The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation (7 page)

“You can uncover your head. He’s gone,” Salia said in a soft voice.

She looked up, amazed, because Salia wasn’t scared one bit. She limped though, as she leaned on Marcelina, as they made their way towards Witch Hill. Her legs and arms were black and blue. Her chest caved into her spine. It must have hurt terribly. Yet, Salia never complained. She had to have been in pain, but she never cried. Throughout the ordeal, her face remained like the stones Pacheco threw at her.

“Your Bible teaches, he who is among you without sin be the first to cast a stone,” Salia said. She spit at the ground, wiping blood from her mouth. “That book the good people of Madrid read, also, orders to practice what you preach.”

Marcelina was taken aback. So, Salia had read the Bible.

“Yes, it was I who stole your priest’s bible,” she said, as if she read her thoughts. She lifted her chin defiantly. “I hid the book from my mother and read it in secret. There weren’t many pictures, mainly big words.”

She marveled at her intelligence. Salia only spent eight months in school. But she had read the Bible? The good book had such massive words, Marcelina could not yet read it. Papa read her passages, explaining them to her, coloring the words with his own interpretation. She said with a bit of awe, “Did you understand the Bible?”

“Some of it. What I don’t understand are the people who swear by it. I especially remember Judas from the Bible,” she said, looking straight at Marcelina, her eyes unwavering.

She shifted her eyes to the ground, feeling ashamed. “I am sorry, Salia, that I sat with little Maria last year.”

“Thank you for your help,” she said, grudgingly.

“Were you afraid?”

“I fear nothing. Neither you nor any of your kind can hurt me. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but humanity will never break me.” Salia looked straight ahead with her head held proudly. “Do you believe in your Bible?”

“Sometimes.”

“Why do you doubt the words of your god?”

“I never said…”

“You don’t have to say. I can smell your lack of faith. You haven’t much fire.”

“Do your injuries hurt?” she said, changing the subject.

“No. My mother has taught me from birth to overcome the pain of my physical body.”

She was afraid to ask by what means Felicita taught her to overcome pain. Instead, the two girls walked in silence. With Salia, she didn’t mind the quiet. The silence was soothing, filling her with peace. With other girls, quietude made her feel uncomfortable.

Salia let go of her arm, as they approached Witch Hill. Her house was still far enough for Marcelina to feel safe, yet close enough for her heart to beat in trepidation and forbidden excitement.

“Don’t come any further, Marcelina. My mother…”

She raised an eyebrow, curious about what Salia thought of Felicita. Her face earlier was hard when she spoke of the Bible and the villagers. Yet, when she mentioned her mother, her hardness was replaced by vulnerability, heartbreaking to watch. Salia now appeared like a reed blowing in the wind, looking more like the shy girl offering her an apple, rather than the tough witch unafraid of Pacheco.

Her softness was too soon replaced by coldness. Salia snapped her mouth shut, saying no more about her mother. Fierce loyalty shone from her eyes. Marcelina was disappointed.

“Go home, Marcelina Rodríguez.”

“Goodbye, Salia. I hope you get well.”

“I am not sick,” she said, limping towards her house.

Marcelina pretended to walk away, and then hid behind a tree. The witches didn’t want anyone nosing about their house, lazily reclining like an affront to nature, at the bottom of Witch Hill. The other houses of the Hispanos were made of adobe, with mud, from the earth itself. The witches’ house may have been grand in the style of big houses, but it resembled a lump of blackened earth and wood, because coal dust blackened the once white walls.

The door to the house swung open, as if by the very air. No one stood at the door to greet Salia, as she walked through the threshold.

Marcelina felt the hair on her legs lift, like fur on the back of a cat. Something buzzed in her ear, like a bumble bee. Her skin was flushed by unbearable heat. She could feel eyes burning into her skin.

They know I’m here. They’ve known all along. They knew I was coming. They were expecting me
.

She heard the buzzing sound again and felt a scream rising, from deep within the pit of her stomach.

She must get away, far away, where she could scream.

She mustn’t make any noise here.

She mustn’t alert them to her presence.

But they know I’m here
.

They know I’m afraid. They feed on fear. It makes them stronger
.

Though she was far from the house, she was certain they would still be able to hear her through the walls.

She held her breath, certain they could even hear that.

Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic
.

She rubbed the necklace around her neck.
San Benito, please protect me
.

A hand reached out and squeezed her shoulder.

The hand was not comforting. It was not San Benito who answered her, and now rubbed her shoulder. The hand had the feel of a claw, of an ancient one. The hand felt older than Agnes’ bones, as if it should long ago have been buried. The hand was ice cold, the way her dead tío had felt.

On the ground. A black rose. Beside her feet, where urine dribbled down her left leg. A skirt with rainbow-colored stripes and wrinkled brown feet encased in moccasins. There was no gold pot at the end of the rainbow. Only La India, who never made any noise when she walked. La India, who floated in the air. Even now, her moccasins did not touch the ground. Marcelina had no warning, until she grabbed her.

This wasn’t true. With the sense of a hunted animal, the hair had risen on her arms. There had been a buzzing in her ear. She felt the danger. Just to be here. She had known the danger.

Always.

Then why had she stayed? What enticement did the hill hold for her?

Oh, why had she stayed? Why hadn’t she gone straight home, like Salia suggested?

Salia?

At the top of the hill Salia twirled, her skirt puffing out from her hips like an umbrella, her stockings falling to her ankles. She held a funny-looking rock and kissed it. She spun faster until she vanished. In her place appeared a coyote running in circles, chasing its tail.

A woman hissed in her ear in a choppy, guttural accent, “Good evening my sweet, or shall I say good night?”

