Love, or the Witches of Windward Circle. Carlos Allende
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Mr. Kinney’s estate lies where we used to keep our pigs. They expanded the small pool of water in front of our old house into the lagoon.”
“But you still had the money,” the priest interrupted.
The witch shook her head. “It took my husband even less time to drink it. It came to the women in this family to find ways to provide for the family. Victoria found a job at a grab joint on the boardwalk, selling herring. Rosa found a job selling tickets at a freak show theatre, where the youngest, thanks to her learned ability to fit into small spaces, became the main attraction. ‘Come one, come all,’ Rosa hollered from the entrance. ‘Come see the spider woman! Cursed by her parents for being rebellious, she lives in a cage and feeds off flies and mosquitoes.’
“As for me, I got myself a cart of tamales. If there is room in your heart, Father, to feel pity for a woman that sold her soul to the Devil and lost, feel sorry for me, waking up before dawn to prepare the dough, wheeling my cart through the boardwalk, singing the virtues of my cooking. I always longed to live in a nice place, and, indeed, this new town is a delight to the senses: the tall buildings, the towers with onion-shaped domes and turrets painted in bright colors; the flowers and palm trees—I had never seen palm trees before! Lights, music bands, and gondolas. But you’ll understand that it was painful for me to see others getting rich for what had belonged to my family for generations, and remain dirt poor as always.
“My heart filled up with hatred. I cast spells trying to destroy the pier and the new city, not once but several times—with a blaze, with a squall, even poisoning the hearts of the Board of Trustees when the new city tried to unincorporate from the municipality, but I failed each and every time. I had lost the Little Master’s favor. The blaze was put out before it could cause great damage. The pier resisted the waves, and eventually the people chose to disincorporate and change the name of their city officially to Venice. Everything I tried against that man was useless.”
“What man?” the priest asked.
“Mr. Abbot Kinney,” the witch responded. “He is revered like a God by the residents of this city. He transformed this worthless marshy land into a paradise. But this was our land. The land of my parents. I wanted his ruin, to see him down on his knees begging for forgiveness… All the attempts to cause woe and despair had taken an adverse effect on my health. And every time I had to give a payment in flesh to my familiar. He’s got most of my teeth. He wants more blood now than before. He wants to suck me dry, Father. It is as if he doesn’t want me to last a day longer.
“Last week was my latest attempt to destroy Mr. Kinney. For years I thought that the most precious thing to him was this city. Then I realized that the most precious thing to a man is his family—if I wanted to hurt him, I had to hurt his children. I thought of a powerful curse. One that would last for generations. One that would make cripples or imbeciles of all his descendants.
“My familiar asked for a full pint of blood in exchange for the recipe. I complied happily. It had to be done on the eve of the anniversary of his firstborn, he said. And I had to perform the incantation over the grave of one of my own descendants. The remains of my firstborn lay in the bottom of Mr. Kinney’s swim lagoon, across from his estate, across from where our old house used to be.
“I couldn’t row myself to the center of the lagoon, so I asked my youngest daughter to take me. I would have asked Rosa or Victoria, but the two had been invited to the opening of the Dance Pavilion at Mr. Fraser’s million-dollar pier in Ocean Park, and I had no heart to say no. Mr. Fraser is Kinney’s competitor, I thought. And they were so excited! What’s the worst that could happen?”
“That was the night of the fire,” the priest said.
The witch nodded. “We waited until it got dark before we got into the boat. My daughter rowed in silence. She never has much to say and since the night she was expelled from the Little Master’s ball I don’t have much to say to her, either. We reached the center of the lagoon and I started the incantation… I’ll spare you with details, Father, I know you find this kind of things offensive. I said the words I had to say and started mixing the ingredients in a small cauldron that I had brought with me. My daughter waited with her eyes closed and her hands against her ears; she is forbidden to learn any magic. The last ingredient was dust from a bezoar stone. I put the stone into a mortar and tried to crush it with the pestle. The stone was too hard, however, and in my second attempt if flew off the mortar and into the water.
“‘The bezoar!’ I yelled.
“My daughter opened her eyes and saw me reaching over the boat trying to catch the stone.
“‘Go get it,’ I said.
“She hesitated, but I must have had a horrible expression in my face because before I could ask her a second time, she jumped into the water. The lagoon isn’t very deep. If you’re a good swimmer you can easily reach the bottom. But it was dark and the water was murky. She couldn’t find anything. Every time she came out she had a different object in her hand. None was the bezoar. By then I was desperate. I was cursing and crying. And with this damn cough that doesn’t go away my throat was on fire. I had given my familiar my blood, and I felt so weak. Then I remembered that Victoria had another bezoar.
“‘She keeps it in her jewelry box,’ I told my daughter. ‘It is bigger than the one I had, and it is white; it looks like a seashell.’
“I thought at first that her hesitation was because the water was too cold. Her teeth were chattering. But then she confessed that Victoria had asked her to use the stone to make buttons for her gloves a month before. And that she was wearing those gloves that night at the pavilion.
“‘Go then to the pavilion, you stupid swine!’ I yelled. ‘And get me those gloves!’
“I tried to hit her with the pestle, I was so mad, but she was already swimming towards the shore.
“By the time she reached the Pavilion the dance had already started. She tried to get in through the front door, but of course, dressed in her old rags, wet, full of mud, and without an invitation, they wouldn’t let her in. And she’s so stupid. She’s not only as ugly as a pig, Father, but so incredibly stupid, she lost precious time wandering around waiting to see if any of her sisters or her acquaintances came out, while I had to wait in the cold on that boat, the sleeves of my sweater soaking wet, wishing life had given me a tumor instead of such a stupid ass for a daughter. Who in his right mind would have come out of that palace when the party had just started? Did you get to see it, Father, Mr. Fraser’s pier, before the fire destroyed it? The façade was all iron and glass, and it had turrets at both ends like an Indian palace. My two little kittens were inside, all dolled up, confident that their beauty and natural refinement would call the attention of a fine gentleman and they would be asked to dance. Alas, as beautiful as Rosa and Victoria are, they couldn’t compete with most of the women there, boasting their silks and ostrich feathers. Not for the best suitors. Not with their plain cotton dresses and their mended stockings. They had no pearls. No other adornment on their heads than their old satin ribbons. The two of them were sitting on a row of chairs set against the wall, shooing away the occasional poor man that approached them, waiting for a couple of rich gentlemen with kind hearts to notice their beauty.
“‘Do you think we’ll get to dance tonight, Rosa?’
“‘I don’t know. Keep on smiling.’
“‘I am thirsty. I wish I could have some punch.’
“‘We don’t have any money.’
“At the Sabbath you don’t have to wait for any man, Father. You stand up and dance. You don’t have to be chosen. You feel like shaking your feet, you stand up and begin dancing. Same with having a drink. You’re thirsty, you go on and demand it. You don’t need any money… After almost an hour roaming outside the building, my ugly daughter figured out a way to break into the Pavilion through the kitchen. They must have thought she was there to pick up the garbage. Then, she slipped into the main hall and wandered around, avoiding the staff, looking for my daughters. At last she saw Victoria and then Rosa. What an unpleasant surprise it must have been to my kittens