Silver Nitrate(99)

“Sure. I will. What time are we doing this, anyway? It’s getting late.”

“After dark,” López said.

Tristán looked at his wristwatch. “I might as well take a nap before we start with all the witching.”

López gave Tristán an exasperated look and shook his head, his fingers wielding the brush delicately. Tristán promptly walked back into their room and plopped himself on the bed. Later, Montserrat wandered in, her hands inked with runes.

“You need to have your hands painted,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll do it in a bit.”

“Why are you being annoying?”

Tristán was sitting on the bed with one hand behind his head. He leaned on his elbows and sat up, watching Montserrat as she crossed her arms and stared at him.

“I’m not going to chicken out, Momo. You’ll have your séance. But it doesn’t mean I want to spend my day listening to the old man whisper about magic.”

“You’re not taking this seriously.”

“And you take it too seriously.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re enjoying this. Spells and wizards and Wilhelm Ewers. The way you act about all his stuff,” he said, pointing at the book she’d left open on the desk. “Or the things he wrote and thought…What did he say to you? That night, when he woke you up, what did he say?”

Montserrat sat on the bed, by his feet, and shook her head. “You’re a stubborn fucker. Fine. He told me to follow him into the night.”

“What does that mean?”

She frowned. “It’s a phrase in his book. He’s trying to scare me, that’s all. I said so already.”

“No, it’s bigger than that,” Tristán insisted. “The more you become immersed in his books, in his magic, the more you become immersed in him. You don’t realize it, but sometimes you sound like you admire the guy. He was clever, creative, and determined, right?”

“That’s not what I—” Montserrat began to say, her frown deepening, but he cut her off.

“You told me I was summoning my dead girlfriend, but have you thought that maybe the reason why you’ve seen Ewers is because you’re calling out to him?”

“He could write a decent turn of phrase, okay? And he could figure out the components of a spell, and neither of those things means—”

“Do you want to be a sorceress, like old Willie? Cast hexes instead of mixing audio? Fess up.”

She stood up. “Get the runes on your hands.”

Tristán felt tempted to be contrarian, but in the end he submitted to the process and listened patiently to López as he explained what he had to do in order to summon a ghost.

By ten p.m. López had placed a white tablecloth atop the table and removed the Hawaiian dancer from its center, relegating it to the sideboard. The box with the salt took the doll’s place. López placed two candlesticks on the table and struck a match. Between the candlesticks there was a glass of water.

“Water is a good conduit, and the candles, like the box of salt, should protect you while also providing a welcoming space for the ghost. Now you understand the instructions,” López said as he handed Tristán a large notepad and a pen. “Do you need to go over the words again?”

“I’m an actor. I can memorize lines,” Tristán replied. He wanted to get this done with before he thought it over and backed out.

“You simply ask him to join us and then you write down whatever he says.”

“In the movies people hold hands, you know.”

“And they probably have a Ouija board manufactured by Juguetes Mi Alegría. Will you simply sit down?”

Tristán muttered a curse word but obeyed. López turned off the light and sat to his right. Montserrat had already taken his left.

The room was rather dark with only the two candles. He wrapped his hands around the glass of water and asked the water to bless him and protect him before he embarked on this journey. He placed the notepad and the pen on the table, resting his hands lightly next to them. Then he recited the words López had told him to memorize, which were easy enough.

López handed him Abel’s photograph, and Tristán held it up. In the dim light it was hard to make out the features, but he tried his best to keep his eyes on the photo and listen to his own breathing. The minutes stretched by. His hand was beginning to ache from holding the photograph up.

“Concentrate,” López said.

“I am concentrating,” Tristán said, switching hands.

“Repeat the incantation again, from the beginning.”

Tristán said the words. Nothing happened. After many more minutes López pushed his chair back. “Perhaps we might try something else. I have incense in the sideboard,” he said, as he moved toward a lumpy shape that must be said sideboard, hidden as it was in the dark.

Tristán set the photograph down next to the notepad with a sigh. It was cold that night. Tristán hadn’t noticed before, but suddenly the chill of the evening overtook him, making him shiver. His hands brushed against the pen, restless, as López grumbled and opened a drawer, rummaging among what sounded like cutlery.