“But—”
“You should come out with us sometime,” Ellie went on. “Maybe you could use your magic to help them.”
Bettina gave her a considering glance. She could tell that Ellie had surprised herself in saying that, was perhaps even a little embarrassed by it, considering her vehement denials to the subject earlier. Eh, bueno. Bettina didn’t blame the sculptor. Anything could be disconcerting, if you weren’t familiar with it. Something like la brujería would be even more so, since to someone like Ellie, it went against all she’d been taught and had experienced in the world to date. It wasn’t as though she had grown up with a curandera for a grandmother, or spent her whole life as Bettina had, with one foot in this world, one foot in the other.
“La brujería,” she said, “only helps those who want to be helped, Ellie.”
“Don’t you have to believe as well?”
Bettina shook her head. “Does the sun require our belief before it can rise or set?”
“No, I suppose not.”
Bettina laughed. “Don’t look so glum. What’s happening to you doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”
Before Ellie could reply, they heard the approach of an engine on the driveway, then saw the vehicle’s headbeams. A few moments later, the Angel Outreach van made its way up the last part of incline, tires slipping as they sought traction.
“Here’s my ride,” Ellie said, no doubt relieved at the timely rescue.
Bettina nodded. “Cuidado, “she said. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
Bettina watched Ellie pick her way carefully across the icy driveway to where the van waited. Reaching the vehicle, the sculptor got in, waving before she closed the door behind her. Bettina returned the gesture. She waited until the van had made its slow way back down the sharp incline of the driveway before turning to go back inside, but once she’d closed the door on the wet night, she felt uncharacteristically restless. It was nothing she could put her finger on, only a disconnected feeling that had her wandering from one common room to another until she finally found herself in the kitchen. There she stood by the window and looked outside at the freezing rain, her gaze settling on the uninvited visitors who had gathered on the ice-covered lawns.
How could they be here again, on such a night… ?
She put on her coat and boots and went outside to where the wet night was waiting for her. The wet night and los lobos.
Once outside, she paused for a long moment by the back door of the kitchen, sheltered from the freezing rain by its overhang, and watched the dark-haired men. They didn’t sit tonight, standing in their rough circle instead, still smoking their cigarettes, gazes still on the house. Not all of them at once, but there was always at least one of them regarding the building.
Basta, she thought. Enough, She only had so much patience.
She pushed herself away from the door and started towards them, losing her balance in the process. Her boots slipped out from under her on the slick ice and she flailed her arms. She was falling, she would have fallen, except strong hands caught her from behind and held her upright. As she turned, her rescuer keeping a grip on her arms so that she wouldn’t lose her balance again, she found herself facing one of the wolves. Which one? She couldn’t tell at first. They were all too much alike. And when she glanced at where they’d been standing, there was no sign of them at all. The others had all slipped away and only this wolf remained, holding her arms the way one held a child just beginning to walk. Despite herself, her pulse quickened when she realized he was the same one who had approached her the other night.
“Can you stand on your own?” el lobo asked her.
He let her go as he spoke and Bettina had to do an awkward shuffle to stay upright.
“Who are you?” she demanded when she finally had her balance. “What do you want from me?”
“Not even a thanks?”
“Perdona. I am grateful for your help.”
Her hair was rapidly getting plastered against her head—a cold and decidedly uncomfortable sensation. El lobo, she noticed, wasn’t even damp. Nor had the others been. Of course. They were only partly in this world, enough to see and be seen, but not enough to be affected by the inclement weather. She concentrated for a moment and sidled into that in-between place herself. The relief from the freezing rain was immediate, though she still had a chill and her hair continued to drip icy water down the back of her neck.
“But you have questions,” el lobo said, smiling.
He began to walk across the lawn to where the woods began. Bettina couldn’t help but return the smile. She fell in step beside him, neither of them touched by the sleet, their footing steady in that in-between place.
“Claro,” she said when they reached the first trees. Of course. There were always questions.
El lobo nodded. “You asked what was wanted from you. They,” he nodded to where the other wolves had been, “want nothing. Their concern is with the sculptor.”
“They,” Bettina thought. He says “they.” Why not “we?”
“Do you mean Ellie?” she asked.
Again he nodded. “If that is her name.”
“But you’ve been out here long before she arrived.”
“There is another in that house with whom they have unfinished business.”
Once more it was “they.” But he didn’t have to identify Nuala by name for Bettina to know who he meant.
“What business?” she asked.
He shrugged. “That is between them. My interest is with you.”
Bettina schooled her features to show nothing of how he’d made her blood quicken. She considered all of Nuala’s warnings. Was this the moment when he would try to drag her off into the woods? She would have a surprise for him, if he tried. She was stronger than she looked, and not afraid to use that strength. But perhaps he’d come with gentler courting in mind.
“Do you have a name?” she asked, pretending a calm she didn’t feel.
“You may call me Scathmadra.”
Not, “My name is Scathmadra.” Only that she could call him by it, this apodo of his, and he would answer, but it would have no hold over him as would his true name. And what sort of a nickname was Scathmadra? A felsos name. A Gentry’s name.
“Bueno, “Bettina said. “And what is it you want from me?”
“Your help.”
Bettina studied him for a moment, surprised. Was this who had called her up out of the desert, this wolf of a spirit who wouldn’t even share with her his true name?
“And yet you are the enemy,” she said.
His eyebrows rose in a question.
“I have been warned against you.”
“Who… ?” he began, then nodded. “Of course. The housekeeper. What did she say about us?”
Now he included himself with the others, Bettina noted.
“Only that you mean me no good, ¿Y bien?”
“I cannot speak for the others,” he told her, “but for myself… you could be putting yourself in danger if you agree to help me.”
“Danger from whom?”
“The others.”
Bettina smiled humorlessly. “And yet you are one of them.”
“No,” he corrected. “I am part of them, but no more one of them than you are one of your father’s peyoteros.”
“What do you know of my father?”
“That we share a kinship, no matter how distant.”