“It’s against the evil eye.”
“Yes, I know,” Noemí said, because she had seen such trinkets before.
“You wear it, yes? It might help you, can’t hurt. I’ll be sure to ask my saints to watch over you too.”
Noemí opened her purse and placed the bottle inside. Then, because she didn’t want to hurt the old woman’s feelings, she tied the bracelet around her wrist as she’d suggested. “Thank you.”
Walking back toward the town center, Noemí considered all the things she now knew about the Doyles and how none of it would assist Catalina. Ultimately even a haunting, if you accepted it as real and not the result of a feverish imagination, didn’t mean anything. The fear of the previous night had cooled away, and now all there was left was the taste of dissatisfaction.
Noemí pulled her cardigan’s sleeve up, scratching her wrist again. It itched something awful. She realized there was a thin, raw, red band of skin around her wrist. As though she’d burned herself. She frowned.
Dr. Camarillo’s clinic was nearby, so she decided to stop by and hope he didn’t have a patient. She was in luck. The doctor was eating a torta in the reception area. He didn’t have his white coat on; instead he wore a simple, single-breasted tweed jacket. When she stopped in front of him, Julio Camarillo quickly set the torta on a table next to him and wiped his mouth and hands on his handkerchief.
“Out for a walk?” he asked.
“Of a sort,” she said. “Am I interrupting your breakfast?”
“It’s not much of an interruption, seeing as it’s not very tasty. I made it myself and did a bad job. How’s your cousin? Are they finding a specialist for her?”
“I’m afraid her husband doesn’t think she needs any other doctor. Arthur Cummins is enough for them.”
“Do you think it might help if I talked to him?”
She shook her head. “It might make it worse, to be honest.”
“That’s a pity. And how are you?”
“I’m not sure. I have this rash,” Noemí said, holding up her wrist for him to see.
Dr. Camarillo inspected her wrist carefully. “Odd,” he said. “It almost looks like you came in contact with mala mujer, but that doesn’t grow here. It’s a sure recipe for dermatitis if you touch the leaves. Do you have allergies?”
“No. My mother says it’s almost indecent how healthy I am. She told me when she was a young girl everyone thought it was very fashionable to suffer a bout of appendicitis and girls went on a tapeworm diet.”
“She must have been joking about the tapeworm,” Dr. Camarillo said. “That’s a made-up story.”
“It always did sound quite horrifying. Then I’m allergic to something? A plant or shrub?”
“It could be a number of things. We’ll wash the hand and put on a soothing ointment. Come in,” he said, directing her into his office.
She washed her hands in the little sink in the corner, and Julio applied a zinc paste, bandaged her wrist, and told her she should not scratch the affected area because it would make it worse. He advised her to change the bandage the next day and apply more zinc paste.
“It’ll take a few days for the inflammation to go away,” he said, walking her back toward the entrance, “but you should be fine after a week. Come see me if it doesn’t improve.”
“Thanks,” she said and placed the tiny jar of zinc paste he’d gifted her inside her purse. “I have another question. Do you know what could cause a person to begin sleepwalking again?”
“Again?”
“I sleepwalked when I was very young, but I haven’t done it in ages. But I sleepwalked last night.”
“Yes, it’s more common for children to sleepwalk. Have you been taking any new medication?”
“No. I told you. I’m scandalously healthy.”
“Could be anxiety,” the doctor said, and then he smiled a little.
“I had the oddest dream when I was sleepwalking,” she said. “It didn’t feel like when I was a kid.”
It had also been an extremely morbid dream and then, afterward, the chat with Virgil had not helped soothe her. Noemí frowned.
