Godmother
Chapter Eleven
….
Mirabel's leg did eventually heal enough for her to put weight on it, but the muscle around where she had been shot had been permanently damaged, according to the visiting doctor. She needed a cane to walk with so she could at least make her own way around Casíta and go outside for short bursts of time. The doctor had no explanation for why she still couldn't handle solid food but said as long as she didn't lose any more weight that it wasn't anything to worry about. Her weight was stable now, it didn't go up or down.
Being given a cane to walk with at the grand old age of sixteen might have sent an unfortunate girl into a depressive slump, but Mirabel was surprisingly chipper about it. She didn't seem to mind sitting at the table while everyone else was eating full meals sipping another milk-and-sugar mix and she took all of Camilo's teasing about turning into a honeybee with good humour. She was still a little quieter than before, and often lapsed into spells of deep thought ignoring everything around her, but the family breathed a sigh of relief.
Except for Julieta.
An uneasy burn had settled at the core of Julieta, tormented that her magical food could heal anyone except for her own daughter, unnerved by her trances, and still plagued with doubt about the supposed woods witch that had helped her reach home. It felt like there was a wall between herself and Mirabel, she hadn't felt this way since those dreadful few weeks when she believed the baby in her home to be an imposter. She had pushed Mirabel away then, and Mirabel was pushing her away now. It wasn't obvious, but Mirabel confided in her less, talked to her less and rejected her food.
She kept this torment to herself; when she told the whole family her baby wasn't her baby, they treated her like she was crazy. If she spoke up now to say something was pulling Mirabel away from them, it would be the same.
And then Mirabel started sleepwalking again.
She had probably already done it a few times and Camilo covered for her, as they discovered him sneaking her back into Casíta in the early hours of the morning and wouldn't admit how many times he'd done it already. Camilo was grounded, and Casíta was asked to stop either of them from getting out, but the next morning Mirabel was found sound asleep in a nearby cabbage patch, covered in a living carpet of butterflies.
She claimed she didn't remember leaving, she had left the house in her sleep, but Julieta had a feeling she was being lied to. Her cane had been propped up beside her bed where she left it, the weakness in her recovering leg should have tripped her up and woken her if she tried to walk without it.
Her bedroom door was locked the next night. The following morning, she was found in Sénora Guzman's herb garden. The door was still locked when they checked it.
They tried locking the window, to no avail. This time she was found in the hollow of a tree near the border of the Encanto.
One morning, after trying everything they could think of to keep Mirabel in the house, Julieta announced that she was visiting an old friend in the next town over. She refused all offers to go with her, the blacksmith was heading that way and would give her a lift there and back.
Her real destination was nearly two miles out of the next town, in a marshy area that saw very few travellers. The witch's hut was haphazardly built under the dried up roots of an ancient mangrove tree, covered in moss so completely that it nearly blended into the environment. Julieta had made this trip once, as a teenager, wanting to know if she and the handsome young man that had recently arrived at the Encanto had a future together.
This is ridiculous. She was old then. Why did I think she'd still be alive?
Mohánita was the only witch she knew of. Rumours told that she had escaped from El Mohán's grasp as a young woman but he cursed her for spurning him with never being able to leave the marsh. It was far more likely that she never left the marsh because most ordinary folk shunned her for fear of her grisly rituals.
Julieta knocked at the door, and was answered with a croak from inside. Carefully, she opened the rickety door and peered through the dim light at an ancient wrinkled face, covered in small runic tattoos.
"Mohánita," she began. "My name is..."
"I know who you are," the old woman cut her off abruptly. "Sit."
Gingerly, Julieta sat on a wooden log across from the witch. Her old table had arcane symbols carved into it, surrounded by mortar and pestle sets, little mounds of salt and metal bowls. Dried herbs hung from every part of the ceiling, giving off a powerful aroma. Mohánita herself melded into her home like furniture, covered from head to toe in shabby green wool, her still dark hair long enough to sweep the floor.
"I've brought you some of my cooking, as well as money," Julieta said, placing her basket on the table. "If it's not enough, I can bring more."
