“You have portents,” Jovita said calmly, interrupting them.
Alba looked at the woman and clapped her mouth shut. She hadn’t told Valentín about her portents. She’d spoken about them only to her uncle Arturo. She feared her mother would dislike such silly blathering. Perhaps her father might have lent her a friendly ear, since they were both more attuned to the folklore and stories of their community, but she’d felt that these were private matters. Secrets that must be shared sparingly.
She had spoken to Arturo about portents because he was a special soul, the one person who understood her nature. He was a poet, a dreamer. Even Tadeo, who’d been her confidant and playmate, could not comprehend Alba as deeply, for they were made of different substances. Tadeo was almost her twin, but not her double.
“You dream and you glimpse things that will be, and sometimes you see things that have happened,” Jovita said. “It’s a gift.”
“A gift?” Alba toyed with one of her riding gloves, tugging at it gently as she spoke. She was unable to remain still.
“Some people have a good ear for instruments, others can run fast. We are born with certain quirks in our souls and in our bodies.”
“It sounds like you’re saying I was born to be a witch, or a fortune teller at the very least,” Alba said, and scoffed at the thought.
The woman shrugged. “Is someone born to be a musician? Those who have gifts may have an easier time walking certain paths, but it doesn’t mean they will.”
Alba took a deep breath. “Very well. I have dreams andsometimes I see things that will happen. What of it?” Alba fell silent. She twisted the ring around her finger.
“What a teyolloquani wants is to feed on the blood of its victims. It’ll get hold of a bit of hair, or a few nail clippings, and use them to bewitch the person. It’ll make it hail in the summer, or cause restless dreams. It’ll send its minions, like the owl and the serpent, to roam near houses at night. Its victim grows fearful. That is what makes the blood sweeter, the pain and the fear. The teyolloquani ate your brother, that’s what it did. He’s bones in a field somewhere. It’ll devour you too if you’re not careful. Show me your wrists.”
Alba hesitated but offered her hands. Jovita looked at them and nodded. “You have no bite marks. On your neck, there is nothing either, is there?”
“No,” Alba said, and reflexively touched her neck.
“Good. It means it hasn’t fed from you. Once a witch drinks the blood of its victim, their room can’t be warded, and the more it drinks, the stronger the witch becomes and the deeper the victim falls under its spell. But we can chase it off, with the proper charms.”
“I’m not sure—”
“If you’re not sure, then off you go,” the woman said, although she did not sound exasperated.
Once again, Alba twisted the ring around her finger, feeling the coolness of its stone beneath her fingertips. She slid it off and handed it to Jovita, who pocketed it and nodded.
The woman stood up and walked around the room, pulling a bundle of cloth from one of the shelves. She placed it on the table and unwrapped it. Inside was a dead dove that had been stuffed and stabbed with seven long pins.
Alba gasped at the ghastly creation. “What is that?”
“This you will place in your room. It’ll repel any evil thing that tries to crawl through your window.”
“She placed scissors under the bed and they rusted in one night,” Valentín said.
“This is stronger, better,” she said as she carefully slid out a pinfrom the dove’s body. “Stab your finger with it and slide it back in.”
“Why would I ever do that?” Alba replied, disgusted.
“Blood has power. It’s why they drink it. The blood of someone who is gifted like you is even more powerful, better than that of others. There’s magic in it. Prick your finger.”
Alba brushed the wings of the bird, feeling the smoothness of the feathers. The pins were like thorns sticking out of the bird’s back, and these she did not dare touch.
Her father would have believed in a bewitchment and would surely have consulted someone in Los Pinos. But Alba’s mother and Uncle Arturo were not governed by such superstitions, and she was still dithering, trying to determine which was the correct course of action.
“It’s no good thing to be caught in the snare of a teyolloquani. If it drinks from you, you’ll be doomed. Death will surely follow. There is no remedy, after that.”
The woman was silent. Alba thought of poor Tadeo, who had been missing for weeks, and of that dream she’d had in which he screamed in the fields of barley. Perhaps it had been just that: a bad dream. The noises outside her window were the product of a wild animal, the same one that had killed their horses and their goats. But what if it was something else? What if that odd feeling running down her spine, that fear and restlessness that filled her to the brim, was the product of darker forces?
She looked at Valentín, then again at the old woman. She hesitated.
“Will this be sufficient? If I take this charm with me, will it leave us be? All of us?” Alba asked. “It’s not enough to keep it out of my room. What of my mother? My siblings? If it already took my brother, why wouldn’t it take another? If I could know who this witch is and destroy—”
“It’s no simple matter to do such a thing. Besides, most of them are opportunistic, fearful of being discovered. Should it sense opposition, a protective charm, it might let you be and seek easier prey.”
