Maya's Notebook: A Novel by Isabel Allende Read Free Book Online

scare him.
    Manuel doesn’t talk about himself. The little I know about him I’ve guessed or heard from Auntie Blanca. There is something strange in his life. His past must be even more turbulent than mine, because many nights I’ve heard him moan and struggle in his sleep: “Get me out of here! Let me out!” Everything can be heard through these thin walls. My first impulse is to go and wake him up, but I don’t dare enter his room; the lack of doors forces me to be prudent. His nightmares invoke evil presences, the house seems to fillwith demons. Even Fahkeen gets uneasy and trembles, right up against me in bed.
    My work for Manuel Arias couldn’t be easier. It consists of transcribing his recordings of interviews and typing up his notes for the book. He’s so tidy that if I move an insignificant little piece of paper on his desk, the blood drains from his face. “You should feel very honored, Maya, because you’re the first and only person I’ve ever allowed to set foot in my office. I hope you won’t make me regret it,” he had the nerve to say to me, when I threw out last year’s calendar. I dug it out of the garbage intact, except for a few spaghetti stains, and stuck it up on the computer screen with chewing gum. He didn’t speak to me for twenty-six hours.
    His book on magic in Chiloé has me so hooked it keeps me from sleeping. (Only in a manner of speaking, since the slightest silliness keeps me from sleeping.) I’m not superstitious, like my Nini, but I accept that the world is a mysterious place and anything’s possible. Manuel has a whole chapter on the Mayoría, or the Recta Provincia, as the rule of the much-feared brujos— witches and sorcerers—of these lands was called. On our island the Mirandas are rumored to be a family of brujos , and people cross themselves or keep their fingers crossed when they walk past Rigoberto Miranda’s house. He’s a fisherman by trade, and related to Eduvigis Corrales. His last name is as suspicious as his good luck: fish fight to be caught in his nets, evenwhen the sea is black, and his only cow has given birth to twins twice in three years. They say that Rigoberto Miranda has a macuñ , a bodice made from the skin of the chest of a corpse, for flying at night, but no one’s seen it. It’s advisable to slash dead people’s chests with a knife or a sharp stone so they won’t suffer the indignity of ending up turned into a waistcoat.
    Brujos can fly and do all sorts of evil, kill with their minds and turn into animals, none of which I can really see Rigoberto Miranda doing. He’s a shy man who often brings Manuel crabs. But my opinion doesn’t count, I’m an ignorant gringa . Eduvigis warned me that when Rigoberto Miranda comes over, I have to cross my fingers before I let him in the house, in case he casts some spell. Those who’ve never suffered from witchcraft firsthand tend to be skeptical, but as soon as something strange happens they run to the nearest machi , an indigenous healer. Let’s say a family around here starts coughing too much; then the machi will look for a basilisk or cockatrice, an evil reptile hatched from the egg of an old rooster, staying under the house that comes up at night and sucks the air out of the people sleeping there.
    The most delectable stories and anecdotes come from the really old people, on the most remote islands of the archipelago, where the same beliefs and customs have held sway for centuries. Manuel gets information not only from the elderly but also from journalists, teachers, booksellers, and shopkeepers, who make fun of brujos and magic but wouldn’t dare venture into a cemetery at night. Blanca Schnake says that her father, when he was young, saw the entrance to the mythical cave where the brujos gathered, inthe peaceful village of Quicaví, but in 1960 an earthquake shifted the land and the sea, and since then no one has been able to find it.
    The guardians of the cave are invunches , horrifying beings