I should have known better. I heard a sudden roar from the ground and realized that the cougar had seen us leaving the cottage and was running after us with supernatural speed. Grandmother would not let us get away so easily. The full moon came out from behind a cloud, and I could see the cougar clearly, green-gold eyes blazing as it ran. It was climbing a hill parallel to the road we were following, and suddenly it was springing through the air, trying to knock us off the broomstick.
“Giddyup, broom!” I cried, leaning forward and urging it on as if it were a horse. I felt the cougar’s claws smack the bristles at the back and then saw it fall away onto the road. I took us higher, into the treetops, but dared not soar above for fear of losing my direction if I lost sight of the road beneath the thick foliage. The cougar was gaining on us again, and I didn’t know what to do. I swerved down another lane and then across the field to a third, always making toward home, followed by the sound of pounding feet and the screams of the cougar.
By the time we reached the road where our house stood, my heart was thudding so hard it hurt my chest, and my hands were so cold from the whipping wind they could barely hold the broomstick. The chilly night breeze woke Richard from his spelled sleep, and he started wailing in my ear and squirming against the tight blanket, which made me tip and swerve on the broomstick. Each swerve lost me a precious few seconds, and the cougar, seeing my difficulties, picked up speed.
As soon as I saw our house, I started shouting for my mother. She was waiting up for us and threw the front window open at once. She took in the situation at a glance, and called: “Not in those muddy boots, Matilda!” I understood at once. She was going to open the back door.
As Mother slammed down the window, I kept riding toward the porch until the last possible second, the cougar right behind me. Then I swerved and dodged around the house toward the back door. I heard the cougar’s feet thud onto the porch, heard it scream with frustration at the trick, and then it was behind me again. But the maneuver had bought me the extra seconds that I needed. I rounded the far corner of the house just as Mama slammed open the back door. Aiming the broomstick, I swerved one more time into the door and Mama slammed it shut, right in the face of the cougar.
The creature roared with rage and slammed itself against the door, splintering the wood.
“Tilda, the protection spells,” Mama called to me as she grabbed one of the two special rifles she always kept over the front and back doors. The ones armed with silver bullets.
I tumbled off the broomstick, wrestled my way out of the blanket, put Richard down by the sink, and hastily began drawing the marks needed to raise the magic wards to protect the house. Mama opened the window a notch and took aim at the attacking cougar. Her first shot caught it in the shoulder, and I heard it yowl with pain. As Mama took aim again, the house wards suddenly took hold, burning the cougar and thrusting it off our property. It screamed once in sheer rage and then disappeared in a flash of light.
Behind me, the broomstick came to life and started banging itself against the wall, trying to follow its mistress. Mama grabbed hold of it and thrust it into the pantry, where it kept banging again and again at the door.
Then Mama pulled Richard and me into her arms, weeping with joy that we had made it safely home. As she changed Richard and put him to bed, I told her the whole story. It took a long time, and Mama’s face grew grim during the telling.
“I will deal with my Mother tomorrow morning,” she said in a tone that made me glad I wasn’t Grandmother.
“That may not be necessary,” I said slowly, reminding her about the salt I’d put on Grandmother’s skin. Mama’s eyes narrowed.
“How much did you use?” she asked.
“The whole jar,” I said, showing her the empty flask. Slowly, Mama began to grin. I grinned back. Either grandmother would remain a cougar the rest of her life, or she would burn away all her powers trying to get back into her human form.
At that moment, the faint thudding from the broomstick in the pantry downstairs ceased abruptly. Mama and I stared at one another, then ran downstairs to have a look. The broomstick had made a number of nasty-looking gashes in the pantry door, but now it lay lifeless on the floor. Mama touched it for a moment, then her face went sort of sad and relieved at the same time. The tie between the broomstick and its owner had been severed. Grandmother must have tried to put on her skin, and in doing so lost her magic powers.