Marcelina screamed at the top of her lungs. La India shook her but still she screamed on and on. Finally, the hag swung back her arm, smacking her across the cheek.

Her head snapped, making a cracking noise at the pit of her neck. She hiccupped, rubbing her cheek. She stared back at La India with shock because she had removed her youth mask and looked like the evil witches described in fairy tales. She stunk like a vacuum sweeper bag filled with dust mites and maggots. Her neck wobbled like a turkey, folds covering her eyes so she had to lift her chin to see. The lines on her forehead were so deep that Marcelina could have buried her fingers in her skin up to her fingernails. Her nose was a big ball due to sagging cartilage. Wrinkles scrunched up her cheeks, cracked like dried mud. Her chin resembled a waffle. A dried black rose sprung from the top of her head, wisps of white hair poking around the rose that seemed to be growing in a field of sparse cotton and pink dry earth.

A bracelet hugged her copper-colored wrist with skin so loose it flapped in the breeze. On each end of the bracelet was the head of a snake, with fangs exposed, ready to strike. La India ran her hand through Marcelina’s hair, letting the strands slide through her fingers.

“My mother wants me. I must hurry home,” she stammered.

“You are a long way from home, Marcelina Rodríguez, and your parents are not at home.”

“You know my name?” she said, feeling faint.

“In Madrid, there are no secrets. Indeed, it is our duty to take care of our neighbors, is it not?” she said, smiling, but her smile was more a scorn and the ends of her teeth pointed like a cat’s.

“Please, don’t hurt me.”

“You are such a brave, girl. Did you lose something?” she said, swinging a chain around her finger.

She felt around her neck, mewing. Her San Benito medal was missing.

Her protection was out of her reach. La India swung the chain around her head.

She grabbed for it, jumping with her hands in the air.

She laughed at her antics, but very soon, grew bored and let go of the chain so it somersaulted in the air, encircling Marcelina’s neck, jolting her backward. The San Benito medal landed on her chest, like a heavy weight. The saint floored her. Marcelina fell on her butt on the hard ground.

She stood over her with her fists on her hips. “Bah. And I thought you brave. You are a poor specimen,” she said, unclasping her snake bracelet and tossing it on the ground beside her. “My pet has an appetite for cowards.”

The two-headed snake came to life, hissing and slithering towards her. The snake, no bigger than a worm, crawled up her paralyzed legs, inching closer to her heart.

She stuttered so badly, that she couldn’t form the words to invoke Saint Paul, who is good with poisonous snakes.

The snake fanned its necks like cobras, its tongues flecking at her neck. It opened its mouth, showing its fangs. It jerked back its head, about to strike.

The coyote, which had been chasing its tail at the top of the hill, circled La India, growling.

La India pouted, saying in the voice of a scolded child, “I was merely playing with your friend, Salia. After all, I let you play with my prized piedra imán, and with the stone’s shape-shifting powers, it is more valuable than this creampuff’s life.”

The coyote raised its fur, snapping its teeth, foam dribbling from its mouth.

“Oh, very well,” she said, snapping her fingers, the snake once more clutching her wrist.

The snakeheads hissed at Marcelina and then stiffened into silver.

“Give my piedra imán back. I do not like this old body. I feel myself disintegrating from the inside. Wrinkles weigh one down like family,” La India said, holding out a hand to the snarling coyote.

The coyote spun in circles until its back legs turned into the legs of a girl who stood upright. A few more spins and the fur on her head turned into
long curls. The creature spun, slowly turning back into Salia who breathed heavily with sweat pouring down her forehead. She held out the extremely rare rock, filled with the magic of shape-shifting.

La India snatched the piedra imán, slowly turning until she transformed into a lovely young American Indian woman with piercing brown eyes and a small nose. Her face was smooth and her skin moist, her neck long and slender.

Salia gave her grandmother a resentful look.

Before Marcelina could even blink, La India was at the house, moving silently and swiftly in her moccasins. The door swung open and slammed so fast, she did not see her enter. A hand pulled back the curtain of a second story window, and two eyes glowed at her. The eyeballs blazed like two coals, burning into her skin.

Marcelina turned with a pale face to Salia and opened her mouth to thank her, but Salia shoved her. “So now you know my family’s greatest secret, and if you tell, my mother and Grandma will kill you,” she said. She marched to her house, her arms stiff at her sides. Her butt swung from side to side like a wagging tail.

Marcelina stood there with slumped shoulders but then Salia turned around. “I will be your friend forever,” she said with a flash of a smile.

Marcelina gave her a quick wave and then walked home, her heart tripping over her lungs. The gossip was true, then—piedra imáns did exist, rocks more valuable than a million dollars. It was rumored the magic rock could turn the possessor into anything or anyone she chose, even into a thin, sleek teenager who looked good in skinny fashions all the rage. She could sashay in a low-hip dress and dance the Charleston all night. She would not need sleep. She could eat like a pig and never gain a pound on chocolates and enchiladas washed down with a quart of milk. She could eat the cow and look like the calf. Like a stray cat, she mewed and scratched at the window.

7

T
he dreaded siren went off in the middle of the day, and the church bells rang. The signals together meant that a tunnel of the Albuquerque and Cerrillos Coal Mine, which snaked under 9,000 acres of Madrid, had caved in.

Marcelina’s heart crumbled to dust, as black as the coal covering Papa’s face, when he was carried into the house and placed upon the same kitchen table her Tío Claudio lay upon two years ago. He was too ill to be moved upstairs, so a makeshift bed was made for him in the living room. The widower Flavio Baca came sniffing around Mama. He was one of the Brothers of Light, a member of the ruling body of the Penitente Order. Because of this, Mama was more than happy to turn over the affairs of the house to a good man like him, while she nursed Papa.