#ready to plot

she tried to brush it off in the beginning, hoping that her nerves were clouding her judgement. 

still, the coincidences were far too many to be overlooked — the anxiety flowing through her veins grew in succession to the amount of times she saw the man’s face. 

belén couldn’t confirm her suspicions, not when she had only seen the man outside of her window. that quickly changed when she caught glimpses of him on her commute to work. belén tried anything to lose the man, she would extend her commute and make needless turns, walk into shops and boutiques hoping the man would pass by and keep moving — still he remained on her trail. 

the very first time he had followed her home, she felt anxiety and worry chipping away at a strength she had built. instantly she was that young girl in high school, being forced into an awareness of the dangers surrounding her. 

didn't she know how easy it was to burst a bubble? didn’t she know how easy it was to undo years of work? 

the very first time the man had followed her from work, belén was frantic. she had slammed her door closed behind her, turned every lock and checked every window. 

she moved around the apartment as if it were this barren and cold place, not much different than that warehouse all those years ago. she felt cold even though the thermostat in her kitchen told of an unbearable heat — after charring the soft pink surface of a couch cushion, belén decided it was best to try and cool her head. 

a cold shower served fruitless, freezing water droplets sizzling to a gaseous form as they touched her skin. the inability to find reprieve was dizzying — hands were quick to shut off the water and rush out of the bathroom. she was suffocating. 

as she walked through the rooms in her apartment, candles flickered to life, wax melting much too rapidly for the flickering flames to be the cause. 

belén roamed around aimlessly, towel pressed tightly to her chest as she tried to find her peace. had she left it in the mudroom near the door? perhaps it had rolled off of her coffee table and found a new home beneath her couch? the young woman tried to find that peace, but the apartment seemed devoid of any inkling. 

by the time the sun had set, belén had managed to dress herself, throwing on a t-shirt that didn’t require much thought on her part. she wasn’t sure how she would fare if she had to fumble with a series of buttons. 

her hair had dried in loose ringlets, all she had done to it was tuck it behind her ears. any post-shower pampering that she often indulged in hadn’t even crossed her mind. 

the thermostat was still reading high temperatures, and the candles had long burned out. 

it was an hour after sunset that belén found herself near the window, index finger sliding between the wall and her curtain and pulling it back slightly. the man was still there, just as menacing as he stood idle. 

she didn’t even notice that the curtain had caught fire where her finger touched it, not until the smoke reached her nostrils and she had enough sense to clap her hands over the small flame. 

small fires could easily be smothered by human hands, belén had seen her mother lick the tip of her fingers plenty of times before she closed them around a candle’s wick. and what was she, if not the string of little fires igniting within her synapses? what was belén if not the flames sitting inside every single cell in her body? hemoglobin an incendiary fluid, her fingers the match…their hands could smother her flame, could they not? 

that night had been as terrible as the night that changed it all when she was an adolescent. 

belén kept her phone face-down on her night stand; she hadn’t texted or called anyone, especially not the girls. she didn’t trust herself in moments of high stress, not after she had taken the lives of two young men. with each second that ticked by, she expected the entire apartment to go up in flames — a product of a scared girl, asking the fire to save her. 

the young woman wouldn’t be hurt, she was sure of it…but she could not say the same for the others, and the last thing she would do was endanger those women because of her own selfishness. 

she barely slept that night. 

young woman greets morning in the same way as she did in her youth. she would go through the motions if it was necessary, cry if she really felt the need. but the minute the theatrics were over, belén would don her disguise. 

eye drops for the redness in her eyes, concealer for the dark circles and that oh-so-practiced smile she had learned from her mother. 

the woman who left for work that day was not the one who had spent the last twelve or more hours struggling with her resolve. belén villanueva-contreras was not the type to give these men that satisfaction. 

her routine that day had been the same as it was the previous — the major difference was a collected anxiety where there had been a frantic chaos. entropy didn’t suit her…as destructive as a fire could be, there would always be meaning to her fire, purpose. when she had finished her day at the museum she had tried a different route home, using the public transportation and making as many transfers between buses as she was able. 

she reached her front door a failure, for the man was still close behind. 

the routine within the walls of her home is similar to that of the previous day; lock the door, make sure the windows are closed. 

belén didn’t try to look for her peace this time, she knew she wouldn’t be successful. 

the thermostat read some number her body never seemed to register, some unbearable heat that had her begging a neighbor to keep bethlehem housed for a few days. the animal didn’t need to suffer for her stress. neither did the others. 

once more her phone is left untouched…why has the now paralleling her then? when was the fire going to engulf her home? when were the flames going to engulf the witch? 

this time she didn’t move around the space, touching flammable objects that would disintegrate in her hands. belén had learned her lesson before, stress was the strongest incendiary fluid she knew. this time, when she moved around the rooms of her home, she kept her hands to herself — the witch doesn’t want to turn any valuables to ash. 

in the weeks since learning of her own affinity for fire, she had taken to mimicking a lighter with her hands, using the fire that sat atop her fingers to calm herself. if she tried to do so now, she was sure the fire would consume her hand, her arm…every last bit of her body. 

belén would allow it if she wasn’t worried about her hardwood floors. 

instead, the young woman just sat cross-legged on the living room floor, too nervous to check to see if the man was still there, too wrapped up in her false sense of calm to do anything productive. 

she didn’t contact anyone. 

what have you learned? what the fuck have you learned? she wanted to ask herself; what changes has she made in her character from that scared girl that set a building ablaze…why was she gifted with a group she could confide in if she would refuse to do so? 

her fear of hurting anyone one of them — of hurting cleo or maia or any of them — kept her from making any of these phone calls. it was most definitely a disservice to the women, they were far from fragile; they had magic within them just as she did, but belén cannot forget that the last time she felt like this, two young men lost their lives. 

it would be dealt with alone. 

the man had done nothing but follow her…nothing more would come from this, right? 

if the words provided any comfort, it didn’t show…the thermostat didn’t display any shift in temperature and the witch didn’t move from where she sat. no matter…