The next morning, Mama went to the cottage with the local minister to confront Grandmother Matilda. But there was no need. They found Grandmother lying dead on the floor by her spinning wheel. She’d died of a heart attack, the doctor said, but she also had a silver bullet in her right shoulder.
We buried her in back of the cottage and then burned it to the ground, since no one in town would buy the home of a known witch. The minister came and cleansed the property after the house was gone, and we donated it to the town, but they never developed the land.
Six months later Mama married the local doctor who had been so helpful when Grandmother died, and we went to live in his big house across town. Richard and I got to go to day school, and Mama sat on church committees and kept house. At night when my step-father was attending patients, Mama would teach me herb lore and white magic, and how to properly ride a broomstick. So you could say we all lived happily ever after.
18
Evil Eye
AUSTIN
We knew Lola was bad news as soon as Carlos brought her home to meet the family. But how do you tell a fellow so in love that he’d met the wrong one? I was his favorite sister, and even I couldn’t tell him the truth. He was blindsided by Lola, who was a stunning beauty with her black hair and pouty red lips and perfect figure. But she was also mean and self-centered and selfish, and the family saw less and less of Carlos as he saw more and more of Lola.
I asked my friends about Lola, and my query made them uneasy. She was said to possess the Evil Eye and curse those who crossed her. And her curses would come true. I shivered in apprehension and asked myself why a girl like that would be interested in my pious, church-going brother. A question easily answered: Carlos was a top-notch attorney making a very good living, and Lola was after his money.
What Lola didn’t know was that Carlos was a thrifty man who saved every penny he could for his retirement. She thought he’d spend his hard-won cash on her. But Carlos was a saver, not a spender. He’d break his back helping to build a new church with his own two hands before he’d put a penny in the offering plate.
Lola kept asking him to take her to fancy concerts and parties and buy her this and that; and at first, Carlos was so in love that he did it. But after awhile he turned stubborn and insisted they go to the local dances, which were a lot of fun and a lot less expensive, and that they see the latest picture show at the movie house rather than drive into the big city for an opera or a play. And he started taking her to the local sporting events—a passion of Carlos’s, who helped out with the children’s leagues in town. That was the last straw for Lola. Walking across a grass and dirt baseball field in high heels was not her style. She broke up with Carlos then and there, and shouted out a curse as she stalked across the parking lot, saying that Carlos would suffer badly because he hadn’t treated her right, and that he’d never walk straight again. Carlos just laughed and ignored her.
The whole family was happy about the breakup, though we were careful not to show it. “Good riddance to bad rubbish” was the general consent. Carlos took the whole breakup surprisingly well. He went back to his usual pursuits—helping coach the children’s leagues, hiking in the hills, and saving every penny he earned for a rainy day. Bye, bye Lola.
Two days after the breakup, as we were walking out of church after Saturday night Mass, Carlos gave a sudden great gasp between one step and the next and cannoned into Papa. Papa grabbed him and supported him as he sank to the ground in terrible pain. Carlos clutched at his knee, tears of pain streaming down his rugged cheeks. None of us had
ever seen our tough Carlos cry, and it scared us badly.
The whole family surrounded him, crying and exclaiming and panicking. I ran inside to call the priest, who came running out of the church and told us to take him to the hospital right away. Carlos couldn’t put any weight on the leg, which was rapidly swelling, so a couple of the lads carried him to the car, and we drove him to the local hospital.
The doctor said he had a severe tear in two of his knee ligaments. He asked if he’d taken a fall or been knocked in the knee during a football game, but neither had happened. Carlos had just heard a popping sound as he stepped forward and had stumbled into Papa, in sudden terrible pain. We were all puzzled. How had Carlos managed to injure himself walking down the smooth walkway in front of the church? No one said anything about Lola and her curse, but we were all thinking the same thing.
