Chapter 1 #2
The feeling wasn’t reciprocated, though, I guess, because she gave a curt nod and slid her gaze away from me and back toward the house.
I looked at the priest. The student must’ve been pretty bad off if they’d called him already. “What’s, um, what’s going on? I wasn’t told much.”
Why they were so insistent on my being here early, hours before the council meeting, was still a mystery to me.
I had no medical training to speak of, had a difficult enough time taking care of myself and Bear, if I was being honest. Max’s cryptic hints hadn’t been any more illuminating.
All I knew was there had been an incident with another student.
A girl had wound up dead, and another was “unwell.” Whatever that meant.
The priest stepped forward. “Perhaps it’s best if we step inside, and you see for yourself.”
I nodded and followed the priest inside, Maritza trailing after us.
“I must warn you,” the priest said, “particularly if you’re of delicate affections … this may bother you.”
I’d been in the cottage before. I’d been admitted for exhaustion from spellwork more than once during my time at school.
It had always smelled fresh and clean, like sage and soap and the dried red chiles hanging from Maritza’s doorway.
The floor was smooth red tile; a Zapotec rug lay in the corner.
A handmade broom leaned against the wall, below wooden cubbies full of bottles of herbs and ointments, and stacks of bandages and gauze.
In the kitchen was a small stove and a wide copper sink.
Now, although the lights were on and the drapes only partially shut, it was like someone had extinguished all the light. It smelled damp and dirty, like something inside hadn’t been washed in quite some time. I resisted the urge to gag and followed Maritza and the priest deeper into the house.
I nearly asked why it was so dark, but the words died in my throat. There was a hushed, sepulchral silence to the room, and it felt somehow wrong to disturb it—like it didn’t want me to disturb it. I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck.
I stopped when I caught sight of the bed, my breath catching in my throat. A girl levitated above it, her hair hanging beneath her. An old nightgown went down to her shins.
“We can’t get her down, and the police haven’t been able to question her about her motives or what happened.”
The girl’s eyes were closed, her skin mottled and covered in scars. She had scratches down her arms and chest, and something told me there were more beneath her gown, on her stomach and legs.
I swallowed. “She won’t speak to them? Why? Is she in a coma?”
“No, she’s awake,” Maritza said, her eyes shifting downward, making the sign of the cross across her chest. Crucifixes were all over the wall around the bed, and the bedside table had been crammed with statues of Jesus and the manger, along with protective figures from folklore and Magic in a strange blend of mysticism, Magic, and Catholicism.
“She hears everything we’re saying, too.
She’ll speak every so often, but we can’t understand her. ”
Seeing my puzzled expression, the priest explained, rubbing his fingers nervously. “She’s not speaking English per se.”
“She’s speaking in tongues,” Maritza blurted. The priest threw her a glance. I noticed leather straps had been tied to the bed, but they were released now. A shudder went through me.
“They said you had some experience with languages,” the man said.
“Spanish, Latin, and Duolingo Italian, but something tells me they aren’t going to help with this …
” I glanced back toward the exit, not wanting to let it out of my sight.
Whatever left that student dead was no illness.
The priest’s use of the word “motives” stuck in my head like a needle.
A student had been murdered, and this girl had more to do with it than Max had mentioned. My guess, a lot more.
I looked back up at the girl. Her eyes were no longer closed.
She had turned her head and was watching me with a curious expression on her face, her mouth twitched with bemusement.
My limbs felt shaky, as if I was standing on the edge of a steep cliff.
I opened my mouth to speak to her, finding my throat dry as the desert outside.
“Don’t speak to her,” Maritza hissed. “The devil will take your soul.”
“She’s just a girl,” the priest said, keeping one eye on her, the other hand snaking to the cross at his chest. He cast a pointed glance at me. “We’re at a loss,” he said more quietly.
“We’re just supposed to watch her here … ‘until something changes,’” Maritza said.
“Nothing ever changes,” the girl said in a lifeless voice, staring back at the ceiling. I flinched at the sound. Her vocal cords sounded rough and deep, as if they were threaded with something unnatural. Something ancient.
The priest drew back.
