Water and Stone (11 page)

"Yes, father?"

"Watch out for your brother. Show him around and make sure he gets home okay… and feed him, Billy. Church looks hungry."

"Yes sir… I will."

That day when he arrived home instead of being angry Tia Evalena gave him a look of approval, as if he'd accomplished a great feat. Perhaps he had.

She knew the boy would disobey him... that was a given.

Evalena Gutiérrez had knowledge of many things both good and evil. She was her fathers' gift to the world, after all, and she remembered how they each foretold of coming back from the dead in the guise of a child.

The stars fell on the night Church was born lighting up the sky as if it was noon and confused roosters each and every one began to crow for the dawn though it was just past midnight. The omens were all ill and somehow Evalena knew her fathers had returned. Only demons from beyond could stir such a ruckus.

She had told her sister Yani to drown the boy on that night he was born but of course mothers could not bear to bury their young. She had thought of doing it herself but what if she was wrong? What if she had misread the omens?

She could tell the boy was meant for great things. Someday all the land she could see in any direction would belong to Church and it wasn’t fair. She was the one who deserved the wealth of the world, not a little snot-nosed brat who didn’t know enough to speak his own mother's tongue.

Still, he was her blood, and with that came a certain responsibility that she'd long ago accepted as her own. Her sister was a dimwit, little more than an imbecile. She took after her father in that regard.

Evalena played as her fathers' daughter but only as a disguise against time. She was actually far older than the men who she called father yet they managed the game well like poker players unafraid to bluff. They'd all raised her in a singular fashion away from the prying eyes of the village where she came of age. One of them, perhaps her favorite, or maybe her least, Hajdani, was said to be a man of power. His power wasn't rooted in the riches of the sea and earth, however. Her fathers' power lay in knowing the blackened magic behind the politics of the world.

That particular father didn't know the ways of the light for isolated as they were Evalena only taught him her arts of darkness. It was all she knew... or perhaps it was that which she knew best.

Not wishing to expose him to the death that awaited all those with whom she became a familiar, she used another man—a boy, really—to produce the child while masquerading as a pregnant woman. It was all part of her black artistry... a way of sparing herself the pangs of giving birth while simultaneously keeping her lineage alive.

There were of course those who might frown on such doings... a man wasn’t able to give birth, at least not in a natural fashion. What she did to them was profoundly unnatural and even obscene yet she did it in accordance with their desires. They loved her. That was always their great undoing.

People talked. She'd learned long ago that the peasants and even the upper class—especially the rich and wealthy with nothing but time on their hands—had a propensity for spreading rumors whether true or not. Often times it was difficult if not impossible to hide her machinations from the rest of the villagers in the tiny Cuban enclave she had the daring to call home.

It was the same everywhere she went. At first they welcomed her with open arms. As the years passed they began to suspect that the pretty girl wasn't who she represented herself to be... power like hers had a way of exposing itself even to the unwary.

Eventually the talk turned mean. Usually she anticipated it happening but there were times when the rancor grew so quickly—exponentially, like a patch of nettle up to her ankles one day and chest high the next—that she'd no notion of the eruption before it occurred... a long dormant volcano suddenly awaking from its slumbers with a blast so powerful it overwhelmed everything in its vicinity.

She remembered how another one of her fathers whose name had been lost in the antiquity of time hid her in a tiny space under the house where they lived. Though the villagers had tried to sneak up on them, he must have heard a twig snap outside the window and instantly shuffled Evalena off to the vault. At least that's what she told herself.

"Take this, Evalena, but don't use it unless you're fearful they are about to take you prisoner... if that happens, pour the contents into your palm. Rub it into your skin and the sand will protect you from harm. And remember... no matter what you hear, don't come out until you see the day again."

He'd taken off the amulet worn around his neck and pressed it into her hands. There was a vacant look in his eyes that Evalena had never before noticed as if he was uncertain for the first time in his life as to what course of action he should take. He kissed her on the cheek as he shut the trap door to her hiding place.

There in the dark and for the first time she noticed that the amulet he had given her and which he had worn about his neck all the time he had known her contained a vial full of a miniscule amount of sand. Inside the glass each individual grain glowed like a fine jewel. Intrigued, she held the vial up to the ceiling attempting to discern the color of the material it contained. Sometimes it seemed green, but if she held it in a different way it appeared yellow or blue.

She was afraid. All her life she had been sheltered by those who loved her. It was something they chose to do, not anything she required of them. She was but a tiny thing incapable of fending off the ravages that the world saw fit to bestow upon her so she needed help. Now, though, she was alone and when she held the amulet up she saw how her hand trembled in fear.

It was a foreign feeling pulling the ropes in her stomach into a tight knot and at first Evalena wondered at the nature of such an emotion. An enormous crash and loud voices sounded overhead as the villagers had apparently broken down the door to the house and were now dragging her father out into the night.

The trap door to her hiding place rattled as if someone was pulling upon it in an attempt to open it and in a fit of fear Evalena opened the tiny vial she held in her fingers and poured out the contents to rub into her hand just as father had said.

Or had he? Maybe he had said not to handle it. She couldn’t remember and the terrifying noises sounding over top of her made her head hurt when she tried to recall his words... from outside the house she could hear her father crying out as if in pain, something she'd never before heard. Shuddering with fear and not knowing what else to do she poured the sand back into the vial and put the tiny lid back on it.

Shutting her eyes and putting her hands over her ears Evalena stayed as still as she could for fear the men above might hear her breathing. Though she thought it impossible she must have fallen asleep for when she opened her eyes sunlight was leaking through the cracks in the foundation telling her that a new day had dawned.

