Little Maria

Below is the seventh segment of a new short story, Little Maria. While the story is new, it is based on a chapter from my novel, Unidentified Woman, a literary crime about rape, revenge and redemption. I believe it stands alone as is, and will reward you handsomely when you read it.

“Here they don’t even talk much. Learned why on my second day on the farm. Big Mamá took me away when we came back from the factory. Could hardly walk, I was so tired and hungry. Thought she was showing me the farm, the horses and the cows, the chickens and the pigs. But instead she led me outside the walls and showed this me this big hole in the ground full of snakes. A real snake pit, Adela, I’m not lying to you. A worker was feeding them mice. Saw a skeleton there too.
You see this snake pit, Little Maria? Big Mamá asked me. Yes, I see it, I answered. If you ever talk with anyone, she warned me, about anything that happens to you here, during the day especially, you’ll end up down with the snakes. You understand?
Yes, I understand. What else could I say? What could I tell anybody anyhow? There is nothing to tell, and nobody to tell anything to but you, Adela. Maybe it’s better for me to die here, I was thinking. Jump down into this snake pit and die and be like that skeleton down there. So I took one small step forward, as if to see better. But Big Mamá held my hand firmly and took me away from there.
Don’t be stupid, Little Maria, she told me on the way back, speaking suddenly with a softer voice. We need you here. And you… you have good things coming to you in the near future. Then she led me back to our sisters’ hall.
Why did she tell me that? And why do they need me here, anyhow? Me, Little Maria as they call me. Did she see something in my eyes that made her say that? And why, walking back from the snake pit, did I suddenly feel some warmth coming from her hand, holding mine? As if she really cared about me. As if she really believed good things would happen to me soon.

*
Now I know why. I have a strong feeling, especially on this morning when Mario is taking me away from the bus, when he is driving me through the flat fields toward those rolling brown hills, that one day soon I’ll be back home. That’s why the girls who go to the coca field never come back.”