Chapter 48
The room is enveloped in gray shadows even though it’s still midday. I take a seat in the rocking chair.
“This must all be confusing for you,” Lobo says.
“Allow me to explain. Fundamentally, you understand that there is a cost to everything in life. There is an inherent balance of all things in the universe. When something is out of balance, it must be returned to a state of harmony. For something to be given, something of equal value must be taken away.”
“Joaquina was the sacrifice required to return Mother from the brink of death.”
He smiles.
“You told me you used a…three-dimensional healing technique.”
“To bring someone back from the brink of death, there is only one spell so powerful. It was fortuitous that we met in the parlor, you see. I had been looking for someone like you and your mother. Someone I could perform the spell on.” He pauses and looks at the masked man.
“Mastery of an advanced spell like this is a requirement for advancement in my order. When I received your letter, I realized your mother would be a perfect candidate for this.”
“But Joaquina didn’t die the night that Mother was revived.”
“This is because the spell requires the subject to wield the blade. I cannot be the one to do it. It must be the subject.”
“The subject meaning…Mother?”
“Correct. But she was unconscious. So I first had to perform a weaker spell to restore her to consciousness. That is what I did that night, after subduing Joaquina. After you returned to your room.”
“So that night, the noises, disturbances, and screams I heard…You weren’t purging the house of evil spirits. It was the opposite; you were summoning spirits.”
He nods. “Then, I brought Joaquina to my own house. As for Madalena, she awakened. But as you saw, her illness wasn’t healed.
She had muscle weakness, body pains, aches, all symptoms of yellow fever.
She thought these were from the carriage accident, but of course, there was no carriage accident. Not in recent history, at least.”
“And her mind didn’t fully return,” I say. “She didn’t remember me. She didn’t remember herself.”
“Her memory loss was a blessing in disguise.”
“A blessing in disguise?”
“If she had come back with her memories intact, and her identity and personality intact, I never would have managed to persuade her to step foot in my house. But as she was, with the more docile mind of a nineteen-year-old girl, she was easy to charm. More receptive to hypnotism and mesmeric trance.”
My right hand twitches. “Are you saying she…”
“She did wield the dagger. I was there.” He motions to the masked man. “He was present as well. That’s how we got the spell to work.” He smiles. “A happy ending. A win for all of us.”
I stare at him.
He lights a cigar. “So, Leandro, we know that it wasn’t your mother who really killed Joaquina. Or rather, it wasn’t her fault. But a police inspector wouldn’t understand that. To them, it would just look like your mother killed her. We still have the dagger in my house.”
Silence stretches for what feels like eternity.
“I won’t say anything.”
The masked man points to Mother in bed. “What about her?” His voice is jarring and accusatory. “What if she tells?”
“She thinks the year is 1877,” Doctor Lobo says to the man calmly. The implication is clear: No one will believe Mother. Mother is a madwoman.
“Ah.” The masked man sounds appeased. “Then she should be in an asylum.”
“She can be,” Doctor Lobo says, “or she can stay here with you, Leandro, if you prefer. But regardless of where she lives, she must be medicated.”
I frown. “Medicated?”
“Just something to calm her nerves. This is standard treatment protocol for women like this. Without it, she may become violent again. She may try to run away, as she already has. She will remain a danger to herself and others. I will send an assistant regularly to check in on her and help you with the medical care. It will keep her calm.”
“Calm as a corpse.”
Doctor Lobo flinches. For a split second, his mask of composure falters.
“She’s alive, she’s healthy, and she’s with you. You don’t have to be alone anymore.”
They both watch me, in silence.
“If the healing spell worked,” I say, “and she is healed of yellow fever, then why haven’t her memories returned?”
He sighs. “The memory loss may be a side effect of having been unconscious for so long, or perhaps a side effect of the first, weaker spell I performed that night to restore her consciousness. But in truth, the healing arts are not a precise science. Sometimes we fix one problem only for something else to break elsewhere.”