by Luz Gabás
“Tea is fine.” Brianda was a coffee addict, but she was eager to be agreeable.
“Red berries? I make the mix myself.”
“Great.”
Neli headed for the kitchen and Brianda looked out the big window. There was a paved patio with flowerpots, a wooden swing, and a wrought-iron table. A small gate connected it to the fields beyond and, to the right, there was an enormous walnut tree and the back wall of the church.
“So, this was your husband’s family’s house … ,” she said when Neli returned with a tray.
Neli nodded.
“His grandparents left Tiles soon after the Civil War. Jonas’s dad used to come up occasionally, but now he mostly stays in the lowlands. When we decided to change our lives, we bought out his cousins’ share of the house and plunged ourselves into renovating it.”
“And what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a restorer, specializing in old paintings, and Jonas has a small construction company. He works for private individuals and the local towns. What about you?”
“I’m an engineer.” Brianda couldn’t think of anything else to say about her job. She envied Neli’s passion. If only she had half the woman’s vitality. “And neither of you has ever regretted the decision to move out here?”
“No. We miss some things from the city, but I think we found the place we want to see our children grow up. Why do you ask? Are you thinking about doing the same?” She tilted her head. “It’s hard to imagine you living in Anels House forever.”
“Are you saying that because of me or the house? The day we met, you were surprised when I told you who my aunt and uncle were. And the next day, you asked me how I had slept there.”
Neli was surprised by Brianda’s insight and candor. She was silent for a few moments, unsure how to proceed. She had always liked to observe people and her intuition was rarely wrong. Brianda seemed intelligent and charming, but Neli sensed negative vibrations. If she could take a Kirlian photo of her, her aura colors would certainly show blue, violet, and maybe some gold. Behind the pleasant façade, Neli saw a disoriented woman in search of spiritual relief. She wondered if she would find it in Anels House.
“Your aunt Isolina is lovely,” she said at last. “And I don’t like gossip. But if you are going to be here a while, you should know that Colau is not well liked.”
“Do you know why?”
“I only know what people say, and I don’t feel comfortable talking about it. It’s your family. Also, Colau has always been polite to me, and Isolina seems happy with him. That says enough, don’t you think? We all have our peculiarities.”
“For that very reason, you should tell me what they say. It can’t be that bad.”
Neli hurriedly poured some more tea. Brianda kept quiet, staring at the woman’s flushed face until she finally gave in.
“It seems that, until this generation, Anels House was pleasant and well looked after. The villagers remember your aunt and your mother as two very happy girls. But everything changed when Colau appeared. Your grandparents considered it a punishment that the last descendent of the House of Cuyls won one of their daughters, but they died before changing their will in favor of your mother. They saw him as lazy, reclusive, and more interested in his books than the house and the land. The house he was born in lies in ruins, and he doesn’t care about keeping Anels alive either. There’s supposed to be a curse. The old people say that wherever a Cuyls goes, life ends.”
Brianda frowned.
“See what I mean?” said Neli. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I’m not angry. I’m amazed. You talk about houses like living things that are born, grow up, and die in tandem with their inhabitants. The houses are so powerful, it’s like they replace last names. Here, I’m Brianda of Anels and you’re Neli of—”
“Nabara.” Neli smiled. “Houses here have nice names. By the way, Neli is short for a weird old name that’s common in my family. How does House of Nelida sound?” She made a face. “Better than Lubich, at least, which means something like wolf.”
Brianda was quiet, mulling over what Neli had told her about Colau’s house.
“That thing about the curse … It’s so ridiculous. I’m surprised my grandparents believed in such things.”
Neli shrugged.
“People’s beliefs are a mystery. More tea?”
“No, thanks.” Brianda smiled. “In fact, I need to use the bathroom.”
“Oh! Um, of course. The one down here is broken, but you can use the one in my bedroom.” She led her to the foot of the stairs and pointed. “It’s at the end.”
Brianda noticed that Neli was blushing. Maybe she was uncomfortable having a near stranger in her bedroom, or embarrassed about not having cleaned in there either. Brianda hesitated, but she really did need to go, so she headed up, trying not to look around.
Entering the bedroom, she spotted a door that was, indeed, the bathroom. She saw the light switch outside the door and turned it on.
On her way out, Brianda felt around for the switch to turn off the light but turned on another by mistake. Light came from a pretty little lamp on a shelf that was covered in muslin. Her eyes could not help settling on the varied collection of objects. There were strange ornaments, statues, candles, small glass jars, a bowl of water, a bowl of what might have been salt, little stones, an incense burner, a carved boxwood cane, a five-pointed star in a circle on a leather-bound book, a knife, and a goblet that made her think of the word “chalice.”
So, this was why Neli had blushed.
Brianda examined the knife. It was a double-edged dagger with a black handle decorated with astrological symbols and runes.
“It’s an athame.”
Brianda jumped when she heard Neli’s voice. In a flash, she set the knife back where she’d found it. Her cheeks burned.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to snoop!”
But Neli didn’t look angry.
“Do you know what this is?” Neli asked tentatively.
Brianda shook her head.
“It’s an altar,” explained Neli.
