by Luz Gabás
Neli pointed to the church. “The portico is dilapidated, I know, and the apse is in awful shape, but we’re working on restoring it! Look, here’s my house.”
Neli unloaded the shopping bags and left them on the stairs leading to a whitewashed house. Her steps sent a muffled echo through the deserted square. Then she returned to the car and, to Brianda’s surprise, reached out to touch her hair.
“Sorry, you’ve got a little something.”
“Huh?” Brianda felt a small tug and pulled away instinctively.
“Are you staying long?” Neli asked quickly.
“A couple of weeks. Maybe more.”
“Then I’m sure I’ll see you again!”
They said good-bye, and Brianda retraced her route back to the fork in the road.
When she took the high road going to Anels House, the countryside changed completely. The fields filled with holm oaks and gall oaks, and the earth livened up thanks to the bright leaves and evergreens. But Beles Peak loomed larger and larger. She was glad it was still the middle of the day. She could imagine the afternoon shadow of the colossus stretching slowly across the valley at its feet, like an eagle hovering over its prey, silently announcing the inexorable coming of death. She wouldn’t have wanted to walk there alone at night.
The road snaked toward the mountain, passing a graveyard on the left, a wooded path Brianda didn’t remember, a fountain on the right under a huge linden, and a final climb that she did remember. She slowed down.
On the one hand, she wanted to be done with the long journey and to see Isolina; on the other, she was nervous about seeing Colau again. She took a deep breath. That was absurd. She was a grown woman. She might be afraid of many things, but her aunt’s husband should not be one of them.
She sped up and soon parked on a flat area where she expected to see a square-shaped, two-storied, stone manor house. However, a sparse forest now hid Anels House from sight, as if the dried-out branches and the wizened leaves wanted to isolate it from the rest of the valley and drag it toward the mountain. She walked a few steps along a gravel path until she could make out the high walls that enclosed the front yard through the trunks of the ashes and willows. She pictured herself with pigtails and her arms outstretched to keep her balance on those walls as she followed her brother, then a little boy in shorts. It was a fleeting image, but a sensation of well-being filled her, and Brianda clung to it with all her might. It was stupid, but in some way she felt like she was coming home. Maybe her parents were right. Maybe a stay in the country would help her find some peace.
But when she reached the low gate that led to the main door, her heart skipped a beat.
The grass grew out of control between the irregular paving stones. The shed roofs had loose slates, and one of the walls of the big house bulged dangerously, as if it might explode at any moment. The piles of logs, the remains of summer flowers in improvised beds, and the clothes hanging on a line did little to change the impression that the whole place looked completely abandoned.
The silence was so complete that Brianda could hear her own breathing. She wondered if Anels House had always been like that and her childhood eyes had not noticed the decrepitude or, if with the passing of time, places, like people, were affected by the slow abandonment of vigor and joy.
When they greeted her, Brianda realized her last thought applied to Colau but not Isolina. Brianda found her aunt as beautiful as ever. Her thick, short hair was streaked with gray, which gave her a special, natural air. Her beige outfit was offset by a bright scarf and some simple jewelry, and she wore pale pink lipstick.
“What a thrill to have you here!” Isolina said as she hugged her niece. “I can’t believe I haven’t seen you for ten months, since last Christmas. Does the house look familiar? You must be starving! I made something special.” She turned to Colau. “Could you take her bags up to the blue bedroom?”
Colau walked over, and Brianda hesitated. She definitely was not going to hug him. A feint of a kiss on the cheek would be enough. He still had those hard features, bushy eyebrows, and large build, but he had hunched a bit. Behind his tortoiseshell glasses, puffy folds made his eyes look smaller.
“Good trip?” he asked in greeting.
“Yes, thanks.” She was surprised at the tremor in her voice. After so many years, the man still intimidated her.
