The Moon Sister

by Lucinda Riley

  ‘You are hungry?’ she asked me.

  ‘No, thank you. I ate on the plane. If you have a glass of water, that would be wonderful.’

  She disappeared off to a small kitchen area and brought me back a glass and a plastic bottle. ‘Sleep well,’ she said as I walked towards my room.

  ‘Gracias.’

  Having taken what Ma used to call a ‘cat-lick’ instead of actually washing, as I didn’t want to chance a shower with my wound, I climbed into what proved to be a very comfortable bed. Lying down, I looked up at the ceiling. It was identical to the one I’d seen so often in my mind’s eye.

  ‘I’m actually here,’ I whispered in awe, before sleep overtook me.

  *

  I was amazed to see that it was past ten o’clock in the morning when I checked the time on the fluorescent hands of the alarm clock, which sat on a chest by my bed. Not a wink of daylight penetrated the cave.

  I coughed, my throat catching some dust, and the sound echoed around the room. I could only imagine the terrible sound Felipe must have made when he was dying in a cave just like this . . .

  Before I did anything else, I took the first aid kit I’d bought at the airport out of my bag. Wincing, I pulled off the plaster covering my wound. It was weeping a little, but not too badly, considering what I’d put it through yesterday. Using some sterile wipes, I cleaned it, patted on antiseptic gel, then covered it in a new plaster. Comforted that it was on its way to healing and I wasn’t about to die of septicaemia where I’d been born, I washed the rest of me, then put on the cotton dress I’d bought at duty-free. I threw my hoodie over it and added the pair of pumps I’d also bought on my shopping spree to replace the heavy ski boots I’d been wearing the night that Pegasus died.

  ‘Well, Tiggy,’ I chuckled as I looked down at the flowery shift, ‘you certainly blend in with your surroundings in this.’

  I left my room and walked through to the reception area. The smell of strong, freshly ground coffee was emanating from the little kitchen to the side of reception.

  ‘Buenos días, señorita. Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ I said, wondering if Marcella – with her long mane of jet-black hair and olive skin – was a gypsy herself.

  ‘I think it is warm enough to take breakfast outside,’ she said.

  ‘Sí.’ I followed her out into bright sunshine and blinked like a mole whilst my eyes adjusted.

  ‘Sit there,’ Marcella said. ‘I will bring your breakfast out.’

  I hardly heard her, because my attention had been caught by what lay beyond the wrought-iron gates that enclosed the front terrace. Walking to them and pushing them open, I crossed the narrow path in front of the hotel and leant over the wall to take in the splendour of both the verdant valley beneath me and the majestic Alhambra above me. In the light of day, I saw how the dusky orange walls rose out of the dark green foliage surrounding it.

  ‘Now I understand what María meant about having the best view in the world,’ I breathed. ‘I really think it is.’

  Over a breakfast of bread and delicious jams, plus a glass of fresh orange juice, I reread the letter Pa Salt had written me.

  ‘You’re looking for a blue door,’ I murmured to remind myself.

  ‘You tourist? Going to the Alhambra?’ Marcella said, topping up my coffee.

  ‘Actually, I’ve come here to find my family.’

  ‘Here to Sacromonte? Or Granada?’

  ‘Sacromonte. I even know the exact door I must knock on.’

  ‘You’re a gitana?’

  ‘I think I might be, yes.’

  She narrowed her eyes as she looked at me. ‘You have some payo for sure, but maybe there is some gitano blood in you.’

  ‘Do you know of a family called Albaycín?’

  ‘Of course! The Albaycín family were one of the biggest in Sacromonte, in the days when we all lived here.’

  ‘The gyp—gitanos don’t live here any longer?’

  ‘Some, but most of the caves here are now empty. Many of us moved into modern apartments in the city. They don’t live in the old way any more. It is sad but true. Sacromonte is like a ghost town these days.’

  ‘Are you a gitano?’

  ‘Sí, our family has been here for three hundred years,’ she answered proudly.

  ‘How come you’ve opened this hotel?’

  ‘Because the only visitors we have here now are tourists who come for the flamenco show in Los Tarantos, or to see the museum of how we used to live in the caves up above us. I think to myself that this street has one of the best views in the world. It was too good to waste it.’ She smiled. ‘Besides, I belong here.’

