The Moon Sister

by Lucinda Riley

  Angelina weaved her way through the trees until we reached a clearing. I saw it was full of graves, the ground covered in roughly hewn wooden crosses. Angelina led me along the rows until she found what she was looking for.

  She pointed to three crosses in turn. ‘María, your bisabuela – great-grandmother – Lucía, your abuela – grandmother – and Isadora, your madre.’

  Then she waited as I knelt in front of my mother’s grave, searching for the date of her death, but only her name was inscribed on the simple cross.

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘Another time, Erizo. For now, say hello to her.’

  ‘Hello,’ I whispered to the mound of grass-covered earth. ‘I wish I could have known you.’

  ‘She was too good for the earth,’ Angelina sighed. ‘Gentle and kind, like you.’

  I stayed for a while, thinking I should feel more emotional than I did because this was a seminal moment, but maybe my brain was still processing the information, as all I felt was a strange numbness.

  Eventually I stood up and we continued along the line of crosses. I saw the names of the babies María had lost, then those of her three sons, and her grandchildren.

  ‘Eduardo and Carlos, their bodies not here, but Ramón made the crosses in remembrance.’

  Angelina swept me along another two or three rows, repeating, ‘Amaya, Amaya, Amaya . . .’

  The crosses were endless – my whole family on my great-grandmother’s side seemed to be buried or remembered here.

  We then moved on to the Albaycíns – my greatgrandfather José’s family – which were equally plentiful. And at last, with the thought of my roots extending back over five hundred years, something stirred in my heart, as I began to feel the unbroken invisible thread that connected us all.

  Angelina continued walking through the sea of crosses until we had left the clearing and were in a dense patch of forest.

  She was looking down, using her feet to tap the ground. ‘Okay,’ she nodded, ‘first lesson. Lie down, Erizo.’

  I turned to look at Angelina and saw she was already kneeling. Then she lay flat on her back on the rich, earthy ground and I followed suit.

  ‘Listen, Erizo.’ Angelina cupped one of her ears exaggeratedly, nodding to me.

  I watched as Angelina put her small hands behind her head as a pillow, then closed her eyes. I did the same, although I wasn’t sure what it was I was meant to be listening to.

  ‘Feel the earth,’ she whispered, which didn’t help much, but I closed my eyes and breathed slowly in and out, hoping to feel and hear whatever it was I was supposed to. For a long time, I only heard the birds calling goodnight to each other, the buzzing of insects and the rustle of small animals in the undergrowth. I focused on that sound – the sound of nature – and eventually the noise became louder until it was a cacophony in my ears. Then I felt the strangest sensation – it was like a pulse from beneath me, beating softly at first, then stronger and stronger. Finally, the earth’s heartbeat became one with my own and I could feel I was in perfect harmony with it . . .

  I don’t know how long I lay there, but the more I let myself go with the flow rather than being frightened, the more I began to hear, feel and see: the sound of the river far below us felt as if it was pouring its fresh, purifying water over me, then I saw the gorgeous colours of all the fish that swam through it. I opened my eyes and the tree above me metamorphosed into an old man whose branch-arms waved slowly in the breeze, the long white hair and beard made up of thousands of tiny spider webs scattered along the moss-covered trunk of his body. His twig-hands crossed over the smaller branches as if the tree-man was protecting his children.

  And the stars . . . never had I seen so many of them or known them shine so brightly . . . As I stared up, the sky above me began to move and shift until I realised that it was made up of billions of tiny spirits – each with its own energy – and I realised with a shock that in fact, the skies were far more densely populated than the earth . . .

  Then I saw what I first thought was a shooting star, but as it hovered above the treetops, I realised it couldn’t be one, because, after pausing for a few seconds, it suddenly shot upwards and hung directly above me, having found its place in the heavens.

  I was immediately transported to Chilly’s cabin and saw him lying in his bed, or at least, the body that had once housed him, skin and bones lying discarded like an old set of clothes in his freezing cold cabin. I knew what it meant.

  ‘Our cousin, Chilly . . .’ said a voice next to me. I sat up with a start and looked into Angelina’s eyes.

