by Janni Nell
“Well?” Mom said.
“The paranormal was right here waiting for me in Consuela’s possessions.”
“I knew that maid was trouble from the first moment I saw her. All of her things—especially anything paranormal—will have to be boxed up and sent away immediately.”
“Ease up, Mom. Where are we going to send them?”
“I don’t care just so long as they stop interfering with our vacation.”
“Leave it to me. I’ll pack them up tomorrow,” I said.
“In the morning. Early. We’ll need this room for the new maid.”
“You sure you don’t want me to do it tonight?”
She sighed. “I’m too tired for sarcasm. Good night, Allegra.”
Unlike Mom, I wasn’t tired. In fact I was too wired for sleep. I wasted time pacing back and forth on the terrace. Then I found a better way to use my excess energy and got to work boxing up Consuela’s possessions. Her clothes and shoes went in first, then the contents of her underwear drawer. I was carefully packing the ornaments from her bureau when Casper appeared. I continued with my work as he perched on the messed-up bed.
“Thanks for taking care of Little-A,” I said. “Even if you did take her flying.”
Casper’s smile was tender. “She reminds me of Zerlina.” His daughter and only legitimate child had been a toddler when Casper died over two thousand years ago.
“What happened to her?” I asked, wrapping Consuela’s vase in newspaper and putting it carefully in a cardboard box.
“Zerlina lived the typical life of a village woman. She married and had children. She worked hard and aged too soon.” He passed his hand across his face as though he wasn’t feeling well. Come to think of it, he did look pale. Probably due to the sad memories of his daughter. “She died delivering her fourth baby and went straight to Heaven. I escorted her as far as Cloud 9.”
Since Casper hadn’t earned the right to enter Heaven, I guessed he hadn’t seen her in a while. But one day he would. I couldn’t help wishing that wouldn’t be too soon. The day he entered Heaven was the day I’d lose him.
Pushing aside such gloomy thoughts, I added Consuela’s books to a box and began packing the remaining ornaments, which were all thick with dust. When I got to the black rock, I said, “I need industrial-strength gloves to pick this up. It’s as sharp as the teeth of a vampire bat.”
Casper’s eyes widened. His pasty complexion reminded me of the times he’d suffered motion sickness. “Where did you get that?”
“Don’t worry. I won’t let the big bad rock cut you.”
“It’s not that. It’s—” He swayed and his eyelids fluttered just like Consuela’s had right before she fainted.
“Maybe you should lie down,” I said, regretting my flippancy. “Is it the rock? Are you allergic or something?”
“It’s obsidian,” he murmured. “Volcanic glass.”
“And?”
“There’s something about it…” His body, usually so solid and comforting, was slowly becoming transparent. I was used to his habit of disappearing and reappearing, but not like this. He seemed to be fighting the transformation as though he wanted to stay but something was making him leave.
“I can’t…I’m sorry…” he murmured. And he was gone.
“Casper?” I whirled around as though I might find him hiding in a corner of the room. “Don’t do this, Casper. Come back.” But I knew he wasn’t playing games. This wasn’t his usual disappearing act. Something was really wrong. I studied the obsidian. What was it about a lump of rock that made Casper so ill?
I stared at it, ran my finger carefully over the cold surface. Suddenly the events of the night caught up with me. I yawned, bone weary. My head ached. More than anything I hoped Casper was okay. Even if he couldn’t be with me right now. I curled up on Consuela’s bed, as miserable as a sunbeam caught in a storm. I longed for sleep, but when it came I really wished it hadn’t. Nightmares suck.
At first all I could see were shadows flickering across arched stone. The stench of mold and fresh blood blasted my nostrils. I licked dry lips, longing for a sip of water. Gathering the courage to look around, I saw the gray walls of a windowless chamber. There was no overhead light, only the endless flickering of oil lamps.
A man leaned against the wall, picking his teeth. He wore what amounted to a loincloth, his upper body beaded with sweat as though he’d been working hard. Huge muscles overcompensated for the size of his other organs, primarily brain and heart. To say he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed was an insult to blunt tools everywhere. To say he lacked compassion was like—well, like telling the truth.
The walls of the chamber echoed with the clink of metal on metal. Despite the fire burning in a nearby grate I was deathly cold. Hardly surprising when I was lying on a slab of stone. I sucked in a lungful of foul air, coughed and tried to cover my mouth as Mom had drummed into me, but my hand wouldn’t obey. Chains immobilized my wrists and ankles.
The big man moved toward me. Stringy brown hair hung to his shoulders. Lips like fat slugs lurked beneath a nose that had been badly broken and healed crooked. He slapped my face with a meaty hand.
“Is that the best you can do?” I flung at him.
He barked at me in Spanish. His hand crashed into my cheek a second time. The stinging blow knocked my head sideways. My ear rang. When I didn’t move, he retreated, taking the stink of sweat and blood with him. Now that he was no longer blocking my view, I noticed the other man near the fire.
