Luna Moore Latorre

La Candileja 

June 10, 2017, Quindío, Colombia 

Pilar awoke to the sunshine in her eyes and her cousin’s screams echoing down the hallway. She leaped out of bed and raced out of the house, dying to know what Marisol was upset about. She secretly hoped it was something funny: she had stained one of her white dresses or tripped over a bush and fallen on her face. Marisol might have been stuck-up, but Pilar had a bit of a mean streak. She wasn’t afraid to admit it. 

By the time Pilar reached the backyard, she realized she was faced with something much more sinister. 

The field of her aunt’s crops looked as if it had been torn apart by wild animals. All of the peanut bushes were ripped apart, leaves strewn everywhere, and plants torn out by the roots. There was not a single bush remaining intact. Tía Julieta ran into the backyard and screamed as loudly as Pilar had when she saw the wreckage. Cousin Edgar followed quickly, and his hand flew up to his mouth in shock. 

“How are we going to sell any of these?” Pilar shrieked. 

Tears formed in the corners of Tía Julieta’s eyes. “I don’t know.” 

“We’ll just have to plant new ones,” Edgar said. 

“Why? So that monster can rip them out again?” Marisol exclaimed. 

“For the last time,” Tía Julieta said. 

“What?! You still don’t believe me?” Marisol exclaimed. “No wild animal is this vindictive. Sure, an animal could have ripped up one or two, but the entire field? This is the work of La Candileja.” 

“Couldn’t you plant some new peanuts? How long could they possibly take to grow?” Pilar said, trying to be helpful. As much as she despised her cousin, she would never wish this on her. She didn’t want Marisol to suffer in that way, losing money and basic comforts as a result. 

“No, you idiot!” she exclaimed. 

Pilar raised her eyebrows in annoyance. Why did her cousin have to be such an ass pimple about everything? 

“It takes five months for peanuts to grow,” she yelled. “That’s practically half a year, and we need to sell peanuts THIS MONTH. We’re fucked!” 

Pilar’s eyes widened. She couldn’t believe her too-good-for-everything cousin was swearing. 

“Get a grip, Marisol,” Tía Julieta scolded. “Your hysterics solve nothing.” 

“I don’t think you understand how serious this is,” Marisol yelled back at her mother. 

“I understand plenty. I’m just not throwing a tantrum like you. Get it together, now.” 

That shut Marisol up. She wiped a few tears off of her face and stopped screaming. 

Even though no one else believed Marisol, Pilar did. As annoying as Marisol was, she wasn’t the type to make up stories for attention or excitement. If she believed that La Candileja was destroying their crops, Pilar believed it too. And as much as her relatives annoyed her, Pilar wasn’t going to let their business fail. She still loved them.

 Pilar was going to figure out how to bring back the peanuts, one way or another. 

****

One Day Earlier: June 9th 

“You really need to chill out,” Pilar said, pulling her vape pen out of her jean shorts pocket. “Take some. You need some weed more than anyone.” 

Marisol gasped. “Put that away before Mamá sees it! How could you be so stupid as to bring that on an international flight?” 

“Relax, I buried it under a couple t-shirts. It’s not that hard to bring weed from Los Angeles.” 

“Put it away. I’m not going to ask you again.” 

Pilar rolled her eyes but listened to her cousin. Marisol thought that just because she was nineteen and Pilar was seventeen, that meant she knew everything. Pilar much preferred her other cousin, Edgar. He was kind of quiet and mostly did whatever his older sister told him to do, but he didn’t give Pilar any shit. He believed in letting people just be. That was the kind of energy Pilar needed. Her parents were psycho enough to send her to her aunt and uncle’s house in Colombia for the summer because they caught her smoking weed at her dad’s 50th birthday party. Then they ransacked her room and found her bong and threw it out, saying this was the last straw and that she needed to get away from Los Angeles and her “druggie friends,” to whip her into shape. 

