*****
Joyce put down the newspaper with a shudder. She wouldn’t have even noticed the short news article if not for the accompanying photograph of the victim: rheumy eyes, bulbous red nose, the jowls of an English bulldog.
The guide had warned him not to fool around with the dolls...
Drowned.
A coincidence, she told herself. The guy was morbidly obese. The autopsy would most likely reveal a heart attack. Or a stroke.
There can’t be any other explanation.
Something jabbed her in the ribs. She turned to find Taylor pointing at Joyce’s laptop, a blown-up photograph of the Mexican doll emblazoned on the screen.
“I told you we’d never find the same one,” Taylor admonished for the eighteenth time.
“Such lovely pictures,” Maria said, tactfully side-stepping Taylor’s complaint. “You must have had a wonderful time.”
“It was cool! Everyone dressed so colourful there, and I love the island with the dollies! The only thing I didn’t like was the food. It was too spicy, and they use too many beans and peppers. Yuck.” Both women laughed as the little girl continued to yak on at a mile a minute. “Maybe next time you can come with us. Don’t you miss Mexico?”
The Hispanic maid chuckled. “I do. Maybe I will go back for Christmas.”
No one bothered to tell Taylor that Maria was actually Puerto Rican.
“Right, time to get ready for bed,” Joyce said, pointing to the wall clock in their living room.
“Aww, but Dora’s not tired yet,” she protested, motioning over her shoulder at an empty chair. “Can I play with her till I fall asleep?”
Joyce and Maria exchanged glances. It appeared Taylor had dumped Tinkerbell for a new imaginary friend. Dora the Explorer was the latest fad for girls too young to appreciate High School Musical. Taylor was a religious follower of the cartoon programme, and even had images of the dark-haired Dora emblazoned on her bed sheets.
Joyce just hoped Taylor wasn’t as fickle with her real friends.
“You can stay up for ten minutes,” she relented. “Lights better be out by the time I check on you.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Taylor flashed a mock salute and gave Joyce a quick peck on the cheek. “Night, mom! Night, Maria! Come on, Dora, race ya!” Her voice faded into the precipitation of footfalls up the wooden stairs. Joyce turned on the TV while Maria returned to folding the laundry whilst half-watching the slideshow of holiday photos.
“Mr. Parker called while you were away,” Maria began.
Joyce sighed, turning the volume on the television down. “Did he say what it was about?”
“No, madam,” Maria replied. “He just said his lawyer will call you back.”
His lawyer. Joyce slumped into the cushions of her leather sofa. Like her holiday tan, the relaxing effects of her vacation started to peel off her like sunburnt skin. Beside her, Maria fell quiet as she concentrated on tackling an inside-out sock.
The divorce proceedings had entered its final stages. And it was turning ugly. Brent was gunning for joint custody. She hated having to fight over Taylor as if her daughter was some sort of property, a mere object. She was still reeling from having to pay Brent alimony. Apparently, she was the ‘primary breadwinner’ in the relationship.
Of course I’m the primary breadwinner! All he does is sit in his stupid studio, moulding worthless shapes out of clay!
“What is this?” Maria piped up suddenly. Joyce turned to find the Hispanic woman pointing at her laptop screen.
“It’s some sort of shrine for the spirit of a dead girl.”
“Ah,” she said, pausing the slideshow and scrutinising the image with unusual interest. “I have not seen something like this for years.”
“You’ve seen such things before?” Joyce asked, both intrigued and taken aback by the revelation. “What is it, some sort of voodoo shrine?”
Maria shook her head. “Not voodoo. Santeria.”
“Is that some sort of black magic? A cult?”
“No, madam. Santeria is a religion. It is quite popular in countries like Cuba, Mexico and Brazil. Santeria means ‘the way of the saints.’ It is, how you say? A mixture of traditions: African, Roman Catholic, even Native American.”
“That’s quite a mixture,” Joyce remarked.
“It happened when African slaves were brought to South America by Catholic masters.”
“How do you know so much about this? I thought you were Catholic?”
“I am,” Maria replied. “But Santeria is very popular in Puerto Rico. I know many people who practice it.”
“It’s not...witchcraft, is it?”
“Oh no,” Maria exclaimed. “It is more like a lot of these, how you call, new age religions: Wicca, Druids...all ancient religions, so I do not understand why people call them ‘new’ age.”
“But Wiccans and Druids...don’t they brew potions? Cast spells? Build amulets? If that’s not witchcraft...”
Maria laughed. “Madam, we Catholics use holy water, perform exorcisms, wear crucifixes round our necks...are these not potions and spells? Are we witches?”
Joyce held up her hands in submission. “I guess you have a point.” Hearing the explanation made the altar less ominous, and she was starting to feel foolish for having been so spooked by it. She waved her index finger over the frozen image. “So do you know the meaning of these symbols?”
Maria shook her head. “Not all of them, just a few of the more common ones.” She pointed to a crude engraving on the side of the wooden altar, a symbol that looked like a trident, superimposed on a cross, superimposed on a sword:
“See that?” she said. “That is the symbol for Eleggua, one of the seven Orishas. Orishas are like patron saints, or gods; they are each responsible for something: love, war, death...”
“And what is this...Eleggua...the deity of?” Joyce asked.
“He is many things: he is both good and evil, the god of balance.”
Sounds benign enough.
“He is the messenger of the gods,” Maria continued, “the opener of doors, the guardian of crossroads.”
“Crossroads?”
“Crossroads of life,” her maid explained. “When you are presented with difficult choices, like career change, or marriage. Also, he guards the crossroads between the world of the living and the realm of spirits – the land of the dead.”
All at once, Eleggua no longer sounded so benign, as Maria pointed to another symbol, a lightning bolt flanked by two crossed arrows:
“That is Oya,” she said, “goddess of the thunderbolt and guardian of the gates of death.”
“Death?” Joyce gulped.
“You say this altar is dedicated to a dead girl, no? So it is natural for it to have this Orisha. It is Oya who receives the souls of the dead, and admits them into the afterlife. Huh...” Maria leaned forward, her brow knitted as she scrutinised the picture.
“What is it?”
Her brown lips pursed like a wrinkled date, Maria tapped on the screen, her eyes squinted. “Those dark markings. On the altar. What are they?”
“Them? Oh, they’re just puddles of candle wax.”
“Black candle wax?”
“Um, yeah. Why, what’s wrong?”
Maria’s forehead furrowed even more. “In Santeria, the colour of candles burned is symbolic: white for purity and truth; red for love, strength and protection; green for money and health...”
“So what does black mean?” Joyce interrupted, not liking where the conversation was headed.
“That is the thing,” Maria whispered. “I do not know. I have never seen black candles on a Santerian altar before.”