The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation (13 page)

The sun seemed to bleed, turning the sky orange.

The men dropped to their knees, beating themselves unmercifully as the cross was raised in the air.

The mock-Christ lifted his eyes to the heavens, searching the cloudless sky, waiting for deliverance. The nails tore at his flesh, stretching his skin. At last, the mock-Christ fainted.

The cross was lowered to the ground, and Pacheco removed the nails.

They threw the victim in the wagon, a bloody sheet billowing over him.

The cross was left behind, to be used next year. The wagon rolled down the mountain, followed by the staggering Penitentes. They would take the mock-Christ to his home, to await either his burial or his resurrection. He had a fifty-fifty chance of making it. Either way, he won. If he lived, he was cleansed of sin. If he died, his family was greatly honored, due to his human sacrifice. The Penitentes were simple men, willing to die for their beliefs.

When the last man disappeared from view, Marcelina and Salia jumped down from the tree. Both were a bit drunk.

Salia gathered the nails strewn about. “He will surely die. Look. The nails are rusted.”

“Even in pain, his face glowed with light.”

“It was the sun, reflected on his face.”

“Is there anything you would die for?”

“If I could have one night on the stage, I would gladly die. And you?”

“I would die bringing life into the world and not regret it.”

“And this human sacrifice who hung from the cross with rusty nails hammered by his brethren, would his death bring life into the world?”

“The one he represented brought eternal life into this world. He is the light.”

“Well, we should go exploring before we lose the light altogether. You have always wanted to see what the morada is like inside. Now is our chance. There is no one about. The Penitentes will stay at the man’s house, waiting for his death. It will take some time for the poison from the rusted nails to kill him.”

“But it is forbidden. If the Penitentes should ever find out…”

With a determined look on her face, Salia dragged Marcelina to the morada.

The handmade mud house leaned sideways looking as if it was about to roll down the hill. Two enormous logs tied together with leather straps blocked the door.

“The boards are too heavy to move,” Marcelina said.

Yet, Salia pried the boards loose, as if they were toothpicks. She pushed against the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

“See. The door is locked. Let’s go. I beg you,” she said, hiccupping.

Salia giggled, removing a pin from her hair, her copper-red curls tumbling down one side of her face. The other half of her hair was still pinned. At sixteen years of age, Salia wasn’t much neater than she had been at eleven.

She jimmied her hair-pin in the lock.

Marcelina cringed at the creaking door. “It’s dark in there.”

“There are candles. Don’t be chicken. Come,” Salia said, shoving her through the doorway.

Both girls blinked, adjusting to the room, dimly lit by the fading sun at their backs. The walls were painted a soft green to represent the earth, holding up heaven, which was the low blue ceiling.

Salia lit a candle on a crudely built altar. She held the candle up to the adobe walls, splattered with blood.

Marcelina shrieked, “Salia, what are you doing? The candle must stay lit at the altar. The candle burns for the dead and the missing souls suffering in purgatory. This is a chapel! Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we’ll burn in hell for all eternity, if we disturb anything.”

She held the candle under her chin, appearing ghoulish. “Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we’ll burn in hell,” she mimicked. “When has your Jesus, Mary, and Joseph ever helped you?”

“Do not mock God, or you will be doomed.”

“Take my hand if you are afraid.”

Marcelina placed her hand in Salia’s, and they approached the altar, draped with a black cloth. On top were twelve skulls lined up in a row. The black cloth made the skulls look even whiter. The skulls were made of white plaster. “Twelve skulls for Christ’s twelve disciples,” Marcelina said.

Crudely made wooden statues of the saints stood behind the skulls.

Above the altar hung a wooden crucifix with a Hispanic-looking, carved Christ, melting into the wood. Señor Cristo he was called. Marcelina moved her head, and his eyes followed her. It was happening again. “Quit looking at me! I go to confession every month.” She pulled at her collar. She was choking.

Salia stumbled over something and fell on her knee with a bang. She picked up a skull, lying in a pile with eight others. “Human skulls may
bruise my bones, but humanity will never break me,” she dryly observed. “I doubt any of these sinners gave their lives freely today, like the man on the cross.”

Marcelina screamed and ran for the door.

“Wait! I hurt my leg when I fell and can’t run.”

She stopped running and looked behind her.

A skull floated in the air in the darkened morada, coming towards her, laughing wickedly. “I am the skull of Señor Baca,” a deep voice said.

She practically flew through the door which slammed behind her. “He’s after me. They’ve sent him to get me. He wants his revenge,” she screamed, running down the hill, her chubby legs wobbling. She didn’t stop, until she reached the bottom. “I shouldn’t have shut the door on her. What if the candles blew out? Salia may be stumbling around in darkness.”

Salia has always stumbled in darkness
, the voice said.

The door of the morada opened and Salia sashayed out, a mocking look on her face.

Marcelina was furious.
Why does she make me doubt myself? Why is she always goading me?

You know why. Why do you encourage her?

I’m trying to convert her
.

The voice laughed.

Marcelina waited for Salia. She held her hand to her side, her chest heaving, and her heart pounding. She felt like throwing up.

Salia ran down the hill, laughing.

“You scared the hell out of me, Salia!”

You mean she scared the hell into you
.

Marcelina felt like hitting her. If she had a big rock, she would have crushed her skull with it.

Yes. Do it. Do it
, the voice hissed.
She’s so pretty and thin. Look at you. Ugly and fat
.

“Let’s go to my house. My mother and grandma are out of town,” Salia said.

