House in the Hills Read online

  ‘I don’t want you to go,’ Catherine blurted suddenly.

  ‘Nonsense! Nonsense!’ Her great-aunt waved both hands as though she were swatting at flies.

  Catherine persisted. ‘You said the roads are dangerous in this weather. Tell me why you have to go now.’

  Aunt Lopa was not one to lose control for very long, and if she didn’t want to tell then tell she most certainly would not!

  ‘I know this country better than you. It’s not so dangerous for me. Sit there until I come back,’ she commanded, pressing Catherine into a chair with both meaty hands. Her eyes flickered on seeing the questioning fear in Catherine’s eyes. ‘Then we will talk.’ Her eyes shone with sadness.

  Catherine sighed. ‘All right, all right. But give him my love. You will, won’t you?’

  Aunt Lopa smiled and said she would. Then she heaved on her old work coat and shoved her oversized feet into a pair of man-size working boots – the ones she always wore for work around the farmhouse. She tied the laces vigorously so the boots were tight around her ankles. Clods of mud not reached by the boot scraper dropped off to be scrunched underfoot on her way to the door.

  ‘I’ll sweep it up,’ offered Catherine.

  Aunt Lopa nodded. ‘Yes. Yes.’ Though the door was half open and the damp seeping in, she paused. There was a gentle look in the deep-set eyes. ‘You’re a good girl, Catherine.’ And then she was gone.

  Catherine held a lamp up to the window and watched the strong, tall form make its way across the yard, through the gate and out on to the track. A flash of lightning suddenly lit up the landscape. For one fleeting moment darkness became daylight. Aunt Lopa’s large frame was bowed against the wind. The rain beat more heavily than it had in the previous days. The lightning flashed again, making strange shapes from things that were nothing in daylight. Black trees were outlined in silver, stone walls starkly brought into relief. Catherine narrowed her eyes and waited for more lightning to turn the night back to day. When it flashed again there was nothing.

  * * *

  Catherine slept fitfully in her great-aunt’s rocking chair. Rain fell like handfuls of copper nails flung on to the clay-tiled roof. Shutters rattled in their frames and wind-driven leaves scuttled across the stone floor.

  By dawn the storm was close to blowing itself out. Blue sky appeared among the grey, like bright patches sewn on to a curate’s gown.

  Wrapping a brightly crocheted blanket around her shoulders, Catherine knelt before her bedroom window. She’d left the shutters open all night and left the oil lamp burning. The lamp was out now and the wooden floorboards in front of the open window were sodden. The damp air, still strung out with rain, played with her hair and turned her pale cheeks pink.

  Narrowing her eyes, she looked out, aching to see Aunt Lopa’s broad figure making her way home. The freshness of morning air eased her weariness, but did nothing to placate her concern. Where was she?

  Despite all that, her stomach rumbled, but she couldn’t bear the thought of preparing food for just herself. Make something for both of us. Yes! She should prepare something hot. Aunt Lopa would be hungry when she got back. Cold too.

  She made her way down the rough wooden ladder, her bare toes curling over each rung until she’d gained the ground. The stone floor was cold beneath her feet as she darted across to the old wood-burning stove on which they cooked their simple food. The fire was still in, though the ash had been blown around the room.

  She sliced bread, warmed up yesterday’s stew and placed a kettle on the hob. In reality she could have done nothing to stop her great-aunt going out on such a filthy night, but still she felt guilty. And why the urgency?

  She paused, the bread knife still in her hand. The reason came suddenly. Her father. The letter was from her father. But why now?

  Keeping busy helped her stop worrying that something bad might have happened. There were many reasons why her great-aunt wasn’t home yet. The Nicklaus may have insisted she stayed overnight because of the storm. Yes, that had to be it.

  ‘Catherine Rodriguez!’

  The sudden shout was accompanied by loud hammering on the rough wooden door.

  Flying across the room, she lifted the latch and swung the door wide open. Her face paled at the sight that greeted her.

  ‘We made a stretcher from our coats,’ said one of the two men carrying Aunt Lopa. She recognized the men as itinerant workers who journeyed from place to place depending on the season and the abundance of grapes to be harvested or vines to be planted.

