The Hacienda(46)

“Either help me or stop judging,” I muttered under my breath.

“Hmm?” Andrés wondered.

I didn’t reply. Thankfully, he began to bear more of his own weight as we neared his rooms in the back of the chapel. I cautioned him to mind his head as we passed through the doorway.

The rooms were dark, but it was a gentle dark. The same safe, soft charcoal dark of the chapel. I followed Andrés’s lead to the bed and helped lower him onto it.

I fumbled for candles and matches, finding them near the small round fireplace. I lit more than was necessary—out of habit more than actual fear. Here, we were not watched. Here, it was quiet. Quiet but for rain pattering on the roof and Andrés’s sigh as he kicked off his shoes and lay on the thin mattress.

The warm candlelight lit the sparsely decorated room. I cast a look around: a painting of la Virgen hung above the fireplace. Whitewashed walls, a wooden cross opposite la Virgen. A clay bowl and jug on the table. A single chair, a stack of books next to the bed, their spines worn with use.

Andrés curled into a fetal position. Sweat shone on his forehead; sudden distress drew his brows together.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I may be—”

I seized the clay bowl and swept across the tiny room to his side just in time. He retched violently. I bit my lip, holding the bowl still until he was done vomiting and set his cheek on the mattress in defeat.

The other afternoon, I had spotted a water pump behind the capilla. I brushed Andrés’s hair away from his face. “I’ll be right back,” I said softly.

I took the jug and the soiled bowl into the rain. It pricked my face and nearly soaked my dress by the time I was through washing the bowl and filling the jug, though it had only been minutes.

I walked back to the door of Andrés’s rooms, heavy jug in one hand, bowl in the other, when something caressed the back of my neck, gentle as the curious step of a tarantula.

A feeling of being watched.

I whirled to face it. “Don’t you dare,” I snarled.

But there was nothing there. Nothing but the thick, impenetrable darkness that cloaked the valley of Apan.

I glowered into the dark. And when I reentered Andrés’s little room, I set the jug on the table and fished into the pocket of my dress for the piece of copal resin I had taken to keeping there.

Once there was a curl of smoke at the door, I filled a clay cup of water for Andrés, but he had already drifted into sleep.

I knelt at his bedside and leaned my head against the mattress, careful to make sure it didn’t touch his. Panic and fear had drained every drop of energy from me; I was like a wet rag that had been twisted, twisted, twisted, and then hung out to dry.

Andrés’s breathing was steady, deep, and mine linked with it, with the rise and fall of his chest.

So, so quiet.



* * *




*

MY EYES FLEW OPEN at a sharp rap at the door.

I didn’t remember falling asleep. I hadn’t intended to. Bright morning spilled into the room from the high windows, illuminating candles burned low and only the slimmest curl of copal.

The rapping at the door sounded again.

I lifted my head and turned to Andrés.

Carajo, I imagined him hissing.

But he lay still. Said nothing. Blood had dried and cracked at the corner of his mouth, and in the morning light, his face was as pallid as it was last night.

“Andrés!” The rapping gained fervor. The panic in Paloma’s voice pitched through the wood of the door. “Andrés, I need you. Wake up!”

It was Paloma. Thank goodness. Then the only excuse I needed for our current state of impropriety was that Andrés was clearly ill, and I had spent the night tending him.

I stumbled up on stiff legs, straightening my skirts as pins and needles ran up and down my calves. Tucked a curl that had torn loose from its knot sometime in the night behind my ear. Cleared my throat. My lips were cracked, parched. I prayed my voice would work.

I opened the door.

Paloma’s face was wild, tear streaked. “Andr—”

Her voice cut off and her eyes widened as she took me in, her mouth open in a surprised oh.

Then she saw her cousin.

“What happened to you?” she shrieked. I jumped back as she shoved into the room and fell to her knees at Andrés’s side. “You idiot! What mess did you get into this time?”

“I’m fine,” Andrés murmured, patting one of her hands gently. “Don’t worry, everything’s fine.”

Everything was not fine. He could have been killed last night, and my stomach sank when I realized we had not yet assessed the extent of the damage the broken circle had caused. But he lied effortlessly, the rasp in his voice comforting even when he looked like Death hovered near, waiting to snatch him away.

“No, it’s not fine,” Paloma cried. A sob thickened her voice. “Mamá is dead. She’s dead, Andrés!”





16





AFTER ANDRéS SPLASHED HIS face with water from the pump, the three of us went to the servants’ quarters. Andrés walked gingerly, shading his face from the harsh morning sun with a hand. He had not spoken a word since Paloma announced Ana Luisa was dead. If possible, he looked worse than he had when she had woken us.