Love, or the Witches of Windward Circle. Carlos Allende
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envy, she reckoned. And then all of the witches and warlocks, she fantasized, and all of the demons and goblins and corpses brought to life that night at the ball would try her biscuits too, and they too would find them yummy and nutritious. Everyone would compliment her shoes and her dress and the mice tangled in her hair as well, and they would shake hands with her, instead of giving her a box on her temple. That alone would make her happy. Not being abused just once would make her heart swell. She would thank them all with a curtsy, and they would like her even more, the poor fool dreamed, because, she had noticed, people liked well-mannered people. Maybe they would think she wasn’t that ugly after all. Oh, yes, maybe they would find her pretty and everyone would love her. The day of her wedding to the Little Master would be the finest day of her life!
“What are you grinning about?” Rosa tried to hit the little girl in her shins with a long twig of grass, but the little girl saw it coming and ran faster.
Victoria hid the Holy Bread in the hem of her skirt, lowered herself onto the kneeler and prayed: “Please, please Jesus, please, please, Mary: let the Prince of the Damned like me the best tonight. I promise I’ll be a good girl and go to mass every Sunday, for all the rest of my life.”
“Please, please, Saint Joseph,” prayed Rosa, “let the Devil take me instead as his favorite.”
“Please, please, Saint Judas,” insisted Victoria, “let the Devil find me more beautiful than my sister, so my Mami will like me better.”
“Please, please, Saint Cecilia,” prayed Rosa, wrinkling her nose at Victoria, “let the plague and sickness fall upon Victoria. Make the Little Master take my Papi, so he stops beating Mami. Please, please, God, make the Devil kill my two sisters, and all my enemies, too. Amen!”
Too nervous about her task, the little girl didn’t pray.
She should have, though, for the one thing she ought to have done right, she did wrong. Dumb-fuck little ugly girls never do anything right, she learned that night, and would remember it forever: she had been so hungry during mass that she could feel her gut stuck to her backbone, and the priest took so long in telling people to feel guilty and embarrassed for what made them feel right, so long in telling them not to drink and not to dance, so long in telling them not to do this and not to do that, and so hungry she was, so to the point of starvation, the long tapeworm inside her little tiny gut begging for a grain of rice soaked in soup seasoned with a grain of pepper, that she had a teensy bite of the wafer—just a very little one, an eensy-weensy tiny bite, enough to learn what the body of Christ tastes like, and then…she swallowed.
One bite alone couldn’t expose her to all the delights of paradise, but it seemed enough for her. She was used to being hungry. The rest of the wafer went to the safety of her knickers. And that would be it, for there was still enough of the bread to make the cakes of chicken caca, but a crumb remained between her teeth, and while it wouldn’t bother her too much—she never flossed, nor had she ever heard of flossing—it would be enough to prove to her that you must do as your parents say, exactly and to the T, because, no matter how evil your mother may be, no matter how perverted and corrupted she is, mothers know best, and hers, a consummated witch, murderer of thousands, knew better than anybody.
That night, the mother stuffed a potato sack with old rags to make a life-sized doll and put it under the blanket on her side of the bed, which is a way witches have to deceive their husbands of their presence. She put Rosa’s toad next to the doll, so it could say “Move!” if the man got too close and started groping the doll in his sleep. Sometimes a full-size demon stayed instead, but that night was special, that night was the eve of October 24, year of the Lord of 1903, thirty-two years after the Chinese massacre on Nigger Alley, that put so much joy in the heart of the Devil, and no spirit with a rank higher than Earl of Hell would want to miss the party.
“I think I should go,” the amphibian expressed his disappointment on being left behind. “I am a Captain, with a full legion of thirty-two demons under my orders.”
But it was his duty to stay vigilant, the mother reminded him, and guard the drunkard’s sleep next to his pillow.
“Be a good toad,” said Victoria, kissing the pout-lipped demon, “and spare my dad of wily spiders.”
Two minutes before midnight, the mother’s familiar appeared outside, again in the shape of a black goat. On his back, he carried a basket with two beautiful five-year-olds inside, a little boy and his twin sister; two little blond and blue-eyed German cherubs, who had been naughty.
“Mommy—,” the children cried, slurping their snot.
“My, oh my!” The mother celebrated the demon for his catch. “These children look so fat and lovely!”
She chained the basket to the goat’s neck, then she and the three girls mounted the beast. Whoosh, it lifted up, with one jump, and up they went, flying through the sky, up above the clouds, high and high above, up to the mother’s three-thousand-and-ninety-eighth—and her youngest’s first—Sabbath.
Victoria rode by the goat’s neck, holding onto its horns with both hands, pushing her head forward to feel the cold air pull her cheeks towards her ears. The witch sat just behind, pressing her chin against her daughter’s shoulder, clenching the goat’s long hair. Just behind, rode Rosa, grabbing her mother by the waist. The little girl rode on the goat’s rear end. Afraid to offend her sister with her touch, she held instead to the beast’s hairy rump as tight as she could. Every time the goat went up or down, the two elder sisters celebrated with a hurray, and the mother laughed. Even the two children inside the woven basket celebrated the thrills of the ride—then returned to crying. The little girl prayed to the twelve apostles not to fall.
As they flew, the mother gave her daughters a few recommendations about the party: “You must insult all witches,” she said, raising her voice over the wind, “including the old.”
“Yes, Mother,” responded the two elder, sounding miffed, like a child when reminded how to behave in front of others.
“You must be ungrateful if anyone hands you food or candy. Don’t forget to spit on the Cross, and interrupt people when they speak. Clean your noses on the tablecloth and dance around the throne, cursing and swearing by all that is saintly or divine.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“For the Sabbath is the time to do all anti-Christian things, the worse the better. I tell you now; I’ve been to many. I know well, and I know better—Did you write down your lists of evil deeds?”
“Yes we did!” the two elders responded with enthusiasm.
The little one gave a firm nod.
“I have such a long list of awful things I did this week…” began Victoria.
“My list is longer,” interrupted Rosa.
“Is it?” the first asked. “I poisoned the cow of a poor man and I killed a granny’s only cat.”
“I made a woman lose her baby.”
“I made a man lose his mind.”
“I made a man kill his wife.”
“I ruined the wedding of a rich man.”
“I made a rich man murder his brother and then marry his bride.”
“I made the bride of a rich man kill his sons, then eat them, then spit them out, then bring them back to life and marry the three of them and have their babies.”
“I did just the same the previous month.”
“I did it twice.”
“I did it blindfolded.”
“I did it in my sleep.”
The mother laughed at their boasting. Her two daughters could not have done so much badness in just one week.
“Lying is an evil feat,” she said. “And we the wicked love to do mischief.”
The little sister