“My, aren’t you afraid of karma?”
“Karma?” Gillespie exclaimed, repulsed. “You gave your goddaughter the book, remember? It was your idea. Karma is the consolation of the coward. To expect that someone will be punished eventually by fate is ludicrous. I believe in human justice. I believe it is the human instinct to reward kindness and to punish evil. It is a trait that has helped man to survive as a species. Don’t get caught, I say. If you do, lie. And if you get caught in your lies, play dumb. It works! Now, will you send me a check, my friend?” Gillespie pushed the bundles of bills back to Richard. “I’m embarrassed to say it, but I need the money. It isn’t cheap to be a familiar. Had I only known what that kiss entailed.”
If you were to follow this muse, this angel, this beautiful fiend still rounding the streets of Venice, you would feel troubled for her in the very beginning. What is a beautiful woman like her doing walking alone in this neighborhood? Nights can be cold on the Westside. And this is Venice, where the sound of gunfire is common.
She wears no coat. Her red sleeveless dress is thin. She walks barefoot, you notice. A moment later you cannot tell; the hem of her dress drags along the pavement. She pulls the skirt up and you can see her feet again. Then you cannot. She’s getting younger and younger with every step, to the point that every few seconds, her height diminishes by an inch. She’s in a hurry. Now she’s a teenage girl. Now she’s child. She steps on the fabric of her own dress, she falls, she stands up, then falls again. What comes out of the dress is just a toddler. What crawls into the house on the Linnie Canal is a baby.
The little woman waits for him inside a triangle that she has drawn with the wax of a candle on the floor of her bedroom. Him, for the child now is a boy. The little woman has a black egg in her hand. The baby crawls inside the triangle. He takes the egg in his mouth, holds it for a moment and then gives it back. Next to the little woman’s bed, a black hen sleeps inside a crate filled with rags. The little woman kisses the egg and puts it under the hen. A little dark creature resembling a burnt match, less than a foot tall, pets the bird. Another one tries to poke the hen with a stick. The little woman pushes him away with a finger.
The room is full of these little creatures. Their faces are like wooden masks, frozen in an expression of awe, their arms and legs thin as pencils. They run around, wordless, chasing each other, pretending to fight with one another, clenched to the little woman’s skirt or pulling on the baby’s ears, before he disappears.
The little woman sits on her bed. Under the blanket, one of the little creatures breathes heavily. The little woman caresses his thin body with the tip of her finger. She brushes away a tear. The little beast is about to die.
She is too old to give birth from the seed of a man. She’s going to be seventy-two this year. But she isn’t too old to be a mother. In a few days, the egg that she put under the hen will hatch into another one of these creatures. He won’t live long. Six weeks at the most, but for as long as he lives, he will love her unconditionally, no matter what she looks like.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Lisa Marguerite Mora, Nicole Criona, and Paul Shirley, whose writing workshops helped develop my craft.
To my editors, Elaine Partnow and Rob Feldman, best coaches ever!
To my first readers, Christopher Touchton, Mark Harvey, and Richard Kempton. You guys rock!
To the people of Venice, for inspiring this tale.
To the folks at Rare Bird Books, for believing in me.
And especially to my beloved husband, Terry McFadden, who not only married me and served as the model for every hairy and sexy character in this book, but hasn’t divorced me yet, despite the many times I interrupted him with a grammar question.
About the Author
Carlos Allende was born in Mexico City in 1974, but he can pull off 1985 under the proper light. He has three elder sisters, none of whom practices magic. He lives in Santa Monica with his husband, dreaming of one day making enough money to move to Venice.
Love, or the Witches of Windward Circle Page 44