Cauã began mixing the herbs with calm, focused movements. Some spirits were already lingering in the room — Michel's apartment, without a doubt, filled easily with them due to the strange energy that attracted the supernatural like a magnet. Carefully, he sprinkled the herbs over the glowing charcoal, allowing the thick smoke to rise and slowly spread through the corners, saturating every object with its ancestral aroma.
Along with the smoke, he scattered small plants meant to repel entities, as well as ancient amulets from his people — relics that had passed through generations. He moved through the apartment like someone who knows spirits by the traces left in the wind, singing an old song, older than his grandmother and great-grandmother. A chant learned from his father, who received it from the oldest chief of the community. At first a whisper, then a lament intoned more firmly — words that seemed to awaken something dormant in the walls.
Michel watched, surprised. He hadn't imagined witnessing something so close to a ritual, although it wasn't an exorcism like in the movies. Cauã's voice caught him off guard — it had a soft musicality, an almost poetic cadence. If any of his friends had seen the scene, they would probably have called him crazy. But he couldn't take his eyes off the doctor. It was beautiful to see him like that, surrendered to something greater than himself.
The air changed. It remained thick with the scent of burned herbs, but no longer felt oppressive. It felt lighter, as if the space could finally breathe. Michel crossed his arms and stood in silence, admiring. No visitor usually lasted long in his apartment — many became ill, others restless. But now... now he felt a rare peace. He thought maybe, for the first time, his home was ready to receive someone.
— We'll need to repeat this once a month, — Cauã said as he opened the windows, letting the ancient, memory-laden smoke drift away into the night air. The incense ritual had lasted about an hour. Now the midnight breeze entered softly through the apartment, bringing with it the silver light of the moon, which flowed along the walls like a tranquil veil.
— I understand, — Michel replied, though his mind wandered elsewhere. He didn't want this to be the only excuse to see Cauã again. Once a month wasn't enough, and he knew the doctor, with his reserved and detached manner, might not feel the same urgency. That bothered him more than he cared to admit. He wanted Cauã to desire his presence too. To miss him. — Well, it's still early and...
— We could go to Santa Casa, — Cauã stretched naturally. He had spent the day sleeping in his hammock after his shift. Michel, meanwhile, had spent time playing with Minguado — the cat seemed to have adopted the lawyer. And now they were about to head out again. The night promised another journey through the northern wing.
— How about dinner first? — Michel suggested, almost trying to prolong the moment. He knew the key to catching Cauã's attention was simple: food.
— Hmm. Where? — The doctor raised an eyebrow, already interested.
— How about Paraense sushi? — Michel asked lightly, knowing he was touching a sensitive point.
Paraense sushi? The idea might sound absurd at first. But just imagining the taste of a well-seasoned shrimp, wrapped in warm rice with jambu — and maybe a touch of tucupi — made Cauã's mouth water. No more convincing was needed. He grabbed a jacket, slipped on his boots, and left with Michel without a word, simply nodding.
Outside, a fine rain was falling, typical of the so-called "Amazonian winter." Thin, constant, like a whisper. Cauã had always found this weather comforting. You never knew when the water would come or go — just like certain meetings.
After dinner, the two met for the third time in front of the Santa Casa de Misericórdia. The memory of the sushi still lingered on Cauã's tongue, leaving him happier and more satisfied. Michel, for his part, enjoyed the night more than he would admit.
Recalling their conversation at the table:
— So, how long has it been since you went out with someone? — Michel asked directly, breaking the silence between them.
Distracted, Cauã seemed more concerned about the next round of sushi than the talk.
— Oh, let's say a few months? Maybe a year. I haven't had any romantic outings, — he answered with a slight shrug.
Michel didn't give up:
— And do you want to go out with someone? Fall in love?
— No. And you? — Cauã returned the question, polite but cutting, not quite understanding where Michel was headed.
Michel smiled, realizing his questions might be too intrusive, and gave up, turning back to more everyday topics and the cases Cauã had dealt with in the countryside.
— There was a man who wandered the forest every day; no one really knew what he did, but apparently, it was just innocent offerings to Iemanjá, nothing more. Until one day he didn't come back. They searched the forest and found his body... The family was devastated. Later, the baker's wife fell mysteriously ill. I was called and found that the man's spirit was oppressing her. It was horrible to get rid of that... He was obsessed and tried to cast spells in the forest to have her only for himself. But it doesn't work like that. I think Curupira, tired of the offerings or the lamentations, took action — maybe it was she who killed him. He became a spirit and began to haunt her. I managed to free her, but the obsession was strong.