“That’s what I thought, but I don’t see any images of the Virgin or saints, no rosary beads.” Her voice sounded too cheerful, forced. She hoped she hadn’t upset her new friend.
“That’s because it’s a Wiccan altar,” Neli said, picking up the dagger.
“The athame is used to trace the circle of power and direct the energy. It represents the masculine.” She took the chalice. “And this is the smaller version of a cauldron.” She looked for a sign of recognition on Brianda’s part that did not come, so she continued, “It represents the feminine. Together they evoke the act of procreation as a universal symbol of creation.”
Brianda listened in puzzlement. On one hand, it all sounded vaguely familiar, maybe from a movie she’d seen or a book she’d read. On the other, she was taken aback to discover that Neli had such weird interests. She wondered whether she would have felt the same if they had been images of Catholic saints. A part of her wanted to end the conversation and leave, but an inner voice urged her to learn more.
Neli set the objects back in their places and pointed to the symbol on the book.
“This is a pentacle. Our symbol of faith.” Her finger stopped at the top right point. “Water: symbol of the cycle of life. The liquid of the maternal womb and the tears of death, emotion.” She pointed to the bottom right. “Fire: passion, impetus, the part of our being that reason wants to overthrow.” She continued to the bottom left. “Earth: the mother, the food that makes us grow.” She moved up to the top left. “Air: thought, mind, reason.” And she finished at the top center point. “The spirit: the ethereal, the eternal. Spiritual love. Our souls.”
A long silence followed, a magical pause that ended when Brianda realized that Neli was staring at her, waiting for a signal of whether or not to continue. She sighed.
“All this sounds like … I don’t know. Ghost stories, magic. I�
��m not sure which words to use. It sounds to me like”—she feigned a shiver of terror—“like witchcraft, like—” Nonsense, she was about to say.
“Wicca. And that’s because I am a Wiccan,” Neli said.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know if you’re ready to hear that … yet.”
Neli’s direct gaze and frank smile showed that she was being serious. Brianda was speechless. First the curse on her uncle’s house and now this. She needed to get away. Her impression of Neli had changed completely. They’d had such a pleasant conversation downstairs, but now it seemed like the woman was not right in the head. And to think that she had considered opening up her heart to her!
Voices from downstairs revealed that Neli’s family had arrived—perfect cover for Brianda’s exit.
They went down to the hall to greet Jonas, his overalls covered in white dust, as well as the two boys. They had unruly brown hair, dark eyes, and their mother’s fine features. About eight and ten years old, they were loud and lively, telling their mother all about the birthday party while asking Brianda a thousand questions.
Neli took advantage of the commotion to fetch Brianda’s purse from the sitting room and slip a small white pouch into it. Then she accompanied her to the door to say good-bye.
“On Saturdays and holidays, some of us get together in the bar by the gas station,” she said. “Sometimes Isolina comes along …”
Brianda understood that, with the invitation, Neli was trying to get back to where they’d been before her discovery. But she wasn’t sure how to feel. She quickly said her good-byes and headed to the car.
Neli leaned against the closed door for a few minutes. The previous night, to the light of a sky-blue candle, she had filled the little pouch that Brianda now carried with a pinch of sea salt, a sprig of rosemary, a touch of cinnamon, and a red rose petal. Then she added the hair she’d pulled off Brianda’s head when they first met. It was a good-luck charm to protect her body and soul. She had prayed to all the gods of goodness that they would not abandon Brianda and that evil would not torment her.
Because, unless every one of her faculties had deserted her, Neli was sure the young woman from Anels House had a long and tortuous path ahead.
6.
It was a few moments before Brianda’s eyes adjusted to the darkness of the damp church. She heard the monotonous murmur of the parishioners, who were waiting for the priest to leave the sacristy and start six o’clock mass. In front of her, Isolina was looking around for a pew. There was some space in the one closest to the door. The congregation fell silent as they sat down. A woman nearest to Colau furtively slid down to the far end of the bench.
Brianda shifted uncomfortably. People turned their heads to stare at her and then whispered to one another. She regretted having come. She wasn’t religious but hadn’t wanted to be rude by staying home on the feast of All Saints, when mass would surely be a social occasion in a place like Tiles. She’d heard Isolina telling Colau that not even he could miss mass today or on Christmas. But now Brianda wanted to flee. She scanned the crowd for Neli’s red hair, but didn’t see her.
She looked at her watch. Still fifteen minutes to go before the start of the ceremony. She didn’t understand why they had to be there so early. A woman went up to the altar and began reciting the rosary. The voices came in a soft, intermittent hum that acquired a special resonance as it echoed off the vaulted central nave and the side chapels filled with the images of saints, their gazes lost toward the heavens. The woman prayed and the congregation responded, but instead of relaxing her, the repetition of “ora pro nobis” pounded painfully in Brianda’s chest.
She slid her gaze to a small chapel to her right and an object caught her eye. On the cold stone of a narrow altar stood a beautiful Virgin, delicately carved in wood, holding a curly-haired child who was missing an arm. She could make out the perfect folds in the Virgin’s clothes and the blank expression on her face. From a thin leather string around her neck hung a pretty, tiny, ancient-looking key.
