Silvia lives in Vancouver with her husband, son and two cats. She writes fantasy and magic realism. Her stories have appeared in Fantasy Magazine and Shimmer. Visit her website at silviamoreno-garcia.com.

The dizzying heat, the mosquitoes trying to nibble at his neck and the rum must have triggered some hidden mechanism inside John Leight, because all of a sudden he chuckled and said the most ridiculous thing.

“Last night I dreamt Agatha tore my fingers off.”

Richard, who had been babbling animatedly now grew quiet.

“There was a man who had nightmares such as yours. He dreamt of Agatha Regant and fell gravely ill. He is dead. His cousin, Madeline Locke, swears Agatha is a witch.”

“Absurd,” John said. “You actually listened to these stories?”

Richard shrugged. “Santa Ursula is a strange place, wouldn’t you agree? It fosters strange stories and what else is there to do here but listen to them?”

“Oh, I don’t believe a word.”

Richard held a black cigar in the air and nodded.

He didn’t believe a word of Richard's story, but it was exciting. They didn’t have that kind of excitement back in England. Nor did England hold the promise of adventure, exotic women and easy money.

He had not been able to dabble in many torrid romances or reckless adventures so far. To be perfectly honest the island was a bit too hot, too wild, too rough. He found the natives with their strange customs and ceremonies unsettling. They claimed that ghosts and gods could walk among men in this place and even became men on occasions. Or was it the other way around? In any case, he had been terribly uncomfortable the night Richard took him to a local dance and John saw people gyrating under the stars, dancing to a delirious beat as if possessed.

But he did not care about odd religious practices. That was not his idea of entertainment. A good scandal sounded much better. Some shadowy murder tucked away and the beautiful, wealthy Agatha Regant in its midst? Oh, he longed to hear the story with the same boyish curiosity that had drawn him to the books which showed palm trees and macaws and half-dressed women standing next to a waterfall.

A week later he was at the market looking for Madeline Locke. She worked as an escribano and for a small sum she would write letters for the folk who could not to do so themselves.

Madeline must have been the same age as Agatha. But any point of comparison ended there for Madeline’s shabby clothes, plain face and hair pinned back into a careless bun placed her at the opposite spectrum of beauty and glory that Agatha embodied.

John made his way to the spot where Madeline worked, with her pieces of paper and her fountain pen. She stared at him as he approached.

“What do you want?” she asked, at once suspicious.

“To talk about your cousin. I have money. I can pay you for your time. I am curious, Agatha and I…”

“Agatha and you,” the woman said, interrupting him.

But she did not say anything else for a long time. She just stared at him and then eventually she leaned back in her chair.

“You and her, is it?” she said.

They walked by the old church underneath the unforgiving sun. The church was the focal point of the town; the natives were dutifully religious and yet John had seen they also worshiped pagan deities here, idols of bark and stone. They had several goddesses, one similar to the holy Virgin. They called her She Who Shows The Way. She was dark skinned, unlike the fair Madonnas he had grown up with, and frightening in her strangeness.

John fanned himself with his montecristi hat but Madeline did not seem to mind the heat. She walked with sure steps, her hands clasped behind her back.

“Sebastian was my cousin. When Agatha arrived in Santa Ursula with her pretty dresses and her pretty face he was smitten. He courted her and grew ill. He was a very healthy young man and the doctors could find nothing wrong with him. He had strange nightmares and he became thinner every day. At first I didn’t understand, but then I saw the mimikuru.”

Madeline stepped aside to let a young boy carrying a dozen bird cages, all tied in an organized heap behind his back, go by.

“The what?”

“There is a story about a thing called the mimikuru. It is an evil spirit that possesses a person, hiding inside their skin. When no one is looking, in the middle of the night, the mimikuru goes out and feeds on the life of men. One night I saw Agatha and saw something writhing beneath her skin.

