by Ann Aguirre
“Then just charge your food to the room when you get hungry.” I managed not to tell her to put on sunscreen. Besides, Shannon didn’t want to lose her Goth pallor, so when she wasn’t swimming, I was sure she would sit in the shade.
It was early, and she hadn’t showered. If it were me, I wouldn’t bother if I was going to the pool in a little while. Butch hopped into my purse, which answered my unasked question—it seemed he wanted to go in search of the island witch with Kel and me.
The guardian waited by the door. “I arranged a boat downstairs.”
Wow, that was fast.
“So they know Nalleli here?”
“I didn’t ask about her. They do, however, handle lake tours for their guests.”
It made sense. Tourists who came looking for the famous Catemaco witches would be referred to charlatans in the zócalo. Likewise, those who wanted the grand tour of the lake . . . well, the staff helped out with that too. I wasn’t sure if the locals knew the name Tia had given us, but we didn’t want to leave a trail a mile wide.
“Are you sure Shannon will be all right?” I asked as we went down the stairs.
We passed through the small garden and through the lobby out into the pool area before he replied. “Do you want a detailed analysis?”
“Please.”
“Should Montoya manage to uncover your location by arcane means, the spell will be keyed to you, so as long as you’re not with Shannon when the attack comes, then she’ll be fine.”
“You’re saying this is safer for her.” Damn. I wished I’d left her in Mexico City to run the shop. Not that she would’ve agreed to it.
“No question.”
There were a few sunbathers already, and some Europeans were eating on the patio, basking in the sunlight. They spoke German, as best I could tell, and the older woman in the group had painfully fair skin. I hoped she put on sunscreen too.
Palapas lined the lakefront, the kind you usually saw in beach towns like Cancún or Puerto Vallarta. Here, there was no white sand; instead the little shelters sat atop rich green grass. The soil was damp beneath my soles, but not enough to sink. It had been raining, so the lake lapped nearly to the top of the concrete rim. There was no fencing, so you could fall into Lake Catemaco pretty easily. I didn’t know how deep it was here.
To the left lay an impressive play area. There were no kids running around yet. If Shannon were a bit younger, she’d get some use out of the swings and the slide. Of course, if she were younger, she would still be with her father.
Today, I wore a pair of long cargo shorts and walking boots, paired with a yellow cotton peasant blouse. The bugs would be bad out on the water, but I didn’t have any repellent on me. Somehow I doubted insect bites would prove a problem for Kel.
“It’ll be a while,” he said. “I thought you could read the dagger before we go.”
I’d almost forgotten. With trepidation, I sat down at one of the white wrought-iron tables; the paint had peeled in spots, showing the darkness beneath. Placed just beyond the patio, they sat on the grass, where parents could watch their children at play. At this hour, the place was quiet, the sun only just starting to warm the day.
Kel handed me the weapon. A waiter came over, but he waved him away with a terse request for café. I gazed at the blade for a few seconds, and then braced myself. Knives were never good.
I reached for it and wrapped my fingers around the handle. Fire blasted me as if I’d stepped into the heart of a volcano. How my skin could still be on my body, I had no idea; my vision washed red, and then I fell into a nightmare.
So many killings.
I saw them all, one by one, superimposed like ghostly, silent reels shown in some infernal theater. Agony streaked through me with each death. The cries felt like they must surely choke me, and it got worse. The man had last used this weapon to murder a child—an object lesson. I caught some of the words, mouthed with angry gestures. I watched the shock and grief, and could do nothing to stop it. It was a past thing, untouchable, immutable.
I bore it and held my silence.
Then it showed me something new. Not a death. An argument. The man spun the blade in his hands, and his anger suffused me. He got up in another man’s grille, someone who bore an unmistakable resemblance to the face Tia had crafted. But before he could strike, the other man gestured; the assassin slammed to the ground, and the knife dropped out of his hand. I lost the thread there.
