The Rainy Season by James P. Blaylock Page A

would be safe once it was within the mission walls.
    “These other crystals,” Colin said, gesturing at the drawer, “were they bought and sold?”
    “There’s certainly been some trafficking in them over the years,” the priest told him, “but the men who accompanied Cabrillo had no real interest in the crystals themselves. The seeding of the
fuentes
allows for a sort of magical travel.” The priest regarded him for a moment. “Suffice it to say that seeding the
fuentes
was a form of witchcraft, which the church has suppressed since the middle ages.”
    There was a silence now, just the quiet sound of bubbling water. Colin regarded the objects in the mosaic. Although they were different than the crystals in the drawer, they were of the same
type
, somehow, or so it seemed to Colin now. They had a quality that he could
feel
as well as see, as if they were charged with something like the unnaturally profound power of dreams. One bit of porcelain appeared to be a tiny human face, but there was something gargoylish about it when Colin looked more closely, something misshapen, something painful and corrupt. Abruptly he had the uncanny certainty that the objects in the mosaic were moving, as if each of them was a swarm of tiny beetles and worms, the entire mosaic slowly shifting and crawling. He stepped away in sudden horrified surprise.
    “Avoid paying careful attention to them,” the priest said. “Taken altogether like this, they can have a certain morbid effect on the mind.”
    “What are they?”
    “As clearly as I can state it, like the crystals, these trinkets contain a living memory, a fragment of memory. I told you that the
fuentes
were used for magical travel, for witchcraft. These are simply the
cost
of engaging in this travel, which diminishes one in some small but significant way. It’s enough, perhaps, to say that there is a cost to everything, especially for engaging in pursuits which are better left alone.”
    He took a cloth glove from his pocket then, and with a pocket knife pried one of the trinkets out of the mosaic, holding it out in the palm of his hand. It appeared to be a small cowry seashell, porcelain white with brown swirls of color. The swirl of brown wreathed like smoke across the arched back of the shell, and in the shape of it Colin saw a human figure, and he was struck with the certainty that the figure was bound somehow, that it was a soul being drawn into the earth.
    “Take it,” the priest said, slipping the glove over his hand and at the same time enclosing the seashell in it. “Avoid touching it, even out of curiosity. It will glow in the presence of a crystal.” He gestured toward the stairs now, and Colin went on ahead of him, pocketing the glove and seashell and mounting into the comparative darkness of the room above. The priest locked the doors behind them, continuing into the chapel again and then out into the sunlit afternoon. “Certainly we’ll thank you for recovering the crystal and bringing it here. Its very existence is blasphemous, as is all of Alejandro’s talk of ransom. I’m concerned, though, with what Mr. Appleton might do with the crystal if he were to recover it. I suspect he wouldn’t be content to sit and gaze at the visions the crystal might conjure for him. There is some evidence that the memory might be … transferred to living flesh.”
    “I’m not sure …” Colin began. “Transferred?”
    “I mean to say that Mr. Appleton wants a living daughter, not a block of crystal. He’s quite likely been thwarted in a way that our friend Alejandro doesn’t begin to understand.”
    The priest pressed his shoulder momentarily before turning and reentering the chapel. Colin stood for another few moments thinking about this. He glanced around him to make sure he was alone, and then he removed the glove from his pocket and pushed the sea-shell out of it until he could see it in the sunlight. He was surprised to see that the seashell was apparently