  ‘He’s dead, Angelina.’

  ‘He just move on to the Upperworld.’

  A tear plopped down my cheek and Angelina reached over to wipe it away gently. ‘No, no, no. No cry, Erizo.’ She pointed upwards. ‘Chilly is happy. You feel it. Here.’ She put her hand to my heart before pulling me into a hug.

  ‘I saw his soul, his . . . energy fly upwards too,’ I told her, still shell-shocked from everything I had seen and felt.

  ‘We send him our love and we pray for his soul now.’

  I bent my head like Angelina had, thinking how strange it was that Spanish gitanos held such a strong Catholic faith alongside their own spiritual ways. I supposed that – despite their different earthly practices – neither faith contradicted the other because they were both about belief in a higher power; a belief that there was a greater force than us in the universe. Humans had simply interpreted it from their different cultural points of view. Gitanos lived amongst nature and therefore the spirits they worshipped were part of that. Hindus saw cows and elephants as sacred, and Christianity celebrated the divine in human form . . .

  Angelina indicated we should stand up, and I did so, my senses feeling that they had indeed been washed clean and renewed. As Angelina took my hand in hers and weaved confidently through the trees until we saw the dim lights of the village ahead of us, I experienced a sense of euphoria that I’d somehow managed to feel at one with – and part of – the amazing universe we inhabited. I remembered Pa’s words:

  ‘Keep your feet on the fresh carpet of the earth, but raise your mind to the windows of the universe . . .’

  Back in front of the blue door, Angelina took my pulse again. ‘Better and better. I will give you poción now and you will be well soon.’

  Having drunk the disgusting tonic, with Angelina watching me as I did so, she put a hand to my cheek. ‘You are blood of my blood. I am happy. Buenas noches.’

  *

  Lying in bed in my cave-room at the hotel, my heart felt calmer, as if the steady pulse of the earth’s heartbeat had slowed and tamed my own. My mind flew back to the moment I’d seen Chilly’s soul leave the earth, and I sent up a silent message to him. The fact that Angelina had felt it too meant that all the times before when I’d had a similar sensation of a soul moving on hadn’t been just a figment of my over-active imagination. Which meant that the ‘other part’ of me was just as real as the sturdy walls of the cave that surrounded me.

  And for this alone, I was so very glad I’d decided to take this journey into my past.

  28

  A week on, I felt as though I’d lived another lifetime since I’d arrived in Sacromonte. Angelina hadn’t been joking about teaching me all she knew in the time we had. Before we began, she made me swear never to record anything she told me onto a computer: ‘Our secret ways must remain secret, so that the wrong people cannot get hold of our magic on that web machine . . .’

  So, I had walked down the hill to a little shop on the other side of the city wall that seemed to sell everything from cat food to electronics, and bought a thick notepad and some biros. Already, the notepad was over two-thirds full. How Angelina could remember the endless variations of herbs that went into the different remedies, never mind the exact amount of each, I really didn’t know. Then again, I was on a crash-course, whereas she’d been taught from the cradle by Micaela, her bruja guide. She also began to teach me ho
w to use my hands for healing.

  ‘Chilly told me I had power in my hands. But animals are my passion. Can it work on them too?’ I asked her.

  ‘Of course. All creatures on earth are flesh and blood. It is same.’

  Although I became frustrated at times, under her tuition I began to learn how to ‘feel’ the energy that coursed through every living being and how to let my tingling hands be drawn like a magnet to the source of a problem, then to release any bad energy and disperse it. Angelina encouraged me to practise on Pepe’s ancient arthritic cat, but I also found myself stopping in the alleyways of Sacromonte to tend to strays that crossed my path. As I crouched over each animal I only hoped that any passers-by wouldn’t think I was trying to sell them on as chicken to a restaurant.

  As time went by, I also noticed that my ear was attuning to the Spanish that Pepe and Angelina spoke between them, and I began to recognise more and more words.

  ‘If I spend another week here I’ll be fluent – at least in Spanish herbs,’ I chuckled to myself as I walked towards the blue door. It was another lovely sunny day, so I knew I’d find Angelina sitting outside, drinking coffee. The usual disgusting-tasting tonic would be waiting for me, because coffee was bad for me, apparently.

