“Ellen, I will come up in about an hour and take you down to introduce you to my guests. I would like you to wear the gown, if you would please do so for me.”
She hesitated. “Why that gown? I don’t mean to be rude, but it isn’t very flattering.”
El Varón nodded. “It is a tradition among my people, all the way back to the ancients, for a woman to wear such a gown on a special night like tonight.”
“You mean this is a party dress?”
He put his hand on William’s shoulder, but the boy pulled away. El Varón ignored him. “This is a party not just for me, but for you. It is your special surprise, Ellen. A night to welcome you and prepare you for your role.”
Role? She stretched her mouth as close to a smile as she could. It felt like it would snap into a snarl. “What about William?”
El Varón’s smile wavered, and then his teeth shone again. “I’m sorry, but William cannot come. There can be no children. He can stay here. One of my maids can watch him and bring him some desserts. You like ice cream, yes, William?”
William shook his head. “No, Mom. I want to be with you.”
Ellen stared. “I’d rather have him with me, too.”
“It is impossible,” El Varón said. “No children.” He walked to the bed and picked up the white gown. Held it out in front of her. “This is the way of my people,” he said. “When you wear it, you are welcomed into our family.”
Family. That’s what Lily and Crawford had called their cult. She looked at William, who had his back toward her, then to El Varón. She reached for the robe. “I’ll wear it,” she said.
“I’ll be back to bring you downstairs in an hour to meet our guests.” His smile was glowing.
—
“You can’t go down there,” William whispered. “Please. Not without me.” They were in the bathroom with the water running again.
“I have to go,” she said. “Let me show you something.” She opened the sink cabinet, reached into a box of tampons, and pulled out a small folded paper. She unfolded it; inside were four white tablets and two capsules. She refolded it and stuck it back in its hiding place. “I’m going to use those to knock him out. Put him to sleep. And then we make a break for it.”
William thought for a moment. “You’re going to put those in his drink?”
“After I grind them up, yes.”
He nodded. Then smiled. “Mom, you are really smart.”
“I know I am,” she said. “Where do you think you got your smarts from, pal?”
—
When El Varón returned it was clear, from the glassiness of his eyes and the flush of his face, that he’d already started drinking. Ellen wore the white robe and her Gucci sandals. El Varón beamed.
“You look extraordinarily beautiful tonight.”
“I feel like I’m wearing a garbage bag,” she said.
El Varón’s smile dimmed. He turned to William. “Costanza will bring you some dinner. The food is delicious. And then ice cream.”
William looked at his mother but said nothing.
He held his arm out to Ellen. “Come. Meet my guests.”
—
There must have been seventy or eighty guests: a few Guatemalan cowboys in their finery, the usual guards and goons heavily strapped with weapons, but also a circle of men in nice business suits and—to her shock—a man in a black suit and clerical collar. He was thin and pale, with a muss of gray hair. A priest at this murderer’s party?
El Varón put his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly.
Everyone stared at her. The musicians stopped playing.
El Varón spoke in Spanish, then English. “Gentlemen, I would like to introduce Ellen Davis. As you can see, she is a woman of tremendous beauty. She will be our saint tonight, our lady, and through her we will honor the Lady of the Shadows.”
She realized now she was the only woman at the party. Their gazes felt grotesque—all those men staring at her as if she were some kind of exotic animal. She didn’t smile, just gritted her teeth and blinked, standing there in that stupid robe. What in God’s name was going on?
El Varón picked up a bottle of tequila from a nearby table, held it aloft, and took a drink. The hooting and hollering began again, and the musicians kicked into another of their songs about the amazing, brave, honorable host of the party and how the blood of his enemies would fill a hundred swimming pools.
And then she saw the chair in front of the skeletal statue of Santa Muerte. Piles of white flowers surrounded it, as did candles and censers emitting twisting white wisps of copal incense. The statue stood, the saint of death’s empty eyes nothing but dark, staring holes. Her arms were spread wide, almost as if she were welcoming whoever was going to sit in that chair.
