by Various
Buffy launched herself around the edge of the headstone in an effort to put something solid between her and the bruja. But she’d forgotten about the steep slope of the hill.
Too much! Too fast! she thought. Wasn’t Giles always telling her not to get carried away?
Too late. She was already rolling down the hillside.
Long grass whipped against her face as Buffy desperately tried to slow herself down. Slithering. Rolling, she tried to keep herself on her stomach. Her fingers scrabbled for purchase against the hard-packed ground.
If she didn’t stop her momentum somehow, she’d roll right off the face of the hill. The only thing between Buffy and disaster was . . .
The chain-link fence around the graveyard.
Frantically, Buffy twisted herself to the left. She flailed out with her arm, her fingers seeking the links of the fence. Her fingers scraped painfully along the metal, then caught. Buffy’s legs flew out into space as she stopped with a wrench so sudden it all but jerked her arm from its socket. She lay against the fence for a moment, fighting for breath.
Don’t just lie there. Do something, she thought. There’s a bruja to fight. No Slayer’d ever been taken out by a roll down the hill, and Buffy Summers didn’t intend to be the first.
She pulled herself into a sitting position, then got to her feet. She didn’t have her shoulder bag. Just wonderful. It looked like things were going to be hand-to-hand. Not that that was going to be a problem.
Buffy felt a second blast of air as the bruja materialized in front of her once more. One hand on the fence for balance, Buffy aimed a kick, high — and pulled up short.
There were children all around the bruja. Insubstantial. Ghostly. Dozens of them, more than Buffy could count. All of them girls, their mouths open in wails of pain.
“Cecelia!” Buffy heard Mrs. Aragon cry.
The girl closest to Buffy started forward, then jerked back, as if held by invisible chains.
“Mama! Mama!”
Buffy eyed the bruja. “Let her go,” she said.
Tears streamed down the bruja’s face. Wait a minute, Buffy thought. Since when did witches cry?
“I cannot,” the bruja choked out. “They are bound to me until —”
“Please,” Buffy heard Mrs. Aragon sob as she ran toward her. “My daughter is here! You must save her! Do something!”
At the sight of her mother, Cecelia Aragon began to wail, her cry infecting the children around her. As if their cries made her own pain worse, the bruja whipped her head from side to side. Tears flew from her face like a spangle of stars.
Something definitely doesn’t add up here, Buffy thought.
The bruja raised one arm and pointed her index finger straight at Buffy. Then, as abruptly as she’d appeared, she vanished, taking the children with her. Their cries shivered in the air, then faded away. Behind her, Buffy could hear Mrs. Aragon sobbing, harshly.
“I believed in you,” the shopkeeper gasped. “I believed in you. Why did you do nothing?”
She turned, clinging to the fence, and began to make her way back to the entrance of the graveyard. Her whole body aching, Buffy vaulted the fence and prepared to follow.
The ride home is not going to be a happy one, she thought.
She took two steps, and fell right over a headstone.
Buffy lay for a minute in the rough grass. What I did on my summer vacation, by Buffy Summers.
And the fun wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot. Buffy couldn’t leave things the way they were.
I started this. I’m going to finish it.
I’ll be back, she thought as she hauled herself to her feet and went in search of her shoulder bag.
In the daytime. When she could see where she was going.
“You did what?” said Giles.
Buffy rolled her eyes. Just one time, she wanted Giles to say, “By Jove, Buffy, that’s absolutely brilliant.” Then they could both expire of surprise.
“It’s called the right thing, Giles. You remember — that thing you’re always telling me I should do more of?”
A brief silence filled the phone connection.
“Strive to forgive me,” Giles said, his voice bone dry. “But I tend to say the first thing that comes into my head when awakened by the phone in the middle of the night. I can’t imagine why.”
“Is there a time difference between L. A. and Sunnydale?” Buffy sweetly inquired. To her surprise, she was actually enjoying herself. The truth was, it was good to hear Giles’s voice. It made her feel less alone, somehow.
It was also true that he could be infuriating and dense at times. And he was way too attached to going by the rules. But Buffy pretty much figured he couldn’t help it. He was a grown-up, after all.
“Because it’s not even midnight here,” she went on. “Don’t try and tell me you were asleep. You’re probably in bed reading Dusty Tome Illustrated and eating scones.”
“Soda crackers, actually,” Giles came back. “They make such lovely crumbs.”
“Feel free to spare me the details, Giles.”
“Am I to take it this is not a social call?”
“Does this mean we’re going right to the Giles helps Buffy portion of our program?”
Instantly, Giles’s tone became all business. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
Quickly, Buffy filled him in. “I know it’s not my usual Slayer gig, but something about this just doesn’t feel right, Giles. I mean, I know I may not be up on the latest bruja lore, but I just don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with here. She was crying.”
“Based on what you’ve told me, I think you may very well be right,” Giles said.
“I don’t suppose you’d care to put that in writing.”
“There are a couple of avenues to explore here, I think,” Giles went on. “I’ll do some research and call you back in the morning. You, meantime, will get a good night’s sleep. We don’t know what you’re facing here, so it’s safest to assume you’ll need all your strength.”