  ‘How are you today?’ she asked me as I arrived.

  ‘Very well, gracias.’

  I picked up my potion – it had the strangest aroma of aniseed mixed with sheep dung – and sipped it reluctantly. I knew she would force me to drink it all.

  After a couple of hours of tuition and our usual simple lunch, Angelina and Pepe retired for their siestas, and I went back to the hotel to sit on the terrace for a while, working my way through my scribbles whilst everything was still fresh in my mind. Once I’d done that, I too went to take a nap, knowing that Angelina’s brain was at its most agile at night, so my own had to be on full alert later to compute and write down the stream of knowledge she shared with me.

  But that afternoon I couldn’t sleep, and I knew it was because it was time to make contact with the outside world. A week had passed in a flash and people would be worried about me. However much I wanted to remain in my parallel universe, it just wasn’t fair, and I needed to tell them I was safe and well.

  ‘Marcella, do you have a telephone I could use to call home?’ I asked her.

  ‘Up here?! You are joking! Mobiles have very small signal. There is telephone at the shop just inside city walls. For a fee, the owner let us use it. My fax machine there too, for my bookings. I go every day to get them. In fact, I go now. You come with me?’

  ‘Thanks, Marcella.’

  In the little shop, Marcella explained what I needed and I was led to a storeroom at the back and shown an antiquated telephone.

  As I was left in private, I pondered which number to call first and decided on Cal’s mobile. He rarely answered it, due to the lack of signal, which meant I could leave a message without getting grilled.

  I dialled the number and sure enough, it went straight to voicemail.

  ‘Hi, Cal, it’s Tiggy. Just to say I’m absolutely fine. Sorry to run out on you but I . . . needed to get away for a bit. I’ll be in touch soon, but don’t worry about me. I’m really happy where I am. Lots of love to everyone. Bye.’

  I put the heavy receiver down, feeling better that I’d made contact. I then picked it up again, thinking I should speak to Ma – there was no harm in her knowing where I was. I dialled the number and got the Atlantis answering machine. A lump came to my throat as I heard Pa Salt’s voice message. And reminded myself to tell Ma she needed to change it.

  ‘Hi, Ma, it’s Tiggy. I’m really well and in Spain actually. I needed some warmth after all that cold and it’s really helping. I left my mobile behind at Kinnaird but I’ll try and call again soon. Really, don’t worry about me. Lots of love, bye.’

  I put down the receiver, then my hand hovered over it as I felt a compulsion to leave a message on Charlie’s mobile too.

  ‘No, Tiggy, he’s your ex-employer!’ I told myself firmly.

  You want to speak to him, don’t you? Because you care about him . . .

  ‘No, I don’t,’ I said out loud.

  You do, Tiggy . . .

  Then I sighed. One of the side effects of my recent tuition from Angelina, was that my intuition, aka my inner voice, had sprung to life like a female version of Jiminy Cricket. In fact, these days, it barely shut up, forcing me to face any lie I tried to tell myself.

  Okay, I answered the voice internally as I paid for the calls and walked out of the shop. Marcella had gone on into the city and I made my way back alone. ‘I did . . . I mean I do still care for him,’ I said out loud, ‘but he’s married with a daughter, has a huge and possibly bankrupt estate to manage, and his life’s a total mess! So whatever you might say, on this one I’m ignoring you!’

  I looked up to see two passing women casting me very strange looks.

  ‘I have an invisible friend!’ I said loudly in English, before giving them a wave and continuing back up the hill towards Sacromonte.

  *

  That evening, Angelina proclaimed me ready to move on to ‘university’, as she put it. When I arrived, Pepe was just departing to organise my ‘fiesta’ – planned for a couple of days’ time.

  ‘Everyone will be there,’ he said to me as he left, and I could sense his excitement. ‘It will be like the old days!’

