Page 52 of The Hacienda
“I will go clean up the parlor,” I said.
“Don’t touch the circle.” The urgency in his exhausted voice sent a chill down my spine. “Donotgo inside the marks. I can still feel it. It’s... active. Please, be careful.”
“I will,” I promised, and let my hand fall. He ducked his head gingerly beneath the low doorway and melted into the darkness of Ana Luisa’s house.
What had we done?
I began the walk up to the house, my feet heavy with dread. What would I find there?
“Beatriz.”
I whirled to face the voice. Juana was walking up the path to the villagers’ quarters. She held two letters in one hand and waved them at me, gesturing for me to come to her. One was opened, the other not.
My heart lifted with hope. Was one from my mother?
Any other day, I would have stood my ground and insisted she come to me. Dig in my heels for a battle of wills to see which one of us was the true master of San Isidro. But not today. I didn’t have the strength to fight her.
There was mud on her skirts. Her hair was mostly undone from its plait and falling around her face; thin blades of hay stuck out from amidst the sandy brown of her hair.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“I was drunk and fell asleep in the stable,” she said bluntly.
I blinked in surprise. What on earth? Before I could ask what she meant by behaving that way, she handed me the unopened letter.
My own name winked up at me in Rodolfo’s elegant, sharp-tipped penmanship.
“He’s coming back for a short while,” Juana said, flat and unamused. “He’ll arrive the day after tomorrow.”
“What a surprise,” I said, for I had nothing else to say. Not to Juana, anyway. My mind was racing past her, up the path and to the house, the house where a witch’s circle still hummed with power and the shadows ripped themselves from the walls to prowl the grounds.
“Whatever charlatan’s game you have the priest playing up at the house, be done with it,” Juana said, her pale eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that made my skin crawl. “He was banished from San Isidro for a reason. Perhaps you’re amused by native superstition, but you know how little patience Rodolfo has for it.”
I nodded knowingly, though I did not know. Banished? There were many things I had not discussed with Rodolfo; banishment was one of them. Andrés had not mentioned it either. I did not trust myself to speak, not when a hot hum of anger coiled in my throat at Juana’s condescending tone.
Charlatan. Native superstition.Who did she think she was, to dismiss Andrés so? Couldn’t she see the way the people looked at him, how they needed someone like him? Or did she simply not care? Didn’t she know it was his own power that inspired Ana Luisa’s protective copal? His work was a gift. It might have the power to save lives in the battle we waged against the house.
A long, thin wail rose from the direction of Ana Luisa’s house.
My heart curled in on itself. Poor Paloma.
“What’s going on over there?” Juana asked sharply, as if only then noticing the heavy mood that hung over the courtyard.
“Haven’t you heard?” I asked. Her expression did not change. She was waiting for me to continue. “The Lord took Ana Luisa in the night.”
I wasn’t sure what I expected from my sister-in-law. I knew she and Ana Luisa were close—their camaraderie an easy, well-worn thing born from years of being in each other’s company. Did I expect her to break into Paloma’s sobs? To look as if the wind had been knocked out of her like Andrés?
“Well,” she said coldly. “Well.”
And that was it.
She turned sharply on her heel and strode to the stables.
***
THE FRONT DOOR OFthe house was ajar, just as I had left it last night when I stumbled into the rain with Andrés. It gaped at me, a dark mouth, toothless and foul breathed. Darkness cloaked the hall beyond it.
It was morning, I told myself. Nothing could happen during the day.
