Midnight sorceries, curses, and phantoms. What had they gotten themselves into?
“Nevertheless, maybe we should talk to him,” Montserrat insisted.
“You’ve only seen your girlfriend once, haven’t you?” Urueta asked.
“Once was enough,” Tristán replied, dumping his cigarette in the ashtray and remembering the blood dripping to the floor.
The vision hadn’t lasted long. When he’d opened his eyes, Karina was gone, and he had turned on the lights in his room and dressed himself with trembling hands. But he was still scared. He wanted to get the Ghostbusters in there, along with José López and a whole team of parapsychologists.
“Light white candles around the apartment. The dead appreciate the light. It appeases them,” Urueta said. “Get flowers, too. Ghosts absorb the scent. Incense will also work. A ghost can’t harm you.”
“How long should I do that?”
“It’s hard to say. You’ve only seen her once, correct?”
“Yes. But the water was running in my apartment today, and I did not open a tap.”
“She might be gone already.”
“Which doesn’t explain why I would have seen her in the first place.”
“Necromancy was not among my skill set, so I can’t say I understand it.”
“What was your skill set?”
Urueta stood up and stared at the shelf displaying his crystals. His back was to them as he leaned forward and caressed a large piece of quartz. “Clairvoyance. Not that I could ever bet on the ponies nowadays. Whatever skill I had has atrophied. It was not much to talk about in the first place. Ewers said I’d come into my true power one day, but then he died, and whenever I’ve tried it on my own it didn’t work.”
“And Ewers’s skill set was radiesthesia,” Montserrat said.
“He told us that. He knew things. If you misplaced your keys, he’d be able to tell you where they were.”
“Your girlfriend, you said she was more skilled than you? Was she also clairvoyant?”
“Necromancer.”
“Then why don’t we talk to her?” Tristán said, snapping his fingers.
“I wouldn’t know where to find Clarimonde. She married and remarried and then she moved away. It was ages ago,” Urueta said, waving his hand vaguely. He set the quartz down, and then he turned around and looked at them. “If José and Clarimonde had been available I would have completed the spell long ago. But José would never agree to such a thing and Clarimonde left me.”
“If you’d told me I might end up seeing dead people I might not have agreed to it either,” Tristán said.
“Ewers never harmed me, Tristán. When he was around, the world was exciting! He always seemed to get his way, and he bristled with power, and he shared some of that power with us. I’d go to the track and pick five winners in a row. He made people who had dismissed me into my admirers, rid me of enemies…I thought this spell would be good for us.”
“And I thought we were doing you a big favor.”
“No, you thought I was crazy, that I’d made the whole story up,” Abel said angrily. “You thought you were humoring a silly, tired geezer.”
Well, of course Tristán had thought it was a silly story! Montserrat, too. They’d both agreed to help Abel precisely because it sounded like a ridiculous game. Tristán couldn’t help himself. “You are a tired geezer!” he yelled. “A drunk one, too. And I thought I had problems!”
Montserrat turned to Tristán and clutched his arm. “Stop it,” she whispered.
Abel stared at him with hurt pride and outrage. “Light the candles, buy the flowers. I’ll pay José a visit, see if he has any advice to offer,” Urueta said. He sounded tired. Tristán was tired, too. Yeah, he’d do that. He’d also get a bucket filled with holy water, probably.
They left after that and stood in the hallway. Tristán slid his hands into his pockets and looked at the ground.
“Can you stick around?” he asked Montserrat. “Maybe even sleep on the couch? Or you can take my bed and I’ll take the couch.”
“I’m not going to sleep on your couch.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t move in with you to keep you safe from ghosts.”
“I’d make a fabulous roommate.”
“I have things to do. I want to get hold of Regina tomorrow,” she said, taking his arm as they began walking down the stairs.
“What for?” Tristán asked, trying not to sound alarmed. Unlike him, Montserrat didn’t get back together with her exes, but maybe she felt like trying something new. Not that he would chide her about it, it was…well, he liked it when there wasn’t anyone else butting into their conversations and tagging along on movie outings.
“I need to talk to someone who knows about all those occultists in mid-century Germany. Ewers didn’t exist in a vacuum. He took his ideas from somewhere. Maybe if I understand the where, I can understand his magic system.”
They stopped in front of his apartment door. He sighed, relieved. “Then you do believe me after all.”
Montserrat shrugged. “I’m not sure what happened to you, but something happened.”
“My apartment is haunted, Momo. That’s what happened,” he said, turning the key and opening the door. He poked his head inside. Everything looked fine. He took a tentative step inside, then another. Montserrat didn’t follow him; she was still standing by the doorway. “You’re not hanging out for a bit?”
“I won’t sleep over.”
She sat on the arm of his couch and watched as he went around the living room, looking for the candle he knew he had somewhere. Finally, he retrieved it, along with a candlestick, and placed them both on the coffee table. The match’s flame burned quickly, and he shook it out.
“Araceli is going to be okay then?”
“Seems like it,” Montserrat said, but her shoulders were hunched, and she was biting her lip.
“I thought you’d be happy.”
“I am. It’s this talk of spells and magicians that is bothering me,” she said and opened her purse. She took out the yellowed book Urueta had given her and stared at the cover, holding it with both hands.
“You’re not scared, though. I can tell. I guess it’s not surprising. Nothing ever scares you.”
She looked up at him and shook her head wearily. “Plenty of things scare me. Maybe I’m not as nervous as you because nothing bad has happened to me.”
“Do you think he was telling the truth? Will the candles help?” Tristán wondered.
“I hope so.”
He would stop by a florist the next day and order two dozen roses; he’d get more candles. He’d get veladoras with pictures of the Virgin of Guadalupe or the Sacred Heart painted on them. Incense, too. But who knew if it would be any good, and he could tell she was thinking the same, that even if she was not afraid, she was concerned about him. He thought about asking her a third time to stay with him but refrained.
He found himself thinking about the day he’d met Montserrat. Three boys had cornered him behind the stairwell and were teasing him, their taunts a crescendo that would soon no doubt end in a beating. She’d had her cane back then, and he remembered how she’d come into the apartment building, carrying a sturdy bag of groceries in one hand.