and her sketchbook slipped off of her lap and fell onto the short grass mere inches away from the manakin.

To her surprise, the bird didn’t move.

The creature chirped, its small body black with a red stripe starting from its crest. Priscilla unlocked her phone screen, but before she could take a photo of the helmeted manakin, it flew to the branch of a tree.

She approached the bird slowly, but it launched itself from the branch, transforming into a maned wolf as it landed on the ground, a pointed snout coming out of its cracked beak, its red crest turning into orange and black fur. Priscilla stumbled back instinctively, eyes wide, and one of her feet stepped on the fallen sketchbook. The maned wolf growled, but instead of fear, she felt a strange sense of peace.

“Priscilla,” the wolf said. “I have come with a gift.”

Her temples were throbbing, and her vision was misty, but Priscilla nodded like a child. It was sunstroke—it had to be—but she didn’t want it to end. She wanted to believe that there was indeed a gift.

The maned wolf’s ringing voice echoed inside her ears: “Choose a flower.”

The tall bush of a Paepalanthus polyanthus caught her eye. The flower had many names—sempre-viva, pepalanto, capipoatinga—but chuveirinho was her favorite.

Priscilla snapped off a branch, caressed it with her cheek, and pressed it against her breast. An explosion of light and energy burst from her, changing her cargo pants and her t-shirt into a white dress.

“Just remember, Priscilla,” he said, his sharp teeth flashing before his body shrank and his fur hardened into the scales of a snake. “It is a gift for others, not for yourself.”

IPÊ

(Handroanthus albus)

Adults gathered around the fire, children cried, and their mothers begged for help. What was Priscilla supposed to say? In the first few months of the time that never passed, she tried to comfort them. She cried with them, she hugged them, she felt their pain. Now, she was sure that any vestige of kindness had been dried out of her flesh, leaving only cold politeness. To them, it happened yesterday, she reminded herself.

 “You—you’re the woman who saved us!” A heavy middle-aged woman held Priscilla, like she needed her help to stand. “I saw it, I saw the light shining out of you when that demon…! You’re a saint, dear, you…”

Priscilla knew her name. Mariete had thanked her many times for saving her daughters, and shared countless details about her life. She knew her husband had died one day before time changed. She knew she worked as the manager of a small supermarket in Guará, and she was originally from a small town in the state of Goiás.

But it didn't matter, because Mariete didn’t know that they had already met, and was ready to meet her all over again.

Priscilla touched her own jaw, feeling a dark bruise near her mouth. If she could, she would have thrown up, but the persistent nausea continued on the top half of her abdomen. Nobody told me morning sickness would continue for so long, she thought, but her attention shifted to a strange form floating near the broken bus station past the church. It looked like a yellow crochet flower, but it was just a piece of crumpled paper.

“You should rest,” a woman said, but it wasn't Mariete.

Priscilla smiled gratefully. Even now, Isabel was still looking after her.

 •••

“Wake up! Wake up, you sloth!”

Priscilla lifted her head. Her brown hair spread over the plastic table of the cafeteria, covering part of her drawing and the cellphone in her hand. She smiled, tying the wild strands in a low ponytail before she turned to look at her best friend.

“You said something?”

“I’ve been talking for about twenty minutes.”

“Don’t be so harsh on me, Isa,” Priscilla yawned. The sketchbook was populated with drawings of plants, and a realistic Paepalanthus polyanthus stood out in the middle of trees and leaves made of charcoal. “You know I don’t sleep for days.”

Isabel crossed her arms in front of her chest. The bright yellow shirt combined with her beige skin and bleached hair made her look a bit like an egg, but Priscilla appreciated her boldness. Isabel liked anything flashy, from scandalous nail polish to artificial shades of hair dye, and the low-cut blouse was no different.

“You’ll sleep later, when you get home.” Isabel reached over to close Priscilla’s notebook. She looked over her shoulder, watching a group of students coming out of the university’s library. “I was telling you I just felt an encosto.”

Priscilla nodded, cramming her backpack with books. She closed one of her fists, and felt the flower growing between her fingers, the little stems poking her skin. Isabel did the same, and her presence grew warmer, like an oven heating up.

