The Witch On Twisted Oak

by Muller, Susan C.

  “I’ve been all over the world, to shit holes I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Some of the things they practice would curl your hair.” Ramona stuck up one hand and caught the Frisbee as it sailed overhead, tossing it back with little effort.

  “I tell myself that those shamans or priests or whatever they call themselves in that country are frauds, charlatans, and any magic they produce is because the populace want to believe or they’re afraid not to. But, little brother, sometimes I have to say, ‘What the fuck just happened?’ because I sure as hell don’t understand it.”

  Not her, too. He was counting on her support.

  She twisted to face him. “There’s one thing I can do to help you. I’m going to be in San Antonio at Randolph Air Force Base for the next two weeks. I’m taking a class in something you wouldn’t understand . . . or if you did, I’d have to shoot you. They’ve put me in a little on-base apartment and Mamacita can stay with me till next weekend. If she gets any worse, I’ll take her to the base doctor. He’s a friend of mine.”

  She flushed, the first time Ruben had seen that since, well, he might never have seen it.

  “He’s kind of the reason I signed up to take this class. If there’s anything physically wrong, he’ll find it.”

  “He won’t get in trouble for seeing her?”

  Ramona grinned. “He’ll get in more trouble if he won’t.”

  The acid in his gut backed down a couple of notches. Mamacita certainly should be safe on an Air Force Base. Ramona was the only one of his siblings who owned a gun and knew how to use it. If she wasn’t too busy playing patty-cake with doctor guy to keep an eye on things.

  An unexpected pang of emotion lodged in his throat. Everybody was pairing off. Adam, Vincente, and now Ramona. Good for them. He just wasn’t the type, that’s all.

  Chapter 25

  Mamacita had pressed a foil wrapped package of leftovers on them as they drove off, and the aroma fought with the dirty dog odor Molly gave off. Tessa sat in the front seat, staring straight ahead.

  Did another long, silent ride await them?

  She twisted to face him. “I thought your middle name was Jay.”

  “Why did you think that?” And why did she care?

  “My mother warned me, every time I saw her, to watch out for Ruben Jay. I think she had a poem about it.”

  Now things were really getting weird. How did she know about his grade school rhyme? “Ruben M and Ruben J. The names the same . . .”

  “That’s it. That’s it. So there were two of you named Ruben?”

  “That one year only. Then they moved away. He might have been a year older. I think he’d been held back a grade.” No wonder she seemed so afraid of him at times. That kid had been bad news. A mean son-of-a-bitch even then. Funny how it all came rushing back as soon as she mentioned him.

  Could there be any connection between Ruben J and the Ruben Jacinto who owned RJ’s Gym? Ruben wasn’t a common name, like John or Tom, but it wasn’t rare. Still, that was a mighty big coincidence. What would Adam say about that?

  “Did your mother have any dealings with him?” Sure she did. As soon as he asked, he knew the answer. The guy had cut in line in front of him when the boys went to see the infamous fortuneteller.

  “Not just her. I saw his soul, and it was pitch black. I was in charge of taking the tickets and I tested each customer as they came in and told her their color. He burned my hand when I touched him. I warned her, but the money was flowing in that night and she wouldn’t turn anyone away.”

  What the hell was Tessa talking about? She saw his soul and it burned her hand? He knew her mother was bat-shit crazy, but did she have to be crazy too?

  As if on cue, his hands began to tingle, exactly as they had last night when he’d helped her to her feet and she held on so tight. He’d seen snippets of her life pass by and everything had been shaded a soft pink. Ridiculous. He’d already explained that to his own satisfaction.

  Her eyes glazed over as if she were seeing something that wasn’t there. “I remember it now. How could I have forgotten? She read the cards and didn’t like what they said so she tried again. You’re not ever supposed to do that. What you deal is what you get. But she must have gotten the same thing because she pushed the table back and shrieked for him to get out. He grabbed her hands and wouldn’t let go. Kept yelling, ‘Tell me what they say,’”

  Tears glistened at the corners or her eyes. “She tried to pull her hands away. It must have been awful for her. She was so much more sensitive than I ever was. She never touched anyone unless I told her it was safe.”

