Sacred Sierra

by Jason Webster

  I stepped out of Concha’s mas, pulling my coat tighter around me as I leaned in against the force of the breeze, tears peeling down the side of my face as my eyes squinted, struggling not to dry out in this desiccating air. El Clossa came out after me and we headed towards a four-wheel-drive where Pau was already sitting inside.

  ‘We’re on red alert,’ he said for the third time that day. ‘This kind of wind is the worst for forest fires.’

  ‘And what with the lack of rain this winter,’ El Clossa chipped in.

  We’d come over for lunch, Concha tempting me with a trip to a nearby abandoned village – a magical, mysterious place hidden in a secret valley. La Estrella, she said, was one of the most ‘powerful’ places in the whole Penyagolosa area. We could drive there in the afternoon.

  ‘Where the fuck are they?’ Pau was getting impatient as we waited in silence for Concha and Marina to appear. Africa was now seven months pregnant, and Salud had wisely decided to stay behind and keep her company while we went for our jaunt.

  ‘Switch on the engine,’ El Clossa said. ‘They’ll think we’re leaving without them.’

  ‘I’m not emitting any more carbons than is absolutely necessary,’ Pau said.

  At that moment the rounded figures of Concha and Marina came bundling through the tiny door. Marina wrapped a large green boa round her neck, smiling.

  Pau didn’t speak as he turned the ignition and clunked the car into gear. It had that peculiar leather-and-damp-socks smell of an old car, and it came as a relief when El Clossa wound down his window as we set off.

  We headed down from the mas to the village to hook up with the main road. There was little traffic about. An old man with a straw hat and a holey, thin jumper ambled past as we drove along, his wife in her apron a few feet in front of him picking herbs by the roadside and placing them in a plastic bag to take home.

  After a while we pulled off the road and down a dirt track near the crest of a hill. It was almost hidden by the low bushes and undergrowth surrounding it and I had probably driven past it dozens of times without even noticing. It was not one of the better-kept forest tracks, and we bumped and crashed around inside the car as Pau manoeuvred around holes in the road and abnormally sized rocks that had fallen in our way. Scots and Austrian pines lined some of the route, while a rare handful of yew trees huddled in a dark corner beneath a cliff as we started heading down into a deep, narrow valley. The gorse was no longer in bloom, but patches of broom plant gave flashes of yellow in their place. After a while the trees and plants simply disappeared, and we carried on past naked rock as the track fell down and down, hugging one side of the valley as it cascaded away in front of us before turning away out of view.

  The drop beside the track was steep and very long. I was thankful that Pau, for all his faults, appeared to be a good driver. All eyes were on the road, looking for a sign of our intended destination: La Estrella, the mysterious abandoned village.

  We turned a corner into another branch of the valley and continued our descent. It was dark down here, pale, fading sunlight just catching the tops of the valley from where we had come. The land felt bare, unloved. Other areas nearby were similar in many ways – no trees, bare rock – but there was something different about this, as though the spark and energy that seemed to light up the earth was missing. I felt trapped.

  ‘There it is.’ El Clossa broke the silence, pointing ahead towards a small group of houses nestling down at the bottom of the valley, by the banks of an empty, dry riverbed. In the middle a church tower rose up above the tiled roofs.

  ‘La Estrella,’ Concha announced. ‘The valley of the curse.’

  We parked the car a few yards outside the village, by an ancient, decrepit cemetery, its walls crumbling slowly into the ground. Through a gap you could see the small patch of land inside had been taken over by weeds.

  The path took us through almond groves before we came to the first house at the edge of the village. There, on the wall, was a sign carved into the stone, the letters painted black. Concha read aloud: ‘RIP. The Estrella flood. Ninth of October 1883. Seventeen houses destroyed. Twenty-six people dead.’

