Incantation Read Online Free PDF Page B

those days were not really a beginning but a continuation. A monster is hard to see and even harder to kill. It takes time to grow so huge, time to crawl up into the open air. People will tell you it’s not there; you’re imagining things. But a book is a book. Pages are pages. Hawks are hawks. Doves are doves.
    Hatred is always hatred.

    T HE A RRIAS FAMILY who lived in the house beside ours were all arrested early in the morning. The mother, Miriam, was screaming when they took her; the father, Juan, was beaten down by soldiers and dragged away. Soldiers also took the two children, Marianna and Antonia, little girls who couldn’t have hurt anyone.
    My grandmother told me not to leave the house. We watched from the window. It was horrible when Señora Arrias tried to get to her children, but as soon as I pushed against the door to go to help her, my grandmother grabbed me.
    Stay,
she said to me.
    When I pulled away, my mother cried out,
This time you’ll do what your grandmother tells you to do!
    The tone of my mother’s voice made me obey. I had never heard her sound this way.
    What did the Arriases do?
I asked.
They would never commit a crime.
    My grandmother laughed. It was a terrible sound. It sounded as though she might cry. Something my grandmother never did.
    They were
Conversos,
New Christians. Their families converted a hundred years ago when the Jews were being expelled from our country. Now they’ve been accused of practicing their religion, of being
Marranos.
    I looked at my grandmother, confused. The Arriases were good friends of our family. The children were sweet girls who liked to play with our chickens and collect feathers to make necklaces for their mother. We could hear Marianna screaming for her mother now.
    A Marrano is a secret Jew,
my grandmother told me.
    But they go to our church,
I said.
    That’s right,
my grandmother said.
For all the good it did them.
    What will the soldiers do?
I wanted to know.
    You know what Marrano means?
My grandmother was really looking at me, really talking to me; I was even more afraid of her than usual.
It means pig. What do you think they’ll do to people they consider to be pigs? They’ll cook them, God help us. They’ll burn them alive.
    Stop talking!
My grandfather said in a terrifying voice. Now I knew why his students appeared so humble before him. He scared me so much I was shaking.
Don’t tell this girl any more!

    T HERE WAS BLOOD on the path between the Arriases’ house and ours; but when my grandmother wanted to wash it away, my grandfather stopped her.
    Let everyone see the blood,
he said.
Don’t clean it up. That’s the only way people remember.
    I went out to the garden and was sick to my stomach. I got some water from the rain barrel and washed away not only my sickness but also the blood on the path. I did what I could, but my grandfather had been right; it was useless. The blood had stained the bricks and wouldn’t wash away.
    I went back to our yard and sat on the steps. I didn’t care that the chickens were clucking and pecking at my shoes. My dear Dini came running to me. He made sad noises and lay down beside me. He was a comfort, even in this time. I would never let anyone cook him. It was such a horrible thought, I erased it from my mind.
    I walked over to the Arrias house and I saw that my mother had told me the truth; tears did have a color. Where Marianna and Antonia Arrias had stood crying for their mother, there was a blue stain on the stones. I picked up one of the stones, and it was cool in the palm of my hand. When I held it to my ear, I could hear the sound of the little girls. The stone was weeping.
    I threw it away, into the thornbushes, where the tall grass grew. I didn’t need to listen to a stone to hear what had happened. I didn’t need to see blood on the bricks. I could hear the crying inside my head; I could see the blood inside my head. It was with me forever, whether or not I wanted to forget.

    E VERYONE was