  ‘Your English is very good. Where did you learn?’

  ‘At school and then university. When my mother and father die, I sell their apartment and use money to buy back my old family home to convert this into what they call boutique hotel.’

  ‘You’ve done a beautiful job. And you’re right about the view – it’s incredible. How long have you been open?’

  ‘Only a year. Trade has been slow, but everything takes time and I have many good bookings for summer.’

  ‘Well, I love it here already,’ I smiled.

  ‘So where is your family?’

  ‘I was told to look for a blue door on the Cortijo del Aire and ask for someone called Angelina. Have you heard of her?’

  ‘Have I heard of her?’ Marcella blinked in disbelief. ‘Of course! She is the last bruja of Sacromonte. Are you related to her?’

  ‘I think I might be, yes.’

  ‘She is old woman now, but when I was a child, I remember the queues outside her door for herbal remedies and fortune telling. It wasn’t just gitanos who came, but many payos too. Now not so many people come, but if you want to know your future, Angelina can tell you.’

  ‘Does she live close to here?’

  ‘Señorita, she lives next door!’

  A shiver ran through me at Marcella’s words as her hand indicated the hill to her left.

  ‘Does it have a blue door?’

  ‘Sí, it does. Many of my guests go to see Angelina when I tell them of her skills. She help our business and we help hers.’

  ‘I never expected finding her to be this easy.’

  ‘When something is destined, life can be easy.’ Marcella’s brown eyes appraised me. ‘Maybe most difficult part of journey was decision to make it in the first place.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, surprised at her intuition. ‘It was.’ Something ticked in my brain as I looked at her. ‘I heard that my ancestor’s neighbour was a man named Ramón. Is this his cave?’

  ‘It is!’ Marcella clapped her hands together in delight. ‘I am the great-great niece of Ramón. My great-great grandmother was his sister! I never meet him of course, but I hear stories of Lucía Albaycín practising her flamenco right here.’ Marcella pointed to the path in front of the gates. ‘My grandmother remembers it too. Lucía once the most famous flamenco dancer in the world! Have you heard of her?’

  ‘Yes, and if the person I spoke to was right, she was my grandmother.’

  ‘¡Dios mío!’ Marcella breathed in awe. ‘Do you dance? You have same figure as her.’

  ‘I did ballet as a child, but not as a career. I . . . I think I should go and see Angelina, don’t you?’

  ‘Wait an hour or so – like most gitanos, she is a night person, and does not get up before lunchtime.’ Marcella patted my hand. ‘I think it very brave of you to come here, señorita. Many gitanos of your age want to forget where they come from, because they are ashamed.’

  With a raise of her eyebrow, Marcella disappeared inside. I sat where I was in the sunshine, thinking about what Marcella had just told me. It was almost too much to take in. I’d expected to have to hunt Angelina down – if I ever could find her – not to find her living next door to where I now sat.

  Maybe your life has been complicated enough recently and you deserved a break, Tiggy . . .

 
; I stood up and opened the gates again, then turned left and walked a few steps down the winding path. I paused in front of the next-door cave. The door was indeed a vivid blue, and another shiver ran through me.

  Your life began in there . . . my inner voice told me. I turned to face the view, imagining María and Lucía sitting on the doorstep weaving their baskets, the village a cacophony of continual noise from its residents. Now, there was only the tweeting of birds hidden in the olive groves that cascaded down the hillside below me.

  ‘A ghost town,’ I said, feeling sad that the lifeblood had left it, but also careful not to romanticise how it must have been to live in Sacromonte all those years ago without even the basic necessities. Yet, ironically, the modern age had destroyed the vibrant heartbeat of this community.

  I sat on the wall, gazing up at the Alhambra. Until the moment Marcella had expressed her surprise that I’d come back in search of my heritage, I’d never considered that it might be shameful to have gypsy blood. Chilly had celebrated the culture he – and apparently I – came from, so I had simply felt honoured to be a part of it. But now I thought about it, it was very different for me; I’d never suffered an ounce of prejudice in my life – accepted everywhere I went simply because of my neutral Western European appearance and Swiss passport. Whereas those who had once lived on this hillside had been banished from within the city, persecuted and never accepted by the wider society in which they lived.