Finally, the dagger flashed the killer’s fight with Kel, lightning-fast and fierce. By the time I returned to the world of lake, pool, and palapas, and Kel came back into focus, I sat doubled over, breathing in raw, ugly gasps. Nausea racked me. He touched my back, tentative as the brown bird hopping around the base of the table, hoping for scraps. My hand burned, but something had shifted in my gift. The flower pentacle scar from my mother’s necklace absorbed the damage—and that was new.
“Take it away,” I said hoarsely. Not his hand. The knife.
To my vast relief, he did.
“Nothing helpful?” he asked at last.
“Only that the man who used it is a professional. He killed on orders, not for pleasure.” I’d seen no signs of enjoyment, but those rare flashes when I saw his reflection in windowpanes, he had eyes like death, hollow and empty.
“We could have guessed as much.” He paused, frowning and thoughtful.
“I’m glad you killed him.” The last death—the child—would haunt me. “But at least I got a good look at the man who hexed me. I have a few corrections for your sketch.”
“We’ll do that when we get back. It’s time to go.” He stood up and headed toward the lake.
Voyage to Monkey Island
The morning sun warmed my skin as we waited for the boatman. In the distance, I spotted a flat-bottomed lancha churning the water; white spume sprayed in its wake as if it were propelled by fire-extinguisher foam. A large awning shaded the boat, which he piloted from the back. It was a bit battered but seaworthy. This vessel could hold eight more people, but we’d hired a private tour.
“He’s ten minutes late,” Kel said.
That was pretty good. In the city, if I scheduled an appointment with a repairman, I’d be lucky if he showed up on the promised day. Punctuality was an individual judgment more than a social imperative.
“How much is this costing me?” I whispered, as the boatman pulled up. The prow nudged the cement rim gently, and the man leapt onto shore with rope in hand. Steps led down into the launch, making it easy for us to board.
The other man answered—so he understood some English. “Four hundred pesos.”
That was reasonable, thirty bucks or so, depending on the exchange rate. Catemaco wasn’t a big tourist spot, so they hadn’t jacked up the prices. The food probably wouldn’t cost a fortune while we were here, either. Good thing, as the pawnshop took care of Shannon and me, but I wasn’t rich.
I peeled off a couple of bills and passed them over, and the boatman beamed at me. His teeth were very white in a sun-weathered face. “Me llamo Ernesto. Bienvenidos.”
As we boarded, he seemed so pleased, chattering about the sights he would show us, including Monkey Island, that I couldn’t bring myself to cut him off. So we listened while he practiced his English until he came to a word he didn’t know, and then he substituted in Spanish.
Obligingly, I supplied the word for him. “Monkeys.”
I always found it funny that there were two words for monkey in Spanish: chango and mono. I’d asked if one meant ape, but though chango was more slang, it still meant monkey. Spanish was weird that way: two words for monkey, and esposas meant both wives and handcuffs. That said a lot.
Ernesto had a thick accent. “You’re going to love the Monkey Island.”
I didn’t share his certainty. Monkeys struck me as sinister, falling under the category of things that looked almost human, but weren’t, really, like dolls and clowns—all creepy in my book.
Shannon looked so small from this
distance, capped with a shock of black hair; she waved from the balcony as we got under way. I waved back and took a seat in the middle when the boat accelerated. Ernesto was still talking. We would stop first at the city market, he said, and for a mere fifty pesos more, he would disembark to buy fresh fruit for us to feed the monkeys.
I glanced at Kel, who murmured, “It might be best if we let him give us the regular tour in addition to going to see Nalleli. That way, our destination isn’t so singular.”
And we wouldn’t stand out in his memory if someone questioned him later. It made sense, though I wasn’t keen on the delay. There must be other tourists who asked to visit Nalleli. Otherwise, I wasn’t sure how we’d find her.
“Do we know which island she’s on?” I asked in a whisper.
“I’m sure he does,” he answered, tilting his head back toward our guide.
It made sense. The island witch might be the only true curandera—or bruja, depending on the type of magick she practiced—in the area, though Catemaco was famous for its witches and warlocks. But tourism dictated that most were performers and charlatans more than true practitioners. I needed someone with real power, and I hoped Tia knew what she was talking about.