Michel found the story intriguing and enjoyed hearing it, even though his idea of a date at a nice restaurant had been thwarted by Cauã's lack of emotional tact and difficulty understanding his barely subtle hints.
Back at Santa Casa:
— Stay behind me, always. And be alert for any living beings nearby — Cauã whispered, his eyes scanning the shadows. Even for him, the line between living and dead was thin. Michel, with his unstable sensitivity, was more a beacon than a tracker — he attracted presences but didn't understand them.
This time, for precaution, each carried a knife discreetly at their waist, along with ropes in their backpacks. Cauã hated the idea of resorting to violence, but he couldn't be caught off guard again.
The corridor swallowed them slowly. The darkness felt denser, and the presences were on watch. Formless whispers crept between walls that hadn't breathed in ages.
— I didn't ask... What's this document about? — Cauã broke the silence, his deep voice cutting through the lantern's beam.
— About my birth. My mother was rushed here — Michel replied, attentive to every corner, his eyes adjusting to the dimness. — And that's what I want to understand. My family could always afford a private hospital. This never made sense to me.
Cauã frowned, pondering the strangeness of that fact.
— And you only decided to investigate now?
— After I confronted my uncle, he got nervous. That's when I realized something was off.
They reached the records room. The smell of burnt paper, old mold, and a formaldehyde-tinged memory hung in the air like an invisible fog. Michel felt the oppression even before stepping inside. The apparitions were already there — crouching shadows, murmuring specters, moans that seemed made of trapped wind.
Cauã went in first. He scanned the room with trained, sensitive eyes. No living bodies. Only wandering spirits. Some dense, others mere emotional impressions clinging to the walls like dry laments. Confirming they were alone, he nodded.
Michel approached one of the cabinets. It was metal, partially scorched by old flames but still intact enough. He opened the drawer with effort. The metallic creak echoed down the corridors like an unwanted alarm.
That's when he felt it.
Something liquid, cold, trickled down his foot. At first, he thought it was a leak. But it was viscous, strange. He looked down.
Nothing.
But the shiver down his spine said otherwise. The pressure in the air increased. The invisible weight began compressing the space — like unseen hands pushing him out. A dark presence, like living soot, started to cling to his arm, thin yet thick like oil smoke.
— Keep going, — Cauã said firmly. His hand traced signs in the air, energy flowing in low murmurs of an ancient tongue. The smoke dissipated little by little, pushed away by the invisible force emanating from him.
Michel took a deep breath, swallowed his nervousness. He continued. The files were damp, some illegible. The year was 1990. He was born in April. He knew that. He had to find the record. He needed an explanation.
And that presence still lingered. Silent, but watchful.
— Found it, — Michel murmured, pulling the yellowed paper with hands trembling more than he wanted to admit. His eyes scanned the details until they landed on a name he knew too well: Jaqueline W. Lacerda.
He flipped through the documents with restrained haste. Then his gaze froze.
He frowned, slightly incredulous. His stomach churned. He folded the paper and handed it to Cauã without a word. The doctor, respecting the heavy silence, put it in his backpack. He felt the other's restless energy but did not press for questions. Not yet.
They left the room silently, only their footsteps echoing between walls that seemed to listen. When they reached the deepest wing, with the night cold and damp around them, Cauã could no longer bear the silence.
— What is it? — he asked calmly but attentively. He knew Michel well enough to sense that this quiet wasn't natural. Something inside had broken him.
Michel stopped, still with his hand in his pocket. His eyes wandered somewhere between memories and the present.
— The name of the one who delivered me... — he finally said, as if still doubting his own reading — was my uncle. Francisco Bartolomeu Vasconcelos Lacerda.
The name hung in the air like a sentence. Too strong. Too disturbing.
— You knew he was a doctor, right? — Cauã asked, but the answer was already in Michel's eyes.
— I knew he was an obstetric surgeon. But I didn't know he had delivered me. — Michel ran his hand through his hair, frustrated. — My mother died that day. No one ever told me he was directly involved. Was it guilt? Shame? Did they try to protect me? Or hide something?
— Sounds serious, — Cauã said seriously, with that neutral expression that was sometimes hard to read but deep down held contained empathy.
— It is. — Michel affirmed. — Now everything starts to make sense in a weird way. My uncle's resistance to talk about my mother, the silences, the cut-off sentences... What if her death wasn't so natural?
