Perhaps it was that the thick walls my mother claimed I had built around myself in the wake of Papá’s death were nothing to a witch. Perhaps it was how he was strength to lean on, safety in a storm. Perhaps it was that, despite all he was capable of—rising into the air like an angel riding a cloud of darkness, bringing peace to a room with a prayer and his raspy voice—he, too, admitted he was afraid. He, too, seized my hand in the dark. Needed my shoulder against his until dawn.
“He refused to listen. I was able to make him sleep more, though. That’s victory enough for one day.”
She returned to chopping. I sighed, staring at the fire.
“Has he always been like this?” I asked.
“Hmm?”
“Stubborn as a donkey.”
This startled a bright peal of laughter from Paloma. It took me by surprise. In my mind she was a serious woman, burdened with too many sorrows from a young age. Perhaps she was. But that did not mean she was without humor, nor without a laugh that rang like church bells on a feast day.
“Do?a, you don’t know the half of it,” she said, her own smile a sharp echo of Andrés’s. “Titi used to smack him upside the head for trying to play the hero when simply doing what was expected of him was enough. He wanted to be an insurgent, but she would have none of it.” She wiped a trickle of sweat from her brow with the back of one hand. “She knew he was a boy made of gunpowder. That letting him play with fire would be his end.”
“He said it was his mother’s wish for him to become a priest,” I said, brushing soot from my skirts as I rose.
“It was Titi’s too. She knew it was best,” Paloma said with a nod. “I thought she was crazy, sending someone like him into a horde of priests. But she was right. It straightened him out. It gave him peace. And it gives him the perfect role to play while serving the pueblo like Titi did. He purifies houses our way after giving final rites to the dying. He deals with troubles the other priests can’t see, or won’t.” She grew quiet. A long moment passed as she stared at the chopped onions. She sniffed; hastily brushed at her tearing eyes with her forearm. “But he doesn’t go looking for trouble, not anymore. Not unless people bring trouble to him.”
Though it was clear her cousin was several years older than her, I suddenly understood that Andrés was a younger brother to Paloma in all but name. And that if he were hurt any more on San Isidro’s property, more than he already had been, Paloma would never forgive me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was afraid.”
Paloma shrugged. Apology accepted, in her own brusque way. “He would have come poking around here anyway, banishment or no. It was only a matter of time. It’s our pueblo who suffer most because of it, after all.”
She was right. Her mother had died because of the darkness. She and the other villagers lived in fear because of it. But why had Andrés been banished?
I opened my mouth to ask, but Paloma interrupted me. “Now get out of here,” she said crisply. “I’ll do the rest. The patrón won’t want his wife smelling like onion and smoke when the other hacendados arrive.”
I obeyed and went straight to my bedchamber. There were more people in the house than there had been in all my weeks here; people Paloma had summoned from the village dusted and arranged furniture. They steered clear of the green parlor—whether by instinct or instruction, I did not know.
My bedchamber was still in shambles from the night before: a sea of candles and censers greeted me. The last thing I wanted to do was clear them away, but I inhaled deeply and set to work.
I washed in cold water, letting it shock me into wakefulness. I didn’t want to wash my hair—there was not enough time for it to properly dry—but Paloma was right about the smell of smoke. I dried it as best I could, and let it hang down my back as I dressed in silk and pearl earrings for the first time since Rodolfo left.
Afternoon sun streamed in through the window, reflecting off the mirror and filling the room with light. I sat before my vanity and studied my reflection for the first time in days. It was as I feared: the sun had deepened my face. In the capital, I had kept my complexion as fair as I could through hats and avoiding sunlight. I was never as pale as Tía Fernanda’s daughters, nor as Mamá, for even the palest parts of me had a sallow cast. Now, the high points of my face had deepened to light brown, bronzed by sunlight in a way that made my hair look even blacker.
You’re nearly as lovely as Do?a María Catalina, though quite darker.
My mouth twisted. So I was.
I reached for my powder.
21
WHEN I FLOATED DOWN the stairwell of the house, perfumed and powdered pale as an apparition, Rodolfo met me at the foot of the stairs with a beautiful smile.
He was standing with his back to the door of the north wing. Could he not feel the cold? It seeped into my bones with each step I took closer to him, closer to the north wing.
I let him kiss my cheek. His lips were warm.
Did the callousness of guilt inure him to the cold? To the madness that sank its claws into me as deeply as the chill?
I met his smile with my own, pasting it firmly across my cheeks as we went to the green parlor to welcome our guests.
Mamá said Papá was so charismatic he could charm guns out of the hands of his enemies. I believed it until I saw him led away from our house at bayonet point. Perhaps he was not quite that charismatic. But he had a way of talking through a room that somehow drew even the most reserved members of a party out of themselves. A seed of that still lived in me; though it was barricaded behind thick walls of pride, I drew on it now as I entertained Do?a María José Moreno and Do?a Encarnación de Pi?a y Cuevas. We sat on one side of the room, bathed in delicate candlelight, our skirts spread around us like the petals of exotic flowers. Their husbands and mine drank on the other side of the room, discussing crops and sheep. The fine European glassware in their hands and the silver candelabras from the capital gleamed in the glow of the fire. From the look of the room, one could almost believe we were in the capital.
Almost.
The presence of Andrés and Juana was blatant evidence of just how far from civilization this parlor was. They were stiff islands of silence each apart from the groups. As hostess, I had ensured that Andrés would be seated strategically on the rug that covered the faint witch’s glyphs whose shadow still remained ghostlike on the flagstones, in case it flared from the energy of too many people. He sat with a Bible on his knee, his face drawn and shadowed, pretending to listen to the men’s talk of pulque. Opposite him was Juana, his reflection in discomfort as Do?a María José talked of further furnishing the house.
“Oh, I completely understand,” she cooed when I apologized for the sparse decorations. “It was empty for years. I remember when Atenógenes and I took the house from his brother, oh, it must be forty years ago now. It was in such a state of neglect. The work it took to bring it back to life!”
Over her shoulder, I caught sight of Juana scowling. She made no effort to disguise it.