Love, or the Witches of Windward Circle

by Carlos Allende

  His nakedness became the more apparent as he descended from the stool and turned his posterior to the girl. His nubby sack hung as low as one foot below his buttocks.

  The small wingless demon came out of Beelzebub’s cassock and gently pushed the little girl towards Satan. Her lips remained pursed but her expression changed from one that intended to please to one of profound terror. The smell of blood and sulfur that permeated the air inside the cemetery was nothing compared to the horrific stench that came from the Devil’s posterior. The sight revolted her more than anything else she had seen that night; you could tell that the Little Master didn’t change his bedclothes often. The little girl tried to escape, but the small wingless demon kept pushing her face firmly towards the Devil’s second mouth.

  “It ain’t but a kiss my dear,” the small demon insisted.

  The little girl closed her eyes as a cluster of flies flapped over her face. When she opened them again, one inch away from the malign orifice, she could see tiny black roaches coming in and out of the hole, greeting each other, having conversations, welcoming her to an underground lair.

  “One tiny kiss,” the small demon grunted, “then it’ll be over.”

  “One kiss is all it takes,” the roaches caroled. “One sign of willing heart, one sign of duty…”

  If she could sing, it would have been the time for the little girl to sing, too. What were her favorite things? Fishing for tadpoles and black necked stilts; water with sugar; milk with her tea; feeling the wet sand sink under her feet… She took one last breath and pressed her tongue between her teeth and then her lips to reach the Devil’s buttocks, unwittingly pushing the little piece of consecrated host trapped between her incisors to the rear end of the enemy of all things holy…WHAM! The Emperor of Hell kicked the little girl in her forehead. He knocked the stool down and rubbed his buttocks against the grass as if trying to put out an invisible fire. With the kick, the little girl, together with half a dozen demons and a few witches that were just behind her, flew up in the sky, like weightless rag-dolls thrown by a wretched child at her nanny. The demons landed graciously; most witches were courteously assisted by fellow enchantresses who ran to catch them, but our little girl fell on top of the pile of wooden crates with such a crash that she broke a few dozen, letting the children escape, which only added more fire to the demon’s rage. On top of all that, she became trapped inside one.

  And there she remained, covered in her own blood and tears inside a wooden cage, for the rest of the Sabbath, for the rest of the week and the following two years, so embarrassed was her poor mother by her clumsiness and lack of grace before Satan, Emperor of Hell and King of All Things Rotten.

  5

  In which the mother finishes her confession

  The priest seemed to have aged a decade.

  “Two years?”

  “She deserved twenty. She remained in that cage until she grew too big to fit in it and she merely broke the crate from the inside.”

  “But—” The priest stole another quick look at the young girl. She had brought a plate of soup for the witch and patiently held it by her side waiting for the woman to finish. “How did she—?”

  “She could still perform some ordinary chores, sticking her limbs out through the bars and walking on all fours, like a spider,” the witch responded, between slurps. “She didn’t become totally useless. She could still mop the floor with a rag, or feed the chickens. Not that her industry would bring her forgiveness, but at least it guaranteed that she wouldn’t be left to starve in a house that may have been evil, but still praised diligence and condemned inaction.”

  The priest placed a hand to his throat. It hurt to swallow.

  “Needless to say,” the woman continued, “after the incident with the wafer, the contract between my daughter and the sixty-something demons from Hell was rendered invalid. The next day, I received a letter informing us that she had been banned for life from all ensuing infernal meetings and asking us not to attend any ball until further notice. Two months later, at the next one we were allowed to attend, a bailiff sent by the prisoner of Rome stripped me of all my hard-earned medals. Rosa and Victoria were forced to return their familiars, the toad and the swarm of flies, and the three of us were lowered in rank to legionarii.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We lost all of our privileges. I was devastated. I had lost most of my teeth repaying favors to my familiar. It had been worthwhile, I thought; I was among the Little Master’s Favorites. But now he wouldn’t look at me. He wouldn’t visit. He had stopped loving me. How could I not be angry?”

  The priest opened his mouth to reply but could think of nothing.

  “Rosa and Victoria were so young,” the witch continued, “they took the whole thing with humor.

  “‘Maybe if you finished your chores in time, and if you found a nice dress…’ they teased their sister.

  “‘—and shoes to go with that cage.’

  “‘—and if Mami ever forgives you…’

  “‘—which she may, or may never do…’

  “‘—you could come to the infernal dance with us this Friday.’

  “For all the disdain and cruelty in their tone, however, they never forgot to fill with fresh water the bowl that their sister shared with the dog, and every so often, they came back from the ball with souvenirs or leftovers.

  “‘This is a piece of rag shat by the Devil.’

  “‘And this,’ Rosa opened her reticule, ‘is a poisoned acorn, to kill one of your enemies.’”

  “What did you tell your husband?” the priest asked, after a short silence.

