A sense of peace gradually crept over him as he stood there, though. At last he recognized Natividad’s influence: she had been here, had stood where he was standing, had drawn her pentagrams on his door, on his windows.
The knowledge of his sister’s care was almost as warming as the subtle whisper of tranquilidad that emanated from her work, and eventually he did turn and cross the room. He barely remembered dropping down full length on top of the bedcovers, and after that, nothing.
He woke to a hard grip on his arm and Miguel’s voice, sharp and urgent, calling his name. If he hadn’t recognized his brother’s voice even before he was awake, he would certainly have taken Miguel’s head right off with a slashing blow – as it was, he only just managed to turn his first, violent reaction into a snarl of, “Suéltame! Estupido!” and a back-handed slap that only rocked his brother back on his heels rather than cutting him to pieces.
“Lo siento! Lo siento!” Miguel belatedly crouched down low to help Alejandro recapture his control. His breath was coming fast with shock – no, with terror.
“Que quieres?” Alejandro demanded. “There is an attack, there is battle? Vonhausel has come?” His brother’s fear and urgency swept over him like a fire kindling in the dark and he rolled to his feet, dimly glad he had not had the energy to undress before collapsing across the bed. How long had he been asleep? Not long enough, not nearly long enough... The glowing red numerals on the clock told him it was 12.05, the hinge of night where the dark swung around at last and headed back toward day.
He shook his head hard, fighting to flatten his shadow down out of his way so he could think clearly. Lingering exhaustion made it difficult, but one urgent thought occurred to him, far later than it should have, and he asked sharply, “Natividad?” Abruptly certain that whatever the trouble was, his sister was the heart of it, he did not wait for Miguel to answer before striding across the room and through the connecting door to Natividad’s room.
It was empty. There was no sign Natividad had ever lain down in that bed. The room was filled with a sense of emptiness and abandonment – was that only in Alejandro’s head?
“She’s gone,” Miguel said, very quiet-voiced. He was hesitating, with vastly uncharacteristic diffidence, at the door Alejandro had left open behind him. “I woke up and I knew something was wrong and I came in here to see and she was gone. Es mí culpa– es mí culpa…”
Brutally, Alejandro did not disagree with this judgment. He demanded only, “What do you know? What do you guess?”
Miguel took a quick, hard breath, gripping his hands together. Whatever he saw in Alejandro’s face must have frightened him, for he also dropped down to kneel on the floor at the edge of Natividad’s pink rug. He said, “She believed everything I said about Vonhausel and she went to find him. I’m sure that’s what happened. She made something. Look at her table…”
The little dressing table had been cleared of all the little perfume bottles. The only thing that now occupied its lace-covered surface was their mother’s old wooden flute and a single silver bullet taken from one of the rifles they had brought upstairs.
“I heard her playing earlier,” Miguel whispered. He looked wretchedly into Alejandro’s face. “I thought… I didn’t think…”
“No,” Alejandro said furiously, and saw, with both guilt and savage satisfaction, that this single word hit his brother like a blow. He picked up the little flute and stood for a moment, holding it in his hand, trying to think.
Miguel, visibly gathering his nerve, said, “She made something, a weapon, I guess. I don’t know what someone Pure would make – maybe not exactly a weapon. But I think she thought she had to do something special. It’s my fault, I know it’s my fault. She made something, and then she slipped out. I think I heard her door close. I was dreaming and I heard a door close in my dream and the sound scared me and woke me up and I came to see if she was OK and she was gone…”
“How long ago?”
“I don’t know, I just woke up, but I don’t know how long ago she left. It can’t have been long…”
That guess was based on hope rather than any kind of knowledge, Alejandro thought, but even so the guess was probably accurate. He looked at the window. The glass, opaque and glowing with moonlight, revealed nothing. But she would not be visible from this window anyway. He said out loud, “She could not have gone on foot. If she’s gone out of the house, she must have taken a car.” Natividad was not a good driver, and there was the snow – but then, hers was the magic that had kept the road more or less clear. If she thought she needed to drive back to Lewis, she wouldn’t let fear of the dark or the snowy roads stop her.