Perhaps she'd gotten dust in her eye for when she rubbed her face to clear it of sleep her right eye tingled for a brief moment and then it went black. Or was it in fact a bit of sand from the amulet? Had she been blinded? Why didn’t her father warn her of that eventuality? She'd have taken more care. Later, though, the eye began to see... only not what the good left eye saw.

Sitting still for a long while Evalena listened for any sign of movement above her... the creak of a floorboard, a door opening, or a footstep... anything to alert her to the presence of the enemy... finally after what seemed like hours she went to the trap door and tried to open it. It was blocked, however. Someone had set something large and heavy over top of it making it impossible to lift.

Panic blossomed like a cloud of butterflies suddenly taking flight in the pit of her stomach replacing the hard knot of fear that had been tied there the night before. She was trapped. Father would've never done such a thing to her so it had to be one of the intruders. They knew she was down here and had place a heavy piece of furniture over the trap door so that she would slowly die of thirst. Or perhaps they planned on coming back for her later...

If light could find its way into the cellar, she could find a way out. The walls which seemed solid were in fact upon examination comprised of flagstone heaped upon one another with but a smattering of mortar in between. Many of them were loose enough to pry out and within a few minutes Evalena was free of the musty cellar and weeping in the woods where she lay hidden in the tall iron weed to mourn her father.

Her right eye itched terribly. The sight was slowly returning but not like before... it was as if she could perceive the undercurrents of the way the world was put together, not simply the surface of things like she was used to seeing.

Hidden in the undergrowth and afraid to raise her head until night fell lest she be seen she could nonetheless by holding a hand over her left eye and allowing the right one free range determine with wisdom the nature of that which lay behind the heretofore obscuring veil of physical matter.

It was as if she was in a dream yet she knew she was awake by the way she could hear the ever-present sussurating sea, sense the buzzing of insects, and feel the bite of the Cuban sun on her unprotected skin. Shaking her head she tried but failed to dispel the certainty she felt over the death of her father.

A body hung from the oak tree in front of their house swinging like a macabre pendulum with its neck twisted into such an unnatural position she knew that he was dead. Swarms of flies buzzed around him covering his face and his clothing that had brown patches coloring them... doubtlessly dried blood and urine. Evalena wanted to run to her father, to chase away the flies, and to cut him down, but she knew better. The men who had done the deed might return at any time and if they did she would be hanging next to her father.

At the same time, however, she couldn’t be sure it was him. The corpse was so beaten and bloated it could have been any one of the islanders. She hadn’t the courage to go close enough to verify the identity of the hanged man and instead when night finally fell she turned and fled, eventually making her way to the shoreline.

Though she called to him as loudly as she dared the cat didn't appear. Had he been frightened away by the mayhem of the night before? It distressed her to leave Adame behind yet she had always heard it said how cats could fend for themselves. Besides, he had been touched by the stone. Perhaps its power would protect him until they might one day meet again.

Father had always told Evalena that life and death were but different sides of one coin twirling through the murkiness of night... there could never be one without the other. It had sometimes irked her that her father often spoke to her in metaphors and parables which she was unable to work out for herself and now that he was gone, the mystery of his knowledge was lost forever.

"Cuando una puerta se cierra, otra se abre."

When one door closes, another opens... he was right. All her fathers had always been right. Trapped inside the cellar she'd found another opening and if as he had said life was but to die it too was a truism not to be disregarded as merely so many old folk tales sung by washed out old women and men with no teeth.

She couldn’t help but notice how Church was much like all her fathers and there were many times when Evalena wished the boy could have met the men before they took leave of the world. Perhaps in that meeting Church might've come to see his place in the grand scheme of things, his own personal tale.

She knew the big man from the hacienda would come for Church. Rancher Ford was too proud not to know his son when the boy was living but a chicken's flight from his father's grand palace. If the man had left well enough alone, Evalena told herself she would've been content being who and what she was. But when Rancher Ford began to insinuate himself into Church's life she saw the opportunity to enrich her own personal destiny beyond any measure.

She imagined that everyone was born for something though from her experiences in the world most people walked about in a daze without any idea of what their fortunes entailed. They worked at jobs they hated, stayed with people they detested, and for fear of dying they keep walking upon the well-traveled roads while shunning any opportunity to discover who they really were.

Each of her fathers had taught Evalena what they knew including how to live a life of wealth and deal with one of dearth if need be. While he lived her last father made sure that his daughter wanted for nothing. With but a sacred touch he turned iron into gold and chunks of coal became diamonds in his grasp. 

When he passed away into the great unknown she thought he might have provided for her from beyond his grave but it wasn’t to be. With her father gone Evalena gradually slipped into a life of poverty and in time she grew used to it.

She now suspected that a single grain of that oddly colored sand must have remained in the palm of her hand that night and when she rubbed her eye it became lodged beneath the lid or so it felt. Rubbing did no good nor did washing the eye. Gradually the grain of sand changed her eyeball into something all together alien and caused her to hide away from the world.

But she desired more than that. If the boon of the sand that took her eye hadn't occurred she might well have become a famous actress, a movie star seen by millions of people every day and night. She might've been endowed with the riches to buy a mansion in Beverly Hills where all the beautiful people lived.

Instead, she was forced to live like a flea-bitten dog in a chabola the size of a henhouse and she was fortunate to have that for a home. If not for the generosity of her idiot of a relative she might still be hiding in the brothel back in Mexico City. Even there she couldn't make a living. No one wanted to be with a one-eyed soothsayer of a whore.