“We’re going to have a wonderful time!” said Isolina. “After lunch, I’ll show you everything: the house, the vegetable patch, the garden. I have hens, rabbits, geese, and a pair of donkeys to keep the grass down.” She laughed. “Do you remember how you always used to say you wanted to be a farmer when you grew up?”
Brianda smiled—her aunt’s joy was contagious. If she ever had said such a thing, she had forgotten. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Colau disappear with her luggage through the sun-bleached door.
“My mother would not have approved!”
“Ha. Laura never liked the country. It’s hard to believe she was born here. Can you even picture her without makeup, going to collect eggs with a basket? You can’t, can you? Well, when she was a child, she had no choice.”
Some deep, hoarse barks announced the arrival of an enormous black dog that pounced on Brianda, baring his teeth. She let out a shriek.
“Where were you, you rascal?” Isolina grabbed him by the collar. “Quiet. Brianda is family. That’s it, smell her.” She patted his back, raising a cloud of dust. “This is Luzer. I can’t remember if you like dogs or not.”
“I do like them. But this one’s so big.”
“Don’t be afraid. He won’t hurt you. Colau found him abandoned, took him in, and since then, they’ve been inseparable.”
A sharp whistle came from the house. Luzer shot Brianda a look, then bolted through the same door Colau had used.
“Is he allowed inside?” she asked, terrified.
“If you want, I’ll ask Colau to keep him outside more while you’re here, at least until you get used to each other.”
Isolina showed her into the house. Three rough stone steps separated the entrance from a large dark hall. Black double doors leading to the foyer were at the end of the hall. To the right were the kitchen and the dining room, whose mosaic tile floor Brianda remembered well. On the left was the sitting room with the blackened fireplace at one end and, on either side of it, some high-backed wooden benches. In front, the knotty steps of the cracked wooden stairs led to the second floor. Beneath them was the long, narrow passage to Colau’s office.
“Make yourself at home, Brianda,” Isolina told her. “Just don’t go into Colau’s office without permission. He usually keeps it locked, so I can’t even be tempted to tidy up the mess.”
After her childhood fright, there was no way Brianda was going in there alone. She did wonder, however, if the little red velvet box was still there.
“Uncle Colau must have plenty of time for his research now,” she said, heading up the stairs toward the bedrooms. She knew that her uncle had just retired from teaching at the Aiscle Secondary School, and that he’d always been passionate about the history of the valley.
“He does nothing else. Sometimes I think it’s more an obsession than a hobby. I’ve told him he should write a book, but he says you need to know everything for that and he doesn’t yet.” Isolina sighed. “It’s horrible getting old! I don’t know why, but for the last three or four months, he’s been nervous. He’s always kept to himself, but now …”
Isolina opened the last door in the hall and they entered a room with chipped blue paint. Brianda recognized it immediately. It was the room she’d slept in as a child. It hadn’t changed a bit. There was the wrought-iron bed, the walnut wardrobe, the chest of drawers, and, as in the rest of the house, the dark and twisted beams that supported the ceiling. She’d imagined that, after so many years, the house would have been redecorated. But while she had grown up, life here had stood still.
“I love this room. It’s the brightest in the house and has the be
st view.” Isolina flung open the balcony shutters. “Down below, you can see the village of Tiles. The manor houses are all over this way. The one to the east is Cuyls House. Colau was born there, you know, but now it’s in ruins. Then our house, Anels, and to the west is Lubich Manor, though you can’t see it from here.”
Although she knew these details from her childhood, Brianda listened attentively, grateful her aunt didn’t ask any questions about why she’d come. Laura had probably filled her in.
That night, she went to bed convinced she’d have no trouble falling asleep after such a long day. But she just lay there, listening to the deep silence of that helpless house, the creaking of the floorboards, the scratching of Luzer’s nails in the hall, and the gnawing of woodworm in the heavy furniture. She knew that on the other side of the bedroom walls were empty rooms with white sheets covering the furniture and mirrors, and that the closest neighbor was the gray silhouette of a lonely mountain.