  “That old sot? He was never sober enough to care. ‘Why is she inside a crate?’ he asked, once, intrigued at her efforts to carry a bucket, crawling on one hand and two feet. He did not wait for a response, however. He wasn’t so curious as to pay attention to what I had to say about the matter, and he cared little about his children. I should have known better. He was busy, having breakfast with the men in my family every morning, going to Santa Monica to consult with our parish priest for advice, taking the train every couple weeks to the city, revising paperwork and meeting with lawyers to talk about property limits. What business did he have in hand? I wondered, but I didn’t dare to ask, for fear of receiving a black eye.

  “A few months later, he announced what he and my siblings had been brewing. They had decided to sell the rest of our land, the land we had inherited from my parents, and that they had inherited from my grandparents, to the man that built the casino in Ocean Park—Mr. Abbot Kinney… I couldn’t say no. My parents had already lost most of it to the bankers. All of my relatives wanted to sell. ‘This is the twentieth century,’ they said. ‘You cannot stop progress.’ Had I only known. Altogether we received nine thousand, three hundred and sixty-five dollars from the transaction—I remember the exact amount—of which one seventh belonged to us. That was just about as much money as my husband could have made in five years, Father, had he had a steady job in the city.

  “We lost the house, and we were forced to sell all the animals, but, as part of the transaction, we received a small lot and blueprints to build this one, the like of which ‘white folk live in,’ the drunk bastard explained me—a home with a beautiful garden, an extra room for the girls, a slate roof, and wood paneling. For the first time in my life I felt proud of him. So proud, that I forgot to spit in his coffee.”

  The witch made a pause to swallow.

  “Well, that’s a good ending,” the priest ventured.

  The woman glared at him. She hadn’t finished.

  “The next day, we went to Santa Monica and took the train to Los Angeles to have lunch with Victoria’s godparents and go out shopping.”

  “With the werewolf?” the priest asked.

  “Yes. He and his wife, Magnolia, live in a small apartment on the top floor of a Victo
rian house in Bunker Hill. The last time we had met was at their wedding, a few years before. I’ve always considered Harris my relative. He’s always been kind to me, but that shrew, Magnolia—she felt terribly uncomfortable receiving me and my daughters at her place. She did not know what to think of the little ape inside the crate. She kept recommending that I let her out. That stupid, barren woman. It was one thing to marry a poor man and have his impoverished friends attend their wedding, but to have them visit her dainty home? She had the nerve to ask me if I wanted her to inspect the girl’s heads for lice.

  “‘My daughters have no lice,’ I told her. They did, Father, but I refused to let her touch them. What for? So she and her rich friends could laugh about me?

  “After lunch, the two men went out for a drink. We hired a cart and Magnolia took us to the shops on Broadway. I must admit I was impressed, Father. Broadway is such an elegant thoroughfare, don’t you think? Have you been to Los Angeles? Of course you have. I hadn’t been there since I was a child. It’s changed so much! All those tall buildings—banks and theaters and those beautiful boutiques, none of the tacky, ramshackle businesses you see on Third Street in Santa Monica. And we had money. For the first time in my life we had money. Lots of money.

  “We bought a new suit and a tie for my husband. That bastard. We bought new shoes and a couple of new dresses for Rosa and Victoria, and a new frock for myself, of red silk, a hat with an ostrich feather, a bottle of perfume, and fifteen yards of Parisian fabric to make curtains. Did you see my curtains on your way in, Father? They were expensive. The man I bought the fabric from said it came from Paris. We also bought furniture: a second bed, a chest of drawers, and a couch. Even this little chimp got something: She waited patiently inside her crate in the back of the cart, fascinated by the height of the buildings and the gleaming store-front windows, grinning at the people stopping by, who took her for an exotic monkey, while we were inside the boutiques trying on garments. I let her smell my perfume—didn’t I? And Magnolia gave her a toffee.

  “The bills that day were for almost a hundred and fifty-six dollars. A hundred and fifty-six dollars. I bet that shrew Magnolia felt embarrassed for having thought of her husband’s friends as poor people. Her family is well-off, but I bet she had never spent that much on herself in one day.

  “We left the old house and for the next couple months, we slept under a canvas tarp, until the new house was finished. The rain ruined most of the furniture. I didn’t care; we were too excited about having a new house. This place isn’t a mansion, as you can see, but it is quite comfortable, much better than the old house. The view from the porch is lovely. Rosa and Victoria like to sit there, to wave at the gondolas full of tourists. I thought that, at last, I had found happiness. No hay mal que por bien no venga, I kept repeating to myself. Yes, I had lost all my titles, but I was happy those first weeks in the new house. My home had doubled in size, my husband hadn’t beat me once, not since we had gotten the money, and my daughters were growing healthy—at least the two elder were. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel angry, or jealous, nor did I wish that I had died at birth as I had for as long as I could remember.

  “Yet, I almost died when, a couple of months later, I learned that what used to be our land was going to be re-parceled and sold as individual residential lots for six hundred dollars. Six hundred dollars! If only that stupid ass had sold at a decent price. A few days later, we woke up to the voices of a hundred men digging a trench almost a mile long in our front yard, and we saw the full scope of what Mr. Kinney had in mind: not just a casino, but a completely new resort town, bigger than the one in Ocean Park. One full of arcaded palaces and a grid of water canals in the style of the city of Venice, in Italy.

