She wiped her hands with a napkin. “I prefer coffee.”
“I don’t think you need caffeine right now. What happened?”
Minerva tugged at the piece of string from her tea bag. “Something strange. Something bad. I woke up and I had this feeling that something would happen today. My Nana Alba used to call it a portent, and it’s when I get this feeling, this jolt, like something important will take place. But it was different today and then someone followed me even though I couldn’t see them. They were invisible.”
“Invisible?”
“Like they were invisible to Ginny,” she said, remembering that incident after the dance when Virginia had said someone had followed her.
“You’ve lost me.”
Minerva took out the tea bag from the mug and set it atop the napkin she’d used. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Minerva, don’t bullshit me.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what happened, Hideo. I thought someone was following me. But I don’t think it was Conrad.”
“Okay, maybe not. We should still tell campus security.”
“No. Look, I’m tired,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “I’m…I think it’s my anxiety spiking, you know? Everything is so fucking hard lately. I can’t write properly and my adviser is going to be pissed off if I don’t…it’s hard.”
She pressed her hands flat against the table. Hideo patted one of them.
“I know that thesis is kicking your ass, but you’re going to figure it out. Look, you’re too cooped up here. Why don’t we catch a movie with Patricia? Or there’s that party she’s planning.”
That wasn’t going to solve anything, but Minerva knew she’d never get rid of Hideo if she didn’t agree. She said yes, they could go to the movies, and Hideo headed back to his dorm.
She walked to her desk and warily contemplated the notes she’dbeen working on, her eyes fixing on the collection of Tremblay’s short stories that lay by the computer. She picked up the book and looked at the cover. This was a newer edition ofWicked Ways and Other Stories,printed in the mid-eighties, when horror was in its paperback heyday, and the artist had decided to paint a garish picture of a woman running toward the reader with her mouth wide open.
Minerva shoved the book away and went to bed.
1908: 8
Rain drenched the fieldsand in the evening the fog descended from the top of the mountains, nuzzling the trees, painting the land with wispy shades of gray. Outside, the world seemed wrapped in gauze, and she beheld the fog with wary eyes. She’d had a portent that morning, a feeling that something would go wrong. After all, her father had told her that days of rain and wind were propitious for casting spells.
All day Alba had gone about her chores with the utmost care. She watched over her siblings, looking at the letters they traced on a slate or listening as they read out loud from a book. All the while she wondered what doom might befall them.
The mysterious glow outside her window had not returned, but that did not mean Alba felt any safer. Perhaps the inside of their house was a haven, but who knew what lay in the trees, in the fields?
“What are you looking at?” her mother asked.
“Nothing,” Alba said, and sat down quickly. She adjusted the wooden ball inside the sock she was supposed to be darning.
“I’m thinking of inviting Father Aguilera to the farm next week to have a cup of chocolate. Jacobo and Belisario have also been muttering about curses. Father Aguilera’s presence should calm everyone down.”
“You think they’d leave the farm?”
Her mother wove the thread back and forth, skillfully handling her darning needle. “No. But we’ll need to hire workers for the harvest, and they won’t come if they think something is awry here. And I won’t risk Fernanda taking off. She hasn’t been long with us, and if anyone might leave, it would be her. We don’t have enough people as it is.” Her mother sighed. “Arturo is right, Piedras Quebradas is a hopeless endeavor. Without Tadeo we can’t possibly oversee—”
Alba stared at her mother, who seemed close to tears. Yet the tears did not come. Luisa pressed her lips together. Within an instant the woman composed herself, her capable hands once again tugging at the thread with stubborn determination.
“However the twins manage to make such holes in their socks, I cannot imagine,” she said.
They continued working under the fading light. The day was at an end, night drawing upon them. Alba’s unease had not abated, but she was careful to tuck it away while she continued her work, unwilling to let her mother discern it. She had enough troubles.
Alba changed into her nightgown, carefully washed her face, and brushed her hair. From time to time, she peeked out the window until, at last, she drew the curtains tight together. In a corner of her room, she’d hidden the talisman the woman from Los Pinos had given her, and around her neck lay Valentín’s medallion.
Valentín, who’d kissed her in the field of barley. She giggled at this. The memory was sweet. Then her thoughts strayed back to the piano, to Arturo playing that waltz by Waldteufel. Sweetness was replaced by impudence as she thought about kissing him instead.