And it wasn’t exactly like Pilar could tell them she’d been smoking weed because her girlfriend had dumped her the night before. She had failed them in so many ways they didn’t even know of, and failure is one of those things that becomes so much louder when spoken. So she didn’t put up a fight when her parents sent her to the jungle in the middle of fucking nowhere with her Catholic aunt and bitch cousin. Once her parents had made up their minds about something, there was no changing it. The best thing she could do was ride out the summer, keep her head down, and keep doing the two things that always brought her up: smoking in secret and reading books on biology and world mythology.

 “Well,” Marisol snapped, “are you going to help me set the table for dinner or are you just gonna sit there?” 

Pilar blinked back to reality and slipped her vape pen into her pocket. She took half of the plates from Marisol and set them around the small wooden table. They were standing on their balcony facing toward the jungle. Lush green trees grew in every direction and seemed to cover every inch of the mountains. The sun looked like a drop of blood falling from an angry red sky, and it was slipping below the horizon so quickly it was as if even the sky didn’t want it, so it just fell and fell and fell until it disappeared. Pilar couldn’t stop staring at that lonely sun, beaten and bloody and falling from an unloving sky. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to disappear. But she quickly pushed the feeling down by hitting her pen. She would have given everything to be back in Boyle Heights with Sam, but then she remembered Sam didn’t want her. She’d said as much when she told Pilar she felt she didn’t know her, that she only knew a persona of her that was desperate for attention and approval. Pilar willed the angry tears in the corners of her eyes to dry up. She blinked a couple of times and they were gone just as Marisol set the last napkin on the table. 

“Earth to Pilar,” she said. “We’re eating now.” 

Pilar turned away from the ubiquitous jungle and faced the table. Her aunt and Edgar were walking out with plates of red beans, rice, plátanos maduros, chicharrón, and chorizo. Pilar wrinkled her nose at the pig and cow sausages. She’d told her aunt she was vegan countless times, but as usual, it didn’t matter how she felt. But she knew better than to complain; only happy people are loved. 

Edgar smiled sympathetically and nodded at her. Pilar did the same in return. At least he felt bad. That was not nothing. 

The four of them sat down to eat. The only light was the candles flickering at each corner of the table. They ate in silence at first, all of them too hungry to make conversation. The beans and rice reminded Pilar of her mother’s cooking back home, her real home. Both of her parents had left Colombia before Pilar was born. She usually visited every summer with her parents, but this time was different. This summer was not a vacation; it was a punishment. She begrudgingly took a bite of chicharrón. She squeezed her eyes shut and grimaced, trying not to think about the dead, helpless animal making its way down her throat. Tried not to think about how at one point in time, this animal existed for itself and not for the benefit of others.

“So, Pilar,” Tía Julieta said, “your parents told me you made straight A’s again this year.” 

Yeah, you’d think that would be reason enough for them to keep me around, Pilar thought to herself. But all she said was, “Yeah, I’m applying to colleges in the fall. My top choice is UC Berkeley.” 

“And what do you want to study?” 

“Biology.” 

“I’m surprised you’re going into science,” Marisol said. 

Pilar rolled her eyes. Her stupid cousin was always making passive-aggressive comments. “It’s my best subject. And if you’re so great, why aren’t you in school?” 

Marisol glared at her, but before she could say anything, Tía Julieta placed a hand on her daughter’s to calm her down. 

“She’s sending in applications next year. Right now, Edgar and I need her help around here.” 

Pilar resisted the urge to scoff since the only crops they grew on their failing farm were peanuts. Ever since producers had been going more commercial and funding corporations instead of family-owned businesses, Julieta’s farm had been going under. If profits didn’t go up this summer, they would have to move and give it up. 

“I made some peanut butter,” Edgar said. “It’s nice and crunchy the way you like it.” 

Pilar smiled softly. She was surprised that he remembered how she liked her peanut butter, but it was sweet that he did. 

“Thanks, Edgar.” 

Marisol’s shoulders dropped. She sighed. “I don’t know how much longer we’ll get to have peanuts. They’ve been disappearing every night.” 

