The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation (14 page)

Marcelina bounced the silver button on the bed and with a thick finger, rubbed the turquoise rock, which had been polished a shiny blue. “Is this magic?”

“It’s just turquoise. Once, when I visited the pueblo at Santo Domingo, my niece tried to teach me to make jewelry. She gave me this turquoise. A magic stone would never be kept in a drawer, and is not a shiny, beautiful rock, or it would stand out. Part of its supernatural powers is to disguise itself as an ordinary lodestone, called a piedra imán. If the stone is fed iron filings and watered every Friday, it will pass on great knowledge. After all, natural rocks are ancient, filled with the wonders of the earth,” she said, dancing in the corner with a dreamy look in her eyes. “Because of her piedra imán, my grandma can transform herself into any animal or shape she desires.”

Marcelina dropped the turquoise stone on the bed. Beautiful but worthless.

The voice whispered in her ear.
What would you do with all that power?

I would use a piedra imán to be beautiful and thin. Not to change into some stupid coyote like Salia does. What a waste
.

“I have asked for a piedra imán for my birthday, but you can imagine how rare they are,” Salia said.

“I have brought you a birthday present,” Marcelina said, reaching into her pocket. She held out a wooden statue.

“The doll smells of pine.”

“This is a saint, not a doll. Saint Jude will protect you from illness.”

“Ah, the saint is magic, like a piedra imán, but made of wood, instead of stone.”

“I can tell by your giggles, you do not believe. Yet…” Marcelina picked up the Bible, waving it in her face.

“I should have returned it to the padre, but it is such a pretty book and so entertaining.”

If only the villagers knew Salia as she did. She was courageous and fiercely loyal, funny and smart. With a rush of love, she placed her hand on the Bible. “Swear nothing and no one will ever come between us.”

“I swear nothing will ever come between Salia Esperanza and Marcelina Rodriguez,” they both recited.

“Make it mean something, Salia, as I have, by swearing on the Holy Bible.”

“Wait here,” she said.

Salia returned, hiding something behind her back. A mischievous look danced in her eyes, as she brought to her chest a black book. “It is the
Shroud of Veils
containing a history of my family and secrets of our past. The book was given to my family by a lover.”

“May I?” she said, reaching out her hand.

Salia took a step back. “If you were to touch the
Shroud
, it would burn you.” She looked around her with fearful eyes, placing a finger to her lips. She placed her hand on The
Shroud
. “I swear nothing will ever come between Salia Esperanza and Marcelina Rodriguez. There. We have sworn our oaths,” she said, shoving the
Shroud of Veils
under her bed and tucking the Bible into her bottom drawer. She slammed the drawer. She always made a lot of noise, when she walked up the stairs, what have you.

She locked her bedroom door and they went to the kitchen. Salia wrapped an apron around her waist. She stirred a pot on the cast iron stove.

“What are you cooking?”

“A bat I caught flying from the coal mine, just as the sun set last night,” she said, grinning. “I have added frog legs and sprinkled spiders, like my mother taught me. This is her recipe and is very good with the proper spices.”

She held her hand to her mouth, her stomach heaving.

She laughed. “I’m kidding. It’s only beans with bacon. My grandma butchered a pig yesterday.” She opened the oven door. “See. There is the baked head of the hog she left me for my dinner.”

The pig’s mouth was lifted to one side in a wry smile. One eye was closed and it seemed to be winking.

They ate the beans and bacon with bread baked by La India in the bee-hive-shaped kiva-oven that was outside. They picked at the skin on the pig’s cheeks.

The noise of wagon wheels made Marcelina jump from her chair.

Salia grabbed her. “Where are you going?” she said, digging her fingernails into her wrist.

“Your grandma and mother…”

“The wagon belongs to Jefe. My half-brother has come to take me to the pueblo. I always have fun when I go. My niece, Two-Face, is a year older than me. She is the only friend I have, besides you.” Salia twisted her wrist, until she cried out. “And who are your friends, Marcelina?”

“Since Papa died, only you. Let go, Salia. You’re hurting me.”

She flung her hand and it banged against the table. She wrapped the pig’s head in a towel, and Marcelina helped her carry it outside.

Jefe sat on the wagon, holding the reins of two horses. He was a small, dark, American Indian with a pock-marked face. He had a jagged scar, running diagonally from the edge of his right temple to the bottom of his lip. His right eye was half-closed by the scar. His upper lip flapped in the breeze because it had been split in two. A long, greasy braid slid down his back, which had a slight hump to it.

He narrowed his good eye at Marcelina, and she shrank back from his gaze. Jefe may have been small in height, hunch backed, and ugly of face, yet he seemed to think himself handsome. He had an air about him.

He grunted at Salia in his native tongue, what sounded like gibberish to Marcelina.

Salia shook her head at him and answered back in the same gibberish in a defiant, disrespectful voice. She clenched her fists, stomped her boot and spit.

Odd, her disrespect of him seemed to impress Jefe. He nodded at her, satisfied.

A seventeen year-old girl sat beside Jefe on the wagon bench. He held his hand high up on her thigh, massaging her leg possessively, playing with her buckskin pants.

“He is a hypocrite and sleeps with his own daughter, Two-Face. Don’t worry. Neither of them understands English. Jefe is not so bad. Two-Face seduced her father. My niece wishes to be a man, a son to Jefe. If she can’t be his son, then she wishes to give him a son,” Salia said.

“Don’t look so shocked, Marcelina. The Roman emperors slept with their daughters, to pass the power on. So did the Egyptians.”