  The place was deserted. Rough cobbled streets led from where we stood into the village proper. The stone houses looked well built: it appeared once to have been a wealthy village. Beautifully carved stones formed fan-like arches over the doors; carefully carved gables were still visible; the doors were tall and solid, the first floor windows had delicate little iron balconies. This was far superior to the quality of building of most masos. And yet there was no one around. All this had been left and abandoned. Some of the houses looked the worse for it: roofs were beginning to bend where soon they would fall in, while the walls of others were already beginning to fall, exposing the interiors. Many of the houses, though, probably the majority, were in fine condition, even now, over a hundred years after they had been abandoned.

  ‘The flood virtually wiped the place out,’ Concha said. I looked over towards the parched riverbed running next to us: it was hard to imagine such a destructive amount of water pouring down here. ‘The survivors stuck around for a while but then just left. They said the place was cursed and ill luck would come to anyone who chose to live here again.’

  It felt colder down here; the wind was less strong than higher up, but there was a dampness in the air.

  ‘There’s another version of the story, a local legend,’ El Clossa said, stepping closer. The others started walking away, towards the centre of the village; they didn’t want to hear.

  ‘Locals say there used to be a special convent down here,’ El Clossa said. ‘It was meant for lovers of the king and the nobles at the royal court. Whenever a woman became pregnant by them she was sent here, to La Estrella, miles from anywhere, so no one could find her.’ He paused for a moment and checked where the others were. Concha and Marina were some way ahead; Pau seemed to be lingering within earshot.

  ‘One day,’ El Clossa went on, ‘a woman at court got pregnant by an important man of state. She was expelled from the court and sent here. When she gave birth to a healthy baby boy it was snatched away from her and its brains dashed out.’

  A few paces away Pau gave a shiver.

  ‘The woman was mad with grief, so she called on the stars for justice. One night, in September, they say, a star in human form came down to her. The mother asked for vengeance, but the star refused, saying it could only help her if in her heart she could truly forgive. So the next night the woman climbed the mountain and called out to the Devil. He appeared before her and agreed to grant her wish in return for her soul. A storm broke out and that’s when the floodwaters came down and washed the village away. But the convent and the church still survive, and there you can see the Virgin and child, protected by the star.’

  We strolled on towards the church and what had been the centre of the village. There, in the middle of the tiny square, stood a proud mulberry tree. It was still bare of leaves and its spindly branches shot out like needles from the thick, heavy trunk. On one side was a high wall behind which lay the riverbed. To the other side stood a large stone building. Its walls were painted with heavy Baroque designs in pinks and browns: columns and amphorae, a coat of arms and pretend facing stones. It was as though this abandoned structure sitting at the bottom of a forgotten valley in the middle of the empty Spanish countryside were meant to look like a palazzo in the centre of Florence. It was incongruously kitsch, and the effect was to heighten the slightly unreal feeling. It was softened, in part, by the sight of the church in front of us, far more plain and classical and easier on the eye. I walked towards it to have a closer look.

  ‘That’s where the real power is, cariño,’ Concha said enigmatically, pointing to the church and looking at me.

  ‘My pendulum’s going all over the place,’ Marina said. She was standing by the mulberry tree, her head bent down as she stared at the ball and string circling energetically from her hand. Images of her deciding the place neede
d ‘cleansing’ and pulling her pants down again to piss everywhere sprang to mind and I determined to make myself scarce. The door of the church was firmly locked, though: there was no way of escape.

  A yowling came from the side of the square and for the first time I became aware of a group of cats dozing on a stone bench built against the side of one of the houses. They looked clean and well fed, with that satisfied, smiling, feline siesta look on their faces. There seemed nothing extraordinary about it at first, but then I wondered: someone must be feeding them. Cats wouldn’t otherwise be lounging around looking so pleased with themselves. And they seemed more than comfortable with our presence in the square, as though it wasn’t unusual for them to see people there.

  We were, I felt certain, not entirely alone down here. This was supposed to be an abandoned village – a cursed abandoned village what’s more. But there were signs of life.

