by Mingmei Yip
“But I’m not going to steal from Alfredo. I don’t steal, period.”
“Not steal, just find them.”
Now she’d pricked my curiosity. Maybe I should take a look around the castle. And if I did come across a pile of money . . .
Sabrina sighed, her voice losing hope. “But even if you find the money, it won’t bring back my son. And even if it did, Alfredo wouldn’t admit it’s his.”
“But how would you even know?”
“A mother knows.”
“In China we have a way of finding out.” I’d learned about this from Laolao, but like a lot of what she’d told me I had no way of knowing if there was any truth in it.
“Tell me.”
“You put a drop of the mother’s or father’s blood into a bowl of water, then a drop of the child’s. If the two drops merge, they are blood related. If not, they are unrelated.”
“You believe in this?”
“I don’t know. But this method had been used by the Chinese for thousands of years, long before DNA testing.”
“There’s another way. Right after Oscar was born, for protection, I put a silver chain with a pendant around his neck. It was a red stone with a sword carved on it. I don’t think anyone else has anything like this.”
I remembered that Luis also wore a silver chain, but I couldn’t remember if it was like the one Sabrina had described.
“But someone else might have a pendant like this, so . . .”
“No, this one was especially made, so it’s the only one.”
This seemed like a long shot to me. Even if Oscar had the pendant as a baby, it was likely lost long ago. I thought searching for the witch was a better chance of succeeding. After all, I couldn’t very well go around checking men’s pendants.
“Do you have any clues about the witch who stole Oscar?” I asked.
“Nathalia was very pretty, with a heart-shaped face and big eyes. But that was twenty years ago. I don’t know if I’d recognize her now.”
That wasn’t much to go on, but it was better than checking pendants. I could ask around in the Witches’ Market. And if I could locate Nathalia, then I might be able to locate Oscar.
Despite Sabrina’s whining, I did feel sorry for her and hoped to somehow reunite her with at least one of her lost children before she died. She didn’t look to me as if she was at death’s door, but when I watched how she gulped down the brandy I was not optimistic.
I was feeling exhausted from hearing all her tales of woe, so I stood up to take my leave. Sensing that she did not want me to go, I told her I would try to figure out a way to find Oscar.
She took my arm. “Please come back, Eileen. I’ll read you some of my poems next. I’ll also cook you some Spanish dishes. It’s lonely here, you know. . . .”
“Don’t worry, Sabrina, I will.”
“I’ll be waiting for some good news worth postponing my death.”
This certainly put the pressure on. “Finding what you asked for will be no easy feat.”
“But if it doesn’t lead to anything, then I’ll accept my fate and die a contented death.”
I took a few steps and heard the door close behind me like a long sigh.
20
Revisiting the Witches’ Market
It was a relief to get away from Sabrina. I made my way back to the hotel, ate a simple meal, and went to sleep, for once without any dreams. But as soon as I awakened to the sun streaming through the thin drapes, I started thinking of all the mysterious things that seemed to be happening on the island.
Questions popped inside my head like firecrackers. Who was this witch Nathalia? Was Sabrina’s son dead or alive? What had Isabelle’s spirit strained to tell me? Was the genteel Alfredo actually evil? And would my newly opened third eye help me to understand any of these things?
I wasn’t sure about when I should use my third eye because Laolao had always warned me that special talents should be used sparingly, only to help. Each time you use your power, your life would be shortened accordingly. I thought the latter was probably superstition; maybe the whole third eye thing was anyway. But then how to account for my experience at Past Life Lake?
Was knowing too much actually a burden, or even a curse?
Despite all these doubts, I resolved to continue with my plan of visiting the Witches’ Market. I could ask around there about Nathalia. After that I thought I might go back to the U.S. for a short break. After my months on the island San Francisco seemed normal by comparison. I could try to make sense of what had happened because I was no longer sure it was my karma to be a scholar of witches rather than a witch.
The next day when I arrived at the Witches’ Market, I felt a similar energy from my previous visit, one entirely different from the little village. Probably seeing that I was Asian and a tourist, many vendors seemed curious about me, smiling, waving, and trying to draw my attention to their products. I smiled back, hoping to be on good terms so they’d talk openly to me.
I walked around the various stalls, buying a few cheap items such as amulets, incense, and malodorous herbs claimed to cure any disease. Curses seemed to be selling well, but I avoided buying any because Laolao had always warned me that the bad luck can bounce back to you. I paid for these items without haggling, then asked each vendor if they’d heard of a witch named Nathalia. None admitted to having heard of her, but instead recommended themselves for any magical services I might require.
I spotted a fortyish vendor, wrinkled because of long years in the sun, but of indeterminate age. What caught my attention was not her, but what she had for sale: dried dead animals and their parts.
Repulsive as this was, I felt I needed to record it for my book. I went up and saw an odd-looking creature, perhaps some kind of cat. Its dried-up eyes seemed to stare, as if seeking answers to the question of life and death, or perhaps to discover a secret hidden for hundreds of years.
“What kind of cat is this?” I asked the vendor.
“Hahaha!” The tan-faced woman cackled crazily. “Señorita, you think this is a cat! It’s a stillborn baby lamb!”
