Chapter X
X
Alba
She woke with a start.
A moment passed before she breathed; when she remembered how, she sucked in desperate, cold drafts.
It felt like ice water splashed in her face.
No—when she threw off the blankets, placed her feet on the handwoven rug and stepped to the washbowl, that splash of water stung like a slap.
She gasped, then straightened, bracing her hands on either side of the bowl.
The sight of Elías’s hands covered in blood, then looking down and seeing blood on her own hands—it was a dream.
Looking up from her hands and seeing Carlos with his face slick with blood, dripping with it, his blond hair clumped and wet and red.
Flies buzzed around his head, corona-like.
When he drew close, a clot of blood slipped from his hair and splat on his cheek, fat and shining and—
She splashed her face again.
It was a nightmare.
Yesterday, Elías had led her out of the mine and handed her to Carlos. The men had snapped at each other, yes, hungry dogs measuring each other’s bared teeth. But when Elías had saluted Carlos with his longest finger, there was no blood. No blood on her own hands.
And the wetness on the ground deep in the mine?
That, too, had to be a part of the dream. There was no other explanation for how warm it felt.
A shudder coursed through her shoulders.
Dawn slipped long, pale fingers through the cracks in the wooden window shutters, a scant glow of light from outside.
There was a distant cluck of chickens, but no rooster crowing; whatever the hour, it was early enough that no one had fed the birds, early enough that there were no sounds from Mamá and Papá’s room.
But it was late enough that she had no desire to fall back asleep.
Especially not if it meant falling back into such a dream.
She reached for the chest at the foot of her bed, for the rebozo that lay folded atop it.
As she shifted her weight, sharpness pressed into the sole of one bare foot. “ Ow .”
She dropped herself onto the bed and lifted her foot to examine it. Low light left little to see, but when she brushed fingertips over her sole, she heard small rocks rain onto the floor.
Gravel. It must have slipped into her shoes the previous day, worked its way through her stockings, and remained there as she slipped into bed.
Her stockings must be in need of mending. How odd.
—
The day itself looked as if it would be nothing but tedium.
Mamá would hear nothing of Alba further exploring the grounds of the hacienda de minas after the previous day’s misadventure.
This she resented: It kept her plans to uncover the truth of her origins on a tight leash.
This, when paired with yesterday’s findings, dampened her hopes of discovering the truth of her past with ease.
Asking Papá about Victoriano Monterrubio—the man mentioned in Papá’s letter, who turned out to be Heraclio’s younger brother—as casually as she could turned up the news that he had been dead for nearly a year.
Mamá had sharply cautioned her not to speak of the man to his relatives, and that was that.
Mamá held tightly to Alba’s elbow as they walked from Casa Calavera to the small adobe chapel that was set slightly apart from the house.
Alba lingered in the doorway of the chapel, even as Mamá stepped inside.
It was box-shaped and windowless but for a few keyhole slits near the roofline.
Inside was dark; she could already taste how choked the single room was with incense and the closeness of other people’s bodies.
The roughly hewn pews were filled with dark heads; figures stood shoulder to shoulder at the back of the room, hands clasped penitently before them.
It was airless as a coffin, dark as a crypt.
Reluctance flushed her like an instinct. Perhaps she could be ill—her monthly blood and its usual pain and fainting was a faultless excuse.
But it was too late. Mamá clawed her arm like a bird careless with its talons; she was surprised the fabric of her sleeve had not ripped. With her other hand, Mamá dipped her fingertips into a small stone basin of holy water at the door and crossed herself.
Alba reached for the basin. Cold bit her fingertips, lacing through her bones like a shock of ice to the nape of the neck.
So many bodies in the chapel, and yet her reflexive hiss echoed. It came back to her after bouncing off the wall of the chapel. It sounded as if a wild animal had been struck.
Mamá shot her a stern look.
“It’s cold,” Alba said as she crossed herself.
When they sat in the spaces reserved for them in the first pew, she folded her hands over each other, rubbing them together in a vain attempt to create warmth.
Thin red scratches over the backs of her knuckles stung when touched.
