Hidden Heritage (15 page)

Chapter Twenty

Francesca sat on the edge of her leather chair, her hands folded in her lap. She sized me up. “Has something happened?”

“No, I'm fine.”

More accurate words came to mind, but they were terrifying.
I'm not strong enough to keep the Devil away
. Francesca had warned me that I would be putting my soul in danger if I became her apprentice. She had pointed out that my work to build Saint Helena was hardly the actions of an irreligious person.

I did not want to discuss any of this. “You've become very dear to me, Francesca. I will soon be wrapping up my work here. I will miss our chats.”

“You are stopping much too soon, Lottie Albright.” She looked at me sharply with a quick flash of anger in her eyes. “Help me up,” she said curtly. After she steadied herself, she walked over to the worktable on the south wall.

“Now, I wish to go over here.” At the east wall, she pointed to different herbs in five separate jars. “Ladle one half teaspoon of each into a cup. Then heat some water.”

I walked over to the stove and turned on the burner under the copper teakettle. When it was steaming hot, I poured it over the leaves.

“I would like to sit again.” I helped her, then walked back to the counter and carried the cup over to the little table beside the chair.

“Be careful, it's very hot.”

“It's not for me. It's for you.”

“I'm not thirsty. Really.”

“This tea is not for thirst. You are upset today, and this will calm you. You are stopping too soon, Lottie Albright. Much too soon.”

I reached for the tea. “Are you sure you would not like a cup?”

“All right,” she said softly. “You choose the leaves. I'm sad and upset. What do you think I should have?”

I laughed softly. “I think you need a little pinch of bay leaves, mixed with balm of Gilead, and carob.”

“That is correct.”

I went right to the leaves, added them to the cup she liked best and carried it to her. We sipped comfortably. I was relieved that I had been spared an outburst. Wild protests. By now, I was familiar with her sudden flares of temper when I was clumsy, or used the wrong herbs, or if she sensed that I was skeptical about the validity of a ritual.

Calmed by the taste of chamomile and mint, soothed by the dancing motes of sunshine dappling the wood floor, I realized my fears were ridiculous. I had let my fury over a mistreated dog spiral into anxiety over angry feelings that were perfectly normal.

It had all been perfectly normal.

“You're right, of course about my being upset. My stepdaughter, Angie, is staying with us until she has a better life plan. My heart goes out to her. I didn't sleep well last night. And speaking of family, perhaps today would be a good time to focus on yours.” I set my briefcase on the table and fumbled around through the papers. I couldn't locate my notebook. My eyes blurred. I couldn't find my cassette tape recorder either.

I had accidentally picked up Keith's mini voice-activated recorder. He would not appreciate that if he wanted to dictate some notes for his practice.

I couldn't remember the first two questions I had wanted to ask, which was just as well, because I lacked the equipment to do justice to her narrative. They were probably not important.

The room was pleasantly warm. The healthful odor of plants and herbs was a welcome contrast to the brassy stench of motionless air suffocating Carlton County like a grubby blanket. Outside the compound, breathing felt risky, almost dangerous some days. The air in this room was as welcome as oxygen to a drowning man.

“I will tell you more about my family after you help me mix the seeing herbs.” Her eyes darkened as she held up her useless hands.

“Of course. Let's start there. You can answer my questions afterward. I'm in no hurry.”

I wobbled to my feet. She directed me to the worktable with the isolated flasks. It was so very, very pleasant to do something simple and physical. I took out various leaves and stems and put them all in the marble mortar. I picked up the matching pestle and crushed the leaves again and again until the mixture was fine powder.

She gazed a beautiful red crystal jar. “Put it in that. Then wash your hands very carefully with the soap lying by the sink. Wash them like you are a surgeon preparing for an operation.” Her eyes were alive with excitement, her breath artificially steady as though a doctor had told her “breathe in, breathe out” during an examination.

