I woke up to the sound of something spinning on the hard earth floor. I looked over at Alejandro, sprawled on the floor on his belly. He looked up at me with eyes of innocence. I recognized those eyes. I suspected from before that he was younger than the others, but I wondered why I had never noticed how young they were before.

"Hello there," I said. "Can I play with you?"

"Okay." He looked uncertain.

I went to him clad in my white nightgown. It wasn't exactly super-modest, but it covered everything. We took turns pulling the string, watching the top spin.

"Are you going to take away my spin-tops?"

"I wouldn't do that to you."

"You took away Ferdinand."

"I gave him back to you."

"Why won't they let me keep him?"

I knew he was talking about the other Alejandro personalities.

"I think they keep giving him back to me because they knew I missed you."

"You missed me?"

"Yes."

"Do you like me?"

"I do."

Little Loki closed his hand over mine. He gently ran his hand up my arm to my cheek. This was not the type of touching that should come from a child.

"Loki?"

"I'll be good."

He then tried to kiss me.

"Wait.... Loki...."

His touch grew more forceful. "Let me do it!"

He fully sat up.

"If you let me love you, he will love me," he said. He touched himself. "Right here."

My eyes widened, and I recoiled away. "Oh my god! What did your father do to you?"

"My father loves me."

"No. No! This is NOT what love looks like!"

"If I don't, Papi takes Mama away."

"Your father can't hurt her anymore. Or you. I won't LET him!"

Loki looked at me uncertainly.

"You promise?"

"Yes, I do."

"No more shows?"

"No more."

He gave me a calculating look.

"What if I don't want to stop?"

"Loki, I don't know what happened to you, but this was wrong. Your mother never would have wanted this to happen to you."

Loki looked guilty. "If I said no, Papi said he would tie Mama up and make her watch. It had to be our secret so she wouldn't know."

A sound of pure agony escaped my lips. The tears began to flow.

"Jani," said Loki. "You cry like Mama. Why?"

"Because this is wrong! All of it!"

I cupped his face in my hands.

"You are precious! Your body is sacred. Your father was supposed to protect you, AND your mother."

I wept. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

I cried so long, hugging him close. It felt like I was hugging a frightened child, one that was confused and didn't know what to do. I held back from him.

"How old are you, Loki?"

"I don't know....But I AM a man!"

I didn't believe it. The time that I met him on that stage from six years ago, when Alejandro first started to cry, it wasn't arrogance like I thought. It was just a child starved for love and affection in all the wrong ways.

I took both of his hand in mine. "Let's spend the day together. We can walk outside, look at the clouds in the sky, and maybe go play in the water in the nearby stream."

"We won't stray too far?"

"We'll only go as near or as far as you like."

He still looked uncertain. "Okay."

I gave him some privacy while he changed his clothes. He did the same for me.

We played tag outside for a little while. It made him smile. I noticed that he kept looking at the nearby bushes.

"What happened there, Loki?"

Loki looked down in shame.

"I want to leave him a present."

"Okay. What would you like to do?"

We gathered a bunch of wildflowers together. He then took me to the bushes and showed me inside. These bushes enclosed a small grave with an old wooden cross for a tomb-stone.

"My Papi made me bury him here."

"Who?"

"My brother." He looked at me. "He was my twin." He looked back down to the grave. "I watched him throw him down the mountain. He took us hiking, and told me if I told anyone, he would throw down Mama too."

I started crying again that day. My Alejandro. He had been through so much.

"He was ugly. That was why he said he did it."

"A father should never say that."

"He was ugly, and deformed. He could not do the things that I could do."

"It sounds like your brother had special needs. That does not matter. He was just as special as you. It was something your mother knew."

Loki looked wistfully at the grave. "Do you think she loved him more than me?"

"Never," I said. "Do you think that I could love our son more than our daughter, or vice versa?" I said those words without even thinking. It triggered something in him. I could feel him changing, struggling from the inside. I could see him trembling, aching from a world of hurt of suppressed memories he had not had to face the sheer terror of for so long.

I gently touched his arm.

"Al?" I was no longer certain which one was with me, or if they had blended.

"Oh Jani! I want to hold them!"

I wanted to hold Miguel and little Marie as well.

"I know," I said. "Me too." I kissed his cheek like I did each one of them.

I held him and sang a song to him, a song of once upon a time from a woman we both knew. I let him hold me until the shock of this new soul joining was over. It brought us both to our knees, weeping to one another. When we arose, he danced with me and twirled me around like a child this, as he would have with MJ; pure innocence, for it was precious. We hopped along the flat-rocks in the creek. We watched the clouds in the skies above. While we lay in the field of flowers, feeling the sun on our faces. He rose above me. I could see the love for me, and all the hurting from the depths of his soul in those eyes. I let him cling to me....

We came home, for that was how this place feels now, hidden horrors and all. He chopped wood for the fire, while I gathered water from our well. We had us a fairly large pantry of pickled vegetables and beans. We bought ourselves a supply of cornmeal and other things while we passed through the village. I remembered Maria making tortillas as a child. I learned how to make them when I was older.

We ate together. I could tell that something was bothering him.

"Al? What's wrong?"

He looked at me like he wanted to tell me something but didn't know how. "I need to show you something."

He got up from our table. He led me to a basket of toys. He pulled out his spinning tops. He pulled out a pig. The pig reminded me of Ferdinand, same type of homespun wool and all. It was the very same pig from my dreams. Then he pulled out an old book, worn and leather bound. He paused, and looked at me. With a sigh of resignation, he opened up the book. It was a photo album, showing a picture image of Maria. She was in her wedding dress next to her groom. He was.....No! That couldn't be! I saw the man that I once called father. The man that bought me, sold me, and betrayed us all. I looked at Alejandro. Why did I never see that resemblance before? Not just of Maria, but of him! I began to wail. Alejandro clung to me while I wept. He cried with me. We cried until there were no tears left.

I took him by the hand, leading him to our bed. We held one another, fully clothed, and fell asleep. Just holding one another, and that was all.