El Varón held out his hand. “I have prepared a special place for you, my love.”
—
“Ray, this is Sabina.”
Mantu, holding a cardboard box containing two white doves, had led him past two ratty yapping dogs and inside a small building that seemed to be made as much of mud as it was scavenged timber and corrugated aluminum. Plants hung everywhere, clumps of dried leaves, clusters of flowers, and hunks of vines, giving the interior the feel of a subterranean cavern. In the darkness, he saw only the dim outlines of a tiny woman in front of him tending a small woodstove. She wore a richly embroidered peasant dress, and her hair was long, graying, and tied back in a thick braid. When she turned, Ray felt a strange, instantaneous sense of recognition. But where could he have seen this woman before? Or was it just his current descent into hallucinatory madness that made her seem so familiar?
When she came closer he noticed one of her eyes had gone filmy with cataracts. The wrinkles on her face were like a topological map. Beaded necklaces around her neck rattled as she approached him. Another woman appeared out of the shadows. She was even tinier than Sabina, but younger and a little heftier. Maybe her sister? She spoke in quiet Spanish for Sabina as the older woman ran her fingers along Ray’s face and looked deeply into his eyes.
Mantu translated. “Señora Sabina has been waiting for you. She doesn’t speak much Spanish, so her sister does the talking for her.”
The sister spoke very softly in singsong Mayan. Sabina clucked her tongue and shook her head.
“She will try to help you, but she’s not sure if she can get it all out of you. The poison within you is strong.”
“Please,” Ray whispered. He felt like one of the empty husks Mantu had described. His personality, his emotions—his soul—were draining out of him like water from a tub.
Mantu handed Sabina the box with the doves. They’d gone quiet in the darkness of Sabina’s home, and she opened the lid, nodded approvingly, and spoke to her sister. Her voice was rough, but strangely melodious.
“She thanks you for the palomas.”
Mantu handed the sister a roll of bills. She showed them to Sabina, then tucked them between her breasts inside her frayed dress. The two women conversed, then the sister turned to Mantu. Mantu listened intently.
“Ray, you need to lie down,” he said. “This might take a long time. And you need to stay with us, okay?”
Ray nearly collapsed onto the floor, but Mantu grabbed him and lowered him gently as Sabina and her sister arranged heavy woolen blankets in front of the stove. Both women went to an altar in the shadows and returned with several objects—crystals, a quetzal feather, and a metal censer full of charcoal. Ray’s eyes widened as Sabina placed a small statue at his side. A skeletal woman in purple robes holding a scythe. It was poorly painted and looked like it was made of cheap plastic. Next to it she placed a sharp-looking black-handled knife.
Ray shivered. His body felt almost frozen. When he fell into the vortex to the other place, however, all his pain and discomfort went away. It was getting much harder to want to return to the cold, painful, ugly world—the real world— even though the other place was full of things that crawled and squirmed and clattered across the gr
ound on their claws. They were welcoming and somehow loving even when they started chewing away at his flesh.
“Ray, open your eyes. Look at me,” Mantu said.
He opened his eyes. There were spirits all around inside the tiny house. He could see them with his poisoned eyes, vague faces shifting in and out of his vision like clouds of smoke. He’d seen similar beings before, outside of Crawford’s house when he’d been blasted on Lily’s exotic drugs. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I keep slipping. I’m really trying but it’s hard to come back.”
Mantu asked Sabina to hurry.
While her sister removed Ray’s shoes and socks, Sabina took two plastic bottles off a shelf. They looked like shampoo bottles without the labels. She dumped a small puddle of dark liquid into a black ceramic bowl, then took a pinch of something that looked like grayish dirt from another bottle and mixed it up with a blackened bone the size of a finger. Then she opened a leather pouch that had been hanging around her neck. From inside, she took a handful of tiny golden-brown mushrooms with twiglike stems, crumpled them up, and dropped them into the mixture.
Ray shivered. Were they hallucinogenic mushrooms? The last thing he needed was to inject more insanity into his failing brain. “What are those, Mantu?” he asked.
