Aunt Nancy lit a smudgestick and set it on the stone by Donal’s head.
“I always thought I was the strong one,” Miki said after a moment, rocking back on her heels.
She reached out and brushed the hair back from Donal’s brow. When she sat back again, Ellie put her arm around her shoulders.
“But I see now,” Miki went on, “that a lot of that was Donal looking out for me that let me be strong. For so many years, he kept all the bad things in the world at bay.”
“He wasn’t an evil person,” Bettina said. “Misguided, yes, but—”
“Oh, please,” Miki told her. “He was a bloody, self-centered bastard. Look at what he did. We could all be dead.” Her voice went quieter. “But he was still my brother.”
“What he did was wrong,” Bettina agreed, “but in the end, he allowed us to banish the creature.”
Miki shook her head. “I don’t know that it makes up for it. I always knew he was bitter, but I never knew he was carrying such venom around inside him.”
“None of us did,” Ellie said.
“But we should have. We should have paid more attention to all those tirades of his. We should have gotten him help.”
Ellie shook her head. “Even if we’d known, he wouldn’t have let us.”
“But we still could have tried.”
Ellie sighed. “You’re right. We should have tried.”
“I don’t excuse your brother,” Aunt Nancy said after they’d all fallen silent, “but consider this. If all the darkness each of us carries within us, all our angers and unhappiness and bad moments were pulled out of us and given shape, we would all create monsters.”
“But it’s not something we’d do on purpose,” Miki said.
“I doubt he meant for it to turn out as it did,” Aunt Nancy told her.
Later still, el lobo carried the body up to a small cave he’d found set high above the water line for when the floods came. The trail leading up to it was better suited for goats, but except for Tommy, they all made the trek up. They sealed the opening with boulders and rocks, everyone pitching in. When they were done, Ellie took a sharp rock and scratched a picture on the face of the stone above the cave. It looked like a rough cartoon of a donkey or a horse to Bettina.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s Eeyore,” Ellie said, her eyes welling with tears.
“What’s an ee-yore?”
Miki began to cry again when Ellie explained.
Bettina wasn’t strong enough to attempt to guide them all out by the direct route she and her wolf had taken to get here, and no one was up to the long trek it would take otherwise, so they made a rough camp out of the canyon, higher up on the west side. El lobo carried Tommy up while Ellie, Hunter, and Miki scavenged wood to fuel their fire. They came back with lengths of mesquite and ironwood and they soon had a small fire to hold back the night. For food they had to share a few biscuits and some beef jerky that Aunt Nancy pulled out of her seemingly bottomless backpack, along with a packet of tea.
“It’s the first thing you learn when you go into the bush,” she said. “You never go without provisions.”
She also had a small tin cup in there which they all shared for the tea.
There was little conversation. One by one, they turned in until only Aunt Nancy, Bettina, and her wolf remained awake. They let the fire die down. A three-quarter moon rose after a time, its appearance welcomed by a chorus of coyotes, yipping in the distance. The moonlight let them see the towering heights of the Baboquivari Mountains, far to the west.
“It’s a beautiful night,” Aunt Nancy said. “If you’d like to go for a walk, I can watch over things here.”
Bettina smiled at the older woman’s subtlety. She liked Aunt Nancy, with her mix of toughness and kindness, and the mysteries lying so thick around her. If Bettina looked at her a certain way, she could see Aunt Nancy’s spider shadow, that echo of the shape she’d been wearing when she first attacked the Glasduine. And then, recalling the spider, Bettina felt a whisper of wings stretching in her own chest.
She remembered how those shadows had spoken to each other just before the final assault on the creature, known each other. That was another mystery Bettina would like to explore further, but now was not the time. She was too drained from the ordeal, distracted by the constant burn of the pain in her hands and the presence of her wolf, sitting so close to her that she could feel his body warmth.
“A walk would be nice,” she said, rising to her feet.
El lobo hesitated, until she smiled at him, then he rose, too.
They walked along the lip of the canyon, easily marking their path, for they both had keen night sight, the one because of her brujería, the other because of his own otherworldly heritage. Bettina wanted to hold her wolf’s hand, but even that much pressure on her palms would be too much. So she slipped her arm into the crook of his.
There was much still unsaid between them, but for now they allowed an affectionate silence and each other’s company to suffice. The desert night stirred around them, crowded with spirits, tranquil and resonant. After awhile Bettina had to sit down. Her heart was full, but her energy level was lower than she could ever remember it being before.
“Y bien,” Bettina said. “This was an awkward and unpleasant way to come back home, but I’m still glad to be here.”
“I would like to know it better,” her wolf said, “but…”
His voice trailed off.
“I’m not going back,” Bettina said, her voice soft. “Not to stay. Only to collect my things.”
Her wolf couldn’t look at her. His gaze went off, into the desert night.
“And I can’t stay here with you,” he said finally. “This body …”
“Gives you responsibilities back in the Kickaha Mountains. I know.”
She knew he was bound by the promise he’d made to the manitou who had given him the body he now wore.
