by Luz Gabás
A soft voice reached her. It was coming from the back patio of the house beside the church.
Neli’s house.
Brianda was not at all sure she wanted to see Neli again, but the voice she heard was too strange to ignore. It was a uniform, insistent, hypnotic chanting. She crept closer and positioned herself behind an enormous walnut tree, hoping that it and the twilight would hide her. An intense smell of pine and vanilla incense wafted over to her. She peeked out and saw Neli, wrapped in a dark shawl, her long hair loose, tracing a circle on the ground around a small table with the black-handled knife she had called an athame. She was so close that Brianda was afraid her nervous breathing would betray her.
The small table covered with a dark cloth reminded her of the bedroom altar. She saw apples, pomegranates, nuts, and chrysanthemums. Smoke from a violet candle danced over a small bowl where a weak fire burned. Neli sat in front of it in a meditation pose. She stayed there with her eyes closed for a few minutes. The weak light of the candles and the fire produced a phantasmagorical effect on her face. Then, she took some papers and burned them in the bowl while murmuring some phrases Brianda couldn’t understand. After another silence, she took a small wooden wand, raised her hands and her eyes to the sky, and said in a clear voice, “On this Samhain, I celebrate the memory of my ancestors and those that have preceded me on this path. Lord of the forests, I honor your memory and await your return from the womb of the Goddess. Lady of the Waning Moon, guide my steps in the darkness, protect me, and show me that, just as from the night Light is born, so the eternal cycle is reborn, forever, eternal.”
Brianda’s jaw dropped. Unless she was very much mistaken, she was witnessing some sort of magic ritual. It was impossible that that word, Wiccan, could refer to anything else. Neli was a witch! She couldn’t even get her head around it. She knew there were weird people in the world, but Neli had seemed so friendly and normal. More unsettling still, while Brianda’s feelings toward the occult had always been negative, this simple ritual was suggestive and magnetic. She couldn’t take her eyes off Neli’s serene expression.
Neli cut a slice of apple and taking some pomegranate seeds said, “I offer this food in honor of my ancestors. Their memory endures and their teachings live in me. Blessed were they in their existence and blessed are they in the Land of Eternal Summer. They left this plane for a better one. The physical is not our only reality, and the soul does not perish.”
Suddenly, Neli raised a hand to her bosom and shrank back as if she had been stabbed. Her breathing became labored, and she cried out as if in pain. Brianda wanted to rush over and help her but didn’t dare. Neli began to shake her head from one side to the other, as though a malignant spirit wanted to take over her body. Then she stopped, opened her eyes, looked around with a confused expression, and finally focused her attention on the walnut tree.
Brianda had no time to hide. She stood dead still, not breathing, with Neli’s deep and piercing gaze directly on her. The leaves on the tree stopped moving. Time stopped.
Neli showed no shock, anger, or shame. On the contrary, there was power and certainty in her eyes. She smiled, closed her eyes, made a slight gesture of assent, and crossing her hands over her belly, returned to a calm position of repose.
Brianda ran as fast as she could, unnerved by what she had seen, ashamed to have been caught spying, and upset by the woman’s reaction. She had felt the intensity of Neli’s gaze running through her, her mind and her heart; thinking about it, recalling that sensation even if only for a second, made her terribly afraid.
She turned the corner of the church and leaned against the damp gray wall to catch her breath.
“Are you all right?” asked a dry voice.
Colau was so close that she jumped back, intimidated by the annoyance written on his big, stolid features.
“Your aunt sent me to look for you,” said Colau. “She was worried that you were feeling unwell again.”
She thought she noted a twinge of sarcasm in that “again.”
“I’m fine. I just needed some air.”
Colau scrutinized her face and frowned, but he said nothing. He turned around and headed toward the church with his heavy gait.
Brianda followed him while an insistent little voice began to repeat over and over in her head the catchy verse of the opening hymn.
She also wanted to be happy, said the voice, so familiar that it could be her own. For all eternity.