“The people of this island say that when the moon is shattered, during the new moon, certain people can command powerful magic and see the spirits that hide between the trees. It was a night of the new moon and we had gone to a party at Agatha’s house. Sebastian’s illness came and went. One moment he was well enough, the next he spent the day sleeping. In any case, that night he felt well, and Sebastian and Agatha were walking in the gardens. I was chaperoning them. Agatha wore a white dress that revealed her shoulders. I saw her skin bunch up and move. As though something stirred beneath there. It was only for a moment but I saw and I recognized her.

“I was afraid to speak but even more afraid for Sebastian. So in the end I told him about the mimikuru. He dismissed my fears. But he grew thinner and weaker until he could not rise from his bed anymore. I sought one of the elders.”

Madeline’s story had come to life and John could picture the woman walking through a shaded path, the birds whispering secrets to the trees as she made her way to a small hut where a withered man awaited her.

“The elder said: ‘your cousin has fallen under the spell of the mimikuru. It is bad business. But perhaps he can be saved.’ He told me to gather a flower that is called dedos de novia. Sebastian must have the flower placed around his bed. I should watch over him for seven days and seven nights, awake all the time. Perhaps then he might recover.

“So I did. On the fifth night as I sat next to Sebastian’s bed I was extremely tired. I do not know when I fell asleep, but I did. When I woke up Sebastian was gone. I rushed out of the house. I looked above, towards the sky. The moon was shattered. I ran. In the dream I knew where I was headed: to the little cemetery not far from our home. When I arrived they were there.

“Sebastian on the ground and she … she looked at me and I saw she was not beautiful because I could glimpse something horrible beneath her skin.

“I should have done something but I could not. I was terrified. I knew I was no match to her. I knew I was lost. He was lost. I must have fainted. When I woke up I was in the cemetery. I had slept all night next to an old grave. I rushed home but when I arrived I knew. I already knew. He was dead. He had died during the night and the doctor was stepping out of his room. It was my fault of course. My fear, my cowardice … I should have been stronger. Maybe I will, one day.”

John thought of somnambulism, of hallucinations, of hysterics and mental imbalances.

Madeline turned to look at him.

“She’s a monster.”

It was obvious she was perfectly insane. Yet the story was good, a spine-tingling little tidbit of dark magic and desire. Such fun, such delicious fun but ultimately easily dismissed.

“I am upset. They say you are courting another girl.”

“Who says?”

Agatha, in a dress of pale yellow, shook her head and waved her lace fan. Her eyes were playful, her voice honeyed.

“Does it matter? Is it true you have been walking around arm in arm with that dreadful girl, Madeline Locke?”

John Leight shook his head.

“I’ve met Madeline.”

“Then it is true.”

“Nothing of the sort. I barely know the woman.”

“I absolutely hate Madeline. She possesses the most unkind nature. She enjoys gossiping about everyone in town and if you would stop to listen, you would learn the most salacious and improper stories you’ve ever heard. I know for a fact that she also participates in the ceremonies of the islanders; horrible ceremonies where they cut a chicken’s head and dance around with it.”

“I find her eccentric but surely not dangerous.”

“A madwoman,” Agatha said, lowering her voice, “is what she is.”

“Oh?”

“They say she killed her own cousin,” Agatha whispered and the fan stopped fluttering for a moment. Her eyes narrowed. “I would hope you do not keep such unpleasant company.”

“I hardly know her at all,” John said.

Agatha smiled and they kept walking through the town square. Under his many layers of cloth, and despite the ferocious heat, John felt a chill.

John lodged in a small guesthouse with a stern landlady and a half-obstructed view of the church. The landlady had a daughter she scolded loudly several times during the day and John had grown used to their murmurs.

That day, however, the landlady’s loud voice seemed to take another tone. There was a knock on the door, and when he opened it, the landlady stood there with Madeline behind her.

