“That’s why we want to thank you, before anything else,” said Florence. So grateful, she said in English. “Because the gods spoke, and the record of their words was extensive. We know what it costs your body to do this, and we know you are full of doubt. It’s normal for a medium to doubt. But we must protect the Order from the madness of the mediums. We know how they deteriorate. We know the price they pay for being the door.”
“The medium is right here,” said Juan. “Don’t speak as if you were talking about someone else. Before you tell me what you have to tell me, I need to know something, and you will answer me. I’m sick of the silence.”
The women looked up expectantly, and Juan raised his voice. Outside, the dogs were barking.
“On my trip here, I summoned an entity. My reason for doing so is not something I have to explain to you. It replied to one of my questions with words that I interpreted in a certain way. The wrong way. And I persisted in the error. The way I persisted and the difficulty I had convincing myself that I was thinking something foolish gave me a clue: my confusion was magical work. Very good magical work, because I didn’t feel it. I needed to be in this house in order to realize my mistake. To understand who “those who speak to me” are. And it’s all of you.”
He looked closely at the women. They were calm. Anne, with her perfectly coiffed white hair, was the only one who seemed a little uneasy. She was the oldest of them, and the most scrupulous.
“You underestimate me,” he went on. “You know it’s possible that I’m reaching the end of my cycle. But, as you saw last night, the cycle still holds a great deal of power.”
Florence started to speak, but Juan raised a hand.
“Not now. I want you to tell me why you were manipulating me.”
But Florence insisted, and her reply was direct:
“We have Rosario,” she said. “We have her trapped in a place where you can’t contact her. Out of reach.”
Juan closed his eyes. The pain reached his jaw, his teeth were clenched so tightly.
“Where is she?”
“We don’t know that. You’ll have to figure it out.”
“You performed a spell without knowing how to undo it. That’s what you’re telling me.”
“Yes, that’s correct.” Florence crossed her arms.
“Why did you kill Rosario? To take away my power? Because you thought she wanted to take control of the Order?”
Mercedes stood up.
“We did not kill my daughter. We respect the blood. She had an accident.”
“And then you saw your chance.”
Mercedes gazed at him steadily through her dark glasses, but said nothing.
“I don’t believe you,” he told her, “Doesn’t matter. Where did you send my wife?”
“We don’t know and we’re not lying,” Florence said, taking over. “In the last Ceremonial, the gods spoke of different places of death. We sent her spirit to one of them. But they have not taught us yet how to find her, nor can we contact her. We just can’t. Like you. Every year when you do the Ceremonial for us, you’ll be able to ask the Darkness where that place is and how you can get her out. Sooner or later, it will give you the answer.”
“Is it a place of suffering?”
“Yes,” said Florence, coldly. “We have to ensure our protection and your commitment. You can’t leave her there, right? You have to look for her, and you have to come here to do it, in the Ceremonial. Perhaps you can look for her on your own, too, but that’s no business of ours. You only need to know that the answer you seek is here.”
Juan closed his eyes in a pretense of pain, but really he was studying the energy in the room to see if he could hurt them. When he approached Mercedes and Florence, he felt it. Something was protecting them, and it was powerful. He withdrew. When had they become so strong? The three of them had always been unremarkable as practical witches. Then he understood: it was his own power shrinking, so that what had seemed minimal before was now significant and potent. The conditions were evening out. As though in a dream, he heard Stephen’s voice:
If you eliminate them, they’ll never be able to tell you what they did with Rosario. Don’t hurt them.
It’s in the texts, they say. I can read the texts.
They’ll have that particular text well hidden. We can find it, but only if you stay calm. You have other ways of looking for her that they don’t know about. Don’t forget that. We’ll find her.
Juan had nothing to say. So, Rosario was in the Darkness. In a way. The demon hadn’t lied, of course, and neither had he interpreted its answer entirely incorrectly. He had only lacked information.
“It’s our way of ensuring that you will return and that you will continue summoning, because if you don’t, you’ll be abandoning her there,” Florence continued. “And it also ensures that you will agree to attempt the Rite with your son when it becomes necessary.”
“And that you will give us all the guidance so we can all perform it successfully ourselves,” added Mercedes. “Thus far, only the medium can perform the Rite. We cannot let anything interrupt the process.”
“Rosario could have interrupted it,” said Juan. “You thought she would have that power over me, that she would want to protect her son.”
There was no reply. Juan went on: “Mercedes, you have no children left to move your consciousness into.
Mercedes smiled. “Juan, that headache has left you stupid. I don’t have my daughter, but I do have my grandson.”
“Gaspar’s body is mine.”
“Not if you fail. If you decide to fail—as I fear you want to—I will take him. It’s the blood that matters.”
She smiled again and looked to Florence, who said:
“Juan, we’ve never had another medium even close to your caliber. We need to protect ourselves from what’s happening to you. Mediums lose their sanity. They lose their minds! It’s happened too many times. They become unmanageable, they rebel. We understand. But what the Darkness, our ancient god, is giving us must not be interrupted by a whim or fleeting mania. Not even by your illness. We have to protect ourselves from your power. The messages cannot stop just because you decide to turn against us. The Darkness is teaching us how to conquer death. It is teaching us how to contact other ancient gods. Imagine that. You must continue summoning for us. Your wife told us that you wanted to stop, and we cannot allow that. And you know perfectly well that when something must be done for the Order, I don’t back down. I’m so terribly sorry. I’m more grateful to you than to anyone in this world. But I cannot allow you to leave us, or to exercise your power over us.”
“Do you really think I can stop summoning? That the Darkness will allow it?”
Florence cocked her head to one side and her bun almost came undone. A lock of red hair fell over her forehead.
“You could manage to stop for a time, if you wished. What we fear is that you’ll decide to end your life. You can kill yourself, and that would be your way to stop summoning. It wouldn’t be the first time a medium committed suicide.”
“I could also die in any Ceremonial.”