“What will become of us?” el lobo asked.
Bettina sighed. Could there even be an “us”? So much lay between them, differences that could push them ever further apart. But there was as much to draw them together, if they were willing to work at spanning the distances.
“No lo sé,” she said. She really didn’t know.
“Sometimes it seems that the whole of our lives are bound to the debts we owe to others.”
Bettina nodded. “But what kind of life would it be to always live alone?”
“An unhappy one.”
“Sí.”
“So we accept our debts and obligations.” He paused a heartbeat, then asked, “And los cadejos. Have they spoken more of the bargain you made with them?”
Bettina shook her head. “No. But I can feel them inside me, distant and weary. And something else. The sensation of wings unfolding in my chest.”
Just speaking of it woke a flutter in her chest, a rustle of feathers that only she could hear.
“You never knew?” her wolf asked.
“No seas tonto. That I was so much like Papa that I could take to the skies as a hawk, just as he and his peyoteros do? How could I have known? This is something else I must come to terms with.”
“But it doesn’t frighten you?”
“Claro. But only a little.”
“Wise, lucky, and brave.”
Bettina smiled. “I never felt brave.”
“Bravery is acting in spite of your fears.”
“I suppose.” She hesitated a moment, she added, “The Gentry are dead— the Glasduine killed them.”
Just saying it aloud made her shiver again, knowing all too well how they had died. But she left it at that and he didn’t ask for more details. Having seen what the Glasduine was capable of, he would know that they had died hard.
“I thought as much,” her wolf said. “And I can’t deny that I wondered if I would survive their death.”
“How could you not? You are your own being now.”
“I don’t always feel
that way,” he told her. “Mostly I feel as though everything I am is merely made up of the borrowed and discarded parts of others.”
He spoke matter-of-factly, without a trace of self-pity, but it made Bettina’s heart go out to him.
“It must be strange,” she said. “But, even those of us with less extraordinary origins—aren’t we all pieces of those who came before us? We carry the bloodlines of our ancestors and we form our beliefs from what we learn from others as much as from what we experience ourselves. What is important is who we become—despite our origins as much as because of them.”
“You see? Yet another wise response.”
“I would punch you,” she told him, “except it would hurt me more.”
Her wolf made a sympathetic sound and put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned gratefully against him, savoring the comfort of his body’s warmth, the strength that the muscled arm represented.
“Have I earned my kiss yet, do you think?” he asked.
“Por lo menos,” Bettina said. “Many times over.”
She lifted her head and their lips met. When they finally came up for air, her wolf sighed.
“What will we do with ourselves?” he whispered.
“Shh,” Bettina told him.
Before he could speak, she kissed him again.
20
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, JANUARY 21
They returned to the wet misery of Newford and the ice storm on the following day. El lobo, supporting Tommy for the short trek back, walked beside Bettina, the others following in a ragged line behind. When they finally crossed back over from la época del mito, they found Sunday and Zulema waiting for them in the woods behind Kellygnow. The Creek sisters were eager to depart, wasting little time in packing Tommy into the bed of the pickup, fussing over him with auntly concern. They offered lifts to whoever wished to come with them, which Hunter, Ellie, and Miki accepted.
Before the pickup pulled away, Aunt Nancy approached Bettina and her wolf. She knelt for a moment, reaching into her seemingly bottomless backpack to take out two small items. Her sisters remained near the pickup, neither friendly nor unfriendly, studying Bettina and her wolf with measuring gazes, but the others drew near as Aunt Nancy spoke.
“You will always find honor and welcome at our fires,” she told Bettina and her wolf, offering them the gifts she held. “Both of you.”
She gave them small sacks—squares of red cloth, closed with a twist and tied with a leather thong. From the smell of tobacco and sweetgrass that rose from hers, Bettina knew Aunt Nancy was honoring them with this. She held hers lightly in the open palm of her hand so that even its small weight and touch wouldn’t chafe her tender skin. Her hands were healing, but even with her brujería, it was a slow process.
“I was angry at first,” Aunt Nancy said to el lobo, “when I knew Shishòdewe was dead and you were walking around in his body. But it’s plain to me now that you could have had nothing to do with his death. I know that you will honor his gift to you and remain true to his obligations.”
El lobo lifted the red sack to his lips and kissed it before placing it the pocket of his jacket. He inclined his head to her but said nothing.
Bettina winced as the cloth of her jeans rubbed against her hand, but she reached into her pocket all the same, hoping for and finding one of the milagros she used for her amuletos. She always seemed to have one or another in her pocket, absently tucked away in the process of making the charms. She looked at the one she’d found before she gave it to Aunt Nancy and smiled.
“Back home,” she said, “we pin these to the robes of los santos when we ask for their intercession. If I was seeking their help, this would represent the burns on my hands, but por ahora … I’d like to think it represents the helping hand we offered each other.”
The milagro was in the shape of a small silver hand.
“I will weave it into a beadwork collar,” Aunt Nancy told her, “and whenever I wear it, I will remember you and what we did.”