She must have grazed them against something—a wall, or the splinter-prone, unfinished wooden bed frame—without noticing.
Bartolomé— Padre Bartolomé, though it was hard to remember to add this honorific when he seemed to be no older than she—descended on the chapel like a vision.
He gleamed. It was as if he drew every sliver of light to himself and reflected it back out on his gathered flock.
He was benevolence, he was holy grace. His smile was easy and soft, saintly, as he began to chant in Latin.
She hated him.
It flashed through her chest, the only thing with heat for miles and miles, so hot that she wanted to hold her aching fingertips to her breast to warm them.
Shame dropped her eyes to her shoes as she rose alongside everyone else in the chapel.
There was no reason to hate Bartolomé. That was a childish impulse, born of exhaustion and an empty, gnawing stomach.
The cold made her churlish. It made Mass interminable.
It made her mind wander, reaching for something, anything to toy with as Latin droned on.
Whispers wove delicate lace behind her. She shot a glance over her shoulder as she sat.
Through the lace of her mantilla, faces bled together: peninsulares and criollos, predominantly men.
The women who lived here in the mountains were mestizas and indias and were seated farther back in the chapel.
Were they gossiping about her? It seemed that there were no faces turned to whisper, no exchanged, knowing looks; if anything, the occupants of the chapel were focused on Bartolomé or turned heavenward as if in silent prayer.
Alba turned her head forward and lowered it as Bartolomé read from the Scripture, his words a perfectly holy, level buzz against her skull.
Whispers drew cold fingertips at her hair, at her ears.
It couldn’t be a breeze. The windows were too high; she felt no draft, despite the cold that was slowly turning the delicate bones of her hands to ice.
The sound was louder than the shift of clothing; softer than a speaking voice.
Judging from the prickle at the back of her neck, it had to be about her.
She rolled her shoulders to release the agitation that curled snakelike there.
Let the people whisper. She was the city-born fiancée of Carlos Monterrubio, visiting the mine for the first time.
She was bound to be the subject of curiosity, whether she liked it or not.
Besides, she was visiting during a time of pestilence and unrest in the city below the hacienda de minas, when it was said that dozens, if not hundreds, were succumbing to fever by the day.
The price of coffins, Papá had reported at dinner the night before, had shot through the roof.
Demand for good wood was high, and merchants like him were profiting from it.
She settled against the back of the pew. Bartolomé, it seemed, loved the sound of his voice; she wagered that they would not be released to breakfast until he had stretched his wings with a good, fat homily.
She wagered wrong. In the end, the homily—which had centered around Bartolomé’s impassioned retelling of the story of Moses destroying the golden calf—was surprisingly short.
Bartolomé was a zealous orator, but a concise one.
Alba stood when Mamá did and genuflected when she reached the end of the pew.
Her arm was stiff as she made the sign of the cross; it felt heavy and bloodless, as if she had fallen asleep on it bent in an unusual position.
She shook it out as she rose, willing blood to flow back into the limb.
It didn’t. Her arm hung numb as Carlos came and took it to lead her down the aisle to the doors of the chapel.
They opened. A bright light; a sudden, biting draft that sent mantillas fluttering and arms folding across chests.
She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light.
Stepping into the fresh air outside the chapel brought a measure of relief, but not much.
Her body ached, and lightheadedness rose into her skull like fumes.
Perhaps she had fallen ill. No—announcing that she felt ill would send Mamá into a frantic mood, for she would insist it was the matlazahuatl and they were all going to die.
She was not ill. It had to be her monthly blood.
She always felt faint during those weeks.
Carlos had taken Mass as an opportunity to introduce and reintroduce her to a number of strange faces. These blurred: Romero, the pale, oily azoguero, flashed yellow teeth in what looked like it was meant to be a smile; the faces and names of different foremen bled together.
Elías’s face was not among them. He was meant to be the other azoguero, was he not? And yet he was nowhere to be seen. Had he come to the chapel at all?
Why was she bothering to look for him? Carlos had made very clear how negatively he felt about his cousin, and she should respect that.