The Witches of El Paso

Chapter 14

14

Sister Manuela, the nun who claimed that her tongue had turned to silver, was now in the infirmary. Nena arranged on a tray a small tureen of broth and a basket of bolillos, the little rolls that the nuns ate mountains of every day. Sister Benedicta had assigned Nena this job, forbidding her from ever bringing Madre Inocenta’s afternoon chocolate to her. Nena had been relieved to receive this alternate assignment, not wanting to be forced to sing the encanto again or to see Madre Inocenta’s eyes turn cold and greedy.

Nena set down the tray on the little table next to Sister Manuela’s narrow bed. Sister Manuela struggled to sit up. She coughed, grabbing on to Nena’s arm to brace herself as the coughs racked her body. Spittle landed onto Nena’s cheek. She wiped it off with the napkin.

“I have some nice soup for you, Sister,” Nena said, trying to disguise the revulsion in her voice. She wanted to flee the room, but she couldn’t leave until Sister Manuela ate something. Nena picked up a spoon, dipping it into the broth. “Open up.”

Sister Manuela pulled her hand out from under her blanket, extending her pointer finger at Nena, the tip wobbling.

“The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night,” Sister Manuela said.

“Yes, Sister,” Nena said. She was pretty sure this came from the Bible, though from which part, she couldn’t guess.

“While people are saying peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly as labor pains on a pregnant woman and they will not escape,” Sister Manuela shouted.

She reminded Nena of the man with the dirty beard who stood in front of the train station and preached about the end of the world. Manuela’s stories about the silver tongue and peeing string made a lot more sense now that Nena understood that she was a loca.

“Maybe you could try a few spoonfuls?” Nena asked. “You have to keep your strength up so that you can get better.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I have to stay here until you’ve had your supper,” Nena said. Her impatience was growing.

“Do you know why I don’t have an appetite?”

“No,” Nena said.

“I’m afflicted with the pox.”

“How do you know?”

“If you’re not hungry, you have la viruela. Everyone knows that,” Sister Manuela said. But in the next moment, she relented, allowing Nena to feed her a bit of broth, and she ate a whole roll on her own. When she was done eating, Manuela slid down in the bed, resting her sweaty head on her small pillow and closing her eyes.

Nena pressed her palm to Sister Manuela’s forehead. The nun burned. Could it be smallpox that she was sick with? There were people in Nena’s own time who had the scars, a testament to the ravages of the disease. It might be that Sister Manuela was caught up in another of her deranged stories. But if she was telling the truth, it would be better to let someone know, just in case. Having learned her lesson, Nena went in search of Sister Benedicta instead of Madre Inocenta, Sister Benedicta now seeming to be the lesser of two evils.

Sister Benedicta wasn’t in her office, and she wasn’t in the kitchen or the storeroom, the portería, the chapel, or the dining room. Nena searched the courtyard and the servants’ quarters, but she couldn’t find her there either. She went to Sister Benedicta’s cell and tapped on the door. Nena heard faint voices, and thinking she heard someone say “come in,” she opened the door.

Sister Benedicta and Madre Inocenta sat close to each other on the narrow bed, their veils off. Madre Inocenta’s head was covered in fuzzy short hair, like her scalp had recently been shaved. Sister Benedicta’s black hair flowed down to her waist. The jar of brebaje nestled in her lap, she was wiping Madre Inocenta’s lips with a cloth. Madre Inocenta turned her watery blue eyes on Nena, not looking at her, but through her, and Nena felt the cold indifference of the other side. Nena sucked in her breath, frozen in place by fear.

Sister Benedicta glared at Nena with a gaze of pure hatred. “Leave,” she said, pushing Nena out of her cell with her hot breath.

Nena ran out of the room, back to the kitchen. She found Eugenia humming as she polished a copper pot with a paste of cream of tartar and vinegar, which surprised Nena. She’d never seen Eugenia enjoy herself while working.

“When I’m married, I’ll never again step foot in a kitchen,” Eugenia said, inspecting her reflection in the big kettle, the copper now brilliant. And then she coughed, covering her mouth with a handkerchief edged in lace. Cough, cough. Not one to get colds, Nena felt smugly superior to Eugenia, too delicate.

As she worked, Nena turned over in her mind what she had walked in on, what Madre Inocenta and Sister Benedicta had been doing. Is this what Eugenia had hinted at before? So what if the women had a special friendship? Nena couldn’t care less. What worried her was that Madre Inocenta was eating the brebaje outside the protection of the aquelarre, and she seemed serious about finding a way to live in La Vista all the time, willing to use anybody to make that happen. Nena couldn’t imagine living in the place that the brebaje had taken her, the way she’d jumped from one creature to another, her selfhood snatched away. But for whatever reason, Madre Inocenta liked it, or worse, needed it. Nena fretted. She’d brought the brebaje into the world and was certain that Sister Benedicta would make her pay a price for Madre Inocenta’s desire.

