New Life

Several months have passed. The house has been deadly silent after El Patron died taking with him everything: his gold, his treasures, his servants, his family. I hadn't heard from Matt since the day he ran away. But I knew he was ok. My heart told me he had found the way out. And it was right.


Today Matt returned to the big house. He has obviously been sick and mistreated, but he has found what he so eagerly craved: acceptance and friendship.Now that el Patron is dead, he is the only heir of all his fortune. He IS El Patron. But he knows better than to become a copy of the late Mateo Alacran. He might be a clone, but he has proved to be not only a person, but a different, a better human being. Together we will build a new home.

Escape

El Patron has died. I can't say I am happy, but I do not feel sorry for him either. He has taken many lives with him, even his family's. After his death Matt was not necessary anymore, and so they asked Tam Lin to put him to sleep. Of course, he would never do such thing, so after pretending he was taking Matt to the fields to dispose of him, he released the boy, but not before giving him instructions on how to flee the land of Opium and cross the dangerous fields surrounding it to get to Aztlan. I am sure Matt will find the way out. I am sure he will finally reach freedom.

As for the Alacrans? They had not even started celebrating yet, when the party suddenly came to an end. El Patron would have never allowed them to take over his fortune. He was a king, a fürer, a pharaoh. And he wanted to be bury with everything that belonged to him. Even his family. 

Tam Lin was the executioner. His loyal guard, even after death. He followed El Patron's instructions and made sure everybody drank the poisonous wine he had left behind. Now, they all toast together in the land of the dead, where El Patron will continue ruling forever.

The heart attack

The dreaded day has arrived. The day Tam Lin and I have been preparing Matt for. El Patron's health has always been an issue - no wonder since he's 148 years old - but it has lately been worse than ever. Today the old vampire, as people call him, couldn't take it any longer and had a heart attack. He was immediately taken to the hospital to prepare him for a heart transplant. I knew what I had to do. El Patron's guards looked for Matt everywhere in the house, but he was nowhere to be found. In the end, however, they caught him trying to escape, with Maria's assistance. She had found out Matt was not to be blame for her dog's death, and was desperately trying to help him run away. But I was untroubled. I knew they couldn't take his heart. 

I am a curandera and for a long time I tried to come up with a way of saving Matt from the terrible fate that awaited him. I knew it wouldn't take long until El Patron needed Matt's heart, and I needed to stop him from taking it. That's when I started feeding Matt arsenic. I knew it could kill him, but it could also save his life. Arsenic grows into the hair, makes white lines on the fingernails, and settles into the heart, making it too weak for a transplant, but not weak enough to kill the original owner. 

When I told El Patron and the doctors what I had done, they panicked. They knew Matt was his only chance to survive, but I don't think it'd be fair to sacrifice mi hijo to give him yet more time to live. El Patron has had many lives already. It's time to make his peace with God.

El Patron in the hospital

What saved Matt's life

The outcast

What a trecherous boy that Tom is! He has finally find the way to separate Matt and Maria, by convincing her that Matt kiIled her dog. I guess he couldn't bear the thought of having someone like Matt - a filthy clone as he calls him - compete with him. Poor mi hijo! He spends the days wandering around the house, like La Llorona. I would give everything I have to keep him from suffering. But there is no much I can do. His destiny was sealed the day they created him. I sometimes wonder if it would have been better to destroy his brain, as they do it with the other clones. Would he have been less miserable had he been turned into a brainless creature they harvest for spare parts? Would he have suffer less had he been a zombie, an eejit?

Living in the big house

It took Matt a long time to get over the shock of being locked like an animal for months. At first he wouldn't speak to anybody, not even to me. El patron wanted him to study, but since no school would accept him, a private teacher came to give him lessons. It was an eejit, one of those zombies whose brain had been programmed to do just one task. Matt couldn't stand doing the same thing once and again, so he finally broke silence and ever since he has been speaking like a parrot. 

He spends hours talking to Maria and Tam Lin, one of El Patron's body guards, who is now in charge of Matt's safety. They have become very close, and I think Tam Lin has been secretly teaching Matt about what it means to be a clone. 

They go horseback riding for hours and spend a lot of time in the fields. I don't know what they talk about, but it must be something good since Matt has become more confident and even cheerful. However, Matt and Tom - Maria´s friend and Mr. Alacran´s step son - has become even more tense and competitive. They can't stand each other and I am afraid Matt will end up losing the battle. Whatever he does, no matter how good he is, he keeps on being the clone.

Matt playing the piano

Matt on a safe horse

Tom

Prisoner

Days, weeks, months passed and I knew nothing of my little boy, mi hijo, Matt until today. They had told me he was living with El Patron, but I had my doubts. Why would he have taken Matt like that, without telling me anything? I have been worried to death, thinking I would never see him again, and all the while he was here, in the big house! I couldn't believe my eyes when Maria came to me this morning asking about Matt. I asked her how she knew about him, and she told me they had talked six months ago when he was brought to the house badly injured. Badly injured?! She told me he was not allowed to stay in the house because of his condition and took me to an abandoned room in the servants' quarters. He was there, poor boy! filthy and starving. Oh, mi vida, what had they done to him? He refused to talk to us and was obviously in shock. I wasted no time and let El Patron know what they were doing to his clone. He would have to do something to stop that abomination!

 

El patron

Matt was rescued from the prison he had been living in for months and his keepers were punished. Rosa, the woman who had starved and tortured him was turned into an eejit, and Tom, the boy who had hurt him with a peashooter was sent away. El Patron talked to Matt for hours. Anyone would say he actually loves the boy, but I know better. He just needs him to keep on living. To keep on ruling the empire he has built, and he refuses to let go. 

Rosa

Tom

Maria

Where is Matt?

Today when I came back home from the big house I found, to my great horror, broken glass all over the floor. The windows had been shattered, and Matt was not in the house. I desperately looked for him everywhere, but he had vanished. I feared the worst. Helplessly, I burst into tears, praying for my boy to be safe. I knelt down in front of the Virgen of Guadalupe and asked her to look after him. 

Where are you mi vida?

Praying to the virgin

Broken window