The Sorceress

The Sandoval family lived on the eastern side of the river, in the Caducian valley where there was the best overlook over the river. Their house was the most magnificent of all the houses sprawling over the river. The Sandovals were the richest, but also the most mysterious of the inhabitants of the river.

Their mansion was close to the river and the churning waters of the river could be seen close from the family garden. The river was sometimes called the Sandoval river by the neighbors because Don Lupez was part of the very first pioneers to settle on the banks of the river and he had built his mansion very close to the river.

Contiguous to the Sandoval family's mansion, there was the house of the Sanchez family, a typical Latino family who had moved to the river side nearly two decades after the Sandoval family had settled by the river. Their house was overlooked by the gigantic mansion of the Sandoval family and it looked way too small: it was a medium house in fact, built in Greek architecture, decent and with enough space to house the couple with their only child.

There was the husband, Mr. Sanchez, a short, bulky man with a long and bushy beard and gray hair, and his wife Mrs. Sanchez who was a tall and elegant woman with blue eyes and straight brunette hair. They had a little boy named Mario who liked to run and play in the Sandoval family garden. Mr. Sanchez looked like a dwarf when he stood by his tall wife, which seemed to irritate him a bit. Mr. Sanchez was an orthopedist doctor while his wife worked as an opera singer, dancer and choreographer.

After the Sanchez family's house there was a white house of relatively larger size than the Sanchez's with a terrace, a wooden rooftop and a vented attic on top of the building : it was the house of Mr. Rojas, a tall and bald man with sharp, light blue eyes who seemed to be always quiet and barely talked with his neighbors, and Mr. Rojas was married to a cute, mid-aged woman in her late twenties with greenish eyes and dark-hued hair, and her name was Mrs. Lorena Rojas. The couple was newlyweds, and they had just moved by the river and they had no children yet.

The Sanchez family were close friends of the Sandoval family and Dona Maria and Mr. Sanchez's wife had a quite good relationship. In fact, as a former skillful musician, Dona Maria sometimes served as a muse, lyricist and vocal coach to Mrs. Sanchez, and together they sometimes wrote and composed music.

Dona Maria also liked to invite the Sanchez couple over to the mansion for a dinner on special occasions, and the Sanchez couple enjoyed Dona Maria's company unaware of her mysterious nature.

Dona Maria knew the most intimate secrets of the Sanchez family, the Rojas couple and of most of her close neighbors, and she liked to use those secrets playfully to create a sense of intrigue and amazement within her neighbors-or simply to sound mysterious which she really liked.

During those special dinners with the Sanchez family, Dona Maria sometimes told a cynical tale which identified with the realities of Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez's personal marriage or simply a creepy moment in Mrs. Sanchez's life when she sang in the operas or danced in striptease clubs, and the couple would feel astonished sometimes, embarrassed, anxious, and uncomfortable at other times.

''Wow this is really surprising!'', would say Mrs. Sanchez as she identifies herself in the tale, often feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable.

''Really unbelievable'', would whisper Mr. Sanchez, feeling surprised, uncomfortable like his wife, but also ashamed sometimes.

Right behind the Sanchez family's house , there was a large, sloppy bungalow with dormer windows built with strong medieval bricks and stones and timber: it was the house of the Des Mello family and it was owned by a strange-looking man with long, curly and snow white hair named Mr. Des Mello who liked to dress in a white gown and used to sit in front of his house for many hours with a Bible on his hands. Mr. Des Mello lived with his wife, a tall, mid-aged woman with a short hairstyle named Mrs. Elisabeth Des Mello, and they had two children: a tall and slim young girl with blond hair named Lisa, and a short and burly young man with a long mustache named Victor.

Mr. Des Mello had settled by the river pretty much in those same days when Don Lupez arrived and built his mansion. Mr. Des Melo was suspicious of the mysterious behavior of Dona Maria and he knew Dona Maria was a witch; he had knowledge of the magical world and of all the neighbors he was the only who knew of the existence of the magical spirits in the Sandoval family mansion, and Dona Maria was scared of him.

