La Noche de la Chankla: Sin Fuego
Chapter 12
“But how did you call the fire, Luna?” Xochitl interjected, as the brujas discussed what measures to take now that they had come face to face with the enemy. They had met at Luz’s, the shop being unusable. It was farther away for Luna, but she needed to be somewhere that her family was not, refusing to further court the evil eye of the Garmr cult at home.
“No sé. The words, they just came to me,” Luna answered.
“We’re going to need a lot more words, palabras con ganas,” Luz added, “But we don’t have time to learn them, y no tengo más grimorios … not that kind.”
Luna stared at the piece of tres leches cake on the table that she had half eaten. “I think we have them already. I think the moonstones mi madre gave to us had the words in them.”
“You think so?” Xochitl asked, intrigued.
“Creo que sí,” Luna answered, sure that her mother had sent her the words.
“Pero, how are we going to know that?” Luz wondered. “We can’t go to the fight without knowing. We’ll be … eh … Cómo se dice?”
“Los patos agachar las cabezas … The sitting ducks,” Xochitl said.
Luz agreed. “Sí! We can’t be that.”
“The dogs will come back tonight,” Luna said, almost without acknowledging the others, as if she were almost in a trance, the idea forcing itself into her mind. “Then we will see what we know.”
The other two women looked at Luna as if she were someone whom they did not know, as if she were a vessel, channeling a spirit. Luna had recently taken on moods that were unlike her, grave moods. She had always been the most pragmatic and level-headed of the group, Luz being sarcastic and outspoken and Xochitl being a tad scatterbrained. They understood immediately what Luna had in mind, but they were not sure if it had been Luna’s idea or someone else’s. Moreover, after the danger they had faced at the square, it did not appeal to them, although they knew it was a good plan and necessary.
“Halo! Señorita? Estás enferma?” Luz cackled, trying to lighten the mood in her unique way, and making sure that Luna was not being influenced by anything malevolent.
Luna smiled and gave Luz the relief that she was seeking. “No estoy loca,” she said sarcastically. “We have to see if the words are in us already … put there for us by los espíritus … and los perros will offer themselves as the test.”
“But what do we do to them?” Xochitl asked, having no idea what she could possibly allow herself to do to the dogs. Xochitl loved animals and, eve if they were hell hounds, she did not want to hurt them unless they tried to hurt her or her friends.
“It will come to us by itself,” Luna answered, calmly. “The dogs can’t hurt us anyway … not when we have las piedras de luna. Our moon will show us the way against their moon.”
Luz nodded at that last remark, finding it sagacious. “So if we have the words, what do we do then? Do we go face the church? By ourselves?”
Faced with the real challenge, Luna’s expression became contemplative again, and Luz and Xochitl awaited her words. They did not conceive of Luna as the leader. They were all the leader. But Luna’s newfound wisdom seemed prescient, and they believed in it, finding it inspired by the divine.
“No. No lo creo. They will come to us. They cannot leave us be now. We know who they are and what they are doing. No. They will come to us.”
Luz and Xochitl nodded.
“Then we wait,” Xochitl said, stating the obvious for full effect, and to reassure herself that it was truly the plan.
There was a knock at the door, which made the three women jump, Xochitl crossing herself reflexively. Luz got up to see who it was.
“Quien es?”
“Enrique Rivera,” the answer came from the other side of the door.
Having no fear of Señor Rivera, who had already proven himself an ally, Luz let him in and found that he was accompanied by two other men, locals whom the brujas knew. Luna noted through the open door that the sun was low in the sky, but it was still bright out, likely around four, which she confirmed by glancing at the digital clock on Luz’s microwave.
“Buenas tardes, señoras,” Rivera began, having taken off his hat, a palm straw cowboy hat, not some outlandish caricature of a sombrero a tourist might get in Tijuana. “We came to tell you that we’re going to go to that church tonight in the shadows … and burn it down. We can’t have it so close to Agape and that cult needs to go.” The two men behind Rivera signaled their agreement.
While the idea satiated the three women’s desire for action, their initial tacit approval quickly changed to doubt, and then to opposition. They viewed the men through serious eyes.
“Is that a good idea, Enrique?” Luz said, the first to voice the brujas’ skepticism.
“Por qué no?” Enrique replied. He was confused by the lack of enthusiasm, and he and the men had been hoping to enlist the brujas’ help, or, at least, blessing. His disappointment shown on his sun-beaten face.
Luz found herself at a loss for words. She just knew that it was not a good idea.
“Señor Rivera, you just got out of jail. You know that church uses magic and law against the town. They will know that it was you, and they will come for you somehow,” Luna explained. “Pero, there is something else.”
“What is it?” he asked, already reconsidering the idea.
“We do not know what is in that church,” Luna responded.
“No entiendo,” Rivera admitted, with his hands out, his palms facing upward.
“Enrique,” Luna continued, “there is evil there, an evil we don’t know about, a powerful, ancient evil. I have just understood el peligro. The danger made itself known to me just now … ahora …. sent to me by the spirits. We have not seen it yet, only its esclavos, its henchmen. If you burn the church, you will wake it and it will come for everyone. No, Enrique, do not do this. If you burn the hound, it will bite.”
Hanging their heads, feeling almost chastised for their rashness, although Luna had meant no insult, the men were resigned to allow the brujas to designate the course.
As she showed them out, Luz told them that they would be called if help was needed, before coming back to her little kitchen table. “You think El Diablo is in the church, Luna?”
“No, not the Devil himself, but something close to him,” Luna replied. “Es tarde. I need to go home to my nieto and make comida para mi familia … Spider eats too much,” she said, now being the one to try to lighten the mood, and she succeeded in making her friends laugh. “When the sun sets, wait for the moon. Then we will see about the dogs. Let your energy guide you.” She stood and hugged the other women and then left to return to her little white house, which now had a black garbage bag covering the shattered front window and still bore the failed stigma “witch” on its wall.
For once in her life, Luna did not feel like cooking, but, as the archetypal abuelita, she felt it was her duty. She could have asked Spider or Luisa to order something, but she did not like to pay for it and only had food delivered once or twice a year. She thought most of the chain food was fake and full of poison, and she was largely correct. There was plenty of good Mexican food, but she saw no reason to pay someone else to make what she could make herself. So she made a huge batch of chilaquiles using broth and homemade tortillas that she had already made, knowing that Javi loved it and there would be enough for Spider to have thirds or fourths. Then she did something she had never done before - she played sick.
Telling her family that she felt too hot and her stomach was upset, she hid in her room, reading her cards, until she was sure that everyone had gone to bed. Lila and Javi’s father had a large TV in their room, where Luisa and Spider were staying, and she knew it would be on all night. But that worked to her advantage, as they would not hear her leave.
Creeping to the front door, she opened it, expecting to find the wild horde of hell hounds waiting for her … but the street was empty. The moon smiled on the vacant pavement, desert plants, and red and white gravel that substituted for grass in her neighbors’ yards, what was referred to as xeriscaping. But there were no dogs, not a hint of a snarl nor a red eye.
The desert was quiet in its loudness.
