Page 27 of The Hacienda
The wood smelled of recent lacquer; inside the air was close and warm, but not unpleasantly so. It felt like stepping into the solemn quiet of someone else’s mind. I sank to my knees, skirts settling around me, my face close to the grate that separated the sides of the confessional.
“Forgive me, Padre, for I have sinned,” I murmured, dipping my chin out of habit.
“Something iswrongwith that house.”
My head snapped up. From his visit to my property I had learned that Padre Andrés’s voice was low, thickened by a gentle, sleepy rasp. Now, it hummed with urgency.
I tightened my clasped hands as if in a fervent prayer of gratitude. “Thank God,” I whispered. The words came out strangled; hot tears had leaped to my eyes and lingered there, stinging. “Youunderstand.”
“I felt it the moment I stepped through the gates,” Padre Andrés said. “It didn’t use to be like that. My aunt is Doña Juana’s cook, and I used to—”
A sharp rapping sounded on the confessional door.
I jumped.
“Carajo,” Padre Andrés breathed.
My hand rose to my lips in surprise. A priest? Cursing?
“There’s a storeroom behind the sacristy,” he whispered. “We can talk there. I—”
Light flooded the confessional.
“Padre Andrés!”
His head snapped to the door; a lock of straight black hair fell into his eyes. I had noticed his good looks when I first met him—how could I not have, when sun poured down on him like a saint in a painting?—but now that I was hidden behind the grate of the confessional, I could peer at him unseen. Shadow carved out sharp cheekbones and a severe, aquiline nose; sensitive hazel eyes blinked as they adjusted to the light. He frowned as he looked up at someone out of my line of sight.
“Padre Vicente, a parishioner wishes to have her confession heard,” Padre Andrés announced, voice open and innocent.
Padre Vicente. My chest tightened.
“Then why are you in here?” Padre Vicente’s voice was aghast. Accusing.
Evidently, confessions were not a responsibility of Padre Andrés’s. He was not a full parish priest, then. Perhaps he was too young, or perhaps his mixed heritage prevented him from taking on such responsibilities when criollo priests like Vicente and Guillermo ran the parish.
Padre Andrés blinked. He opened his mouth to speak. A short beat passed.
Then he grasped for something in the confessional and lifted a book in a swift movement. “My book of prayers. Padre Guillermo borrowed it and must have left it here by accident.”
Gold lettering winked at me through the confessional grate, peeking cheekily through Padre Andrés’s long brown fingers.The Holy Gospel.
A giggle rose to my lips. I pressed my hand over my mouth to keep it from escaping.
“Out!” Padre Vicente snapped.
Padre Andrés obeyed. His exit was neither graceful nor immediate; judging from the low thump of a skull against wood, it seemed the confessional was not built for someone of his height.
Padre Vicente settled into the confessional across from me, his pale, thinning hair nearly translucent in the light. He shut the door with a click and settled in with an expectant sigh.
“Buenas tardes, Padre,” I said, speaking out of the corner of my mouth to disguise my voice and layering in as much piousness as I could summon. My heart sank. I actually had to confess my sins to Padre Vicente before I followed Padre Andrés, didn’t I?
Carajo, indeed.
“Forgive me, Padre, for I have sinned...”
***
TEN EXCRUCIATING MINUTES LATER,I stepped from the confessional and walked quickly to the back of the church. I exited through a smaller side door, deeply grateful that anonymity etiquette dictatedPadre Vicente would wait until I was out of sight before stepping from the confessional himself.