  ‘I’ve never come across anything as strong as this,’ Marina was saying, still fixed on her pendulum. ‘This is the perfect place for it.’

  ‘For what?’ I asked, slightly warily.

  ‘From here,’ Marina said, ‘I can place a hex on all that evil development and building they’re doing down on the coast. Marina d’Or,’ she cried, raising her hands high above her head, ‘shall be no more!’

  I’d had enough of Marina’s crazy magic, and turned my back on her, preferring not to see what her ‘curse’ would entail. As long as it didn’t involve her stripping off: dear God, please not that again.

  I walked away as she began mumbling something, and began to study the church. The façade was fairly simple, with a white, heavy statue of the Virgin Mary above the door, the baby Jesus in one arm and in her other, outstretched hand a star. On the pedestal beneath her a pentacle was clearly engraved – the estrella – or star – that gave the place its name.

  Me-eh. A curious sound came from the side of the church. I looked up: on top of the wall, where it met the façade, was a black goat, staring down at us with wide, curious eyes. Me-eh, it bleated again, its mouth like a red gash against its coat. For a second it seemed to be holding its ground, perhaps even trying to frighten us away, but it suddenly became startled by something, jumped down behind the wall and vanished. I tried to climb up the wall to see where it had gone, but it was too high and there were no footholds.

  I was beginning to get the feeling I’d walked on to the set of a B-grade horror film.

  There was a cry. El Clossa was pointing back up the mountain.

  ‘Smoke!’ he said. ‘Up there.’

  We all followed the line of his pointed finger and looked up at the top of the valley. A plume of black smoke was rising and blowing out almost horizontally as it was caught by the powerful winds.

  No one said anything for a moment as we stared, transfixed. Up above, a forest fire was catching hold.

  ‘Quick!’ El Clossa cried, as though breaking everyone out of a trance.

  No one stirred. Concha and Pau looked at one another.

  ‘Come on!’ El Clossa called. He was already scuttling back to the car at lightning speed. I started after him, the others eventually rousing themselves and following.

  By the time we managed to get back up the side of the valley, smoke was pouring out across the sky, a grey and black shoot curling and twisting as it headed out to the east. At its base, almost smothered by the fumes, small licks of angry orange and red flame could be seen, greedily consuming bushes and small trees. It lay about a kilometre from the track, and was blowing in the opposite direction, but even so I felt a primitive fear grow inside me. Pau was on the phone to the local foresters, but already we could see the blue and yellow flashing lights of the fire brigade in the distance making their way over. Within minutes they would be on the scene.

  ‘We’ll have to go,’ El Clossa said. ‘Can’t stay around here.’

  We remained in the car as Pau talked to some of the arriving foresters. The firemen raced past, slinging their heavy jackets on as they jumped out of the engines. A sickness grew in my stomach as I tried not to look out of the window at the blaze, praying that they would be able to bring it under control. It was a good job Salud wasn’t seeing this. The very thought of it would be enough to make her weep.

  The firemen eventually waved us out of the way and we headed back. Pau had wanted to stay, to help, but they didn’t want him around. Dusk was falling and they would have to act quickly in the remaining hours of daylight. We watched the plume of smoke as it fell away into the distance, growing smaller and smaller, our fears growing. I couldn’t help wondering if, in making her curse, Marina had got her bearings mixed up and sent it in the wrong direction.

  By the time we had reached Concha’s mas, Pau had received a phone call saying the blaze was under control. It would burn out that night, but would quickly be extinguished in the morning. As long as the winds didn’t change.

  ‘Not much chance of that, I should think,’ I said, looking up at the Ponent still blowing in stiffly from the west.

  ‘Can’t rule it out,’ Pau said, getting out of the car. ‘Knowing our luck …’

  The Story of the Three Lemons of Love

  ONCE THERE WAS a prince who one night dreamed of the most beautiful girl in the world. When he woke up, he went to the King and said, ‘Father, I must leave, for I have dreamed of the woman I would marry and must go out and find her.’

