The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation (6 page)

“What did you do to Jose?” Marcelina asked, suspiciously.

“Is that the boy’s name? I did nothing. He threw a spitball at me and must have felt guilty for being so mean. See. I’m nice,” she said, offering Marcelina the first bite.

The apple looked juicy and sweet. “It’s a long time until lunch and you have a healthy appetite. You’re skinny like me,” Salia said, but Marcelina was taller, big-boned and not fragile-looking like Salia.

Even so, Marcelina simply circled her mouth with her tongue, but did not take the apple.

Salia put the apple to her own lips and bit off a crunchy chunk, then once again offered the apple to her.

“I’m starving,” Marcelina grunted, reaching out and taking the apple in her limp hand. She rubbed her fingers against the sweet fruit, swallowing the saliva in her mouth. “What did you say?”

Salia had talked with a full mouth. Tiny clods of apple flew from between her teeth as she chewed. She gulped, swallowing the fruit. “I told you. See. The apple’s not poisoned.”

An uncomfortable silence followed her words.

Marcelina lifted the apple to her mouth and bit into it, acting as if the fruit tasted like sawdust in her mouth.

Salia smiled, lop-sided. “The apple is from my mother’s orchard,” she announced, plopping down beside her.

Marcelina gagged, yet the apple slid down her throat.

She took Marcelina’s hand, grasping it in her own, tightly, preventing her from escaping. She squeezed tighter, ignoring her pale face and whimper. “The fruit is especially sweet, is it not? You have never tasted such an apple before.”

Marcelina took another bite, her face enraptured. “You’re right. Your mother’s apple is the best I’ve ever tasted. The fruit even sparkles in my hand.”

Salia smiled triumphantly at Marcelina salivating for the apple, hungering for the core, especially the core.

“With each bite of this apple, it tastes better and better. There is such passion in this piece of fruit, I feel tingly all over. Oh, but I am stingy. The apple is nearly gone. Here, Salia, have another bite.”

“No,” she said, guiding the apple to Marcelina’s lips. “Eat. Eat of the fruit of my mother’s orchard.”

Marcelina’s lips reddened, looking as if her heart beat in her mouth, pumping blood around her lips. Indeed, her lips trembled.

“I brought the apple, especially for you. You must eat all of it.”

Salia smiled sweetly when Marcelina swallowed the core, stem and all.

Control. It was all about control. Salia had bid her time. All morning long the apple burned a hole in her pocket, but Salia controlled her urge to offer the apple to Marcelina in the classroom.

See. Her first day at school and already she was learning.

5

M
arcelina felt like she was going to die. The skin around her belly button cramped with such pressure, she feared the button would pop and spill her insides over her chair. Butterflies already flew around her intestines, like vultures after the spoils. “I don’t want to die,” she moaned, thrashing about.

She shoved her plate of food, and it went crashing to the floor.

Mama and Papa were puzzled, and she was too hysterical to explain she ate an apple from Felicita’s orchard. She kept repeating in her jibberish something about…Stupid idiot.

They put her to bed, even though the sun was shining. A cup of yerba buena tea, brewed from a mint herb growing wild around the Ortiz Mountains, calmed her down. She closed her tear-dried eyes, drifting off to sleep, relaxed by the spearmint taste in her mouth, and she dreamt of sitting in a giant, hot kettle.

Salia materialized in the pot. She wore a dirty dish rag swathed around her body, the rag sticking to her ribs. She resembled a drowned cat. She was stone-faced, staring up at the full moon. She sang a twisted lullaby, accompanying an eerie tune. In the distance a coyote howled, singing in harmony with her. With each note, the fire cackled and sparks flew.

Felicita dumped two pails of water into the kettle, the water sizzling beneath their feet. She smiled. “I am known throughout New Mexico for my kindness towards children. You will be cooked until you are so tender, I can cut you with a fork instead of a sharp knife. What do you have to say to that, huh? One thank you will do.”

