A Circle of Time

by Marisa Montes

  “Are you hungry, muchachos?” Like Teresa Cardona Pomales, Magda spoke with a delicate Spanish accent.

  Joshua stretched and patted his belly, winking at Magda. “You know me, Magda, I’m always hungry.”

  “Becky?” Magda turned her intense eyes to Allison.

  “It’s strange, it feels like hours since we ate, but I’m not very hungry.”

  “Not strange at all,” said Joshua, taking a sip of tea. “You always eat like a sparrow.”

  “Finish your tea, and I will serve you both some stew. You need not eat very much if you do not wish to, Becky.”

  “She’ll eat,” Joshua said. “She needs some meat on her bones.” He attempted a frown, but his laughing eyes and the grin that seemed to always play with the corners of his mouth ruined the effect.

  Allison was about to protest, disliking anyone to order her about, but she realized that Joshua meant well and was really thinking of her as Becky, so she decided to keep quiet. It’s what Becky would have done. Instead, she took a sip of tea. Not bad. She’d never tasted sarsaparilla. It tasted a bit like flat Dr. Pepper, her favorite soft drink.

  “Before we eat, Magda,” said Joshua, “could you take a look at Becky’s arm? I thought you might use some of your special liniment on it.”

  “She hurt her arm?” Magda sat next to Allison.

  “Something like that,” Joshua muttered.

  “May I see, Becky?”

  Allison pushed up her sleeve. Magda’s placid expression remained unchanged while she gently lifted the girl’s arm. But as she held the arm in her hands, examining the bruises, the woman’s face suddenly contorted with pain. She cried out and turned away.

  Alarmed, Allison pulled back her arm. “Are you all right, Magda?”

  Magda doubled over and swayed back and forth, moaning as if in a trance. Joshua leaped to her side and knelt beside her, his face full of concern.

  “Magda?” he said softly.

  When she didn’t respond, Allison said, “Joshua, shouldn’t we do something? What’s wrong with her?”

  “We can’t touch her. We have to wait for it to pass.”

  “Wait for what to pass? What’s happening to her, Joshua? She seems in horrible pain.”

  Magda’s moaning and writhing lessened, and she began to sit up.

  “Magda, are you back?” Joshua whispered.

  “Sí, Joshua, I’m here,” she said between deep breaths.

  Joshua placed his hand on her shoulder. “Did you see something?”

  “Un momento—give me a moment.” Magda covered her face with her hands and took another deep breath. When she removed her hands, Magda turned to Allison. “I see a large woman moving toward a girl. Reaching for her, grabbing her, pulling her hair and arms. The girl struggles; the woman wrenches her arm behind her and twists. The girl screams. I feel her pain, her terror. I recognize the girl’s face, her body. It is this face, this body.”

  Magda touched Allison’s face with her fingertips. She looked down at the bruised arm, then moved her gaze slowly back to Allison’s face. In a hushed voice, she said, “But the girl who screamed was not you. You are la otra ... the other.”

  Magda led Allison to her bedroom, the space behind the curtain, and helped Allison remove her dress so Magda could apply liniment to the bruised shoulder and upper arm. The liniment was cool and soothing and smelled of camphor, eucalyptus, and wintergreen. And Magda’s touch itself felt warm and healing.

  Allison glanced around the tiny enclosure. It held a small cot, above which hung a large, elaborately sculpted silver crucifix. The remaining space was taken up by a homemade shrine. A wooden prie-dieu stood before the modest altar. The narrow kneeling bench had a prayer shelf at the top, on which lay a worn leather prayer book and an ancient Bible, its pages warped and its corners dog-eared from years of handling.

  The altar was covered with white linen embroidered in gold thread. On it stood a delicately carved and painted statue of the Virgin Mary surrounded by several statuettes of saints. Votive candles burned in red and blue glass tumblers. A crystal-beaded rosary lay at the foot of the Virgin.

  When they were done, Magda led Allison back to the kitchen table. The moment he saw them, Joshua flew up from his chair, toppling it backward. “I can’t stand it anymore. Will one of you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Siéntate, Joshua, ” said Magda, “y ten paciencia.”

