Silver Nitrate(108)
“José had talent but he is old, Alma and Abel are dead, and that leaves only Clarimonde. Let there be three.”
“The son to rule the West, the mother Lady of the South, and the Eastern King, the Mighty father united by the might of man,” she recited, remembering what was written in the book. “But then, I thought you’d reserved the spot of the mother for Clarimonde. The love of your life, am I correct?” she asked mockingly.
“Magic is about symbols,” Ewers said. “Things spoken that have a second meaning. Magic is ritual. You and Tristán fit perfectly within this play, like slipping on a mask. Follow me into the night.”
Poetry, rhythm, musicality. He spoke well, had a knack for it, and she had a good ear.
“You’ve said that phrase before. What does it mean?” she asked, tasting something in his words. Dynamism and symmetry, the heady perfume of magic upon each syllable.
“You know what it means. Words are also ritual, gestures are spells. Promise to obey me, be a servant to a great lord, and I’ll grant you immense power.”
He had ceased in his walking and stood very still. Watching her carefully. Sizing her up. “Here, take my hand,” he said and almost casually lifted said hand. Not for her to shake, no. Perhaps for her to bow her head and kiss the fingertips. It was lofty, an almost laughable and theatrical gesture, but he had a grandiose swagger. Hollywood, she thought again, spectacle. But a spectacle with purpose. It’s what he had written in his book, in his letter.
She had the disturbing realization that the fog was closing in on them, the endless expanse they walked in was growing smaller. When she jumped into the grain containers she’d had a similar sensation, one panicked moment when she felt the grain would close above her head and she’d never be able to push her way out.
“You can’t be trusted,” she said rather than responding to his languid gesture. “You lie and cheat. If we let you, you will consume us.”
“It’s natural for the strong to feast on the weak. I am meant to rule over you. The Opener of the Way—”
“Is a concept you invented,” she said, cutting him off. “Or a story you heard about and perverted. There’s nothing natural about it.”
Montserrat shuffled one, two steps away from him; watched as the corners of his lips lifted into a caustic smile.
“Maybe I’ll fix that lame leg of yours. You move like a wounded bird, how awkward,” he said, glancing down at her feet.
She had a sudden wish to hit him. He reminded her of the neighborhood bullies, of the boys who mocked her cane. Rather than folding she wished to hold her ground, and rather than bowing she wished to snarl.
“You must have been a very unhappy boy, Wilhelm Ewers,” she said. “Scrawny, sickly, no match for your big brother. Your parents preferred him. Your mother took her own life when her favorite kid died. Maybe she thought you should have been the boy who perished. And your father had always been distant. You could not impress him with anything you did, not even when you tried, reading all those books, amassing all that knowledge.”
“You have a vivid imagination,” Ewers said dismissively, and his hand now curled into a fist, falling by his side, “and a talent for fabrications.”
“I read your letter. And you said we’re very much alike.”
She thought she was correct. Somewhere, in between the lines in his book and his letter, in the leaden gaze imprinted on the photographs, Montserrat had recognized a familiar tale. It had beckoned her. She didn’t even have to look into anybody’s dreams to figure as much.
“You are brave because I’m being exceedingly kind. Do not doubt that I can still harm you. In this and any other place. You and your little friend. You’ll never be free of me; you’ll never be safe.”
“You need us, that’s what this is all about,” she countered.
“No, this is about you trying to find a solution to your predicament, trying to find a chink in my armor, a weakness to exploit. You think I can’t tell? Your little mind is spinning, but while it’s been amusing, you must know that you can’t possibly best me.”
Then, for a second, she felt unmoored, as if the ground beneath her was shifting. Perhaps it was. The fog was a rolling carpet of black, the light dimmer, and his eyes flashed bright, with the glow of silver.
There was so much power in this place, in him, and as Ewers had said, he was only growing stronger. She understood why he wanted so badly for her to agree to obey him. It was as José had told them: he fed off them. He was fueled by whatever unnatural reaction they had started, his power, meshed in silver nitrate, boiling up on its own but also augmented by the loving adoration of his acolytes, of Clarimonde and the others. Unwittingly, too, amplified by Tristán and Montserrat, like at the studio when they had cracked the glass. Together, they could do more. And this, now…Ewers was not even alive. What could he accomplish if he was resurrected, what spells might he conjure, what horrors? She did not doubt his threats.
It was stupid to attempt to defy him. All she was doing was stoking his anger. It was a pointless strategy. How had José attacked him? How did Alma kill him?
“If you continue like this, I’ll ask Clarimonde to cut each finger on your Tristán’s hand and feed it to you. Tell me, afterward, how much I need you,” he said.