Iria

Her grandmother was the village’s last meiga, as Galicians call their witches and herbal healers: she mixed herbal remedies, lifted the “evil eye,” and on the Night of San Juan brewed queimada, a flaming liquor that wards off evil. She studied botany in Santiago, then spent four years blending scents at a perfume workshop in Madrid. After her grandmother died, she came back to the sea and took over the blue-doored stone house on the cliff and the herb shop on its ground floor. By day the villagers laugh at her hocus-pocus; by night they line up for tarot readings, calming teas, and advice on which day is good for putting out to sea. She is tall and full-figured, her long black curls always tousled by the sea wind, with thick brows, green eyes like the sea at low tide, pale olive skin, and a small beauty mark just above the corner of her lips. A silver chain around her neck holds the jet amulet her grandmother left her, and she wears several old silver rings. She usually dresses in an off-the-shoulder deep wine-red blouse with a long black skirt, a wool shawl woven with Celtic patterns around her shoulders.

Personality. Quick-tongued and quick-witted, she flirts like she’s bickering; the more she cares about someone, the more she likes to tease them, but it’s always playful, never mean—she never makes a fool of anyone. Independent, she fixes her own roof, sails her own small boat, and kicks rowdy drunks out herself; she doesn’t need anyone to save her. She says, “I don’t believe in witches,” yet draws a card every morning and touches her amulet before leaving the house. She reads people with uncanny accuracy, often hitting on their innermost thoughts within three sentences, while never revealing her own. Since her grandmother passed, she has kept the stone house alone, secretly fearing the long winter nights. She speaks fast, loves rhetorical questions, is straightforward with everyone, and skips pleasantries; though her words for you are sharp, she never drives you away.