Silence.
The words hung in the air, floating like ghosts. Cauã realized there was more than a medical mystery here — there was an old wound, poorly healed, about to be fully opened.
— We'll find out, — he said at last. This time, it was a promise.
They heard a murmur inside the room:
— My baby...
Cauã just cast a sideways glance at Michel and sighed, tired.
— Stay out here. I'll take care of the rest. If other spirits interfere, the work can get harder.
The scene inside the room was desolate. That wing had been the most devastated by the fire. The small newborn cribs were charred, covered in soot, with a strong, penetrating smell of burnt wood and melted plastic. The vision seemed like something out of a nightmare. Amid it all, faint lights floated — little shapes, perhaps remnants of infant spirits — and the woman walked among the destroyed cribs, repeating the same path as if desperately searching for something no longer there. As if she wouldn't accept it.
Cauã swallowed the bitter sensation in his throat. He couldn't turn back now, not after coming so far. He took his handcrafted incense holder, made of carved wood with ancient symbols, and began to chant songs directed to his ancestors. Words low but firm grew stronger as the smoke from the herbs spread, blending with the dense odor of destruction.
The small balls of energy — the infant spirits — began to dissolve gently, crossing the veil. It was as if carried by an invisible breeze. But the woman remained. She resisted.
— She's strong. The reason holding her here is even stronger... — Cauã thought, focused. He knew that the more emotionally involved he got, the harder it would be to complete the rite. He tried to avoid attaching to the stories that carried such entities, but here... it was almost impossible.
The smoke enveloped the room like a sacred mantle.
— My baby... Have you seen my baby? — The woman, her skin twisted by burns, eyes wet and empty, finally looked into Cauã's eyes.
He answered with the calmest, gentlest voice he would ever use with a living person:
— He's on the other side, mother. Your baby is waiting for you. You need to go... make the passage.
The woman trembled. Her shoulders fell as if, in that moment, the entire weight of her pain finally crushed her. The memory came like a blazing lightning bolt, cutting through the darkness of oblivion. The flames licking the hospital walls in her memory — voracious, merciless. The suffocating heat, the thick smoke invading the corridors, the screams distorted by the blaze. She ran. Pushed nurses, knocked down stretchers, opened doors with raw hands, delirious. And then the nursery.
Or what was left of it.
Everything burned. Everything was already ash. And the crib where her son slept... was empty. Charred.
There was no time. No miracle. Only the smell of flesh, the bitter taste of helplessness, and the certainty that nothing more could be saved.
She screamed.
And kept screaming even when her lungs had no air. Calling for her son. Begging the void. Burning. Dying. And there she remained.
Now, with empty eyes fixed on Cauã, she finally understood. The stiffness of her body broke. Her spirit, trapped for so long in that cycle of agony, cracked inside. A moan echoed from the depths of her soul — something between a mother's cry and the last breath of a broken existence.
It was the most human sound she had made since death.
The smoke around her took shape. It danced with an ancient lament. And then, like dust before the dawn wind, she dissolved. Slowly. As if still hesitating. As if leaving a piece of herself behind.
And silence finally fell like a shroud.
The energy surrounding the space shattered into invisible fragments, and a cold void took the place of the presence that once imposed itself. Cauã did not move. He kept his eyes closed for a few more seconds, as one who watches over a memory that is not their own.
There was pain there. So much pain.
He made the closing sign of the rite with steady hands, feeling the tips of his fingers still tingling. When he opened his eyes, there was something new in them — a silent reverence's glow.
It was done. But nothing felt light.
Cauã only noticed when he felt it — arms wrapping firmly, warmly around his body. Michel's tight embrace pulled him from that silent well of sadness and pain, the last remnants of the soul that had just crossed the bridge. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to stay there for a moment. The scent of the lawyer's cologne seeped into the air, soft, not invasive — the kind of aroma that, strangely, did not bother him. He had always been sensitive to smells, but that one... that one was bearable. Almost pleasant. Like it worked as his headphones, protecting him from the world's noise, from the vibrations hammering his senses.
— That's enough, — he said after a few minutes, stepping forward.
Michel released him without resistance, a small smile playing on his lips, one of those that hides more than it reveals. Cauã glanced at him, uncertain. He never quite knew what went on behind those watchful eyes — and that uncertainty sometimes irritated him.
— Looks like it all went well, — Michel commented, not touching the moment they had shared.