The Hacienda(74)

I stared at him, mouth falling open in silent surprise as the pieces fell together in my mind. “She banished you,” I breathed.

Banishing Andrés from the land where his family had lived for generations meant separating him from the people he loved and served. I thought of Paloma shyly thanking me for bringing him back—María Catalina had separated him from his family. That was the one thing that could truly spark an anger so powerful it overcame his steadiness.

He lifted his head. Nodded curtly. “I hate her for it. For everything she did.” His voice trembled with it. “It is a sin, but no matter how much I repent, I cannot shake it.”

My heart shifted in my chest, disquieted, off-balance. I trusted him so earnestly, but how well did I know him, truly, if it took me aback to hear that heat in his voice? Since I met him, I had placed him on a pedestal as my savior, my protector against the darkness, my own private saint who kept the nightmares of San Isidro at bay. His injury rattled my faith in his omnipotence, but not my trust in his perfection.

Now, taking in the way he worried his hands in his lap, the shame that curled at the corners of his hard mouth as he looked away for me, I felt as if I were seeing him for the first time: yes, he was the priest who baptized children, who sat next to me in the chapel praying novenas until his voice went hoarse. Formal, sober, measured. He was the witch who drew my blood to exorcise a house at midnight, around whom copal and darkness and chaos bloomed, who heard voices and held a quiet power over the living. Over me.

But he was not perfect.

He doubted himself. He failed to forgive. He lost his temper. His was a bruised soul like my own, pitted with wounds and unhealed grudges.

A sudden wave of fondness for him flushed my chest, its sweet ache catching me off guard. Before I could stop myself, I reached out and put my hand over his fidgeting ones.

He stilled. His eyes dropped to our hands, but otherwise he did not move. For a moment, the capilla was so quiet it was as if both our hearts had stopped beating.

“What happened?” I asked.

For a long moment he did not reply. Perhaps he was weighing whether or not to tell me. Perhaps he did not want to shatter the silence of the chapel, the delicate, pale stillness that hung between us.

At last, he released a slow exhale. “It is a long story. And the sun is rising.”

I took my hand back, my throat tightening with dread. No. I wanted to stay here forever. Couldn’t he speak to still the sun and preserve this peace, this silence? Keep the softness of the gray light from melting away?

But instead I nodded. My thoughts strayed to Rodolfo, asleep in bed, as I rose. Pinpricks stabbed my lower legs; my shoulder was stiff from being pressed against wood for hours. I shook myself out. I had to return before he woke. For if I returned, looking like this, I would have to explain myself.

And that was the last thing I wanted to do. To anyone. Much less my husband.

I stepped out of the pew, the tiles of the chapel aisle cold against my bare soles. Andrés stood and followed, genuflecting and making the sign of the cross as he did so.

Then he turned to me. “I’ll walk with you,” he said, voice even. “I don’t trust her.” The house. “You must tell me when your husband plans to be away in the fields, or with José Mendoza. I will try again to cleanse the house.”

“He’s meant to see Don Teodosio Cervantes of San Cristóbal. He wants to buy land from us.” But that was in three days, maybe more—I could not remember. The conversation of the night before blurred in my mind, punctuated only by the appearance of the woman in gray. Of María Catalina. I shuddered as we stepped through the door of the chapel.

A low mist hung over the courtyard, veiling the house in silken gray. No birds sang; far away, the baying of dogs echoed from elsewhere on the property.

“How will I survive until then?” My words died on the cold cloud of my breath. I still clutched the blanket around me like a shawl, but it was not enough to keep the morning from seeping into my bones.

A warm hand against my upper back. A voice, its rasp soft now, and tender: “I am here.”

I knew he was worried. I knew he was frightened—but if he felt these emotions as powerfully as I did, he did not allow them to show. An aura of calm radiated from him; I basked in it as I would before a roaring fire on a damp night.

Priest and witch, a source of curses and comfort.

Truly, I could not understand him. Truly, I was more grateful for him than I had ever been for a man in my life.

His hand stayed on my back as we retraced my flight from the night before. The walls of San Isidro emerged through the mist, white and impenetrable. He stayed with me as we passed through the arch and crossed the courtyard. We did not speak. A reverent sort of silence hung around the house like shadows. Its attention was elsewhere, and—or so I thought—did not note our arrival. The front door was open. Tendrils of mist curled away from the sound of Andrés’s shoes as he and I walked up the low stone steps.

The darkness inside was gray and quiet. More still than I had ever seen it. But I had long ago learned not to trust appearances as far as Hacienda San Isidro was concerned. I inhaled deeply and squared my shoulders. Andrés’s hand dropped away.

Our eyes met. Wordlessly, I knew this was where he left me. That he could not pass farther, however much I wished him by my side.

I stepped into the house. He did not close the door behind me, but lingered, watching me cross the flagstones solemnly to the stairs. I did not look back. I did not know how long he waited there, nor when he closed the door. He must have stood there for a long moment, listening to the strange, gaping silence of the house. Wondering at it. He must have lingered far longer than anyone else would have, only stepping away from the threshold after heavy minutes. He must have walked slowly through the mist, lost in thought, wondering at the path we had set ourselves on.