Chapter XXIX
XXIX
Elías
The next morning broke pale and white. It was the day Alba would undergo what Bartolomé called an opening parry: Elías was to report to the chapel at siesta and be present for the priest to first face the demon that plagued Alba.
Elías did not volunteer the information that he had already tried this, nor that he had visited the shrine.
Every sinew of his being vibrated with an intoxicating mixture of hope and fear through the night, even after Bartolomé took over watching Alba to allow him a few hours of sleep.
He was on edge from the moment he woke, dreading what would happen when afternoon’s shadows grew long.
He was so lost in thought over breakfast that he did not notice Heraclio come into the kitchen until Socorro had vanished, leaving the place eerily silent but for the crackle of the fire.
Elías looked up from his food, saw his uncle, and said nothing. Would the bull charge? Or would it retreat? It was better to wait and see.
“Come with me,” Heraclio said.
He followed Heraclio to a storeroom that had been turned into a study of sorts. The walls were lined with shelves with miscellaneous items: bags of rice, books with hacienda records. Dust that smelled vaguely of horse feed.
Heraclio motioned for him to wait near the door. He rummaged through a chest and then withdrew a purse. He set it atop a nearby shelf; it struck the wood heavily. Another purse. Another.
Elías watched as Heraclio set a small fortune in silver at his eye level, and then turned to face him.
“I want you gone,” Heraclio announced.
Of all the things Elías had imagined happening this day, this was not one of them. “I beg your pardon?”
“The misunderstanding with Romero was unfortunate,” Heraclio continued.
This was not an apology; Elías neither expected nor cared for one.
“But it showed me something important.” He set his hands on his hips and surveyed Elías from boots to face.
“You bring out the worst in Carlos. It’s bad for the family. It’s bad for his engagement.”
He shoved the purses toward Elías. The clink of silver on silver struck pain through his teeth.
“Based on my calculations, on the amount of ore in the mines and the amount of mercury you brought, this is the equivalent of your share,” Heraclio said. “Per the agreement you made with my father. Take it and go.”
It was a prince’s ransom. He could ride to Acapulco. There were still many weeks until the fleet left for the Philippines; he could spirit himself onto one of those boats. Buy his passage. Buy his life.
Without Alba.
“Go back to Spain,” Heraclio said. “Or stay in the Indies. I don’t care, as long as you’re far from here.”
Elías put a hand on the first purse. Its weight was a balm that loosened his shoulders. Silver fixed things. It always did. This could be his inheritance: a new ship, a new sea, new soil beneath his feet. A life free of pain.
But a fleeting image appeared of Fátima hovering in the doorway of their home, her dark eyes cast down at the ground, blinking furiously. Silent tears rolled thick down her cheeks.
All you ever do is leave.
His greed went foul in his mouth.
No matter how hard he ran from his life, his past kept pace with his shadow. No matter where he went, how long he lived, this would always be true. His shame was a body long gone to rot, but it would poison everything he touched if he let it. Forever.
Alba was not his penance, his history to repeat, but a miracle. A chance. An opportunity to take his regret and rewrite it.
Not even a prince’s ransom could buy that.
In Fátima’s memory, he prayed, though he did not know to whom, or to what, only that perhaps it reached down, down through the floor of Casa Calavera, down into the stone of the mountains: Give me strength.
He lifted his hand from the bag of silver.
“No, thank you,” he said.
Heraclio stilled. “What?”
Elías steeled himself to lie and lie eloquently.
“Being here,” he began, “I cannot help but meditate on my father’s memory.
I feel closer to him here. Closer than I ever felt when he was alive.
” It tasted honest enough, for it had a seed of truth in it.
Reading Victoriano’s journals, spending time with María Victoriana, and even with Carolina…
it had brought him closer to his father.
He still refused to grieve, but instead of anger, he now felt an ever-present soreness—akin to a pulled muscle—when he thought of the man.
He did not like it. “I think he would want me to help make the mine profitable, in his name. At least for a time,” he said, seeing color rise up Heraclio’s neck, the first sign that the bull would be unleashed.
“I have no desire to stay forever. But I plan to stay for now.”
“Fool,” Heraclio spat. “I’m being excessively generous.” He took a purse and threw it at Elías, who caught it against his chest. Its force was almost that of a blow. “I made calculations, but there’s no guarantee of what’s really down there. This could be more than I owe you. Take it and go.”
Or there could be twice as much , whispered a voice in Elías’s ear, with a smile that felt as jackal-like as Abuelo Arcadio’s.
“I’m looking out for you,” Heraclio said. “Not even your father gave a shit whether you lived or died, much less if you had something to live on.”
This was his inheritance.
He weighed it in his hands and found that he wanted no part of it.
He threw the purse back at Heraclio, whose face contorted in surprise as he caught it.
