Turbinio

Bloodroots

You were sitting in a chair next to Cadichon, rubbing bloodroots and enjoying the company of the kitten purring on your lap. It's been a long day of uninterrupted work. By this time, it was about five o'clock in the afternoon and all the runners and visitors were drunk in the bars of the city. You cursed for a long time when you saw that you had no time left to buy your desired gramophone, although you doubted they were selling that kind of device in that city.

The next stage would start in about two days. You thought that wasn't long enough for Gyro's horse to recover. But you soon remembered that he mentioned something called zombie horse, to which paid no attention, while he insisted that you sew Valkyrie's wound with a dusty, dirty string that he kept. You were too distracted to question him then, but now that you had calmed down, you were sure it would help the animal recover faster.

Diego left before you could ask about what happened at the finish line. You still couldn't believe that Dio, a renowned jockey, would hurt a horse.

The day darkened with the imminence of a cold night, but the ring on your finger still shone in the dim light. Gold and silver. Full of engravings. You stretched your back and let out a long yawn. When you looked up, were amazed by a familiar figure.

He was a tall, young man, but mature, lean, and a pleasant exotic-looking. Hair and eyes pink, which you've never seen in your entire life. That race was being a series of new and impressive experiences – and beautiful, too.

But there was something about this man, Hot Pants, that wasn't right; a sense of something mysterious about his lips, something fierce and melancholy in his relaxed eyes. Something you didn't know how to discern, but you felt.

''Did I come too late? Have you closed your store?'' The man asked, at a comfortable distance from you. Although it seemed simple, he had been the first person to stay within the confines of your personal space. Diego and Gyro had an annoying habit of approaching you like they wanted to smell you.

You hate customers during your rest, but any money going into your pockets was welcome at that moment.

''Oh, it's okay, I haven't closed yet.'' Said, greeting him in a gesture and walking to your wagon as he accompanied you. ''You came at a good time. It's much better when there's only one customer. How can I help you? Herbs? Supplies? Esoteric services?''

''Esoteric services?''

''Exactly. Palmistry, clairvoyance, predictions... Something that interests you?''

You walked gracefully to the inside of your wagon. Some sandalwood candles illuminated the place. Hot Pants seemed slightly interested, but you feared it wasn't in a good way. You spent a few hours of your day organizing your workplace, leaving your ossuary to the public. As it seemed, there was everything. Small skulls of bats, from Argentina; rats and vipers of Nicaragua; transparent bones, dusty, with small teeth, nails of carnivorous ferocity. Cows and horses, vélasquez and galiceno. There were also skulls of monkeys, resistant in their tiny curves as those of the huge Cuban horses.

They exercised a certain attraction, so immovable and so beautiful as if the contours of the bones still retain the ghost of the flesh and what once sustained them. Hot Pants stretched his arm and touched one of the skulls, strangely inert.

''A cougar?'' He asked, in a low voice. A big skull, this one, with curved teeth to lacerate meat.

''Yep.'' You answered, looking at him with inviolable admiration.

''Where did you get all these bones?''

''They are of all the places I've been. This cougar is called sussuarana, it's from Paraguay.''