Water and Stone (3 page)

"Please forgive me for shouting, Church. I'm just worried about this storm. The cellar is the safest place."

""Shouldn’t you open the door then, mother? We can all hide down here. I don't want to go all by myself. It's too dark."

The boy was right... he deserved company in that dreadful place and she couldn’t let the storm take someone when it was in her power to save them. Still, she would come to rue that night for years afterwards always asking herself if she'd made the right choice or a terrible mistake.

Peeking through the glass in the door Yani saw a figure black like an overgrown spider perched and ready to spring upon its quarry and for a long moment she wished she had brought the shotgun to the chabola that Rancher Ford had once offered to give her for protection.

"There are wild and terrible things out there, Yani... take this... you don't have to be a good shot to use it... just point it and squeeze the trigger."

She refused the weapon. Maybe she thought in accepting it she'd be drawing things to her that might otherwise not be aware of her circumstances or perhaps she simply disliked the thought of killing something... now, however, she regretted that decision.

She had the distinct impression that if she shot whoever or whatever lurked on the tiny porch of the chabola she could pitch the carcass into the raging creek and no one would ever be the wiser and in the doing she'd save both herself and those she had come to love considerable heartache and misery.

When she looked through the tiny window glass once more a flash of lightning illuminated the figure standing not a foot away from her and Yani knew the long and pleasant days she had spent living in the obscurity of poverty were over.

She opened the door. Rain wasn’t falling so much as blowing horizontally in a maelstrom of biblical proportions. Lightning strobe-lighted the wind-whipped trees causing the familiar countryside to take on a surreal and sinister look as if all the future suffering coming her way played out before her.

What was Evalena doing here? Didn’t the girl understand that she was no longer considered family? Yani wanted no part of the augury that followed her around like a well-trained rat grown fat off the leavings of a world gone bad and rotten with plenary.

"Hello, Evalena."

"Who is it, mother?"

"It's your aunt, Church."

"Why don’t you let her come inside?"

The boy stood right behind her now though Yani couldn’t recall how long he'd been there. How could she explain to Church that the woman on the porch had wanted to drown him the night he was born?

She wanted to ask her sister how she dared to come back to Texas but it'd only sound stupid. Theirs was a connection that couldn't be severed by time or distance. Had she boarded a space ship and flown to the moon or Mars, Evalena would have found her.

"I've nowhere else to go. I'm nearly done in from my trip, Yani. May I come inside or should I leave?"

Though she opened the door only a crack and but for a few seconds Yani was already soaking wet. The rain felt cold too, like ice not yet fully formed. During the intermittent lightning flashes she saw Evalena's lower lip quivering and when the girl spoke it seemed as if she exhaled water rather than air.

She knew if she refused her admittance to the chabola Evalena couldn't cross the threshold and come inside. The magic the girl held in her hands like so many malignant flowers had its limits. When she turned to look at him Church's eyes beseeched her to let the girl enter... Yani couldn't rebuff that plea. She stood aside and allowed Evalena to pass.

"Come inside, sister, and warm yourself."

Even soaking wet the girl radiated beauty like the storm exuded terror. Evalena displayed that rare combination of grace tinged with indecency, like the puta Mary Magdalene who Jesus loved so fervently.

She loved Evalena even while hating her. Had she a dagger Yani thought how she might plunge it into the girl when she turned her back to warm herself by the tiny cook stove that huddled in the middle of the room.

She'd never understood how like her Evalena remained young while those around them grew older by the day. Even when Yani had been a child she remembered, or thought so anyway, that Evalena looked the same age as the day she showed up at the chabola asking for a bed and a bite to eat and respite from the storm that swirled around them all.

"Thank you, sister. The night that brought me here is bad. If you wish it I'll only stay until the storm goes."

"You may stay as long as you desire, Evalena... but please be kind to my son."

"You know I'd never harm a child, sister. Where is the boy? Let me see how big he's grown and how handsome."

Church had apparently run up to the loft while Yani talked with Evalena the door for when she turned around he had vanished.

"Church... come down, please. We have a visitor... someone you should meet."

"I thought you named the boy Willem, Yani."

"I did. Church is his nickname. Everyone calls him that."

"Church it is, then, sister. I like that."

The boy's feet appeared at the top of the ladder soon followed by the rest of him. Yani kept a sharp eye on her sister wondering if the girl might still be carrying hate for Church. Evalena surprised her by bending down and motioning for the boy to give her a hug. Yani was even more astounded when he complied.

"Do you know who I am, Church?"

"You're my Tia... you're mother's sister."

"Church! English only in this house... remember?"

"Let him speak as he will, sister. Yes, Church, I'm your aunt. I've traveled many miles to see you and your mother again. Thank you for allowing me to enter your home."

"Come with me, sister... you must be tired. Church... give us a kiss goodnight and please go to bed. The storm's letting up and we're no longer in danger. Come along Evalena... I'll fix you a pallet in the back room. It won't be much but the bed will be warm and dry."

Her sister frightened her and yet having her around again seemed to bolster Yani's own sagging self esteem and helped to alleviate the fear that always beset her when she had to deal with anyone she didn't know well. Her sister's presence made her cognizant of the magic in the world once again... and she remembered the package. How could she have forgotten?

On the day of Willem's birth Evalena had appeared out of the misty night like a phantom crow come home to roost on a dead tree in a deserted cemetery. She walked into the chabola without knocking, took one look at the baby boy, and uttered three words.

"Drown him, Yani."

