* * *

By the next week, Fernando had seen the choking ferns and vines routed from beneath his grandmother’s house and a plot of the rich dark earth plowed under for a garden.

Fibrous weed roots of all kinds riddled the loam. They snapped in sullen protest at their demise. Under the killing blade they became fodder for the crops to come, the good and rightful seed which would inherit.

Apart from his handy friends, Fernando consulted with the greater purview of Cortez. He recruited from among them, strategizing with seasoned agrarians and other local tradesfolk in order to make the most of the land. It was safe to say his grandmother’s homestead had never seen so many visitors in the past seven years as it had in the past seven days.

All the while, the old woman flapped about like a flustered hen at all the traffic and hubbub. All this productive change which she perceived as a sure, fell omen.

“I’ve arranged it all, Abuela,” Fernando told her calmly when she complained of how much trouble he was causing her. “You won’t have to do anything.”

With unfailing patience he went on to explain the various dealings he had made. He told her who would come to collect and when, what cut they would take, and so on. By the end of this rundown, his grandmother’s petulant lower lip thrust hadn’t receded in the slightest.

“And what about my icons? Where am I to place them now that you’ve crowded up the yard?”

Fernando smiled down at her with the same easy humor he would show a child. She meant her array of knick-knacks—her amalgam of pagan and Catholic yard ornaments interspersed at seeming random throughout the grounds. It was a superstitious hoarding habit which Fernando aimed subtly to break.

“You can move your icons closer to the house, Abuela. Wouldn’t it better to have them nearer?”

The old woman stamped her foot. “No, nieto, it would not be better! First the goat cage, now this—there is a balance here which you are disturbing. You do not understand. She is always scheming, always striving. These protections which have kept her at bay you are removing like stones from her path.”

Her agate eyes shone with fervor, brimmed with it. Fernando saw the fear beneath the zeal. He saw the desperate clinging to a life she had built from the scraps of disappointed hopes. He saw the shadowy monster she’d invented to shoulder the blame. He saw the husband and daughter who’d deserted her unto death, leaving her with only the decaying husk of this house and the wilds that surrounded it.

His grandmother had embraced that wildness. She had drawn the jungle in close like a cloak around her. She’d cut herself off from civilization because she didn’t trust it. Others had failed her, but Fernando would not.

Pulling her to him, he pressed a kiss to the top of her wispy head. “Don’t worry, Abuela. I’ll protect you.”

“Oh, Fernando,” she whispered. Her birdbone hands fluttered to his chest. “It’s for you that I am afraid.”

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La Gorgona © CS Dark Fantasy