Carlos was on crutches, of course, so Mama insisted that he stay with them until his knee was better. Meantime, Papa and a bunch of his cousins went over to Carlos’s house and started looking around. Sure enough, they found a place near the garage where the dirt was freshly turned over. Buried there was a little wax doll with a picture of Carlos’s face on the front and Lola’s on the back. Three huge mesquite thorns were thrust into one knee. Grim-faced, Papa brought the doll back to the house and showed it to my brother.
Carlos shook his head sternly and said: “Take out the thorns.”
“We should get a curandero to do it,” Mama said nervously, crossing herself in fear. But Carlos insisted. So Papa took out the thorns, one by one. When the last thorn came out, Carlos gave a sigh of relief. He stood up straight, putting his full weight on both knees, and threw the crutches aside. His knee was completely healed. We insisted he go back to the hospital for another X-ray to make sure. When the X-ray came out clean, the doctor who’d seen him just a few hours before was completely baffled and declared it a miracle.
“We’d better get the curandero to talk to Lola,” Mama said fretfully when we got back from the hospital. “There’s no telling what else she might do to you.”
“I’m sure she’s found someone else by now,” Carlos said comfortingly. But he willingly accepted the special charm Mama obtained from the curandero the next day to ward off the evil eye, and he always wore it on a chain around his neck.
A month passed without any sign of Lola or an unexplained injury to Carlos. Either the charm was working, or Lola had truly forgotten him. Gradually, everyone relaxed, though Carlos still made it a habit to walk around outside his house at least once a day, keeping an eye out for disturbed soil.
Then came Carlos’s birthday celebration. The whole family went out to a fancy restaurant in town to celebrate, and Cousin Ada brought a very pretty friend of hers who was visiting from out of town. Maria was as sweet and pretty and selfless as Lola was not. And she loved hiking and coached her niece’s soccer team in her home town. We all thought she was perfect for Carlos, and he must have come to the same conclusion, because he stayed by her the whole evening, talking and laughing and comparing notes on their favorite hikes around the region.
It was almost nine o’clock when Lola came into the restaurant with one of her girlfriends. I noticed her right away, but Carlos was too taken up with Maria and his birthday cake to see her. Lola’s face flushed bright red with rage, and I saw her clutch at her handbag and speak softly to her friend. Then Lola made her way toward the ladies’ room. I jumped up from my seat and followed her.
I entered the restroom just in time to see Lola thrusting a pin into the center of a little wax doll she had kept in her handbag. Outside in the restaurant I heard sudden screams from my family and without a second thought I leapt across the little room with its two sinks and two stalls and pulled the doll out of Lola’s hand. Grabbing hold of the pin, I pulled it out, hoping I was in time. Then I turned in fury upon Lola. “If you ever threaten my brother again,” I said, “I will find the most powerful witch-woman in Texas and pay her every cent I possess to curse you so you will never have a man of your own and never have children.”
At that moment, I felt as if I were ten feet tall and shining with righteous indignation. I must have looked it too, because Lola backed into the corner of the tiny bathroom and started shaking from head to toe. “Do you hear me?” I bellowed, and Lola nodded her head several times, too frightened to speak. “Then get out!” I ordered, and Lola obeyed.
I followed her and watched her scuttle right past her friend, who was sitting at the bar, and out the front door of the restaurant. Her friend followed anxiously after her, barely remembering to throw money on the bar to pay for her drink. I waited until I was sure they were gone, and then made my way anxiously back to the birthday celebration. I found everyone pale and anxious, clustered around Carlos, who was loudly proclaiming that he was fine. Just a sudden pain in his chest, but it was already gone. I noticed that he had his head pillowed on Maria’s lap and seemed to be thriving on her worried attention. So that was all right.
I motioned my father aside. I gave him the wax doll and told him what had happened. He nodded and made his way immediately out of the restaurant to take the doll to the curandero. This time, we were leaving nothing to chance. The curandero put so many protections around Carlos that the Devil himself couldn’t touch him—let alone Lola.