Most of the parishioners had already left, so at least Brianda didn’t have to make small talk standing in the cold and dark outside the church.
“There you are.” Isolina welcomed her with a relieved smile.
Brianda repeated the excuse she’d given Colau.
A woman with short straw-colored hair, whom Brianda recognized from the square, came over and invited them to come to the bar. Isolina looked at her husband, who was waiting a few paces away.
“I’m not sure Colau is feeling up to it,” she murmured.
“We could drop him at home and come back,” Brianda suggested.
She wanted to free herself of everything that was suffocating her even if just for a short while. There was still plenty of time before dinner. She knew she would find the evening in the house long, Colau’s silence uncomfortable, and Luzer’s growls maddening.
Isolina gave her a puzzled look, but she agreed.
After taking Colau home, they drove to the bar in Brianda’s car.
“Lots of noise and people make Colau tired,” said Isolina.
“Is there anything that doesn’t make him tired?” Brianda replied without thinking. After several days at Anels House, she understood that the man was a true loner, but hearing her aunt defend and excuse him irritated her. Still, she regretted her lack of tact. “I’m sorry. I know he’s a solitary person; it’s just—”
“You don’t understand why I put up with him.” Isolina finished the sentence for her. She let her eyes wander over the dark fields. Then, she fixed her hair nervously and turned toward her niece. “He wasn’t always like this. And it wasn’t his fault he was born in a place everybody hated.”
“Do you mean Cuyls House?” Brianda didn’t want to reveal what she had heard from Neli. “Why?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care to. Villages are like that. Something must have happened in the past that marked his family forever. I suppose every new heir to the manor houses was warned to be wary of the Cuylses.”
“Didn’t your parents tell you anything?”
Isolina shook her head. “They just rejected him. But they were wrong. He has always been good to me.”
Brianda raised an eyebrow. She was unconvinced.
“They warned me that the same as had happened to previous generations of the House of Cuyls, according to the oldest villagers, would happen to me,” continued Isolina. “Each generation had several children, but only the first male survived. The same happened to Colau’s family, but as you see, nothing like that has happened to us. They rejected him due to stupid yarns like that one.”
“You said that Colau wasn’t always like this. What was he like?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Isolina smile sadly.
“As a child, he was clever and charming. He used to chase me through these fields. I remember how he’d catch up and tickle me, and we’d laugh and laugh. Then, when he was ten, his older sister died. A couple of years later, the twins. His mother got pregnant again and had a fifth child, a boy, but he died after just a few months. With each death, Colau grew sadder. He began to hate the house; he told me it felt like an enormous stone coffin. He studied so he wouldn’t have to work on the land, and the only reason he didn’t leave the village was because I asked him not to. After we got married, he sometimes got a glimmer of his old self back. Until this summer—” She shook her head. “Why am I going on like this? Look, we’re here.”
Brianda parked in a small lot beside the gas station. Her aunt’s explanation did shed light on Col
au’s gloominess, but she suspected there was something more. Even if he had suffered a lot and didn’t get along with people, Brianda was part of the family! And yet he treated her like the enemy—coldly, even with hostility, as if he didn’t trust her. Isolina didn’t seem to notice how closely he watched Brianda, how he muttered under his breath when she was near. Or was it just her imagination?
The only bar in Tiles was a cold place, devoid of charm, and it clearly hadn’t been redone in decades. Brianda couldn’t remember ever seeing a floor so ugly: yellowed marble slabs interspersed with cement in dire need of a polish. There was a long wooden bar with decorative tiles and a dozen square tables with ratty wicker chairs. The music competed with the tinkling of a pinball machine, a loud television, and the voices of the card players.
Stepping inside, Brianda again felt the unpleasant sensation that unknown faces were scrutinizing her. She wondered whether it had been a good idea to come. And what if she ran into Neli? But a quick glance around confirmed that the redhead wasn’t there.