“Aiiiya! You mean like a half-born baby?!”
This time she laughed so hard that her eyes narrowed into two slits. “Hahaha! ‘Half-born baby,’ I like that!” She looked around at the nearby crowd, then yelled in a hoarse voice, “Come buy, half-born baby for sale! Half-born baby, half price!”
Soon a few young men and women had gathered at her booth. No one seemed to want to buy this bizarre object, but rather they were enjoying this drama between a local witch and an exotic foreign woman.
“Señorita, buy one, very hard find! Very good luck!” she said.
“How can a dead baby, even a lamb, be good luck? I think it’s”—I leaned over and whispered so as not to seem to hurt her business—“bad luck?”
“Ah, señorita, you young girl. I wise woman. So you listen. Good luck, okay? Good luck!”
“If it’s half alive and half not, how can it be good luck?”
I was definitely not going to say the taboo word dead and possibly offend the poor animal’s spirit.
Now more people had crowded around to watch the tug-of-war between good and bad luck. A few children had pushed to the front for a better view of the action. Some touched me out of curiosity as to what a foreigner felt like, or for good luck—I hoped I had enough to go around.
The vendor went on, shouting over the crowd. “Only one! Lucky person buys. Bury in your backyard and get big good luck! No more evil!”
She sounded very much like a Chinese fortune-teller—except of course that she was speaking in Spanish. To fortune-tellers, everything for sale is for good luck and provides protection against evil. If anything can unite different cultures, it would be this sort of superstition. Fortune-tellers as ambassadors.
I wanted to know more because this could be an entire chapter in my book.
I asked her, “How does it work?”
“Hey, señorita, you look educated,
but you don’t understand?”
The crowd erupted in laughter. They all stared at me as if I were from another planet instead of just another country.
The witch, happy to have an audience for her jibes, went on. “She can’t even tell the difference between a cat and a lamb!”
There was another round of stares and laughter at the ignorant foreigner; then the witch waved authoritatively for the crowd to calm down.
“This lamb was almost born but failed at the last minute. This means it died for you, taking with it all your bad luck. Just imagine how safe you will be with its powerful, bitter spirit scaring away all evil forces from your door!”
This whole scene reminded me of a Chinese story that Laolao had told me about. If a child dies young, from an abortion or abuse, they become tongling, malevolent child spirits. Because of their violent deaths, tongling are filled with hatred and bitterness. Their killers live in terror of fatal attacks.
I had once read in a newspaper about a woman whose boyfriend abused her son until finally the boy died. They wrapped his tiny body in a blanket and hid it in a basement closet. Later the woman and her boyfriend got married, had a baby of their own, and completely forgot about the dead child.
One day they opened the closet door and the little dried body fell out. Fearful their new child would find it, they took the tiny corpse to the wilderness and buried it in a shallow hole.
Now that the child had not only been murdered, but evicted from his home, the terror began. One night soon after, the mother and her now-husband were driving home in the dark, when she suddenly saw her dead son sitting next to her—with bruises, cigarette burns, and cuts oozing blood.
He screamed, “Mama, take me back!” then dissolved into the night.
Her husband didn’t see anything, but the mother knew her dead son would soon get his revenge. And so it happened—the grandmother greatly missed the little boy and had kept asking for him to visit. Growing suspicious, she notified the police. Not long after, the police came for the murderous parents.
Tongling are believed to have such magical potency in China that a few people still follow the creepy practice of “raising the ghost baby” for revenge. A shaman is hired to find a recently deceased child’s grave. At midnight he burns incense at the grave, chants invocations, and casts the notorious “seducing the soul” spell. Finally, he’ll plant a tree sprout in the fresh earth at the burial site.
Weeks later when the sprout has become rooted in the ground, he’ll return, chant another invocation, and burn talismans to make the dead child’s spirit attach to the root. Then he’ll pull up the root, carve it into a small figure, brush the child’s name and birthday onto it, and put it inside a bottle. Sometimes the black magician will place another figure in the bottle to keep the child company, so he won’t feel lonely and escape to the outside world.
Now the ghost baby will be sleeping inside the bottle and waiting for the magician’s command. The shaman nurtures the ghost baby with milk, juice, rice, vegetables, noodles, even animal’s blood. When it is time to wake up the spirit, the shaman breathes into the bottle and chants incantations. The ghost baby, now fully awake, will do whatever its boss asks. Of course a black magician will use it to commit evil deeds—harassment, revenge, even murder....
My unpleasant recollections were interrupted by the vendor’s impatient voice.
“Hey, señorita, are you going to buy this or not?”
Of course I wanted nothing more to do with the repulsive object—or the repulsive beliefs. However, photographs would provide essential documentation for my book, and once that was done I could give the poor animal a decent burial. Also, if the witch thought I might become a regular customer, she might give me more information.
So, hiding my reluctance, I said, “Yes, please. Wrap it up.”
She split a big smile. “I knew you were a knowing lady when I first laid eyes on you!”
I waited until she finished business with other clients, then pretended to look for other objects before asking, “Are you all witches here?”
“Of course I am. But most of the others are fakes.”