“What do you mean disappearing?” Pilar asked. It wasn’t like peanuts had legs and could just up and leave. 

“Week after week, more and more crops get destroyed. None of the traps we set up have stopped her,” Marisol said. 

“You mean it,” her mom quickly corrected. “It has to be some wild animal.” 

Marisol dropped her fork, letting it clank loudly against her plate. “It’s NOT an animal. It’s La Candileja!” 

Tía Julieta rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s just an old fairytale.” 

“I SAW her! I saw her with my own eyes.” 

“Stop lying,” her mom snapped. “I’ve had enough of your stories.” 

“I’m telling the truth!” 

Pilar’s eyes widened. She looked away from her aunt and cousin and played with the beans on her plate. She had never seen them fight like this. 

“Marisol, you know that you sleepwalk,” Edgar mumbled. 

She turned to glare at him. “I KNOW what I saw. And sooner or later, you’ll all be sorry.”

                                  ****

Present: June 10, 2017, Quindío, Colombia 

Pilar rocked back and forth on her aunt’s red, wooden chair later that day, trying to figure out how to help her family. Normally, nature calmed her down and gave her all the answers she needed. But sitting on her aunt’s balcony and looking out at the jungle wasn’t doing shit for her. What if she met this Candileja herself? It was so simple, she thought to herself. How had she not figured it out? If La Candileja was the one destroying the crops, then La Candileja was the one who needed to be confronted. Pilar had done a lot of reading on so-called mythical creatures. She hadn’t only read about Colombian mythology. She had also studied Greek, Egyptian, Chinese, Roman, and all sorts of other stories. World mythology was a special interest of hers. And if there was one thing she had learned from all of that reading, it was that these creatures were all about making deals. If you presented them with a decent offer, they were willing to behave in your favor. All Pilar had to do was study La Candileja to learn more about who she was and what she respected. Pilar had learned that once you understood a creature, god, or monster’s values, you understood what they would be willing to bargain for. 

“Edgar, I’m headed to the library,” Pilar said. 

“The library? But that’s a long walk,” he said. 

“Which is why I need your bike.” 

“Okay,” he nodded. “Go ahead. It’s in the garage.”

“Thanks,” Pilar said, giving him a quick hug. 

Pilar hopped on Edgar’s bike and rode toward the university’s library. Pilar figured that library would have a larger collection of folklore than other ones. Pilar peddled rapidly, riding so fast that the wind seemed to smack her cheeks. She arrived at the public library within minutes. Once inside, she asked an assistant for the mythology section. He pointed her to the third floor. She scanned the rows until she arrived at Colombian mythology, and more specifically, La Candileja. She found three books on her and pulled all of them off the shelf. Once she was seated at a table, she began reading through them. All of the books were in Spanish, and Pilar was not fluent in Spanish, but she understood enough to make sense of what she was reading. After all, she had grown up hearing her parents speak it; she had also taken classes in high school. 

From what she was reading, it became apparent that La Candileja was a woman engulfed in fire with red flaming tentacle arms. She pursued unfaithful spouses, alcoholics, and irresponsible parents. The legend went that many years ago, La Candileja had been merely a woman and not a monster. She was once an old grandmother whose grandchildren were terrible people: murderers, thieves, pillagers. She tolerated all of their sins, never bothering to teach them right from wrong. But when she died and reached the afterlife, St. Pedro punished her by engulfing her in flames and ordering her to punish living sinners. The three flames that surrounded her represented both the sin of herself and the sins of her two grandchildren. Ultimately, the story seemed to be a warning against irresponsible parents and grandparents, which ended up being one of the groups she pursued. 

Pilar closed the book, even more confused than before. No one in her family fit those parameters. Her aunt was not an irresponsible mother, and her aunt and cousins were not thieves, murderers, or drunkards. So why would La Candileja be pursuing them? Pilar tapped her fingers against the table. She couldn’t figure it out. But ultimately, it didn’t matter why La Candileja was targeting her family. What mattered was finding a way to stop her from targeting their family. 

