Page 39 of Watch Me Turn
The familiar smell of motor oil and gasoline lingers on every surface. I feel along the wall and flip the light switch on, illuminating the shop in cold white fluorescent light. At the center is a dented red '87 Pontiac Firebird up on blocks with the hood popped.
I'm already on edge, and the deathly stillness of the shop unnerves me further. Usually the chaotic sound of trumpets would be blasting out of the tinny little radio on the workbench, punctuated by the droning of an impact wrench, but tonight there's nothing.
Someone’s left a coveralls pegged to the wall. I'm halfway into it when footsteps sound behind me.
"Welcome home." My sister Catriona's Scottish lilt is unmistakable. She's wearing an identical set of coveralls, arms crossed, leaning against the wall with her long black hair braided over both shoulders. "I'd ask you where you've been, but we already know the answer."
My hands shake as I click the snaps of the coveralls together. "Oh yeah? And where's that?"
"Playing stupid games with stupid men," she taunts. "Jesus, Sophia, how could you be so fucking naive?"
"Is that a rhetorical question?" I ask as I fasten the last snap.
She shakes her head, nostrils flared like she's caught a foul smell, and kicks open the door behind her. "You'd better come down. She's waiting, and she's not happy."
With Cat leading the way, we move through the back room and descend the spiral staircase into the shared home we've built in the foundations of the shop. In sharp contrast to the grubby, oil-slicked place on the surface, what lies beneath is anything but sinister.
Sandstone walls curve around the stairwell, their natural pink and terracotta hues catching the warm glow of the candlelight. The blush tones deepen as I descend, shifting from pale rose to deeper coral where moisture has darkened the porous rock. When I reach the bottom, the smell of gasoline dissipates and is replaced by the mineral scent of the stone mixed with the woody perfume of palo santo.
We pass my sisters' chambers one by one, each marked by a different colored door in the rock. Green for Catriona, cobalt for Nadège, fuchsia for Anna, on and on it goes until we reach the wooden door at the end of the narrow corridor. The one made from yew and etched with symbols carved by a blade.
"I'll leave you to it," Cat says. She leans in and gives me a terse hug, lowering her voice and dropping a warning into my ear. "If I were you, I'd come clean about everything. She'll find out anyway, so you might as well be honest."
Then she's gone. Leaving me alone to meet my fate.
I raise my hand to knock, but the door swings open before I make contact, leaving me standing with my fist pushing air outside her quarters.
"Enter."
She's waiting for me, sitting cross-legged on a pile of mismatched cushions at the center of the candlelit room. Long grey hair pulled into a single braid that trails over her shoulder, wearing her signature earth-toned robes and long linen trousers.
Many times over the years I've come to this place for solace and comfort, seeking La Madre's wisdom in these underground chambers.
She's filled the space with a thousand years of mementos. A jumble of things that shouldn't work together but fit perfectly. A Moorish oil lamp, a jade Buddha, a rococo chaise lounge with worn upholstery. I've broken blood with her on that chaise more times than I can count, me and my sisters drinking from mismatched goblets. One Venetian crystal, another made from Roman glass gone cloudy with age.
It's a cultured, curated kind of clutter, but today it brings me no comfort.
Neither of us says anything. She just stares at me, head cocked slightly like she's trying to reach inside me. I take half a step back when she surges to her feet and stalks toward me.
The slap comes so fast I don't see it coming.
My head snaps to the side, pain exploding across my cheek. I taste blood—my own blood—where my fang sliced the inside of my mouth.
"Mother, I'm sorry?—"
"You're sorry?" Her laugh is bitter. "You went behind my back. You disobeyed a direct order. You put yourself in danger because you were too arrogant, too stubborn, too desperate to prove yourself to listen to reason."
I swallow the blood down. “I thought that maybe I could prove myself. Show you what I'm capable of. Then you'd be proud of me. Maybe trust me to do more."
"You certainly showed me what you're capable of." La Madre straightens. "You have no idea what you've done, do you?"
"I know. I know I fucked up. I won't do it again, I promise?—"
"Lazaro Malvini is asnake," she hisses. "Men like him are nothing but darkness. I have spent almost a thousand years keeping my daughters safe from his kind. Criminals who would use us, manipulate us, destroy us." She leans forward, hands curled into fists. "And you willingly went to him, despite my strict instructions to leave it be."
My voice is small and childlike. "I should have listened. I know that now. I was stupid, I was reckless, but if you can find it in you to forgive me, I swear on all that is sacred I will never dishonor you again."
Her face is granite grim. A slab of something cold and unforgiving with disappointment etched all over it. I'd prepared for her anger on the flight home. I'd pictured how she would rage at me, her face hot with fury, and rage seeping from every pore, but for some reason I never imagined disappointment.