  Their explanation, their very presence, flew over Catherine’s head. Her eyes were fixed on the big strong woman she’d met only seven years before. No longer ruddy featured or sprightly of step, her face was a mess of torn and shuddering flesh; her torn clothes saturated with blood.

  ‘Wolves,’ said one of the men, his eyes full of fear.

  The shapes in the shadows.

  ‘Here,’ said Catherine, rushing to the rustic bed hidden behind a thick woollen curtain. ‘Here.’ Words were a luxury. Action! There had to be action! Her whole body was shaking, but she had enough presence of mind to rip up a sheet and fetch a bowl and boiling water. She leaned over the woman who had taken her in, shown her kindness and cared for her mother.

  ‘Aunt Lopa?’

  She looked down expecting to see some semblance of the familiar face. It was far from familiar. The stuff of nightmares.

  One eye opened. Catherine shivered. She dared not let her gaze stray to where the other eye had been. That part of Aunt Lopa’s face was raw and bereft of features. One side of her mouth seemed to have been ripped away exposing her teeth.

  Catherine swallowed the nausea rising in her throat. This face! Half a face! A terrible mangling of flesh!

  ‘You’re going to be all right,’ she said, gulping back her revulsion.

  Is she going to be all right?

  Her hands shook as she tugged blankets over Aunt Lopa’s ripped body.

  ‘You’re going to feel much better once the doctor’s been,’ she murmured; yet she knew it would not, could not, be so.

  Aunt Lopa knew too. That wise owl look was on what was left of her face when she shook her head, her one eye fixing on Catherine’s face.

  ‘Three of us found her,’ said one of the men. ‘José went for the doctor.’

  ‘And the priest,’ said the other man, crossing himself as he said it.

  Catherine barely acknowledged him. Her attention was fixed on this dear woman who had taken care of her. Aunt Lopa’s heart was as big as her frame. Catherine loved her, just as she had loved her mother. Now this woman too was being torn from her life.

  The man who had spoken had seen her pallor and the despair in her eyes. He jerked his head at the door. ‘We’ll wait outside.’

  She neglected to thank them. For the first time in a long while, she closed her eyes, clasped her hands together and prayed.

  ‘Our Father…’ She bit her bottom lip to stop it trembling and tried again. ‘Our Father…’ It was no good. Her lips would not stop trembling, so she prayed as her great-aunt had told her to pray – with her heart. The words of the Lord’s Prayer rang through her head and were sincerely meant. Again and again, with every tear shed, she ran silently through the same prayer, the familiar lines interspersed with entreaties to not let her beloved Aunt Lopa die.

  The inside of the house was darkened, the shutters drawn. By the time two women known for their laying-out and midwifery skills had come up from the village, Catherine was stiff. She’d been sitting in the same position for hours, had had nothing to eat, nor anything to drink.

  One of the villagers eased her away from the dying woman’s side and into the old rocking chair.

  ‘Sit here, me dear. Leave her cleaning up to us. Here. Take a drink.’

  Catherine barely felt the beaker pressed against her lips and declined to take hold of it. She sipped but the water ran down the side of her mouth. She waved the beaker away.

  ‘What are y
ou doing?’ she asked them, a sudden panic taking hold of her.

  The old woman’s voice was gentle. ‘Cleaning her up, my child. The priest is on his way. Anna Marie would want to be respectable.’

  ‘Not Anna Marie. I mean Aunt Lopa,’ said Catherine, presuming in her despair that they were referring to someone else.

  ‘She is your aunt,’ said the old woman kindly, her work-worn hand resting on Catherine’s shoulder. ‘She used to be Sister Anna Marie when she was with the order. She only became Lopa because of her feeding the wolves.’

  Lopa! From the Latin for wolf.

  ‘She said animals acted closer to God’s laws than humans,’ Catherine retorted defensively.

  The two women exchanged startled looks, clamped their mouths tightly shut and got on with what they had to do.

  Catherine sat stunned, her hands tightly clasped in her lap. The fact that her great-aunt had once been a nun came as something of a surprise. In happier circumstances she would have demanded to know more. But not now. All that mattered was what was happening to her now in this old farmhouse kitchen smelling of burned stew, polish and fresh wool.