But how would she even find La Candileja? Pilar read through the other books, but none of them mentioned where or how she could find La Candileja. Then it occurred to her— maybe she had to wait in the peanut fields. It made perfect sense. La Candileja had come the night before and destroyed all of their crops, so she would likely strike in the same place. Pilar knew what she needed to do. Tonight, after everyone went to sleep, she would go to the fields and wait for La Candileja. 

****

Pilar sat at the edge of the field late that night, waiting for La Candileja. Half an hour went by, then an hour went by, and still no sign of her. Pilar looked at her watch and rolled her eyes. She wasn’t going to show up, was she? Just as Pilar stood up to go back inside, she heard a rustle in the bushes. She spun around, anxious to see what it was. Probably just a small animal, she told herself. But before she could think about it any longer, a tall woman engulfed in flames emerged from the bush. There were three flames on her body—one on each hand and the last one surrounding her from head to toe. Embers fell off of her hair and scattered on the earth. Where she should have had eyes, there were only empty sockets. Enormous fangs extended from her mouth. She took a step closer to Pilar. 

“What are you doing in my garden?” she yelled. 

“YOUR garden?” Pilar exclaimed. She walked forward and got right up in La Candileja’s face, despite the heat of the fire singing her skin. “This is my aunt’s farm, and you destroyed all of her crops.” 

“Yes,” La Candileja smiled, her fangs moving with her lips. “One in your family is deserving of punishment, and so I did what had to be done.” 

“But none of them are deserving. I mean, my cousin is kind of annoying, but she’s not a bad person. None of them are.” 

“Foolish child,” the monster said. “There is much you do not know about your family.” 

“Like what? What do I not know?” 

“Why should I tell you? You’re just a stupid child. A rude, ungrateful, disobedient child.” 

Pilar bawled her fists and scrunched up her nose. “You don’t even know me.” 

“But of course I do. I know everyone here in Colombia. I know you were sent here by your parents for doing drugs. That’s all I need to know.” 

“It was just weed; it’s not like it was heroin—” 

“That makes no difference to me! A sin is a sin is a sin. How dare you try to reason with me, a being much higher than you—”

But Pilar did not back down, even though fear had buried itself in her throat. “What gives you the right to judge everybody? You couldn’t even raise your own grandkids correctly.” 

“That is exactly what gives me the right to judge. I failed in my mortal life, so now I have to make sure other people do not fail in theirs.” 

“By punishing them? Punishing people never works.” 

“Of course it does. There were never any consequences for my grandchildren, and that is why they continued to roam wild, destroying everything in sight. Because I did NOT punish them. Once people lose what matters to them, they know they need to change.” 

“Who in my family needs to change? Edgar is the sweetest person ever, my aunt is super hard-working, and Marisol is super responsible—”

“HA! You do not know Marisol at all.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“That is not for you to know.” 

“Please, tell me what she did. I can fix it.” 

“You couldn’t possibly fix it. The affliction she has is something only she can fix. You are powerless, child.” 

“Won’t you at least restore my family’s crops? I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything you want. Please, this is their livelihood. They need those peanuts to provide for themselves.” 

“Your cousin should have thought of that before she started keeping the aguardiente in her closet and drinking herself into oblivion every night.” 

A wave of shock poured through me. There was no way La Candileja was right. My straight-laced, boring, uptight cousin Marisol did not drink. I started laughing. 

“Candileja, you are the one who does not know Marisol. She’s the most boring and responsible person I know. She doesn’t drink.” 

“I’ve said too much already,” La Candileja said, shaking a fiery fist in anger toward herself. “I should kill you where you stand.” 

“But if you kill me now, I won’t be able to give you what you want.” 

“You have nothing that I want,” La Candileja said, dismissively waving a fiery palm. 

“Oh yes, I do. I have plenty of unbecoming habits. I’m as much a sinner as anyone else.” 

