by Jenny Twist
“What a beautiful creature. How thoughtful of you, my son, to bring her for me. I have gone hungry for so long.”
“No!” Rupert bared his teeth. “She is not for you. She is mine.”
“Come, my boy. Would you refuse your father his first meal after all these years?” Rupert thrust Samantha behind him and glared at his father.
Ignacio threw back his head and laughed again. “Do you think you can beat me, boy? You are a mere stripling. I could tear your head off with one blow.” Behind Rupert, Samantha whimpered. Heather ran forward and threw herself on Ignacio’s back. He shook her off as if she were a troublesome fly.
Alison had been running forward but now stopped dead in her tracks and did a strange little dithering dance, hopping from one foot to another. Johan came up behind her and grabbed her round the waist to restrain her.
The Mantequero began to march towards Rupert and Samantha. “Now!!”
His cry was cut off sharp as Rafa’s knife sliced into his back, followed by two smaller knives. All three quivered as the Mantequero fell forward.
Quick as a flash. The big man threw himself down to his knees and beside Ignacio and rolled the Mantequero onto his back. He screamed as the blades were driven deeper into his flesh, the point of Rafa’s larger knife beginning to protrude through his chest. Rafa shifted his weight to the Mantequero’s shoulders as he began to squirm. “Quick, boys,” he cried. “Hold him down.”
Heather backed away, her hand to her mouth, her eyes staring in horror.
“Bring the stake,” Rafa said, pointing to the bloody spike lying beside the grave.
It was not Heather, but Rupert who obeyed his command. The Mantequero was thrashing wildly but Rafa and his sons held him.
“Here.” Rafa took the hammer from his belt and passed it to Rupert. “You must do it. It must be done by one who loves him.”
“But I don’t. . .” Rupert began, but as he looked at the man lying helpless beneath the three men he realised he did love him. With a dreadful cry he placed the stake back where it had been before and struck the first blow. Ignacio screamed. “No, no, my son. You must not. I cannot die. I shall go on living forever in torment. You cannot condemn me to this.”
Rupert looked at Rafa, who nodded. Then he lifted the hammer again. . . and again.
When it was over he collapsed, sobbing, beside the body. It had stopped. His father’s voice had stilled at last.
Rafa stood up. “You have done well, boy,” he said. “Go now. I will do what must be done.” He took the axe from his belt. “And I will do it properly this time,” he whispered between his teeth.
Rupert turned away and buried his head in the curve of Samantha’s neck. It stopped his eyes seeing but it did not prevent him hearing the dreadful thud as the axe struck through his father’s neck to the earth below.
He turned in time to see Rafa hold up the head by the hair, swing his arm in a wide arc and throw it far out across the barranco. Samantha watched in silent fascination as it flew through the air, small drops of blood scattering as it went.
Then she turned back to Rupert.
“It’s over,” she said.
He gave her a sickly smile but stepped back from her.
“What – what is it?” she said.
He stood, trembling in the cold mountain air, his arms spread wide in a gesture of helplessness. “I have killed my father,” he said. “I am cursed.”
“You didn’t kill him,” Samantha said, taking a step forward and closing the gap. “He was already dead. You set him free.”
Then, as Rupert continued to stare at her with haunted eyes, she took him in her arms.
“I love you,” she said, and reached up to his face to kiss him.
She smelt delicious. He could almost taste the fat beneath her skin and for a moment, just for a moment, he thought. Maybe it would be all right if I gave her a special kiss. Just one. Just a little taste. But he dismissed the thought and had to deal with other things as his mother joined in the hug, elbowing Samantha to one side and clutching him so tight he could hardly breathe.
“We will return tomorrow,” Rafa said, “and give him a proper burial. But now we must go back. It is not safe to be out on the mountain in the dark.”
He assigned the young Rafa to lead the way, put his younger son in the middle of the little band and he himself took up a position at the rear. “Everyone hold hands,” he commanded. “It is easy to lose oneself in the dark.”
And the ragged little group made its way slowly back down the mountain.
****
Later Samantha could not remember the long walk back. She had a jumbled recollection of stumbling through scratchy plants and stubbing her toes on rocks. She thought that Rupert had more than once taken her by the arm and pulled her upright. But she didn’t think they had talked much. It was hard enough to breathe without trying to talk.
Her first clear memory was of sitting in Rafa’s bar with a blanket around her shoulders, shivering. The young Rafa, apparently entirely unaffected by the excitement and the gruelling walk, came bouncing in, carrying a bottle and proceeded to pour a healthy glass for everyone.
“What is it?” Samantha said, peering suspiciously at the dark liquid.
“It is brandy,” Rafa said. “Drink!”