  “All right, I’ll sit,” he replied, standing his chair upright. “But I won’t be patient.”

  Magda set an earthenware bowl in front of Allison, then another in front of Joshua. “The stiffness should be gone by morning, and the soreness soon after,” she said to Allison.

  “Magda, please,” Joshua insisted.

  Magda sighed. “I cannot tell you any more than I have, Joshua. The rest is up to Becky.”

  Allison stared into the empty brown bowl. Bits of iridescent enamel gleamed in the dim light of the kerosene lamp. She bit her lip as she thought of what to say.

  “I’m not from here. I was born in 1982, and—”

  Joshua gave a short, nervous laugh. “You mean 1892, right Becky? You’re fourteen, and you were born in 1892.”

  “I am fourteen years old, but I was born in 1982.” Allison glanced sideways at Joshua. “And my name is Allison Anne Blair.”

  Joshua’s face turned pale. He looked as though he had eaten a piece of bad meat and needed to throw up. Allison looked at Magda. Her face was as calm as a clear lake on a windless day.

  “I was in an accident a few days ago, I think—I mean in 1996. I fell down a ravine and hit my head. A girl found me and got help. I was taken to a hospital in a coma—unconscious. The girl who helped me was Becky Lee Thompson. She took over my body and sent me back in hers to help her. But I don’t know what she wants me to do.”

  Joshua sat with his head in his hands, shaking it back and forth. “This can’t be true. Becky, maybe you’re just having one of your spells...”

  “Allison—my name is Allison. I know it sounds crazy, Joshua. How do you think I feel?” Allison reached over and placed her hand on Joshua’s. She had to make him believe her.

  Joshua stiffened at her touch. “It sounds worse than crazy, girl. What you’re saying is that Becky Lee is possessed by the ghost of a girl that’s not even been born yet.”

  Allison gave him a wry grin. “I think you have to be dead to be a ghost. I don’t think I’m dead yet.”

  Joshua shook his head again. “This is nothing to joke about. The only thing that’s making me listen to this crazy talk is that I don’t even know you anymore. You aren’t anything like my Becky.”

  Allison thought for a moment. “What’s the date? Maybe I can prove to you I’m from the future.”

  “April 17, 1906,” Joshua said in a resigned voice.

  Allison gasped. “April ... 1906? Are we still in northern California? Near San Francisco?”

  “About seventy-five miles northeast of San Francisco.”

  “Well,” said Allison, “it’s close, but maybe not close enough. A day or two from now, the eighteenth or the nineteenth—I can’t remember exactly—there’s going to be a horrible earthquake in San Francisco. What isn’t destroyed by the quake will be burned by fires. But I don’t know how much we’ll feel up here. Anyway, that’s still at least a day away, and I need you to believe me now.”

  “I already told you I know you’re different. It’s this girl-from-the-future thing, and inside my Becky, no less! It—it makes my head hurt.” He groaned and covered his head with his arms.

  Allison thought about the movie Aliens and all the other science fiction and horror movies she’d seen in which an alien thing was living inside a perfectly normal-looking human being. The last thing she wanted was for Joshua to be repulsed by her, to think she was a freak or a grotesque creature of some sort.

  “Joshua,” she whispered, “please don’t be afraid of me. I’m still a person. I’m not a ghost or a changeling or a ghoul. I’m th
e same person you laughed and played with in the creek and who held your hand in the woods. I’m just not Becky.” When Joshua still didn’t reply, Allison added, “But I do need your help.”

  Joshua was silent for a moment. Then he lifted his head and looked up at Allison. His eyes studied her face. The tiniest grin began to wiggle the corners of his mouth. The intense look in his eyes relaxed.

  “If there’s something I can’t turn my back on, it’s a person in distress—’specially a lady.”

  “Magda,” said Allison as she finished the last of her stew, “you said I was ‘the other.’ How did you know that?”

  “I sensed it. You did not seem to have knowledge of the terror, of how you got the bruises. The vision came to me from touching your body, just as a vision might come to me from touching something that belonged to someone who had experienced violence. It was as though your body were a foreign object, not a part of you. I did not feel your emotions. I felt the body’s energy.”