If La Candileja had eyes, they would have widened in surprise. But instead, her lips curled into a smile, revealing the sharpness of her fangs. “Go on.” 

“If I promise to never smoke again, will you restore my family’s peanut plants? Make sure they’re exactly as they were before you destroyed them?” 

“How do I know you’re telling the truth, that you’re not pulling a fast one on me?” La Candileja growled. 

Pilar pulled her vape pen out of her pocket and threw it across the destroyed farm. It landed in a bush with a thud. 

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” La Candileja snarled. “I know you can always buy more.” 

“What if there were a way to prove to you that I won’t buy more?” 

La Candileja crossed her arms and smiled again. “I’ll make you a deal, child. If you promise tonight that you will never smoke again and that you will speak to your cousin about her drinking, I will restore the peanut plants. But if you break your deal and smoke again, your soul belongs to me and I will destroy the crops again, leaving your family penniless. I will keep your soul in a necklace and you will burn against my flames for all of eternity. Do we have a deal?” 

Pilar gulped; sweat raced down her forehead. Going an entire lifetime without weed seemed pretty extreme, but if she didn’t give it up, this monster would continue to target her family and ruin their lives. She knew what she had to do. 

“We have a deal.” 

****

The next morning, Pilar woke up to Marisol’s screaming again. Only this time, it was an excited scream. Pilar jumped out of bed and ran out into the backyard. Marisol was jumping up and down, pointing at the fully grown peanut plants. Tía Julieta and Edgar were standing on the back porch, and both of their jaws dropped open. 

“It’s a miracle,” Marisol exclaimed. 

“How, how,” Tía Julieta stammered. “How did this happen?” 

“Who knows,” Edgar said. 

Pilar stayed very quiet. Her family could never know the truth. No one would believe her except for Marisol. She would tell her later when they were alone. 

“Look at how much we’ll be able to sell,” Marisol said. 

“It truly is a miracle,” Edgar said, shaking his head in disbelief. 

Tía Julieta narrowed her eyes. “I don’t trust it, though. Only dark magic could do something like this. We’ll sell these plants because we need the money, but we have to be very careful.” 

“Careful in what way?” Marisol asked. 

“None of you have told anyone that the crops were destroyed, right?” 

Pilar, Edgar, and Marisol all shook their heads. 

“Good,” Tía Julieta said. “That information is not to leave the four of us. If anyone were to find out they were destroyed and then grew back on their own, we would be the targets of all sorts of misery. People would be scared of us and not buy from us. Yes, this will be our little secret.” 

“Of course, Mami,” Marisol said. 

“I won’t tell anyone,” Pilar said. 

“Me neither,” Edgar added. 

Tía Julieta let out a breath of relief. “Good. Now that that’s settled, I need someone to go pick up a few things from the market. We’re out of eggs, bread, and tomatoes.” 

“I’ll go,” Pilar volunteered. Hopefully, this would be a chance to get Marisol alone and talk to her. “Marisol, why don’t you come with me and keep me company?” 

Marisol rolled her eyes, but Tía Julieta seemed to like the idea. “Yes, go with your cousin,” she said. 

Marisol and Pilar began walking into town. At first, they were silent, not a single word passing between them. Once a few minutes had passed, and she knew they were out of earshot, Marisol spoke up: 

“It was you, wasn’t it?” 

Pilar smirked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She would need to explain what happened to Marisol eventually since that was part of the deal she made with La Candileja, but she could let Marisol figure it out herself. 

“Don’t play dumb with me. You made a deal with La Candileja: that’s why we have all of our crops back.” 

Pilar’s grin widened. “You’re right. But why do you sound so upset?”

“Because you have no idea what you’ve set yourself up against. La Candileja is evil. If you break the deal in any way, she’ll own your soul forever.” 

Pilar waved a hand dismissively. “I know, she already told me herself.” 

“So what did you give up? It must have been huge if she was willing to restore our crops.” 