The first pocks appeared on Sister Manuela’s face the next day, raised bumps covering her right side, erupting all over her eyelids, her cheeks, and down her neck. The morning after, the ni?a Leonor fell sick, and by the afternoon, Sister Carlota nursed a cough. The next morning, Eugenia couldn’t get out of bed.

The news raced around the convent that Father Iturbe had been the first to catch the sickness. No one blamed him out loud. But he was the only outsider allowed past the turnstiles of the portería. He sat across from the sisters in the confessional. He’d taken the confession of Sister Manuela, the first resident of the convent to catch the disease.

On Friday, Nena helped Carmela sew up Sister Manuela in a shroud. The man who brought the convent firewood carried her body out, and she was buried outside of town in a grave full of lye, along with all the pox-filled corpses from the city.

Three days later, Eugenia somehow was still alive, but so ill that she didn’t recognize Nena when she tried to feed her. Eugenia had a rash all over her face, big pustules, so fat they looked to be on the verge of exploding. If Eugenia were to recover, she’d be scarred for the rest of her life. If this was some sort of punishment for Eugenia’s vanity, Nena considered it overly cruel. Sister Benedicta’s brother probably wouldn’t marry a disfigured woman. Nena felt sorry for Eugenia, for her plans to have gone so wrong. Father Iturbe would no longer be able to depose Sister Benedicta, as he was now dead along with all the others.

Every night Nena went to sleep worrying that she would wake in the morning with a cough. If she lost her life in this time, she’d be covered in lye and buried in a grave, and her sisters would never know.

The next day, a maid summoned Nena to Sister Benedicta’s office, a small closet off the chapel stacked with the red leather-bound ledgers she used to keep track of the convent’s accounts. Nena was puzzled why she claimed such a room for herself, its dusty closeness at odds with Madre Inocenta’s spacious and cool room. When Nena came in, she found Sister Benedicta making notations in the ledger. She scattered sand over the page to dry the ink, and then she looked up at Nena.

“I need you to do something for me,” Sister Benedicta said.

“Yes,” Nena said, though she was apprehensive about what this thing might be. She had yet to be disciplined for walking in on Sister Benedicta and Madre Inocenta.

“My brother is gravely ill. You will travel to my father’s house and take care of him.”

“Outside of the convent?” Nena asked.

“You will give him the brebaje.”

“What? Why?”

“You haven’t noticed? None of us who’ve eaten it have fallen ill. The aquelarre has been untouched.”

“Yes, but how do you know that it’s the brebaje that protected us? Maybe we’ve been spared so far because we’re brujas.”

“I’ve warned you not to say that word,” Sister Benedicta hissed. “And I understand these matters better than you. I can see what gives strength to the brebaje, the life inside of it. Give my brother a taste. He’s the last of the de Galvez line, and I won’t let our name die out. After he eats it, sing your flying song over him.”

“If the brebaje can heal the sick, then why haven’t we fed it to Eugenia or Leonor? Why did you let Sister Manuela die?”

“We can’t have miracles in the convent. They would bring us more unwanted attention from the bishop.”

“More?”

“Father Iturbe managed to take his complaints to the bishop before he died. I didn’t believe he would be so bold or so stupid.”

Nena was afraid to ask the question, but she couldn’t help herself. “Is that why the pox has spread through the convent? Did you bring it upon us so that Father Iturbe couldn’t get rid of you?”

Sister Benedicta stared at Nena for a long time without uttering a word. Nena dug her fingernail into her thumb to keep from filling the silence.

“That would be a very evil thing, child. Do you think me capable of that?”

“No, I don’t,” Nena said, somewhat reassured.

“That’s right. But you must know something. If I could have committed such an act, I would have. Other than my brother, there is nothing more important to me on this earthly plane than this convent. Nothing more important than protecting people like us. Your presence here threatens us all. That is why once you’ve completed your task and healed my brother, you shall stay in the house of my father until he finds you a husband.”

“A husband?” Nena exclaimed.

“It is for the best, for all of our safety, that you leave the aquelarre.”

“What do you mean?” Nena asked, panicking at the thought of being thrown out.

“If you hadn’t sung that encanto into being, my brother would be as good as dead. But at what cost? As long as you’re within these walls, Madre Inocenta will use you to make more of the brebaje. Madre Inocenta has eaten enough. We all have had our fill.”

“Please don’t send me away,” Nena begged.

“You’re leaving us for the good of Madre Inocenta and for the good of the convent. For our souls,” Sister Benedicta said, and Nena was surprised to see that for the first time Sister Benedicta looked scared.

“What about what’s good for me?”

“You’ll depart tomorrow at dawn. María will accompany you,” Sister Benedicta said, pressing a small jar into Nena’s trembling hands.