The Bewitching

The narrative returns to 1998. Noah takes Minerva to the factory. He tells her about his parents, who were killed in a car accident. Their marriage had been unhappy in large part because it was arranged by Carolyn. In their family, Noah explains, marriage is about money rather than love. After his parents died, he went to live with his grandparents. He and Carolyn never got along, but he did like his grandfather, Edgar. He especially liked it when Tremblay would visit: She and Edgar would swap ghost stories and discuss the “Black List,” an informal tally they kept of all of the unexplained disappearances in New England. Noah confesses to having seen a ghost himself at the factory, an eerie man in overalls who disappeared when Noah followed him. Noah also mentions that Thomas liked ghost stories, too. He and Minerva wrap up their conversation and agree that she will return to The Willows the following day to look at Tremblay’s papers again.

Back home, Minerva notices that Karnstein, the cat she’s been feeding, has ignored the bowl of food she set out. She has had an eerie feeling, a “portent” as Nana Alba used to say, all day. The cat not having eaten its food seems ominous. Minerva heads out to do her rounds, sure that she hears someone following her. Feet shuffle. Twigs snap. Then, when her terror is truly mounting, she runs into Conrad. She accuses him of following her, and he calls her crazy. She runs back home and calls Hideo. She tells him that she is sure she was being followed, just like Ginny had been.

The narrative returns to Alba’s family farm in 1908. Alba wakes with one of her portents and is sure that the day holds something terrible in store. That night, she has a strange dream. There is a presence at the end of her bed that she does not initially identify as dangerous. It seems to envelop her, and she recalls Arturo’s near-kisses and the myth of Psyche and Eros. Then, the presence begins to alarm her. It has black, cavernous eyes but no face. It bites her, and she reels in pain. She wakes to find that just above her heart, there is a mark like a cut that is bruised and tender.

As she hurries to Los Pinos, Arturo gives her a piercing look and asks if she is okay. She assures him that she is and hurries away. She runs into Valentín, and he accompanies her the rest of the way. Alba is upset that Jovita’s charm did not protect her, and angrily tells her so when she arrives at Los Pinos. Jovita urges her to run away to draw the teyolloquani away from her family, and Alba balks. They leave, and Valentín suggests trapping the teyolloquani using the method proscribed in local folklore: They will lure it with a bloody animal skin and then “trap” it by tying 12 knots in a piece of rope. Alba feels unsure about this method, but agrees anyway.

Through Tremblay’s manuscript, the narrative flashes back to 1934. As Ginny’s anxiety escalated, Carolyn and Mary Ann continued to gossip about her. Carolyn asserted that Ginny was a nice girl, but definitely strange. Tremblay defended Ginny, but even she had noticed Ginny’s declining stability. Edgar reached out to Tremblay and told her of his intention to have a doctor examine Ginny for signs of mental illness. He was worried that Ginny might hurt herself because she seemed so preoccupied with death and the supernatural. He urged Tremblay to help him convince Ginny to agree to the plan. Tremblay did not want to help him but agreed to keep an eye on Ginny.

The narrative returns to Alba’s family farm in 1908. Alba wakes with another portent. She asks her mother for permission to ride to the Molinas’ farm to see Valentín and is irritated when Arturo announces that he will accompany her. When they arrive, she learns that Valentín is dead, killed by a wild animal on the road to her family’s farm. She’s sure that the witch killed him and is full of terror. After Valentín’s funeral, she runs into the town, frantic. Arturo finds her, and she tells him that she wants to leave, to move to the city. He seems ecstatic at her change of heart and assures her that he will buy her whatever she wants. When Alba calms down, she realizes that she cannot escape the bewitching by running away and decides to remain and vanquish the witch on her own.

Through Tremblay’s manuscript, the narrative flashes back to 1934. Mary Ann continued to spread rumors that Ginny was involved somehow with Santiago, although Tremblay saw no signs of it and angrily berated the girls for their lies. She suspected all of their stories were fabrications, but Mary Ann’s tale about seeing Santiago with a girl wearing Ginny’s coat, she could disprove herself: She had been with Ginny at the time Mary Ann claims to have seen her. Still, she admitted that something was not quite right with Ginny and confronted her. Ginny explained that she could feel an evil presence following her. Sometimes she could see it in the woods, and the other day on the way home, a path she knew well seemed to change direction as she walked on it. She brought Tremblay to a spot in the woods to point out where she saw the presence, but Tremblay saw nothing. She worried that there was merit to Edgar’s theory that Ginny was losing her grip on reality.

