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“Señora Santiago, your transportation is outside.” Armando appears on the horizon again like an unwanted thunderstorm.
“Thank you… Thalia, darling, I promised your new husband I’d see you home. If he’s anything like mine, he’ll be clock-watching and scowling until you’re safely back in his sights.”
We move toward the door, shrugging into coats and scarves, withMamáand Thalia walking ahead. Just before we reach the sidewalk, I feelTíaAnna’s hand on my arm.
“Tell me,” she urges in a low voice. “Does yourbrujeríaarticle have anything to do with Edier?”
I pause a fraction too long. “Why would you think that?”
She glances at the passing traffic, her faraway gaze trailing one yellow cab all the way to the next block. “When Edier came into our lives, Ella, he was so damaged. You know how he couldn’t speak for months… At first, we thought it was because of the trauma of his mother’s suicide, but after Joseph and your father destroyed the last of the Hurtados Cartel, stories began to emerge about what had been happening in and around Bogotá.”
“What kind of stories?” I whisper.
“Of children being forced to commit terrible atrocities, unspeakable abuse against women…” She forces a smile for my mother and Thalia who are already climbing into her car. My mother’s mouthing at her to ‘hurry up’.
“Is there something you’re not telling me, Anna?”
I need to know every detail suddenly, no matter how tragic. There’s a savage, beautiful, complicated man who holds my heart in the palm of his hand, and I want so badly to believe that one day I could be holding his in mine.
She chews on her lower lip for a moment. “Rumors swirled that Hurtados was obsessed with the occult and ritual sacrifice—animal and human,” she adds reluctantly, making my stomach lurch. “The blackest of the black. The kinds of things you can’t look up on the internet unless you venture into dark places.”
Did you witness this, Edier?Were you made to be a part of it?
My mother’s motioning frantically from the car now. Armando’s looking like he’s a hot minute away from DEFCON 1. Meanwhile, my own security is getting twitchy. I’m too exposed standing in the doorway of a sushi restaurant.
“Something happened the day you fell sick in Leticia, Ella.”
I freeze, all other thoughts forgotten.
“I know you don’t remember it. Your mother’s told me as much. Abrujamanaged to break intoEl Refugio. There were four men with her, but they were quickly killed by your father. I think they were a distraction, though. I think thebrujareally came for Edier.”
Just then, I’m hit by a jumble of emotions: confusion, sadness, fear, loss…So much loss.
No images, though.
Why can’t I remember?
“Edier went away soon after. First, to Europe with his father, and then back to Cali in Colombia. He’s not been home to Leticia since.”
“And thebruja?”
“Joseph killed her on sight, but he wasn’t fast enough. Whatever she said to Edier in that short space of time was enough to have him spinning away from us.”
He wasn’t spinning, Tía Anna. He was running and forgetting.
“I was with him,” I blurt out, feeling that certainty so strongly in my heart. “I have this weird sense that he was trying to protect me from something… Oh God. Do you think the witch cursed us?”
“I don’t believe in curses,” she says firmly. “And neither does Joseph, but words can be just as poisonous if whispered into the right ears at the wrong time. Joseph’s been telling me to leave this alone for years, saying that Edier needs to work through whatever demons are in his past, the same way he did himself when we were first married. But the more the time passes, the more I can feel my son falling into darkness.” Reaching out, she takes my hands, and I can feel her trembling. “I didn’t give birth to Edier, but that doesn’t dilute the quality of my love. I know what he is. I can’t change what he’s become, but maybe with your help I can try and understand him.”
“How can I…?” I trail off with a frown.
Her face softens. “He has a connection with you, Ella. He’s had it since the first day you met. It’s not something you can define. It’s just there, lingering unseen like an invisible string. I know you feel it too. I know how close you were. I also know how much he’s hurt you by ignoring it and pushing you away for so long.” She squeezes my hands gently. “Look, I have to go before your mother kills me, but if you remember anything about that day, will you let me know? Maybe we can help each other.”
She kisses me briefly on my cheek, the overhead light snatching at her tears, before she’s walking away, leaving me with a thousand blank spaces that only Edier can fill in.
24
EDIER