“I’m gonna call Leandro and tell him to meet us there.”

FLAMBOYANT

(Delonix regia)

Her moan started as a heavy breath, then it grew confident, as if she was learning that it was possible to feel desire again. Her inner thighs trembled, her chest rose, and Priscilla caressed her own hair, her right hand moving between her legs. She changed position in the bed, trying to find a comfortable angle for her overgrown stomach.

Leandro, she thought, imagining him kissing her cheeks and neck, panting close to her ear, moving in and out of her. The lines of his face, the smell of his hair, the shape of his fingers, the way a single dimple formed in his cheek whenever he laughed. If he was there, if he would at least appear once to her… 

Priscilla stopped.

“Not in the mood anymore,” she told the empty bed. 

She had found an empty building after leaving Mariete and the other survivors just a few blocks away from the church. This apartment in particular was in good condition, and it worked well as a temporary shelter while she rested.

If only there was somebody else there, somebody who would hug her and let her lay her head against his chest. Somebody wearing a jacket with the scarlet flower of the flame tree, its petals defiantly pointing outwards. Priscilla smiled, remembering Leandro’s confused expression when he chose his flower. Are you sure about this? He had frowned, analyzing the stem before pressing it against his chest. Are you? She had asked back, as he was enveloped by the warmth emanating from the flower’s light. Flashes of red and orange flickered around him, and his clothes changed, his jean jacket sprouting tongues of flame.

“How are you feeling?” Isabel asked from the other side of the room. Isabel, or what was left of her.

The question made her notice that there was no correct answer; she was a whirlwind of emotions. Flooded by the memories of a man who couldn’t return, swollen with a child who would never be born, living with the ghost of a friend who would eventually disappear. A sudden pain twisted her belly, and she curled in bed.

“I don’t think I can do this for much longer, Isa.”

Isabel looked up at the cracks in the ceiling. The golden trumpet tree flower almost formed on her breastbone, creating a golden outline.

“If I could at least take her out of me…” Priscilla placed both of her hands over her distended midsection. “I’m losing my mind like this.”

“You’re going to make it, Pri. You two are. I swear.”

 •••

Priscilla thought it was a natural disaster at first, like the TV had said. She woke up in the morning, stretched, and kissed Leandro’s entire face. It’s Saturday, he moaned, and his stubble felt rough against her cheek. Let me sleep, love.

We can’t sleep, she laughed, walking towards the wardrobe. Isabel is waiting for us. They had invited her to a new coffee shop to tell her about the pregnancy, and Priscilla couldn’t wait to see her reaction.

They were happy, then. Isabel shrieked when Priscilla told her, jumping to hug her over the table. As they ate carrot cake and drank their coffee, she bombarded her with questions: Do you have any names in mind? Did you tell your mom? I’m going to be the godmother, right? Right? Leandro whispered in her ear that he had something planned for them that night; whatever it was, she never found out. The first reports of an earthquake started in the late afternoon, scrambled all over the news. Then: Explosion at the Ministries Esplanade. The Cathedral of Brasília consumed by a fire. Thousands missing.

We need to go, Leandro told them. We have to help the injured. Isabel stood up, and they both looked at Priscilla like she was some kind of fragile porcelain vase. Maybe you should stay, Isabel said.

If she had agreed, the situation could have turned into something even worse, as it was no natural disaster that awaited them in Brasília’s central avenue.

Darkness spread from there, turning the orange sky pitch black like a stroke of paint against the clouds. It covered the broken buildings like hands, taking over the ministries and becoming bigger as it consumed more and more. For the first time, they didn’t worry about being seen by civilians. Their flowers materialized, their clothes transformed: Priscilla in her white dress, all ribbons and lace; Isabel draped in her intricate lemon crochet; Leandro’s jean jacket covered in ruby flames.

She believed Jurupari could be anything, both sentient being and uncontrollable force, all power and no conscience. Nothing could reach it, but its movements seemed planned, devouring everything around it: living or human-made, debris or air. They tried to fight it, but it read their movements with ease, and they eventually gave up, focusing on rescuing survivors instead.