I couldn’t see his face but, beneath the homespun robe, his back was hunched. Long-nailed toes jutted from brown sandals, but it was his legs that made me want to puke. They were horribly deformed, the bones twisted in directions that weren’t natural. He cocked his head, giving me a glimpse of sharp cheekbones. His tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth like a child concentrating on coloring. Anorexic wrists protruded from his sleeves as he rotated a branding iron in the flames.
From somewhere nearby came the sound of hopeless sobbing. Moving my head to search the chamber revealed nothing but a strappado and a rack. Both were mercifully empty. I hoped I awoke before I became the next occupant.
As the branding iron heated, the emaciated man sang, strangling the notes of what should have been a beautiful hymn. I tried not to think about what he was going to do to me. I’d seen Consuela’s injuries. Once again I tested the chains around my wrists, but there was no possibility of escape.
Abandoning his iron in the fire, he approached me, limping and hobbling, his lips set in a tight line as though each step caused pain. Rust-colored puddles stained his robe. A carved cross swung from a strip of leather around his scrawny neck. He bent over me, and the cross swung against my chin hard enough to bruise.
Light reflected off his shaved head. Pockmarks scarred his cheeks, and his eyes were black as charred flesh. He opened bloodless lips, exhaling stale-fish breath as he fired questions at me. Since I didn’t understand Spanish, it hardly mattered whether he was demanding I recant a heresy or admit to witchcraft. I couldn’t answer even if I’d wanted to.
Why couldn’t I wake up? I knew I was dreaming. I knew this wasn’t real. If I didn’t wake up soon I might suffer injuries as real and painful as Consuela’s.
The twisted man barked another question. When I refused to answer, he bared teeth that needed a good scale and polish. Maybe he was smiling, but he was badly out of practice. Turning his back on me, he hobbled back to the fire,
his sandals slithering across the stone floor. Extracting the iron from the flames, he called to the big man, who reached me in a few strides. He leaned over me and clamped his hands on my thigh.
The thin man approached with the branding iron. He took his time, lifting it above my skin with difficulty. I fought and yelled. The big man’s fingers tightened on my thigh. The scrawny man brought the iron down. I screamed and screamed.
“Allegra, wake up.” Mom shook my shoulder. “You’re making too much noise. And what are you doing in Consuela’s room?”
“Sorry. I fell asleep. Had a nightmare.” I was trembling all over and my thigh stung.
“This is what comes of working as a paranormal investigator. If only you’d get a proper job, this would all go away.”
I didn’t argue because she was right, but she was also ignoring the fact that I liked my job.
“Go back to bed, Mom.” I gritted my teeth against the pain in my thigh.
She didn’t move. In the light that spilled from the hall she looked kind of fragile. You could accuse Mom of being lots of things, but fragile wasn’t one of them.
Apparently she had noticed my trembling. “Are you sure you’re all right?” Despite the brusque tone, she was worried. “You don’t have injuries like Consuela, do you?”
I waggled my shoulders. “See, nothing’s dislocated.”
“Well, that’s good then.” She nodded, satisfied. “I’ll go back to bed. You should return to your own room. You never had nightmares when you slept there.”
I listened to her footsteps retreat. When I was sure she’d gone, I flicked on the lamp and pulled back the sheets. The burn on my thigh was an angry red, but it hadn’t blistered like Consuela’s. Guess Mom had woken me before the iron had burned too deep, but that was where my good luck ended. The burn was shaped like a circle surrounding the number one. Exactly like Consuela’s.
I wished Casper was around to tend to the burn even if he did accuse me of being a baby. Something he’d done many times before when I’d complained about superficial injuries.
“Casper, where are you?” I whispered, peering into the darkness. No response, not even the distant sound of wings. Looked like I was on my own.
Determined not to go back to sleep and become better acquainted with the skinny guy and his sidekick, I returned to my own room and made a list of the clues I had so far.
Consuela suffered the same burn I had during a nightmare. She’d mentioned the word potro, which could be translated as rack. I’d seen a rack in the torture chamber. Therefore it was reasonable to assume we’d had the same or at least a very similar nightmare.
The burns on our thighs appeared to have been made by the same branding iron.
The presence of the obsidian seemed to bring on the nightmares.
Casper had looked ill and kind of faded away after exposure to the obsidian.
Conclusion: the volcanic glass had some kind of paranormal property.
One small problem with that theory—obsidian had no innate paranormal properties. My list of clues raised more questions than it answered, but one thing was certain—I had to stow it somewhere safe before anyone else suffered nightmares. A search of my room revealed a loose floorboard. In the small space beneath were two old-fashioned coins. Guess I wasn’t the first to use this as a hiding place. After carefully depositing the black rock, I replaced the floorboard and pulled the rug back in place.
My next task was to discover the identities of the guy with the branding iron and his buddy. Since I’d dreamed of a torture chamber, and Spain had once been home to the Inquisition, that was where I started.
