El Mariachi Muerte sits beneath the shade of a Juniper tree. Within it, a bird sings a beautiful song.
“A trip through the Groves can be illuminating for those attuned to hear its music.”
“Take this bird, tweeting happily in the trees. To the untuned ear, one will mistake its song and relax happily under the branches. But to those who hear its story, the song tells all, mi amigos.”
He listens as the bird’s song turns to words, telling a haunting tale.
♫ My mother, she killed me,
My father, he ate me,
My sister Marlene,
Gathered all my bones,
Tied them in a silken scarf,
Laid them beneath the juniper tree,
Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I. ♫
“It sings of a woman, as ambitious as she is cruel. Her stepson, cast as a pawn in her quest for power, his vast inheritance the prize she sought. Her jealousy led her to kill the boy, her guilt led her to hide her deed by cooking him into a stew fed to the boy’s own father.”
“It sings of the step-sister, Marlene, grief-strickenly laying the boy’s bones beneath the juniper. The tree formed the bones into a beautiful bird, its song sung to tell the world of his step-mother’s deceptive deeds.”
“It just needs to find an ear to hear its tale.”
“Your ambitious deception may fool the world, Malakai mi amigo, but there will always ears to hear the counter-melody.”
As he speaks, an owl lands in the branches of the Juniper Tree.
“How many of your Night Owls have you cast aside on your quest for power? How many have you deceived into following your path, only to use them as pawns in your game?”
“How many have died for you to become the silver-tongued devil that you are, Malakai?”
“Though they hoot seemingly innocently from their perch, I hear their songs.”
“How dedicated they were to your cause. How excited they were to serve you. How expendable their lives ultimately were to you. All in your ambition to claim a prize which was never yours to claim.”
“My inheritance. The Double Feature Championship.”
He plays, his guitar’s music intertwining with the music of the bird and the owl alike.
“Just as the woman in our tale, your fate is sealed in the song of those that go before you. Your brutality, your jealous deeds… that which will forever hold you at an arm’s reach of greatness. What bones lie at the base of the Juniper tree from your hand, Malakai Midnight?”
“Forgotten Owls that sing of deception to rival the evil stepmothers, your reach seemingly endless, but so is your greed. That which will be your undoing.”
“Can you hear their songs still, Malakai? Those Owls that you sacrificed to become who you are? Or do their stories not matter anymore, their services rendered.”
“Listen to the birds, their songs reveal your fate. Yours sung in the hooting of the stories heard from the Juniper Tree, and I the hands to execute that fate.”
♫ Hoot, hoot, what a beautiful Owl was I. ♫