The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation by Belinda Vasquez Garcia Read Free Book Online

pocket, but Salia controlled her urge to offer the apple to Marcelina in the classroom.
    See. Her first day at school and already she was learning.

5
    M arcelina felt like she was going to die. The skin around her belly button cramped with such pressure, she feared the button would pop and spill her insides over her chair. Butterflies already flew around her intestines, like vultures after the spoils. “I don’t want to die,” she moaned, thrashing about.
    She shoved her plate of food, and it went crashing to the floor.
    Mama and Papa were puzzled, and she was too hysterical to explain she ate an apple from Felicita’s orchard. She kept repeating in her jibberish something about…Stupid idiot.
    They put her to bed, even though the sun was shining. A cup of yerba buena tea, brewed from a mint herb growing wild around the Ortiz Mountains, calmed her down. She closed her tear-dried eyes, drifting off to sleep, relaxed by the spearmint taste in her mouth, and she dreamt of sitting in a giant, hot kettle.
    Salia materialized in the pot. She wore a dirty dish rag swathed around her body, the rag sticking to her ribs. She resembled a drowned cat. She was stone-faced, staring up at the full moon. She sang a twisted lullaby, accompanying an eerie tune. In the distance a coyote howled, singing in harmony with her. With each note, the fire cackled and sparks flew.
    Felicita dumped two pails of water into the kettle, the water sizzling beneath their feet. She smiled. “I am known throughout New Mexico for my kindness towards children. You will be cooked until you are so tender, I can cut you with a fork instead of a sharp knife. What do you have to say to that, huh? One thank you will do.”
    Salia said, “Thank.”
    Marcelina said, “You.”
    “Good. It is never too late to learn good manners. Where are those onions, you lazy slut,” she yelled at La India.
    Marcelina thrashed about in the water, crying. Felicita grabbed her hand and twisted it. She shoved on her finger a black onyx ring with the letters, BR.
    Black Rose , she thought and woke up, sweating, screaming for her parents.
    The next day at school, Marcelina sat with Little Maria.
    Just once, Salia lifted her head and looked at her with a hurt look on her face.
    From then on, Salia sat in the back of the room, in a seat reserved just for her, where she sat all alone, surrounded by three empty seats. Except for the annoying kicking of her desk, she appeared catatonic. No one knew if she learned to read, or write, or do arithmetic. No one cared about Salia who ate alone, played at recess alone, and walked home from school alone.
    As for Marcelina, she grew fat until her shape resembled a whale.
    Six months later on Easter Saturday, Salia hid in the hills west of Madrid. She spied on the men hiding the eggs for the children. Every year, the Employees Club handed out about 1800 eggs to the women. Earlier in the morning they had cooked and colored the eggs.
    The men drove away and Salia climbed down from the tree. She dragged an enormous basket with her, collecting all the eggs.
    On Easter Sunday, Salia sat on her tree, her legs swinging from a branch, half a dozen colored eggs in her lap which she peeled and stuffed her mouth with.
    Here they come , she thought, snickering at the company trucks filled with 750 excited kids and their Easter baskets.
    The kids stampeded the hills, searching for eggs, yelling at each other, “Did you get one yet?”
    Not one child found an egg. The younger ones were crying, and the older ones angry at not finding even one of the dozen, gold-painted wooden eggs which would be rewarded with a dollar.
    A fist fight broke out between the miners, the ones who had hid the eggs and the other men who did not.
    While the miners were fighting, the mothers comforting the little children and the older kids still hunting, Salia snuck over to one of the trucks and stole the bags of candy which were later to be distributed to the children, just in case