Salia said, “Thank.”

Marcelina said, “You.”

“Good. It is never too late to learn good manners. Where are those onions, you lazy slut,” she yelled at La India.

Marcelina thrashed about in the water, crying. Felicita grabbed her hand and twisted it. She shoved on her finger a black onyx ring with the letters, BR.

Black Rose
, she thought and woke up, sweating, screaming for her parents.

The next day at school, Marcelina sat with Little Maria.

Just once, Salia lifted her head and looked at her with a hurt look on her face.

From then on, Salia sat in the back of the room, in a seat reserved just for her, where she sat all alone, surrounded by three empty seats. Except for the annoying kicking of her desk, she appeared catatonic. No one knew if she learned to read, or write, or do arithmetic. No one cared about Salia who ate alone, played at recess alone, and walked home from school alone.

As for Marcelina, she grew fat until her shape resembled a whale.

Six months later on Easter Saturday, Salia hid in the hills west of Madrid. She spied on the men hiding the eggs for the children. Every year, the Employees Club handed out about 1800 eggs to the women. Earlier in the morning they had cooked and colored the eggs.

The men drove away and Salia climbed down from the tree. She dragged an enormous basket with her, collecting all the eggs.

On Easter Sunday, Salia sat on her tree, her legs swinging from a branch, half a dozen colored eggs in her lap which she peeled and stuffed her mouth with.

Here they come
, she thought, snickering at the company trucks filled with 750 excited kids and their Easter baskets.

The kids stampeded the hills, searching for eggs, yelling at each other, “Did you get one yet?”

Not one child found an egg. The younger ones were crying, and the older ones angry at not finding even one of the dozen, gold-painted wooden eggs which would be rewarded with a dollar.

A fist fight broke out between the miners, the ones who had hid the eggs and the other men who did not.

While the miners were fighting, the mothers comforting the little children and the older kids still hunting, Salia snuck over to one of the trucks and stole the bags of candy which were later to be distributed to the children, just in case none found any eggs.

That was the best Easter Salia ever had, and the only Easter egg hunt she ever participated in. The bags of candy lasted her for more than two years.

6

F
rom the age of six to twelve, every afternoon on her way home from school Marcelina passed the morada, the secret meeting place of the Penitentes. The morada was a holy shack built on hallowed ground, hidden behind a cluster of trees in the Ortiz Mountains.

On this particular afternoon Pacheco’s wagon was parked at the top of the hill. Agnes sat in the wagon, her skeleton bones sparkling in the bright sun, like ivory. Marcelina had not forgotten her kindness and felt an overwhelming urge to see the skeleton up close and mark a resemblance between the boney face and Agnes.

She slowly climbed the steep hill to the morada, yet another button popping from her waistband.

She got to the top, and a noise from the wagon made her heart jump. Agnes was moving!

She’s alive. Dios Mio, Agnes lives
.

The noise again. This time behind her, making her heart stop.

Pacheco. If he catches me…

She ran behind a tree and hid, peeking out at Salia, spying through the cracked door of the morada. Salia had not returned to school this new year.

Two boards normally criss-crossed the door, barring entrance to women, children and unbelievers. Today, the two boards were pried from the door, which was slightly ajar. Salia was on her haunches with her eye at the crack.

She is so brave
, thought Marcelina. Screams were sometimes heard coming from the morada. The smell of death, at times, rolled down the mountains, the stench of sacrificial animals or putrid sinners. She bet Salia was the first girl to ever see the inside of the morada. Marcelina wished she had the courage to join her and see what was making her laugh. She did think it funny, Salia spying on Pacheco and her spying on Salia. It was like a game Pacheco didn’t know he was playing.

Or did he?

Salia jumped up and took off running, with her skinny legs flying beneath her.

Pacheco stormed out of the morada, after her.

