Juana poured Ana Luisa a jícara cup and handed it to her, then reached for a basket of tortillas wrapped in cloth to keep them warm. “I think it is best we forget it,” she said, not meeting my gaze.
“Forget it?” I repeated, incredulous. Easy for her to say, when she hadn’t sunk her hand into warm, sticky . . . I shook my head to clear it. My hand had been clean before Juana drenched it in icy water. How was that possible? “But—”
“Just eat,” Juana said briskly. “Our senses are not about us.”
They weren’t when we finished eating Ana Luisa’s hearty country food either, thanks to the mezcal. Juana kept my cup refilled, even when I protested that I had had more than enough.
But I was right. Drink loosened her, made her cold face animated. I had never seen Rodolfo drunk—was this what he was like? Jovial and open, casually touching my hand with calloused fingers and cooing over how beautiful my green eyes were? Juana had Rodolfo’s same powerful magnetism, and I found myself laughing alongside her as she told stories from the fields or mocked petty community dramas with Ana Luisa, though I knew none of the names of the characters in the stories or their meanings.
I was lulled into a sense of comfort, blanketed by liquor-bright voices and the smell of the fire and the copal, the smoky sentries keeping watch. I was certain they had both drunk enough that I could ask them the questions that itched beneath my skin. I slipped into a dip in their conversation, keeping my voice as girlishly innocent as I dared.
“I’m so curious about her,” I said.
“Who?” Ana Luisa said.
“What was her name?” I paused, as if I couldn’t remember it. Of course I remembered it. How could I not? “María Catalina.”
Deep inside the house, far from the warmth of the kitchen, a door slammed.
All three of us jumped. Juana and Ana Luisa perched like hunted hares on the edges of their seats, their attention fixed on the kitchen doorway.
“What was that?” I breathed.
“Draft,” Juana said, voice hollow.
But none touched the copal smoke. It curled, languid as a dancer, into the still, shadowy house beyond.
Juana took the jug and emptied it into her cup.
Ana Luisa reached out as if to stay her but relented when Juana shot her a look I could not parse. I had lost count of her cups, and by the look of it—by the slip of her eyes, the roll of her posture as she leaned her elbows on the table—she had as well.
I mimicked her posture, lowering my chin to my hands to appear small. Innocent. “What was she like?”
Tell me things, I willed her, as if the force of my alcohol-slurred thoughts alone could sway her. Tell me why Rodolfo won’t speak of her. Tell me why the other hacendados dislike you.
A distant look stilled Juana’s expression. I knew the look well from Rodolfo’s face—she was no longer with me, but somewhere in her memory. Somewhere far from here. “Exactly as an hacendado’s wife should be,” she said, an exaggerated twist to her voice. “Refined. Elegant. Rich, of course, for Rodolfo cared something for numbers then. Canny. She saw everything.”
My face was numb from drink, and I prayed it did not betray how my pride smarted. Was I not as an hacendado’s wife should be? I knew I was not rich, that I brought little of value to my marriage, but that did not mean Rodolfo had lost his financial sense entirely when he married me.
Then the meaning of Juana’s words sank into me. The lilt of her mockery peeled back a veil, and for a fleeting moment, I glimpsed truth.
“You didn’t like her.”
Juana’s eyes bore into me, searching my face. Now she was present, sharp and frighteningly so.
I had misspoken.
Then she smiled, a thin, saccharine thing. She stood, took my hand, and brought me to my feet. How could she stand so solidly when I swayed, when the kitchen spun around me? She slipped her arm around my waist and guided me to the door of the kitchen, to the entryway that led to the rest of the house.
“I lied about the house,” she said into my ear. Her breath was warm and sweet with drink against my skin. “I lied twice, actually. The truth is I’m . . . afraid of it. I cannot go in, not in the dark. Neither will Ana Luisa. But you? Ah, you—” She released me, the suddenness of the movement pushing me into the dark. I swayed as I caught my balance. “It’s time for you to go to sleep, Do?a Beatriz.”
She then thrust a handful of herbs into my hand; the pressure of her sweaty-palmed grip had released their sap and earthy aroma. Ana Luisa put a lit candle in my other hand. The smoke twined around them, their softly mocking good nights echoing against one another as the warmth and glow of the kitchen pulled farther and farther away.
I turned a corner, my feet certain they knew the way to my room, my body less sure. Juana’s words took their time sinking past the mezcal thickening my senses, and it was only when I had left the kitchen behind, when a cold draft struck my face, that I realized what she had said.
She was afraid of the house.
Cold sank through my dress, into the bones of my arms, winding into my chest in icy rivulets.
Juana and Ana Luisa shut the door to the kitchen.
I was alone.
My single candle barely cut the darkness. My head spun as I lifted the handful of crushed herbs to my nose, crinkling my nose at its earthy scent.
A peal of childish laughter sounded behind me. The candle’s flame flickered wildly as I shrank away from it, heart slamming against my ribs.
There was no one there.
I grabbed skirts in my herb-filled hand. Forward. I had to get to my room. The candle cast a thin halo of light, barely enough to see a foot in front of me.
More lilting laughter echoed behind me, coy and light, so unlike Juana’s amused bray. Was I imagining it? I had never been drunk before, and—based on the sway in my step and the spin of my vision—there was no doubt that I was. Did one hear things? Did one feel the clammy brush of cold against their cheek as if it were someone’s flesh?
I didn’t want to know. I focused on climbing the stairs as quickly as I could. Cool fingers brushed over my neck—no, I was imagining it, I had to be imagining the sensation of death-cold fingertips brushing over my earlobes, tugging at my hair.
Then two hands placed themselves on my shoulders and shoved me forward. I gasped as I fell to my knees, my temple striking the banister.
The voice grew clearer, shifting from mangled laughter into garbled speech, as if it were conversing with someone, lilting up the scale of pitch and anger as if it were asking questions, demanding answers . . .
Fright numbed the pain in my kneecaps and skull, narrowed my world to the candle before me, to the shuddering sensation of fingers tugging at my hair again.
I had to get away from it. What if those hands yanked me down the stairs? Would I end up like the rat on the front steps of San Isidro, head shattered on the cold flagstones?
Careful to hold the candle aloft, I forced myself to my feet, crouching protectively forward as I stumbled up the remaining stairs and ran to the patrón’s rooms. I thrust my weight against the door until it heaved open, then staggered into the parlor and let it slam shut behind me.