The Hacienda(43)
It wasn’t that I was no longer alone. It was that he was back. A friend. An ally. A shoulder to lean on.
We set up camp in the green parlor an hour past nightfall, two soldiers preparing for a nightlong battle as rain poured outside: blankets and candles, copal and herbs. Charcoal for witch’s circles. Holy water. A golden crucifix around Andrés’s neck, gleaming in the light of two dozen tallow candles. He stood before me, the witch in priest’s clothing, a pocketknife in one hand and a censer in the other. The locked door to his back, the fireplace to mine. A circle of protection surrounding us both.
Andrés set the censer at his feet. Smoke rose like mist at dawn as he then held the knife out to me.
“Ready?” His voice was low as a prayer.
I took the knife.
As mistress of the house, Andrés needed my intent, my will, to help draw whatever it was in the walls out. To banish it, and then—if all went according to plan—to purify the rooms.
The sensation of curling my fingers into the worn grooves of the wooden handle was almost like taking Andrés’s hand. Candlelight danced off its sharpened tip. I inhaled deeply.
I placed the tip to my thumb, pressing until blood welled ruby bright. Then I followed Andrés’s instructions and stepped toward him, heartbeat quickening as he unbuttoned and loosened his collar, exposing the delicate skin of his throat. There, just beneath his Adam’s apple, his pulse throbbed, gentle and rhythmic and far steadier than mine.
I placed my thumb on that pulse, smearing blood on skin in a slow, gentle movement.
“I am María Beatriz Hernández Valenzuela, wife of Rodolfo Eligio Solórzano Ibarra and guardian of this house,” I recited, my voice coming out hoarse. “And it is as guardian that I grant you authority to speak for me. To call on the powers in this house and beyond and ensure my will be done.”
My hand remained on Andrés’s throat as his eyes fluttered closed. His voice hummed against my thumb before I heard it speak. He told me in advance what the opening incantation meant, but still the hairs on my arms stood on end to hear a Latin prayer slip into his grandmother’s sleek mexicano:
“I call on the Youth, the resurrected lord of smoke and night, guardian of witches and nahuales. Teacher of those who will listen, brother of those reborn on new moons. Guide us through the night. Give us tongue to speak to those whom the lord of the underworld has misplaced, that we may set them on the right path.”
The smoke around us began to move.
He had warned me that the copal would dance. I was to stay still, to keep my gaze on Andrés and focus my will on him. To not look at the shapes the smoke might take. In my peripheral vision, I caught the sleek movement of a puma’s prowl, the beating wings of a screech owl.
But I kept my focus on Andrés. On the movement of his throat as he spoke, on the gentle beat of his pulse. I focused on breathing in time with him.
This was it. If I followed his instructions perfectly, this would be the end of the sickness of San Isidro. The end of the rot in its walls, the poison in its darkness.
Andrés’s prayer finished. The swirling shadows around the periphery of the circle faded; a silence profound as the cool depths of a well settled over the room.
“Very good,” Andrés whispered. I raised my eyes and met his. My thumb was still against his pulse. He was calm; I was not, but I was in his hands. He knew what he was doing. He had cured many houses of inhabitants who had overstayed their welcomes, and while this house had taken him off guard the other night, he was now prepared.
“Step back,” he said. I lowered my hand from this throat and obeyed. “Whatever happens, do not leave the circle,” he added, his voice a low rasp as he spread his arms wide, his palms facing upward.
I nodded. He had explained this as well: the power of the circle drew from our intent and from the circular movement of Andrés’s prayers around us, unbroken, constant. This circle itself was a doorway. A path. For whatever plagued San Isidro to be spirited away from here, away from Apan, toward whatever awaited it beyond.
A soft cooing noise lilted down from the ceiling, but it was drowned out by Andrés as he closed his eyes and began a new prayer, one that harnessed the gravelly undertones of his voice and roughened it.
The rich timbre of his voice and of the words he recited slipped into my body, twining around my ribs and spine like vines, like roots, firm and strong and alive. Though I could not understand their meaning, I felt their shift, felt how they grew richer, more seductive, their power curling toward Andrés.
Come, it called, teasing and soft. Come closer.
My head spun, giddy with the need to draw near to him, but my feet remained planted on the ground. The call was not meant for me. The blunt force of its power was not focused on me.
It was focused on the house.
For a moment, it listened. Perhaps it, too—perhaps she—felt the roots taking hold, felt the heady draw of the call.
Come into the circle.
Then the house rebelled.
A low whine built in the back of my head, thickened to a hum, and grew louder still, until a roar ripped through the circle.
No, my bones screamed. No. That’s not what she wants.
It was not until my breath began to give out that I realized I was screaming, that my hands were clamped over my ears, that I could barely breathe for the pain of the sound. My skull was about to shatter.