The Black Witch of Mexico

by Colin Falconer

“What? Why?”

  “I have another boyfriend now. I’ll have to optimize my time.”

  “Another boyfriend?”

  He heard her laugh. “Now I’m fucking with you,” she said.

  “Witch.”

  “Just hurry up and get here. I won’t believe it till I see you get off that plane.”

  Chapter 83

  It was cool out on the deck. He stared at the Longfellow and Harvard Bridges; the dazzling evening sunshine seemed to put all of Boston and Cambridge within touching distance.

  He took out her photograph, taken an age ago, Elena standing by the lake, the white swans in the background. He touched the celluloid with the back of one finger, lightly stroking her face. If you really loved someone, he supposed, you could never stop loving them, not unless you turned all that feeling into something else, into hate, or spite. He hoped she would be happy. He hoped Oliver would not hurt her.

  He did not know what to make of this. He had gone through it in his head so many times and none of it made sense. Either it was all real - and it couldn’t be real, it was impossible - but if it was, then he was responsible for her losing her sister, losing the baby, even losing her ability to ever have a family. He had ruined her life. It would make him a monster.

  Yet he had also saved Oliver’s life.

  If it was real.

  If it was not real, and this is what he had to believe, then he was a laughing stock. He had been duped into giving fifty thousand dollars to some Mexican conman. Oliver would have gotten well anyway. He was either a statistical freak or you really could cure cancer with diet and meditation, as some people claimed.

  If you were extremely fortunate.

  But no matter how hard he worried the problem he still couldn’t make sense of it and so the only thing to do was not to think about it anymore. There were so many things he knew he must never think about if he was going to be able to ever sleep again.

  He held her photograph to his nose; he could still smell the Crow, a dank residue of incense and dark herbs. He took out a lighter, shielded the flame from the wind and lit the corner. It flared and melted away, burning his fingers. He dropped the smouldering fragments onto the deck and watched her melt away. There, it was done.

  He had set them both free.

  Chapter 84

  He went to a toy store out on Jamaica Plain and bought two toy trucks for the boys’ sand lot in the back yard. They were almost the size of real ones. Then he drove out to Newton.

  He could hear the commotion from the driveway. It sounded like a civil war going on in there. When he rang the bell Lynne threw the door open without even a ‘hello’ and then went back inside.

  The youngest was red-faced and shaking with rage. His older brother stood behind his mother, mouthing taunts at him. He remembered Lynne used to do that to him when they were this age. He guessed it was a kind of karma that she was faced with this now, but he didn’t want to say so.

  Gaucho was still barking.

  He crouched down and held out the present for Jake. It distracted him enough to leave off crying, and when Mattie was bought off with his own eight-wheeled prize they were soon too busy ripping apart the plastic packaging to remember the fight.

  “My hero,” Lynne said.

  “Looks like the cavalry got here just in time.”

  The boys ran into the yard and headed for the sand box with their new toys. Adam reached out to stroke Gaucho but he snapped at his hand so Lynne grabbed his collar and dragged him outside. She came back in and put the kettle on. “Since when do you buy presents for the kids?”

  “I’ve bought them presents before.”

  “Birthdays and Christmas.”

  It’s never too late for a person to change.”

  The phone rang in the hall. He heard Lynne talking to one of her other mom friends and he thought it might be a long conversation so he wandered out into the yard. “Hey kids, who wants a swing?”

  The swing set had two swings, so he gave them both a turn, one after the other. Mattie wanted to go higher than his little brother. Jake shouted that he wanted to go as high as his brother but shrieked in terror when he pushed him harder.

  Kids.

  He looked up and saw a crow sitting on the fence, watching him.

  “Harder, Uncle Adam, harder!’

  He gave Mattie an extra hard push and he screamed and laughed. The crow cocked its head, revealing one yellow eye.

  “Higher!’

  He pushed again. The crow spread its black wings and rose from the fence.

  It flew straight at him and knocked him flat on his back. He went down hard, hitting his head, and that was the last thing he remembered.

  * * *

  “I’ll be okay,” Adam said and tried to stand up. “I just fell over.”

  Lynne knelt over him, her hand on his chest, eased him back down. “You’ve been out cold for ten minutes. The ambulance is coming.”

  Ambulance? Adam could hear sirens in the distance. “I don’t need an ambulance.”

  “Lie still, Adam, there’s blood everywhere.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “Believe me, it’s not. You hit your head on the edge of the barbecue. Now lie still.”

  The world was spinning, like he’d drunk too much bourbon. He could see the kids staring at him over Lynne’s shoulder. The little one was chewing on his shirt.

  “What happened?”

  “Mattie said he swung back too hard and hit you. He thinks it’s his fault.”

  “It was the crow.”

  “Just lie still, Adam.”

  He didn’t remember anything after that. He must have blacked out.