  Yep. Bat shit crazy alert. At least she was telling him what happened that night. But he was there. He should remember. At least the part that wasn’t off somewhere in never-never land.

  “That’s why she read the cards, or used a crystal ball. She never read palms. It was too hard on her.”

  She read my palm. Fuck, where had that come from? He’d forgotten that part. That was where he’d felt the jolt of electricity before, when Yolanda Garza held his hand and gazed into his eyes.

  And he’d felt a crazy swirl of colors run up his arm and stab his heart like a knife.

  Ruben remained silent for the rest of the drive to his mother’s house, and Tessa didn’t know what to think. The words had spilled out of her like a poison she had to get rid of and she wasn’t sure exactly how much she’d said. Except that it was more than she intended to.

  Did his silence mean he thought she was crazy or that he was processing the new information? Trying to make sense of it?

  Either way, she was sick of keeping things to herself. It felt like she had buried half her life, afraid to let anyone know. That ended now.

  She was the product of a witch and an adulterer, raised by people who didn’t love or want her, deserted by a mother who loved drink more than her own daughter, and possessing powers she didn’t ask for or understand. Take it or leave it. She was what she was. No more hiding behind secrets and lies.

  She had tried to get people to love her by pretending to be something she wasn’t. That hadn’t worked; they hadn’t loved her anyway. How much worse off could she be by living honestly?

  The car stopped and the click of Ruben’s seat belt brought her back to reality.

  “Let’s get Molly back to her owners. We can talk on the ride out to the lake.”

  Ruben saw the mini-van parked in front of the Watson’s home. About time things started to go his way. If nothing else, he could get rid of Molly.

  He’d changed his mind about all of her problems stemming from the Watson’s being too soft on her. No living human could control that dog. Although Tessa did come closer than anyone else.

  Molly tugged on her leash and Tessa took it from his hand. The dog immediately quit pulling. Tessa glanced at him and rolled her eyes. Perhaps the ride back to his cabin wouldn’t be as bad as he’d dreaded.

  Wayne Watson yanked the door open and frowned. “Where have you been? Elissa and Bobby were worried about their dog.”

  “I texted you that I had her.” What was this guy’s problem? He’d found the family’s lost dog, took care of her all weekend, and saved him a kennel fee. And he’s bitching because I wasn’t home when he got here?

  Rita Watson appeared and wrinkled her nose. “She stinks. The kennel was going to groom her before we picked her up on Monday.”

  “She’s been playing Frisbee with all my nieces and nephews. She should be good and tired.”

  Maybe you could bathe her yourself. He’d heard that people sometimes bathed their own dogs.

  Bobby and Elissa rounded the corner. Elissa ran to Molly and hugged her. Bobby nodded and said, “Cool. You found her.”

  He must have rediscovered the attitude he misplaced when he thought the dog was lost and he’d miss his tournament.

  “I sure did. She’s had a busy weekend. Your mother thinks she smells. Why don’t you take her out in the backyard and give her a bath?”

  Rita
Watson glared at him.

  Oops. He might have overstepped his bounds on that one.

  “This is Tessa Reyna. It was her mother who was killed across the street. We’d both appreciate it if you would let me know if you remember anything or see anyone suspicious hanging around.”

  That should put them in their place. Maybe they’d try a little harder to be cooperative after meeting Tessa and putting a face to the tragedy.

  Back in the street, Tessa elbowed him and laughed, the first time he’d heard her do that.

  “Big, bad cop, with a gun and a badge. But dogs, housewives, and little kids walk all over you. I can’t believe I spent twenty-three years afraid of you.”

  No, the ride back to the cabin wouldn’t be as bad has he’d worried. It would be worse.

