The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation (17 page)

“Nothing, I said nothing,” she whispered.

He walked away as if she wasn’t even there.

“Where are you?” Marcelina hollered, but there was no sign of Salia. She shivered at the mist in the air. She could barely see in the fog.

Appearing from the fog, like an apparition, walked Salia.

“Why? Just tell me why, Salia.”

“I simply wanted to meet your Juan. He is not worthy of you.”

“Liar. You must have found your ardor flower, and made a love potion so strong, Juan fell in love with you. You knew I wanted him. How could you?”

“Don’t be silly. Why would I want your skinny Juan?”

“To spite me.”

“I never…,” Salia said.

“Because you are angry with me.”

“I’m not.”

“To prevent him from marrying me.”

“That would be a blessing.”

“A blessing? You want me to spend my life praying to Saint André, the Patron Saint of Old Maids?”

“You’re not going to be an old maid, Marcelina. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Yesterday at the hotel, the estúpida who works with me swept her broom across my shoes, the act cursing me to spinsterhood. I was not worried then because I thought the superstition would make an exception in my case because I have Juan, but I see that creencias always come true. I don’t want to be your friend any longer! You are so mean, you don’t care who you hurt, just so you get what you want. You’re just like your mother.”

“Not my mother,” Salia said, hugging her stomach like it hurt. “Where are you going? Don’t leave me!”

She turned her head, yelling at her, “I’m going to the church to unbury my stepfather. He is the last bond between us.”

Salia followed Marcelina to the church, at first pleading with her to remain her friend, but she acted deaf.

By the time they reached the church, both girls were tight lipped.

Marcelina fell to the ground, making the sign of the cross.

“You think making a silly cross against your chest will protect you from Tezcatlipoca,” she said snorting.

The voice laughed, agreeing wholeheartedly.

“You brought this wickedness on me. His voice haunts me, driving me mad.”

“You’ve heard Lord Tez? The dark lord is calling you,” she said, shocked.

“It’s none of your beeswax what he says to me or the images he shows me.”

“Fine, be that way,” she said, leaning against the wall with her arms folded across her chest. “You’re dirtying your pure hands. Oh my mistake, you have dried blood beneath your fingernails. You accuse me of killing him when it was you who pulled the final strings that choked him to death.”

She glared at her, and Salia placed her fingers over her mouth, stifling her giggles.

She dug up only a piece of black material that had been a part of her stepfather’s suit jacket. She turned a pale face to Salia. “What have you done with the rest of him?”

“Nothing,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t know where he went. Perhaps, the church did not agree with him, and he packed up his sins and moved elsewhere.”

She pointed at the empty hole. “Where is his effigy?” she repeated in an agitated voice.

“I told you, I don’t know. I swear I did not unbury your stepfather.”

She reburied the piece of material. “You’re a betrayer,” she said, stomping on the miniature grave.

Salia followed her, pleading until she was blue in the face. “Marcelina, listen to me. I did nothing. I did not make your Juan fall in love with me. It is only your imagination. He loves you. I’m sure of it. You may have gained a little weight, but you are still very pretty.”

She spun around, spitting in her face. “Stay away from me, Salia. Just stay away.”

“It is obvious that you love your Juan more than you love me,” she said. Her eyes were frigid.

“I don’t know why I ever even liked you. The villagers are right in what they say about you. You’re a freak, a girl whose beauty comes from a piedra imán, or out of a bottle, or the result of an incantation, or whatever brujería your mother and grandma used on you, but you’re ugly inside. You spray a scent like a cat in heat.”

“Be careful, it is only because of our past friendship that I do not break your neck and throw you to the coyotes.”

“I’m sure those wild dogs would do whatever you ask. The coyotes can sniff one of their own a mile away. Half-breed.”

“I’ll forgive you for saying that. Your delusions about me and Juan are making you say regretful things. Tomorrow, you’ll have a change of heart.”

The two girls walked coldly away in opposite directions.

Salia pricked her ears up. When she was far from earshot, she fell to her knees, sobbing as if someone died.

17

B
roken hearted, Marcelina lay awake, sniffling, staring at the ceiling.

What’s that noise,
she thought.
Diego?

Feet shuffled down the hallway, sounding like a broom sweeping the floor. The steps stopped at her room.

“Mama?” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes.

The handle turned, her bedroom door creaking open. Moonlight shone on a large figure, swaying on rocky feet.

She screeched, crawling to the furthest corner of her mattress.

The figure approached her bed. No wonder he swept the floor when he walked. He was barefoot with straw toes. He wore a black suit, stitched together with white thread in a zigzag fashion. Reddish-brown mud stains dotted his pants and torn jacket. A few pieces of straw stuck out from his cloth head. Two sticks propped up his pseudo-neck. The man-sized figure looked like a scarecrow come to life. The nightmarish creature standing in her room was her stepfather doll, human-sized.

She huddled closer to the wall. “It can’t be you. You’re dead.”