I did as I was told, and placed the jar on the worktable. “Would you like me to label it?” I glanced at her hands. She certainly could never do it herself.

“That will not be necessary,” she said with a bitter spark in her eyes. “I'll know.”

We sat down again. “You promised to tell me more about your family. I'm sorry, Francesca. I forgot my main tape recorder. This all has to be off-the-record today. “

“Yes. That will be fine.”

People often talk more freely when they think it's off-the-record anyway, and I never ever violated this. Francesca relaxed.

Pleasant, so very pleasant to just listen without the hyper-alertness required to direct formal interviews. So very pleasant to listen to this ancient black-clad woman. Even though Francesca dabbled in spells and curses and heaven knew what, today I was more at ease here than in my own household with a miserable husband and a tragic stepdaughter who looked like she would blow away in the first stiff breeze.

I asked personal questions. Intimate questions. Questions I normally would never ask. They were none of my business. Curiously, all of my professional training, my filters drained away. That which prevented me from prying. But it was so pleasant here in the sun, and she answered so freely that I couldn't help myself.

“The lawsuit. A number of people have told me there was a lawsuit that has been going on in your family ever since they were born. Is that true?”

“Oh, yes. And from long before the time when my parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were alive.”

“I've been through all the newspapers. I haven't seen it mentioned.”

“No. It was from a time when there were no newspapers out here. When Victor decided to become a lawyer, I knew it was time to take it up again. When Victor understood what I had, he became very excited. Until that woman convinced him it was foolish to take up the cause again.”

“What cause, Francesca?”

“Our claim to more land. Much more.”

“Did Maria know about this?”

Francesca shook her head. “I think she knew land was involved, but Victor told me he didn't want his wife to know everything.” Her face twisted with bitterness. “She wouldn't have believed me anyway. Only Victor seemed to grasp the importance.”

It didn't make sense. Clearly the Diaz Family did not own vast tracts of land. And she said
own
not
owned
—like it was still hers. I had gone through deeds. The land encompassed in this compound was the extent of their holdings.

“And you believe the lawsuit was a factor in Victor's death?”

“Of course,” she said softly. “Of course it was.”

My tongue was heavy, wrapped in wool. I glanced at my open briefcase again for my notebook and stared dully at the contents. I could write on the back of one of the papers lying within if I had the energy to find my pen. Had to get all the details down for Sam.

Swiveling my head was hard. I should follow up on something but I couldn't remember what. I should make use of the time anyway. Stupidly, I recalled my usual questions. About health, about school, about marriage. There were others, I knew there were others. I began with health.

“Your hands. I know healthcare was very limited years ago, but when did you first begin to develop arthritis? Was it painful? Could your family afford to take you to the doctor?”

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I had asked three questions at once, without giving her a chance to answer any of them. I shook my head, trying to click my brains into place.

She trembled and lifted her terrible hands. “This is not arthritis.”

“What then? Some other disease?”

“No. This was done to me.”

Chilled, I stared at her gaunt face now twisted with rage.

“How could that have happened? Who?”

“Who? People who hated me for the kind of work I do. Hated me without knowing a thing about me. Hated me because I could heal and they didn't understand how I could.”

“Oh, Francesca.” My stomach lurched.

“They came for me one night. Dragged me and my poor husband out of bed. My beloved Henry. They made him watch. They called me a witch. A child of the devil. A daughter of Satan. The Devil's spawn.”

Too stunned to speak, my hands gripped the arms of the chair until my knuckles were white. My teeth clamped like a vise in my jaw.

“They made him watch. They dragged us here to this workroom. My beloved workroom. The same room countless members of their family had come to. For this reason, for that reason. Because they needed my help and their own doctors couldn't help.

Bile scorched my throat.

“They put my hands on my worktable. They picked up a hammer. They put my fingers there and smashed them one by one. Then they cut off one and ground it up with my pestle.”

Black spots swirled before my eyes. I swayed in my chair.

