Page 108 of The Hacienda
Slowly, I rose. My limbs were stiff; my head ached from a night of little sleep. My eyes burned from tears shed and unshed, from the dust the carriage left in its wake.
It wasrightfor Beatriz to leave. Just as it was right for me to stay here, on this land, with the people who needed me most.
That did not mean saying goodbye would be easy.
***
IN THE WEEKS THATfollowed Beatriz’s departure, I often sought solace in the house. During the siesta hours, when I knew Paloma andMendoza would not be frequenting their realm—a small drawing room off the kitchen in the main house repurposed for their bookkeeping and general use—I would walk the path through the front garden, up the low steps, and into the shadow of the threshold.
One day, six weeks after Beatriz’s farewell, I entered the house and felt a tug of awareness from the rafters. I closed the front door behind me, surveying the dim foyer with narrowed eyes.
The door of the green parlor swung open with a low creak. An invitation. A quiet beckoning.
The house wanted me to go into the room. With Doña Catalina gone, it went through phases of deep sleep and sentience, the latter frank and guileless, if occasionally prone to mischief. I was not afraid as I walked straight to the green parlor and stepped through the open door.
A white envelope lay on the carpet in the center of the room, its intentional placement and the contrast of paper against dark green rug capturing my attention.
How odd. Paloma and Mendoza were not fond of this room, and therefore it was unlikely they had forgotten any of their bookkeeping notes here. Though weeks had passed since the night of my failed exorcism, the night the darkness unleashed its full fury on me, the walls of the room still hummed with my touch. Memories swirled through my mind as I drew near: Juana slouched in this chair ignoring the hacendados, Doña Catalina resplendent as a demon in the firelight. Mariana flinching away from me. Beatriz sitting on the flagstones when the parlor was bare; her face, framed by dark wispy curls and illuminated by candlelight, open and unafraid.
You’re a witch.
I savored the memory of her voice. The way her whisper held a profane, exquisite power over me, how its brush could send an aching trill down my spine.
When I was near enough to make out the name written in a looping, thin hand, I froze mid-step.
It was addressed tome.
Distantly, I was aware of my heart losing its rhythm, caught off-balance by a swift updraft of hope. I did not recognize the handwriting when I picked it up, but when I turned it over, the unmistakable Solórzano seal was embedded in dark green wax.
Beatriz.
I knew Paloma had her address, for she had mentioned their correspondence over dinner one night. When at last I could not resist any longer, I went looking for it. Without asking her permission—out of fear that doing so would raise her suspicion—I snuck into her and Mendoza’s realm.
How I would confess this sin to Padre Guillermo was a thorny question. And what of confessing the reasonwhyI wanted to write to Beatriz? I thrust the thought away whenever it crossed my mind. I guarded the memories of her last night in San Isidro fiercely, protecting them from the harsh light of reality. I was not ready to repent. I was not ready to let go.
Perhaps I should have respected the finality of her farewell, let my path and hers continue to diverge. But I was weak. I wrote her a letter and sent it. Hastily followed by a second, dashed off when anxiety spun me awake in the black of the night; this was briefer, formal, apologizing for assuming she wanted to hear from me, apologizing for the contents of the first, which were decidedly... raw. Perhaps inappropriate. Certainly stupid.
I had not let myself hope for a reply. How could I? What if I had, and a reply never came? Or what if she did reply...? I did not know what I would do then.
Now that it had happened, I discovered that my hands had begun to shake.
The house shifted around me. Could I interpret its creaking as self-satisfied? As pleased with itself? Perhaps it had filched this from Paloma and Mendoza’s bookkeeping room. Perhaps, over the course of my quiet visits, it had sensed that a hole was gouged open in me as well, that I was healing from wounds just as it was.
Perhaps it also sensed the reason why. A curious presence tugged at my attention from above. I heard no words—houses, healed as I had healed this one, were not capable of speech—but I understood its question.
Where?it wondered.Where is she?
I knew whichsheit referred to. Not María Catalina, no—it was relieved to be rid of her. Thesheit had helped save, by whisking us down the stairs and out the door the night of the fire. She who had left with the intention of never returning. She whose letter I slipped into my pocket.
“Gone,” I whispered. “It’s just you and me, now.”
I walked to the doorway and patted it as I passed through, as one would pat the flank of a horse at the end of a long, exhausting journey.
Somewhere upstairs, a door slammed.
I jumped, snatching my hand back with a curse.
Soft laughter spilled overhead. I looked up at the rafters, heart thumping against the inside of my chest. That was not the shrill, girlish giggle that plagued Beatriz and me over the last few weeks—no, this was a harmony of different voices, some smokier and older than I had ever heard before.