She glanced at Alison, who gave a little nod. Well, if Mrs Winton thought it was all right.
“For the shock,” Rafa said.
She took a tentative sip. It tasted horrible, like cough medicine. She found it hard to believe that people drank this for pleasure. But as it went down it seemed to warm her from the inside and the shudders began to die down.
“That was a brave thing you did there, son,” Rafa said, raising his glass in a salute to Rupert.
Rupert gave him a small, tight smile, then raised his glass also and said, “And you.”
“I know,” said Rafa, and drained his glass.
The scene shifted to a bedroom lit only by moonlight. She couldn’t see the figure in the other bed but she knew it was Patsy. Rupert must be in another room – alone. She couldn’t sleep as her mind kept running over the events of the last couple of days. God knows how Rupert must be feeling after what he’d had to do. She considered tiptoeing into his room to see if he was all right but she wasn’t brave enough. What if she wandered into the room shared by Mrs Winton and Rupert’s mum? They would be certain to misinterpret her reasons for wandering about in her nightclothes in the middle of the night. So she tossed and turned until daylight when she thought she heard small noises coming from the kitchen.
To be on the safe side, she showered and dressed before looking for Rupert. She didn’t want to go to his room in her nightclothes – didn’t want to do anything that might result in them being forbidden to see each other.
But she had been forestalled. Rupert’s mum was already in the room, sitting in the chair by the bed. Rupert was, as far as she could tell, fast asleep.
“Is he all right?” she whispered. Heather’s head jerked upright and Samantha realised she had been asleep herself.
“Yes, I think so,” she whispered back. “No tossing and turning anyway.”
“Better than me then,” Samantha said, with a rueful smile.
Heather smiled back. “Yes, it was pretty grim, wasn’t it? I just hope it’s all over now.”
Rupert shifted on the bed and opened his eyes. He frowned and looked about him for a moment, uncertain where he was, and then his gaze fixed on Samantha and his Mum.
“How did you sleep?” Heather asked.
He smiled. “I slept just fine,” he said.
****
“No dreams, then?” They were sitting outside the villa at the small breakfast table, listening to Heather making coffee.
“No, nothing.” Rupert smiled and stretched. “And nothing now, either. I think it’s finished.” He took Samantha’s hand and began to stroke it, slowly and thoughtfully. “You have the most incredible skin, do you know that?” he said. “So smooth and si
lky.”
Samantha leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said.
Rupert looked vaguely alarmed and she laughed. “No, nothing to do with you. I don’t think about you all the time – just most of it. No, I’ve been meaning to ask, what happened with Mrs Winton’s husband? She’s so wonderful, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to split up with her. Or was it her?”
Rupert smiled, “Sort of both,” he said. “Gene discovered he was gay. I’m not sure it was entirely a shock for Auntie Alison. I suppose there were signs. . .” He tailed off, looking out over the pool to the orchard beyond. “Anyway, he only properly realised when he fell in love with another guy. It’s all very amicable. They’re still the best of friends.”
Samantha raised her eyebrows. “And the other guy?”
“Oh, he’s long gone. But I suppose, once you find out, you know? There’s no going back. Anyway it seemed ridiculous to go on living together, so they sold the house and Auntie Alison moved in with Patsy. You’ll meet Gene sometime, I’m sure. You’ll like him. He’s a lot of fun.”
Samantha mused on this information for a few minutes. It wasn’t the grand tragedy she had expected it to be. Well, not in the accepted sense. Still, probably rather hurtful.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Rupert pulling her over to him and kissing her.
He buried his face in her glorious hair. I never, ever thought I would do this in real life, he thought. It felt just as he had always imagined it would – like silk. It smelt of shampoo and flowers. He breathed in her scent and was overwhelmed by happiness.
In Rupert’s room, under the bed, lay the black leather bag. It was eons old. It had had many masters and now it had another. It was hungry but it was patient. Over the years it had learnt how to wait.
THE END
ABOUT THE STORY
I first read about the mantequero in Gerald Brennan’s books.
He tells the tale of how a tall, thin and very pale aristocratic friend of his was captured by some peasants when he was walking in the mountains. They were convinced he was a mantequero because he was so pale and thin, and were about to murder him on the spot, but decided, to be on the safe side, to take him to the mayor. Luckily the mayor was not so superstitious and told them he was not a mantequero but an Englishman.