From a table in back, the short-haired woman who had invited them waved Isolina over. Isolina introduced her as Petra. She wore a turtleneck sweater and several gold chains and medallions that she constantly fidgeted with.
Berta, a thin, unkempt woman who owned the bar with her husband, Alberto, came over; Brianda and Isolina ordered tonic waters. Brianda tried to relax and take it all in. The layout of the bar looked simple. The men played cards while the women chatted. After a few minutes, Berta joined them.
“The only person we’re missing is Neli,” said Berta.
“She won’t be long,” Petra assured them. “She had her in-laws visiting today to look after the children.” She looked up and smiled. “What did I tell you? Here she is.”
Brianda shrank in her chair. She wondered how she’d be able to act normal after what she’d seen. To her consternation, Neli sat down right next to her.
“Evening, all,” she said. “How are you, Brianda?”
“Fine, thanks,” she murmured.
Neli easily joined in the conversation, but Brianda was in turmoil. She had always considered herself an open-minded person, but now she wasn’t so sure. It didn’t seem fair to reject Neli based on something she didn’t even understand. Brianda was worried about people judging her, but here she was rushing to judge Neli.
When the other women were distracted giving advice about life in Tiles to a young Romanian woman named Mihaela, Neli discreetly turned to Brianda.
“This afternoon, did you come to see me about something?”
“I was at mass with my aunt and uncle,” she replied nervously. “Then I felt like taking a walk around the church.”
“You must have been surprised at what you saw.”
“You could say that.”
“Yesterday I told you I was a Wiccan and—”
“Yes, and you told me that you didn’t know if I was ready for you to explain. Am I ready now?”
“I would have preferred for you to find out differently, but I suppose you’ve already worked out that I am a witch.”
Brianda blinked in confusion. In the twenty-first century, in the postmodern era, in the age of social media, this woman thought of herself as a witch. It was one thing to see costumed clairvoyants on television, or occultists who pretended they could contact the next world, or old-fashioned fortune-tellers like the woman in the bar trying to earn some cash by telling stories about the future. It was quite another, however, for an apparently ordinary woman like Neli, with her work, her husband, and children, to devote herself to casting spells. Brianda remembered the ritual she had witnessed, and shivered. She wondered if Neli would teach her children this doctrine or whatever it was. First the curse on her uncle’s house, and now this. She had to get out of this madhouse.
“In another age, they would have burned you for saying that,” Brianda joked, not knowing what else to say.
“I know. Thank goodness it’s not like that anymore.”
“Didn’t you tell me you worked in the church? How can you go inside?” Brianda’s tone turned cruel. “Whatever, witches don’t exist.”
“Old women with warts and hooked noses that fly on broomsticks? No, they don’t. But witches do. We exist. There are thousands in the world. And I am one.”
“So, you tell the future and that sort of thing?”
Neli laughed, but immediately her expression turned solemn.
“I don’t. This is much more serious. I practice a neo-pagan religion that is officially recognized in some places. Look, I understand how strange it must sound. In fact, very few people know, so people don’t go around telling people.” She leaned forward, opened her eyes wide, and put on a silly, guttural voice. “Perhaps I shall initiate you into a coven in the moonlight—”
Loud voices from the card table interrupted them.
“Fuck, Bernardo! Didn’t you see I signaled with the jack?” protested a leathery-faced blond-haired young man. “Well, then bring out the ace, man! The game was ours!”
“And where was I supposed to get an ace when all I had was garbage, Zacarias?” the other retorted.
Brianda was afraid for a second there’d be a fight, but the laughter of Neli, Isolina, and Petra, Bernardo’s wife, convinced her there was no need to worry.
Once things had settled down, Berta whispered, “Did you see who just came in?”
Amid the commotion, nobody had noticed when the man stationed at the counter had entered the bar.
Several of the women turned their heads so boldly that Brianda thought it patently rude.
The whispers spread to the whole table.
“He hasn’t been in for weeks,” Berta commented.