  Chapter 85

  He had never been on a gurney before. He wished he was in St Mary’s and he could have sorted this himself. How long were they going to leave him lying here?

  A nurse pulled aside the curtain and checked his vital signs. He kept telling her he was a physician but she ignored him. He seemed to be slurring his words. Perhaps she thought he was drunk. A doctor checked his pupils for reactivity, then his reflexes, and his CNS score. No one he knew.

  “How are you feeling, Adam?”

  “I’ve got a headache.”

  The paramedics had bandaged his head and put him in a cervical collar. It was uncomfortable. The edge of the bandage was irritating his left eye.

  He still couldn’t remember how he got here, and every time he tried to leave a nurse made him lie down again.

  “Hell of a cut you have on the back of your head. You have yourself a concussion as well. We’re going to keep you in overnight.”

  “What happened?”

  “You fell and hit your head.”

  “Where?”

  He looked at the notes. “Says here you were at your sister’s place in Newton. You don’t remember?”

  “I remember a big black bird.”

  “We’re going to put some sutures in that cut but first I want I get a CT scan. You ever had a CT scan?”

  “What happened?” Adam asked. He couldn’t remember. He wished someone would tell him.

  After the doctor left Lynne walked in. “What happened?”

  “You fell, Adam, you hit your head in the back yard.”

  “Where the hell am I?”

  “You’re in the hospital. Sorry I was so long, but I had to call Denny, tell him to come home and look after the kids. Poor little Mattie, he thinks it’s all his fault.”

  Adam tried to remember who Mattie was. It was like he was looking at the world through a fog.

  “There was a crow,” he said, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

  “How are you feeling?” She took his hand. It was reassuring, that sense of touch. He had missed being touched.

  “What happened?” he asked again.

  * * *

  They strapped his head into position and told him to lie perfectly still. He tried to tell them he was a physician and that he knew how a CT scan worked but they couldn’t seem
to understand him. They put him into the machine. The gantry rotated around him, making buzzing and whirring noises. He felt the table click and adjust. The technician spoke to him through an intercom every minute or so, telling him when to hold his breath.

  He wished Lynne were here, or Jamie, or Bernard, someone to hold his hand. He felt so disconnected from the world. He had never been one for touch before; sex of course, but that was different. But now he wished the nurse would come and hold his hand until this was over. He supposed everyone felt like this in a hospital, lying on their backs, out of control.

  He slid out of the tunnel and a nurse injected him with iodine. He asked her what had happened and she said he’d had a fall. Then they slid him back into the machine.

  The iodine would help them map his brain. The machine was taking little pictures, slicing, dissecting, looking for leaks, for damage. He wondered what a real map would find. Would they find the little chest, locked and neatly stacked, where he had put his memories of Elena? And if they parted enough folds, went very, very deep, broke all the seals and chains, would they discover what had happened to the Crow?

  He started to laugh and the technician told him not to move.

  A map of his mind. It would look perfectly fine from the outside.

  He closed his eyes and remembered.

  He remembered the Crow struggling after he had put the needle in his arm; he was a strong man and the drug had taken longer to work than he thought it would. They had lurched drunkenly around the room, he kept one hand clamped over the Crow’s mouth, the other around his arms, pinning them to his sides. Finally the Crow managed to break free but it was too late. He charged for the door, but his legs wouldn’t hold him and he collapsed. He tried to shout for help but he couldn’t. He had no air in his lungs.

  The struggle could not have lasted more than a minute. It had seemed so much longer.

  He waited a moment to get his breath. The Crow reached out a hand towards him, and his eyes grew wider as he started to die. Adam stepped over him and went into the waiting room to fetch the woman. He wanted him to still be alive when the others came in.

  Chapter 86

  He lay on a gurney, back in the trauma room. Lynne was there with him. She seemed surprised when he asked her to hold his hand. He could remember a few things now, though he still couldn’t remember the swing hitting him, or falling.

  He felt calmer, less agitated.

  It was the brain shaking that caused the agitation, he remembered, and the memory loss.

  A doctor came in holding a file. He remembered him now; he was the doctor who had examined him before. Young for a resident, still new at this. He had this look on his face, Adam knew the look, it was the kind of face he sometimes put on when he had to tell someone bad news.

  “How are you feeling?”

  He wished people would stop asking him that. He had just mashed his head on the edge of a brick barbecue. How did they think he felt?

  “We had to put a dozen sutures in the back of your head, Doctor Prescott. You also have concussion. That’s why we took the CT scan to make sure there was no other damage, internal bleeding, that sort of thing.”

  He waited for him to ask the obvious question. He didn’t.

  “Anyway, we have the results of the scan right here,” he said, tapping the file. He didn’t open it.

  “Is everything okay?” Lynnesaid.

  He pulled the curtain closed behind him and sat down on a stool. He looked as if he didn’t quite know how to begin.

