The Hacienda(37)
When I woke, the house behind me was still. The garden was still. Even the grasses had ceased their whispering.
It was as if the house sensed Andrés’s presence. It was weighing it, tasting it. Deciding what to make of the echo of magic that bloomed from the green parlor into its clammy corridors, slipping through the house’s many cracks like smoke.
I left the house for the communal kitchen in the village, where I knew Ana Luisa was preparing lunch for the tlachiqueros and other servants.
Voices caught my attention; a group of villagers was gathered near the capilla, dressed in blindingly starched whites and brightly colored skirts. At the group’s center was Padre Andrés; at his side, a young woman with festive ribbons in her plaits bounced a small child on her hip. The child looked less than impressed with the spirited atmosphere; her hair was slick with water and shone like a newborn colt in the sunlight as she cast a suspicious look up at Andrés.
A baptism.
Despite the harrowing night, despite how my back still ached from sleeping on flagstones, the young mother’s joy was infectious, even from a distance. A smile tugged at my lips as I made my way to the kitchens.
I greeted Ana Luisa brightly, earning myself a suspicious sideways glance. A sudden distrust slicked down the nape of my neck.
“I will be dining outside the capilla,” I announced. “With Padre Andrés. If you have something to serve as a tray, I will carry our food there and bring the dishes back so as not to inconvenience you.”
I tried to make it sound like I didn’t want to disrupt her pattern of work. In truth, I didn’t want her near when I was discussing what to do about the house with Andrés.
Ana Luisa said nothing for a long time. I helped her stack a tray with two covered bowls of pozole, spoons, and a cloth laden with warm tortillas. A gentle slick of pork fat rippled across the surface of the rich broth; whole cloves of garlic and thick white pieces of corn spun, following the stirring of Ana Luisa’s wooden spoon.
“This will not please Do?a Juana.”
The sharpness in Ana Luisa’s voice took me by surprise.
“What won’t please her?” I asked. Surely not the mouthwatering pozole. Starved of rest, my mind was slow to follow what Ana Luisa meant.
She avoided my eyes as she stirred the cauldron of soup before her. Wood from the fire beneath the stove crackled; the silence between us filled with blue smoke. The heat made a bead of sweat drip down her brow.
“That you invited the witch onto her property,” she said at last.
Panic threaded through my chest.
The witch, she said.
Laughter drifted over from the direction of the capilla. I looked over my shoulder. The baptism group was filtering away from the doorway; Andrés lingered next to the beaming young mother, head inclined to listen to her. A grin flashed across his face at something she said. When he placed a hand on the toddler’s wet hair, the girl peered up at him shyly, eyes wide, then buried her face in her mother’s neck.
If Andrés’s witchcraft were revealed, if Padre Vicente learned of his true nature, I knew he would suffer a cruel punishment. But moments like this would also be lost. If anything happened to Andrés, it would leave a gaping wound in the lives of people who needed him.
But Ana Luisa must know. Her own mother was Andrés’s teacher; she herself first demonstrated to me the power of copal. The markings on the inside of the kitchen door were her own work.
But I had promised Andrés I would not tell anyone. Now that oath was seared in my soul by a fierce protective flame. I would keep his secret—and conceal my knowledge of it—even if it meant lying to everyone I knew. Even Rodolfo. Even my mother.
“You cannot possibly mean Padre Andrés,” I said, filling my voice with pious offense. I brought my hand to my forehead and made the sign of the cross for good measure. “He is a man of God.”
“He is many things,” Ana Luisa said flatly. “A friend of Do?a Juana is not one of them. I would not have him in the house if I were you.”
I set my jaw. This was my property, not hers and Juana’s. I married the master of the house, and I was the final authority on the matter of guests.
“Thank you for sharing your concerns,” I said, keeping my tone crisp and neutral. “But my hospitality will not be compromised by whatever grudges Do?a Juana chooses to harbor. No guest is unwelcome in San Isidro, especially not one I invited to bring God’s word and the sacraments to a community in need of them.” I took the tray primly.
Ana Luisa gave me a sideways look, slicing right through my pretenses. Weighing what I had said, no doubt. Weighing my mettle.
If she knew what Andrés was capable of, why wouldn’t she want someone who could cure the house within its walls? Why would Juana not?
Ana Luisa reached into a basket of tamales and plucked out four with practiced hands. She set these on the tray, stacked carefully between the two bowls of pozole. Delicate fingers of steam rose from their husks.
“For your guest,” she said gruffly. “Never underestimate how much that flaquito can eat.”
Andrés and I met at a humble table drenched in sunlight behind the southern wall of the capilla, outside of the tiny rooms that adjoined the chapel for visiting clergy.
Andrés filled the doorway of the rooms when I called his name. His eyes lit with eagerness at the sight of the steaming tray, and he stepped forward—