What else did she know?
Juana’s face was shaded by a sweat-stained hat, but it was still evident that she narrowed her eyes at me as I passed.
She would not help us.
I mounted the mule and bid Juana farewell without looking back. “Buenas tardes, do?a.”
I received no reply. When I cast a glance over my shoulder, she was gone, vanished among the rows of maguey, silent as an apparition.
Was there a chance she would go to Padre Vicente about my presence here? Perhaps, but perhaps not—Padre Vicente disapproved of her way of living, how she refused to marry and rarely came to Mass. How her lack of simpering whenever she did cross paths with the priest set the man on edge. In a way, I respected how she grated on Vicente’s nerves. She did not give a damn what anyone thought of her, as dangerous as that was for a woman of her station.
But what if she mentioned my presence to Rodolfo? Would he be angry that Beatriz had disobeyed him and sought my help?
This thought sent a bone-deep chill through me.
I knew what that monster was capable of.
But it was still unclear to me what danger Rodolfo posed Beatriz. As cruel as he was to servants, he had not raised a hand against Do?a Catalina in life.
From my mind’s eye, the skeleton in the wall grinned back at me, naked and mocking in the flickering light of the candle.
Or had he?
15
BEATRIZ
I SLEPT IN FITFUL spurts the nights Andrés spent at Hacienda Ometusco, but enough that I had my wits about me when the first shipment of furniture arrived from the capital courtesy of Rodolfo. With the help of Paloma, the interim foreman José Mendoza, and a handful of young tlachiqueros wrangled away from Juana and the fields for the morning, we outfitted the house. A Nicaraguan cedar table and expensively upholstered chairs in the formal dining room. Rugs in the parlors and bedchambers. Candelabras, love seats, and empty bookcases filled rooms like uncomfortable, stiff company come to dinner.
I left the green parlor empty. The signs of normalcy settling into other parts of the house made its bare walls and long shadows an obvious bruise.
When Paloma, Mendoza, and the last of the tlachiqueros left, the house shuddered, a disgruntled bull shaking flies from its hide. I felt the cold tendrils of its attention on me less often, and with less intent than I had before the priest’s arrival: it was as if the house knew the protective marks along the threshold of my bedchamber meant Andrés would return, and in his absence, it grew preoccupied with this fact. A sullen energy built beneath its stucco, in the agitated midnight slamming of its doors.
I waited too. With no one to speak freely with about my troubles, my thoughts tangled tight in my mind and chest. Sudden movements caused me to startle; Paloma took to announcing her presence several long footsteps before she appeared in a doorway in a kind attempt to keep me from leaping to my feet, wide-eyed, my breathing shallow and sharp.
If she thought I was mad, she made no mention of it. Perhaps it was misguided hope, or a desperate yearning for company, but I was beginning to think she might believe quite the opposite. Or rather, that she approved of the steps I was taking to combat the house. While helping me gather linens from my bedchamber for laundering on the day Padre Andrés was meant to return, she took one look at the marks on the threshold and made a soft, satisfied sound. Approval, perhaps?
Later, as she was leaving the house for her siesta, she paused before stepping from the kitchen into the vegetable garden.
“I never thanked you, do?a,” Paloma said softly, speaking through the doorway rather than back to me.
I tilted my head to one side. I had come to understand Paloma’s reserve as a matter of fact; her volunteering any emotion—much less gratitude toward me—was enough to give me pause. “What do you mean?” I asked carefully.
“For bringing him back.”
And she was gone, sweeping silent through the garden like a raven.
* * *
*
WHEN THE CLOUDS GATHERED over the hills, their rain-heavy bellies streaked with dusk, Padre Andrés returned to San Isidro. I waited in the doorway to the courtyard of the main house, twisting my hands over each other. When I caught sight of him walking up the hill to the capilla, the lingering light casting a long, slim shadow through the low chaparral, my hands stilled.
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.”