Initiation

Chapter 3

The year I turned ten my Aunt Maria, my father’s sister, called my mother and convinced her to go to a tarot card reading. For some reason, my mom brought me along, perhaps as moral support for this venture into the unknown.

We turned down a side street near Tremont Avenue, stopping in front of a white two-story house situated close to the curb. A buzzing neon sign in the front window read “Tarot Card Readings.”

Inside, beyond a small sitting area with a few chairs, I saw a curtain hanging over a door that led to a back room. That must be where they do the readings , I guessed, and sure enough within a few minutes the lady of the house came through the curtained doorway, gesturing for us to follow her back.

“This is my sister-in-law Esther and her son John,” Aunt Maria told the woman, who eyed my mother and me for a few seconds, then nodded and told Aunt Maria to sit at the card table set up in the back room. A white cloth covered the card table, and I saw candlesticks, crosses, figurines of Catholic saints, and other “holy” items spread across another longer table against the back wall of the room.

Right away the woman, Cookie, gave Aunt Maria a card reading, and as she muttered out what she read in the cards, I glanced at my aunt’s face. No one from our immediate family knew she had been involved in witchcraft since childhood—somehow she’d kept it a secret—but even now as I watched her, I saw a gleam in her eyes that hinted at a restrained power behind her bland exterior.

When Cookie finished she asked my mother if she would be interested. Mom hesitated, but Aunt Maria convinced her so my mother agreed, afraid to say no and disappoint her sister-in-law.

During my mother’s reading, Cookie told her nothing but negative things. I couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth.

“Your husband is a womanizer,” she said, studying the cards on the table. “You have a very bad marriage, and I see you being a widow at a young age.”

I glanced at Mamí. Her face wore a blank expression, and I knew it was because the card reader’s words had found their mark. She went on for a few minutes, loading my mother up with misery. The next thing she said was about me.

“Your son is on the verge of losing his sight . . .” She stopped suddenly, studied the cards a bit longer, and lifted her diabolical gaze toward me. “This boy needs a ceremonial cleansing right away. If he doesn’t receive the cleansing I see him losing his eyesight within thirty days!” She turned her hard eyes back to my mother. “The ceremony will cost $200—don’t delay.”

By now my mother was in a panic. Beads of perspiration dotted her pretty forehead, and my stomach roiled with anger that one more thing just got added to her already heavy load of worries.

She promised the card reader we would return within a week for my cleansing ceremony.

As we left the card reader’s house that day, little did my mother know that an evil door had just been opened, and we were about to walk through it.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 801