  She watched the old women, wanting to help but feeling weak and terribly inconsequential. They worked quickly and silently, and so very, very gently. One carried a bowl that slopped pinkish water as she moved away from the bed. The other was bundling up blood-soaked linen.

  Aunt Lopa was bound around with strips of cloth; her body, her arms, her face. The blood pulsed through the bandages from flesh that had once been covered by skin. Even her hands had been ravaged. Lifting what was left of a finger, she gestured for her great-niece to come closer.

  ‘You mustn’t speak,’ said Catherine, her slim fingers hovering over Aunt Lopa’s lips. She couldn’t bear to touch the torn flesh and exposed teeth. She saw the anguish in pale eyes that had once been bright, replaced by gritty determination. Her stomach churned as the torn mouth spoke muffled words she didn’t understand.

  She leaned closer. ‘What was that? What was that you said?’

  Forcing herself to listen meant almost drowning in the smell of blood and dying breath. But she steeled herself to be steady, to be strong. This time she heard what was said.

  ‘The things in my treasure chest are yours.’ Specks of crimson spittle spattered her face; she stayed her hand from rubbing it off. Her eyes were swimming with tears.

  ‘The chest. Yes.’

  She kept the iron-bound chest at the foot of her bed. It was battered, the edges of its lid eroded by worm. Aunt Lopa had referred to it as her treasure chest.

  Again the stalk of finger gestured her to come even closer. ‘The letter…’ Bubbles erupted with words. Her breath came in short sharp gasps, as though even her lungs were torn and ragged.

  She raised a bloodied hand to her breast and laid it there.

  Catherine stared at what was left of the stout fingers. They’d been chewed to the bone. She imagined her aunt lying helpless, the wolves tearing at her flesh, eating her alive. Her whole body shivered and turned cold as death.

  ‘The letter,’ Aunt Lopa whispered. She stared up at Catherine unblinking. It had been her habit to secrete letters, notes and money into her bodice. That’s what she was saying now; the letter she’d received the day before was in her bodice. The letter that had triggered her to set out in bad weather.

  ‘You want me to read it?’ asked Catherine, her lustrous eyes big and wide. She would gladly do so, but the thought of first moving the chewed fingers was grossly unpalatable.

  Aunt Lopa’s sigh was long and drawn out, like a draught falling down an empty chimney. The one eye still in its socket stayed fixed and open.

  ‘Aunt Lopa?’

  Catherine didn’t know why she suddenly looked up at the rafters. It was something to do with a strange emptiness coming to the room, as though larger-than-life Aunt Lopa had shrunk in size and could no longer fill it as she once had.

  The single eye continued to stare. The day brightened as Catherine sat there and the fire went out. The women had gone, leaving the door open to let in the fresh air and the warmth of a drier day. There was no one to retrieve the letter except her.

  Catherine was far from happy to reach through the blood and gore. Someone else, she prayed. Please let someone else do it.

  The sudden clunking of boots on the stone floor of the veranda heralded the arrival of Father Umberto.

  ‘My apologies,’ he said, rushing to her side, already adopting the vestments necessary for the task he was sure to perform. ‘My bicycle got stuck. I got a lift on a donkey.’

  She looked away, preferring to hear him say the last rites rather than actually seeing it done.

  He might just as well have been old Father Benedict for all the notice she took of him and he of her. And yet she remembered her aunt commenting on his beauty.

  ‘Too handsome to be a priest,’ Aunt Lopa had said, never one to mince her words. ‘There’ll be many temptations put in that young man’s way along the road to salvation.’

  They’d both laughed and Catherine had made a great effort not to turn red. Aunt Lopa was as outspoken about sex as she was about religion. She’d instructed Catherine as to how babies were made, using the goats when they were mating as an example of what went on between a man and a woman. Her views had gone beyond that.

  ‘A man can take a vow to be celibate, but that doesn’t take away his natural urges. God made him that way and why should God have all the handsomest men? The same applies to women.’

  For some reason Catherine had been sure she was referring to her mother. ‘Your mother had a passionate nature,’ her great-aunt had added as though reading her thoughts.

  Suddenly Lopa Rodriguez, otherwise known as Sister Anna Marie, gave a great sigh.

