Page 64 of The Hacienda
Presently, their conversation calmed, and slowed; I heard Paloma settle into her bundle of blankets and, after a few minutes of silence, start to snore lightly. I shifted to put my back to the wall. Though by then I had closed my eyes, sleep did not come so easily. I listened to Andrés rise and rake the embers in the fire, the brush of bare feet on the ground, the shift of fabric being folded, the strike of flint and the blooming aroma of copal. A soft shuffle back to the bed.
I slitted my eyes, peering out through a veil of lashes. Andrés lay on his bed with one hand under his cheek. The crease of pain that he had carried all day between his brows had softened at last; his chest rose and fell slowly. If he was not asleep, he soon would be.
The fire lowered to embers. Its cast dyed his face the deep orange of twilight after a storm. Shadows hollowed his cheeks and the circles beneath his eyes.
Aren’t you frightened? Do you know what he is capable of?
I should be afraid of everything he did last night: calling on spirits, rising into the air. Everything I had ever heard from a pulpit or a whispered ghost story told me that witches were dangerous. They were cronies of the Devil.
Perhaps I was frightened of him. But one could fear and trust at the same time: whether because of that curl of intuition that drew me to him when he first came to San Isidro or because of the way he looked at me as if I were the sunrise at the end of a long, harrowing night, I believed he would not harm me.
These thoughts swirled through my mind as the embers died, their weight drawing me down into sleep at last.
I woke with a start. The room was silent, its dark the soft charcoal of safe places, but—
Behind me, the lock rattled. I pushed myself sharply up on my elbows, lurching away from the door. Andrés and Paloma were asleep, unaware.
Something was behind it. Something that caused a buzzing to build in the ground beneath my blankets, a persistent hum, like a far-off swarm of wasps drawing inevitably closer, closer...
I seized the copal censer, holding it in both hands between me and the door like a weapon.
Still the door groaned against its hinges, the whine of aging wood against a powerful winter storm. Cold seeped through cracks, reaching toward my blanket, shifting over my feet and legs like a physical weight.
“Don’t you dare come in here,” I hissed through gritted teeth. “Getout.”
For the length of several heartbeats, nothing happened. I could not breathe.
Then the door settled in its frame. The cold drew back. The humming slowed. Then it, too, faded, until I could hear nothing but Andrés’s and Paloma’s steady breathing behind me.
I don’t know how long I sat at attention, the censer in my hands, my focus honed on the door. My heart beating thickly in my throat.
Peace filled the room, settled, complete, disturbed only by the frantic pounding of my heart. It was so quiet.
Had I imagined it all?
***
IT WAS STILL GRAYthe next morning when Paloma insisted that she fetch José Mendoza to come to the house and fix the door of the green parlor.
“The patrón is on his way, and we’ve wasted enough time already,” she said, her tone of voice brushing Andrés’s concern away as sharply as a gesture. “The house is a disaster. We have no menu. How long is he staying? Only God seems to know, and now I have to plan for everything.”
She stepped outside, tying her apron strings with staccato gestures. Fingers of pale mist shrank away from her as she turned toward the village.
Andrés crossed the room in two steps and called after her from the doorway. “Donotgo inside until I get there, do you understand?”
Paloma waved a hand dismissively. “You don’t have to tell me twice,” she said dryly over one shoulder. “But hurry up. I’m hungry and I won’t wait forever to get into the kitchen.”
Andrés sighed deeply as he watched his cousin’s retreating back. A full night of sleep brought life back to his face; the look of constant pain that creased it yesterday had softened. A new look of concern settled in the line of his mouth as he looked at me pulling my shawl over my shoulders.
That concern was echoed in my own posture.
The patrón was returning tomorrow.
RODOLFO RODOLFO RODOLFO
“I’ve been thinking about that dream,” Andrés said softly. “The one you told me about yesterday.”
Flesh-colored claws, eyes burning, burning, burning...
