She was a ghostfor three days. She moved through the house in silence, tending to her chores, her eyes downcast, her steps slow. Grief clouded her sight. Twice she almost broke out in sobs at the dinner table.
“You’re too idle, girl,” her mother said as they climbed the steps to their bedrooms.
Alba expected to be viciously chided about her listlessness, but instead her mother brushed a strand of hair away from her face with a gentle hand.
“I understand, Alba. I lost my mother when I was about your age. Now I’ve lost a husband and a son. There’s a darkness that wants to swallow you, but you must not let it.”
She thought about her brother, about the viscous mass of feathers and cartilage that she had pressed against her chest and which had dissolved into nothingness. They reached the top of the stairs and she stopped and stared at the floor.
“Valentín was your sweetheart, wasn’t he?”
Alba did not speak, for it would have been too difficult to explain what she’d felt for Valentín. It had, perhaps, been the beginning of love, which had been cut off before it could truly bloom.
“Mourn him. But do not try to follow him to the grave. You’ll make yourself sick if you continue like this.”
“I know,” she said.
They were quiet for a couple of minutes. Alba rested a hand against the iron banister.
“Tomorrow, your uncle and I are headed to see the mayor and perhaps to speak with Father Aguilera. I need you to help Fernanda around the house and assist with the cooking. Fernanda is a darling girl, but she has not discovered the importance of salt and Dolores complains she’s more trouble than help in the kitchen.”
“I will, Mother,” Alba said, even though her mind was filled with disordered thoughts and her mother’s visit to town conjured a dangerous idea.
On the fourth day, as she was cleaning the irons with wax and preparing to tackle the week’s ironing with Fernanda, her mother walked into the room and bade her a good day, promising to return in a few hours.
Alba nodded. After her mother and her uncle left, she brushed aside the basket with the damp clothes that she was supposed to lay flat before they were pressed, and went to her room. Withshaky hands she removed the apron around her waist and changed into a different set of clothes. She’d spent half the night thinking what she’d do once her mother and uncle were away, once she had a chance to step out of the house without being noticed. She headed to the stables.
Once she was atop her horse, her purpose and her strength returned; her hands held the reins without the slightest twitch or shiver. She rode without fear or hesitation. Grief crystallized into rage as she followed the path up the mountain.
Los Pinos was quiet and lonely as she guided her horse down its streets. Next to a well she saw two teenage girls filling jugs with water and spoke to them.
“Do you know the way to Perpetua’s home?” she asked.
One of the girls gave her directions and Alba thanked them. Soon, she was standing in front of a house that was shaded by a great gnarled tree. A withered vine encroached on the building, wrapping itself up the walls. The house was assembled moreroughly than the others in the village; the stones of this building seemed haphazardly piled together and its windows were small and shuttered tight.
She pushed the front door open and walked in, holding her brother’s pistol in one hand.
She slipped into a room with an old curtain barring further passage and easily pushed aside this piece of cloth. She stepped into a bedroom that was a nest of darkness crammed with half-glimpsed jars upon rickety shelves, much as in the home of Jovita. On the floor there was a pile of blankets.
She pointed the pistol at the woman sleeping under the blankets and when she did the witch opened her eyes and stared at Alba.
“I’ve come to ask you why you hate my family and then to kill you,” she told the woman. Her voice evidenced no fear. She’d sloughed it off during the climb.
But the witch didn’t seem surprised or frightened by her presence, either. Even in the semidarkness Alba could tell she remained unperturbed. “Light a candle,” Perpetua said, motioning to a table, “unless you want to speak in the dark.”
On the table there were a box of matches and a candle. Alba lit it. The woman sat on a large chest and Alba pulled over the one chair available.
“You should put that down,” Perpetua said.
Her long black hair fell down her back and she wore a dark-colored dress and around her shoulders she’d knotted a shawl with a red stripe. Her hands were hidden in the folds of her clothing. They stared at each other.
Alba shook her head, pointing the pistol at the woman. “Not until you speak.”
“If I hadn’t wanted you to walk inside, you’d never have been able to open that door. I won’t harm you, even if it’s what you want.”
“Yet you’ve harmed my family.”
“Not me. There’s more than one witch in these parts.”
