“Yeah.”
“I didn’t just come to ask about that, you know? I really did want to head to Bailey’s.”
Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. He was an opportunist, and she didn’t think he’d be above throwing her a few lines with the hopes of having the report modified. But she had no intention of doing that. She knew enough about him now; she knew better.
She shook her head. “I have to work on my thesis.”
“It’s okay to relax occasionally. Otherwise you’ll burn out.”
Witches burn,she thought. At least in the stories, in cheap horror films. Not in real life. In real life they had been hanged at the rocky outcrop called Proctor’s Ledge in nearby Salem.
“I’ll take that into consideration,” Minerva said.
He gave her one of his trademark shrugs accompanied by a smile and hurried away. Minerva closed the door and returned to the library. She looked at Thomas’s boxes with weary eyes. Onceagain, she felt that oppressive anxiousness that seemed to keep her company more and more these days. Slowly she bent down to look at the paper with the drawings, which she’d left on a couch.
Isaiah Marsh, lost at sea,she thought. Lost like Thomas, who did not return to his room one evening? Or lost like Virginia Somerset, who walked out of her dorm one cold December night? How many people were lost that way, people who slipped into darkness, never to be seen again?
A noise made her raise her head. Had someone knocked? Had Conrad returned? Or was it Hideo carrying the bag with Chinese takeout? She walked into the kitchen and stared at the door.
“Hideo,” she said.
But there was no reply. There was someone outside again, though. She knew it. Her fingers rested upon the doorjamb and she yanked the door open with her other hand. Darkness greeted her, a faint breeze caressed her hair, and she heard the rustling of the trees nearby.
Behind the membrane of normality of this summer evening lurked a foulness that she could not pinpoint, yet she sensed.
“Witches,” she said.
The moon, drifting across the sky, seemed to grin at Minerva, like a ferocious beast that shows its teeth.
I’m going mad,she thought, and she wondered if she shouldn’t have accepted Conrad’s invitation. Or perhaps she should have jumped into the car with Hideo. Then she wouldn’t be alone with her nerves and the shadows of the house for company.
Karnstein meowed and ventured toward her. Minerva bent down to pick up the animal and clutched it against her chest. The cat purred while she squinted and looked at the tops of the trees before spinning around and slamming the door shut.
1908: 6
Alba had not visitedLos Pinos before. Why would she? It was but a dusty hamlet up a narrow road that wrapped around the mountain. A waterfall dashed down a ravine, sprinkling moss-covered rocks, and the pines grew straight and tall, shading their path. It was a beautiful landscape, lush and rich with vegetation, but there was little to attract her to that rugged place. It had its dangers too, for sometimes the fog descended from the mountains and carpeted the road, making it impossible to divine what lay ahead.
They said that the witches at Los Pinos turned into balls of fire when the fog came, luring unwary travelers to their doom. She remembered spooking her siblings with such tales, but now these harmless stories made her tug at the heavy coat upon her shoulders, wishing to suppress a shiver that was not entirely the fault of the chill that reigned upon the road that morning.
She’d found out what Fernanda and Dolores had done that had irritated her uncle: they’d started sporting a pair of charms against the evil eye and wore them on their wrists. He considered this both pagan and silly and railed at them.
“I didn’t mean to offend your uncle,” Fernanda told Alba, wringing her hands and sniffling. “But it’s been strange aroundhere, Niña Alba. And it was my sister who came by to give me the amulets, I didn’t ask for them.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure he’s forgotten,” Alba said.
Which might have been true, but it meant that if her uncle or her mother found out about this expedition with Valentín, they’d be furious. Should she have set off on this journey? Charlatans abounded in the world; she knew as much. Valentín was her friend, but he might be leading her into the hands of a huckster who would merely take her coin and laugh at her naïveté.
By the time they reached the town, the sun had broken through the clouds. There was no central plaza in Los Pinos; its houses were grouped along chaotic dirt paths, and they all looked the same to her eyes, painted a white that had been dirtied by the elements and time. But Valentín seemed to know where he was going, navigating the labyrinthine roads with ease until they reached a house with a scratched yellow door.
Valentín helped her off her mount and then tied the horses to a post while Alba glanced around. She could hear chickens clucking nearby, but otherwise the town was oddly quiet. A few houses away, an old woman sat by the door on a stool, mending a shirt. A child darted into a house. These were the only people they’d seen so far. In the distance, a dog barked.
“Most of the men and women work on the farms nearby during the day,” Valentín explained. “There is little to do here otherwise.”
“Except read palms and sell charms,” Alba said.
Valentín nodded. He knocked on the yellow door. An old woman opened it and stood squinting at them. Her gray hair was tied in a messy braid and around her shoulders she wore the black rebozo with the red stripe that identified the witches of Los Pinos. There were always witches in every town, people who knew how to make poultices and love potions alike. Here they clustered together at the edge of a mountain. Had they been chased there? Had they joined forces in an ancient pact? No one knew, but as far back as the people of the neighboring towns could tell, there had been Los Pinos and its witches.
“Mrs. Jovita, I’ve brought you a gift,” Valentín said. He reachedinto the leather pack hanging from one shoulder and handed her a blue bottle. “May we come in?”