She remembered how she clung more tightly to Willem after that never letting him out of her sight for even an instant. After three days Evalena left as quickly and mysteriously as she arrived. She didn't say goodbye nor did she leave any note of farewell at all.

A day later someone delivered a parcel with only the name Evalena Gutiérrez written upon it. There was nothing else to go by... only her sister's name. Yani never received mail and in fact did even not know the address of the chabola where she lived in a pleasantly pervasive incognito.

Yani left the package set on a shelf over the stove for a day thinking Evalena might return for it or perhaps it might fall into the flames where it belonged. In time however she grew curious as to what lay beneath the wrappings. She hefted the box in her hands and shook it in order to determine its make. While whatever it was didn’t weigh much on one day, the next day it seemed to be quite heavy. And when she shook it one day she was sure something inside the box was scratching around as if it might be alive but when she did the same thing the next day she could hear nothing as if the box was as empty as an unused grave.

After a week had gone by Yani ripped off the brown paper wrapping, tore off the cardboard, and took the box in her hands. It seemed like a perfect cube, golden in color and yet with some sort of black filament running through its construction. There seemed to be no latch with which to open it but as she held it in her palm the top opened all on its own like a malignant jack-in-the-box.

Inside hovered a chicken-egg shaped object that sometimes looked yellow and sometimes looked blue though she often wondered if instead it might be green. She thought it might have something to do with the time of day and the light coming through the solitary window yet even when she brought the egg outside into the sunlight it changed colors... as soon as she thought it was one shade of blue it would morph into a singular green with a hint of yellow around the edges.

The object inside the box seemed solid and yet liquid at the same time. It hung in the middle of the box as if suspended by unseen wires even when she shook it. Something grated on the bottom of the box like tiny grains of sand. She was fearful to touch the thing for when she brought a finger close to its surface an electric arc was generated between her skin and the object. It did not hurt so much as it startled her.

Yani thought it odd that there was no packing inside the object's container and yet the egg didn't rattle around inside. It hovered like an angry hornet. The box itself seemed to be made of a kind of wood that she hadn't seen before... there were no hinges incorporated into the design yet it opened as if there were... she discovered that whatever edge that happened to be upright when she held the box in her hand would raise up all on its own as if it somehow knew what she desired.

"It's magnetic."

But the box wasn't magnetic. She tested it with one of the little toy magnets she used to hold important papers on the side of the old rusty metal desk that served her as a kitchen table... a gift from the previous occupant.

Yani noticed that when she was around the box and the stone it contained—for it was more a stone than anything even while it appeared to be made of water too—she thought much more clearly than normal—she'd always been a bit scatterbrained—and she seemed to have a surplus of energy that had been lacking in her life for as long as she could remember.

She thought of all the things the box might mean and what the stone inside could possibly represent but all her notions ran to the terrifying reality of her father. He'd brought it. Still, no one out in the world knew she lived here... she hadn't assumed a new last name as she once considered doing yet she used it seldom, she had no Texas connections other than with the Triple Six ranch, and she didn't even have a postal box to receive mail. The parcel had simply been left on her doorstep. She wasn’t sure who had delivered it or why.

It had to be the man she called father. The man still wanted her, or perhaps the cult he'd given her over to. She remembered how Evalena talked of their father in the past tense as if he was dead but men like Hajdani didn't die. The mysterious package had to be from him though without a return address she couldn’t be sure.

Another thing that made her uneasy was how the box glowed in the dark. In fact, it wasn’t the box so much that glowed but the object inside of it. It seemed strange to Yani how the light of the egg could permeate the solid wood and she worried that perhaps the box and its contents might be dangerous both to her and her baby.

She took the box and wrapping up little Willem safe from the cold—not wanting to wake Maria—she went down to the creek bank where using a spade she uprooted a large rock, dug a hole under it, lowered the box into it, and covered it up. Satisfied with her efforts she took up her son and the spade and went back home.

That night, however, she couldn't sleep for fear someone would come along and discover the box she'd buried. Had she rolled the rock back over top of it? She couldn't remember. As clearly as she thought with the stone close by, her thinking seemed that much more muddled with it gone.

Dragging herself from the warmth of her bed and bundling little Willem up well against the cold again she picked up a lantern and the spade and made her way back to where she buried the box. For just a moment she panicked thinking someone had rolled away the rock but then she realized in her haste to get Willem back home she must've forgotten to do so. She'd started to replace the rock that night but then thought better of it.

"What if someone's watching? They'll know I've buried something of value here. It's wiser to dig up the box and bring it back home with me where it'll be safe."

As soon as she returned to the chabola, put little Willem back to bed, and tried to lay down herself, Yani began obsessing over the box again. Maybe it really was dangerous. Why had she brought it back into the chabola? What could she have been thinking?

She got up out of bed her feet still cold from being out of doors, took the box, and set it outside on the porch. But before she could go back inside the chabola she walked back over and picked it up.

"Someone will come along and steal it if I leave it out here. It's better to take it inside with me where it'll be safe."

But no one ever visited the little chabola, not even her coworkers or the father of her child. Maybe everyone knew to stay away from the old one-eyed mansion hunkered in a hollow at the end of a road leading to nowhere. Perhaps Rancher Ford had spread the word to stay away from Yani. She had heard how he could be a jealous man despite his philandering.

Taking the box back inside with her but fearful of leaving it out in plain sight where Maria might see it, Yani remembered a loose floorboard in the room that served as her. Working the wood free from the floor she lowered the box into the cavity, replaced the board, and laid a rug over it before pulling her bed on top of it.