The Hacienda(48)

“What if when we broke the circle—”

“You broke the circle?” he interrupted.

I stared at him. Was this a joke? “Last night. You broke it first, and then I followed.”

The crease between his brows deepened. A shadow of fear passed behind his eyes. “What?”

“Do you not remember?”

“I . . .” He chewed his bottom lip. “No.” His voice wavered close to cracking over the word. “I know we began the ritual. And then . . . Paloma was pounding on the door.”

A long pause stretched between us. How could he not remember? He looked just as panicked by this thought as I felt. “What happened?”

I dropped my voice to a whisper, as dry and raspy as my mouth felt. “The thing—whatever you drew from the house—it hurt you. It threw you against the wall. Your head . . . you were hurt, so I ran after you, and it—”

“It’s loose,” Andrés finished grimly. What little color remained in his face drained completely. “It must have been here last night.”

My gut twisted. I knew he was right. A wild, unfettered darkness was roaming free beyond the walls of the house. I had felt it last night as I drew water from the pump. “Do you think that’s why she was pointing at—”

He nodded, the movement slow and ginger. “It must have been here.”

“Andrés.” Paloma’s voice snapped through the air with the finality of a book being shut. Andrés jumped; winced at the sudden movement. She was right behind him, her eyes bloodshot, her hands curled into fists. “What are you talking about?” she accused.

“The rain,” Andrés said quickly. “It will rain this afternoon. Two hours before sunset.” Then he paused, as if weighing whether or not to continue. “I was wondering . . . did you hear anything unusual last night?”

For a moment Paloma stared at him blankly. Understanding, then frustration, blossomed over her features.

“Stop. Enough.” Her voice cracked in exasperation over the words. “Why can’t you be a normal priest? Sometimes that’s what this family needs.”

She turned on her heel and disappeared back inside the house.

Andrés watched her go, looking as wounded as a pup that had been kicked. Then his hands rose to his temples and he closed his eyes. He swayed gently where he stood. Was he going to be ill again?

“Are you all right?” I said softly. My hand strayed to his arm; I drew it back quickly.

“I need to go back inside,” he murmured. He was ghastly pale.

“I will go clean up the parlor,” I said.

“Don’t touch the circle.” The urgency in his exhausted voice sent a chill down my spine. “Do not go inside the marks. I can still feel it. It’s . . . active. Please, be careful.”

“I will,” I promised, and let my hand fall. He ducked his head gingerly beneath the low doorway and melted into the darkness of Ana Luisa’s house.

What had we done?

I began the walk up to the house, my feet heavy with dread. What would I find there?

“Beatriz.”

I whirled to face the voice. Juana was walking up the path to the villagers’ quarters. She held two letters in one hand and waved them at me, gesturing for me to come to her. One was opened, the other not.

My heart lifted with hope. Was one from my mother?

Any other day, I would have stood my ground and insisted she come to me. Dig in my heels for a battle of wills to see which one of us was the true master of San Isidro. But not today. I didn’t have the strength to fight her.

There was mud on her skirts. Her hair was mostly undone from its plait and falling around her face; thin blades of hay stuck out from amidst the sandy brown of her hair.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“I was drunk and fell asleep in the stable,” she said bluntly.

I blinked in surprise. What on earth? Before I could ask what she meant by behaving that way, she handed me the unopened letter.

My own name winked up at me in Rodolfo’s elegant, sharp-tipped penmanship.

“He’s coming back for a short while,” Juana said, flat and unamused. “He’ll arrive the day after tomorrow.”

“What a surprise,” I said, for I had nothing else to say. Not to Juana, anyway. My mind was racing past her, up the path and to the house, the house where a witch’s circle still hummed with power and the shadows ripped themselves from the walls to prowl the grounds.

“Whatever charlatan’s game you have the priest playing up at the house, be done with it,” Juana said, her pale eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that made my skin crawl. “He was banished from San Isidro for a reason. Perhaps you’re amused by native superstition, but you know how little patience Rodolfo has for it.”

I nodded knowingly, though I did not know. Banished? There were many things I had not discussed with Rodolfo; banishment was one of them. Andrés had not mentioned it either. I did not trust myself to speak, not when a hot hum of anger coiled in my throat at Juana’s condescending tone.

Charlatan. Native superstition. Who did she think she was, to dismiss Andrés so? Couldn’t she see the way the people looked at him, how they needed someone like him? Or did she simply not care? Didn’t she know it was his own power that inspired Ana Luisa’s protective copal? His work was a gift. It might have the power to save lives in the battle we waged against the house.