Do?a Mercedes filled it. A hand rose to her lips; she stepped to the side and beckoned to Néstor, inviting him into the house.
For the first time in his life, Néstor stepped through the doorway of la casa mayor, angling Nena carefully so as to protect her head. His legs shook as he lowered her to the floor of la sala; they gave out, and he fell to his knees, cradling Nena’s head to protect it as he lay her on the rug.
When his hand came away, it was bright with blood.
One of her arms was scored with claw marks; the sleeve of her nightgown shredded and soaked with blood. It gleamed mockingly up at him in the candlelight.
He was thirteen, staring at Nena, covered in blood, lying on the floor of this very room.
No. He had watched from the doorway, paralyzed by fear. Now he was here at her side, taking a cloth someone pushed into his hands and pressing it against the bleeding to staunch it. Even as his hands trembled. Even as it continued to be difficult to draw breath; his chest hitched, his vision blurred. Distantly, he was aware that people hovered around them, smelling of blood and gun smoke and kitchen fire. He didn’t care. His eyes were on Nena.
She lay still.
“Everyone back away.” Abuela knelt at his side and put a hand on his arm. “You too, mijo. Enough to let me see.”
Néstor released the bloodied rag he held to Nena’s wounds; Abuela clicked her tongue.
“Keep the pressure on,” she said, and began to check Nena’s pulse.
Nena’s sister, Javiera, broke through the blur of people. Falling to her knees across from Néstor and Abuela. Her cheeks were flushed; her chest rose and fell as if she had been running. She held out a small bag to Abuela, who took it.
Everything Abuela did was even and measured; her calm diffused through the room like incense smoke. The scent of rosemary steadied him as Abuela pulled herbs from the bag and began to murmur prayers over Nena.
“Call her back,” Abuela said to him.
Néstor looked up at her, confused. She had never once asked him to help heal someone. This had to be a mistake. His job was to fetch things or send for people and then back away, to stand in the corner silently, out of sight and out of her way.
“You heard me,” Abuela said. “Call for her.”
He looked down at Nena. At the scatter of freckles that stood stark on her nose and cheeks drained of color. At her slim brows, her dark lashes. The mouth that relaxed as if she were sleeping. He wanted to see it smile again, for the dimple that hid to its right to wink at him. For her voice to call for him. To chide him or insult him or say sweet things to him, it didn’t matter—he wanted it all.
“Come back to me, Nena,” he whispered. “Come back.”
33
NENA
VOICES SWIRLED OVERHEAD, looping and diving like bats swooping through the black. The darkness thinned.
She was aware she lay on her back. She was aware, somehow, that she was no longer outside—perhaps it was the smell of the kitchen, the rustle of clothing around her.
She shifted. Pain laced through her skull, bright as a bolt of lightning.
Oh, how she longed for oblivion to wash over her again.
“Come back to me, Nena.”
Her heart stumbled in surprise at the voice.
Her eyes snapped open. She searched for him; found him immediately. He knelt at her left side. His hat was gone, his hair sweaty and pushed away from his face. Tears cut tracks down his dirt-streaked cheeks, fresh and wet. He was crying, even as relief broke across his features like a sunrise.
She wanted to hold him. To cradle his face and comfort him, to croon that it would all be all right. To bury her face in his chest and let oblivion sweep over her again.
She tried to sit up.
A sharp scolding noise halted her. Abuela sat beside Néstor, a bundle of rosemary in one hand, a stern expression on her face.
“Be still, Nenita,” Néstor said softly. “You’re bleeding.”
“Her head is what I’m worried about,” Abuela said. “Thank la Virgen she didn’t strike her temple.”
“You left,” Nena said to Néstor. Words flowed from her mind to her lips like water from a jug. There was no stopping them. No barrier of hesitation between thinking and speaking.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice low. “I shouldn’t have. I should have been braver.”
“No, I said all the wrong things,” she said. “I didn’t say enough. It’s my fault.”
She sat up, pushing with her right arm. Stars erupted across her vision, sharp as gunshots.
“Magdalena!” Abuela scolded. “Lie back down.”
She ignored her. She slipped her arm over Néstor’s shoulder and buried her face in his neck. He smelled like sweat and gunpowder, but beneath it all, she smelled him. The only other person’s scent she knew like that of her own skin. For a moment he was stiff, as if unsure of how to respond; then he relaxed. The palm of his left hand rested on her back, holding her close.
You must find a way to heal yourself from it, Abuela had once said when she declared that Nena’s aura was wounded. Can’t you sense how it confines you?
Néstor’s disappearance had planted the seeds of fears that grew feral and wild through her ribs. Fears that if she was not obedient or perfect enough, those she loved would vanish with their love or snatch it away, leaving her empty and aching. For years, they had trapped her.
She had hoped against hope that she could have a second chance to choose him. Now here he was. And if she said the right words, perhaps he would stay.
His right hand still pressed against her arm. It ached. Something was wrong with it. She couldn’t bring herself to care.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “I love you.”
He held her tighter. Spoke into her hair. “You know I love you.”
“So marry me,” she murmured.
A breathy, surprised laugh brushed against her ear. “Is that a proposal?”
“It is if you say yes.”
“Of course.” His voice cracked. He rubbed her back gently. “Of course.”
She never wanted to open her eyes. She wanted to lay in the crook of his shoulder forever, listening to his heartbeat.
“Madre de Dios, there’s a cut on the back of your head too,” Abuela said, clicking her tongue again with displeasure. “At least elevate her arm, Néstor.”
It was as if Abuela’s voice shattered the barrier of quiet between them and the rest of the room. Rustling voices rose in a hum around them, rhythmic and gossipy as chicharras.
Then they stopped.
In the silence, Papá’s boots rang against the floor.
Nena stiffened. She released Néstor and, as Néstor raised her wounded arm as instructed, she turned to look up at Papá. Mamá stood just behind him.
He stood over them, glowering down at Néstor.
“What did I tell you?” he said to Néstor.
“Not another word,” Nena snapped, shifting so she sat between Néstor and Papá. “He stays.”
“He will not,” Papá said.
“Then I won’t either,” Nena snapped.
Mamá’s hand flew to her mouth, her expression stricken.
A tremor of surprise rippled swiftly through the room. It ended in Nena. Its touch was like that of freezing water: it sank into her skin, down to her belly.
Los Ojuelos was the land that raised her, that cradled her in its streams and shadows, that grew with her through seasons of drought and seasons of plenty.
She would give it up.
For home was this person behind her. The one who pressed on her wounded arm to stop the bleeding. Who had returned despite her father’s anger and her mother’s disapproval. Who had shown her time and time again that he loved her. He spirited her out of danger on the battlefield. He snuck to la casa mayor in the middle of the night when they were children to leave gifts and notes on her windowsill. He teased laughter from her even when the night closed dark and threatening around them.
He came back.
If she let him leave again, if she failed him again, she would never feel whole. It was that simple.