  And with that he packed his things and set out on his search.

  After he had been travelling for some time he came across an old woman along the way.

  ‘Where are you going, fine prince?’ asked the old hag.

  ‘I’m off to find my bride, for I have dreamed of her,’ said the prince.

  ‘Well,’ said the old woman, ‘take these three lemons. When you find a spring, cut them in half and the woman you seek will appear before you. But make sure to give her some water to drink if she asks for it!’

  The prince thanked her for the three lemons and they both went their separate ways.

  Not long afterwards, the prince came across a spring underneath a carob tree.

  ‘Here I shall find my princess,’ he said to himself, and he cut one of the lemons in half as the old woman had told him to. No sooner had he done so than the girl who had appeared in his dreams suddenly stood before him. And she was even more beautiful than he had remembered. The prince was overwhelmed by her beauty, and when the girl asked him for some water to drink, he was so dumbstruck he couldn’t say anything. And so at the striking of the church bell the girl vanished as quickly as she had appeared.

  The prince carried on his way until he came across another spring, not unlike the first. There he cut open the second lemon, and again the beautiful girl stood before him. But once again he was so struck by her that when she asked for something to drink he couldn’t move, and so she vanished once again.

  The prince decided that he wouldn’t let this happen the next time, and so when he came across a third spring he pulled out a goblet and filled it with water first before cutting open the lemon. And when the girl appeared before him again, her beauty lighting up the whole world around him, he was just able to give her the goblet when she asked for something to drink. And so she drank, and this time she stayed.

  Now the couple fell quickly in love, but the girl had nothing to wear.

  ‘Climb up into the tree there,’ said the prince, ‘and wait for me here. I’ll go to the palace and tell them what’s happened and I’ll bring back the finest robes for you to put on. Then we’ll go back and get married straightaway.’

  So the girl climbed the tree and the prince ran off as fast as he could.

  While he was gone, though, another young girl came to fetch water from the spring. But this girl was not as pretty as the first. In fact she was so ugly everyone knew her as ‘Pig-Face’. Now as she was bending down to fill her water jugs, she caught sight of the face of the beautiful girl up in the tree reflected on the surface of the water. Pig-Face had never seen her own reflec
tion before, and she started to wonder.

  ‘Why do they all call me names?’ she said, ‘when in fact I am as beautiful as this?’

  And she was so angry that she lifted her water jug and smashed it on the ground. But as she looked up she caught sight of the girl in the tree.

  ‘Who are you and what are you doing there?’ asked Pig-Face.

  And the girl told her all about the prince.

  Now Pig-Face became jealous on hearing her story, and so she said to her: ‘Your hair needs combing if you are to marry a prince. Let me come up there and do it for you.’

  And so she climbed the tree and started combing and combing the girl’s hair. As she did so, she pulled out a pin and stuck it into the girl’s head. The beautiful girl suddenly turned into a dove and flew out of the tree and high up into the air.

  When the prince returned he looked up into the tree at his bride and was amazed. How had he thought the girl was so beautiful before, he thought. But he had given his word that they would be married and so he dressed Pig-Face in the fine robes he had brought – still thinking she was the girl of his dreams – and took her back to the palace, where they were married.

  Some time after the wedding, when the prince had now become King, some of the servants in the palace kitchen saw a white dove flying around the open window, and it sang to them: The King has married Pig-Face, the King has married Pig-Face.

  The servants laughed, but didn’t pay it much attention. The next day, though, the dove came back, and the next, and always singing the same song. So the servants went and told the King. When he heard about the dove, the King ordered them to capture it and kill it. And this they did. But where they killed it, three drops of blood fell to the earth.

  A few days later a lemon tree had grown where the drops of blood had fallen, and the servants went and told the King. The King told them to look after and nurture the tree, and so after a few more days they brought him three large ripe lemons that they had picked from it, and placed them in front of him as he was eating.