The Sandoval family had settled by the river for over a century. They were famous for their enormous wealth and their nobility which was distinguished through the splendid mansion in which they lived.

By the time Don Lupez arrived by the river, there was just a plain valley picturing a vague landscape. Don Lupez decided to plant trees all over the river, seasons altered magically, raindrops fell off over the years, and a beautiful scenery appeared against the backdrop of a beautiful valley, floppy hills, a streamy river, tall and colorful trees and a magnificent mansion gleaming over the low neighboring houses.

On the western side of the river where the wind blew strongly, and where there were less houses and more farms, windmills, animals, campaign homes, Don Lupez had a large vineyard where wine was produced for his winery. There was also a variety of pigs, hens, roosters and rabbits, and he owned horses which he liked to spend hours training for his famous winter equestrian festival.

Back in the days, Don Lupez was not so rich as he became subsequently and many of his entrepreneurships were flopping, including his wine production company. He had many workers in his vineyard plantation, a bunch of winegrowers he had hired to cultivate his vineyard, grow grapes vines and to collect in times of harvest. In times of bankruptcy, Don Lupez found himself unable to pay the workers and many of the winegrowers would file a lawsuit against him and would leave the vineyard.

On top of these charges, the extravagant lifestyle of Dona Maria who liked to buy the most impressive dresses and shoes and accessories , diamond rings and necklaces, were costing him a lot of money and he had many bills to pay for the consumption in the fabulous mansion.

During this difficult era, Don Lupez's magnificent mansion which he built with a sumptuous amount of money was the only investment which kept him the status of a noble man in the eyes of his neighbors.

Over the years, Don Lupez managed to navigate successfully through those stormy times with hard work, and he became excessively rich like he never did and never thought he ever would, and with such massive wealth, he decided he would never work again.

When he was not working, Don Lupez liked to spent his time in the mansion reading books in his office. The office was located upstairs right in the second floor to the opposite side of the hallway which gave into the secret vault of the magical spirits. Don Lupez had a collection of books on various sciences including geography, oceanography, astronomy, history and economics. He also liked to read fiction, and he also wrote poetry and imagined fictitious stories occasionally like a desperate writer when he was out of his mind and needed to clean out his thoughts; Don Lupez was an earthly man with an ordinary mind whose interest only focused on things he could see with his own eyes , and unlike his wife Dona Maria he had no interest in mysterious sciences and he largely ignored the existence of any invisible creatures.

The office was a large chamber of antiquarian and vintage style with a taste of decorum: There was a collection of ancient paintings of Da Vinci, Picasso and Van Gogh hanging on the walls, which Don Lupez had purchased at a prestigious auction price; a large royal table of impressive artistic sculpture on top of which there were books of all kinds, newspapers, a journal, pens, encyclopediae, and an old 17th century terrestrial globe tracing out the various routes through the ocean, the Magellan strait and other fundamental oceanic landmarks ; luxurious, cozy, royal chairs; an old, square grand piano, and a comfortable couch where Don Lupez liked to lie down to relax during breaktime after reading for many hours. He liked to sit in his office reading for hours, away from his suspicious and mysterious wife.

While he was reading in the office for many hours in the course of a day, Don Lupez decided to walk out of his office for a little break. It was around 3.pm in the evening and Don had been reading since he woke up a few hours earlier in the morning, and he needed a little break to catch a breath and feel the fresh breeze running through the hallways.

As he was walking through the breezy hallway on his way downstairs to his room, he caught a glimpse of the large painting portrait of his wife hanging all the way down from the opposite side of the hallway. He decided to wobble over that direction of the hallway.

He stood up there for a while , his eyes contemplating the painting and he felt surprised that there was a new painting of his wife in the mansion which he had never seen before. The painting was impressive and it depicted Dona Maria as a glamorous queen sitting on a magnificent royal chair, dressed in a long, velvet red gown, her feet crossed elegantly , a wide diamond ring shining over her finger, eye-catching pearls and beads sparkling as they hanged over her diamond necklace, while her dark hair was beautifully set into a bun, her lips shining in bright red. She also looked a bit mysterious in the painting with the elliptical gaze in her eyes which seemed to read the thoughts of Don Lupez as he stared at the painting.

