*
I STRODE DIRECTLY TO Ana Luisa and Paloma’s house in the fading light. Its windows gaped dark in the twilight, hungry and empty. The door swung open before me; as I crossed the threshold, I sensed something in the house invited me in, drawing me toward it like a moth to flame.
It was here, as I suspected. My inheritance. My birthright.
I fumbled in the dark for flint and a candle. When the flame’s pale light illuminated the room, I turned to the beds against the wall.
Ana Luisa must have gone through Titi’s belongings after her death and found it. How else could I explain the bastardized markings in charcoal that lined the doorway of the main house’s kitchen? How else could I explain the instinct that drew me to my knees beside Ana Luisa’s cold bed, to a small wooden box beneath its head? When I was last here, the morning Paloma found my poor aunt dead from terror, I was too ill from the blow to my head to think clearly; nausea deadened my senses to the dizzying pull that now drew my hands to the box. I set it on my knees and lifted its lid.
There it was. The pamphlet my father’s sister had left me.
Smudges I did not recognize darkened some of its pages. A thrum of grief beat through my heart. When the house went rotten, when the poison of Do?a María Catalina’s anger began to spread, Ana Luisa had been afraid. She sought help from this. She should have come to me. Why didn’t she?
Pride, perhaps.
I thought of the day Paloma first told me of the problems with the house, the day she spoke to me outside of the church in Apan.
Do?a Juana is hiding something. Mamá too. Something terrible.
How many times had Paloma told me Ana Luisa loathed the patrón’s first wife? If Juana had meant to rid the hacienda of Do?a Catalina, would she have sought Ana Luisa’s help as an accomplice?
Would my aunt have given it?
Then perhaps . . . perhaps it was guilt that prevented her from seeking my help when the house turned on her with its cold, strangling fingers. Perhaps she knew that if I returned to San Isidro, Titi’s gifts or my own darker ones would reveal the truth eventually.
“May God forgive you, Tía,” I murmured.
Then I set to work.
I flipped through the pamphlet. Though I had not laid hands on it in nearly a decade, my fingertips traveled well-worn roads through its pages, guided by memory as I searched for the most powerful exorcism contained within. The one Titi tapped with her index finger and of which she said, Not yet, you are not strong enough for this one.
As I searched, I saw the gunpowder eyes of my father’s sister peering up at me through the glyphs. The terror I felt when I first beheld their dark spark. I saw disgust carving my father’s face, heard his voice echo behind me as if he stood just feet from me in the dark of Ana Luisa’s house. They burn people like you.
Burn, burn, burn. Perhaps that was what awaited me in death.
But in life, I would fight. I would fight to save the soul of San Isidro and the woman trapped inside its malicious walls because that was what was right. I knew it like a brand on my flesh as my fingertip found the glyphs I sought. It felt so right it had to be sinful.
The dark box in my chest trembled as I scanned the page. I felt its anticipation like the taste of pure cane sugar on my tongue.
Stand down, I told it. I had chosen to turn to this part of myself, but I would still keep my hands tight on the reins. I knew precisely the rituals and incantations to combine with these glyphs, and I would adhere to them with the utmost care. There was no room for error. No time to second-guess myself.
I looked up to the window over Ana Luisa’s bed. Full darkness had fallen.
It was time.
The air hissed with anticipation as I shut the door to Ana Luisa’s house behind me, pamphlet tucked under my arm. A storm hung over the mountains, teasing the tension in the valley with the crack of boulder on boulder. I could taste in the air that the valley would have no respite tonight; the wind had other designs, and carried the clouds away from us, sloping southeast toward the distant sea.
I gave a soft call into the dark; the night settled over my shoulders like a cloak. Invisible to the eyes of men, I slipped soundlessly through the gates of the courtyard.
My heart thrummed against my ribs; the darkness within me strained to leap forth, now that it knew I would call on it. I had to keep it in control. Beatriz’s safety depended on my success. I would enter, find where she was. Exorcise the house and stay with her until dawn broke and we proved her innocence. It was simple. All I had to do was act according to my plan.
The caudillo’s two men were stationed at the front door of the house, the closest to the capilla. One slept, the other stood watch. Though they had not lit their post with torches, the wakeful guard looked out into the night, alert to my silent approach, perhaps aware, as beasts were, of the presence of a predator.
Yes, I was here.
I slipped up the steps, around the man, behind him. A moment was all I needed to recite in his ear the prayer my grandmother used to sedate patients. He slumped against me. As he fell to the ground to the right of the door, I seized his gun, catching it so it would not clatter to the flagstones. I set it down at his side, then repeated the act on his sleeping compatriot just to be safe. I did not envy the throbbing in their heads that would plague them when they woke with the sun high in the sky.
It was time to enter the house.
I tried the handle of the door. It was locked, of course, but I had learned to bend locks to my will before I lost my first tooth.
Open, I bid it.
The house bucked; it threw me back a few steps, but I caught myself. I came back to the door. I touched the handle again, then snatched my hand back with a strangled cry—it was like ice, so cold it burned my palm.
I placed my stinging palm against the door and leaned into the cedar.
“Yes, it’s me,” I hissed through gritted teeth. “Yes, you hate me. I don’t care. Obey.” This time, I lifted the lid of the box inside me a crack, just wide enough for a sliver of darkness to accompany my whispered incantation.
Then I seized the handle, ignoring the cold that jammed my joints stiff. I braced, preparing to force the door open.
Somewhere from the copse of trees beyond the village, the hooting of an owl caught my ear.
I paused. Tilted my head to the side, listening. It was calling to me. Once, twice, pause—a third call. That was a warning.
I released the door handle and took the steps in a single bound. Once my feet were on earth, I centered myself and swept my awareness around the perimeter of the house. All my senses were alight, sharpened by the darkness awakening within me, by the taste of fear on the night.