“Brothers and sisters. Not fathers and daughters, I think.”

“Do you wish to sleep with your brother Diego then? He is handsome.”

“Do not speak of such wickedness, Salia,” she said, blushing and thinking of the times Diego crawled into her bed during a thunderstorm and brother and sister hugged each other. “He is at the seminary learning to become a priest. Has your brother ever touched you?”

“No. My niece would kill him if he did.”

Two-Face stared straight ahead, gripping the wagon seat with her brown fingers, her braids blowing about. A line cracked her face in two. This line was not a scar. She had been born, split in half. Two-Face, she had been named at birth, and Marcelina could see by her eyes she could never be trusted.

Salia let go of her hand. “Don’t worry. I shall do what Jefe asks of me, and he won’t tell my mother you were here.”

“What about her?” she said, pointing her chin at the girl on the wagon seat.

“Two-Face rarely speaks. She won’t say anything. She loves me too much now, but I will be on my guard, when she turns against me. Poor thing is confused. She tries so hard to be a son to Jefe.”

Salia hopped onto the wagon. She hugged the head of the pig to her chest and stared straight ahead. They were an odd trio, the damaged man in the middle and the two girls, frozen, as if in a trance.

Before she could ask Salia what she meant by doing her half-brother’s bidding, the wagon vanished, in a cloud of dust.

Marcelina twirled.

She was alone. All that remained to prove the wagon had ever been there was a smudge of dust in the air and a trail of grease from a pig’s head, leading to the front door of Salia’s house.

The goats and snakes moved, as the door opened of its own accord, making a creaking noise, beckoning Marcelina to come in and explore the house at the bottom of Witch Hill.

Alone.

Invited.

While there was still light.

13

One more step and you’re in
.

That’s it. Lift your leg. Lower your foot
.

Easy
.

No going back
.

T
he door slammed shut behind her. The house seemed to breathe, the walls expanding, then retracting. Swollen. Then flat. As wood often does, when the seasons change.

It was but one season in this house—winter. She could see her own breath as she panted, her heart racing.

There. To her left. The living room.

“Mustn’t go in. Those ladies spy in that room. They’ll know I’m here.”

She climbed the winding staircase, rubbing her hand along the mahogany banister, leaving a clean trail. Her sweat was like polish to the wood, which glowed with a glassy sheen, reflecting her fear.

An exhilarating fear.

Marcelina. Marcelina. Come to me
.

When she passed the second floor, she turned her head to Salia’s room.

The
Shroud of Veils
. The secrets of the Esperanzas. Salia left their power, hiding beneath her bed.

“Mustn’t touch it. Shadows burn.”

She kept climbing to the third floor, her shoes hollow on the wooden steps.

You can be thin. You can be beautiful
, the voice whispered.

One more step. That’s it. Lift your foot
.

She was a long way up. A body could roll down that twisted staircase and lose a head.

She encircled her neck with her fingers.

Such a pretty neck
, the voice said, chuckling.

Her head was still attached. It was her mind she lost. “Loco, why did I come here?”

“Go back.”

“Now!”

She grabbed onto the banister, overcome with dizziness.

“Whew! That was a close one. Don’t be so clumsy. Need to rest, is all. Get my wind back. Then, I’ll leave.”

She warned me about the third floor. Why
, she thought.

The piedra imán is hidden on this floor
, the voice whispered.
The bitch doesn’t want to share her beauty
.

The hallway was dark, the doors all closed, except for one room. It was from the window of this corner room that red eyes had glowed at her.

It was from this room she heard the voice and the whispered promises of beauty.

She stepped through the threshold and entered darkness, yet she could see in the center of the room, black curtains hanging from the ceiling.

The piedra imán’s hidden behind the curtains. What you seek is there. What you’ve always wanted is but a few steps away
.

Slowly, by themselves, the curtains parted to reveal an altar upon which a life-sized statue stood. Like Two-Face, the statue was split in half. The split ran from the top to the bottom of the statue, one half black, the other half red.

Trust me
.

A piece of paper floated to the floor. She bent and picked it up. A garbled mess of words. Meaningless. She put the paper in her pocket and examined the idol.

An animal fur hung from one shoulder and draped across his body. The nose, mouth and forehead were a human flesh color. Big lips protruded from his face.

There. On his finger. The piedra imán.

Go on. Steal it!

She walked up to the statue and stared at a stone which looked like an eye.

A human heart appeared in the eye. The heart opened and closed, pumping, beating, in rhythm with her heart.

I want your heart, Marcelina. Come. Give me your heart. See. Look what I can give you
.

She looked down at the black mirror extending from his leg, forming his left foot.

“Is that really me? So thin and beautiful? A piedra imán requires much passion. If the rock was mine, I would love it more than La India does.”

I love you, Marcelina. Look again at what you are, if you do not love me back
.

She looked down at her fat face in the mirror, her flesh crawling with worms nibbling her flesh. Great gaping holes, oozing pus. Red, dry, lashless, buggy eyes. Cold sores on her swollen lips. A wide, flat nose.

Ugly. Ugly. Ugly.

“No! No,” she sobbed, feeling chilled. The wind. Where did it come from?

Dust swirled around the wooden floor.

There was a noise, like an ax chopping.

The house swayed.

The ax? Marcelina knew who the idol was. He who brought life to the doll of her pseudo stepfather.

Say my name, Marcelina. Say it
.

“You are the Aztec, Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the Night, Patrón of Witches, and the voice that calls to me.”

The chopping of the ax stopped. The house stilled. Silence, except for…