Page 3 of Speak No Claim

It was Mamá’s mantra ever since I could remember. The life she provided for me was never good enough. She always wanted me to have more. More money, more success, more opportunities she never had, more, more, more…

Trying to keep up with what my family expected of me was exhausting. It was a lot of pressure, and they laid it on thick. It wasn’t malicious, though. It was simply from carrying the weight of our family legacy, and it was all they ever knew.

In my eyes, I had the best childhood a kid could ask for. I grew up in Iquitos, the Peruvian Amazon. My days consisted of helping my family run our Amazon Rainforest Lodge and Tour Company, which had been in our name for generations. I also had family scattered throughout Peru, from Lima to Cajamarca to Chincha, and I was always traveling to visit them.

I wasn’t close to my father’s side of the family. I never met any of them, I was a kid when he passed away and my parents never married. I didn’t remember much about him, I was only six when he died and we didn’t discuss him often. In fact, anytime his name was mentioned, I could see the pain in my mom’s eyes, making me avoid it at all costs. Sometimes my grandmother would talk to me about him, but those times grew fewer and farther between as I got older.

My name, Hennessy, wasn’t your typical Peruvian name, but she was honoring my half-Italian father’s request. Along with me carrying his family name, Belladonna, derived from the deadly nightshade plant. Rumor had it my ancestors were witches, but society feared what they didn’t understand. They were healers, using natural remedies the earth provided to help people who had nowhere else to turn.

I never imagined I’d be forced to leave it all behind. I’d just turned twenty, and I was supposed to start my sophomore year at my public university, but overnight, my world was turned upside down. Out of nowhere, my tío emailed the family, disclosing a scholarship I could use for his prestigious university, The Graves Academy, located in Litchfield, Connecticut, in the United States.

Even the name of the university sounded like a warning to me, but I was the only one who seemed to hear it. If my family had any reservations about me moving to the United States for the next three years, they didn’t show it in the least. I was the only one fighting against them, and in the end, I didn’t win that battle.

Instead, I was walking through an airport in a state I’d never been in, where I didn’t know anyone, including my mother’s brother. He was as much of a stranger to me as I was to him.

My tío traded our family business for lecture halls. He was the director of international programs, and with his help, he could get me enrolled on a free ride. He said my grades spoke for themselves, though it wouldn’t hurt to have him in my corner anyway. He argued this wasn’t a handout, and he was right. It wasn’t.

It was just his way of getting back into our family’s good graces. He was using me, and I wasn’t naive enough to think otherwise. Once the acceptance committee and the dean reassured my family that I’d be there on my own merit, it ended whatever debate I'd been holding on to.

Now there I was, walking toward the terminal to pick up my luggage in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. After almost twenty hours of travel, I was beyond exhausted. I was still wearing my black sweats, with my long, wavy, dark hair pulled up in a messy bun. Topping off my very unstylish outfit was an old pair of sneakers that had seen better days, which only made them more comfortable.

My face was bare. I did manage to wash it and brush my teeth in the airport bathroom once we landed. All in all, I still looked tired and felt defeated. I hadn’t slept in the last few weeks and, more so, in the last couple of days leading up to this.

I grabbed my phone, my earbuds blasting “La Anaconda,” a Peruvian song from Grupo Pacha. Anxiously, I tried to cling to any sense of normalcy and comfort of one of my favorite tunes as I traveled halfway across the world to a state I didn’t want to live in.

Thankfully, I’d visited the States before. I had family in Florida, and I also spoke English. The city of Iquitos was quite modernized even though the rainforest surrounded us.

There was Wi-Fi, shopping centers, and schools that taught English, making me bilingual. I spent my life talking to tourists who would stay at the lodge, and although I wasn’t proficient in French, Italian, or Portuguese, I could still understand and speak for myself if needed. Over the years, I even learned some Latin from all the historical occult literature I read.

I had traveled all over Peru and South America, including a few European countries. My family wanted me to be cultured, and I appreciated that. My degree was in Business Administration and Tourism Management, but my true passion lay elsewhere.

Maybe it was my last name. Belladonna. Poisonous, mysterious, and wrapped in centuries of folklore, but every trip became an excuse to hunt down ancient libraries, museums, and forgotten historical sites that I could find. Growing up in a rainforest, I fell in love with everything it had to offer. From the plants to the towering trees to the wildlife and the rituals passed down through generations. All the dances that carried their own traditions, and don’t get me started on the food.

In my free time, I studied ethnobotany, folklore, and mythology. I was fascinated with rituals, symbols, and sacred societies from cultures across the world, especially their history.

It was my dream to become a researcher, but I guess that was why it was called a dream.

In reality, it’d never happen. My life was already decided for me before I was even born, and I had no choice but to go along with it. I didn’t want to disappoint my family. It was what was expected of me. If I didn’t inherit the business, it’d be sold off to someone else, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.

It meant everything to us.

“Miss Belladonna,” a man dressed in a suit greeted me as I walked up to the terminal. He was holding a sign with my name on it.

I smiled. “You can call me Hennessy.”

He pointed at my bag. “Is this all your luggage?”

“Ummm…” I glanced down at my one suitcase. “How did you know what my luggage looked like?”

“I’m paid to know.”

I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

He followed it up with, “Traveling light, huh?”

I shrugged, glancing at my bag again. “The Graves Academy already provides uniforms. I don’t need much stuff.”

He cocked his head to the side, eyeing me for a second before questioning, “Nothing for when you get homesick then?”