“Guess there’s a lot of work to do at the mansion,” said Petra.
Brianda gave a start. The mansion! Now she could barely resist spinning around to stare.
“Is this man from Tiles?” asked Mihaela in her heavy accent.
“No,” Petra replied. “He only arrived a few months ago, though it looks like he’s here to stay. He’s Italian. My husband told me he’s not much for talking. He comes in, asks for what he needs, and that’s it. He pays well, however.”
“Bernardo is a carpenter,” Isolina explained to her niece. “An artist in wood.”
Petra smiled contentedly. “In this case, he needs to be an artist—our new neighbor asks for very special things.”
“Like what?” Neli wanted to know.
“Things you’d like. Replicas of antiques or restorations of old doors. I can’t believe what he’s spending on that place!”
Brianda looked over furtively, but several men blocked her view.
“No way could I live there,” said Berta, “in the woods out at Lubich.”
“Me neither,” Isolina admitted. “I don’t know what it is about that place.” She turned to Brianda. “I don’t know if your mother ever told you how, when we were young, the older people lowered their voices when they talked about Lubich. My mother, your grandmother, said that it had something to do with damned Beles Peak and the stories about it.”
“What stories?” Brianda asked. “I don’t remember her saying anything.”
Berta leaned forward. “In my house, they said Beles Peak was a favorite meeting place for witches.”
Brianda glanced at Neli, who blushed.
“In mine, they said the same,” said Petra, “but it’s nonsense. Old wives’ tales.”
“Well,” Isolina began, “I remember my grandmother telling me that sometimes when she went up to forage for herbs in the fields to the west of Beles, she found clothes on the rocks—”
“My great-grandmother foraged for herbs?” Brianda asked. “I had no idea.”
“She knew all about them,” Isolina said. “She mainly used gentian for blood pressure. To thin the blood, she used to say.”
“And who did she say the clothes belonged to?” Mihaela asked.
“Witches and friends of the devil. She was extremely relig
ious, and she said she used to put a cross on top of the clothes and go off looking for her herbs. She said that whenever she returned, the cross was still there but the clothes had disappeared.”
Loud voices signaled that another intense card game had just ended. No longer trying for subtlety, Brianda finally turned around to see the mysterious man.
He had his back to her, with one arm resting on the bar. He looked young, younger than she had imagined. Tall. Strong. She glanced up from his thick-soled boots to his faded jeans to his broad back, which was covered by a red-checked, lumberjack-style shirt. His hair was dark—more than dark, it was completely black and shiny. The hair partially covered his neck and a stray lock hid his profile.
Someone tapped Brianda on the arm, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the man. She desperately wanted him to turn around so she could see his face.
“Brianda, who are you staring at?”
Damn it, she thought, as she turned back to the table.
“Oh, just thinking about your witch stories,” she improvised. “They’re really wild. Did you know about all this, Neli?” She instantly regretted her words. How could she have asked Neli that in front of everyone? “I mean …”
But Neli handled it with grace. “No, the truth is I didn’t, but this makes Tiles an even more fascinating place!”
“Anyone need another drink?” Brianda asked, getting to her feet. She needed an excuse to go over to the bar and see the man’s face.
“Leave it, I’ll go,” said Berta, also making a movement to get up.
“No need.” Brianda stopped her. “I have to go to the restroom anyway.”
Neli agreed to a beer. Brianda went straight to the ladies’ room, turned on the tap, and wet her wrists. Suddenly, she felt nervous and excited, like a teenager about to talk to the boy of her dreams. It was very different from the lead-up to her anxiety attacks; this time, she wanted everything that was about to happen. She took a deep breath.
She went to stand at the bar next to the man. She ordered a beer and a tonic water. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a slight movement, his hand brushing the lock of hair behind his ear. Now he would turn and so would she. She would offer the typical polite smile of someone waiting for the bartender to serve the drinks. As simple as that. She calculated the seconds. The man began to turn …