“Medicine,” Mantu said. “You need to trust her.”
Sabina spoke to her sister, who then translated for Mantu. Ray understood the Spanish clearly. He may die. And despite his numbness, his mental collapse, and the lure of the dark world behind his eyes, he forced himself to open his eyes wide and look at Sabina’s shriveled, deeply wrinkled face with its one chalky eye and the other full of dark ancient secrets.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Sabina nodded and made the sign of the cross between her pendulous breasts. She held open her arms, and her sister brought over one of the doves, its head tucked inside her palm. Sabina took the bird, whispered to it, and held it above the bowl. She took the knife, and with a practiced, swift motion, sliced the bird’s neck. She dropped the knife and held the dove tightly with both hands as it jerked and convulsed. Some of the blood splattered onto the side of Ray’s face and he flinched.
After the bird had bled out, she asked for another. She looked directly at Ray and spoke. Her sister leaned close and said in Spanish, This poison requires much blood. To lure it out. She sliced the neck of the second paloma, which put up even more of a death struggle, jerking and twisting until a few white feathers drifted to the floor. Then it, too, went limp.
Sabina stirred the dark, thick mixture. She dipped a finger into it, then tasted it. She had maybe three teeth left. Licked her lips, nodded, and whispered prayers. She stared at Ray and spoke to him while her sister translated in barely comprehensible Spanish, and Mantu explained in English. Like a crazy game of telephone.
Mantu put his mouth close to Ray’s ear.
“Black magic is used to fight black magic. You are going to be given a poison that could kill you. A poison to fight another poison. But it’s the only thing that can save you.”
Ray nodded. Just get it over with.
But she wasn’t finished, and Mantu continued. “Bad spirits will go into you. To rid the bad spirits already inside you. They will do as she asks, because they are hers, but they always demand something in return. You must accept that or she cannot continue.”
What could be worse than dying or going permanently catatonic here, on a pile of blankets on the dirt floor of a witch’s hut? “Do it. Now. Please.”
Sabina nodded. She picked up a bottle of liquor, drank a mouthful and then sprayed it all over Ray, from his face to his feet. A shower of the stuff. It smelled like mezcal, and it immediately shocked him back to reality. He flinched, startled, but didn’t have the energy to move or even ask what the hell was going on.
“She’s cleansing you,” Mantu explained.
Sabina then took a swatch of grass—fragrant, with tiny flowers—and started rubbing them over his skin, beating them against his heart, the sides of his head, his groin, and the bottoms of his feet. Thwack-thwack-thwack, almost but not quite painful, around and around him. When she finished, she threw the bundle into the woodstove, where it erupted, bright and crackling, before quickly burning away.
Sabina spoke to him, but he didn’t need to understand whatever variant of Mayan she spoke to get her message. She was holding the bowl out to him. Mantu helped him to sit up on his elbows.
“Tomar una copa,” she said. And brought the bowl to his lips. Ray grimaced.
Have a drink.
Ray nodded. He had little time to spare.
“Sí. Sí. Ahorita,” Sabina said. Right now.
Ray felt his guts clench as he opened his mouth. She tipped a little in. His mouth filled with warmth, and he gagged.
“No,” Sabina shouted. She held her hand over his mouth, strong for such a tiny woman. He swallowed, felt his gag reflex kick again, and forced himself to contain it. It tasted surprisingly like his own blood from recollections of dental procedures—metallic and electric—only more watered down. And gritty with the dirt.
“Más,” Sabina said.
Ray lifted his shaking hands. Held the bowl to his lips, supported by Mantu, and tilted it back. He shuddered and swallowed as quickly as he could, but Sabina lifted the bowl higher, and the entire contents ran into his mouth. Again, he started to gag, but Mantu held his head firm and Sabina held his mouth shut, her tiny, sharp fingernails digging into the side of his face. “No, no, no,” she whispered.
“Swallow it,” Mantu said.
Ray did. His stomach lurched, threatening to send it all back up, but he gritted his teeth and tried not to think. And then it was done.
