The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation (34 page)

No matter how much the birth may have pained her, Salia never cried out. She merely bit down on a piece of bark Spider-Woman lodged between her teeth, and focused on the times Mother and Grandma tortured her to make her strong.

Finally, the baby slipped out from her birth canal, and everything went black.

Let me sleep
, Salia thought, brushing her hand against her throat. She giggled. She opened her eyes, laughing. Spider-Woman was tickling her throat with a feather.

The feather made her laugh so hard, she expelled all the afterbirth.

Little-Dove scraped up the afterbirth, storing it in a pouch.

Samuel frowned at Little-Dove, when she walked out of the room carrying a pouch. She quickly closed the door behind her, not allowing him even a glimpse of Salia, although he had heard her laugh.

He grabbed her by the arm and shook her. “My wife? Why is she hysterical? Has something happened to the baby?”

“Your wife is fine, and your son healthy.”

“Son?” he said in a dazed voice. “I heard no crying.”

“Your son is a warrior.”

He sighed with relief. “I have a son,” he said with wonder. “A Stuwart to carry on.” In a stupor, he watched from an upstairs window as Little-Dove took the pouch and hung it from a tree on the side of the house.

Little-Dove came back into the house and he grabbed her by the arm. “What was that…that thing you hung from the tree?” he asked with concern in his eyes. The mystery of the whole ordeal, the silence from the room, followed by laughter, the whole womanly thing, and him being excluded because he was male, wore his nerves down. His face was tight and drawn, his skin pale.

“In the pouch is the fluid that followed the birth of your son, that which he swam in while your wife carried him in her womb. To bury this fluid may cause the boy’s death. The pouch must hang from the tree until the sun dries it, and the fluid is taken up to the clouds with the spirits.” Little-Dove bowed her head and walked back into the bedroom.

Samuel tried to peek in, but she shut the door.

Spider-Woman was greasing the baby’s skin with pig grease.

Little-Dove took some dried cow manure, finely ground with decayed cottonwood pulp, and powdered the baby with it.

Spider-Woman placed a hand on Salia’s forehead. Her skin felt cool to the touch. She smoothed her damp hair back. “Did you make a bag for the umbilical cord, like I instructed?”

Salia weakly nodded her head, pointing to a dresser drawer.

Little-Dove held the bag and gave Spider-Woman a look.

The older woman pursed her lips at Salia, shaking the bag in her face.

“It’s not my fault. You told me to make a case in the shape of a turtle or a lizard, but something just drove me to make an eagle. So, it is written. So, it shall be,” she said in an exhausted voice.

The women examined the eagle-shaped case made of leather, turquoise beads, silver bells, and with emeralds for eyes. “It doesn’t matter. The boy is half-white.”

“He is a coyote, like me.”

“Ay. You do nice work,” Little-Dove said, stroking the beautifully made case. The needlework was perfection itself.

“I have never before been good at sewing or needle work, but for some reason my fingers flew, as if possessed.”

Little-Dove placed the bag back in the drawer.

“Watch closely for when the umbilical cord dries, and place the cord in the sack you have made with your own hands. I suppose you will have a nursemaid?” Spider-Woman said, looking around the rich house.

“Yes.”

“You alone must care for your son until the cord breaks off. If the cord is lost, then he may die young. You must sew the cord into the eagle bag which you have made. Place the bag around his neck, and the charm will ensure him a long life.”

“I shall do as you order.”

“Now, I shall call your husband in to see you.”

Samuel ran into the room. He wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face in her flat stomach.

She ran her hands through his hair. “Sh. It’s alright. I’m fine. Come. See your son.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at a black haired, dark-skinned baby.

Bradley Esperanza Stuwart looked up at his father with a serious expression on his tiny face and wiggled like a worm in his mother’s arms.

“He stinks,” was all Samuel had to say. “What in tarnation did those women do to my little fella?”

Those women closed the door behind them and left the new family to themselves.

41

A
fter six weeks the umbilical cord dried up and fell off. Salia sewed the cord into the eagle-shaped bag. She hung the bag from the baby’s neck. “The cord in this bag is the last tie between us. I have hired a wet nurse. No longer will I nourish you.”

The baby cried, wrinkling his face pathetically.

“Hush, my Darling, if you never say a word, Mama’s going to kill you a mocking bird. Hush, my Darling, if you never cry, I promise you, you will never die.” For some minutes, she stood by the cradle, humming the tune and swinging her hips. “You will have a great future, Bradley, and you have had a great past.”

The baby blinked his eyes at her.

“Don’t act as if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Your past was revealed to me in the
Shroud of Veils.”

Bradley turned his head to her breast and made a smacking noise with his lips.

“I have taken a potion, and my breasts are dry,” she said, sighing down at her son.

The baby moved his arms, kicking his legs furiously. Since birth, his eye color had changed and was now blue-grey like her eyes. The shape of his eyes, however, did not look like either Samuel’s eyes, or her eyes. She and Samuel both had fair complexions but the boy was darker skinned. He stared back at her with accusation, making her feel guilty.

“Oh, come now. I’m sure the nurse will be adequate.”

“He might strangle with that thing around his neck,” Samuel said, picking up the baby.

She had not heard him come into the nursery. Since the birth, her body rhythms did not sing the same tune as before. The birth drained her powers. Each time the baby fed at her breast, she felt a surge pass from her body into his, and was weakened with each feeding, while her son grew stronger.

Samuel reached out a hand to remove the bag from around the baby’s neck.

“No,” she said, grabbing at his wrist. “Only he can make the eagle fly,” she said, pointing at Bradley.

