"What is it?" Willa seized the woman's arm and shook it convulsively. "What has happened to Señora Reyes? Tell me!"
All at once a frail, crooked little form catapulted itself down the stairway and fell, sobbing, at the girl's feet.
"Señorita! Señorita Billie! The grandmama has vanished! She rose and went from the house in the dawn, when all were sleeping! She is gone!"
CHAPTER XVI
THE POOL OF THE LOST SOULS
Willa went home at last in a daze of consternation which took no note of the heightened storm. The unexpected catastrophe was a death-blow to her long-cherished plan, but even that faded for the moment before the stern anxiety for Tia Juana's safety.
The story which Willa succeeded in dragging from the Rodriguez woman and José was simple on the face of it, yet many possible complexities presented themselves to the girl's vivid imagining. Tia Juana had seemed contented enough in her new abode for the first day, taking a childish pleasure in the novelty of her surroundings, but later she had become depressed and sunk into a moody silence save that now and then she muttered ominously to herself and made strange gestures with her claw-like hands.
José she had driven from her harshly, only to seize and draw him close, and on the previous day she had eaten nothing, but crouched through the long hours before the glowing coals of her grate. At twilight she had demanded a large cooking pot which she placed upon the fire, and with an earthenware jar of liquid and sundry packets of herbs from the conglomerate heap of her luggage, she had brewed a concoction that piqued her landlady's curiosity.
It had not pleased Tia Juana, however, and after glowering darkly into its depths, she had flung it, pot and all, from the window down into the back yard.