The Tunnel Singer’s Bargain

In the highland village of San Vicente, where the mist clung to the cobbled streets like a shroud, my cousin Luisa was twelve, hovering on the cusp of womanhood. The village elders spoke of the Tunnel Singer, a boy who never knew the touch of baptism, who dwelled in the dark conduit beneath the Cordillera, a passage that linked our country to the next. Legend said he sang to those crossing the threshold of maturity, his voice a hollow melody that promised secrets and sorrows.

Luisa first heard him on the path to the river, where she went to wash clothes. A thin, reedy tune floated from the direction of the tunnel mouth, a song about a girl with hair like night and eyes like the moon. She stopped, heart thrumming, and saw a small figure at the tunnel entrance, half-hidden in the gloom. He was barefoot, clad in rags, and his face was unnaturally pale, with eyes that gleamed like wet stones. He beckoned with a finger, and Luisa felt a pull, a curiosity that was not her own. She shook her head and hurried away, but the song followed her, weaving through the trees.

That night, as she lay in her cot, she heard the voice again, this time right outside her window. ‘Luisa, Luisa, come see what I have for you,’ it sang. She pressed her hands over her ears, but the melody seeped through. She told her grandmother, Doña Carmen, a woman whose face was a map of wrinkles and whose eyes held the wisdom of years. Carmen listened, her brow furrowing. She reached into her wooden chest and pulled out a silver cross, tarnished but glinting, and dipped it into a basin of holy water she kept beneath her bed. ‘This was your great-grandmother’s,’ she said. ‘Wear it always, child. It will protect you, but you must never take it off, especially at night. And if he comes to you, do not listen to his words, do not follow his voice, and above all, do not answer his questions.’

Luisa put on the necklace, and the cross was cold against her chest. She felt a thin shield settle around her, like a layer of summer air. For a week, the singer was silent. But on the night of the full moon, as Luisa tended to her chores in the kitchen, she heard him again, his voice clearer, closer, coming from the hearth. ‘Why do you wear that cold iron, Luisa?’ he asked. ‘It cannot warm you, cannot hold you. I can give you a warmth that never fades.’ Luisa’s hand flew to the cross, and she mumbled a prayer. The voice laughed, a sound like gravel sliding downhill.

Days passed, and the singer grew bolder. He would appear at the edge of the cornfield, his fingers stained with dark earth, and he would hold out a handful of crimson berries. ‘They taste of sweet blood,’ he’d whisper. He would sit on the stone fence, his legs dangling, and tell her of the tunnel’s wonders, of echoes that remembered every voice, of a place where time did not pass. Luisa, though frightened, was also intrigued. She began to leave her window ajar, just a crack, to hear his stories. One evening, he asked, ‘What is your favorite color, Luisa?’ She almost answered, but the cross grew warm on her chest, a silent warning. She bit her tongue and slammed the window shut.

Her grandmother noticed Luisa’s pallor and her distracted air. She questioned her, and Luisa confessed that the boy had been speaking more often, that she felt a strange kinship with him. Carmen’s face grew grave. ‘He wants your name, child. Or worse, your promise. He is a soul in limbo, and he seeks a companion to share his unending twilight. If he gets your promise, you will be bound to him forever.’ That night, Carmen took the cross from the kitchen and blessed it again, then placed a small sachet of dried rue under Luisa’s pillow. ‘Sleep with this. And if he calls, do not respond, not even with your thoughts.’

Luisa tried to obey, but the singer was relentless. He would appear in her dreams, a small boy with a mournful face, sitting on a stone by a stagnant pool. He would sing a lullaby, and she would feel a pull like a tide. She would wake in a cold sweat, the cross burning an impression on her skin. One night, she woke to find the moon high and the window open. In the beam of light stood the boy, solid as the floor beneath him. ‘Come, Luisa,’ he said, ‘I have a gift for you. A ribbon of starlight to weave in your hair.’ His voice was honey and thorns. Luisa, drowsy and bewitched, took a step forward. The cross clattered against the bedpost, and the smell of rue filled her nostrils, breaking the spell. She screamed, and the boy vanished as if he’d never been.

The next morning, Luisa told her grandmother everything. Carmen listened in silence, then nodded. ‘He is growing stronger, and so is his hold on you. We must break his tie to you for good.’ She took the cross and, with a solemn face, used a needle to prick her own finger. She let a drop of blood fall onto the cross, whispering an old prayer. Then she placed the cross back around Luisa’s neck and said, ‘Now, when he comes, you must call his name. Do you know it?’ Luisa shook her head. ‘His name is Emiliano,’ Carmen said, ‘the name he would have been given at his baptism. Call him by it, and order him to leave you in the name of the Lord.’

That night, the singer appeared again, this time inside the house, standing at the foot of Luisa’s bed. He looked more solid than ever, his eyes glinting with malice. ‘I have waited long for you,’ he said, his voice like a whisper of dead leaves. ‘You will be my bride in the tunnel’s dark.’ Luisa clutched the cross, feeling its warmth, and summoned her courage. ‘Emiliano,’ she said, her voice shaking, ‘I command you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: leave this house and never return.’ The boy’s face twisted in a snarl, and a howl rose from his throat, a sound that seemed to come from the earth itself. But as she held up the cross, he began to flicker, like a candle in a wind. He staggered back, and with a final shriek that shattered a clay pot in the corner, he dissolved into a wisp of black smoke.

Silence fell. Luisa stood trembling, the cross warm and pulsing in her hand. The room was empty, and outside, the night was calm. She never heard the singer again. But often, on still evenings, when the wind blew from the tunnel, she would catch a faint, sad melody, and she would grip the cross and murmur a prayer. Years later, when her grandmother passed, she found the cross in her belongings, still warm, and she knew it had protected her. She gave it to her own daughter, and told her the story of the boy in the tunnel. And the village of San Vicente learned to keep their girls close and their crosses blessed, for the Tunnel Singer still roams, waiting for another who might be lured by his song.