Page 75 of The Hacienda
“Oh, a mouse.” My voice came out so high it nearly cracked. Rodolfo’s expression deepened to a frown. “I’m jumpy because it’s so cold in here, querido,” I babbled as he led me up the stairs. “It’s quite drafty, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so.” He reached to his collar to loosen it. “If anything, it’s too warm. Keeping a fire like that in that small parlor on a night as mild as this was too much. You must speak to Ana Luisa about that.”
I nearly tripped over the next stair, stunned.Ana Luisa is dead, I wanted to shout.I told you. I wanted to seize him by the arm. I wanted to scream at him, to shame him. How could he not remember? How could he not care?
But the cold paralyzed me. It clawed at me as Rodolfo and I ascended, as if it wanted to draw me down, down, down...
As we reached the top of the stairs, I glanced over my shoulder.
The body lay at the foot of the stairs. It had moved. Itwasmoving. It lifted one arm—half bone, half rotting flesh—and seized the first pillar of the banister. It hauled itself up a step and raised its head to grin at me.
It was a skull; like its arm, shreds of flesh clung to it, and matted hair stuck to its crown with blackened blood. Lidless, empty eye sockets locked on me.
Then I blinked, and it vanished.
Cold sweat slicked the small of my back. Rodolfo was saying something about the decoration of the upstairs as he led me into the room that I had made a study, and then into the bedroom. I wasn’t listening. I was stunned, my heart hammering violently against my ribs, my eyes peeled wide.
I was going to die in this house.
I was going to shatter into a thousand pieces in the dark, crushed by the cold, by the agonizing malice of the watching, the knowing. I would die.
“Don’t you think?” Rodolfo was saying as he closed the door to the bedchamber behind us.
None of the candles were lit. I ignored him and seized the first box of matches I could find. I was aware of him watching me as I lit them on the table of my vanity; slowly, that awareness drew me back into myself. I could see the tremble in my hand, the frightened hunch of my shoulders. I could feel the concern in his posture.
Concern was dangerous. He was dangerous.
“So many candles, right before bed.” There was a light laugh in his voice.
“I... I was so lonely without you, you see,” I sputtered. I did not turn to face him but straightened. In the mirror, the light of the candles was reflected and expanded; beyond the line of my shoulder, Rodolfo was a dark silhouette, moving closer, closer, closer—
He took my arm.
I whirled to face him. He lifted my hand to his face and kissed the soft skin on the inside of my wrist.
An ancient instinct lifted in the back of my skull and sent a ripple of panic through my body.
I was prey. I was trapped.
“I was lonely too.” His voice was low, a rumble in his chest as he took me by the waist and pressed me to his body.
I needed to run.
I pushed against his chest. He did not release me but instead buried his face in my hair, kissing it, and moving to my neck.
I needed to throw him off, to wrench away. But I was nowhere near as strong as him—his hold on my body was like iron, and his shoulders curled around me in easy dominance.
“Querido, not tonight,” I breathed. My voice was strangled. He kept kissing my neck anyway. I imagined him growing fangs, long needlelike fangs, too many for his mouth, and flesh-colored claws, and—“Rodolfo.No.”
He loosened slightly, gazing down at me. If the intent of him was to look amorously at me, the candlelight shattered the effect: shadows emphasized the depth of his eye sockets, making them seem too deep, almost hollow—
I pushed him away.
He frowned, tightening his hold on my wrist. No. He could not become angry. He could turn on me in moments, he could—
“It is my time of the month,” I sputtered, forcing a smile to stretch my lips wide over the lie. My blood had come two weeks ago. Early, to my displeasure. Mamá once said the same used to happen to her in times of distress; if my experiences of the last weeks did not amount todistress, then I didn’t know what to call them. “It is quite uncomfortable, you know.”
Please. Please.I don’t know where I sent the prayer, but it was received.Rodolfo’s face realigned in a swift fall; he placed a soft kiss on my forehead and released me. “Of course.”
