They were red. Bright bloodred.
Humming like a thousand bees filled my ears. A single, thick glob of scarlet dripped from my hand back into the chest, where it landed with a smack.
My silks. They were soaked in blood.
7
JUANA SEIZED MY SHOULDER and yanked me back from the chest.
“We’re going to the kitchen,” she ordered, her voice slicing through my shock. She shifted her grip to my arm and drew me sharply to my feet. “Come. Now.”
The kitchen? Why on earth would we do that, when there was enough blood in my chest to flood the carpet if it were tilted over? Juana’s face was stark white, her eyes wide as they darted about the room.
“I need to speak to Ana Luisa,” she said. Her voice was hollow, as if she were forcing it to sound a certain way. “To get to the bottom of who is behind this prank.”
I was still incapable of speech. Someone had ruined thousands of reales worth of my silks, and she called it a prank?
She half dragged me to the staircase. We took them fast, two at a time, thundering down into the shadows of the main hall. The temperature dropped as we did; I gasped as Juana yanked me past the corner that led to the north wing and its unnaturally sharp chill.
The heavy taste of copal on the air reached me before we saw Ana Luisa. We turned a final corner to the glow of the kitchen doorway, plumes of smoke reaching into the hall like curious fingers. Sprigs of herbs—the plants I had been weeding—were scattered on the ground at the kitchen’s threshold, and Juana stepped carefully over them. My skirts brushed the herbs aside as she dragged me to the back of the kitchen, which was open to the side garden.
Ana Luisa herself clicked her tongue loudly and set to rearranging the herbs I had knocked out of place; Juana reached violently for a jug of water and turned to me.
“Hold out your hand,” she barked.
I obeyed, eager to wash the blood off.
But it had vanished.
There was no blood.
I yelped as Juana poured half the ice-cold contents of the jug over my hand anyway, half drenching my skirts. She seized a bar of natural soap and rubbed my hand hard, as hard as if she were scrubbing away ink.
“It’s clean now, it’s clean,” I cried when she drenched my hand again. It was stiff and achy from the cold.
She set the jug down. Her eyes were hard as steel. The uncanniness of her resemblance to Rodolfo struck me, but I had never seen a look like that cross Rodolfo’s face.
I was overcome by the urge to step back from her, but she still held my hand. Hard. My wedding ring dug into my finger, almost to the bone.
“I will get to the bottom of this. I will speak to the servants. They know me and obey me.” Her tone clearly indicated that they certainly would not do the same with me. “Do not speak to them of this. Understood?”
I nodded. I breathed in sharply when she released my hand, half expecting to see blood again from where my ring had dug into flesh.
Juana released me and strode to a pantry; when she reemerged, it was with a clay jug gripped in one hand.
Blue smoke blurred my vision; copal burned in a shallow clay bowl by the open-air ranch stove where Ana Luisa was cooking.
I glanced over my shoulder. Deep shadows lengthened from the house to the whitewashed walls that encircled the gardens. Beyond, the southern and western skies deepened, as if the weight of the shadows drew them into darkness. The faint baying of dogs rose into the twilight; indistinct voices, perhaps from the hacienda village. They sounded as if they came from unreachably far away, from the unseeable side of a dream, as if reality broke off where the house’s stucco walls did. Or perhaps that was where reality began, and I was the one trapped in an uneven, unending dream.
“Come inside,” Juana barked. She was motioning for me to sit at the small table. She had conjured cups made from jícara and poured clear liquid from the jug into them.
Ana Luisa fanned the stove. The rich smells of warming tortillas and frijoles drew my feet back into the kitchen. I sat as Juana set the jug on the table heavily.
“A su salud,” she said dryly and, lifting one of the cups to her lips, took a long draft.
A judgmental click of the tongue from Ana Luisa. “Before dinner, Do?a Juana?”
Juana did not reply. The color had not returned to her face, but the tight line of her sharp shoulders was loosening. She was no longer a snake coiled to strike. Slowly, the warmth and smells of the kitchen were dispelling the shock of the sight of the chest.
The kitchen was having the same effect on me. It was the kind of room that had no touch of men, either Rodolfo or previous generations. The kitchen in Tía Fernanda’s house had felt like a prison to me, the place I was shunted because nothing better could be made of me. This kitchen felt like a refuge. Smoke curled up in the doorways from their bowls of incense like sentries; my eye followed soot markings around the doorway that led to the rest of the house. Geometrical shapes darkened the white paint where it met Moorish tile. They looked fresh, as if they had been newly drawn.
Juana pressed a cup into my hands.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Mezcal.” She was already refilling hers. “Instead of harvesting aguamiel for pulque, the tlachiqueros carve out some maguey hearts and cook them in an open pit to crush and distill.”
I studied the clear liquid. Women were not supposed to drink.
You’ll never get a husband. Tía Fernanda’s voice wound through my mind.
Well. I already had. And he had given me a house with servants who played dark-spirited pranks.
The alcohol bit my tongue and filled my mouth with the smokiness of an open fire.
“Finish it,” Juana ordered.
I paused. Her own cup was full again. I thought of the clink of glasses at balls in the capital, of the glint of champagne in the candlelight and raised, energetic voices of dancers between turns. Drink loosened tongues. I had to be careful, watch mine . . . but what if Juana didn’t? What could I learn from her if I kept her drinking? Questions bubbled to the surface: who would pour blood on my silks?
Do?a María José’s crepe-paper voice slipped under my skin. Poor thing. Such a delicate constitution. How had my husband become a widower? What did Juana think of her departed sister-in-law?
So I obeyed Juana. I lifted my cup to her, then waited for her to echo the motion. When she did, we tipped our cups back in unison. I coughed as the alcohol stung my throat.
“Welcome to San Isidro,” Juana said flatly.
“What is wrong with the people here?” I said when I had caught my breath. “Who would do that?”
Juana solemnly poured herself a third cup as Ana Luisa set plates and food on the table and sat to my left, opposite Juana.