“Mr. Leight, I have explained to this lady that you will not have any visitors today or any other day for that matter. This is an honourable house, and to think a bachelor such as yourself …”

“We are headed out. I apologize,” John said, quickly fetching his hat and rushing down the stairs, Madeline in tow.

Once they reached the street he turned to the young woman.

“You might have sent a calling card,” he said, flustered. “A lady, barging in upon me.”

She jabbed an angry finger at him.

“You told her about me. You’ve been talking to Agatha about me.”

John opened and closed his mouth, unable to produce the right words. How on earth did she know about that conversation?

“I do not appreciate it,” Madeline said.

“What … has Agatha been uncivil to you?”

“If she thinks I am aiding you in any way she may turn her eye against me and I have no desire to face her wrath. Say nothing to her about me. Do not even think about me for God knows how far her power runs.”

Madeline stepped aside and stood straight and still, observing him with troubled dark eyes.

“Stay away from her. You do not know what she truly is.”

The story had turned sour. The thrill the tiny piece of island lore had filled him with for a moment was gone. Faced now with a crazy, perhaps dangerous woman, John was suddenly scared. But Madeline just went away as quickly as she’d come.

During their walks, Agatha was as lovely as usual, but every once in a while John stared curiously at her. He was not sure what he was looking for. Each and every time he found nothing remarkable at all. Yet he continued to stare and it was not the sweet fascination of a man in love.

“Is something wrong John?” Agatha asked, picking an orchid from the garden.

“No,” he said.

Nothing was wrong and everything was unravelling. In this place, in this far, far place, maidens may become monsters, he thought.

The thought made him flinch. It was something Madeline might have said.

Insane Madeline. Insane girl. Insane stories.

And there, somewhere beneath the stories, some truth that struggles to rise to the surface.

Tapestries of elaborate nightmares plagued him.

In the dreams he lay in bed when he felt his limbs suddenly go still. Frozen, he watched as Agatha crawled from the foot of the bed, up onto his body until she was sitting on his chest. He felt a terrible pressure upon him and wished to scream but before any sound could come out of his mouth she was tearing his face apart, like some wild animal.

Other times he dreamt something seized him by the ankles and started to pull him out of the bed.

Sometimes the dream did not revolve around him. Sometimes he watched Sebastian Locke, sprawled next to an open grave in the cemetery.

On an occasion John woke up screaming so loudly that his landlady ended up banging on his door, demanding to know what was wrong.

His poor sleep affected his appetite and soon he had lost weight. The doctor said he must eat more meat but it did him no good.

It was Madeline’s fault for poisoning him with her dark tales.

It was his fault for listening.

They sat on the park bench and watched a group of children running and chasing each other. A man across from them threw the cards and a group of women with black mantillas walked by, whispering among themselves. A usual Saturday in Santa Ursula.

“I thought you might take me to that witch-doctor you know.”

“Witch-doctor?”

“The man from your story.”

“He’s not a witch-doctor.”

“Curandero, call it what you want, does it matter?”

Madeline scoffed. “He would never see you.”

“Why not?”

“You believe my story?”

“I believe perhaps I suffer from some local illness, and your friend may have a remedy for it. Some natural cure the natives use.”

“Tienes un mal aire.”

She rolled her eyes, like a mother scolding an exasperating child.

“What?”

“This is not something you find in nature and you can not find a natural cure for it. It is evil. You place me in a delicate position by asking me to aid you against this evil, for she may seek to harm me.”

“But will you aid me?” he insisted.

She turned her face away from him, for once demure, or perhaps merely afraid.

An old man sat in front of a hut baking under the sun and watching them approach with indifference. A girl was next to him playing with a doll that was missing a limb.

“Who are you bringing Madeline?” asked the man.

“Sir, I’m sorry, but I am ill,” John began.

“El ingles,” Madeline said, interrupting him.

“I am John Leight,” he said.

“Se esta muriendo,” she interrupted him again.