  Angelina and I sat together as she began to share some of her most potent magic, involving talismans, charms and protective coins. In the dark cave, lit only by a single guttering candle – she preferred it to the harsh light of a bulb – she showed me sacred objects that had belonged to my ancestors, and as I held them in my tingling hands, she instructed me on how to reach the ‘Otherworld’ – a world where spirits wandered and whispered in my ear, which was apparently how I ‘knew’ things.

  When it came to curses, at first I said no.

  ‘I thought we were healers – medicine women,’ I said. ‘Why would we want to hurt anyone?’

  Angelina regarded me sombrely. ‘Erizo, the world is full of light and dark. And in my lifetime I have seen a lot of darkness.’ She closed her eyes, and I knew she was thinking of the past that still haunted her and this beautiful country. ‘In times of darkness, you do what you can to survive, to protect those you love and yourself. So, now we go into the forest and I teach you the words of the most powerful curse.’

  Fifteen minutes later, she stood me in the middle of the clearing and made me memorise the words she whispered in Spanish, with a talisman round my neck to protect me. Perhaps it was a good thing that I couldn’t understand what they were. I was never to say them out loud, let alone write them down, only go over them in my mind until they were indelibly inked onto my psyche.

  ‘How many times have you used the curse?’ I asked as we walked back home.

  ‘Only twice,’ she said. ‘Once for me, once for someone else who needed my help.’

  ‘What happened to the people you cursed?’

  ‘They died,’ she said with a shrug.

  ‘Right,’ I breathed, both overwhelmed and appalled by this woman’s powers and only hoping the same was not within me, for this was one skill I did not wish to possess.

  *

  ‘So, you have done well, Erizo,’ Angelina said two days later. ‘And Pepe and I have a surprise for you. Go and see Marcella now.’ She shooed me off so she could take her siesta and I walked up to the hotel to find Marcella, who was smiling at me knowingly.

  ‘Come with me, Tiggy,’ she said, drawing me into the parts of the cave that were her private rooms. They were decorated with traditional fabrics and blankets, a huge old-fashioned television in one corner.

  ‘There,’ she said, pointing to the sofa.

  Laid upon it was a beautiful flamenco dress, white with rich purple ruffles trailing down its skirt.

  ‘Try it on,’ Marcella said. ‘It is my old one from when I was a child, but it should fit you. We shall make
you into a real bailaora – a flamenco dancer – for the fiesta tonight.’

  ‘I’m to wear this?’ I said in surprise.

  ‘Of course, it is a fiesta!’

  She handed me the pile of soft fabric and ushered me into the small shower room, where I took off my dress, and slid the garment over my body. Going out to Marcella so she could do up the many buttons, I smoothed down the skirt and adjusted the deep V-neckline.

  ‘Here, Tiggy, look in the mirror.’ Marcella turned me to face it.

  I glanced at myself and was shocked at the woman who looked back me. This Tiggy was brown from the Spanish sun, eyes sparkling, the dress accentuating my tiny waist and smooth décolletage.

  ‘Linda!’ Marcella declared. ‘Beautiful! Now, you need shoes. Angelina has given me these for you – I doubted they would fit, but now that I have seen your tiny feet, I know she is right.’ She held out a pair of red leather shoes with a slim buckled band. The sturdy Cuban-shaped heels were only about five centimetres high – but as I never wore anything but flats, that was enough for me. I took them from her, and tried them on, feeling rather like Cinderella. As they slid perfectly onto my feet, I felt a prickle on the back of my neck.

  ‘Marcella, whose shoes are these?’ I asked.

  ‘Why, they are your grandmother Lucía’s, of course,’ she said.

  *

  At nine o’clock that night, Marcella and I walked down the hill to one of the larger caves, although I would have known where to find it without her, for the music echoed through the whole of Sacromonte, and it felt as though the very air was alive with it. I patted my hair self-consciously as Marcella pulled me inside the already crowded cave. She had oiled my locks into submission, and had affixed a central curl onto my forehead, just like Lucía’s in the pictures I had seen of her.

  At my entrance, a sea of people began clapping and cheering, and I was drawn from one person to another by a beaming Angelina and Pepe, who were both dressed in their finest flamenco clothes, like everyone else.