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Novelo Rectangle

The Man I Buried Is Back and Knocking by JadeThe man I buried is back and is knocking.I hear him at the door, slow and deliberate. Three knocks. Each one echoes like a thunderclap down the hollow of my spine.I don’t move. I don’t breathe. The night outside is still….too still. Even the crickets have gone silent.His name was Emilio Reyes, once. Before the grave. Before I put two bullets through his chest and whispered, I’m sorry, mi amor, as he bled out under the trembling moonlight in the desert.That was six years ago. I dug his grave myself. Covered it with rocks, prayers, and guilt. Then I ran. I rebuilt my life as Lucía Mendez, just another Salvadoran-American girl trying to stay invisible in a country that always wants to see through you, but never really sees you.I should have known the dead don’t stay buried.The news said it first: “President Elijah Renner Elected in Historic Sweep.” But when I saw him on the screen, behind the podium, my knees buckled.The world saw Renner: blue-eyed, American-born, fluent in lies and promises.I saw Emilio. In his walk. His gaze. The scar I left above his eyebrow.He had come back—in a new body, in the seat of the most powerful man in the world—and he had a vendetta.And now he’s here. Knocking.I open the door.He stands there, immaculately dressed, Secret Service agents parked in a black SUV down the block. But they don’t move. They know this is personal.“El Presidente,” I say, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.“Lucía,” he replies, his voice low, soft. Too soft. “You haven’t changed.”“I killed you.”“And yet,” he steps inside without asking, “here I am.”We sit in the dim kitchen. The only light comes from the flickering fluorescent bulb above the sink.“How?” I ask.He smiles. “Let’s call it... divine punishment. Or cosmic justice. Either way, someone wanted me back. Someone wanted you to suffer.”“And deporting millions of Salvadorans is your twisted idea of revenge?”“Not revenge,” he says, leaning forward. “Redemption.”“For who?”“For me. For the man you betrayed. For the love you shattered. You took everything from me, Lucía. My life, my purpose. So now, I’m returning the favor.”I met Emilio in a migrant shelter in Arizona. He was fierce and beautiful, born under a San Salvador sun, the kind that burns and brands. He carried stories like scars, each one carved from survival. We crossed together. We fought border agents, desert heat, and our own ghosts.We dreamed of building a life. Of family. But Emilio changed. He joined La Mano de Dios, a cartel cloaked in religion and nationalism. He said he’d do anything to protect our people, even if it meant bloodshed.I tried to pull him out. He said I betrayed him.He was planning to bomb a courthouse in Phoenix. Said it would “send a message.” I said no. He raised his hand to me. That night, I followed him into the desert and pulled the trigger.Now he’s back. As the President. With executive orders signed in gold ink:Order 13-22: All Salvadoran Nationals to be Deported, Effective Immediately.He started with DACA recipients. Then those with green cards. Then anyone with Salvadoran lineage.“Why?” I whisper.“Because the country that took me in,” Emilio says, his eyes gleaming, “needs to be purified.”“You’re not American.”“I am now. They crowned me. And from this throne, I will remake the world in my image.”“You’re not God, Emilio.”“No,” he leans in close, his breath warm with vengeance. “I’m something worse. I’m a ghost with power.”I go underground.The community organizes. Secret churches open their basements. Mothers burn their birth certificates. Children stop speaking Spanish at school. El Salvadoran flags vanish from porches, from rearview mirrors, from identity itself.I become something else again: a resistance.Every night I dream of Emilio. Sometimes I see the man I loved. Sometimes I see the President, burning cities from his Oval Office.Then one night, I see him smile and I’m nine weeks pregnant in the dream.I wake up screaming.The country splits.Protests turn violent. Camps overflow. Families vanish.“Operation Redemption,” he calls it.I call it Genocide with Paperwork.Then I get the letter.Official. Presidential Seal.“You, Lucía Mendez, have been selected for Final Repatriation.”But I was born here. I’m a citizen.Doesn’t matter.Emilio rewrote the law.I don’t run.Instead, I board a train to D.C. I sit alone with a duffel bag. Inside: a journal, my father’s cross, and a vial of something I prayed I’d never have to use again.They escort me to the White House.He waits in the Rose Garden.“Lucía,” he says, arms open. “Come home.”I don’t embrace him. I look into his eyes.“I loved you once,” I whisper. “But whatever you are now, you’re not him.”“I am him. I remember everything. The nights under desert stars. Your tears. The taste of mango on your lips.”“Then you remember what I said before I pulled the trigger.”He stiffens.“I said, forgive me.”He laughs. “You think this is about forgiveness?”“No,” I say, and I reach into my bag, “this is about freedom.”I uncork the vial. The air shimmers.He gasps. “Where did you get that?”“From a curandera in El Salvador. The same one who warned me you’d come back.”The potion glows.“I bind you,” I say in Nahuat, the ancient tongue my abuela taught me. “To the truth. To the earth. To your own guilt.”He screams. The ground shakes. Wind howls. The rose garden wilts in seconds.Emilio, no, the thing wearing Emilio’s face, collapses.He claws at the soil.“No!” he roars. “You don’t get to win!”“I don’t want to win,” I say, tears falling. “I want to be free.”The next day, the President resigns.The official story: mental breakdown.The real story: Emilio’s soul, exorcised, trapped beneath the soil he once sought to rule.Deportations are halted. Laws overturned.But the damage lingers.I stand at the grave. His grave. This time, beneath a weeping willow in a hidden field outside Maryland.I bring flowers—izote, the national flower of El Salvador.“I loved you,” I whisper. “But I had to save us.”A breeze kisses my cheek.It smells of mango.Months later, I speak before Congress.“I am Lucía Mendez,” I say into the mic. “Salvadoran-American. Survivor. And I will never let anyone erase who we are again.”The crowd erupts.Outside, people wave flags……ours.Red. White. Blue. And beneath them, the blue and white of El Salvador.Because we belong here.Because the ghosts of the past may knock.But we choose whether to answer.

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Broken Vendetta

jadelotusblossom

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The Man I Buried Is Back and Knocking

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Jasmine Woodson

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