They ignored him. Here John had no say. Elsewhere, in the city, his voice would have been heard; must have been heard. There, next to the sad little hut Madeline and the old man presided. It was they who spoke in Spanish. John understood very little.

At last the man nodded and went into the hut, the little girl following him. The door stayed behind, abandoned by the door.

“What is he doing? Where is he going?”

“Wait.”

They waited for a long time. It was so terribly hot; rivulets of sweat ran down John’s forehead staining his white shirt. He dabbed his face with a handkerchief.

He had almost given up on the man when he suddenly emerged and with a great theatrical flourish handed John a jar filled with thorny white flowers and a long white candle, some words carved on it.

“Place them around your room every night. Light the candle and pray to the holy Virgin before going to bed. This you must wear under your shirt. Kiss it every night and she will protect you.”

The old man held out an ugly, cheap little medallion with the image of the pagan Virgin, She Who Shows the Way, engraved upon it.

John was dumbfounded. He stared at the man in confusion.

“But then, you will not give me a remedy?”

“What did you expect?”

John did not answer, he simply kept walking, the sack filled with the useless trinkets the old man had given them flung over his shoulder.

“You asked me to bring you to him.”

John turned around and frowned.

“For some medicine. Is a candle supposed to cure me?”

“Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve said?”

“Madeline, these stories you tell. Of demons and ghosts and haunting are …”

“Are true.”

“Your cousin was ill. So am I. I am not stupid. I understand that sometimes the natives have certain ways to treat an illness. I am willing to submit to such treatment. But this?”

“You’re just like all the others,” she said accusingly.

“Who?”

“Them,” she said opening her arms emphatically. “They don’t believe me.”

She meant the white people of the island, the colonists like John. He thought to remind her that she was like him, a foreigner only temporarily transplanted from home. However, upon looking at Madeline he found her alien; corrupted perhaps by the pagan undercurrent that bubbled through the natives of Santa Ursula. Suddenly he longed for the delicate order, the quiet elegance of Agatha’s home and the murmur of civilized gentlemen at teatime.

It was nearly dusk. The servants would be lighting the lamps of the Regant household and the moths would come, attracted by the brightness.

He wondered if he might pay Agatha a visit.

Suddenly, Madeline leaned forward and planted a kiss upon his lips. He was so shocked by the gesture that he did not feel Madeline slipping something into his hand until she retreated towards a clump of dwarfish trees.

“Salt,” she said. “A kiss upon hers. Stay away from the mimikuru.”

After Madeline had disappeared, following a half-hidden trail that he had not seen before, John opened the pouch she had given him. It was, just as she had said, salt.

For a week John surrounded himself with the flowers. But he did not pray and he did not wear the medallion. Once the week had passed he received a package from Madeline. It contained some more flowers, two candles.

He felt a little sorry staring at the package. Madeline was kind and perhaps her remedy was not so insane. The flowers placed in a chipped vase next to his bed brightened his room. He found their scent soothing and he went to bed more easily.

If he kept away from Agatha Regant it was not out of superstitious terror. He was simply too busy with his own affairs. Or so he told himself.

A month went by. His nightmares had vanished. The small amount of dread inside his head quickly evaporated. He felt rather silly now and when the rains came he had all but forgotten about Madeline Locke and her tales of the mimikuru.

It was therefore not so odd that when he received an invitation to one of Agatha’s little dinners he accepted.

“Have you been hiding?” Agatha said giving him a smile.

John shook his head. “From you? No. I‘ve had too much work.”

“Good. I should be terribly upset if you’d forgotten me.”

Agatha sipped her wine. She looked among the sea of well-dressed, well-mannered socialites. He could see nothing in her that could cause alarm. Had there ever been anything there to alarm him?

He spent most of the evening by her side and when he went home, a little drunk and his belly filled with good food, he slipped into bed.

The flowers in his vase had wilted days ago.