Isolina leaned close to her niece. “You should have seen the state she was in a few years ago,” she whispered. “If it weren’t for Neli, she’d be dust by now, what with the woodworm.”
“It’s gorgeous,” said Brianda, admiring Neli’s work. “Has it always been here?”
“Jonas found it when he was looking for old bits among the ruins of the old church, the one you saw behind the graveyard. The stones had formed a dome around her, as if protecting her. Don’t tell me that’s not a miracle. We don’t know when the church burned down; it must have been before they built this one at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Anyway, the poor thing was just lying there with her little key around her neck.”
“Can they tell what century it’s from?”
“Around the sixteenth, I heard.”
Brianda marveled at the great changes that had occurred, the history that had passed before the Virgin’s empty gaze. She bowed her head to hide the tears that filled her eyes. Again. She loathed being so sensitive now. There was no place left where she could just relax and be at peace.
“A while ago, some people wanted to take her to a museum,” added Isolina, “and we were just up in arms. Now I don’t think anyone would dare deprive Tiles of our Virgin. We’re a very strong-willed people—which, by the way, is hereditary.”
Someone shushed them.
Brianda took her aunt’s hint. She smiled gratefully and set herself a goal to try with all her might to get out of this emotional pit. She would learn to master her fear. She would take up yoga, tai chi, meditation, or whatever it took to get off the pills. She would push herself to get out more, make new friends—
Just then, the women sitting in the front rows announced the beginning of mass by screeching the opening hymn: “I also want to be reborn; be happy, for all eternity; and live, with those I loved so much, a never-ending peace …”
The priest, a tall man of around forty with a South American accent, gave a sermon about how All Saints was such an important day because it celebrated the perpetual glory the saints enjoyed in heaven and made people want to join them and share in it. He urged the faithful to ask in their prayers for all the saints to defend them, protect them, and intercede for them.
Brianda concentrated on the priest’s impeccable rhetoric. His description of eternal Eden—illustrated by a quote from Saint Augustine, who confessed that he would swap all the riches and delights of a million years for one hour in that paradise without pain or suffering—was so vivid that she hoped such a place truly existed.
“To get there,” he said, “we must fight like the saints; we must resist our desires and temptations, withstand our trials with faith, patience, resignation, and love. Pain is momentary; the happiness that follows will never end.”
Brianda liked that idea. She wanted her pain to disappear with the same speed it had come. She wanted to be content, the way she’d always been, and she wanted to share it with Esteban.
In a loud and clear voice, the priest asked, “When we are at death’s door, what will our feelings be? Will we have been slack, weak, and negligent? Or will we deserve heaven, deserve to enjoy paradise for all eternity?” He paused so that those present could examine their souls. “Will we be satisfied or will we wish we had lived in a different way?”
Brianda frowned. She wondered if she would like to live in a different way. Looking around, she wondered how many others were pondering the same. The old people, did they feel satisfied or regretful now that their final hour was approaching? Were Isolina and Colau happy?
She continued with her reflections while the ceremony proceeded with the celebration of the Eucharist. When the priest took the chalice in his hands, Brianda could not help but recall the peculiar altar in Neli’s bedroom, and she wondered what she would be doing at that moment.
Communion was beginning. The faithful approached the altar to receive the bread and wine while the women in front sang another high-pi
tched hymn: “I want to be, my beloved Lord, like clay in the potter’s hands. Take my life, make it new. I want to be a new vessel …”
Brianda recalled the words of the fortune-teller in the bar. She had said Brianda would undertake a journey and that her life needed to change. How had she known? She closed her eyes and let the words of the hymn resonate in her heart. Start from zero. A new vessel. A new life.
Just then, she was taken over by a strange feeling of unreality. The altar, the walls, the people, and the priest began to blur, as if someone were rubbing them with a cloth doused in turpentine. She heard voices, but couldn’t make out words. She couldn’t understand why it felt like she was outside her body, or how she knew that Brianda was that emaciated, young, oddly dressed woman with very long hair who someone was pointing to and shouting at from the altar.
She did not know why she was being shouted at.
She had done nothing wrong.
Dozens of blank yet hostile faces turned toward her. She clenched her fists, trying not to break out crying in front of them all. She felt a deep fear, a certainty that she was going to die at that very instant. She had to escape, run, flee …
But she had done nothing wrong!
Someone grabbed her and every muscle tensed up.
“Brianda, darling.” She heard Isolina’s voice.
Brianda was stunned. People were returning to their seats after receiving communion and nobody was looking at her. It must have been a vision, or maybe a hallucination. She wondered if that could be a side effect of her pills. Instinctively, she raised her hand to check that her hair was not a long mane reaching her waist. How absurd.
Brianda needed some air to try and recover from the strange experience. Smiling weakly at her aunt, she got up and hurried outside.
Without knowing what to do or where to go, she circled the perimeter of the church. The mist that had covered Beles Peak all day began to dissolve with the coming of night, extending itself first like spilled liquid and then becoming smoke before disappearing. The stillness, the silence, and the cold remained, however, as if recognizing the day’s dedication to the dead. The land oozed dampness.