  He opened the car door and Tessa climbed in just as an unfamiliar car tore around the corner at a high rate of speed.

  Chapter 26

  “Get down,” Ruben hissed as he shut the car door.

  Tessa’s eyes went wide, but for once she did as he ordered without protest and ducked out of sight.

  He squatted beside the fender, keeping the car between himself and the street, but the car turned into Mamacita’s driveway. He was unholstering his Glock when he recognized Ramona.

  “I thought you were heading for San Antonia.” He stood and re-snapped his holster. This was getting old. All the years he’d been a cop and the only danger he’d faced had come straight at him. He’d always known exactly who the bad guys were.

  In the last few days, he’d nearly shot a cat, and his own sister. He was constantly looking over his shoulder, wondering who was hiding in that shadow.

  “Mamacita decided she needed to talk to you.”

  He saw Mamacita in the passenger seat, her head barely visible. He’d spent every night but one with her this week, not to mention all day Saturday and most of Sunday. Now she wanted to talk?

  Better late than never.

  “Let’s get inside. I don’t know how safe this is.”

  Mamacita, Ramona, and Tessa tromped up the steps and inside, but Ruben stood on the porch, his eyes scanning the neighborhood, searching for anything out of place. If someone were watching, it would be easy to follow one of the cars when they left.

  Norm Brewer was raking leaves. The Sanchez kids and the Parker kids were playing basketball in the driveway. Connie Guerrero was jogging behind a baby stroller. Too many people out and about for a stranger not to be noticed. Of course, he could be waiting around the corner at the Valero station.

  The women sat in a semi-circle, watching him expectantly, as he closed and locked the door.

  Ramona patted her mother’s arm. “Sorry to be so dramatic, but Mamacita and I discussed it, and decided this was the time to come clean about everything.”

  Shit. That didn’t sound good at all.

  Tessa sat up straighter. “This sounds like a family conference. Why don’t I wait in the back yard?”

  Mamacita shook her head. “No, dear. You have every right to hear this.”

  Wonderful. Bring a stranger into whatever dirty laundry she was about to spring on him.

  “You know I was born in a small village in Mexico.”

  Maybe this wouldn’t be too bad. He already knew that and about how Papa saved her when her mother died.

  “It was a rural village, a few farmers, some livestock, already fifty years behind the times when I lived there. Superstitious people who blamed every death or crop failure on un espiritu malign.”

  So that’s where Mamacita got her obsession with evil spirits and the occult.

  “My mama”—Mamacita crossed herself and kissed the crucifix she always wore around her neck—“may she rest in peace, was never a simpatica, afectuosa person. And she got much worse after my papa died. We were the poor family in a town so poor they didn’t even know it. She made her living telling fortunes. I don’t know if she was a bruja, a witch, but that’s what people called her.”

  Holy Crap. No wonder she felt so strongly about Yolanda Garza.

  “They hated her and blamed her for putting the sustantiva, the evil eye, on them if something went wrong. Then they would pay her to take the spell off.”

  Mamacita glanced at Tessa. “I never heard of this Wicca thing, this religion you said your mother practiced, and I’m sure my mama didn’t hear of it either. She sure didn’t practice it. If someone made her mad, mi Dios, she would start with the herbs and cook up a spell.”

  This was all foreign to Ruben. “How did she learn these things if she was from such a remote village?”

  “From her father. He was a gypsy. His family got run out of Romania for casting spells. He was already old when I was born. A huge bear of a man. That’s where you and Ramona got your height.”

  Ruben dropped his head into his hands. I’m a Romanian gypsy? He’d always known he didn’t fit in. Not with his family, not in the community.

  Tessa leaned forward. “What happened to your mother? You said she died?”

  “Si. One summer when I was sixteen we had a drought. There was no rain for weeks and weeks. The crops withered and the streams dried up so that the livestock had nothing to drink. People came to my mother and paid her to conjure a spell to bring rain. She took the money and did nothing. ‘The rain will come when the rain will come. I might as well make some money off it,’ she told me.”

