Still Water Saints A Novel

Chapter 1 She could walk on water. She roamed the banks of the Santa Ana, among the long green stalks, chanting to the moon, to the gods of Night and Shadow. She rose and stepped onto the river, her footsteps gently rippling the surface. She summoned the spirits of the dead. They whispered their secrets to her, and she scribbled their messages on scraps of paper and in the margins of her phone book: Tell Ramon the locket fell on the floor between the bed and the nightstand. I'm all right. It's like Disneyland up here, only without rides. I don't miss my ears because they were too big. She fought the Devil. Every night he came to her, his head crowned with horns, his skin covered in scales. He cursed and called her names. She beat him back with her bare hands and sent him running, his cloven feet tapping against the tile of her kitchen floor. She was a Bruja. A Santa. A Divina. A Medium, Prophet, and Healer. Able to pass through walls and read minds, to pull tumors from ailing bodies, to uncross hexes and spells, to raise the dead, and to stop time. When doctors failed, when priests and praying were not enough, the people of Agua Mansa came to the Botanica Oshun, to Perla. The shop sold amulets and stones, rosaries and candles. They bought charms to change their luck, teas to ease unsettled nerves, and estampas of saints, the worn plastic cards they carried in their purses or wallets for protection. As thanks the customers brought her booklets of coupons and long strips of lottery tickets. They gave her fresh bouquets of roses and carnations. They showed her pictures of aunts and uncles she had helped see through heart surgeries and hip replacements. They brought in the children she had saved from drug addictions and prison sentences. They told her of the abusive husbands and gambling wives she had chased away for good. Men often grew uneasy in her presence. The women always opened up. "I think I have bilis," Gilda Mejia said, walking up to the register where Perla stood. "Look." She stuck out her tongue. "It's all yellow. Plus my stomach's upset." "What happened?" "Where do I start?" Gilda rested her hands on the glass countertop. She rented an apartment over at the Agua Mansa Palms. Her brother and his new wife had moved in a few weeks ago, after he lost his job. The couple was making it hard for Gilda to relax when she came home from work because they were always in the living room watching television with the volume turned all the way up. "You think they'd turn it down, but no. They're not deaf. And his wife. I can't stand her. The way she talks to my brother. And she's cheating on him. I see the way she looks at that guy from 312. There's something going on there." It was too crowded for three people in a one-bedroom apartment, she explained. Her brother and his wife fought well into the night, making it hard for her to sleep. She was irritable all the time, and her nerves felt ready to snap at any moment. Simonillo was perfect to cure strong cases of bilis, to relieve tension and stress. Perla stepped away from the register and walked over to the packets of herbs that hung from pegs on the left wall of the botanica. "I want you to make a tea with this," she said, handing the bag to Gilda. "Drink it on an empty stomach. It's bitter, so suck on a sugar cube or put some honey in it." "Okay," Gilda said, handing over money for the herbs. "I just want to be better." Perla took a blue seven-day candle from the shelves behind the register. She pointed to the picture oEspinoza, Alex is the author of 'Still Water Saints A Novel', published 2007 under ISBN 9781400065394 and ISBN 1400065399.