  “But that still doesn’t explain your choice of words—you said ‘la otra—the other.’ ”

  “I have been expecting you. The last time I saw Becky, I had a... presentimiento...”

  “Premonition,” Joshua said.

  “Sí, a premonition. I sensed her future held danger, but I did not know how or when it would happen. So I did not say anything to Becky. I did not wish to frighten her. The words came to me: ‘The other shall be here soon.’ That is all I know.”

  Allison shivered at the thought that someone could sense the future. “Have you always been”—she searched for the right word—“psychic?”

  Magda brushed strands of long black hair away from her face with slender fingers and nodded. “Ever since I was a child. My brother used to call it un don—a gift. My mother called it a curse. Sometimes I agree with her. But it is as much a part of me as my arms and my legs. I would not wish away any of them. One takes the good with the bad.”

  Allison thought of Magda’s severe limp. It was obviously hard on her, but because Magda didn’t let it interfere with the day-to-day things she wanted to accomplish, it was not completely disabling. Allison wondered if that was one of the bad things Magda was referring to. Magda’s beauty surely must be one of the good things.

  “Do you live here alone?” Allison asked Magda.

  Joshua laughed. “Why, Magda’s never alone. She has dozens of friends in the forest. ”

  As if on cue, Bubba awoke from his nap in the corner and scurried to Magda’s side. He sat up in begging position, then scampered to the door to be let out.

  They laughed as they watched the little raccoon stand on his hind legs and scratch at the door.

  “I’ll open it,” Joshua offered. When he returned to his chair, Joshua continued. “In winter, Magda lets me sleep in front of the fireplace.”

  Allison’s brow furrowed. “Where do you live the rest of the time?”

  “In the waterfall cave,” he said. Noticing the puzzled look on Allison’s face, he added, “Magda took me in when my parents were killed. I was just a little tyke. Right, Magda?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  “Miz Teresa brought me to her. But a couple of years ago, I decided to be on my own, so I moved into the cave. I’m almost a full-grown man, you know. I got a job at the Cardona Pomales estate, helping with the vineyards and doing odd jobs. And I look in on Magda a couple of times a week, when I’m not staying here.”

  “But what about school?”

  “Miz Teresa teaches school on the estate. I read and write pretty good.”

  “Joshua is very bright,” Magda said in an affectionate tone. “He picked up Spanish very quickly. And he helped me with my English.”

  “Are you from Mexico, Magda?” Living in the Napa Valley, Allison was used to Mexican immigrants.

  “No, my brother and I were born in Spain, as were the Cardona Pomaleses. Don Carlos sent for my father because of his expertise with the grapes. Don Carlos surrounds himself with experts.”

  Allison noticed an edge to Magda’s voice. “Don Carlos?”

  “Don Carlos Cardona Pomales, the owner of the biggest vineyard in the Napa Valley.” Magda paused and a shadow seemed to cross her face. “A very formidable man, Don Carlos.”

  “Yes, I remember,” said Allison, thinking of Teresa’s wild-haired father.

  Now it was Joshua’s turn to look puzzled. “You’ve met him—I mean, Becky has, but you?...”

  “Allison. The name is Allison. Yes, I met him and Teresa this morning. That’s where Becky was when I ... appeared.” Allison purposely avoided saying, “When I took over her body.” The thought still gave her the creeps, so she could imagine how Joshua felt.

  “It was very strange, too,” she continued. “I got the feeling Don Carlos doesn’t like me—I mean Becky. In fact, it was as though he felt contempt for her.”

  Joshua snorted. “Don’t take it personal. He acts as if anyone who isn’t Spanish and from a ‘good’ family is beneath him.”

  “He’s a bigot?”

  Joshua smirked. “I wouldn’t say it to his face, but that’s about the size of it.”

  “Where is your family now, Magda?” Allison asked. “Did they go back to Spain?”

  Magda stared into the fire of the kerosene lamp. Finally, she spoke.

