The Witches of El Paso

Chapter 16

16

Nena had wanted to leave the convent, and yet now that she was walking out its gates with María, she already wished she could go back. The town seemed just as dirty as the first time Nena saw it, but it showed none of its former bustle. About every tenth house, red paint marked the door in an X. Nena and María made their way through the square, past the church. The bells of the church clanged, a lonely sound that echoed in the quiet square. The doors of the church were closed tight.

“You know, that dress you’re wearing was Sister Benedicta’s before she went into the convent in Mexico City,” María said. “I saved it for her, thinking that she might decide to not become a nun. When I came to the convent to be her servant, I brought a trunk with all her things.”

It wasn’t a surprise to learn that the dress was old. It smelled awfully musty, and it was far too large for Nena. María had had to turn the ends of the sleeves and the bottom of the dress up, making a few quick stitches to create a hem, as there wasn’t enough time to do the job properly.

“You’ve worked for Sister Benedicta since before she was a nun?” Nena asked, surprised.

“I was taken in by the de Galvez family when I was eleven. When Sister Benedicta was a girl, I was her maid, and then when she left for the convent, I became Emiliano’s wet nurse.”

“Wet nurse? You have a child?”

“My son died in the outbreak of 1780, as did Emiliano’s mother. I don’t want him to die, Se?orita Elena. He’s the closest thing I have to a son.”

Nena wasn’t sure what to say to that. She didn’t think she could promise that the brebaje would do anything, despite what Sister Benedicta believed. Nena was the one who’d brought the stuff into the world, and it was a mystery even to her. She wasn’t sure she could sing the flying encanto again.

Nena and María crossed to the other side of the square and headed down a narrow lane crowded on both sides by high mud-brick walls.

“Here we are,” María said. Nena couldn’t believe how close the de Galvez home was to the convent, just a short walk separating them. The gate swung open. A barefoot young man in a simple homespun shirt and pants bowed to Nena. Nena and María walked into the yard of packed dirt. To the right were stables, and to the left a small building with smoke coming out of a chimney. In the wall across was a door, through which Nena followed María, passing through a pretty courtyard where a fountain bubbled and citrus trees grew. Seeing Sister Benedicta’s family home, Nena felt worlds away from the aquelarre.

They walked through a room with a huge, blackened table, carved chairs, and oil paintings of men with high collars and mean, piggy eyes, past a sala with rugs and wooden chests, and then through an inner courtyard into a little hallway. At the end of the passage, they walked into a dark room, shutters closed, a candle burning on a table next to the bed, on which a man lay. Nena yanked her hand up to her nose, her eyes watering at the smell of sickness and rot. María knelt next to the bed, taking Emiliano’s hand in hers, praying in a quick mumble.

When Nena had cared for her niece and nephew, Chuy and Valentina, she’d had to deal with all sorts of strong smells, but compared to the odor coming off Emiliano, those smells were natural, healthy-smelling even. Nena looked down at Emiliano. His face was gaunt, the rash of pocks swollen to the edge of bursting.

Nena opened her bag and took out a spoon and the tiny jar that Sister Benedicta had given her. Nena scraped off the fat used to seal in the brebaje. She gave the brebaje a sniff. It smelled earthy, just this side of turned. Nena dipped the spoon into the stuff.

“Let me,” María said, taking the jar and spoon from Nena’s hand, putting the spoon in Emiliano’s mouth. He clamped his mouth around the spoon, and Nena saw his Adam’s apple roll as he swallowed. María fed Emiliano small spoonful by small spoonful until it was gone.

Nena braced herself, wondering what was going to happen. When Nena and the nuns had eaten the brebaje, they’d been hit with its magic right away, taken away into the sun and back while their bodies dropped to the ground. Nena watched Emiliano’s face for any changes, not sure what she was looking for. It could be that Emiliano was going on his trip to the sun, but Nena didn’t think so. His body remained too still, his breathing unchanged. Sister Benedicta had told Nena to sing the flying song to heal Emiliano, but Nena couldn’t do it if María was there.

“I need to do something,” Nena said.

“What can I do to help?”

“Alone.”

“Let me stay. I’ve seen many things that I would tell no one about. I know who Sister Benedicta is, what she does,” María said, looking down at Emiliano.

Nena had a flash of María’s life, the life of a servant, always there, watching everything, hearing everything, and yet invisible to Sister Benedicta. But Nena didn’t want to sing the encanto in front of María.