"A magical gift is always worth more than its weight in gold," Mohánita said, lifting the cover from the basket and peering in. "I think your particular problem is beyond my skill, though."
"So you know why I'm here?"
"I know you lost a child and gained a child," Mohánita answered. "You should have come to me then. I know now that there is a powerful force that has attached itself to your daughter."
"What powerful force? She told me she was helped by a woods witch!"
"No mere woods witch," Mohánita laughed, displaying a single white tooth. "I have felt her stepping in and out of our world every single night. I have sacrifices to her myself, when I was younger. She is old as the mountains and far beyond my power, or yours."
"My daughter sleepwalks," Julieta told her. "She cannot walk without help and all the doors are locked but we still find her outside, every morning..."
"She has tied herself to the other," Mohánita said. "She is walking out of our world with the other's help. As long as it's possible to leave your house somehow, she will go."
"She's been home for nearly three months," Julieta continued, her panic starting to rise. "And she still hasn't been able to eat anything I give her but milk and palm sugar. She vomits up everything else."
"She is being fed in the other realm," Mohánita shrugged. "Everything she eats there ties her to the other."
"Why? Why does this thing want my daughter? Isn't it enough that she took my baby?"
"The immortals do not see things the way we do, Madrigal. They take mortal children because they are offered them by desperate parents, or they find them to be beautiful. They send back one of their own because they think it's good sport. We are as playthings to them."
Mohánita rose to her feet and shuffled to a small pot. She took a handful of herbs from the pot and chewed on them. The pulp dyed her mouth red as blood.
"When I was a girl, a playmate of mine went missing from the woods. She was herding her family's goats, and when they went to bring her in for dinner the goats were there, but she was not. Six years old."
Julieta shivered under her shawl.
"Time passed, and her family had more children, and they grew up without knowing her name. It was too hard for her parents, so they pretended they had never had a daughter. Her brother and sisters grew, married and had children of their own, and the parents died. I was nearly sixty years old when she came back."
Julieta's jaw dropped, she struggled to find words. Mohánita continued between chewing on her herbs.
"She hadn't aged a day. She was still six years old, and worried she was going to be in trouble for leaving the goats, all she wanted was a kiss from her mother. Not a single person in the village knew who she was. They called for me and I had to tell her that her mother was dead. Her younger siblings were all in their forties and fifties and they didn't know her."
"What happened to her?" Julieta asked, finding her words.
"They brought her into her old home and tucked her into her old bed. She cried for a long time, and then she went to sleep. She didn't wake up again."
"I can't let that happen to Mirabel," Julieta blurted out. "Please, please, if there's anything you can think of, I'll do it. If I have to walk into this other realm and drag her out with my bare hands, I'll do it!"
"Be mindful of your words, Madrigal," Mohánita warned. "The being who has tied herself to your daughter is an ancient power beyond our understanding. You do not want to make an enemy of her lightly."
"I don't care," Julieta shot back. "I'm not giving up my daughter without a fight."
"Very well. There are some things you may be able to do to ward off her interference. The magic in your enchanted house will help but it's not enough. Ask your blacksmith for iron horseshoes and hang them up over your daughter's room and window. I will give you some herbs to place under her bed and some to mix into her milk."
She spit a mouthful of the crushed red herb into a bowl, and pushed it towards Julieta.
"Spread this on the door and window frame. And if you happen to have any bells in the house, string them up and ring them often."
"And...this will ward off this being?"
"The being herself will not risk staying too long on mortal ground, this will ward off her followers that are helping your daughter. I do not have anything strong enough to go head to head with her. I don't think any witch in the world does."
It was a start, at least. The burning unease in Julieta's stomach settled a little.
"Just a warning, though. Your daughter is not going to react well to any of this. Once you've started, you can't stop until the hold is broken. Or you will lose her forever."
…..
Every night, Mirabel slipped away to spend time with the butterfly queen and her court without fail. A small group of moths appeared near her window to guide her to where the veil was thin enough to slip through it. Sometimes it was close to Casíta, like on the first night she climbed out onto the roof, sometimes it was closer to the edge of the Encanto. Each morning she slipped back in, accompanied by a host of butterflies. It was exhausting, going back and forth through two planes of existence, she usually collapsed into a deep slumber as soon as her feet touched the earth. The butterflies kept her warm under the frigid night air until the sun rose.