It was late when John woke up and glanced at the open window. Moonlight streamed in.

There was a woman in the light. Agatha, her hair uncoiled. She pressed a finger against his lips, bidding him to be quiet.

So he was. John watched her in silence as she leaned over him and kissed him on the cheek. Then his jaw, his neck, his shoulders, kisses raining on him and her hair falling upon him. Her hands slid upon his body and she was nipping at his chest now.

John closed his eyes. There was a soft tingling and a sudden pressure, a flash of pain. His eyes snapped open and he saw blood dripping down the corner of Agatha’s mouth. She growled. She bit him, hard, gnawing at his chest, threatening to tear his heart out.

In a panic he sought a weapon, some means of defence, and there was the pouch. Forgotten, beneath his pillow. But now he flung its contents at the creature’s face.

John Leight woke up screaming. The woman’s hands were still upon him. Then came a voice, which he recognized. Which was not Agatha’s voice.

“Bring some water.”

Madeline’s voice. Her face, looking at him sternly.

He thought about asking a question but his throat was burning. There was nothing else to do but to quietly burn and die.

“What’s the use? I will vomit it all,” John said, pushing away the dish.

Madeline lifted the tray, set it on the table, and walked back towards him.

“Do you want something to drink?”

“No.”

“I’ll read for you.”

“Why are you here?”

“I told you. Your landlady said you were ill.”

“No. I mean why are you here with me? I did not believe your stories.”

John stared at the ceiling for a moment. He heard her turning the pages and glanced at Madeline, sitting by his bed.

“Were you in love with him?”

Madeline looked at her book, her fingers gliding over a page as if searching for a specific passage.

“Yes.”

“Is that it then? Are you here because you loved him and you could not aid him? Because you failed?”

“Perhaps.”

“And then? What shall we do?”

“Whatever we can.”

John buried his face in his hands and felt Madeline’s fingers running through his hair so very lightly.

“Have faith. She is the one who shows the way and she shall guide our hands.”

“Your Virgin. Your gods. Should I pray to them?” he asked, looking up at her. “I’m scared. Madeline. Will I die?”

“Hush,” she whispered. “I’ll read you a story, shall I? And then you’ll have something to eat.”

John lay in his narrow bed, the smell of burning candles and flowers and Madeline’s voice lulling him into a strange, calm haze. Time slipped away and though he must have spent days turning and muttering, the illness never ceasing its grasp on him. It seemed to him like a single long day.

When he opened his eyes he always looked for Madeline. She was an anchor, a cue, like the stars that guide sailors. Or perhaps the moon standing guard in the sky. When she drifted to his side, as from behind a cloud, his restlessness was alleviated.

“A pinch of salt,” Madeline’s voice said and whispered other words, odd words. “Lock the door. Find the knife.”

“Don’t you dare,” said another voice.

“She’ll kill you.”

No, Madeline’s same voice. Was she speaking to herself?

“Silencio.”

John turned his head and saw Madeline, standing alone by the window and she turned to look at him but seemed to look beyond him, through him, and John closed his eyes to the intrusive gaze.

The fever made things strange, changed his room. John once thought the flowers next to his bed had come to life and were trying to strangle him, the thorns digging into his skin.

But for the most part he was not aware of what happened around him except for the murmur of Madeline’s voice, the soft tinkling of a glass as she put it aside or the pressure of the washcloth against his forehead.

One night John woke up and found the candles were burning low and he was alone. Madeline’s book lay discarded on her chair. John Leight pushed himself out of his bed and walked downstairs. The house was very quiet.

Outside it was dark. There was no moon in the sky. But his feet knew the way and they never faltered, even as he felt something watching him from the shadows.

Breathless, he arrived at his intended destination. The English cemetery, they called it, the place where they buried the British colonists. The graves here were imposing, unlike the simple stone slabs of the islanders.