  ‘Why . . . ?’ I murmured to myself.

  Because we are different and they don’t understand us, so they are scared . . .

  I stood up and walked a little further along the path where I saw a sign for a museum on the wall by a narrow set of steps that led upwards. I began to take the steps, then felt a tight band around my chest. My body was obviously still recovering from the trauma of the shooting, so I walked back slowly to the hotel and sat down in the sun until the pain subsided.

  ‘Angelina’s door is open,’ Marcella said to me as she arrived back through the gates with a basket full of eggs twenty minutes later. ‘That means she’s awake. Here.’ Marcella took three eggs out of her basket and handed them to me. ‘You can take these to her for me,’ she encouraged.

  ‘Okay.’

  I went to my room, gave my hair a quick brush and took a couple of Ibuprofen to calm the pain in both my side and chest.

  ‘Right.’ I picked up the eggs. ‘Courage, mon brave,’ I muttered as I kicked the gates open with my foot and walked the few metres downhill to the blue front door. It was open, and given my hands were full, I couldn’t announce my presence by knocking.

  ‘Hello? ¿Hola?’ I spoke into the gloom.

  A man eventually appeared, sporting the most impressive handlebar moustache I’d ever seen. He had a matching head of thick silver-grey hair. He was well built, and his brown skin – wrinkled heavily by years under the Andalusian sun – encased a pair of chocolate-coloured eyes. He was holding a sweeping brush, which he held out as if he might use it as a weapon.

  ‘Is Angelina here?’ I asked.

  ‘No readings until seven in the evening,’ he said in heavily accented English.

  ‘No, señor, I don’t want a reading. I’ve been sent here to see Angelina. I might be a relative of hers.’

  The man looked at me, then shrugged. ‘No comprendo, señorita.’ Then he shut the door in my face.

  Putting the eggs down carefully on the step, I knocked on the door. ‘I have eggs,’ I managed in Spanish, adding, ‘from Marcella.’

  The door was opened again, the man bent down and grabbed the eggs.

  ‘Gracias, señorita.’

  ‘Please, can I come in?’ I hadn’t come all this way to be refused entry by an old man with a broom.

  ‘No, señorita,’ he said and tried to shut the door, but I stuck my foot in it.

  ‘Angelina?’ I called. ‘It’s Tiggy. Chilly sent me,’ I shouted, as the man won the battle of the door and it slammed once again in my face. Sighing, I walked back to the hotel in search of Marcella.

  ‘She was not there?’ Marcella looked confused.

  ‘I think she was, but there was a man there who wouldn’t let me in.’

  ‘Ah, Pepe is very protective of Angelina – he is her uncle, after all,’ Marcella explained. ‘Maybe you try knocking again.’

  I didn’t even get as far as the gate before Pepe came round the bend towards me. Without a word, he took my hand in his large one, and smiled down at me.

  ‘It is you . . . you are a woman now,’ he said, and there were tears burgeoning in his brown eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, I d-don’t—’ I stuttered.

  ‘I am Pepe, your tío, your great-uncle,’ he said, before clasping me in his arms. Then he pulled me down the path back towards the blue front door. ‘Perdón, señorita,’ he said, then mumbled something in Spanish. ‘I did not realise it was you!’

  ‘You speak English?’

  ‘Of course! I just pretend “no comprendo” if tourists come knocking too early,’ he chuckled. ‘Now, I take you to Angelina, your cousin.’

  Standing just inside the doorway was a small woman with a mane of gold hair that was greying at the roots. She was as petite as I was, and dressed in a red and blue patterned kaftan that fell to her feet, which were encased in comfortable leather sandals. Her blue eyes twinkled at me from behind long, black lashes, and her eyeliner had been drawn on as thickly as her eyebrows.

  ‘Hola,’ I said as I gazed at her.

  ‘Hola, Erizo.’ She smiled at me, then tears appeared in her eyes. ‘You here,’ she said in stilted English. ‘You come home.’ Then she opened her arms to me and I walked into them.