“Okay, Dad,” Buffy said, her tone joking.
“Speaking of which, how is your father?” Giles inquired.
“Fine,” Buffy said shortly. Well, it’s true, she thought. Her dad was fine. She was the one who was experiencing family-togetherness technical problems.
“Well, right then,” Giles went on. “Speak to you in the morning. And Buffy — I agree with you, by the way. You did do the right thing.”
Buffy heard the click that meant Giles had hung up, then, after a moment, the dial tone.
“Thanks,” she said.
Then she hit the “off” button and put her father’s portable phone back in the recharger.
She got ready for bed, fell asleep, and dreamed of a pair of ruby slippers and a girl’s voice saying, over and over, “There’s no place like home.”
* * *
“Right,” Giles said the next morning. “I’ll try to be brief.”
That’ll be a switch, Buffy thought. She took a sip of coffee, wincing as it scalded her tongue. Not one of her better mornings. She’d awakened to find no sign of her father save a pot of cold coffee and another note on the fridge.
She hadn’t even bothered to read it. She’d simply stuffed it down the garbage disposal along with the coffee grinds. Then she’d poured herself a cup of coffee and zapped it in the microwave while she waited for the call from Giles.
“I think you’re right to doubt that what you encountered was a bruja,” Giles said now. “Or, actually, anything with supernatural powers of its own. I think it’s most likely that the woman you saw is a spirit herself. Obviously, a very disturbed one. You did say you placed a candle on top of the headstone?”
“Right before all heck broke loose,” Buffy confirmed.
“That would seem to make sense,” Giles went on. “Unknowingly, you performed a ritual that is part of Los Dias de Muertos. Placing candles atop a grave is supposed to help guide a spirit back to earth. It would appear that you
r action of placing the candle on the gravestone during a time when spirits don’t usually walk the earth served as a direct summons.”
“So I called up whoever’s buried in that grave?”
“That’s the most likely explanation,” agreed Giles. “I was able to do fairly extensive research on the Days of the Dead. The festival has its roots in the rituals of the ancient Aztecs.
“The Aztecs believed that what a person experienced in the afterlife would be determined by the manner of their death. That being the case, I’d say that discovering who is buried in that grave and how she died should be your first priority. Unfortunately, that’s not something I can help with from here.”
“There’s a church,” Buffy said. “Right beside the graveyard. They might have records there.”
“Good thought,” said Giles. “Once you’ve determined how the woman died, you’ll know how to confront her. My sources don’t provide a lot of detail, but they all confirm a tormented spirit such as this one must be made to face the way she died. Doing this should free her.”
“What about the children?” Buffy asked.
“I think that freeing her should release them also,” Giles said. “It’s likely the reason she’s holding on to their spirits is also related to her past. Knowing more about who she and how she died should provide the answers that you need. Only, Buffy —”
I knew there was going to be a catch. “What?”
“You did say that grave was outside the graveyard?”
“Just outside the fence,” Buffy confirmed. “That means something special, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” said Giles. “Being buried outside of holy ground was usually a fate reserved for suicides. Confronting this woman with the means of her death could be very dangerous.”
“I’ll watch myself,” the Slayer promised.
“You might want to —” Giles began.
“Giles,” Buffy interrupted. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”
“This was supposed to be your vacation, you know,” Giles remarked.
Buffy sighed. “Tell me about it.”
* * *
“You want to see what?”
Buffy stood just inside the doorway of the old adobe church, facing the church’s young caretaker.
How come there are never any easy parts?
Buffy’d already had a phone consultation with Giles, a face-to-face meeting with Mrs. Aragon, followed by the trip to the graveyard. Then she’d done some on-sight reconnaissance to determine who the graves she’d discovered last night belonged to.
The grave outside the fence belonged to a young woman. The one she’d taken a header over in the far corner of the graveyard, to a child.
Both had died in the year 1889.
And they both had the same name: Josefina Maria Alonzo.
A mother and daughter? Buffy wondered.
The church records would be the best way to find out. Not to mention the best way of discovering why the older Josefina had been buried where she had been.
0If Buffy was back home in Sunnydale, this would be the part where Giles and Willow would take over. They’d paw through Giles’s musty tomes and produce the answer.
But Buffy wasn’t in Sunnydale. And she didn’t have Will and Giles. All she had was herself. And the clueless caretaker.
It’s just me and juvenile-delinquency boy.
“I’m doing some research on the graveyard,” she said again, being careful to speak slowly. “I need to see the church’s burial records —”
“What are you, some kind of freak or something?”
You have no idea. “Do you know where they are, or don’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. No need to get all bent about it. They’re in there.” He gestured with his thumb toward a small room at the back of the church. “Don’t expect me to baby-sit you, or nothing. I got work to do, you know.”
Right, Buffy thought. And I’m Santa Claus. “Don’t let me stop you.”
She turned and walked into the room the caretaker had indicated. It was like everywhere else in the church that Buffy had seen so far.
Dusty.