The narrative returns to 1998. The cat Minerva feeds has not returned, and Minerva worries. She heads back to The Willows and listens to her discman as she works. Carolyn invites her to tea after she’s done working, and offers to pay her room and board in the fall. Minerva is stunned, but Carolyn explains that her own children had no ambition, nor does Noah. She and her father were driven, and she recognizes that same quality in Minerva. Noah drives her home, and she tells him about Carolyn’s offer. He mentions that Carolyn did the same for Thomas and that the Yates Foundation itself is dedicated to helping students who are intellectually gifted but have “empty bank accounts” (250). Minerva brushes aside the cruelty of Noah’s words and contemplates Carolyn’s interest in Thomas. She doesn’t believe it’s a coincidence that both she and Thomas are studying the supernatural.

Minerva returns home to find the cat dead, its neck horribly twisted. She recalls her grandmother’s words of wisdom about difficult times: It is essential to carry on and keep living. She tells Hideo about the cat, adding that she is sure she has been bewitched, as dead animals and the persistent feeling of being followed are two key signs of a bewitchment. Hideo is skeptical and urges her to see a doctor. Like Ginny’s friends, she realizes, Hideo is sure that she is having a mental health crisis. Minerva has no intention of contacting health services, but she does steal one of the stuffed birds from her room, a canary, and stick pins in it to create a talisman. She will have to ward off this evil presence on her own.

The narrative returns to Alba’s family farm in 1908. Alba approaches a clearing near the river she scouted earlier in the day. It is nighttime now, and she has brought a rabbit to offer to the teyolloquani and a rope for the spell. In case of emergency, she also has a pistol. She kills the rabbit, skins it, and yells out to alert the witch to her presence. Soon, she hears its eerie cry. It arrives in the clearing. Alba observes the creature: It has fearsome, dead eyes and looks to be made from a mixture of different animals. It emanates a soft, green light. It begins feeding on the rabbit skin, and Alba utters the binding spell Valentín taught her.

She tells the witch that she is binding it to this location with earth, air, water, and fire, tying knots in her rope as she goes. By the time she reaches the 12th knot, the creature will be vanquished. As she proceeds, it approaches her. It speaks to her in Tadeo’s voice, telling her to stop. She knows that witches try to trick their victims, so she goes on with the spell. When she gets to the 12th knot, it becomes angry and begins fighting with her. Again, it speaks to her in Tadeo’s voice. Steeling herself, she shoots it. As it dies, she realizes that the creature had possessed Tadeo, transforming his appearance. Alba despairs, knowing that his earthly body is long gone. As he lies dying, Tadeo tells her to live. He melts into the earth, and Alba weeps.

The narrative returns to 1998 at Stoneridge College. Minerva draws witch marks in various places around her rooms and begins to bring the bird talisman with her everywhere. She contacts Tremblay’s friend Benjamin and arranges to meet him in Boston. Benjamin serves her tea in mismatched mugs and tells her he and Tremblay had shared a lifelong friendship and lived together for a time. Minerva asks about Ginny, and Benjamin tells her that he’d been working for a newspaper when Ginny disappeared, and he covered the story. He explains that Santiago started working at the Wingrave factory at the beginning of December, but then disappeared five days before Ginny. When Benjamin began poking around the factory, Carolyn’s father called Benjamin’s boss and killed the story. The police were uninterested in Santiago because he was an immigrant with very little money.

After Ginny disappeared, Carolyn gave Edgar a shoulder to cry on, and they married not long after. Benjamin has a low opinion of Carolyn and notes the way that she has used people for her own ends. She discriminated against him because he was Jewish, and he thinks that she scapegoated Santiago because he was Portuguese. Benjamin has the Black List of disappearances and some of Ginny’s other things. He confirms what Minerva knew about Edgar: He’d remained lifelong friends with Tremblay, and it was he and not Carolyn who preserved Ginny’s papers and promoted Tremblay’s writing. On her way back to campus, Minerva is sure that she’s being followed.

After she meets with Benjamin, Minerva has dinner with Hideo. They discuss their thesis projects, and then she heads home. She loses herself in the Black List, contemplating the stories she finds within the scrapbook’s pages. Suddenly, a car approaches, but its headlights are the wrong color: They glow a soft green. She realizes it is not a car, and the light begins to envelop the space around her dorm. She shuts the shades, but the light enters the house. The phone rings. It sounds as if someone is pounding on the back door. Everywhere there are loud noises. Minerva clutches the bird talisman, and eventually the light recedes.