The boat gathered speed, leaping out toward the middle of the lake. Wind whipped across my face, and Butch popped his head out of my bag. I clutched him to my chest. If he got overly excited and jumped, I’d never see him again in a lake this size. It was enormous.
Buildings on the shore looked strange and exotic—as we neared the zócalo, a gold cathedral edged in red caught my eye. It rose above the palm and mangrove trees, and the brightpainted boats that crouched at its feet seemed as supplicants to the stately structure. We passed an orange and white building on the way to the mooring place. The reason it drew a second look? On the concrete wall below, it read, HOTEL DEL BRUJO, in black block letters, and the architecture reminded me of an old houseboat.
Shortly, Ernesto pulled up to a shallow point in the lake, not a dock so much as a sandbar. I gave him fifty pesos, and he leapt lightly down into the water. The boatman waded ashore, leaving Kel and me to watch the old woman doing her laundry nearby. She grinned at us from a nearly toothless mouth—and for a moment I was afraid she was going to come over begging. That was one of my least favorite parts of living in Mexico, because I never knew how much to give. However, with Kel at my side for protection and Butch in my lap to read the nuances of the situation, we’d be fine. Sopping clothes in hand, she came over to make small talk—and she didn’t ask for money.
Maybe she had cataracts, because she didn’t appear afraid of Kel, though she directed her greeting to both of us. “¿Es un buen día, no?”
I gazed up at the blue sky. It was, actually. I hadn’t noticed because of the fear and necessity driving me. The gentle slosh of the water made the lancha rise and fall beside the sandbar, soothing me.
He answered in his precise Castilian Spanish. As it had been with Tia, his manner was gentle and almost courtly. “Sí. ¿Como estáis vos?”
“Muy bien, gracias.”
She chatted with him as she washed. A bag sat beside her on the shore, clothing spilling out upon the sand. She used a bar of soap, but it wasn’t the regular kind; I’d seen it in the cleaning aisles for use in laundry. You could shave it for use in machines or rub it on stains for washing by hand. I couldn’t see that the lake water was doing her delicates any good, but it was doubtless better than nothing. I wondered if she lived nearby.
“Do you know the island witch?” Kel asked eventually.
Ah. Clever.
“Nalleli?” It seemed she did. I suspected she knew most things around here. “Sí.”
“¿Donde vive?”
The old woman turned and gestured, giving complicated directions. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find the spot, based on what she was saying, but Kel appeared to follow it all. He smiled and thanked her. By the time Ernesto returned with pineapple, papaya, and cantaloupe for the monkeys, the washerwoman was giggling like a young girl.
She stepped back as Ernesto powered the boat in reverse, and then we headed back out onto the lake. Since it was relatively early, we saw a number of fishermen trying their luck—and one man asleep in his boat with a hat drawn across his face. Imagining what his wife would say when he came home empty-handed put a smile on my face.
This reminded me of a trip I’d taken with Chance. We’d crossed the channel by boat, Dover to Calais. To a girl from the Georgia backwoods, he’d seemed so impossibly charming and urbane, and I had to work to make myself worthy of him. I suspect he sensed that insecurity and it gave him leverage. It saddened me, thinking about that girl clutching his hand with each bounce of the waves. He’d wanted to be all things to me, and for a while, I permitted him to be.
After the way he’d left me in Kilmer—and no word from him since—I didn’t love him anymore. But some exes carved out space in your heart that could never be filled.
Oh, Jesse tried. And sometimes I felt like letting him. He represented security and normalcy, all the sweet and wholesome things I’d never known. Trouble was, I had self-destructive inclinations, and I didn’t always heed what was best for me. Sometimes my instincts were purely imperfect.
The increase in speed roused me from reverie. Mountains rose in the distance, shrouded in clouds, as if the lake had been poured from their great heights. The islands appeared densely wooded, small strips of jungle rising from the water. I could see why the locals thought this place was magical—so astonishingly remote and unspoiled—and when the sun hit the water, it shone blue as a tropical ocean. But when the sun slid behind the clouds, it went dark and sullen.
