The Hacienda(24)

Nothing else in the rooms seemed disturbed by the wind. Not the curtains, not my papers, not Papá’s map in the study. Only me. Me and the candles.

I had to focus on lighting the copal. It must be the reason the kitchen seemed so quiet when Ana Luisa was in it, empty of something the way the rest of the house never was. It had to be the solution. It had to be.

I nursed the end of the block of resin as its tip reddened and began to smoke, cupping my hands around it and coaxing until the plume grew hale and curled toward the ceiling. Slowly, the temperature of the room began to warm. The chill seeped away; the darkness grew warmer, less dense.

A wink of red light caught my eye from the study, hovering about a meter and a half off the ground. It moved closer and closer to the bedroom, approaching with the quiet determination of a hunter.

I leaped to my feet and slammed the bedroom door shut. I stuffed the key in its hole and locked it as swiftly as I could.

Click.

I withdrew the key.

The room was silent. My racing heartbeat began to slow. The numbness had faded from my fingers, and soon would from my freezing feet and arms. Now that I had copal, I would be able to sleep.

I stepped away from the door.

Thundering erupted over the door from the study, as if a thousand fists were hammering against it, pounding and pounding with immortal force.

I flung myself back, narrowly missing the end of the four-posted bed as I fell to the floor in a heap. The thundering paused, then began again with renewed force, so hard the door handle rattled and bounced against the wood. I imagined the hands that had shoved me on the stairs, icy and disembodied, pounding and pounding. The door was going to break off its hinges. It was going to cave in, and whatever was making that noise, whatever had red eyes and moved with the silence of a ghost, was going to sweep into the room and come for me.

But it never did. The pounding would stop, then begin again, but the door never gave out. I nursed the resin incense and lit candles, then sat with my back against the stucco wall, my knees curled to my chest, my hands over my ears.

That was how the night passed. Pounding on the door, then silence. Pounding, then silence. The silences were never the same length; long after midnight I began to drift off in one of the longer pauses, and then would wake with a strangled scream as the thundering of thousands of hands attacked the back of the door.

The sun rose. My incense burned low. My sanity was in tatters, shredded by a thousand claws.

It wasn’t until morning light crept into the room and silence stretched long, longer than it ever had in the night, that I summoned the courage to peer through the keyhole into the study.

It was empty.

Of course.

What had I expected to see? A thousand people, snoring in heaps on the floor after a taxing night of terrorizing the lady of the house?

It took me a full hour after that to brave opening the door, and by then, it was time to greet the priests.

I expected to see Padre Guillermo, looking maddeningly well rested, his pale face cherry bright from the walk up the hill from the stables. But the first of the priests who entered San Isidro’s courtyard was younger, his thinning pale hair streaked with gray only at the temples. A light sheen of sweat shone on his brow as he strode toward me. Padre Andrés followed at his shoulder, his chest rising and falling as slowly as if he had ambled lazily across the plaza de armas on his long legs. Though he was also dressed in black, no sweat shone on his brow. Streaks of red winked in his dark hair in the midmorning sunlight as he followed the other priest’s example and nodded his hello.

“Buenos días, do?a,” the first priest said. “I am Padre Vicente.”

“Welcome, Padres,” I said. “Where is Padre Guillermo?”

“He is busy,” Padre Vicente said, taking a handkerchief to dab the sweat at his brow. He did not deem it necessary to elaborate.

He was taller than Guillermo, and not as plump; his middle-aged face had fewer lines and a cool, settled expression that stoked a curl of fear in my belly. Was it that his straight-backed confidence was that of the fiercely pious, or that his assessment scraped over me in a way that was far too close to Tía Fernanda for comfort?

I cleared my throat. “Thank you for coming all this way in his stead,” I said. “Please, come into the house.”

I made sure I spent the requisite amount of time charming them, seating them on the terrace overlooking the half-weeded back garden. I asked Ana Luisa to bring them cool drinks; she sent Paloma instead. I spoke of weather and the other hacendados with Padre Vicente, leaning on all the high-society airs I had learned while living in the capital in an attempt to impress him. Men like him only pitied women they deemed worthy of the effort: the wealthy, those of high class. I was not born one of these. I had to rely on my new surname and acting the part. Though I was exhausted and felt close to shattering from the night before, I poured all my energy into trying to endear myself to him. Despite my efforts, Padre Vicente only half listened to me; my initial curl of fear spread, winding tight and trembling around my spine.

Padre Andrés remained silent. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I caught a strange expression cross his face—it took on a distant look, as if he were eavesdropping on another conversation.

But there was no one else in the house to eavesdrop on.

A moment later, his expression cleared. It was calm and attentive as he nodded along with whatever Padre Vicente was saying.