Casíta was slowly showing itself to be hostile to the little winged ones, attempting to crush them with window shutters or drown them with the water in the rain gutters if they got too close. Sometimes it even loosened tiles to throw at them. It still felt some lingering loyalty to Mirabel, however. It tried to shut its doors and windows to keep her inside, but it could not refuse her for long.
During the day, Mirabel felt tired and sluggish. She tried to paint a face of normality to keep her family from worrying, but her mind so often drifted back to where she had been. The butterfly queen had been taking her through the veil to other places more often, places where the resident humans made offerings to her and other creatures. Places that were covered in snow so deep a man could be buried in seconds and the air was so cold it hurt to breathe, places so dry and dusty that nothing could remain in place without burning under the sun, places that were nothing but rock and saltwater and wind that roared as loud as a hundred jaguars.
And the creatures...
Mirabel had thought that the wolfish creature that had taken the baby away would be the most fearsome thing she would ever see, right up until she saw the disembodied head of a woman trailing bloody viscera below the neck feasting on the carcass of a cow. It raised its head and looked directly at her, smiling, but the queen dismissed it with a flick of her wing.
It is a scavenger, my dear. Nothing to worry about.
The butterfly queen wanted her to know these creatures by sight, but she could not explain why, any more than she could explain anything. She squared off against some of these beings, such as the one that appeared on the island battered by wind and seawater. A man's torso grafted onto the body of a horse, both freshly skinned and red with blood and muscle, it whickered and groaned in Mirabel's direction from both of its mouths and the queen hissed at it to back off, raising her wings to full height.
Mine, not for you! Never for you!
Other beings she held in high regard, and trusted them to get close enough to stroke Mirabel's head. A huge black and white bird whose wings crackled with lightning bolts conversed with her for hours while the queen was soaking up energy in the air above. He asked many questions about Colombia in a language that clicked and sang in equal measure. He could summon thunder and lightning at will with a control that Pepa would have killed for.
Another time, Mirabel was perched on a rock (with strict instructions not to let her feet touch the ground) while a creature whose top half was a beautiful woman draped in exquisite silk robes and whose bottom half was a venomous spider taught her to sing a song the children from the nearby village sang during the day. She wove a skein of silk as she sang, Mirabel helping her to string the threads.
You have skillful hands, the spider woman said. It echoed in Mirabel's heart, the way the butterfly queen's voice did. No matter the language, Mirabel understood without fail.
Thank you, Mirabel replied graciously. I love weaving, I don't get to do it often enough.
This silk is for you. There are few that can boast of such a rare gift.
Are you sure?
Of course. I had a daughter of my own, when I was mortal. I could never afford to give her silk then.
Where is your daughter now?
She is married, and long gone from here. She was very beautiful, I'm sure she will do well in the city.
The butterfly queen swooped overhead. Her form had changed to a transparent golden cloud, rolling over the tops of the trees. A host of pale butterflies followed in her path. The spider woman sighed.
She is so fortunate to have you.
Why so? You could have a child again if you wanted...don't the people here offer their unwanted children?
They do, but you are special. A mortal child given to me would become a spirit like me, nothing more. You could be much more than that. She is teaching you.
Teaching me?
Forgive her for not being clear with you, she has been immortal for thousands of years, she does not remember how to think like a mortal. She wants for you to become like her. You are already learning. She is showing you off to the other immortals, she is proud of you.
Tears welled up in Mirabel's eyes. For as long as she could remember, making the people in her life proud of her had been the most important thing in her life, and for the longest time she felt like she had failed. And yet, the butterfly queen was already so proud of her she was taking her on a tour of the whole world, introducing her to beings that had been walking the earth before the Madrigal family's earliest ancestor drew breath.
The silk wasn't the first gift she was given, or the last. The deerlike creature from the green mountains had given her one of its own scales, a flat disc that shimmered under the light like a diamond. The woman who shed her white fur on the beach to sit with her by the rock pools had given her a handful of tiny pearls, and taught her a number of songs in her strange lilting tongue. Even the strange little winged rabbit beast she had met halfway up an enormous tree in an unfathomably deep forest presented her with a small white bowl painted with blue flowers.
