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soon as possible,” he said swiftly, turning on his heels to get back to<br />
Angelina’s side.<br />
I scooped out a handful of Zorillo into a gourd bowl and carried it to the<br />
kitchen. As I plopped the foul-smelling root into a pot and started a fire<br />
under it, my hands were trembling.<br />
I rushed back to the cement house <strong>with</strong> the coals, catching Panti dousing<br />
the woman <strong>with</strong> holy water from head to foot, nearly shouting the <strong>Maya</strong>n<br />
prayers over her.<br />
I went to fetch the pieces of Copal incense Panti had requested. He<br />
tossed them onto the coals in the tin he’d situated under her stool, and the<br />
rich incense enveloped her. He also sprinkled dried Rosemary on the coals<br />
as he repeated the prayers and held her pulse.<br />
He joined me in the kitchen to check on the boiling Zorillo. I put<br />
another piece of wood on the fire. I looked over at him for reassurance. I<br />
felt frightened by the woman.<br />
“I am sure it is black magic, Rosita, but I will ask the sastun to make<br />
sure.” Shaking his head, he added, “It is awful what people do to their<br />
neighbors.”<br />
To acknowledge that this poor soul suffering right in front of me was a<br />
victim of black magic was too much for me to accept. So I concentrated on<br />
her physical symptoms. Whatever troubled her, she was obviously in need<br />
of Don Elijio’s herbs and prayers.<br />
I cooled the Zorillo concoction by pouring the dark, pungent liquid back<br />
and forth from one gourd bowl to another. I could hear Panti twirling his<br />
sastun, repeating her name along <strong>with</strong> words like espiritu maligno (evil<br />
spirit), maldad (evil), and hechismo (black magic).<br />
I carried the cooled tea into the house, and Panti started mixing in Rue,<br />
holy water, and the sacred Esquipulas stone. He handed her the mixture in a<br />
gourd, and I half expected her to bat it to the ground. Instead, she steadied it<br />
to her lips and drank it down, sip by sip. It was the only cognizant act I had<br />
yet seen her perform.<br />
She soon made a motion that she had to vomit, and Panti and I lifted her<br />
by the arms and led her outside, where she held onto the trunk of the Sour<br />
Orange tree. She wretched and moaned and uttered incoherent words, as if<br />
she were mumbling in a foreign language. As she threw up phlegm and the<br />
foulest fluids I’d ever smelled, I could feel my face get hot, while my heart<br />
beat loudly in my ears.