  She sobbed on my shoulder, and I didn’t know what to do except join her. Then we both wiped our eyes, and I heard Pepe blow his nose loudly behind us. I turned to him, and he joined us for a further embrace. My heart was pounding and I felt dizzy as I looked from my great-uncle to the woman I had been told to find. Eventually, we all extracted ourselves and I was ushered to a small paved area just beyond the cave, which housed a large number of potted plants. I smelt mint, sage, fennel and lavender as Pepe indicated a rickety wooden table and four similarly decrepit chairs. We all sat down, Pepe and Angelina’s limbs moving fluidly despite their obvious age.

  Angelina reached a hand towards mine and squeezed it.

  ‘My English okay, but speak slowly,’ she advised. ‘How you find us?’

  I explained as clearly as I could about Pa Salt’s letter, then my move to Kinnaird and my meeting with Chilly.

  Angelina and Pepe both clapped their hands in glee, speaking together in rapid Spanish.

  ‘It has done my heart good to hear that the old ways still worked their magic,’ said Angelina.

  ‘So, did you know Chilly?’ I asked her.

  ‘No, only by name. Chilly was told he would send you home by Micaela, who look after me as a child. I feel Chilly is old and sick. He is at the end of his days,’ Angelina added soberly. ‘Sí?’

  ‘Sí.’ I whispered, hating that I knew too. I’d realised immediately that there was no shielding my thoughts from this woman. Whatever gift Chilly had was dwarfed by Angelina’s. I could feel the electricity around her – her power – already, and it was stirring my own.

  ‘Of course, your blood is diluted by your payo forefathers, but’ – I felt Angelina scrutinise me – ‘I sense you have gift inside you. I will teach you, like Micaela taught me.’

  Angelina smiled at me then, and the gaze contained so much warmth it brought a lump to my throat. Everything about her was so . . . vital. She paused to study me again, then took my hand into her soft palm and held it.

  ‘You are sick, Erizo. What has happened to you?’

  I related the story of the night Pegasus died as succinctly as I could.

  I watched Angelina’s eyes roll slightly backwards and, still holding my hand, she cocked an ear as though she was listening to something in the distance.

  ‘This creature sent to pr
otect you,’ she said. ‘He your spirit guide and will take many forms in your lifetime. Do you understand?’

  ‘I think I do, yes.’

  ‘Everything is for a reason, Erizo, nothing happens by chance. Death is not the end, but the beginning . . .’ She began to examine my palm closely. ‘Pepe,’ she said to him, ‘I need la poción.’ She then explained in fast Spanish what it should contain, counting the ingredients off on her fingers. ‘Bring it to her.’

  Pepe disappeared for a while as Angelina continued to stare at me. ‘Pequeño Erizo . . . little hedgehog . . .’

  ‘That’s what Chilly called me!’ I gasped. ‘Except his word was hotchiwitchi,’ I smiled.

  Pepe returned with a glass of some noxious-looking liquid clasped in his hand.

  ‘Will help heal the wound in your heart and soul,’ she said, as Pepe placed it in front of me.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Not important,’ said Pepe. ‘Angelina says you must drink it.’

  ‘Okay.’ I picked up the glass dubiously and hesitated at the strong, strange smell.

  ‘Just drink,’ Angelina urged me.

  ‘How long are you staying?’ Pepe asked as soon as I’d swallowed the last mouthful of the revolting liquid.

  ‘I haven’t even thought about it. I just got on a plane and came here. I didn’t expect to find you so easily.’

  ‘Now you are here, you must stay for a while, because Angelina has much to teach you.’

  I turned to look at my great-uncle and then to my cousin.

  ‘Did either of you ever meet my mother and father?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Pepe. ‘We live next door for many years. We here at your birth.’ Pepe indicated the outer wall of the cave. ‘You born in there.’

  ‘What was my mother’s name?’

  ‘Isadora,’ Pepe said gravely and Angelina lowered her head.

  ‘Isadora . . .’ I said, trying out the name on my tongue.

  ‘Erizo, how much you know about your past?’ Angelina asked me.

  ‘Chilly has told me most of what happened before Lucía went to Barcelona. And then about how María went to find her and José there. Will you tell me what happened next, please?’ I urged them.

  ‘We will, but first we must go back to where Chilly left off,’ said Angelina. ‘You must know everything. It will take many hours to tell the story.’