Great angels of stone towered next to the willow trees. One of the angels moved and came down from its stone pedestal and he saw that it was not an angel after all but Agatha who held out a hand for him.

Mechanically, John relented and grabbed the woman’s outstretched hand. She kissed him very sweetly. She pushed him, a light push, and he fell, boneless, onto the ground and lay there, watching her with a curious sense of anticipation.

John knew he would die the moment her palms touched his chest, and this did not seem to matter anymore, because there was nothing to be done. He could do nothing except lie there.

Death held John in his arms. Death kissed his face and whispered sweet words in his ear. The world was death and cold and a black sky with no stars. He looked for the moon but could not find it. The moon was gone.

She, Agatha, death, darkness, cradled him and removed his shirt. Her long fingers found the hollow of his throat. He thought to ask her to stop. There was only silence. He was lost.

But there over Agatha’s shoulder he saw the moon rising and the moon had a woman’s face, Madeline’s face. Only this Madeline had white feathers in her hair and her dress was a loose, white confection, wrapped with a large leather belt around her waist. And the moon also had a knife that rose very slowly and fell and buried itself in Agatha’s body.

Agatha turned, screaming. But the moon twisted the knife, thrust the knife again, cut and slashed until the blood soaked her and the moon was crimson and Agatha was dead.

John was standing, how he had risen he did not know, and he looked at Agatha’s corpse. It was an ugly sight. It was an old body, decomposing and deformed.

The crimson moon presided over the sky and she took John’s hand, pulling him away from the cemetery and across the night.

When John Leight woke up, the fever gone, he was not immediately aware of Agatha Regant’s death. It was only after, when his landlady brought Madeline some food, that he learned of the news.

“Suicide. Poor thing,” the landlady said. “The family is distraught.”

John looked at Madeline, but Madeline’s face did not change. She was calm, indifferent. She did not offer explanations or answers, and John was afraid to ask plainly, straightforwardly, about the occurrence at the cemetery.

Finally, it was John’s landlady who told him that both she and Madeline had taken turns watching him, and John had never left his bed during his convalescence, proving that the whole monstrous incident had been nothing but a vivid dream.

As for Agatha, they said she had slashed her wrists. It seemed that before arriving in Santa Ursula she had been unwell, had spent some time in a sanatorium. If there were some other stories, told perhaps among the natives of the island, John, as an outsider, was not privy to them.

He quickly dismissed the whole episode as a wild fever dream.

A storm barged into Santa Ursula, rattling his shutters. While the wind and rain raged outside, some remnant of the fantastic dreams he’d had propelled him into another dream.

In it he stood next to a pool of water. From the water emerged Madeline, only she had feathers instead of hair and a necklace of live butterflies that fluttered against her skin.

She leaned forward and whispered a question to John Leight.

“Careful, you’ll get tired.”

“Walking is not exactly difficult.”

“Say what you want but you’ll be complaining later,” Madeline warned him.

“If I feel like walking I will walk. I’ve done nothing except lay on my bed for an eternity.”

“An incredibly inaccurate count of the days. It’s been two weeks.”

“It feels like an eternity.”

“Fine. Roll over and faint.”

He frowned but she looked very merrily at him. Madeline ducked, avoiding a low tree branch. He followed her, careful with his steps.

“Are you She Who Shows the Way?” he asked calmly, as though he were conversing about the weather.

She turned at once, her eyes wide.

“What?” she said.

“Are you She Who Shows the Way?” he repeated, although he now felt a little stupid, sounding just like a superstitious fool.

“She’s a goddess.”

“And?”

“I’m a woman. What? Now you believe in spirits and gods, John Leight?”

In the trees nearby the birds were singing, their metallic high-pitched voices dimming and rising.

He thought that perhaps it would not be so terrible if, in that far, far corner of the world, maidens might become monsters and women might become goddesses and spirits might lurk under the shiny green leaves. Not so terrible but not very likely.

He leaned forward and whispered a word to Madeline.