He looked at her, perplexed, while the baby started to cry. “There. There now,” he said, patting his son on the back. He rocked his arms, singing softly.

Bradley quieted in his father’s arms, and Samuel buried his face in the baby’s neck, inhaling deeply.

She smiled softly. She didn’t remember her own father and did not realize a man could make such a fuss over a tiny baby. It certainly seemed out of character for Samuel, but the moment he laid eyes on his son, the infant wrapped him around his little finger.

“The bag will not harm him, but will give him a long life,” she assured Samuel.

“Couldn’t you pin it to his shirt or something? I guarantee this bag, hanging around his neck, will certainly shorten my life.”

“Very well,” she said, pinning the bag, while Samuel held him. Throughout the ordeal, Bradley cried.

“I think he’s hungry, Sugar.”

She turned from Samuel, who held his arms out, trying to hand her the baby. “I shall call for the nurse,” she said.

Samuel was about to protest, then she gave him a dazzling smile. His eyes lit up at her low-cut blouse, her unfettered breasts bouncing. “You promised to teach me how to drive,” she taunted, “After I recovered.”

“You’re fully recovered then?” His eyes sparked, like a match.

“Fully,” she said, her eyes answering his with a smoldering heat. “I am well now, and it is a lovely day.”

He passed the crying baby to the nurse, a young Indian girl of only fifteen, who had moved in with her infant daughter.

Salia spoke to her in her native tongue, and the girl picked up the crying Bradley and sat in the rocking chair. She nuzzled the boy to her breast. The baby sucked greedily, punching her with his tiny fist.

“See,” Salia said, feeling relieved and a sense of freedom. “Bradley prefers her milk to mine.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “Don’t feel bad, Sweetheart.”

She smiled at the wet nurse. “Let’s go,” she happily told him.

He drove her to a secluded area. “Just so you don’t run down any unsuspecting pedestrians,” he told her.

She moved over behind the wheel and bounced on the seat. She laughed like an excited child, while he taught her how to drive. The window of the car was rolled down. The wind blew her hair about her face. She gave him a dazzling smile.

He looked as besotted as ever.

She drove around in circles and ended up where she had started from. “That was such fun. Driving is like flying. The independence one feels is marvelous.”

“And what do you know of flying?” he said.

She lowered her lashes and smiled knowingly at him. “You have made me fly many times, Patrón.”

He squeezed her thigh, inching her skirt above her knee.

She parted her lips, her face flushed. She leaned back against the seat, opening her legs slightly. “Here?”

“Now,” he croaked and yanked her skirt up. He lowered his lips to her thigh.

She moaned, lifting her hips.

“I would take you in the middle of Main Street in front of the whole damned town. It’s been too long, Salia.”

“Yes,” she said, opening her arms to him.

Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arms.

She caressed his cheek and cleared her throat. She felt jittery, as if pins and needles pierced her skin.

“Yes?” he said, frowning.

“I am going to perform in a new opera,” she announced in a firm voice.

He sat up, straightening his clothes. “So, this is why you insisted on a wet nurse. I thought motherhood would cure you of your appetite for stardom.”

“The French opera,
Carmen
,” she said with awe.

“About a wild gypsy girl, sleeping with all the men!” He got out of the car, slamming the door. He yanked open the door on the driver’s side. “Move over,” he growled. “I’ll drive home.”

She slid across the seat, and folded her arms across her chest.

He drove the car into the garage and she informed him, with flashing eyes, “I have decided this. You can’t make me change my mind.”

He stepped on the brake and turned off the ignition. He hit his fists against the steering wheel. “But Jesus, Salia.
Carmen?”

“Because, it is a great role.”

“And who’s playing your lovers, especially the role of Don Jose?” he snarled.

She shrugged her shoulders, pulling at her skirt.

“Aren’t I enough for you? Me and Bradley?” he said in a ragged voice. He squeezed her hand. “We can have more children. A little girl.”

She cringed. “I…I…need more.”

“I was a damned fool for giving you the theatre as a birthday gift on an impulse I deeply regret,” he said and stormed into the house.

“Samuel,” she whispered, clenching her hands. He would come around. She was a great singer and actress, and he admired her talent, though he did not know it came from a shape-shifting stone.

It was an argument they repeated every time she rehearsed for a new opera, and she always won.

42

S
amuel sat in his private box at the Engine House Melodrama Theatre and Opera, glaring across the heads of the audience at Clark Gable and Boris Karloff, who were enclosed in one of the private boxes. He studied both men with his opera glasses. Salia performed Carmen while Gable watched with opera glasses.

It was opening night. The audience held its breath as the tale of passion and wantonness unfolded upon the stage. All eyes were glued on Salia. Like a flower slowly opening, she exposed Carmen’s cruelty as she plays with men’s hearts. She was magnificent.

Samuel split his attention between the two movie stars and the stage. He glared at the man playing Don Jose, and gritted his teeth at Salia seducing the handsome officer.

There was another man in the audience growling at Salia’s seduction as Carmen. Pacheco watched her performance more intently than any of the general audience sitting in rows rippling from the front of the stage.
Carmen is a puta
, he thought with disgust.
No wonder Salia takes to the role so naturally
.
She is a mother now and shouldn’t be making a spectacle of herself. Her timing is ill chosen, and she will be damned in hell
. He was furious that this opera should be performed during Lent. It was a sacrilege. Other women were in church with bowed heads, praying. Men turned their eyes toward heaven and their steps to the morada during this holy time. The weeks during Lent and Easter are dry weeks when all must be somber, look inward to their own hearts, and strive to be more spiritual. They must look to the promises, not of this world, but of the next.