  Ramona nodded as if she’d heard this story before. So why hadn’t anyone told him about it?

  “Days later, the people came back, angry, and my mama made a big show of casting a spell. She’d never taught me the spells, but she always used a pinch of this and a thimble of that. This time, she used handfuls and stirred it all in our biggest pot. Three days passed before the rains came. Huge torrents of rain that washed across the fields and killed what was left of the crops. Water rushed down the streams and swept away anything in its path: animals, people, houses. When the rain quit, the people came for my mama.”

  Ruben thought his heart would explode. How could he have not known this?

  Mamacita reached over to take Ruben’s hand. “Your papa got me out the back door and took me to his house and hid me.” She crossed herself again. “My mama told them I was killed in the flood, so no one looked for me.” Tears filled her eyes.

  “We started walking north. We married in the first church we came to, but only after your papa made me give him my promise that I would never use my powers or tell anyone about them.”

  The crazy alarm started going off in Ruben’s head. Now Mamacita was claiming she had powers?

  Ramona cleared her throat. “It wasn’t until I started asking her about the strange things I felt or knew ahead of time, that she admitted it. Even then, we never told Papa.”

  Wait a minute. Now Ramona was in on it? His one levelheaded sibling?

  “Ramona always understood how dangerous these things could be. I never worried about her keeping quiet. You, on the other hand, I never could control. So I tried to steer you to the church as soon as I recognized your talents.”

  His head was pounding. Had he been dropped into some Rod Sterling Twilight Zone? Was this all a big practical joke? Was Tessa in on it?

  “So now I’m supposed to be a witch, too? Along with you and Ramona?” His voice rose of its own accord.

  Mamacita twisted her hands. “That’s why I was so insistent you become a priest. I thought it would be safer for you.”

  Safer? Did she think he was in danger? “What about our other siblings?”

  Ramona smiled. “Only the two of us. Julio and Vincente are lovable, but dense. And Emily, well, she may be a bitch, but she’s not a witch. Like you, I sometimes know things an instant or two before they happen. I suspect that’s what makes you a good cop and me a good pilot.”

  Mamacita glanced at Tessa. “Yes, my dear, you, too. I felt your powers when I held your hand.”

  Tessa nodded. “I thought I felt yours, but I wasn’t sure. You mask them well.” She glanc
ed at Ruben. “However, I think men are called warlocks.”

  “Lucky me, a warlock. A freakishly tall, Romanian gypsy warlock.” Had the whole world taken a crazy pill?

  Mamacita lifted her head. “I don’t know that any of us are witches or warlocks. Just people with super-charged intuitions.”

  Acid rose in his gut. What had Adam just said about his uncanny intuitions? And how could he know Tessa’s childhood in such detail unless he had read her mind when they’d touched?

  “I thought we were going to talk on the ride back to the lake.” Tessa cut her eyes toward Ruben, but he kept his on the road.

  “Sorry. I think I’ve done as much talking, or listening, as I can manage for now. Unless it has something to do with solving this case, I don’t want to hear it. That’s all I’m going to concentrate on for now.” All that other . . . malarkey was just a distraction.

  “Well, we did learn one thing. That Ruben J guy is the same Ruben Jacinto you’re looking for.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t remember his name. That whole year and everything to do with it is all a blur. And I usually have such a good memory.” He needed to finish reading that journal. Every time he turned a page, recollections came flooding back.

  Too bad he couldn’t wipe the last hour out of his consciousness.

  “Breaking his leg in a football game wasn’t until you both were in high school, and you didn’t remember that either until your mother mentioned it.”

  She didn’t need to rub it in. He had likely blocked that from his mind. Otherwise, every time he had to make a tackle, he’d have held back. He couldn’t play football and worry about hurting someone. And without a football scholarship, where would he be? Probably not a college graduate. The fact that the Jacinto’s had tried to sue his family, well, his parents might have kept that from him.