It’s a demon, some whispered in horror, and when Priscilla saw the darkness cracking into a large smile, uneven sharp teeth appearing through the slit that must have been a mouth, she almost believed it. There were people running everywhere; they pushed others, who screamed for help from the ground as they tried to crawl away from the mass of stomping feet. Cars crashed into each other, erupting into flames, while the pavement cracked open and swallowed whoever was around.

Don’t worry about me, said Isabel, shaking her head. Her thin nose was broken, and a line of blood dripped down her chin. The three agreed to continue until the end, taking those they could with them to safety. 

That thing is taking more and more of the city… Leandro offered his arm, and Priscilla collapsed against his chest.

I’m trying to call Mom, she said, insisting on typing on her cellphone, her trembling hands failing to write even a simple sentence. No one's answering.

Her memories from the following night were even fainter. Dizziness, pain, the gawking mouth, her knees failing her. No matter how much they tried, the creature ate and ate and ate, and the screams were no longer of survivors, but of them. Leandro was the first. He tried to rescue a child caught under the wreck of a car, and the dark fingers caught him, pulling him toward the void. Then Isabel, who ran to grab his hand. The gap cracked open, and their bodies dangled in the air for a moment, before disappearing inside the darkness. Priscilla didn’t say a word; she didn’t cry out, she didn’t scream. Instead, tears fell stupidly on the yellow and orange petals scattered over her hands.

Then she woke up, and everything started again. No one else retained memories from the repeated days, and, despite her hopes, neither Leandro nor Isabel returned.

 •••

Lying in the bed of the empty apartment, Priscilla stared at the screen of her cellphone. It showed the last picture she took before the incident, about one hour before they left the coffee shop. She traced Leandro’s face in the air, his lips pressed into a smile, his skin black and warm, his big almond eyes looking at the camera. She imagined that she was back in their house, daydreaming about their baby having his handsome, lovable features. Maybe the baby’s hair would be dark and coily like his, or brown and thin like hers. Maybe somewhere between both of theirs.

If it was a girl, and she believed it was, she could call her Isabel. She thought of naming her after Leandro’s grandmother, and then later after her own mother, when she was convinced that her parents had died as well. Would it be strange to name a boy after his own father? 

Priscilla sighed. Why did she lose time thinking of this, anyway?

CALIANDRA

(Calliandra dysantha)

A child ran. Priscilla couldn’t see her face, but she had to be about four or five. Her chestnut hair was tied in two buns bursting with curls, and she laughed, laughed, laughed. Priscilla tried to find her between the jack trees, but the little girl hid behind them, and tried to climb one that was too high for her. When she finally grabbed the child in the air for a hug, Priscilla woke up, her cheeks wet with tears.

Her body was sore all over: her neck, her lower back, her upper belly, her tender breasts. Even her usual apathy was affected by the pain, as a growing irritation lodged in her throat, and she had to control herself not to scream when she passed a group of kids talking loudly and lighting a construction dumpster on fire.

Priscilla entered a deserted drugstore just outside the apartment building. She picked up two chocolate bars, one toothbrush, lotion, and aspirins. Her eyes stopped on a box of purple hair dye, and she wondered if Isabel would have liked it. Leandro would probably want the leave-in…

“You need to stop punishing yourself. You need to let it go,” Isabel told her, standing behind the counter. “For you and for her as well.”

 •••

Isabel was sitting on the bench behind the church, a meter away from her. The woman glanced at Priscilla from time to time, stretching her arms, checking her nails, moving her legs. A little girl walked past her like she couldn’t see her, holding a doll by the hand and walking toward the fire where the other survivors were.

Priscilla ignored Isabel. She was lying on a mattress she had stolen from one of the apartments and dragged outside, hiding under a polka-dot blanket. She did this every night. She couldn’t remember what the sky was like with streetlights, or how she slept without watching the stars, finding the constellations whose names she knew: the Southern Cross, Orion, Hydra.

Some nights, she would press her pillow against her body, imagining it was Leandro. She would pretend to hear him say what's going on, sleepy head? and she would giggle, only to realize it was just polyester and cotton.