“How can I tell which are the fake ones?”
“Easy, the fake ones’ stuff doesn’t work. Their spells are made up and what they sell has no magic power. I have everything you will need. Just ask me.”
“Wow! Is that so?”
Her pudgy finger pointed to a few stalls in the distance. “Look, all they have over there are fakes, they are selling handmade folk craft, not spirit-made witchcraft. Mind you, I’m a good witch, but some here are evil. So watch out!”
“How can you tell if one is evil?”
“They’ll curse you so you get sick and the doctors won’t know what’s wrong. Or you’ll lose things, everything.”
I looked around the busy market. “Can you tell me who is evil so I can avoid them?”
“A long time ago there was one here named Natalie, or maybe Nathalia.” Scowling, she continued. “Fortunately we haven’t seen her for a long time. She was so mean she would even cast spells on her own sister witches. Some got sick and even died.”
She went on before I had a chance to respond. “Señorita, you can always get what you need from me. Don’t think about this evil woman, as it may attract her attention to you. Anyway, the only one who remembers any of this is the old guy at the Chinese restaurant over there.”
She must mean Uncle Wang, who I’d tried to find during my earlier visit. I decided I would need to seek him out after all, but I’d have to wait a bit since I knew he’d moved to Grand Canary.
Back at the hotel, I took a nap and reluctantly lifted the stillborn lamb out of the plastic bag the woman had placed it in. Then suddenly I had an idea. I got out Grandpa’s stuck-between-the-womb-and-the-world sculpture and placed the two objects side by side on the floor in front of me. To have two such unusual objects, Heaven must be sending me a message. Or maybe Isabelle was sending me a message through Grandpa and the witch, a message about her life being cut short.
Thinking of this I remembered Isabelle’s diary and retrieved it from my suitcase. Flipping the pages toward the end, I found this entry:
Alfredo seemed to truly care about me, even though he was not really my father. But one day, he abandoned us. Mother said another woman stole him from her. But she wouldn’t tell me anything more. Now that we are by ourselves, Mother worries about money every day. She’s afraid she’s losing her looks and cannot attract another rich man to support us.
I’m only twenty and already have experienced so much bad luck. Mother told me that Alfredo has hidden lots of cash and even gold somewhere in that huge castle of his. She wants me to sneak in there to look for them. I told her this would be impossible—and could land me in prison. Then she actually suggested I should try to seduce him! According to her, this is how women get ahead in the world.
When I told her that Alfredo was practically my father, Mother got very angry. She said it wouldn’t be a big deal to sleep with him a few times since my real father had left us with nothing.
Hoping to placate her, I did sneak into Alfredo’s castle, though I doubted I would actually find any treasure. The place is huge and has many secret rooms, cellars, and attics. I couldn’t even guess where to start looking for all this supposed wealth. Even thinking about it I felt so fed up that I just went to confront him and ask for my share.
To my utter surprise, this time, instead of cursing and threatening, Alfredo told me he loved me as a real daughter and was willing to discuss this with me over a nice dinner. Maybe he isn’t as bad as Mother says.
I hoped Isabelle’s diary would reveal what happened with Alfredo’s hidden wealth. Before reading more, I poured myself a glass of white wine that I’d bought earlier at the market. I sipped meditatively, hoping the alcohol would free up my thinking. It occurred to me that Sabrina must have already read her daughter’s diary. If there were any reference to the location of the treasure, she would have tried
to find it herself. Maybe she hoped that I could find some clue that she had missed. No doubt she thought I could have my way with Alfredo, if I wanted.
Feeling more relaxed from the wine, I continued to read.
After an expensive meal at an elegant restaurant, Alfredo suggested we go to a hotel—obviously to avoid his wife—and I agreed. Once we were inside the luxury suite, he took my hand, kissed it, and gently led me to a couch. It quickly became obvious that he did not think of me as his daughter. Soon Alfredo’s passionate kisses extended to my neck, and down from there. Then I let him undress me and lead me into bed.
In the end it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be, though I wouldn’t say I got any actual pleasure out of it.
I promise myself that I won’t do anything like this again—I don’t want to end up like my mother.
When I got home the next morning, Mother knew. I don’t know how, but she told me mothers know these things.
But that was where the entry ended. Isabelle might have gotten something from Alfredo, but I suspected she didn’t. She seemed to have lacked her mother’s guile.
Staring at Isabelle’s handwriting that ended halfway down the page, I had a feeling that something had happened to make her stop writing. Reading these lines, I realized with a start that the date of the entry was around the time she had drowned. I felt a pounding headache coming on. Suddenly it occurred to me that these may have been her last words.
She must have written this just before her death!
My fear that I had gotten myself into matters I would not be able to handle was intensified.
Sabrina had hinted to me that Alfredo had killed her daughter. Somehow I doubted this. That Alfredo was a womanizer was obvious, but that didn’t mean he was violent. Certainly, he’d had ample opportunity to take advantage of me, but he had always behaved quite properly.
All these uncertainties were starting to drive me crazy. I decided to pay a visit to meet Uncle Wang, to distract myself. I hoped he really was as wise as his niece had claimed.