(Avila,  Spain 1498) 

Out of the Castilian cities of Avila and Segovia swept the early rumors of an evil power mysteriously loosed upon the world. The Church had recently set up a grand tribunal branching out from Seville and Madrid to stamp out this plague which seemed to fester in the north at the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains and was already well at work down the other side into France. And this evil force, it was said, seemed to center around solitary or eccentric women living in the wilderness or at the edge of most towns or villages.

These were females who were otherwise helpers of the sick. Usually older women who had assisted with difficult births throughout their province or region. They were that certain one that gathered herbs for teas and medicines. Females who, young or old, were astute observers of nature and who understood the animal kingdom and its uncanny interface with humanity. Often they were strange individuals who knew about the heavens' influence upon us all. Perceptive dabblers that somehow understood what would be learned hundreds of years later—that human bodily fluids gave off scents that had effects upon peoples' attraction or repulsion of each other. They were, therefore, the makers of love potions and the casters of spells by mixing these ingredients for bringing sexual attraction, or revenge and misery upon those who had maligned or hurt. While at the same time they were females  who could bring good fortune, joy and elation to others who had come to seek it from them. Throughout history these were the women witnessed to spin the clouds in the reflection of water. To create stormy or copacetic weather, and to predict good sailing or bad for mariners. 

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Such was the profile of this mysterious young woman of Avila who was early widowed by age twenty-four. She was the daughter of a town councilman and someone who, from an early age felt she was different from all the other children who played in the town's plaza and forced to go to mass each Sunday. While still just a girl, Beatriz Ferrara had an affinity for, and inexplicable cooperation with animals. She was seen to have extraordinary gifts of insight and silent communication with both man and beast. She could, for instance, bring horses to her from a far field, uttering no sound at all. She could move a flock of birds at will by a hand held in the air—and could already interfere with the immediate fate of people who were kind or cruel to her by the tender age of thirteen.

Beatriz had always claimed it was the influence of the moon which impinged upon her powers. And as a teenager she quickly noted the changes of her moods and the intensity of her abilities were somehow related to her menstrual cycle , that twenty-eight day waxing then waning of the bright full moon to the invisible new moon. It was all in a predictable cycle of each month, she has observed. With an increased libido a few days before her period, also came a powerful restlessness and randomness to her moods which could become problematic for others at times. As an independent and moody teen, accidents might happen as she allowed her feelings to run free and unchecked. She might get up and dance on a table at these times, only to have her anger piqued, resulting in an unoccupied chair sailing across the room to crash into a wall. But It was also during these volatile, monthly outbursts  when she could stare into a young man's eyes and, cajoling with her rare beauty, give him an overwhelming urge to love her or want to possess her.

Mastering these currents and cycles by age twenty, the sensitive Beatriz had become somewhat of a celebrity in her wealthy neighborhood of Avila. She was known for creating remarkable solutions to problems, diagnosing illnesses, and concocting just the right cures for them from a vast collection of plants and raw materials she had amassed in the large upstairs quarters of her villa. Last but not least, she was known for attracting the most eligible of men.

They say that Enrique Lopez de Vera, her dashing eventual husband and a young attorney in the greater city of Segovia, would have someday been a great diplomat or attaché for the Crown, had he not died in a duel defending Beatriz's honor one afternoon. It was  following her being labeled a sorceress by a rival and former suiter, and more derogatorily a "bruja" or witch.

The young Enrique himself had become hopelessly enchanted with the dark-haired and shapely beauty—the celebrated girl of Avila, not least from her beguiling ways and powers of intuition. Only three years before, the two were engaged, and it was tragically just a year into their marriage when Senor Lopez de Vega was to die from a sword in her honor. Many acres of land around the countryside of Avila had been purchased by the wealthy Senor, and these suddenly became, along with her ancestral home, her future holdings. They were later sadly to become her only source of income when she was forced to sell portions of the grazing land for cash, owed as taxes to the Crown.

 As Beatriz's fortune steadily dwindled, so too did her desire to find another husband, though she was quite eligible and capable of doing so. She instead became isolated in her late twenties and more devoted to her uncanny powers. She began to shun the  social milieu with which she had been such a distinctive member, along with her former  and well-respected husband. But now a widow and choosing to continue wearing all black, Beatriz selected the more feral ways of life to the refined social conventions of her time. It was only a mater of  a year before this lifestyle brought on gossip and soon allegations, by mostly the jealous women of Avila, that the young Senora seemed to fit this new demonized profile of a solitary woman--suspiciously incarnate of evil.

Once, someone walking by her villa saw her dancing wildly by herself in an upper window. This they surmised was a clear sign of her cavorting with invisible forces. On other occasions she was seen bathing naked in a creek on the outskirts of town. For these and other perceptions of the townsfolk, the bold and independent Senora Ferrara was the most logical suspect for the Inquisitors when they made their visit to Avila. Some had declared during their questioning that she was seen with the devil himself, kissing and lying with him in the warm grasses of summer. Others had heard the rumor that while still helping the sick, she had hinted that her powers were a gift for her sexual service to Satan.

Beatriz Ferrara was easily accused of being a "bruja" the day the Church Inquisitors arrived in Avila from Seville. They were there to investigate any signs of the workings of the devil within the town. Being forewarned of their interest in her by some still-loyal, the young woman fled in the dark of night and was last seen heading out on horseback toward the forestlands near Torres. An organized search was initiated when the Church authorities were notified of her disappearance and believed destination.

After being mysteriously guided over several days and nights of travel, Beatriz arrived at the  small and isolated home of Senora Las Casas. It was located hidden in the woods outside  the town of Torres. There, the young Beatriz, exhausted and hungry, instantly found a friend in the old woman. It was to become a brief sanctuary for her under the aged senora's care. And it was exactly there,  much after the foul dust had settled involving the old woman's own involvement with evil--and her being brought to the town, tried, and then led away by the Inquisitors, that Beatriz surreptitiously stayed  in the  little house, hoping and waiting for Senora Las Casas' return.

That anticipated homecoming was to never happen, as the goodhearted Senora, along with many Crypto Jews and Morroscos (falsely converted Moors), collected in Segovia's prison. They they were to  await their Auto-da-fe--the barbaric spectacle of either their confession and acceptance of severe penitence or being burned alive at the stake before the masses. It was later reported to the townspeople of Torres that  the evil Senora Las Casas, along with four other witches, had indeed suffered the fires of damnation in Segovia at one of its early public burnings.

While waiting in her forest home, Beatriz busied herself with making the residence comfortable, and later adding to its supplies of herbs and natural ingredients used by herself for the healing arts. She lived there alone for several weeks, working to keep her presence  hidden. She declined  to have a fire or any candles lit at night until the late fall came, bringing the colder weather and forcing her to make the house a tolerable environment for her solitary survival.

For food and supplies, Beatriz would often disguise herself as an older peasant woman and descend into the town. She took what little money she had found left in jars by the old women, apparently a habit for years. On other occasions she feigned to be a relative of one of the villagers sent to buy the basics from the town street market. Yet when ever she arrived in the plaza with her own striking appearance, eyes would follow her, questioning the identity of this beautiful young stranger. No one, it seemed knew of her history or residence. It would only be a matter of time before the stories began to swirl around the town that she might be the very fugitive of Avila sought out by the Church authorities. She was in no time described as but another embodiment of evil—a devilish feminine force, best to be extracted from the village of Torres. 

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        (To be continued . . .)