I was very intrigued by this and did some research. There isn’t a great deal written down about the supernatural being but, as with other kinds of vampire, real live people have been accused of imitating the mantequero, the most notorious being Juan Díaz de Garayo, who confessed to six murders but was probably responsible for many more. He was, however, only given the title ‘mantequero’ because a child he attacked was so horrified by his ugly face that she thought he was the sacamantecas (another name for the same creature). A more viable candidate is Manuel Blanco Romasanta, born in 1809, who was a travelling vendor of fats used for greasing wheels. He was accused of using human fat in his products, but escaped justice and went on to murder a further nine people, inflicting horrible wounds and partially eating their corpses.
As recently as the summer of 1910, Francisco Leone, a healer, kidnapped and killed a seven year old boy with the sole purpose of extracting his blood and fat, for use in the cure of a third man suffering from tuberculosis.
But of the legend itself there is very little, so I felt justified in inventing my own mantequero. In the first story, simply called Mantequero, I didn’t attempt to add much to the legend, merely suggesting that the creature appears at dusk. But of all the short stories I have written, this has evoked more requests for a sequel than any other.
At first I couldn’t see how I could write a sequel, since I had written myself into a corner with the first story. Then a dear friend suggested a possible way out and I was inspired to write it.
My problem was that this sequel got out of hand. It just kept growing and growing and instead of a short story it became a novella. I wasn’t going to get away without fleshing out the legend a bit more.
I do not approve of making stuff like this up. If you write about a legend you should jolly well stick to the sources. But there aren’t any. This is, I think, an example of oral myth which has never been properly documented.
I’ve spoken to my friends in the villages here and they know very little about it (or they’re not telling). I initially thought maybe the mantequero belongs exclusively to the Alpujarran region of Spain, but I have since found out that he is known as far away as Barcelona.
Nobody so far, however, has been able to tell me anything more of the original legend.
So I have cheated. Where I have felt something must be explained, I have drawn on existing vampire myth.
If I have veered too far away from the real mantequero myth I apologise in advance.
But I think it worked as a story.
Some time between releasing Mantequero and Disappeared, an American school teacher told me how much her class had loved Mantequero. Many of the children were Hispanic and were particularly interested because it was their culture. She suggested that I write a Mantequero story for young adults.
I toyed with the idea and deliberately left an opening for a new story at the end of Disappeared. The Sins of the Father is the result of that idea. It is the first time I have attempted to write a YA story and I am a little nervous about how it will be received. I hope and believe it is ‘grown-up’ enough for the existing Mantequero fans. We shall see. . .
Whether there will be more Mantequero stories rather depends on my Muse, who has failed to come up with anything else so far. I do intend, however, to release all three stories in one volume in the near future and perhaps add a short prequel. This is so I can fulfil a long ago promise to release Mantequero as a print book (the first book was too short to enable printing).
In the meantime I would be very grateful for any feedback you can give me on Sins of the Father (especially if you are a young adult).
You can contact me any time on [email protected] or you could leave a review on Amazon. I am always really grateful for reviews.
Thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jenny Twist was born in York and brought up in the West Yorkshire mill town of Heckmondwike, the eldest grandchild of a huge extended family.
She left school at fifteen and went to work in an asbestos factory. After working in various jobs, including bacon-packer and escapologist’s assistant (she was The Lovely Tanya), she returned to full-time education and did a BA in history at Manchester and post-graduate studies at Oxford.
She stayed in Oxford working as a recruitment consultant for many years and it was there that she met and married her husband, Vic.
In 2001 they retired and moved to Southern Spain where they live with their rather eccentric dog and cat. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, knitting and attempting to do fiendishly difficult logic puzzles.
She has written two novels - Domingo’s Angel – a love story set in Franco’s Spain and harking back to the Spanish Civil War and beyond - and All in the Mind – a contemporary novel about an old woman who mysteriously begins to get younger
She has also written an anthology of short stories - Take One At Bedtime – and co-written the anthology Bedtime Shadows – with the inimitable Tara Fox Hall.
She has contributed short stories to many other anthologies, of which two – Doppelganger and Uncle Vernon have recently been released as short ebooks.
Her first self-published ebook, Away With the Fairies, was released in September 2012. Her second,
Mantequero, was released in June 2013 and the long-awaited sequel, Disappeared, was released in January 2014. Take One at Bedtime was republished independently in May 2014 and Domingo’s Angel will follow in July 2014.
Visit Jenny on her Facebook page. She loves talking to her readers.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jenny-Twist-Author/291166404240446
Or you can follow her on h
er website:
https://sites.google.com/site/jennytwistauthor/home
Goodreads Author Page
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4848320.Jenny_Twist
Amazon Author Page
US: amazon.com/author/jennytwist
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jenny-Twist/e/B005CI80ZC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Coming soon . . .
Tales of the Mantequero
All three Mantequero stories in one volume, along with a prequel and an epilogue.
