Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

Her wolf made a sympathetic sound and put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned gratefully against him, savoring the comfort of his body’s warmth, the strength that the muscled arm represented.

“Have I earned my kiss yet, do you think?” he asked.

“Porlo menos,” Bettina said. “Many times over.”

She lifted her head and their lips met. When they finally came up for air, her wolf sighed.

“What will we do with ourselves?” he whispered.

“Shh,” Bettina told him.

Before he could speak, she kissed him again.

They returned to the wet misery of Newford and the ice storm on the following day. El lobo, supporting Tommy for the short trek back, walked beside Bettina, the others following in a ragged line behind. When they finally crossed back over from la epoca del mito, they found Sunday and Zulema waiting for them in the woods behind Kellygnow. The Creek sisters were eager to depart, wasting little time in packing Tommy into the bed of the pickup, fussing over him with auntly concern. They offered lifts to whoever wished to come with them, which Hunter, Ellie, and Miki accepted.

Before the pickup pulled away, Aunt Nancy approached Bettina and her wolf. She knelt for a moment, reaching into her seemingly bottomless backpack to take out two small items. Her sisters remained near the pickup, neither friendly nor unfriendly, studying Bettina and her wolf with measuring gazes, but the others drew near as Aunt Nancy spoke.

“You will always find honor and welcome at our fires,” she told Bettina and her wolf, offering them the gifts she held. “Both of you.”

She gave them small sacks—squares of red cloth, closed with a twist and tied with a leather thong. From the smell of tobacco and sweetgrass that rose from hers, Bettina knew Aunt Nancy was honoring them with this. She held hers lightly in the open palm of her hand so that even its small weight and touch wouldn’t chafe her tender skin. Her hands were healing, but even with her brujería, it was a slow process.

“I was angry at first,” Aunt Nancy said to el lobo, “when I knew Shishòdewe was dead and you were walking around in his body. But it’s plain to me now that you could have had nothing to do with his death. I know that you will honor his gift to you and remain true to his obligations.”

El lobo lifted the red sack to his lips and kissed it before placing it the pocket of his jacket. He inclined his head to her but said nothing.

Bettina winced as the cloth of her jeans rubbed against her hand, but she reached into her pocket all the same, hoping for and finding one of the mila-gros she used for her amuletos. She always seemed to have one or another in her pocket, absently tucked away in the process of making the charms. She looked at the one she’d found before she gave it to Aunt Nancy and smiled.

“Back home,” she said, “we pin these to the robes of los santos when we ask for their intercession. If I was seeking their help, this would represent the burns on my hands, but por abora… I’d like to think it represents the helping hand we offered each other.”

The milagro was in the shape of a small silver hand.

“I will weave it into a beadwork collar,” Aunt Nancy told her, “and whenever I wear it, I will remember you and what we did.”

Bettina nodded. As Aunt Nancy turned away, Bettina looked over to the pickup to see Tommy waving at her from the litter of blankets on which he lay in the bed of the truck. Bettina waved back. When she returned her attention to the others once more, Hunter and Miki murmured their goodbyes, then retreated to the pickup where they climbed into the back with Tommy. But Ellie came over and gave them each a hug.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked Bettina.

“Of course,” she said. “Will you?”

“I don’t know. With all that’s happened… it’s a lot to digest.”

“You don’t have to use the brujería” Bettina told her. “Except as you always have—in your art.”

“I suppose. But it makes you think. Why do I have it? Where did it come from? Am I a sculptor because of it?”

Bettina shook her head. “Brujería doesn’t make you need to create; it only makes what you create that much more true.”

“Do you think I should do more with it? I mean, something like what you’re doing… being a healer and all.”

“You must do what’s in your heart.”

“I don’t know what’s in my heart anymore.”

“Kindness,” Bettina assured her. “Faith in others. Hope. All the things you already bring to those you help with Angel’s programs.”

“But maybe I can do more with it.”

“Quizá, quizá no,” Bettina replied. “Time will tell. But one thing…”

“Yes?”

“Promise me you’ll be careful with whatever future commissions you accept.”

Ellie smiled and gave her another hug. “That I can promise you.”

Salvador and Nuala came out of the house when Bettina and her wolf emerged from the woods and followed the pickup out onto the lawn. They stood together to watch the vehicle drive away, the pickup moving effortlessly across the slick ice and slush that made the lane so treacherous.

“How is that possible?” Salvador murmured.

“The same way you’ve been kept dry and warm,” el lobo told him. “By stepping in between this world and the one beyond.”

Salvador made the sign of the cross.

“No este nervioso,” Bettina told him. Don’t be nervous. “Nothing here will harm you now.”

Salvador nodded and gave her an unhappy look.

“Have you always been a part of… all of this?” he asked her.

“Sí. But I didn’t lie to you. I simply never spoke of it.”

“No, por supuesto qué no…”

She could see the unspoken word in his eyes, for all that he tried to hide it.

Bruja. Witch.

His hand twitched because he would not allow himself to insult her by making the sign of the cross to her face. It saddened her that such a simple word could make her friend fearful of her. The small charms she’d made were one thing—even Maria Elena had asked for one. But witchcraft…

She remembered how occasionally children back home, daring each other until one braver than the rest would call out to her abuela —

¡Bruja! ¡Bruja! ¡Bruja!

—before they would all run away, shrieking with laughter and fright.

“No,” she said, responding to the unspoken epithet she saw now in Salvador’s eyes. “There is no need for you to be wary of me.”

“I mean no disrespect…”

“Salvador, por favor. I am who I have always been. It’s true I have brujería in my blood, but I am a curandera. I don’t harm; I heal.”

He said nothing for a long moment. Then he swallowed, gaze darting momentarily to el lobo before returning to settle on her.

“When this is over,” he said, waving a hand to indicate the ice storm. “You and… and your friend. You will come to dinner at my home?”

“Oh, Salvador,” she cried.

She gave him a hug, careful to keep her hands in the air. He was stiff for only a moment before he enfolded her in his arms.

“I am going away,” she told him as she finally stepped back. “But I will return so that we can be your guests.”

He smiled and went off content, leaving only Nuala for them still to speak with, but when they turned to her, they found the housekeeper was already gone. Bettina sighed. She was still only one step away from exhaustion, but she wanted to finish this now. To pack up her things and be gone. The marvels of winter no longer held any charm for her. The dreary endless rain weighed on her spirit in a way that the frost and snow never had. She was tired of the cold, tired of the horizons being so close.