The truth was I was mad.
Andrés had come too late. The house cracked my mind open and shattered it like china before I even knew of his existence, before I knew a witch could purge the house of evil intent.
Cast it out.
I could not, not now. Perhaps I never could have. I was vulnerable and ripe, and doomed from the first night I saw red in the dark. The house knew me as prey the moment I crossed its threshold, and now, it would devour me.
Lifting my eyes, I saw my father’s map on the wall. I had pinned it above my desk weeks ago, the day Rodolfo left for the capital. I was so occupied with the north wing and the green parlor that I had not thought about this room much at all, not since the day I discovered my silks covered with blood. That was the only point at which Juana and I had spent any time together.
Apparently, it was enough to convince her I was to be gotten rid of.
My eyes stung with tears. What had I done wrong? Nothing. What could I have done right? Nothing. I married Rodolfo and presumably would bear heirs to inherit this property away from Juana. Perhaps I was not even a flesh-and-blood person to her: I was but a symbol of her brother taking away what she wanted, what she believed to be hers.
Hadn’t I longed for the same? Wasn’t that what an hacienda represented? Rodolfo’s money was liberation from Tía Fernanda’s reign of humiliation. Deliverance from desperate reliance on the fickle kindness of relatives I barely knew. I had sacrificed any hope of love in my marriage to secure my autonomy.
Juana sacrificed María Catalina. She sacrificed her brother. I had no doubt she would spill my blood, too, if she saw it beneficial to her.
I had to fight back.
I was not my mother, ready to give up when the blood was spilled and the muskets leveled. No. I was a general’s daughter.
But I was so, so tired.
My feet squished across the wet carpet as I went to the desk and kicked the chair back. I sat beneath my father’s map and rested my elbows on the desk. My arms ached, my wrists ached. My throat stung from bile, and my mouth tasted sour. I wanted to lay my head down on the desk. But even that I could not do. My hands were bound and going numb from it.
The shadows in the room were lengthening. Tears filled my eyes.
I rested my forehead on my hands, my position so similar to praying it brought the image of Andrés in the chapel last night to my mind.
How many times had I heard priests lecture about prayer from their pulpits and let the words wash over me, unbelieving? I had never trusted them. Never truly trusted the existence of God. Yet a few weeks ago, I would have said I never believed in the existence of spirits.
Or witches.
Help me, I prayed. Give me the strength to fight.
I began a rosary. I built a barrier to protect myself with words, layering them around me like an impenetrable skirt, like stones, anything to keep the house at bay. Whenever I lost track of where I was, I thought of Andrés’s voice beginning the words of the next Hail Mary. It was a trick of my mind, I knew it was, but I followed, whispering when my voice grew hoarse and cracked. When I reached the end, I began again.
For the length of another rosary, the house was silent.
The sun set, its dying light bleeding across dark storm clouds. The dark deepened, from blue to gray and finally black. A distant roll of thunder.
I heard the cold before I felt it. It scraped along the floorboards like claws, the sound vibrating in my teeth more than my ears: like metal on metal, glass on glass.
I lifted my head.
Blood rushed from it. My hands were numb and bloodless. Hunger dizzied me, sucked the strength from my legs and left them trembling.
The cold slinked around my ankles, curling up my calves.
I jumped up. The rug was clammy, squelching beneath my feet. Unbidden, I envisioned it drenched in blood, like the sheets in my bedchamber that morning.
Beatriz. A whisper, girlish and light.
Cast it out.
Darkness filled the room, crackling and snapping with potential. It was kindling ready to light.
Light. Candles were in my bedchamber, I knew that. And copal.
But I would have to enter the bedchamber.
My heart curled in on itself at the thought. I couldn’t.
Deep in the house, a door slammed.
“No,” I whispered. “No, I’m so tired.”
My voice cracked. A long moment passed. My shoulders were wound tight, taut as rope. I braced, ready for the next slamming door.
It never came.
Instead, a drumming began. First it was faint, distant, from the far side of the house. Distant enough that I thought it was another roll of thunder. But it never ended. It was a drumming on the wooden floorboards, as if a thousand heavy fingers struck in quick, violent succession. The sound marched toward the north side of the house, growing, becoming louder, so loud my bones rang with it. I could not cover my ears, could not hold out my arms to protect myself.
It drew closer, closer, then it stopped at the door of the study. There it drummed an irregular beat, growing louder, frantic, so powerful the door shuddered on its hinges.
The drumming stopped.
Sweat poured down my temples and slicked my palms.
It was there. It was there outside the door, and there was no copal to stop it. No candlelight. No Andrés.
A wink of red appeared in the dark, then vanished.
No.
It was here.
The red eyes appeared by the dark doorway to the bedchamber, then vanished.
It was coming closer. My heart beat so hard against my chest, so desperate and irregular it ached. Would it give out and leave me stiff and wide-eyed as Ana Luisa? Was this where it ended?
Hands grasped at my skirts, near the floorboards. Three or four hands, long fingered and icy; I could see nothing in the dark, but their too-soft flesh seized my ankles and yanked at me.
I shrieked and sprang away.
“Don’t touch me!” I cried.
A girlish, lilting laugh from somewhere in the rafters. She was mocking me. She was enjoying this. Anger swelled in my chest. I jerked my head up, scanning the dark desperately for something, anything to direct my furor at. The laughter now sounded from my bedchamber; I whirled to face it.
Enough.
“What do you want?” I cried.
A pair of freezing hands struck my shoulders forcefully, knocking me off my feet. Unable to throw out my arms to stop myself, my skull struck the rug with a dull thud.
Nausea heaved through me, from chest to rattled skull. I rolled over onto my side. The rug dampened my cheek; the smell of distilled alcohol overpowered me.
I coughed and, fighting the urge to retch, forced myself to my knees. I staggered upright, head spinning, breath coming in ragged gasps. Lightning illuminated the room for a moment; then darkness fell again.
“I didn’t hurt you,” I spat. “I didn’t even know you. Leave me alone.”