But not tonight. Tonight, she counted the stars, slowly breathing in and out. Her right hand caressed her stomach, feeling the roundness.

“Your belly,” said Isabel, smiling. “I think it’s getting bigger.”

Priscilla didn’t answer. Exhausted, she forced herself to sit up and look at her lower body. I’m just bloated, she wanted to say, but the bump seemed more prominent under her dress.

“It’s subtle,” Isabel continued. “But it’s there.”

A ladybug landed on her upper arm, tickling her skin, and Priscilla swatted it away. She pushed the blanket aside, and walked aimlessly around the church. Why did she say that? Did Priscilla make it up inside her head?

“It hurts when you lie,” she said out loud, even knowing she was no longer there. Isabel appeared to her less frequently than in the beginning, and Priscilla knew that soon she would stop altogether.

Crack.

“Hello, old friend.”

The voice came from the bushes. A maned wolf stepped out of the foliage and stopped in front of her, surrounded by a faint gleam. His orange and black coat was darker now, his erect ears were attentive, and his long legs made him stand out among the plants.

Priscilla fell to her knees. She didn’t even feel the sting of her skin against the concrete, only the tears washing her face. The maned wolf had disappeared for so long that she had believed him to have died as well.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, clawing at her stomach. “I’m sorry. You must be so angry at me. I couldn’t save anyone…”

The maned wolf’s funneled snout touched her face. His fur was soft against her cheek, and she buried her face in it, caressing his head and ears. It had been so long since she had touched someone, anyone.

“Why do you believe it was your fault, Priscilla? Who made you feel this way?”

Priscilla lifted her chin, and she felt the baby kick.

“Remember what Jurupari truly is,” said the wolf. “Remember what you are fighting against.”

 •••

There was no Jurupari, or at least it was not the thing that she had met. That name, the name she had accepted out of need, was a legend; demons didn’t exist. Remember what you are fighting against. Encostos were untamed energy taken to an extreme. They were selfishness, hatred, guilt—they were resentment, they were any kind of badness leaking until a pool became a shadow that loomed and showered over them.

Certain places were haunted by feelings like a covert graveyard. That’s why we need to heal them, she remembered saying to Leandro and Isabel when they fought their first encosto together, or else they grow too big to control.

Did they fail? Was it her fault? No. Encostos were born out of malice, not out of failure. They belonged to a collective of unkindness, and Jurupari was simply a cluster of it. A cluster clouding their future, a cluster that held onto her and stopped her from continuing.

Priscilla made a decision.

 •••

The Monumental Axis was beautiful at night. The Television Tower was the only structure still standing, perhaps due to its distance from the Three Powers Plaza, where Jurupari had first emerged. Not even the shattered ministries could ruin the picture: in her mind, she still saw the gleaming lights, the trees, the white cathedral.

Remember what you are fighting against. Priscilla cradled her swollen belly, realizing that it was indeed bigger. When she told Isabel the news, back at the coffee shop, she had only a small bump, and since then she had refused to acknowledge its growth over the many months. Ahead, she could already see him, not quite black like the colour, but like an absence of everything—encompassing, flickering, waiting. 

“I will protect you, love,” she told the child.

As she drew closer, Jurupari expanded to cover ground, debris, and sky. Priscilla looked into his gaping mouth, ready to take her as well. Oil dripped from her dress, running down her thighs. The child inside of her struggled. Her energy, once white like a chuveirinho, turned scarlet red.

“Mom loves you,” said Priscilla, brown hair covering her face. She touched her stomach, feeling it pulsate under her hand. “I know you’re hurting now, but it will end.”

Priscilla closed her eyes, allowing the baby to take over her. She submerged into the brilliant redness coming from her navel, feeling happier, calmer, safer. The encosto living in her body erupted, then ceased to exist.

From her large belly, a flower bloomed: a red calliandra, its long stamens reaching in every direction, sparkling like starlight. Priscilla fell to the ground, the flower floating above her. Weak, she laid on her back and felt something pop within her, and water gushed down past her legs.

The darkness was gone, Priscilla realized, and the sun rose for the first time in a long, long while.