Upon Dona Maria's request, the painting was done in a live session, and it took a couple of hours for the painting to be accomplished, and Dona Maria had sat there comfortably in that royal chair while the artist carefully doodled every detail in her to produce the masterpiece.

Don Lupez slipped his hands onto the painting delicately, and he could feel the impressive quality of the artwork and the striking beauty of his mysterious wife, and as he touched the painting with curiosity, he happened to flip it, unveiling the backside of the masterpiece, and inadvertently he also happened to discover the door of the secret vault.

He felt flabbergasted and lost into his own house. ''Where am I ?'' he wondered, shaking his head in astonishment. By this time, Dona Maria had already begun to chase him every which way in the mansion, running hereto and yon.

She was seated in her room for some time, alone, expecting Don to come down in the room as he used to after spending a few hours in the office, but he had strangely lingered in the office that day, she realized.

In fact, Don used to spend one to three hours in the office depending on the days, most hours in the weekends, which he had exceeded on that day, and Dona Maria was scared that Don Lupez might wander around the mansion and end up discovering the secret vault of magical spirits.

She walked out of her room, and looked out into the garden where Don also used to sit down sometimes to relax when there was a sunny day, and where Maya was mowing the grass and picking up the dead leaves falling off the trees into the garden.

''Have you seen my husband?'' she asked, looking morose and a bit nervous.

''No, patroness'', said Maya, looking a bit shy, ''I haven't seen Mr. Lupez since this morning.'', she added, collecting the dead leaves into a pile.

Dona Maria slipped back into the mansion right away. Scarlet was sitting in the lounge, reading a letter which the mailman had just delivered to her while she was waiting for Mr. Perez to return from a meeting he was having in his law firm. The letter contained a business opportunity which she wanted to carry out alone with her mother, and didn't intend to let Mr. Perez know about her business; like her mother, she was skeptical about men and had no trust of any kind. She was feeling a bit like a lone wolf while she expected her husband. She saw her mother walking in, looking a bit agitated.

''Where is daddy?'', she asked anxiously as she ran into her daughter Scarlett.

''In his office, I guess'' replied Scarlett. She was about to share the business news, but she felt that her mother was too agitated.

Dona Maria rose up into the first floor instantly. Don had already pulled the painting down, and while he was spinning the rudder vector to open the door of the secret vault, he saw Dona Maria running through the hallway.

''What are you doing, Don?"' she shouted, looking worked up.

'' I'm trying to figure out what's behind this mysterious gate?'' he said.

''Nothing'' said Dona Maria, trying to fight her fear and anxiety with confidence. ''Look, this is just a secret vault I built for myself in order to store my collection of precious jewelries and objects.''

''Yes,'' said Don, looking nervous, ''but I should have a peek in.''. He spun the rudder with a strong push, the door opened and he walked into the secret vault. Dona Maria ran behind him, looking scared, and they were both into the secret vault.

The magical spirits had already started feeling the presence of Don Lupez and Dona Maria into the secret vault, but their mysterious voices could not mutter any words.

Don started to explore the secret vault, throwing his curious eyes every which way through the vault. He saw nothing but a spacious and empty chamber with nothing but walls, a floor, a roof, firewood and old fuels and boxes stuffed with dust. The vault seemed to him like an odd, gloomy place and too messy to keep precious objects as Dona Maria claimed.

Dona Maria looked at Don Lupez with an enigmatic glance and walked close to him.

'' There is nothing, Don'', she said, ''like I said I just want to keep my most precious objects in this vault.''

''Hum…..'', mumbled Don, suspiciously.

He threw a glance down to the back of the vault and saw a strange flickering light and he walked towards the direction of the light. As he approached, the light turned more vivid and too strong before his eyes. He started to blink, but kept walking curiously trying to find out the source of this strange light. He had never seen such a strange light in the mansion and the more he approached the light the more vivacious and strong the light was becoming.