As we went farther from town, we saw more wildlife. A snowy egret perched on a wooden pole rising from the water, the remains of a pier long since fallen into the laguna. Laughing gulls followed the boat, probably hoping for a treat tossed into the wind.
Butch studied everything with great interest, his big eyes shining with what I took to be delight. Kel was harder for me to read, just a wall of heavily muscled silence beside me. Luckily, Ernesto didn’t have a shy bone in his body, and he regaled us with old stories while pointing out everything of interest. En route, we passed Heron Island, an inlet filled with water lilies, and an ecological preserve, which housed native art and a nice restaurant on the water.
“We should go,” Kel said, as if we were tourists.
His attempt to pass as a vacationer amused me. But our guide had clearly seen weirder things than Kel, because he didn’t stare at the tats. Then again, ink sometimes indicated some underworld ties, particularly when done in certain patterns. Ernesto couldn’t know these were written in angelic script.
The boatman nodded. “If you do, try the eggs. Such a lovely sauce! And it is very nice to eat by the dock and watch the birds.”
“Quizá,” I said, which means maybe.
“You must see Eyipantla Falls as well,” Ernesto added. “Sadly, I cannot take you there, but if you have a car, it is not far from your hotel, and the route is well marked.”
“Noted.”
It was getting harder for me to appreciate the scenery and rein in my nerves. Soon I’d find out whether Nalleli could help us, if she could tell anything about the hex or at least remove the curse from my damn saltshaker. The professor from Spain would be arriving in a few weeks.
But maybe I was fooling myself that I could go back to my shop. Since Montoya knew to find me there, it would be the height of stupidity to return. Instead I should keep moving, preventing his pet caster from getting a lock on me. It worried me that we’d paused in Catemaco, but I couldn’t see a way around it. I needed to hear what the island witch had to say.
Lunging, Butch yapped at a bird that dove too close to the boat. I wrapped an arm around him and tucked him beneath it.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I muttered.
The dog had the grace to look abashed.
I bounced with each wave until I learned to brace myself wit
h my other arm on the green poles that held the awning aloft. The engine slowed as Ernesto downshifted, letting the boat glide close to the island. At first I didn’t see anything, and then big simian faces poked out from the undergrowth. Two of them dangled above the boat, their weight causing the branches to hang so low as to brush the awning. I’m not sure what I expected, but these were not the tiny, adorable animals that perch on people’s shoulders in the movies.
These monkeys were too big to be rightfully called cute—and as Ernesto put the fresh fruit on the yellow seats at the bow, they boarded.
Heaven and Hell
“Don’t worry,” Ernesto said in Spanish, doubtless reading my look. “They’ll eat the fruit and go. I do this all the time.”
Well, sure. Who wouldn’t want to invite enormous feral monkeys onto their boat?
Beside me, Kel tracked their movements as the animals squatted and tore into the pineapple. The two largest ones fought over the last piece, shrieking until I thought they’d come to blows. Eventually the smaller yielded and picked up some melon. They were huge and greedy, their eyes darting back and forth as if they were angry about being forced to live on this island. But I was probably reading too much into the situation. They were animals.
Normal people probably snapped pictures right now, but I didn’t have a camera. Mostly, I wanted to get this over with so we could ask Ernesto to take us to see Nalleli. It didn’t help my nerves that Kel was carrying a hexed saltshaker that could kill me. I’d started to put it in my bag earlier, but he’d extended a hand, wordless. I couldn’t claim I was sorry to turn Eros over to his care.
A thump overhead rocked the whole boat—and I wasn’t a fan of the idea that there were now giant monkeys on top of us. The one that climbed down the pole was bigger than the rest; it had a scarred muzzle and patchy gray fur. It should’ve been funny with its muddy red ass, but instead it looked mean and angry. Without meaning to, I moved a little closer to Kel. He put his hand on my arm—caution or reassurance, I didn’t know which. Either way, it wasn’t working.