Salia never learned to tie her boots properly, even though Marcelina offered to teach her that day in the playground, the one day they were desk mates last year. Her right boot now stepped on the string of the left boot, tripping her. She lay face down in the dirt.

Pacheco hurried towards her, stooping now and then to pick up some rocks.

Salia rolled over. She simply lay there, looking up at Pacheco, with her eyes unblinking, trying desperately to lock her eyes with his, but Pacheco avoided her gaze.

“I should drag you to the morada, and set you on fire,” he said, crossing himself.

Her blue-grey eyes looked like a hurricane about to be unleashed.

He took a step back.

Salia’s eyes retreated into two sunken holes in her head.

“Bruja. Bruja. Bruja,” he screamed at her so viciously, Marcelina cuffed her hands to her ears.

Salia rose to her feet and stood with her fists clenched.

“He who is without sin, cast the first stone,” he quoted and flung a rock at Salia.

The rock hit her eyebrow, leaving a bruise.

Marcelina wanted to tear her eyes away and run home, but fear kept her glued to the spot. If Pacheco saw her, he would think she was with Salia. He would tell Mama and Papa. She would be punished twice over.

Move, Salia
, her mind screamed.
Don’t just stand there looking like a tree rooted to the ground. Dodge the rocks. Cover your head. Make a run for it. Cry out. Ask him to stop. Beg him. Anything
.

There were but small rocks around and very few at that, or Pacheco would have probably killed her. The area around the morada was regularly raked and cleaned, but there were more than enough rocks to satisfy his blood lust. Pacheco seemed unnerved to watch Salia simply stand there and take his abuse. Any ordinary girl would have cried, or jumped to avoid the pebbles, or shielded her face and head, or fallen to her knees in defeat, but not Salia.

“I’ve wanted this for so long, I’ve dreamt it,” he screamed, throwing rocks at her, as if she was a prize at a carnival.

He finally brought her down with a rock hitting her chin. She landed with a thud on the hard ground and lay very still, with her skirt hiked above her waist, revealing her tattered underwear. Her stockings rose but half-way up her thighs. Her legs were thin but muscular.

Pacheco’s chest tightened, like a rubber band. “Are you dead,” he said, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

The V between her legs. Such a tiny thing, yet it swelled like a woman’s mound.

The soles of Salia’s shoes rested against each other, making her legs in the shape of a diamond. There was a tear in her underwear.

Pacheco cocked his head at her jewel, where he could see some skin through the tear and moisture. “Little slut,” he said with a thick tongue.

As if in answer, the inside muscle of her thigh jerked, like the jugular vein in his neck.

There was a clatter of bones coming from the wagon.

He swallowed, wiping his mouth. “You sweat between your legs because you hunger for a man, someone to tame you and show you who’s boss.”

Salia moved a little. Her rump came up.

“It seems I will have to teach you a lesson,” he said, unbuckling his belt. “Let he who is without sin, spill the first seed.”

It sounded like bones falling.

With clumsy fingers, he pulled at the buttons of his pants.

There was a noise of bones breaking.

He swung his head to the wagon. “Agnes,” he screamed.

His wife lay sprawled on the ground beside the wagon with one leg above her head. Her other leg lay several feet from her skeleton.

“You’ve always been jealous,” he yelled, running up the hill. He threw Agnes in the back of the wagon then stooped to pick up her leg.

Marcelina shivered, where she hid beneath the wagon, sucking in her stomach.

He dropped the bone in the wagon, beside Agnes. He flicked the reins of the horse. “I will deal with you, Bruja, some other time,” he yelled at Salia. “I must take my wife home and put her to bed. She is ill.”

The wagon rumbled.

Marcelina shielded her head with her arms, praying the wagon wheel would not ruin her lunch, hoping Pacheco didn’t see her, wishing he wouldn’t do to her what he was about to do to Salia. Whatever it was, she knew it was bad. She had been so frightened for Salia that she found the courage to help her.