Pilar paused and took a deep breath. This conversation was going to be a lot to manage. “I agreed to stop smoking weed.” 

Marisol’s eyes widened. “No way! You’ll never be able to follow through.” 

Pilar glared at her. It was so rude that her cousin couldn’t muster up even a little bit of faith in her. 

“Yes, I absolutely will be able to keep my promise,” I snapped. “Because I have no desire to spend eternity in that crazy monster’s necklace burning in hellfire.” 

Marisol laughed. “Fair enough. But wait, that’s all she asked of you? That you stop smoking?” 

“Well, actually,” Pilar sighed. “There was one more thing.” 

“What was it?” Marisol asked. 

“She told me about your drinking, Marisol. She asked me to talk to you and try to get you to stop.”
 All of the color rushed from Marisol’s face. Her eyes widened. She looked at the ground, ashamed. “Pilar, it’s not what you think—”

“Don’t worry, I’m not judging. Trust me, I’m the last person to judge about stuff like that.” 

“I appreciate that. It’s just...I didn’t want to. Not at first. But there’s so much pressure on me.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Pressure my mom puts on me to be the perfect daughter...she wants me to go to school to become a lawyer, but I don’t want to be a lawyer. I want to run my own farm like she does. We’ve had so many fights about it. She says I need a job that makes more money, a job that will give me a better life. But I like...I like the life that we have.” 

Pilar shook her head and sighed. “That must be really hard. I’m so sorry.” 

“Thanks, Marisol. I really appreciate that.” 

“Please don’t tell my mom or Edgar about my drinking. I promise I’ll stop. I would do anything to save my mom’s farm. And I mean it when I say I didn’t want to do it. I was just so anxious and under so much pressure that I started having a shot every night after dinner. And then soon, one shot wasn’t enough, so it became two shots. And then it went up to three. Pretty soon, I was binge drinking every night. Nothing eased the tension like a few drinks.” 

“That’s exactly how I felt about weed,” I said. “I had a bad breakup right before I came here. That’s why I was smoking at my dad’s birthday party in the first place.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that. But whoever he is, you deserve better.”

Pilar sucked her teeth. “That’s the thing, Marisol. He isn’t...a he. You can’t tell anyone that I was dating someone. And you definitely can’t tell anyone that I’m gay.” 

Marisol shook her head. “I won’t tell. You’re not going to tell anyone about my drinking, so I owe you the same.” 

“I appreciate that. I have no idea how my parents would have reacted if they found out the reason I was smoking is because a girl broke my heart. I hate how sanctimonious La Candileja was. There’s nothing wrong with smoking or drinking.” 

“I think deep down, La Candileja cares about people, and that’s why she wants the best for them. Even if she has a weird and twisted way of showing it.” 

Pilar rolled her eyes. “Ugh, creatures from all sorts of mythologies are like that. They always want to help you become the most well-balanced version of yourself. Well, or they want to kill you. It’s best to avoid the ladder.” 

“How do you know that?” 

The two of them were at the bottom of the hill and entering the more urban part of Quindío. Pilar pressed the crosswalk button. 

“I’ve done a lot of reading on mythologies from around the world. There’s a lot we can learn from those stories.” 

“That’s really cool,” Marisol paused. “So you promise you won’t tell my mom about...?” 

“I promise, Marisol. I won’t tell anyone. La Candileja wants you to stop. She said that if I could convince you to quit, she wouldn’t hurt your crops.” 

“I swear, I swear,” she stammered. “I’m never going to drink again. I just don’t want my mom to know.” 

The two of them entered the market. 

“We need eggs, bread, and tomatoes,” Pilar said. “So this should be a fast trip.” 

“Pilar?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m glad we talked. And I’m sorry I was so rude to you when you first got here. I try so hard to be enough for my mom and I thought that putting you down would bring me up. It was stupid, it was so stupid, and I’m sorry.” 

“Relax, Marisol. I forgive you. Now help me get these groceries.” 

Marisol and Pilar walked over to the bread, happy with their newfound trust in each other.