Brain Child

EPILOGUE

María Torres drew her shawl close around her shoulders against the chill of the December morning, then locked the front door of her little house and slowly crossed the street to the cemetery behind the old mission.

The cemetery was bright with flowers, for no one in La Paloma had forgotten what had happened three months earlier. All of them were buried here. Valerie Benson only a few yards from Marty Lewis, and Cynthia and Carolyn Evans, side by side, a little further north. All their graves, as they were every day, were covered with fresh flowers.

In the southeast corner, set apart from the other graves, lay Alex Lonsdale. On his grave only a single flower lay — the white rose delivered each day by the florist. María paused at Alex’s grave, and wondered how long the roses would come, how long it would be before the Lonsdales, three months gone from La Paloma, forgot about their son. For them, María was sure, there would be other children, and when those children came, the roses would stop.

Then it would be up to her. Long after his parents had stopped honoring his memory, she would still come and leave a flower for Alejandro.

She moved on into the oldest section of the cemetery, where her parents and grandparents were buried, and where now, finally returned to his family, her son lay as well. She stood at the foot of Ramón’s grave for several minutes, and, as she always did, tried to understand what part he had played in what she had come to think of as the days of vengeance. But, as always, it was a mystery to her. Somehow, though, the saints had touched him, and he had fulfilled his destiny, and she honored his memory as she honored the memory of Alejandro de Meléndez y Ruiz. She whispered a prayer for her son, then left the cemetery. For her, there was still work to be done.

She trudged slowly through the village, feeling the burden of her age with every step, pausing once more in the Square, partly to rest, but partly, too, to repeat one more prayer for Don Roberto. Then, when she was rested, she went on.

She turned up Hacienda Drive, and was glad that today, at least, she needn’t climb all the way up to the hacienda. It was empty again, and now she only went there once a week to wipe the dust away from its polished oaken floors and wrought-iron sconces. The furniture was gone, but she didn’t miss it. In her mind’s eye it was still as it had always been. Her ghosts were still there. Soon, she was sure, she would go to join them, and though her body would lie in the cemetery, her spirit would return to the hacienda which had always been her true home.

Today, though, she would not go to the hacienda. Today she would go to one of the other houses — the house where Alejandro had died — to speak to the new people.

They had only come to La Paloma last week, and she had heard that they needed a housekeeper.

She came to the last curve before the house would come into view, and paused to catch her breath. Then she walked on, and a moment later, saw the house.

It was as it should have been. Along the garden wall, neatly spaced between the tile insets, were small vines, well-trimmed and espaliered. From the outside, at least, the house looked as it had looked a century ago.

María stepped through the gate into the little patio, then knocked at the front door and waited. As she was about to knock again, the door opened, and a woman appeared.

A blond woman, with bright blue eyes and a smiling face.

A gringo woman.

“Mrs. Torres?” the woman asked, and María nodded. “I’m so glad to meet you,” the woman went on. “I’m Donna Ruiz.”

María felt her heart skip a beat, and her legs suddenly felt weak. She reached out and steadied herself on the door frame.

“Ruiz …” she whispered. “No es posible …”

The woman’s smile widened. “It’s all right,” she said. “I know I don’t look like a Ruiz. And of course I’m not. I was a Riley before I married Paul.” She took María’s arm and drew her into the house, closing the door behind her. A moment later they were in the living room. “Isn’t this wonderful? Paul says it’s exactly the kind of house he’s always wanted to live in, and that it’s really authentic. He says it must be over a hundred years old.”

“More,” María said softly, her eyes going to the hearth where Alejandro had died so short a time ago. “It was built for one of the overseers.”

Donna Ruiz looked puzzled. “Overseers?”

“From the hacienda, before the … before the americanos came.”

“How interesting,” Donna replied. “It sounds like you know the house well.”

“Sí,” María said. “I cleaned for Señora Lonsdale.”

Donna’s smile faded. “Oh, dear. I didn’t know … Perhaps you’d rather not work here.”

María shook her head. “It is all right. I worked here before. I will work here again. And someday, I will go back to the hacienda.”

The last of Donna Ruiz’s smile disappeared, and she shook her head sadly. “It must have been awful. Just awful. That poor boy.” She hesitated; then: “It almost seems like it would have been better if he’d died in the accident, doesn’t it? To go through all he went through, and end up …” Her voice trailed off; then she took a deep breath and stood up. “Well. Perhaps we should go through the house, and I can tell you what I want done.”

María heaved herself to her feet and silently followed Donna Ruiz through the rooms on the first floor, wondering why the gringo women always assumed that she couldn’t see what needed to be done in a house. Did they think she never cleaned her own house? Or did they just think she was stupid?

The rooms were all as they had been the last time she had been here, and Señora Ruiz wanted the same things done that Señora Lonsdale had wanted.

The cleaning supplies were where they had always been, as were the vacuum cleaner and the dust rags, the mops and the brooms.

And all of it, of course, was explained to her in detail, as if she hadn’t heard it all a hundred times before, hadn’t known it all long before these women were even born.

At last they went upstairs, and one by one Donna Ruiz showed her all the rooms María Torres already knew. Finally they came to the room at the end of the hall, the room that had been Alejandro’s. They paused, and Donna Ruiz knocked at the door.

“It’s okay,” a voice called from within. “Come on in, Mom.”

Donna Ruiz opened the door, and María gazed into the room. All the furniture was still there — Alejandro’s desk and bed, the bookshelves and the rug, all as they had been when the Lonsdales left.

Sitting at the desk, working on a model airplane, was a boy who looked to be about thirteen. He grinned at his mother, then, seeing that she wasn’t alone, stood up. “Are you the cleaning lady?” he asked.

María nodded, her old eyes studying him. His eyes were dark, and his hair, nearly black, was thick and curly. “Cómo se llama?” she asked.

“Roberto,” the boy replied. “But everybody calls me Bobby.”

“Roberto,” María repeated, her heart once again beating faster. “It is a good name.”

“And he’s fascinated with history,” Donna Ruiz said. She turned to her son. “María seems to know all about the house and the town. I’ll bet if you asked her, she could tell you everything that’s ever happened here.”

Bobby Ruiz turned eager eyes toward María. “Could you?” he asked. “Do you really know all about the town?”

María hesitated only an instant, then nodded. “Sí,” she said softly. “I know all the old legends, and I will tell them all to you.” She smiled gently. “I will tell them to you, and you will understand them. All of them. And someday, you will live in the hacienda. Would you like that?”

The boy’s eyes burned brightly. “Yes,” he said. “I’d like that very much.”

“Then I will take you there,” María replied. “I will take you there, and someday it will be yours.”

A moment later, María was gone, and Bobby Ruiz was alone in his room. He went to his bed and lay down on his back so that he could gaze at the ceiling, but he saw nothing. Instead, he listened to the sounds in his head, the whisperings in Spanish that he had been hearing since the first time he came into this room. But now, after talking to María Torres, he understood the whisperings.

Soon, he knew, the killings would begin again.…