But there were bookshelves, with actual books on them. Big leather ones. And a table and chair in one corner. Buffy pulled out several volumes and carried them to the table, sending clouds of dust flying. Then she leafed through them until she found 1889. Inside, the book was covered with spidery handwriting.
Buffy felt her spirits sink.
Just her luck. The one time she had to do the research herself and it was before the invention of the word processor.
In the very back of the book, she found an entry.
This day have buried Josefina Maria, only child of Rafael Alonzo. At her father’s insistence, the grave is far removed from the others, marked only by a small, plain headstone. Rafael Alonzo attended the ceremony alone. He would permit no other mourners.
Not even his child’s mother? Buffy wondered.
The dates on the headstones said simply “1889.” How long between the deaths of the two Josefina Maria Alonzos?
Buffy turned the page.
Nothing.
Great, she thought. A dead end. My favorite part.
She went back through the book again. Maybe she’d missed the entry for Josefina’s mother the first time around.
She hadn’t.
I’ll never take Giles and Will for granted again.
Compared to researching, slaying was starting to look pretty straightforward. Get hit, hit back harder. Kill, or be killed. Not all that complicated. And at least you tended to know what to do next at all times.
What was she supposed to do now? Go through every single volume on the shelf? Not very likely.
If this were a movie, now’s the time when I’d discover the secret diary, she thought. She turned the last page over and ran her fingers over the inside of the book’s back cover.
You’ve got to be joking.
There was something there. No two ways about it.
Buffy dug the Swiss army knife she always carried out of her shoulder bag and slit the back cover. She pulled out several sheets of thin paper, unfolding them to reveal the same spidery handwriting.
What, no treasure map? she thought.
He made me bury her outside the holy ground.
Now we’re getting somewhere, Buffy thought. She leaned closer, squinting at the faded writing.
Be it known that I, Father Paolo Hernandez, do here set down the true story of Josefina Maria Alonzo, whom I have greatly wronged this day.
I have condemned her soul to eternal unrest by committing her body to unholy ground, though I believe her death was innocent. In this, I have let my will be overcome by that of her husband, Rafael Alonzo, whose wealth supplies my living and the bounty of this church.
Perhaps if I had not — but it is no matter. I confess my weakness and my wrong to the Holy Father.
May He have mercy on all our souls.
If I had not — what? Buffy wondered. She leafed through the pages, trying to find more. The pages seemed to ramble, filled with Father Hernandez’s tortured thoughts. Whatever had happened, it seemed plain that the priest viewed himself as at least partially responsible for the fate of the elder Josefina.
If only I had not married them. The words seemed to leap at Buffy from the page. If I had counseled her to follow her heart, and not the desires of her family. But that is not our way. The will of the daughter is subject to the father, as the wife’s is to her husband. And the husband Josefina’s father wished for her was Rafael Alonzo.
Sometimes, I think her fate was sealed upon her wedding day.
It’s like a soap opera, Buffy thought. But it had been played out with real live characters, who’d suffered deadly consequences.
As the sun sank lower and lower in the sky, the Slayer read the history of Josefina Maria Alonzo. When she was finished, she sat back.
It wasn’t very much to go on, but it just might be enough. At least she knew w
ho all the players were now. The two Josefinas were, indeed, mother and daughter.
Josefina Sanchez had been forced by her family to marry wealthy Rafael Alonzo, even though she’d loved someone else. Their only child had been a daughter, also called Josefina.
The girl buried in the corner of the graveyard, Buffy thought.
Miserable in her marriage, the older Josefina had taken as her lover the man she’d wished to marry, the one she’d loved all along. They’d planned to run away together, taking young Josefina, a plan that was foiled when they were caught by Rafael Alonzo.
Rafael had given his wife an ultimatum. Leave her daughter behind, or he would shoot her lover in front of her. When a desperate Josefina agreed, Rafael shot and killed the lover anyway. The only thing that had enabled Josefina to escape had been her daughter’s hysterics.
She’d feared her father would shoot her mother also.
The young Josefina never truly recovered from the events she had witnessed. Not long after, she contracted a fatal fever. With her dying words, she called out for her mother.
When Josefina learned of this, she was beside herself with grief. No longer fearing what Rafael might do to her, she left her hiding place and set out for the graveyard.
She never got there.
It had been a spring full of sudden, violent rainstorms, sending flash floods sweeping down the hillsides. On her way to the graveyard, Josefina was caught in a sudden onslaught of water.
Determined to keep mother and daughter apart even in death, Rafael Alonzo insisted his wife be buried in unconsecrated ground, her death treated as a suicide. He claimed his wife had taken her own life, blaming herself for what had happened to their daughter.
Although the priest resisted, Rafael’s wealth carried the day. The elder Josefina was buried outside the graveyard. Her daughter, in its farthest corner. Alone. Forgotten.
Buffy sat back, drumming her fingers on the table top.
Looks like a family reunion is in order.
What was it Giles had said? To free the spirit Buffy would have to confront her with the manner of her death.
Buffy folded Father Hernandez’s confession and slipped it into her shoulder bag. She might need to refer to it again. On the off chance the plan that was forming in the back of her mind turned out to be totally hopeless.