“Please leave, se?ora,” Nena said.

María looked startled. Probably hardly anyone gave her the respect of calling her “se?ora.” She gave Nena a quick nod. “There’s a bell on the table there. I’ll be here right away if you ring.”

When María was gone, Nena picked up the jar, turning it sideways to find what she was looking for, the tiny bits of brebaje left in the corners. She used the tip of her pinkie to carefully gather up the sauce.

Nena put her finger in her mouth. She instantly felt different, her hair buzzing. She was wide awake, seeing the electrical currents in the room. She saw how the candle burned, the heat radiating off the wick in a circle. She turned her gaze on Emiliano, able to see the different layers of his body, investigating the small parts of him her eyes couldn’t. She spotted the virus, singing its own encanto, replicating itself in his body.

Emiliano smelled worse than ever now that Nena’s nose was as alive as her eyes and ears. She had to be brave. She wasn’t with the aquelarre, and this made her afraid that if she sang the flying encanto, she wouldn’t be able to control it. But what choice did she have? She sat on the edge of the bed, opening herself up so that the encanto could enter into her.

Nena sensed a movement on the bed, and looking down, she watched in surprise as Emiliano grabbed her arm. He opened his eyes, looking up at her with the lost, drunk expression that had come over the nuns when they’d eaten the brebaje.

“Who are you? Tell me your name.”

“It doesn’t matter what my name is,” she said, frightened.

“You’re an angel.”

“No.”

“You’ve come from heaven to save me,” Emiliano said.

“You’re confused,” Nena said.

“Come closer, let me see you,” Emiliano said. Emiliano reached his hand up to Nena’s face, putting his palm on her cheek, moving his hand to her ear, pulling her down, and guiding Nena’s mouth to his. She felt his tongue try to slip in, and she was horrified at how her cheek had touched his pocks, feeling their meaty bumpiness. She pushed herself up.

“Why won’t you kiss me? You’re very pretty.”

“No, please, se?or,” she said.

“Come here,” he said, grabbing Nena with both arms, and with more force than she thought he had in his weak state he brought her down next to him on the bed.

“No,” she said, pushing his head away with a strong shove. Nena rolled out of the bed, landing on her knees, and hitting the table, knocking the bell off it.

She had no time to waste. Nena threw open her mind to La Vista, and just like that, she felt the encanto wriggling in her mouth. She sang out the vowels, deep and low in her chest, concentrating on Emiliano, asking God to put him back together again. As she sang, Nena smelled the perfume of desert plants growing toward the sky, fat with water from a thunderstorm, hungry for the sun. Emiliano lifted up off the bed a few inches, hovering. The pustules melted off his face like they’d been made of wax.

Nena heard María come into the room. If María was shocked to see Emiliano in the air, she didn’t betray any emotion. She bowed her head to Nena.

Nena didn’t know what else to do but to sing Emiliano down.

“I knew Sister Benedicta would do whatever she could to save him,” María said, looking down at Emiliano, now sleeping. “But I’ve never seen her do anything like this. This is not her magic, but yours. Bless you, Elena. God has sent you to save him.”

Nena looked around the room. Across from the bed stood a big dark armoire, its door open. Emiliano’s boots were lined up inside, polished in a way that her papá would have approved of. A map of New Mexico hung on the wall. A penknife sat on a table, alongside a pot of ink and a leather folder full of paper.

Everyone in this place talked about God. But like at home, they all had their own ideas about who God was. In her papá’s stories, God was always on the side of the settlers of New Mexico. The God her papá believed in wasn’t magical or womanly. He was a man. God was the King, and the King was the empire. God had always been with the Montoyas, whatever empire they lived in, the empire of the United States included, so when her papá went to war in Europe, God came with him. Her papá had been wounded, but he could have died, which for him was proof that his God, the god of patriarchs, was always there.

Nena’s mamá believed in the God of Jesus, who took care of the poor.

Sister Benedicta’s God controlled chaos.

He was nothing like María’s God, who performed miracles.

Emiliano blinked his eyes open, struggling to sit up. The drunk look he’d had was gone, his eyes clear.

“Who’s she?” Emiliano asked María, looking at Nena like he’d never seen her before.

Only part of Nena was glad that she’d saved him. She was also afraid, sorry that she’d done what Sister Benedicta had asked her to do.

Because Nena’s God never let an act of magic go unpunished.