Page 59 of The Hacienda
He faced the circle, his eyes fluttering shut, and began to chant softly. His hands extended out in front of him, palms facing upward like a supplicant’s. I fell back a step.
The humming I had noticed earlier increased. It rose in volume and pitch, a swarm of bees filling the room; pulses of it rolled over my skin in waves, raising gooseflesh. Quickening my heartbeat.
Soon, I became aware that Andrés’s voice faltered. Though I could notunderstand him, I thought he was pausing, and starting again. The humming hovered at one pitch and then dropped, and began its slow rise anew.
Finally, Andrés stopped chanting altogether. I waited for him to turn to me, I waited for solace to flood over us like dawn after a long night... but the determined line of his shoulders collapsed. He lowered his head, held it in his hands.
The hum of the circle continued. If I closed my eyes, I could still see the circle as if it were etched in red marks on the inside of my eyelids. My intuition told me he was not finished yet. “Did you close it?”
“No.”
A long moment of silence passed.
Distantly, a trill of mocking laughter. Cold shot down my spine.
“Are you going to try again?” I asked.
He inhaled deeply. “I can’t.”
He couldn’t? What did that mean? I drew forward a step, the click of my shoes on flagstone echoing through the room. He had steepled his hands before his face, pressing them to the hard line of his mouth. His face was gray, his gaze fixed on the circle, unmoving, not even as I drew close.
I thought of him on his back on the floor of the capilla, gray faced and coughing, his teeth stained with blood.Can’t fix broken witches.
Last night and the shock of this morning were trying for me, but even more so for him.
“You need to rest,” I said. If I were honest with myself, I would admit that I wanted to saylet me care for you. If he was my protector through the night, I would be his in the day.Share this burden, I meant to say.You’re not alone.Instead, I bit my tongue. Resisted the desire to take him by the arm. The situation we found ourselves in was dangerous enough. Becoming too familiar with him could lead nowhere but more trouble. “Come, let’s go to the kitchen.”
“I can’t remember.” The tremble in his voice struck a hollow note. Hisexpression as he stared at the circle—was that fear behind his eyes? “The right prayer. I can’t remember it. I can’t close it. Ican’t.”
His voice cracked over the last word. Sympathy yawned in my chest; now I did let myself put a light hand on his forearm. But deep in my bones, I did not believe him. How could I? Andrés cured the sick. Andrés rose into the air like a saint. Andrés was capable of anything. “Do you have it written down somewhere? Among your things in town?”
“No.”
The defeat in his voice chilled me. Was it that that drew gooseflesh over my arms, or was the temperature of the room dropping? Were the shadows thickening, growing stronger as they fed on the taste of our fear, or was it my mind playing tricks on me?
“Then how—”
“I memorized everything,” he said sharply. “It is too dangerous to write. And I—” His voice caught. His eyes had taken on a glassy cast. He was on the verge of tears.“I can’t remember the words.”
I saw him being flung against the wall as if he were no more than a rag. The darkness had not killed him. But by smashing his head against the wall, by injuring him so, it had taken something almost as precious as his life: his ability to protect us all.
A sharp spike of fear dug into the back of my skull.
“Is there anything that doesn’t require words?” I asked, fighting to keep rising panic out of my voice. “Something where you act on instinct, or you could improvise, or use castellano...”
“Absolutely not,” he snapped. Anger crackled like lightning over his words, drawing his shoulders back sharply as he turned to me. He said, “This—what I did in this room last night—it must becontrolled. It’s dangerous. You don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
A flush rose to my cheeks and smarted there. No, I did not understand his witchcraft. But I understood that it was dangerous to be without protection in this house. Without his power, we were bare and defenselessagainst the darkness. Yet here we still stood, unshielded and unarmed, surrounded by the house, by the malice that festered and spread in its walls like an infection.
We were its prey.
Beatriz.I stiffened. A voice called my name, rising in my mind though I heard nothing. The hairs on my arms stood on end.When is nightfall, Beatriz? When is day?
My fingers curled tight around Andrés’s arm; I cast a wild look around the room.
No one was there.
“Andrés,” I hissed. “I hear a voice. Do you hear it?”
