When Samuel entered his father’s chamber that evening, the scene he witnessed stunned him. They had never discussed where Maria had come from, or more importantly, what she was. Now it was clear; there was no mistaking witchery. Black candles were lit around the old man’s bed, so many that the smoke scorched the ceiling and billowed into the corners of the room. A line of salt had been poured along the walls so that no evil could enter, and herbs were strewn over the bed. Maria sat before the old man, naked, slick with sweat, as she chanted an ancient spell so dangerous and powerful the words turned to ash as she spoke them and her mouth burned as she called to Hecate, the goddess of magic and sorcery and light.

Avra kadavra, I will create as I speak, I will force into being that which is impossible and illogical, all that is against the rules of men. A shield to prevent death, no matter how dark the results might be.

“Enough.” Samuel Dias seized Maria from the bed and covered her with a blanket. He stomped on the candles as if they were bugs, extinguishing the flames, then opened the window and waved the smoke out. At last Samuel turned back to her. He wasn’t often angry, but when he was, he burned. “Is my father an experiment for your Art?”

“It’s a cure! When I cured you, your father was happy that I did. Why can’t you be?”

“This is not the same! The only cure for old age is death. There are things you cannot change. That you should not change! We’ll let him go, as he should.”

Samuel was right, and she knew it. What was forcibly brought back from death never came back as it was. One lived or died as fate saw fit. It was possible to shift one’s destiny depending on choices that had been made, but some things were meant to be, they had been written and could not be unwritten. Abraham Dias’s time had come. On both hands, his lifelines had reached the ends of his palms. Maria stopped fighting a war she couldn’t win. She washed and dressed, then watched Samuel from the window as he sat alone in the garden, waiting to lose the last member of his family.

When it was clear that Abraham was about to die, Maria intended to call Samuel to his bedside, but the old man stopped her. He placed a hand on her arm and managed to speak. The man who could talk for hours at a time, and had taught his son to do the same, still had some breath left. When a person was about to die, nothing could prevent him from talking if he had something to say.