  It was as though a cold wind had blown in through the door and out again just as quickly.

  ‘Her soul has flown,’ said Catherine. ‘If there is such a thing.’

  ‘Of course there is.’ She felt his eyes on her. It was the first time he’d spoken or looked at her so directly.

  She did not return his look.

  The sound of gunfire filtered through the still air. Local men were already out hunting the perpetrators of this terrible deed. Catherine thought of the dark shadows she’d seen when she’d first arrived here, their dark coats, their yellow eyes…

  The weight of his hand fell on her shoulder. Startled, she gasped and sprang to her feet.

  Father Umberto looked as startled as she did. ‘I’m sorry… I did not mean to frighten you. My child?’

  He said it questioningly and looked apologetic, like a small boy who has forgotten to buy his mother a birthday gift. This boyishness only served to strengthen the memories of the boy she’d once known.

  She stared at him round-eyed. She felt so confused, so totally cold and separate from everything going on around her. ‘She’s dead,’ she managed to say. Her upturned eyes were suddenly challenging. ‘Where were you, priest?’

  He looked taken aback. ‘I’m sorry I was not here earlier, but I had another of my flock to attend to.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Catherine, her pallor now replaced with an angry flush. ‘Aunt Lopa isn’t… wasn’t terribly religious. She used to say that if there’s a God, why does he let such terrible things happen in this world.’ It was only a half-truth and she trusted she wouldn’t be cursed for saying such a thing. And hadn’t the old women just told her that Aunt Lopa used to be a nun? She was taking some time accepting that fact – if it were true, she reminded herself.

  ‘She was of two persuasions,’ said Umberto, his eyes now averted from her face and fixed on that of the dead woman. ‘She used to be a nun. Did you know that?’

  Catherine started and stared at him. So he knew too? Why hadn’t her great-aunt confided in her? ‘Yes, I knew. Why did she stop being a nun?’

  She chanced looking sidelong through her tears, seeing the bluish tinge of the strong jaw, the firm lines of his should
ers and the way his hair curled over his collar.

  ‘She decided that the best way to serve God was to live the life he’d given her and to stop reaching for the unreachable. Those were her words, not mine.’

  Catherine forced herself to drag her eyes away from him and back to her great-aunt whose hand was still clasped over the letter that lay at the heart of this tragedy. A bitter taste came to her mouth. This letter was to blame for everything; not just the wolves. They’d only been acting as nature intended. But it was the letter that had made Aunt Lopa venture out in this foul weather.

  ‘Father. One thing.’ Her voice sounded small. Frightened. But she forced herself to be brave, taking a great lungful of air and holding it in.

  ‘Whatever.’ Hands clasped in the accepted style, he stood waiting for her to enlighten him.

  She exhaled her breath. ‘Can you move her hand? There’s a letter in her bodice. She told me I must read it, but her fingers…’ She couldn’t say anything more about her fingers, but no explanation was needed. Umberto understood.

  While still at the seminary, he’d assisted an army chaplain and also administered in a hospital. He was used to gory sights. With gentle respectfulness, he lifted Aunt Lopa’s hand, undid two or three buttons and brought out the letter, handing it to the young woman sitting there.

  Her hair fell forward as she read it. He fancied he saw her shoulders tense then shake. Was it despair or fear? He couldn’t tell. Generally speaking, his job was to help if she wished it. On the occasion of Lopa Rodriguez’ death he was required to give more. The woman had confided in him and asked him to befriend her niece should anything untoward happen to her. He’d promised her that he would, though the thought of being alone with such a young and beautiful girl did worry him. And of course, Lopa Rodriguez had known nothing of their previous meetings – some years ago now. In the dark hours of the night, it was Catherine who came to tempt him. Seeing her again had shocked him to the core. He had thought his passion for her was behind him along with his adolescence. That creamy complexion and those eyes like dark pools had acquired a breath-taking maturity. Although he’d tried hard not to notice the feminine form bursting against the childish clothes, the hems lengthened, the seams let out to accommodate her transformation to womanhood, the task was impossible. He had tried consoling himself with the fact that Catherine Rodriguez was his single temptation. He must resist. He must resist.