  “My father was killed in a fire on the estate. Mamá died soon after from a broken heart. They were childhood sweethearts, and she couldn’t go on without him. ”

  “I’m sorry,” said Allison. “I shouldn’t have intruded.”

  “You did not know.” Magda gazed around her, taking in the cottage walls, almost as if she were in another trance. “Joselito, my brother, built this cottage, and we moved here—to be away from the estate. Don Carlos did not want us around. He did not want José near his older daughter, Isabel. José and Isa were in love, and Isa was my best friend. But a Velasquez was not good enough for his daughter. Don Carlos had plans for Isa to marry a wealthy landowner.

  “Isa and José planned to elope. They were going to send for me, and we were to return to Spain. We wanted to get as far away from her father and the estate as possible.

  “They did elope and hid out for a few days, but Don Carlos found them and had them brought back. When it became apparent that Isa was with child, Don Carlos sent her to the Carmelitas—”

  “The Carmelite nuns,” Joshua explained to Allison. “At the convent south of Monterey, right?” he asked Magda.

  Magda nodded. “Sí, to the convent, to have her baby. He threatened José and forbade him to ever speak to her again. But José adored Isa and would not be parted from her. He always called her La Rubia because of her goldenred hair.” Magda paused and smiled sadly, remembering. “A week later, José made plans to break into the convent and take her away. But he disappeared before he reached there. I’ve never seen or heard from him since.”

  Magda fingered the tiny gold crucifix that hung around her neck. “Isa’s baby was stillborn. The strain of losing her beloved and his baby was too much. Se volvió loca—she went ... insane. Don Carlos brought her home and keeps her locked in the west wing. But sometimes she escapes. People say they have seen her wandering in the woods at night and, echoing from the west wing, they hear her wailing cries.”

  Chapter 10

  Becky...” Joshua winced. “I mean, Allison, it’s getting late. You’ll have to be getting back to Becky’s—”

  “I told you, Joshua, I’m not going back there, and I mean it. I don’t ever want to see that woman again.”

  “I never wanted Becky to go back, either. But she kept insisting Sadie would go looking for her, and when she found her she would...”

  Allison shuddered at the thought. “So what should I do, go back there and have her knock me senseless again? That’s what she did the last time I saw her.”

  “When was this?”

  “I don’t really know. For a while, Becky had me bouncing back and forth from her life to mine. One minute I’d be lying in the hos
pital room, Mom holding my hand, and the next, I’d be in the cabin, or in the woods running for my life, or in the meadow near the cabin.” Allison felt the color rise in her face at the memory. “That’s when I first met you.”

  “We met before today?”

  Allison gave Joshua a shy smile. “Once, in the meadow. You ran after me saying I was late and dragged me into the woods after you. Then Becky’s mom...”

  “That was you? You didn’t seem any different. Distracted maybe, but Becky’s always distracted.”

  “Anyway, the last time I was in the cabin, I woke up sitting at an old sewing machine. When I realized where I was, I tried to escape, but that woman caught me. She got pissed off—” At the look of shock on Joshua’s face, Allison rephrased. “She got upset because Becky hadn’t finished a dress she was working on. Poor Becky had probably been out for a while—one of her spells, maybe—when I dropped in. So she hadn’t gotten much work done. Old Sadie hauled back her fist and let me have it. I blacked out, and the next thing I remember was being back in the hospital.”

  Joshua clenched his fists. “I bet I know when that happened. I saw Becky a couple of weeks ago, and her face was black and blue. She told me she’d tripped and hit her face on a rock. I’ll kill that woman, I swear—”

  Magda gasped and made the sign of the cross. “Cáll-ate, Joshua, don’t say such things.”

  Allison frowned at Joshua. “I already warned him not to carry on about that woman. She’s not worth it.”

  Magda sat next to Allison and took her hands in hers. “Allison, if you do not wish to go back to Sadie, you may stay with me as long as you like. But there are several problems with that plan. First, as Becky feared, Sadie will not rest until she finds you. Second, Becky sent you here for a purpose. We do not know that purpose, and if you stay here, we may not find out until it is too late.”

  A finger of ice traced its way up Allison’s spine. “What do you mean, Magda?”