“You still feel unwell?” she asked. “We’ll have to call for the doctor if you continue like this.”
Alba did not reply, pulling the covers tight around her and looking away.
“What is it?”
“Mother, he—” she began to say, but as soon as she opened her mouth she coughed. She tried to speak, tried to tell her about Arturo, but the coughing increased in intensity.
Her mother touched Alba’s forehead. “My God, child, you have a fever. I’ll boil you a cup of linden tea.”
Alba shook her head but could not utter a word. She pressed a hand against her mouth to muffle her cough and fell back upon the pillows, exhausted. Her hair was plastered against her forehead with sweat.
Outside her room she heard her mother talking to her uncle.
“How is she?” he asked.
“She’s caught a chill and has a fever. Our bad luck does not cease.”
“This farm is too humid and musty. It would affect anyone’s lungs. Once we’ve sold this place and moved away everything will be better.”
“I don’t know if I can sell the farm.”
“It is cruel to keep her here. Not only is the environment foul, but she’ll have few prospects with the way things are going. All those superstitious neighbors talk about curses. The surname Quiroga is becoming infamous.”
“I know that! Arturo, even if I was ready to sell this place, I wouldn’t know how to arrange it, how to go about it. The strain of these past few weeks is unbearable.”
“Don’t you worry. I’ll help manage the transaction. I’ll always help you.”
The voices went quiet, but when she opened her eyes, Alba saw that Arturo was standing by the doorway and looking at her with an amused smile.
“It’s very easy to cast a spell to prevent people from gossiping about you. You take the tongue of a small animal and drive a nail through it into the ground,” he said. “Sprinkle a smidgen of graveyard earth upon it and you’re done.”
Alba stared at him with wide eyes, and when she tried to scream, she was reduced to another coughing fit. He drifted away and her mother hurried into the room with a cup of tea upon a tray.
“Have this,” she said, pressing the cup against her lips. Alba sipped the warm liquid.
She spent most of the day in bed, one moment shivering and the next burning like a hot ember. The room around her seemed deformed, the edges of it frayed. Her mother pressed cold compresses against her forehead and before nightfall her fever had gone down and she coughed no more. Her mother kissed her on the cheek and slipped away.
The next day, Alba went to the river, contemplated its waters for a long time, traced the contours of the riverbank where she’dplayed with Tadeo, found that old tree where she’d killed the thing that he’d become. It was late by the time she returned home. She was still unwell and had her supper in her room. Alone, she stood in front of her brother’s watercolor portrait and tried to pray.
Once the house was still and quiet, Alba opened a window. The cool night air prickled her skin and she rubbed her arms as she stared at the moon. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Unable to remain standing, she knelt on the floor, muffling a sob.
Something brushed against her hand, and she opened her eyes.
A brown moth lay upon her fingertips. She looked at it in wonder as it drifted onto the palm of her hand. Alba closed her fingers, crushing the insect. This was a sign, she must proceed, and yet she sat still for a long time before dropping the dead moth into a bowl.
In the kitchen she found a bottle of wine and took it back to her room, along with a small container filled with salt. Once again, she stood in front of her brother’s portrait and thought about the story the witch had told her.
In the watercolor, Tadeo’s eyes were reduced to a smudge of brown, but they had been almost black, and the painted smile did not match the mischievous smirk that adorned his face when he was teasing Alba. This was Tadeo’s likeness, yet so much of Tadeo had not been captured by the strokes of the brush even if it was the most accurate portrait of her brother. This only intensified the feeling of loss inside her chest. Tadeo was gone, destined to fade from memory and thought.
She pressed a candle against a corner of the portrait, letting the ashes fall into the same dish where the mangled body of the moth lay. She poured a cup of wine and added to it the ashes, the crushed wings of the moth, the salt.
“Keep me safe, brother,” she said.
She drank the liquid, and when she stood up, she felt lightheaded. Her forehead was uncomfortably hot. The fever had been ignited again, or perhaps it was the wine warming her skin.
She took off Valentín’s medallion and instead fastened the golden chain with the pearl around her neck, feeling its cool smoothness against the hollow of her throat.
Alba held up the brass chamberstick and quietly walked out of the room and down the long, dark hallway. She wore her nightgown and did not bother putting on a robe over it. When she reached Arturo’s room, she opened the door and let herself inside.