And, try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking about Esteban, whom she missed with all her heart.
4.
The day dawned calm and bright. Brianda stepped out on the balcony and confirmed, to her annoyance, that the temperature wasn’t far above freezing. She opened the bedroom door, peeked her head out to make sure Luzer wasn’t there, and scurried across the hall to the bathroom. After an unpleasantly tepid shower, she put on a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved blouse, and a thick sweater, and she went downstairs. A delicious scent of coffee came from the kitchen.
Isolina greeted her with a smile and fresh-baked sponge cake. Over breakfast, she invited Brianda to accompany her to the cemetery. It was two days before All Saints’ Day, and she wanted to tidy up the family graves before the villagers’ visits.
Brianda helped her aunt prepare bouquets on a stone bench in the yard. It wasn’t flower season, so Isolina had ordered some roses, and now she wanted to add sprigs of ivy and boxwood. Bouquets complete, they followed the path that led to the fountain under the linden. To Brianda, both Anels House and the surroundings seemed just as gloomy as they had the previous afternoon. The morning light only managed to accentuate the decrepitude.
“Where does this lead?” she asked, pointing to the wooded path she’d spotted the day before.
“It goes up to the mountain forests. It’s the old livestock trail, and it goes all the way to France.”
“Sounds beautiful. We should take a walk there sometime.”
Isolina wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
“Is it dangerous?” laughed Brianda. “Full of wild animals?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know how to explain. There’s a kind of sinister legend about that place. They say it’s inhabited by a strange presence and anyone who goes there is never the same again.”
“I didn’t know you were superstitious!” Brianda exclaimed. “Don’t tell me there’s also a spooky castle where the local children disappear to.”
“Something like that.”
“Seriously?” Brianda had been joking, but now she shuddered. “Wait a second. I just remembered—you never let us go there. You said there was a cliff or something.”
“Actually, there’s a sort of mansion, burnt and in ruins—the old Lubich Manor I mentioned yesterday. I’ve been near there a few times, collecting firewood with Colau, but it gives me the creeps.”
“Does it belong to anyone?”
“Another mystery. Everyone thought it was abandoned, but about four months ago, a man turned up at town hall with the deed, saying he wanted to restore it.”
Brianda felt a shiver run down her spine.
“What do you know about him?”
“Not much. I heard he hired builders from down in Aiscle and a couple from here—they practically live on site. They say he’s a foreigner and not very friendly, but he pays well.”
“And apparently not bothered by strange presences,” Brianda added.
As they continued their walk, Brianda thought about what Isolina had said. The stuff about a ghostly presence was stupid, but the mysterious stranger intrigued her. She wondered how a foreigner could have ended up in a place like this. Maybe he was running away from something too, or maybe he was a rich playboy looking to set up his private paradise. Then again, Tiles sure didn’t seem like much of a paradise. The landscape could be described as beautiful, but it was indisputably harsh and inhospitable. Not to mention, even though her aunt swore this was a mild autumn, Brianda couldn’t get warm and could not imagine how anyone survived winter here. The stranger must have chosen this remote place in order to hide from the world.
The sharp squeak of a rusty gate made her jump and, all of a sudden, Brianda thought she was entering another world.
Like an oasis in the desert, a copse of tall pines gave shelter to a small plot surrounded by dark stone walls covered in moss. The graves and vaults were neatly laid out, the former on the ground and the latter against the walls. Weaving through stone crosses with engraved inscriptions, or iron ones with white-enameled plaques bordered in black, Brianda followed Isolina to the family crypt, a small building with a double sloping roof and five niches that looked like worn marble windows. On the upper part was the inscription “Property of House of Anels.”