A poor gift, he told her. But I am a poor creature.
It's lovely, thank you, she replied.
She had the bowl in her pocket while she sat with the rest of her family at dinner, yawning into her milk-and-sugar. She was just tracing the pattern with her thumb when Camilo elbowed her roughly.
"What?"
It was only when she looked up that she realized everyone was looking at her.
(Except Julieta, she wasn't back from her visit to the other town yet.)
"Mirabel, are we boring you?" Alma asked, a little sharper than she probably intended. "That's the third time I've asked you a question."
"No, no, sorry," she stammered. "I'm just tired, I was miles away..."
"Of course you're tired, you're on a newborn's diet," Isabela said with a light chuckle. "We need to get you on solids some time soon."
The thought of trying to eat anything solid in the mortal realm was enough to make her gag. She sipped her milk to try and cover it, but a few worried glances were exchanged at the table.
"Maybe you should go back to bed for a while, hijita..." Agustin suggested.
"No! No thanks, I've spent enough time in bed," Mirabel muttered.
"Well, it's obvious you're not any better," Luisa chimed in. "Look at you, you're falling asleep at the table!"
"No, I'm not, I was just thinking, that's all..."
"About what?"
She wilted under the stares of her family. How could she even begin to explain? Why was talking to these people so much harder than talking with a bizarre half-rabbit-half-hawk in a tree?
"It's the sleepwalking," Alma cut in. "I'm going to call for the doctor to come back, we can't let this keep happening. Some night you'll break your other leg or freeze to death, winter is not far away."
There were murmurs of agreement from the adults around the table, Mirabel felt like screaming. The doctor meant a drug-induced sleep until she behaved herself to Abuela's standard. If she could have run away from the table, she would have.
Just then, Julieta arrived at the table, breaking through the tense silence.
"You're late, Julieta," Alma scolded lightly. "It's getting dark!"
"Which is why I left dinner ready before I set off this morning," Julieta said, waving away her mother's concern.
"How is Sénora García, Mama?" Isabela asked.
"She's fine, she sends her love," Julieta said.
She began to tell everyone of her journey and what she encountered along the way, which gave Mirabel a good excuse to sink back into her thoughts.
That night, she took a bath and, once dried off and dressed, she came back to the nursery to find Julieta there with a small basket.
"Is something wrong, Mama?" she asked. Usually Julieta visited her just before bed with a milk-and-sugar feed. Was she nailing down the windows?
"Nothing's wrong, amorcita," Julieta said. "Sénora García wanted to give you a cornhusk doll when she heard you'd been ill. I thought I would put it here as a surprise."
Mirabel hadn't had a cornhusk doll since she was a small child. Sénora García had made her last one years ago.
"That was nice of her," she said agreeably, admiring the little doll on the windowsill.
There was a face painted on the doll in some thick red substance. Odd, cornhusk dolls didn't usually have a face. The doll's skirt was painted with vivid red stripes too.
"Well, she is so old now," Julieta laughed. "I think she thinks you are six, not sixteen."
So occupied looking at the doll, Mirabel didn't see Julieta slip something under her bed.
"You will try to stay in your bed tonight, right?" Julieta asked as she tucked her daughter in.
"I try every night, it happens anyway," Mirabel grumbled.
"Try extra-hard tonight. Please."
Gritting her teeth, Mirabel nodded.
"I love you," Julieta said, kissing her forehead. "More than you know."
….
Note: The creatures Mirabel meets in this chapter are, in order:
Krasue, from Thailand (Floating woman's head with dangling intestines)
Nucklavee, from Scotland and the Orkney Islands (Skinless horse and rider stuck together)
Impundulu, from South Africa (Giant bird that controls thunder and lightning)
Jorógumo, from Japan (Spider woman)
Qulin, from China (Unicorn-dragon-deer hybrid)
Selkie, from Ireland (Seal that turns into a woman on the shore)
Wolpertinger, from Germany (Rabbit-deer-pheasant-squirrel hybrid)
