The Hacienda(15)

“I lied about the house being drafty,” Juana said in a small voice as we took the stairs. I cast her a look over my shoulder. Her face was drawn; she followed right at my heels, but her attention slinked down the wrought-iron banister to the northern wing. “The truth is . . . I am overwhelmed by it all. There is so much to do,” she said. She continued, her voice brightening and picking up speed. “There used to be so many people here, in the old days,” she said. “I remember it before the war more than Rodolfo does. It was always full of people when our parents threw parties. The kitchens were teeming with servants, and the house was always spotless.”

“Where are all the servants now?” I opened the door and led her into my bedroom parlor, listening carefully as she continued.

“I dismissed them,” Juana said curtly. “We couldn’t afford any of that during the war. When our father died and Rodolfo joined the insurgents, I was the only one left. None of the hacendados would help me after what Rodolfo did—imagine, a Solórzano joining the insurgents. He may as well have joined the Indios ransacking the haciendas. Our father was well respected in the district, but after that?” She shook her head and made a dismissive sound.

Her voice raked over the words Indio and insurgents derisively. I clicked my tongue softly in disapproval. For a moment, I weighed pointing out that those same people were the forces that all the conservative hacendados and monarchy-supporters had joined in the end of the war, that those insurgents were now the men who ruled the Republic. Those same people were the ones who made peace possible, thus allowing Hacienda San Isidro to continue to profit from the sale of pulque. They made Juana’s life possible. I glanced over my shoulder to see her features had settled into a stony, determined expression; I thought it better to bite my tongue.

“It was up to me to keep the hacienda running. Ana Luisa was my only help,” she continued, oblivious to my silence. “I had to manage the money carefully. It was that or sell the land.”

I understood the decrepit state of the house more now. It wasn’t that Juana cared more for maguey than for the garden. She neglected the house that had been in her family for generations because she would do anything to keep the land. An hacienda like this was freedom. I, too, had sacrificed to have autonomy like hers in my grasp.

Perhaps she and I had more in common than I initially thought. Perhaps we would not have to battle over the property—perhaps we could be allies. Even friends, despite our differences.

I knelt before the chest that held my silks. I had a deep blue skirt, one of the few things Mamá purchased for me before I announced my engagement to Rodolfo. I had been angry at her for spending our precious savings on something so frivolous as a birthday gift, but now I wanted to use its color all over the house in her honor: chair covers, china, glass. A click of the lock; I opened the chest.

“Jesus Christ!” Juana cried, her boots scraping against the floor as she leaped backward.

Dark liquid soaked the silks in the chest. I could not move; a metallic tang filled my nose. Sent my head spinning. My silks. Gifts from my mother, artifacts from a life I no longer had, that I clung to, that I treasured.

They were . . . wet. How was that possible? It had rained on the carriage as we drove through the mountains two weeks ago, but the chests had been covered.

I reached—

“Don’t touch it!” Juana shrieked.

My fingertips met sticky warmth. I drew them back sharply.

They were red. Bright bloodred.

Humming like a thousand bees filled my ears. A single, thick glob of scarlet dripped from my hand back into the chest, where it landed with a smack.

My silks. They were soaked in blood.





7





JUANA SEIZED MY SHOULDER and yanked me back from the chest.

“We’re going to the kitchen,” she ordered, her voice slicing through my shock. She shifted her grip to my arm and drew me sharply to my feet. “Come. Now.”

The kitchen? Why on earth would we do that, when there was enough blood in my chest to flood the carpet if it were tilted over? Juana’s face was stark white, her eyes wide as they darted about the room.

“I need to speak to Ana Luisa,” she said. Her voice was hollow, as if she were forcing it to sound a certain way. “To get to the bottom of who is behind this prank.”

I was still incapable of speech. Someone had ruined thousands of reales worth of my silks, and she called it a prank?

She half dragged me to the staircase. We took them fast, two at a time, thundering down into the shadows of the main hall. The temperature dropped as we did; I gasped as Juana yanked me past the corner that led to the north wing and its unnaturally sharp chill.

The heavy taste of copal on the air reached me before we saw Ana Luisa. We turned a final corner to the glow of the kitchen doorway, plumes of smoke reaching into the hall like curious fingers. Sprigs of herbs—the plants I had been weeding—were scattered on the ground at the kitchen’s threshold, and Juana stepped carefully over them. My skirts brushed the herbs aside as she dragged me to the back of the kitchen, which was open to the side garden.

Ana Luisa herself clicked her tongue loudly and set to rearranging the herbs I had knocked out of place; Juana reached violently for a jug of water and turned to me.

“Hold out your hand,” she barked.

I obeyed, eager to wash the blood off.