'' No! Stop please, Don .'', shouted Dona Maria harshly, scared that something bad might happen as Don kept walking close to the light. Don didn't heed though. He carried on walking, and the magical spirits could see blindly chasing the light. He was really close to the source of the light which was the circular light-concentrated area where the magical spirits were located. He took a single step closer and a powerful light ran into his body like an electrical shock; he fell down on the ground and passed out.

Dona Maria saw him falling down and she thought her husband was dead. Scared, she ran towards Don and grabbed him by the foot and dragged him backwards a few meters away from the light, and started to shake his body.

''Wake up Don, please.'', she screamed into his ears. Don didn't talk and didn't move and Dona Maria got extremely horrified and she started to panic, her face blushed immediately and her cheeks turned red, her eyes widened and her body began to shake. As she saw Don lying on the ground like a cadaver while the light twinkled through her face, she instantly remembered what the magical spirits had told her when she entered the secret vault for the first time and was walking close to the light asking to see the magical spirits.

''Oh my god, this would have happened to me'' she said, frightened.

Thinking that her husband was dead, she stood up, took a step back facing the direction of the glaring light and evoked the magical spirits.

''What happened to my husband, lords?'' she asked anxiously.

''Don't worry, Mrs. Sandoval,'', said a mysterious voice, ''your husband is not dead.''

Dona Maria felt very relieved and she breathed out deeply and wiped her anxious face off with her hands. She also felt amazed and surprised at how these mysterious creatures could know even her married name.

''Oh Gosh, they even know my name.'', she whispered.

''Your husband has just passed out.'', said a creepy, unearthly voice.

''Your husband has been hypnotized by the overflow of light.'' explained another voice, '' he shouldn't have approached this area .''

''He will remain asleep for a few hours '',whispered a mysterious voice.

Dona Maria shrugged hoping that Don will be alright. She let out a long sigh of relief and soothed her nerves. Beside her, Don Lupez's body was still lying flat down on the ground, and he was motionless and had lost conscious.

Dona Maria pulled Don's body over her shoulders and painstakingly dragged him out of the secret vault with his feet dangling on the floor while his head rested on her shoulder. She dropped Don's body off her shoulders down on the floor, spun the rudder wheel back to close the door of the vault, and pinned her portrait back against the door.

While Don was lying there on the floor in front of her portrait, she ran down to the living room to ask for help to carry him down to their room. Amalia and Leah were standing up in the lounge; it was on their first few days of work, and the handmaids were still struggling to learn their way through the various gates, hallways and floors, courts and chambers in the mansion; and every day they were all thrilled to work in such a pretty exquisite mansion, and they were amazed at how large the mansion was. Amalia was scrubbing up the floor with a vacuum while Leah was just standing there by her side gossiping about how large and magnificent the Sandoval family mansion was , and she was already imagining herself getting lost in that huge mansion someday while working.

''I really hope to find myself'', she said throwing her wide brown eyes around the mansion.

''Well, better not get lost, darling'' said Leah.

While they were talking, they saw Dona Maria walking down the stairs, looking a bit anxious in their eyes . Amalia stopped the gossips instantly, and walked away pretending that she was heading to the kitchen.

''Help me, please.'', said Dona Maria.

''How can we help, madam?'', asked Leah, with a smile and great enthusiasm.

Dona Maria ordered Amalia and Leah to follow her upstairs in the second floor, and they ran behind her looking like two little cats. They saw Don Lupez lying there on the ground helpless on the hallway, and Amalia thought he was dead.

''Oh what happened ?'', she wondered, scared.

''Are you ok, Mr. Lupez? '', asked Leah, her eyes wide opened.

''Yes, my husband is alright'', said Dona Maria, ''just help me take him down to my room.''

Amalia grabbed Don Lupez by the right shoulder and Leah pulled by the other shoulder while Dona Maria was grabbing Don Lupez's feet , and together they carried Don Lupez down to his room in the first floor.