Chapter Two
According to his website, retired Professor Quinto Chavarria, who was an expert on the Inquisition, was fluent in four languages including English. His photos showed a man who stood straight and tall despite his seventy-plus years. In the close-ups, his eyes flashed fire amongst the crow’s-feet.
I emailed him, posing as a student requesting information about branding irons during the Inquisition. To keep my identity secret, I used the address I preferred when I didn’t want the recipient to search the internet for Allegra Fairweather. Although I didn’t advertise my business, I was mentioned in some shadowy corners of the World Wide Web.
Professor Chavarria replied to my email within minutes, directing me to a number of websites and academic texts for more information. The websites were no help and the textbooks were mostly in Spanish. Anyway I didn’t have time to track down books just to hit another dead end. Finally I sent him a sketch of the burn on my thigh. A photo would’ve been easier, but that would have raised questions I didn’t want to answer.
Professor Chavarria came up with questions I didn’t want to answer all on his own. Where did you see this brand? Which college are you attending?
Ignoring his questions, I emailed back: Do you recognize the brand?
Yes. If you want more information you will answer my previous questions.
I considered naming a college, but I was pretty sure someone with the credentials of Professor Chavarria would be able to contact them and check whether I was enrolled. As for logically explaining the brand, where could I have seen it? If I said a book, Professor Chavarria would ask for the title. If I claimed I’d been burned during a dream, he’d think I was crazy.
I settled on a half-truth. He’d probably think I was crazy anyway, but I figured I had nothing to lose.
You’ve caught me out. I lied. The truth is unbelievable, but here it is. I have promised to help a friend. When she learned I was coming to Spain, she begged me to investigate a curious dream she’d had. She was in a medieval torture chamber, where she was branded with an iron of the design I sent you. She believes her dream was a real event. She also believes she is psychic. It would be good to know the truth. You can help.
His reply was a single line. We must meet.
Mom wasn’t thrilled to learn I’d booked a flight to Madrid, but she calmed down when she learned I planned to visit a retired history professor.
“Have you developed an interest in history, dear?” She never called me dear. “That’s wonderful. Steven and I are more than happy to pay for your college tuition. It’s not too late.” She’d never got over my disinterest in going to college. Not that I have anything against college. But they didn’t teach the kind of things I wanted to study.
I told her I’d think seriously about enrolling, and she beamed. She even volunteered to drive me to Málaga Airport.
“Enjoy your visit with the professor” was the last thing she said before I boarded the plane.
As I was taking my seat, I caught sight of Casper a few seats ahead of me. I moved forward, squeezing my way between people moving down the aisle, keeping Casper’s blond hair in view.
I tapped his shoulder and said, “You could’ve said hello.”
He turned. Not Casper. Embarrassing, sure, but mostly I was disappointed. I apologized to the guy and headed back to my seat, but that wasn’t the end of my embarrassment. I imagined I saw Casper when we arrived in Madrid, and again as I waited for a cab outside the airport. It was a relief to reach the home of Professor Quinto Chavarria.
He lived in a house in one of the better suburbs of Madrid. It was exactly how you’d imagine a Spanish home—white walls, wrought iron decoration and the sound of water tinkling in a courtyard. When he opened the heavy wooden door, I saw that the photos on his website hadn’t lied. He was in good condition for his age.
He boomed, “Welcome,” in a rich, deep voice that still played to the back of the lecture hall. He didn’t waste ti
me with small talk or offering refreshments. Just led me to a comfortable sitting room where I sank into the armchair he offered. As he settled into its twin, footsteps sounded in the hall and a woman about the professor’s age appeared.
Thick pure white braids framed a face that was without makeup and tanned by the Spanish sun. She had kind eyes, a gentle smile and a wedding ring worn on her right hand in the Spanish way.
I stood and offered my hand. “Pleased to meet you, Señora Chavarria.”
“I’m not his wife,” she said in an American accent. Although I had the feeling she’d like to be. “I’m his friend Kiki. Quinto thought you and I should meet.” She offered me a drink and hurried away to get sodas for all of us.
“She seems very much at home here,” I said.
Professor Chavarria’s cheeks colored. “Kiki doesn’t live with me.”
I didn’t care what their living arrangements were so long as he gave me more information about the guy with the branding iron, but he refused to say anything until Kiki returned with our sodas.
Only then did he pull a book from one of the many shelves and set it on the coffee table with a thump. He opened it to a bookmarked page. Two pages actually, that displayed four sketched portraits. Three of them meant nothing to me, but the fourth snapped me to attention. It was the skinny guy. I’d recognize those bloodless lips and cold eyes anywhere. Professor Chavarria didn’t notice my reaction. I think Kiki did, but she didn’t comment on it.
The professor tapped his finger on the portrait I recognized. “This man was well-known for his use of a particular type of branding iron.”
“His name?”