Marcelina bit her lip, eying Salia’s bare feet. Her toes were small and symmetrical. No bones stuck out. The skin was smooth. The feet were small and feminine, unlike Marcelina’s peasant stubs, sticking out from her ankles. Thick. Like her hands. “I better go home,” she snapped.

Half of Salia’s hair covered her face. She pouted. “Come. Don’t be mad. Give me your shoulder and help me walk. My knee is beginning to swell.”

She’s so damned charming, don’t you just hate her?

Marcelina reluctantly placed her hand around Salia’s waist. She looked back at the morada. The building looked undisturbed. Salia had replaced the two boards across the door. There was no skull floating down the hill, with its mouth open to bite her.

Excitement pounded her chest so could barely breathe.
It’s what you’ve wanted, to examine the house up close, ever since you were a young girl and you looked with both fear and longing to the house at the bottom of Witch Hill, beckoning like a mirage in the desert
, the voice said.

Only it isn’t a mirage. What about the red eyes from the third floor window?

Felicita’s gone. So is La India, and her snake bracelet. This may be your only chance
.

Beside her, Salia hummed. She placed her weight upon her injured knee, walking faster, towards home.

There was no pain. There was no swelling. There wasn’t even a bruise.

12

N
one in Madrid was brave enough to examine the house up close, but all snorted at the house towering above in the distance, three stories tall. Carved in the front door of Salia’s house were images of goats and snakes, the serpent and horned goat being but two of the many forms of Tezcatlipoca. Salia heaved the door open, and the snakes slithered along the grain of wood, and the goats pranced.

A trick of the eye
, Marcelina thought, puffing on a cigarette.

Salia shoved her inside, and she could have sworn she heard a billy goat, when Salia kicked the front door shut.

Salia held her hands over Marcelina’s eyes. Laughing, she guided her into the living room.

Salia plopped down on the sofa and crossed her legs. She had grown considerably. Her build was still delicate, but her limbs long. She would never be eye to eye with her mother, nor could she ever match Felicita’s snotty look. She did not appear the grand dame, merely the tattered lady of the house, entertaining a friend. Her bare feet swung from the sofa, her soles filthy just like the house. Still, smudges of dirt on her face could not disguise her growing beauty of which she was unaware.

Marcelina grabbed a
True Story
magazine from the table and flipped to the article on the cover entitled, “‘The Confession of a Chorus Girl’. She fanned herself when she read the scenes in the book, imagining she was the chorus girl surrounded by admiring men

“The tea will soon be steeped,” Salia said, her eyes sparkling with warmth.

She finished the story and threw the magazine back on the table. The living room was overstuffed with chairs and cushions. A large window faced west to bring in the setting sun. The window was draped with heavy, maroon-colored curtains sewn from a dreary fabric. Spiders had woven webs into the valances. A fat spider hung from a string, chewing on a juicy cockroach trapped in its web.

Other than the several layers of dust, the bugs, and the stuffiness, the room didn’t look much different from the parlor at the Lamb Hotel where Marcelina worked. Neither girl attended school any more. They were both of an age when worry about the future was on their minds. Marcelina worked as a maid. Salia was an unpaid maid to her mother. She was also the housekeeper, which explained the dust and spider webs.

Salia poured two cups of tea, handing one to her. “Cookies,” she said, pointing her chin at a table.

“No. Please. Don’t get up. I’ll get one,” Marcelina said, walking over to the table where there were two bowls beside the cookie plate. She screeched at the two sets of eyes floating in the bowls, glaring menacingly at her.

“The hazel eyes are my mother’s and the chocolate-brown eyes belong to my grandma.”

“I….I don’t think I want a cookie after all,” she said, running back to her chair. She lifted the cup with shaking fingers, spilling a few drops.

Salia calmly sipped her tea.

Two cats pranced into the room, their eye sockets empty holes.

“Get out,” Salia screamed, throwing her teacup at the cats. The porcelain shattered, and mint tea crept down the wall. The howling cats ran from the room. “Oh, well. The wall needed a paint job. Tea party over.” She grabbed Marcelina’s cup from her. “Let’s go upstairs.”

“To the third floor?” she said in a hushed voice. She remembered the red eyes four years ago, when she hid behind a tree, spying on the house.

“To my room on the second floor. Avoid the third floor. You might go mad, if you climb up there,” she said, a veil coming over her face.

They climbed the steps to the second floor, and Marcelina tilted her head to the stairs leading to the third story. Something moved, so quickly, it was there and then not there.
It must be the cats, but it was black. One cat white as snow. The other cat a calico
. “Do you have a black cat?”

She laughed. “What you hear about black cats is not true.”

No answer to her question. Salia marched her over to the end of the hallway and pushed her into a small bedroom which looked like a monk’s cell. There was a small window facing north with very little light. Marcelina blinked her eyes at the dimness of the room.

Salia lit a candle.

“Aren’t you afraid of being trapped by fire?” Marcelina said.

“There is power in the flame. Fire warms us and cooks our food. One can even travel by the spark of a flame and race across the sky like a shooting star, leaving a path of burning flame behind you,” Salia said, smiling dreamily. She looked spooky in candlelight.

She opened the bottom drawer of a lone dresser. “My treasures,” she said, removing an old ragged doll, a shiny silver button, a turquoise rock, and a Holy Bible.

“I could sew an arm on your doll,” Marcelina said, proud of her sewing skills.

“Give me back my doll! You think you’re so good because you can sew, and cook, and clean.” Salia threw the damaged doll back in the drawer, slamming it shut.

Too bad she didn’t slam it on her fingers
, the voice said.

Her beautiful, worthless hands
, Marcelina responded.

All thumbs
.