Bettina nodded. As Aunt Nancy turned away, Bettina looked over to the pickup to see Tommy waving at her from the litter of blankets on which he lay in the bed of the truck. Bettina waved back. When she returned her attention to the others once more, Hunter and Miki murmured their goodbyes, then retreated to the pickup where they climbed into the back with Tommy. But Ellie came over and gave them each a hug.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked Bettina.
“Of course,” she said. “Will you?”
“I don’t know. With all that’s happened … it’s a lot to digest.”
“You don’t have to use the brujería” Bettina told her. “Except as you always have—in your art.”
“I suppose. But it makes you think. Why do I have it? Where did it come from? Am I a sculptor because of it?”
Bettina shook her head. “Brujería doesn’t make you need to create; it only makes what you create that much more true.”
“Do you think I should do more with it? I mean, something like what you’re doing … being a healer and all.”
“You must do what’s in your heart.”
“I don’t know what’s in my heart anymore.”
“Kindness,” Bettina assured her. “Faith in others. Hope. All the things you already bring to those you help with Angel’s programs.”
“But maybe I can do more with it.”
“Quizá, quizá no,” Bettina replied. “Time will tell. But one thing …”
“Yes?”
“Promise me you’ll be careful with whatever future commissions you accept.”
Ellie smiled and gave her another hug. “That I can promise you.”
Salvador and Nuala came out of the house when Bettina and her wolf emerged from the woods and followed the pickup out onto the lawn. They stood together to watch the vehicle drive away, the pickup moving effortlessly across the slick ice and slush that made the lane so treacherous.
“How is that possible?” Salvador murmured.
“The same way you’ve been kept dry and warm,” el lobo told him. “By stepping in between this world and the one beyond.”
Salvador made the sign of the cross.
“No esté nervioso,” Bettina told him. Don’t be nervous. “Nothing here will harm you now.”
Salvador nodded and gave her an unhappy look.
“Have you always been a part of… all of this?” he asked her.
“Sí. But I didn’t lie to you. I simply never spoke of it.”
“No, por supuesto que no …”
She could see the unspoken word in his eyes, for all that he tried to hide it.
Bruja. Witch.
His hand twitched because he would not allow himself to insult her by making the sign of the cross to her face. It saddened her that such a simple word could make her friend fearful of her. The small charms she’d made were one thing—even Maria Elena had asked for one. But witchcraft…
She remembered how occasionally children back home, daring each other until one braver than the rest would call out to her abuela—
jBruja! ¡Bruja! ¡Bruja!
—before they would all run away, shrieking with laughter and fright.
“No,” she said, responding to the unspoken epithet she saw now in Salvador’s eyes. “There is no need for you to be wary of me.”
“I mean no disrespect…”
“Salvador, por favor. I am who I have always been. It’s true I have bru-jería in my blood, but I am a curandera. I don’t harm; I heal.”
He said nothing for a long moment. Then he swallowed, gaze darting momentarily to el lobo before returning to settle on her.
“When this is over,” he said, waving a hand to indicate the ice storm. “You and … and your friend. You will come to dinner at my home?”
“Oh, Salvador,” she cried.
She gave him a hug, careful to keep her hands in the air. He was stiff for only a moment before he enfolded her in his arms.
“I am going away,” she to
ld him as she finally stepped back. “But I will return so that we can be your guests.”
He smiled and went off content, leaving only Nuala for them still to speak with, but when they turned to her, they found the housekeeper was already gone. Bettina sighed. She was still only one step away from exhaustion, but she wanted to finish this now. To pack up her things and be gone. The marvels of winter no longer held any charm for her. The dreary endless rain weighed on her spirit in a way that the frost and snow never had. She was tired of the cold, tired of the horizons being so close.
The house seemed empty as they went to her room. Where was everyone?
They paused in the sculpting studio where Donal had called up the Glas-duine and stood there awhile in the doorway. The memory of what had been done here lay heavy in the room, a palatable presence of twisting shadows that made Bettina shiver. She turned away and led her wolf to the hidden alcove that was her bedroom.
El lobo helped her gather her things, being the hands she could not use herself at the moment. There was not a great deal to pack. She left most of the books, taking only her clothing and the artwork she’d been given, which she meant to leave with Adelita.
“What of these?” el lobo asked.
He indicated the colorful carved dogs her sister had sent. They still stood ranged around the feet of the Virgin. She nodded and he stowed them away in her suitcase.
Finally they went down to the kitchen. Nuala was sitting there, alone, staring out at the miserable night. El lobo set Bettina’s suitcase and backpack down by the back door. Bettina stood in the doorway through which they’d entered, waiting for the housekeeper to acknowledge their presence, but el lobo approached Nuala first. When he was a few steps away, Nuala looked up and el lobo went down on one knee in front of her.
“Lady,” he said. “I hope you won’t think ill of the one who brings you the bad news.”
“What bad news?”
“An felsos … they didn’t survive.”
Forests of the Heart Page 55
