Page 16 of The Hacienda
She was afraid of thehouse.
Cold sank through my dress, into the bones of my arms, winding into my chest in icy rivulets.
Juana and Ana Luisa shut the door to the kitchen.
I was alone.
My single candle barely cut the darkness. My head spun as I lifted the handful of crushed herbs to my nose, crinkling my nose at its earthy scent.
A peal of childish laughter sounded behind me. The candle’s flame flickered wildly as I shrank away from it, heart slamming against my ribs.
There was no one there.
I grabbed skirts in my herb-filled hand. Forward. I had to get to myroom. The candle cast a thin halo of light, barely enough to see a foot in front of me.
More lilting laughter echoed behind me, coy and light, so unlike Juana’s amused bray. Was I imagining it? I had never been drunk before, and—based on the sway in my step and the spin of my vision—there was no doubt that I was. Did one hear things? Did one feel the clammy brush of cold against their cheek as if it were someone’s flesh?
I didn’t want to know. I focused on climbing the stairs as quickly as I could. Cool fingers brushed over my neck—no, I was imagining it, I had to be imagining the sensation of death-cold fingertips brushing over my earlobes, tugging at my hair.
Then two hands placed themselves on my shoulders and shoved me forward. I gasped as I fell to my knees, my temple striking the banister.
The voice grew clearer, shifting from mangled laughter into garbled speech, as if it were conversing with someone, lilting up the scale of pitch and anger as if it were asking questions, demanding answers...
Fright numbed the pain in my kneecaps and skull, narrowed my world to the candle before me, to the shuddering sensation of fingers tugging at my hair again.
I had to get away from it. What if those hands yanked me down the stairs? Would I end up like the rat on the front steps of San Isidro, head shattered on the cold flagstones?
Careful to hold the candle aloft, I forced myself to my feet, crouching protectively forward as I stumbled up the remaining stairs and ran to the patrón’s rooms. I thrust my weight against the door until it heaved open, then staggered into the parlor and let it slam shut behind me.
The voice stopped.
At the far end of the parlor, the dark shape of the chest came into view, its lid still arched open like an animal’s gaping maw. I cut it a wide berth and tripped over the doorway into my bedroom; I threw out my arm to catch myself and realized my mistake too late.
“No, no,” I cried as the flame of the candle vanished, extinguished by the rush of movement.
Darkness fell over the room like a wool cloak, stifling. Airless.
No.I could not be in this bedchamber in the dark. I could not. Not without Rodolfo.
My chest tightened at the memory of the flash of red eyes in the dark.
There were no cats on this godforsaken hacienda.
Juana had lied.
And she had sent me here alone.
My heartbeat raced as I fumbled through the dark for the matches I kept on my vanity, my hands clumsy because I would not release the fistful of herbs. There. There they were. Strike, strike, and a flare of flame burst to life.
“Thank God,” I whispered hoarsely, and lit the candles on my vanity. All of them. When I had an altar of trembling flame, their reflection in the mirror casting light into the rest of the room, I turned around.
Like an animal, the dark drew back.
A feral instinct unfurled at the back of my neck, under skin and muscle, flush to my spine.
I was notalone.
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