Page 85 of The Hacienda
She set charcoal and paper on the table crisply.
“Be quick about it,” she said.
I kept my instructions shorthand and as spare as possible. Paloma knew the names of the herbs; it was a matter of which ones to crush in a molcajete and how much broth to boil. What symptoms Mariana should expect after drinking the mixture. That the cramping would pass within a week, but if the bleeding continued for longer, to send for me.
No sound but the scratching of the charcoal on paper disturbed us. I did not notice how silent the voices in the rafters had fallen until a new voice—a real, mortal voice—shattered the peace of the kitchen.
“What is this?”
Paloma and I jumped, our faces whipping to the door.
Doña Catalina, the patrón’s wife, stood in the doorway of the kitchen, the lit candle in her hand illuminating her frighteningly pale face.
“Padre Andrés came to discuss my mother’s illness,” Paloma blurted out. “She has a weak heart but is quite proud and often refuses help, doña. He is our kin, so—”
Doña Catalina swept into the room like a cloud of white smoke, a dressing gown swathing her like a saint’s robe. She narrowed her eyes at me; seeing I was in the middle of writing, she drew close enough to read.When I moved my hand and forearm in a vain attempt to conceal the writing, she snatched the paper away.
Even in the light of her candle, it was clear how color rose to the high points of her pale cheeks as she read.
She put the paper down, then seized Paloma by the forearm with a sudden violence that brought me to my feet.“Is this for you?”
“No!” Paloma and I cried in unison.
“Silence,” Doña Catalina spat at me. “Get out of my house.”
I stepped forward instinctively, meaning to put myself between my cousin and the snake that bared its fangs at us, ready to strike.
“Release her,” I said. “This has nothing to do with her.”
Doña Catalina took a step back, yanking Paloma to her feet with her. She was tall and had no trouble looking me dead in the eye.
“That is enough.” Her voice was deathly soft. Paloma yelped; Doña Catalina’s long fingernails dug into my cousin’s skin. “You have no business contradicting me before my servants, nor encouraging them to sin. I knew when I first came to this godforsaken place that a mestizo priest meant corruption among the villagers, but I expected drinking and licentiousness. I did not expectthis.”
“I protect their health and their souls, doña,” I said archly. Stung pride goaded me, loosened my tongue. “It is not easy, when they suffer so at the hands of their patrón.”
“Youdarespeak of my husband that way?” she said.
“Let her go,” I snapped.
“I think not, Padre Andrés.” Then her face shifted, mercurial as smoke. Anger carved the delicate lines of her face deep, transforming her beauty into something brutal as a coy, sharp smile played across her lips. “Leave.Or I shall tell Padre Vicente you not only trespassed on my property, you spread satanic beliefs among the villagers.”
This robbed my reply from my lips. Padre Vicente was just waiting for an excuse to condemn me, and I had just put all the proof he needed inwriting. All my years fighting to remain hidden would be for naught; already robbed of my grandmother, the villagers would be robbed of me too. If the Inquisition was merciful, I would be removed from Apan and appointed elsewhere after a thorough reeducation. If not... I could be imprisoned. Tortured.
Fast as a snake’s strike, Paloma twisted out of Doña Catalina’s grasp. She snatched the paper and the cloth bag of herbs and flung herself across the kitchen.
“Don’t!” I cried.
Paloma threw the dried herbs and paper into the fire. The embers flared, leaping and devouring evidence of my work like kindling. Even if Doña Catalina held true to her word and told Padre Vicente I had been on the property and what I had intended to do, neither he nor inquisitors would have any evidence with which to condemn me. In moments, only the acrid smell of burning herbs clinging to the air and soot would remain.
Doña Catalina crossed the room and slapped Paloma across the face.
The breath left my lungs. Paloma had hinted that the patrón’s wife was cold and unpopular among the villagers. She had said outright that Ana Luisa loathed her and would do anything to be rid of her white-knuckled control of the house. Now I understood why. I understood why Paloma rarely spoke of her, why Mariana flinched at sudden movement.
I sprang between them, fury leaping bright and hungry as the kitchen fire in my chest. That box I kept locked in my breast strained until its bindings loosened; tendrils of what lay within seethed out and rippled off my skin like heat.
“Don’t touch her,” I shouted.
The fire matched me, licking high as it devoured the darkness that began to roll off me. It reflected in Doña Catalina’s light irises, opening a window into Perdition. I loathed her then. I hated her with more wicked, burning power than I had ever felt toward any living being.