Maritza screamed. At her scream, a man poked his head inside the cottage. He hovered at the door, unwilling to step inside the house. “Maritza?” he said. “We brought another carving.”
Maritza shook her head. “I can’t spend another minute in this house,” she cried and stormed out the door. Outside, two men were hauling a wooden manger out of the flatbed of a truck.
The priest leaned forward and gestured to the girl, whose eyes were now closed. “That’s the most she’s said in days. They made the right call contacting you.”
I pulled my arms close to my chest and inched closer to the girl, feeling that same strange pull in my gut. A sense of decay, and of deep, deep water.
She hears everything we’re saying, Maritza had said.
I hesitated. “Can you tell me your name?” My voice had lowered to a choked whisper. I didn’t know if I really wanted her to answer, if I even wanted her to hear me at all.
Her eyelids fluttered but remained closed. She was motionless save for the breath in and out of her chest.
Maritza came back into the cottage, hands clasped hard around the cross on her neck.
My eyes flicked to the priest, who nodded encouragement.
“What about the name of the other girl?” I tried again, directing my question to the hem of her nightgown hanging down above me instead of looking at the girl head-on. My heart pounded, voice wavering. “Were you two friends? Lovers? Why did you—can you tell me what happened?”
I was no detective, no police officer, didn’t know if the questions I was asking her would set her off, trigger some sort of episode. But with the way the priest and Maritza watched me, I thought that was what they wanted. For something to happen, for something to change.
After a few minutes of silence, the only sound in the room the girl’s steady intake of breath, Maritza’s face fell. “That’s enough for today. Perhaps you and Max could visit her again tomorrow, once you’ve both settled.”
I winced. For some reason, the sound of my former partner’s name sent the nerves in my gut churning faster than the terrifying girl in front of me did.
“Sure. Maybe,” I said quietly, focusing all my attention on the door. I wanted out of the cottage, away from the smell, far away from the strange, levitating girl.
“Where’s Dr. Robetresse?” I asked once I reached the doorway, one leg safely planted on the dry earth outside.
I was here at the request of the president of the school, so why hadn’t she filled me in herself?
I was someone who liked to understand everything there was to know about any situation I walked into.
If you’re ready for all possible scenarios, nothing can surprise you.
And if nothing can surprise you, then nothing can hurt. That was the thought, anyway.
“She’s preparing for the meeting tonight in the main house.”
I nodded, eyes searching the horizon. I kept waiting for her to offer more of an explanation—of anything, of why the priest was there, of what had happened to the girl—but none was forthcoming.
“Where’s the manger?” I blurted instead. A nonsensical question; the house was crammed with religious and protective ornaments and didn’t need more, but my head was still reeling.
Maritza stared at me. “It’s outside. My brother won’t come in here.”
“Oh.”
“Dr. Robetresse will fill you in on everything later tonight. The staff prepared your old room for you.” She handed me a stack of fresh linens. “You remember the way?”
“Can’t seem to forget it,” I said.
The priest stood in the stray beam of sunlight that pierced the gloom. He touched the brim of his hat in farewell.
I bit my lip, a sudden surge of anxiety swelling in my gut as I thought about what “later tonight” meant. “Will you be at the meeting tonight, too, then?”
He shook his head, white-blond eyelashes fluttering like a moth in the light. “No. I need to stay here.”
Behind him, the girl’s eyes flickered open. Her cheeks spread into a wide, grotesque grin. She winked, as if it was our little secret, and I felt a chill crawl down my spine.
The door slapped shut behind me.
I shook my arms out, my feet moving as fast as possible back to the truck. The New Mexico sun rushed in to burn the dank, wrong feeling of the cottage from my skin.
Bear sniffed my legs, investigating the foreign smell for himself.
Dirt and clay kicked up in my eyes as I made my way to the dormitory buildings. Campus was curiously empty. The few stragglers who were around appraised me cautiously.
“Come on, boy,” I nearly whispered. I’d never liked having attention on me, never enjoyed crowds or large groups of people, but now that I was here, my brain screaming dangerdang-erdanger, I had an overwhelming urge to stay out of sight.