“I did not practice the dark arts. Not then. Then I was pure. Like the sun. Never dark. I knew they wanted more than to punish me. Men who mask themselves with religion who insist they are honoring their God always want more.”

I did not want to hear. I put my palms over my ears and took deep breaths. Her voice seemed to come from a far place.

“Then they started on the animals. Our poor animals. My husband had horses. Six rare beautiful horses. Andalusian—the horse of kings. They were descendants from Esclavo, the original stallion. They killed them first. Then the dogs.”

“Oh, Francesca.” My lips quivered. Then I couldn't speak.

“Then they killed my cat. My dear little cat. They said witches always had a cat and that she was my familiar.” Tears streamed down her withered cheeks. “They even took her little collar. For a souvenir, one of them said.” She closed her eyes. “It had a bell. A dear little bell.”

“Francesca.” All I could say was her name. Over and over. What words could I possibly come up with? Then finally, “I can't even take in such cruelty. Why? Why would they do such a terrible thing?”

“Oh, I knew why. They may have used our religion as an excuse. His Catholicism and what they perceived as my witchcraft, but they wanted my land. There had always been rumors. They wanted to know where I had hidden the claim to my land. My father's land.”

I could feel the color leave my face. The veins on my hands stood out like blue cords.

“My poor husband. They made him watch when they went to work on my hands. They did not need to do anything to him because he never recovered from what they did to me. They hated witches and they hated Catholics. But I knew what they really wanted was to burn my proof of ownership.”

“Oh, Francesca.”

“I didn't tell them where we had hidden the papers. They couldn't make me tell them.”

Faint now, I doubled over.

“They joked, they chanted all the time they were doing this.”

I knew I should go to her, but I couldn't move.

“I could not abide such pain. There was no help. No hope anywhere.

“I laid in bed for a month. For a week I could only sip soup and enough water to stay alive and could only speak enough to tell my sister and my children what to bring me for my pain. My unspeakable pain.”

“Your children?”

“Are dead. Before, there was one, always one who was willing to learn the old ways. One who could be taught. I was the one from my generation. I told my daughter, the chosen one of her generation how to prepare the medicines, the compounds required to endure the unspeakable pain. She wrapped my hands with a poultice of the healing leaves. Somehow I endured. But my husband did not. It killed him.”

Now I understood why this old woman chose to live in isolation.

“Not being able to protect me killed him. He begged me to tell them. But I would not. As I lay there in bed in that room, I changed. Until then I was a shaman; I healed. Afterward, I followed the path of a nagual, a sorcerer, and became the master of that which I had vowed I would never delve into.”

The dark. The rearview mirror. It had not been my imagination. She had been teaching me to call the dark.

“I learned the ways of revenge, but I could not
see
. Today you have mixed the herbs that will allow me to see. Their faces. Their names.”

I couldn't think.

“The ministers, the priests, they will tell you that love keeps you alive. But that is not true. Hate is more powerful. And before I die, I will have my revenge.”

When I could control my teeth, my stomach, my lips, and start my heart again, I lifted my head. “My God. You poor woman.”

“I will be free to die.”

“Did Victor know about your hands?”

“No. He did not know. You are the only one now who knows how the hands came about.” She thrust them toward me. “None of my grandchildren, great-grandchildren— great-greats now—have ever known. What do they know of grief? All they know of loss comes from video games. And imitations of life. Shadows of the real thing.”

I looked at her hands, and then looked away.

“Even Cecilia, my beloved little Cecilia, only wants to think about the pretty side of religion. She wants to cloak herself in Virgin Mary-blue and whisper soft little chants and work among poor people clean enough not to offend her.”

Woolly headed, strung between two worlds, I could not will myself to come up to where I belonged—a world of sunshine and light. I knew if I were able to think, I would hone in on validation. Documentation. Some proof that her ruined hands were the result of mob action instead of a rogue disease that had crippled her.