They laid him down on his bed and Dona Maria called the family doctor instantly. His name was Dr. Alejandro Rodriguez and he was a tall, well-built man with a shaggy beard who was wearing wide white eyeglasses and a large and white medical uniform, and he had a stethoscope hanging over his neck and a small case in his hands. Dr. Rodriguez sat by Don lupez's side on the bed, and pulled out the stethoscope for a diagnosis. He turned to Dona Maria with a worried look in his face.

''Mr. Lupez has very strange heartbeats'', he said.

''Hum….'', mumbled Dona maria, not knowing how to explain to the doctor what happened.

'' It seems that Mr. Lupez was exposed to a strange pressure.'', explained Dr. Rodriguez. Dona Maria remained quiet, refusing to comment.

''Hum.'', she mumbled, looking poker faced.

Dr. Rodriguez made a small medical prescription and ordered Dona Maria to provide Don lupez with for a better heart condition.

''Mr. Lupez will be ok.'', said Dr. Rodriguez, penning the prescription. '' you should provide him with this prescription'' he added, handing the medical prescription to Dona Maria.

''Thank you, Dr. Rodriguez'', said Dona Maria.

Doctor Rodriguez left and Dona Maria stayed by Don Lupez's side on the bed, running her hands gently through his face and his hair while he slept, and wondering whether Don will wake up with memory.

She was frightened to the idea that Don might wake up with a memory of what had happened to him and that he might return in the secret vault. Scared and confused, Dona Maria felt somehow constrained to reveal to Don the real mystery in the secret vault and she thought that it was maybe the right time to tell him the mysterious truth before he finds out himself.

She thought about it twice and she was ready to reveal the mystery to Don Lupez, but then she changed her mind and decided to keep the secret and never reveal him the mystery. She could never trust Don, she realized as she thought about the treachery she had just been through and many scenarios started to play in her head. How will Don judge me?, she thought. What if he ever divorce me?, she wondered.

Looking for answers, she walked out of the room leaving Don Lupez lying on the bed asleep. She thought about returning upstairs in the secret vault to consult her magical spirits for help. She walked into the secret vault, and this time she surprisingly discovered a mysterious power she never thought her magical spirits could have and she realized that these magical creatures had a power beyond mere revelation.

''What should I do, lords?'' she asked, looking worried , ''my husband will wake up soon and I'm scared he will return in this vault''

''Don't worry, beloved.'', said a spooky voice.

''We'll magically operate on Don's mind so he won't remember anything.'', said a mysterious voice.

''Oh gosh'', whispered Dona Maria, feeling surprised. She could not believe these magical spirits had also such a mysterious power.

''Your husband will wake up in three hours'', said a hair-raising voice.

''He won't recall anything.'', said another ghostly voice.

Dona Maria came out of the vault and returned to her room where Don Lupez was still sleeping deeply and had started to snore heavily, his nose growling like the sound of those naughty pigs he reared in his large campaign field in the western side of the river.

Three hours later, Don Lupez woke up like the magical spirits had predicted. He woke up feeling drowsy, lazy and he was also feeling an intense pain in his back due the shock when he collapsed in the vault, and he also had a terrible headache grappling with a cumbersome sensation like was carrying his mansion over his head. He stood up before the bed, looking lost, confused and dizzy and Dona Maria started to ask him questions like a detective. He didn't remember anything as of that moment when he collapsed in the secret vault.

''What happened, Don?'', she asked cynically trying to figure out whether Don remembered what happened to him in the secret vault.

''I don't know'', replied Don with a casual shrug.

Dona Maria looked into his cloudy eyes with an enigmatic glance.

''Look at me, Don.'', she said.

Don turned, and stared at her into the eyes.

''Do you remember walking in that dark, gloomy vault with powerful lights '', she asked caustically.

''No, I have no idea '', whispered Don Lupez, looking perplexed. The magical spirits had cast a spell on his brain while he was asleep and had removed the incident off his memory.

Dona Maria realized that Don actually didn't remember absolutely anything just as her magical spirits had said. She squeezed Don into a long and warm hug and gave a broad smile with a cynical expression on her face.