“We’re Monterrubios,” Elías snarled. “We don’t look after one another. We look after the money, don’t we?” And he would not. He had made Alba a promise that he intended to keep. “I’m staying.”
—
Noon came and went. The hive of the hacienda de minas settled into a low, sleepy buzz, and Elías stepped out of the cold of Casa Calavera into a rare break in the clouds. Brilliant sunshine blinded him as he crossed to the chapel.
He heard voices, raised and argumentative.
“What is he doing here?” Alba was saying.
When he stepped inside, heads whirled at the sound of his footsteps.
Three heads.
“What is he doing here?” Carlos cried, pointing an accusing finger at Elías.
“What,” Elías said, “the fuck.”
“Mind your tongue,” Carlos snapped.
Alba threw her hands up in frustration. She stood before a chair on the altar with the others, dressed in a simple white gown. She glowed like an angry saint. Santa Alba, patron of those who suffer under the yoke of pig fiancés, hear our prayer.
“Enough. We are all here in the service of helping Senorita Díaz,” Bartolomé declared, his voice ringing through the chapel as if the space were made to amplify him and him alone. Did they teach that in seminary? It was an enviable skill.
“Does he even know what’s going on?” Alba said, directing her exasperated question at Bartolomé.
“Exactly. No one even talks to him,” Carlos said. “Why would he be here?”
When Elías laughed, he let it ring as mockingly as he wished. He let it die a long, natural death, admonishing look from Bartolomé be damned.
“I’m shocked that you broke our confidence, Padre,” he said, letting his feelings bleed into the words. They tasted acidic. Good. “You promised that you would not tell—”
“I made no such promise,” Bartolomé interrupted crisply.
Indeed.
He hadn’t.
Uncertainty cracked the ground beneath Elías; fissures sliced past him, running deep and black, fracturing the floor on which he stood.
Who else had he told? Who else would he tell?
“Confidence?” Carlos’s voice pitched in a way that reminded Elías distinctly of Alba’s mother in her shriller moments.
Though it was abundantly clear that Bartolomé was the arbiter of secrets kept and broken, Carlos whirled on Elías, fangs unsheathed and ready to provoke.
Was that not the Monterrubio way? “You dare presume to keep secrets from me involving my fiancée?”
Elías counted the secrets he kept, stowing them in a velvet box like so many jewels: the silkiness of Alba’s feet as he rubbed warmth back into them; her palm against his; Don’t stop ; the hungry crush of her mouth; her weight in his arms, mercury held fast at last; the sinful oaths he swore to her in the blackest night. Oaths he would keep if it killed him.
He took a brief moment to admire their luster and, satisfied, held his tongue.
“I swore to you that no harm would come to Alba under my watch,” Bartolomé said to Elías, ignoring Carlos’s outburst. “I plan to follow this ritual to the letter, and part of that involves trustworthy assistants. It is unwise for the priest to be alone; therefore, the company of one who has been privy to this…situation since the beginning.” He nodded at Elías.
“In the event that Senorita Díaz needs to be restrained, it was necessary to ask for further assistance. For propriety’s sake, the ritual suggests female family members. ”
Alba flinched.
Bartolomé turned to her. “I do not wish to assume, but I wagered that your mother—”
“No, you assumed correctly,” Alba said. Her face strained as Carlos took her hands and turned his back to Elías.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, low and passionate. “Is this why you’ve been so strange?”
Alba took a deliberate step away from him, toward Bartolomé.
“Padre,” she said sharply. “Get this over with.”
“Yes, Lomé,” Carlos said. “I need my fiancée back before we return to Zacatecas. If anyone knew that this happened to our family, our reputation would never recover.”
Alba gave a mighty roll of the eyes and turned toward the altar as Bartolomé began to describe the basics of the ritual to Carlos. She placed a hand on the back of the chair and slumped slightly, using it to hold her weight.
Elías ran to reach her side and caught her by the elbow. A delicate green vein lifted prominent on her forehead; sweat beaded along her hairline and temples.
“Sit,” he urged. She deflated into the chair. “Is there water?” he asked the others.
There was; he brought it to her. Water sloshed over the sides of the cup when she took it. Splashes darkened the front of her dress as she lifted it to her mouth.
“As I told you, it’s not going to be over in one session,” Bartolomé said. “I am but one man. Some cases take days. Others, weeks.”
“Weeks!” Carlos cried.
Elías glanced down to gauge Alba’s reaction. Her plait lay against her back, but beneath it, her neck—
Loose hairs tangled in the exposed bones of her spine.
He could see her bones.
“Padre,” Elías said softly. Perhaps his tone conveyed that something was very, very wrong, for both the priest and Carlos fell silent and looked his way immediately. “We’re not alone.”