The Hacienda(29)

A swell of relief overtook me. “Please,” I began. I tried to force a thank-you to my lips but couldn’t—for if I spoke, my voice would break, and take my composure with it. “Please come back to the hacienda.”

A long moment passed. I knew it was not an elegant invitation. It was just short of the begging of a madwoman. But I knew with a cold certainty, one that hung around my clavicles with the dread weight of a prophecy, that if I did not get help, I would die.

I had no one else to whom to turn.

Please.

“If anyone asks, say that you want Mass said for your villagers more regularly,” he said quietly. “It is common enough that, ah, no one will think more of it.”

No one clearly meant Rodolfo. So he knew of Padre Vicente’s letter and had decided to help me anyway. Another wave of gratitude rose thick in my chest. I wouldn’t have to explain that secrecy was required. He knew.

Because he believed me.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

He pushed himself away from the altar. “I think . . . I must ask you a favor, Do?a Beatriz. I will need to stay long enough to walk through the house at night.”

“Of course. When can you come?” A tremble wound through my voice.

“As soon as possible. Tomorrow.” Now his attention was fully on me, he was present, and he was watchful. “Do you feel you will be safe until then?”

No, my heart cried, my chest tightening around it like a vise. No.

His gaze fell to my hands. I had been holding them clasped loosely before me, but now they were tight. Too tight.

That was answer enough for him.

“Burn copal,” he said firmly. “Fill any room you stay in with smoke.”

“What does it do?”

“It purifies your surroundings.”

So it did work. If I was to defend myself tonight, I needed it. I didn’t want protection; I wanted tools with which to protect myself. “I don’t have any. Do you—”

He looked over my head, scanning the shelves that lined the back of the room. “We keep some in here, for when we run out of the imported kind Padre Guillermo and Padre Vicente prefer . . . Wait one moment.”

The room was so tight, the space between boxes and altar and abandoned pews so narrow. It was impossible not to touch; his hands were ginger, light as the brush of a wing as they guided me by the shoulders to one side so he could step behind me.

From her quiet place on the shelf, Our Lady of Dust and Secrecy met my eyes over the priest’s shoulder.

Heat flushed my cheeks. I was certain she saw it.

“Here.” Padre Andrés turned and pressed three large pieces of resin into my palm, his fingertips brushing my wrist. He drew his hand back quickly and cleared his throat. “I will pack some things and come to the property tomorrow after Mass,” he said, serious once more.

“Thank you so much,” I breathed, my fingers curling over the resin. “How could I ever repay you for your help?”

He dropped his gaze, eyelashes brushing his cheeks, suddenly shy once more. “Tending to lost souls is my vocation, Do?a Beatriz.”

The tenderness in his voice stole something from my chest, leaving me vulnerable and imbalanced.

“Is it not also Padre Vicente’s? Yet he had no interest in helping me,” I said. My bitterness hung on the air like smoke. That was the tone Mamá scolded me for time and time again, the one that made Tía Fernanda call me ungrateful and sharp.

It didn’t faze Padre Andrés in the least. He shrugged, birdlike with those slim shoulders. A slow, knowing smile played at the corner of his mouth. “He lacks expertise with certain things.”

“But aren’t you less experienced than him?”

Padre Andrés raised his eyes and held my gaze. Not with this, my gut said. “Do you trust me, Do?a Beatriz?”

I did. I felt it with a certainty as powerful as the sweep of a tide.

I nodded.

“Then I will see you tomorrow. I will arrive at the capilla around noon,” he said. “Buenas tardes, Do?a Beatriz.”

I dipped my chin to him in goodbye, the formality of the gesture so at odds with the intimacy of our conversation, how we stood only a foot apart from each other in a dim room.

I swallowed the thought quickly and raised my head with all the dignity I could muster. “Buenas tardes, Padre.”

“Please,” he said as I moved to the door. “Andrés. Just Andrés.”





11





THE NEXT DAY, I sat on the front steps of the house, waiting for night to fall. A candle burned on my right, already lit despite the still-orange skies. At my other side, copal in a censer released a steady, curling plume of mauve smoke.

A book sat abandoned by my side. Since Papá died, reading had been my constant companion, my path to escape the confines of my life. Not so since arriving at San Isidro. Paranoia rendered me incapable of losing myself in words, especially in the hours near sunset. What if I were to become too caught up in reading and night fell without me noticing? Without being prepared? It was the same fear that woke me with a start from my siesta that afternoon. With no one to judge me, no one to care, I had taken to bringing a blanket into the sun-flooded back terrace and drowsing on the steps that led to the garden, blood warmed by sunshine and lulled by the presence of lit copal.