While Isolina removed the old flowers and washed out the vases, preparing them for the fresh bouquets, Brianda busied herself reading the inscriptions on the crypt. She spotted the names of her grandparents and an uncle who’d died as a child, but she was ashamed that she didn’t even know her great-grandparents’ names. Human memory is so short, she thought. Its scope did not span more than a century.
When Isolina finished, she stood in front of the graves, blessed herself, smiled at her niece, and asked, “Shall we pray?”
“Yes, of course.” But Brianda was at a loss. She could not remember the last time she’d prayed.
She imitated her aunt’s pose and concentrated on following the woman as well as she could, adopting a murmur to the rhythm of the Our Father and only pronouncing clearly those words that finished sentences: “heaven … name … come … earth … heaven … day … bread … trespasses … those … us … temptation … evil … amen.”
Isolina’s prayers included a Hail Mary, a Glory Be, and a Salve, the last of which Brianda had problems mouthing along to. With the prayers finally finished, they cleaned up the remains of the dead flowers and piled them by the gate. Just then they saw Neli, flowers in her arms as well. Isolina didn’t seem surprised, and Brianda wondered if the task of tending the graves fell upon the women of each house, whether they were from the village or not.
Neli greeted them with a smile.
“Brianda, hi! How was your first night in Anels House?”
“Good, thanks.”
How odd, Brianda thought. Neli didn’t want to know about her first night in Tiles but her night in that house.
Neli turned to Isolina.
“Your niece rescued me yesterday.”
“Yes, she told me!” said Isolina. She pointed to Neli’s flowers. “It’s that time of year, huh? If you want, we’ll wait for you.”
“If you’d like. I’m not afraid to be alone in a graveyard, but I appreciate the offer.”
She went through the gate and returned a few minutes later. Brianda squinted with confusion when she saw that Neli still carried some fresh flowers.
“I like to visit another place as well,” Neli explained. “It’s around back. Would you like to come with me?”
Brianda saw Isolina’s hesitation. Was her aunt in a hurry, or did she not like the place? Curious, Brianda decided to follow Neli, and Isolina was left with no choice but to follow.
The path led to a series of steps worn into the rock. Brianda had to support herself against the graveyard wall. When she turned the corner, the first thing she noticed was a huge pile of stones, most of them black: the remains of a building. A few steps away were more than a dozen s
olid flagstones, some with stone crosses, either standing or partially buried.
“Why are these back here?” Brianda asked.
“Nobody knows,” Isolina answered. “The original site included the graveyard where we were and a church, but as you can see, it burned down.” She pointed to the graves. “These have always been here. Colau says that, for some reason, they couldn’t be buried in holy ground. Maybe they committed suicide. It’s strange, though. If they didn’t want to bury them in holy ground, why would they put up crosses?”
Out of the blue, Brianda began to feel odd. She started shivering and felt a slight pressure on her chest. She walked between some of the old gray graves partially covered by a fine film of dark green mold. On several of them, she made out engravings of a number or letter.
“It makes me sad that no one remembers them,” said Neli as she placed a handful of flowers beside each stone.
Brianda nodded in silence. It really was a beautiful gesture.
Then she noticed one grave set apart from the others. Drawn to it, she knelt down and brushed her right hand over the inscription, feeling a little buzz of energy in her fingertips. Using her nails, she began to scrape the moss from the letters like plaster from an old wall. She didn’t know if it was curiosity or something else that compelled her, but now she used both hands.
Slowly, three words came into view.
Brianda moaned.
It was the phrase from her dreams, now complete.
Omnia mecum porto.
She read the words, then she fainted.
When she came to, the first thing she saw was her aunt’s anguished face.
“Brianda, darling.” Isolina stroked her cheeks. “What happened? You fainted just like that, no warning. How do you feel?”
Brianda’s mouth felt dry. She did a mental checklist of her body and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. She sat up slowly, supporting her back against a hard surface. She turned and found herself leaning on the cross above the stone where the inscription was written. She was sitting right on it. Her hands remembered the shape of the letters. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.