EVIL EYE
After that evening, we no longer worried about Lola. Instead, we rejoiced in Carlos’ courtship of the beautiful Maria, who would someday soon be my sister. A few days before Carlos’ wedding, a friend of a friend confided to me, unknowingly, that Lola had moved away for good. According to the friend, Lola was scared to death of the sister of her ex-boyfriend, who had threatened her with terrible curses. I nodded sympathetically, hiding a smile. And then I went to help Maria write thank-you notes for all the lovely wedding gifts that were arriving each day in the mail.
19
The Weeper
LAREDO
They heard her sometimes, wailing softly through the bushes and trees near the Rio Grande. Sometimes, it was just the sad sobbing that sounded like and yet unlike the water swirling against the shore. Llorona, the Weeper.
On rare occasions, a soft white mist would appear on the streets at night, swirling faintly and moving along against the breeze. Sometimes it was silent, sometimes it wept. And always, when people saw it, they hurried in the opposite direction, away from the Weeper. Away from the ill luck she brought with her.
Donaldo and his twin sister Emilia were the only people in town who could see Llorona clearly when she passed. Donaldo described her as a beautiful young girl in a long white dress with a ragged hem and long, curly black hair that fell to her waist and swirled faintly as if she were caught in a breeze. Emilia said her eyes were red-rimmed with weeping, and when she looked at you, your heart twisted with terror and you lost all hope. Better that she never look at you, Emilia said, and Donaldo agreed.
Sometimes at school, their classmates would speak of Llorona. Some said she was the ghost of a girl who had been drowned in a well by her boyfriend after flirting with another boy. Some said she was an evil spirit. Donaldo and his twin said nothing at all. Their mother forbade talking about Llorona except to the family. She did not want people in town to be frightened by the twin’s ability to see the ghost.
The twins’ grandmother, their abuela, who was old and had seen many things over her lifetime, told a very different story about Llorona. Not long after the conquistadors had conquered this land, she said, there lived a beautiful young girl who was half-native and half-Spanish. Many men wanted her, but she had eyes only for the local Don, a vain and proud man who would never dream of taking a wife who was not a pure Spaniard. But the foolish girl did not know that the Don despised her mixed blood. When his eye turned toward her with desire, she accepted his compliments and his courtship. They were married according to the customs of her tribe—a marriage not binding by Spanish law—and lived together for several years.
The girl bore him two sons who looked ve
ry much like their native grandparents rather than their noble Spanish father. At first, the Don was proud of his sons. But when a new family came to live in their town, a high-born Spanish family with a lovely daughter, he grew ashamed of his native children and his half-breed wife. So he cast them away, telling his wife that he wanted nothing more to do with her and her sons. The wife— blaming her small boys for their father’s rejection—drowned them in the river in a fit of madness, hoping that their father would return to her if his despised sons were no longer with her. But the Don spurned her again when she went to the house that had once been hers to tell him of her deed. Her eyes were opened at last to the cruel nature of the man she had loved, and the woman screamed in agony as her mind snapped under the weight of the terrible deed she had done for this unworthy Don. Utterly insane, she rushed away from the hacienda and down to the river to search for her lost sons. A few hours later the local priest sadly pulled her drowned body from the river.
But the spirit of the Weeper could not rest in peace. When the Llorona visited heaven’s gate, the Lord asked her three times where her children were, and she could not answer him. So she was doomed to walk the earth, searching for the souls of her lost boys, forever weeping and wailing in her grief because she cannot find them. So be careful when walking near the river at night, the twin’s abuela said as she finished the tale, for the Weeper will try to replace the souls of her lost sons by drowning people who come too close to her.
The twins always promised faithfully not to walk near the river at night, and the story always ended there. But sometimes, when the tale was concluded, they tried to think of ways that they could help the Weeper who roamed the streets at night, sobbing for her children. Their abuela told them sadly that there was nothing they could do.
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