Читать книгу In Safe Hands - Linda Conrad - Страница 9

Icurse you, Brody Ryan! May you and your children be forever barren. From this moment forward, no Ryan of your loins shall parent a child. No grandchild will you live to see! Your family name ends with your children, Brody Ryan, you son of a dog! Vete p’al carajo!

The bruja’s dark curse still rang out in Lupe Delgado’s mind a decade and a half after it had been issued. More of a good witch, the curandera shook off the memory of her mother’s harsh words from long ago. She continued her walk down the beach along a tropical Vera Cruz mountain lake, glancing again at the disturbing note that she had just been handed. Her mother, the ancient, black-magic bruja witch, was dying.

Lupe had known this time was coming. After all, her mother’s lifetime stretched well into her nineties, and her health had been precarious lately. But Lupe wished with her whole heart for her mother to be granted more time. The fifteen-year-old curse was still valid, and her mother’s shadowy soul was still unprepared to meet her God. Lupe’s eyes filled with tears as her thoughts turned to her three Ryan grandchildren, who were currently living their adult lives in Texas. Their great-grandmother had cursed them when she cursed their father, and they had suffered from the old woman’s black magic ever since. Lupe’s mother’s furious words had brought disaster down upon them, not to mention a blackened soul for the old woman herself.

After leaving the beach and returning home to her potions and crystals, Lupe packed up a small traveling kit. Her mother had finally relented a few months ago and renounced her black ways. The old woman was refusing to sell dark charms and hexes to her former customers. With her approaching death, Maria Elena Ixtepan had also agreed to reverse the curse on the Ryan children—if their father managed to perform three selfless deeds.

Lupe had not expected a miracle from her arrogant and defiant son-in-law, Brody Ryan. But so far he had accomplished two good deeds, and Lupe foresaw the possibility of complete redemption in the near future.

They were so close to salvation. Her mother just had to last a little longer.

With prayers in her heart, Lupe started out in the direction of her mother’s mountainside cabin. She knew her own curandera white witchcraft abilities should not be used for such dubious purposes. But perhaps, if Lupe prayed to the right combination of saints and used the proper combination of words, she could keep death from her mother’s doorstep long enough to save them all.

She had to try.