Yet more about Los Hermanos...
The next year, around Pentecost, she realized that she was pregnant once again.
While her first pregnancy had made her sensitive to the world of the spirit, her second one changed her in other ways. As she listened to the tales she heard at the market and at work, she began to realize that the vampiros and other spirits who hunted and haunted them had their own rules they had to obey. Perhaps, she thought, those rules could be used against the dark creatures. She went to Padre Dominguez and asked to borrow some of his books--the ones that were rumored to be kept locked up behind a secret panel in the vestry. He was reluctant at first, telling her that these were not suitable things for women to know, especially women who were with child.
And what did she do, to make this priest change his mind? Let us just say that the determination of a woman who carried two chickens all the way from Mexico City should never be underestimated. When she was done with him, the priest never talked down to her again. Some even said that Padre Dominguez often went to her for advice when he had to perform an especially difficult exorcism.
A few even said that the old priest would make the sign of the cross and scurry to the other side of the street whenever he encountered her in town, but they never foolish enough to say this where she might overhear them.
At first, her husband scoffed when he saw her reading, especially when she had to use a dictionary to puzzle out words in other languages.
"Why do you waste your time with these books?" he demanded. "They don't help put food in the table or keep clothes on our backs!"
When he said these things, she would merely look up over the edge of whatever book she was reading and smile.
They weren't very nice smiles. They were the sort of smiles that reminded him of the strange woman who had befriended some of the sorrier women in their part of town. These women had husbands who were cruel or unfaithful, and who seemed proud of their cruelty and bragged out loud about all of the young women they had ruined. It didn't take long for the pride to be crushed and the boasting to be silenced.
Whenever her husband thought of those men, he crossed himself, and begged the good Lord for forgiveness for anything he might have done to upset his wife. By the time those wretched men had been buried, he had learned things about vengeance demons that could not be found in the pages of any book.
Then, once he realized that these "useless" books had taught his wife to create charms and milagros that actually worked--and that people would pay good money for--he even gave his wife some money to buy a particularly rare book that she said she needed.
One night, as she was reading about a spell that would bring back those who had been killed by magical means, she rested her hand on her belly and thought about the child growing within.
"You have a quick, brilliant mind--una mente--that will serve you and your brother well. He may be wise, but he and your brothers who are yet to be born will need your cleverness, mi hijo."
She could say this with confidence, because the other day a pool of red candle-wax had told her that this was by no means her last child.
When the child was born, her husband wanded to name him Baldomero, but she insisted that he be named Dos. Her husband knew what was good for him and gave in to her wishes.