I opened the door and fled.
Darkness clawed at me; cold hands yanked my hair, pawed my nightdress. Drumming erupted beneath my bare feet, thundering through the floor and following me to the head of the stairs. Unseen hands planted on my shoulders. Cold as ice. Hard as death.
With a powerful shove, they pushed me down the stairs.
The world spun; the candle went flying. Was this how I died? I flung out my arms to slow myself, but cold hands forced me down, down toward the flagstones with steely determination. Poor Do?a Beatriz, fell down the stairs. Shattered her skull. Spilled her brains everywhere. Poor Do?a Beatriz, such a tragic accident . . .
Not tonight.
Anger caught light in my ribs. I curled myself into a ball as if I had been thrown by a horse: knees to chest, elbows tucked in, hands curled over my ears.
I caught the flagstones forearms first, then rolled. Cold air stung my grazed elbows as I sprang to my feet and stumbled to the door.
Beatriz, Beatriz . . .
I wrenched the door, almost pulling my arm out of its socket. It did not move. Yet it was not locked. I could see it was not locked, but it would not open.
Cold enveloped me like a wet cloak, covering my nose, my mouth, smothering me. I clung to the door handle. I could not breathe. I gasped and felt nothing; my lungs burned, my eyes strained against the dark. The darkness would strangle me. Unless I fought, I would drown.
Not like this, I thought.
I gathered all the strength I had and slammed a balled fist against the wood of the door in frustration. Soft, pale sparks haloed my darkening vision. I needed air. My chest was caving in, collapsing from the weight of the darkness. I struck the door again. Harder. Anger sparked in me like kindling, catching and blazing with a hunger that lit me anew. She was holding me here. She was trying to kill me.
I would not let her.
“Not tonight, you bitch,” I forced out.
I reached for the handle and yanked.
The door opened. I stumbled backward with its weight, catching myself as air rushed into my lungs. A shock of cold, wet wind struck my face. Sheets of rain slaked the courtyard, the sound of it striking the earth like shattering glass.
A gust of wind tolled the bell of the capilla once. It echoed through the courtyard, a hollow, lonesome knell.
I sprinted toward it.
23
ANDRéS
WHEN I WOKE, THE fire was embers; my room was silent. The slam of a door echoed through my mind. Had I dreamed it? Did the house plague my nightmares?
No. Something tugged at me. I touched bare feet to floor; from beneath it, the earth reached up into me, stirring my clouded mind into sharp wakefulness.
Someone was in the capilla.
I felt the hum of distress like someone grasping my wrist, and I followed it.
I kept thick candles lit in the capilla all night long, to let the villagers know they had a refuge at any hour.
I froze when I saw who the light fell on.
At first glance, I thought it was the apparition we called the Weeper. A woman in white with black hair falling into her face. She stumbled up the aisle, sobbing uncontrollably. Water trailed behind her, leading from the door.
But I knew the Weeper well. It was not her season, not her time. Nor her place to appear.
This was not a spirit.
Beatriz.
She reached out and clung to the side of a pew, half collapsing into it. Her knuckles were white where she clutched the pew; her whole body heaved with sharp, gasping breaths. They came too quickly, too suddenly.
I should not have left the house. It was an irrational flash of feeling—of course I could not have stayed. Rodolfo’s presence prevented it. But it was a mistake.
She looked up at the sound of my approach, her green eyes so wide I could see the whites around her irises. Ana Luisa’s face flashed in my mind. Her heart had stopped from terror, her eyelids peeled back, leaving her gazing into the void in horror for eternity.
“Beatriz. Shh,” I said, my voice low. I crossed the last few steps to her, my hands held out as if I were calming a spooked horse. “Shh.”
Her arms gave out. I sprang forward to catch her before she fell against the pew. She was soaked to the bone and shook forcefully. Her face was pale with fear. I tightened my grip on her upper arms to steady her. “Shh.”
She lifted her chin. A red graze cut across one cheekbone; her eyes were glassy with unshed tears as they tracked over me, searching me hungrily, perhaps trying to see if I were real or phantom. Then she looked around me, her chest rising and falling staccato. “It’s so quiet.” Her breath hitched. “So quiet.”
My heart tightened. How many times had I fled from the roar of the darkness as a child? How often had I been tormented by voices after sunset, and sought solace in the peace of the church?
“You’re safe here,” I said.
Her face crumpled.
The world slowed: a yearning like a tide swept through me, an unbearable need to protect the woman before me. At the same moment I drew Beatriz to me, she threw her arms around my body. One movement, perfect as dancers. One tight embrace. Her arms wound around my rib cage; her fingers dug into my back. Damp seeped from her dress onto my shirt, warmed by the heat of our bodies. I pulled her head into my chest, resting my cheek against her wet hair. She smelled of rain. She smelled of fear.
“You’re safe,” I murmured. She shook against me as she sobbed. “Shh. Breathe. You’re safe.”
I stroked her hair, my other hand pressed against her lower back. Slowly, her hitching breaths calmed; her hands relaxed. Her weeping softened and stopped altogether.
Neither of us loosened our arms. I do not know how long we stood there, twined tightly as lovers in the soft glow of the candles on the altar. Rain beat the roof of the capilla; deep in the night, an owl’s soft call echoed across the valley. She was safe. She was safe. I did not know why she had fled, but I knew this: as long as my feet felt the earth beneath me and my heart the heavens above, I would not let any harm come to her.
I felt the muscles of her back stiffen, ever so slightly, beneath my palm.
Reality fell into place around me. I should not hold her so tightly, no—I should not be holding her at all.
She loosened her arms, and I took a quick step back. Something akin to grief tightened in my throat.
Holding her felt right. The feeling swelled in me with the inevitability of rain, my certainty an ache that cut to marrow. An ache that knew no language. It was right.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, a flat determination in her voice.
My heart stopped.
“I am not going back. I can’t.” Her voice cracked.
I cleared my throat. I had not been thinking that at all. Was that what she thought of me? That I was foolish enough to send her back to the husband from whom she had fled in the middle of the night? To that house?
No. I wanted to beg her to stay here, to slip into my arms, to dig her fingers into my back—