He sat on her bed, wheezing. One bushy brow hung down the side of his dirt-speckled, fabric face. He wiggled his mustache that was taped to the cloth.

“Get your stinky breath away from me!” she said, gagging. He smelled of cow manure.

He leaned forward, rubbing his straw fingers across her breasts.

She slapped his hand away and his finger fell off.

He coughed, rubbing his mustache against her lip.

“Dios Mio. What are you doing?”

He lifted his straw leg across her body, shoving his big belly against her hip.

No! Not again! “You’re not real. You died,” she said, vomiting into her pillow. He smelled of the mud of the Rio Grande. He stunk of the grave.

He whispered into her ear in a raspy voice, sounding like he spoke from a coffin. “Why did you steal my coins, mi hija?”

“I didn’t,” she said through chattering teeth. “It was Salia.” She yanked the covers over her head, creating a shivering lump on the bed.

“I have some sweets to fill your body, mi hija.”

She grabbed at his hair to throw him off her, but her hands slid from his greasy head.

He pulled her nightgown up to her waist, his straw fingers scratching her.

She screamed, and she screamed.

Mama slapped her face to bring her to. Diego stood at the entrance to her room, holding a kerosene lamp. Above his head on the door frame hung their stepfather’s effigy, the doll, which she and Salia buried against the church wall. The doll swung from a noose hanging around its broken neck.

Marcelina fainted.

She was still pale at breakfast.
That bitch,
she thought, fuming at Salia and wanting revenge.

She claimed to be too ill to work so Mama went to the hotel to make her excuses.

Diego was off to church.

“Pray for me,” she begged.

He patted her head. “I always do, Marcelina, always. Don’t forget to feed Menudo.”

Bastard’s so smug,
she thought, watching her brother pat Menudo’s head, the same way he patted her head, as if they were both German Shepherds.

She threw a finger at his back while he walked from the house, his Bible tucked beneath his arm.

As soon as he was gone from view, she kicked the hungry Menudo out of the house.

She marched into her bedroom, lifted the mattress, and retrieved a piece of paper with scribbling on it.

She touched the childishly-written letters on the piece of paper she had found next to Tezcatlipoca’s idol at Salia’s house. She should have burned the paper, but it was power, a gift.

What did the voice promise?
I can give you all that your heart desires.

What else had he said?
The bitch doesn’t want to share her beauty.

“Salia doesn’t want to share Juan either,” she mumbled. “I don’t want to share Juan. I won’t share him—he’s mine!”

The words on the paper puzzled her. But how to conjure up such power?

She closed the living room drapes.

Menudo cried at the door. “You will have to wait for your soup bones. I have my own bones to cook,” she yelled.

She removed her shoes, plopped down on the middle of the floor, and sat, cross-legged, reciting the words until she memorized them.

She closed her eyes, murmuring the words repeatedly, as if in confession.

She grew weary and felt foolish. “Fuck,” she said and tore the piece of paper to bits.

She put her shoes back on.

Menudo growled low in his throat.

“Damn you, Menudo, I’m coming.”

She was about to open the door, when the dog started howling and scratching at the door. Something in his howls made her take a wary step back. She had never heard any animal make the sounds coming from Menudo.

His scratching grew more frantic, the door swaying with his weight.

There was a high-pitched shriek, like a banshee, followed by a heavy bang against the door, then silence.

Her heart beat loudly as she watched the door handle turn.

The handle jiggled, then a soft knock.

I won’t answer. No one’s home. Sorry. Changed my mind.

The sound of the ax chopping and the house swayed.

A howling wind blew the curtains about. Vases crashed from tables. Cushions flew about. The sofa slid across the room, banging against the wall.

Something jumped in through the window, shattering the glass, shaking the boards with its weight.

She screamed at the shadow of a man, with long hair flying around his face.

He screamed back, waving his arms.

She fell to her knees, shivering and shaking so badly, she bit the tip of her tongue off. The wind whipped her hair around and her dress billowed. Frost clung to her lashes. The blood on her tongue froze.

The shadow laughed madly, and then vanished.

The wind stopped.

She banged her forehead against the floor.

She was still in that position when Mama came home, stumbling over the dead dog. The German shepherd had been black and brown in color but was now a solid ashen grey with its mouth frozen open, a look of horror on its face.

Marcelina’s forehead was swollen to twice the size of her head.

The drapes were ripped to shreds.

The flowered wallpaper was scraped off in places, bearing the imprint of claws of an enormous cat. Even on the ceiling, the prints were visible. One of Tezcatlipoca’s Sorcerous animals is a jaguar.

The room was still freezing. Tezcatlipoca is known as The Bitterness of the North.

He is, also, called The Mocker.

Marcelina picked up the pieces of paper and stuffed them in her mouth, eating the power and hiding the evidence of witchcraft.

Marcelina was seventeen when she finally married her Juan.

Salia hid behind the Church of San Cirilio, by the same wall where they buried her stepfather.
Such happy times we had then, when we were friends,
she thought.

A glowing Marcelina, dressed in white, pranced down the church stairs.