  “Is there a subcutaneous bleed?” Adam said. Funny how he could remember clinical diagnosis but he still could not remember how he had come to hit his head.

  The doctor asked Lynne to sit down. That was a bad sign, Adam thought, a very bad sign indeed.

  “Was there?”

  “No,” he said. “That part of it was fine.” Then he took out the scans. “Have you had any problems before today? Any headaches, loss of balance. Any change in behaviour?”

  Before he could answer, Lynne said: “He’s been acting weird for months.”

  “Why these questions?” Adam said, although he already knew the answer.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news.” He felt Lynne’s hand, which had been resting lightly on his, squeeze hard. “The CT scan was not normal. There’s a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?” Lynne asked.

  “We found something else. Something unexpected.”

  Adam closed his eyes.

  He thought he could hear wings beating. He imagined himself drifting on a lake, towards mist covered mountains out on Lake Catemaco. The Crow sat at the stern, an arm casually resting on the tiller.

  Adam asked him where they were going.

  He said they were going to meet the Lord of the Fog. He said they would go there together.

  Adam felt quite calm. He closed his eyes and let the current take him.

  “We will be there very soon,” the Crow said.

  Or perhaps that was just his imagination; perhaps he had imagined it all. But he did not have to worry about that anymore because soon he would find out all the answers for himself.

  THE END

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  To find out more about Colin Falconer, please visit his website at: http://colinfalconer.org. You can also follow Colin on Twitter and Facebook as well as signing up on his Author Central Page on Amazon where you will be notified about his latest releases.

  Latest Release by Colin Falconer

  Isabella

  She was taught to obey. Now she has learned to rebel.

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  Read a short excerpt below

  “You will love this man. Do you understand? You will love him, serve him and obey him in all things. This is your duty to me and to France. Am I clear?”

  Isabella is twelve years old, pretty, bony and awkward. She keeps her eyes on the floor and nods her head.

  Her father, the King of France, is the most handsome man she has ever seen. In the purple, he is magnificent. His eyes are glacial; a nod from him is benediction, one frown can chill her bone-deep.

  He puts his hands on the arms of her chair and leans in. A comma of hair falls over one eye. He rewards her now with a rare smile. “He is a great king, Isabella, and a handsome husband. You are fortunate.”

  A log cracks in the hearth.

  She raises her eyes. He strokes her cheek with the back of his hand. “You will not disgrace me.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Much is dependent on this union.”

  Her, breathless: “I will not disappoint you.”

  Phillip goes to the fire and stands with his back to it, warming himself. It is the heart of winter and this is as cold and draughty a castle as she has ever been in. She can smell the sea. There is ice in the air.

  “If he has cause to reprove you, you will listen and obey him. If he is angry, you shall be kind. If he is dismissive, you shall be attentive. Cherish him, give him your attentions. Be sweet, gentle and amiable. Patience is your byword. You will make him love you.”

  He stares at her. He can stand like this for an eternity; fix a look on his face as if he is carved from marble. It is unnerving.

  “No matter the provocation.”

  “Provocation?”

  “What do you know of Edward?”

  “He is King of England. His father was a great warrior. They say Edward is tall and as fine a prince as England ever had.” (Though it is hard for her to imagine a finer king than her father, or a more handsome man.) She has always promised herself she will have a man just like him: as fair, as strong, as feared.

  “Your new husband disputes Gascony with me. One road leads to war. A less thorny path leads to the day when my grandson-to-be inherits the throne
of my most ancient enemy.”

  “What provocation?” Isabella said.

  Phillip frowns.

  “You mentioned provocation, Father.”

  “Did I? I meant nothing by it. Tomorrow you will be Queen of England. Remember always that you are also a daughter of France. Make me proud, Isabella.”

  He nods to her nurse and she is taken from the room.

  She can barely contain her excitement. She has rehearsed this moment in her mind for years. A handsome prince, a throne, estates: it is what she was born for. From tomorrow she will live her life at the side of a great king.

  Happiness is assured.

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  Vientiane, April, 1959

  Noelle thought she would have noticed him even if he hadn't driven his Packard through the front bar of the Hotel Constellation.

  He was outrageously handsome, even when he was drunk. He had blue-black hair, with a pronounced widow's peak, swept straight back from the forehead, and the damndest blue eyes. His skin was olive dark and there was a reed-thin black moustache on his top lip. He wore a white linen suit, an affectation usually reserved for visiting potentates and ambassadors. It looked as natural on the Corsican as his own skin. Underneath the suit he was wearing a black silk shirt.

  The bar was open to the street, so there were no walls to absorb the impact; but the unexpected arrival of a large burgundy red American automobile with massive rear fins quickly scattered the occupants, who were mostly bored foreign correspondents and diplomats. The chrome bumper bar splintered several rattan tables and chairs, and demolished half of the bamboo bar. Dusty bottles of Vermouth, Byrrh and black rum toppled off the shelves and shattered on the floor.