  “You know the rest. In less than one year, an entire city grew around us. They built the pier, the canals, and all of these houses. They transformed the old path to the beach into a business street lined with boutiques and restaurants. Mr. Kinney’s estate lies where we used to keep our pigs. They expanded the small pool of water in front of our old house into the lagoon.”

  “But you still had the money,” the priest interrupted.

  The witch shook her head. “It took my husband even less time to drink it. It came to the women in this family to find ways to provide for the family. Victoria found a job at a grab joint on the boardwalk, selling herring. Rosa found a job selling tickets at a freak show theatre, where the youngest, thanks to her learned ability to fit into small spaces, became the main attraction. ‘Come one, come all,’ Rosa hollered from the entrance. ‘Come see the spider woman! Cursed by her parents for being rebellious, she lives in a cage and feeds off flies and mosquitoes.’

  “As for me, I got myself a cart of tamales. If there is room in your heart, Father, to feel pity for a woman that sold her soul to the Devil and lost, feel sorry for me, waking up before dawn to prepare the dough, wheeling my cart through the boardwalk, singing the virtues of my cooking. I always longed to live in a nice place, and, indeed, this new town is a delight to the senses: the tall buildings, the towers with onion-shaped domes and turrets painted in bright colors; the flowers and palm trees—I had never seen palm trees before! Lights, music bands, and gondolas. But you’ll understand that it was painful for me to see others getting rich for what had belonged to my family for generations, and remain dirt poor as always.

  “My heart filled up with hatred. I cast spells trying to destroy the pier and the new city, not once but several times—with a blaze, with a squall, even poisoning the hearts of the Board of Trustees when the new city tried to unincorporate from the municipality, but I failed each and every time. I had lost the Little Master’s favor. The blaze was put out before it could cause great damage. The pier resisted the waves, and eventually the people chose to disincorporate and change the name of their city officially to Venice. Everything I tried against that man was useless.”

  “What man?” the priest asked.

  “Mr. Abbot Kinney,” the witch responded. “He is revered like a God by the residents of this city. He transformed this worthless marshy land into a paradise. But this was our land. The land of my parents. I wanted his ruin, to see him down on his knees begging for forgiveness… All the attempts to cause woe and despair had taken an adverse effect on my health. And every time I had to give a payment in flesh to my familiar. He’s got most of my teeth. He wants more blood now than before. He wants to suck me dry, Father. It is as if he doesn’t want me to last a day longer.

  “Last week was my latest attempt to destroy Mr. Kinney. For years I thought that the most precious thing to him was this city. Then I realized that the most precious thing to a man is his family—if I wanted to hurt him, I had to hurt his children. I thought of a powerful curse. One that would last for generations. One that would make cripples or imbeciles of all his descendants.

  “My familiar asked for a full pint of blood in exchange for the recipe. I complied happily. It had to be done on the eve of the anniversary of his firstborn, he said. And I had to perform the incantation over the grave of one of my own descendants. The remains of my firstborn lay in the bottom of Mr. Kinney’s swim lagoon, across from his estate, across from where our old house used to be.

  “I couldn’t row myself to the center of the lagoon, so I asked my youngest daughter to take me. I would have asked Rosa or Victoria, but the two had been invited to the opening of the Dance Pavilion at Mr. Fraser’s million-dollar pier in Ocean Park, and I had no heart to say no. Mr. Fraser is Kinney’s competitor, I thought. And they were so excited! What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “That was the night of the fire,” the priest said.

  The witch nodded. “We waited until it got dark before we got into the boat. My daughter rowed in silence. She never has much to say and since the night she was expelled from the Little Master’s ball I don’t have much to say to her, either. We reached the center of the lagoon and I started the incantation�
�� I’ll spare you with details, Father, I know you find this kind of things offensive. I said the words I had to say and started mixing the ingredients in a small cauldron that I had brought with me. My daughter waited with her eyes closed and her hands against her ears; she is forbidden to learn any magic. The last ingredient was dust from a bezoar stone. I put the stone into a mortar and tried to crush it with the pestle. The stone was too hard, however, and in my second attempt if flew off the mortar and into the water.

  “‘The bezoar!’ I yelled.

  “My daughter opened her eyes and saw me reaching over the boat trying to catch the stone.

  “‘Go get it,’ I said.

  “She hesitated, but I must have had a horrible expression in my face because before I could ask her a second time, she jumped into the water. The lagoon isn’t very deep. If you’re a good swimmer you can easily reach the bottom. But it was dark and the water was murky. She couldn’t find anything. Every time she came out she had a different object in her hand. None was the bezoar. By then I was desperate. I was cursing and crying. And with this damn cough that doesn’t go away my throat was on fire. I had given my familiar my blood, and I felt so weak. Then I remembered that Victoria had another bezoar.

  “‘She keeps it in her jewelry box,’ I told my daughter. ‘It is bigger than the one I had, and it is white; it looks like a seashell.’