The sister waved the censer in front of him and copal smoke engulfed his face and seared the inside of his nose. It burned but smelled clean, like a mineral dug from inside a mountain.
Sabina lit a hand-rolled cigar and rubbed her palms together. Then she started to pray.
—
First came the invasion of his body.
Sabina’s rhythmic chanting stopped. Her eyes grew wide and she began shouting in Mayan. She took a deep mouthful of her cigar smoke and blew it into his face, thick clouds of strong, harsh tobacco. Shouted again, screaming in rapid bursts that sounded like curses, and then started wailing.
Then something—some things—crawled into him. In through his eyes, his mouth, scraping like sharp-scaled snakes as they forced their way inside. In his nostrils. Up into his rectum. Dozens of them, thin, wormlike, and strong. He was being invaded. Raped. Infested.
He couldn’t breathe. He would die if they didn’t stop crowding in his throat.
And then they all drew into the center of his body. The pain was excruciating and he gasped as air entered his lungs. They were writhing in the center of his chest, gnawing away at him. The pressure was unbearable. It felt like all of the flesh and organs had been gouged out.
Sabina shouted and clapped her hands three times.
The pain and pressure vanished.
Ray sat up. The witch’s room had been replaced by a temple. But not like the ruins he’d visited—this was newly hewn from stone. Mayan kings and priests were carved into the walls, covered in bright, vibrant paint. Torches burned, and pots of charcoal lifted copal smoke into the air.
Sabina was young. Her hair black, wrinkles gone, glazed eye clear. Both eyes staring into his with a disturbing, almost predatory, intensity.
“Where am I?” he asked.
She spoke. As she did, he realized her lips weren’t moving. She was talking straight into his head.
You are in many places and times, Ray. You have always been a traveler.
He thought-spoke in reply. It was so much easier communicating this way.
What do you mean?
The torchlights danced in Sabina’s enormous pupils. You will learn. There is not much time now. There is a fight taking place in your bones. In your intestines. In your brains and your bowels. One side will win.
I have sent in spirits of pestilence, and rot, and the sour wind that brings painful suffering. Sabina’s face turned skeletal, her eyes sinking into black holes, but then just as quickly she was a young woman again. I am not a healer. My dominion is death, and decay, and despair. I suck the lives of children from their mother’s wombs and grow festering cancers in the guts of kings and priests. I am malice. I am the worm that burrows into the brain and the maggot that feasts on the flesh of the dead.
Ray drew back. Her pupils had filled up her entire eyes. They were black, black, black.
The spirits I sent into you may kill the spirits the redheaded witch put into you. My helpers are from Xibalba, old demons that crawl beneath the earth among rocks and roots, but her magic is unknown to me. It comes from somewhere I have never traveled, out among the stars, from before the earth came into being. If her spirits eat mine, you will die. Not just your body, but your soul. You will join them and they will gnaw you into nothingness.
The torches brightened and the reflected spheres in Sabina’s eyes filled the blackness.
If mine eat theirs, you will live. But they will take something from you. A part of you that will never cease to cause you pain. They will let you live, but you may wish you had not.
Ray responded, I just need to find Ellen and William. Can you let me do that?
Sabina’s smile widened. Her eyes were back to normal. Now they were in a clearing in a jungle, in front of a small fire. A group of shadowed men sat in a circle playing drums, but they were indistinct and wavery, like ghosts. Sabina wore the skin of a jaguar and a crown of quetzal feathers. She held up a round polished stone the size of her fist. Obsidian. “Look,” she whispered.
—
Ellen. She was sitting in a chair, wearing a strange white robe, surrounded by flowers. She was crying. Weeping, lost, and horribly alone in a sea of men, all of them leering and staring at her. Behind her stood that ghastly, skeletal reaper woman, an enormous version of Sabina’s chintzy statue. And this lady reaper was real. Her bony arms came down, the blade of the scythe coming to rest across Ellen’s breasts, and she was swallowed up in the folds of the black robe.
Witch Lights Page 13