Chapter 21
I run past the gardens, past the stable and a shouting groundskeeper, past a stone fountain and a small orchard.
My arms sting where the glass cut when I jumped through the window, but I don’t slow.
I hop a stone gate and stumble upon the road.
I don’t stop to catch my breath or look back.
I do not know if it is the will to live, but my body feels stronger, lit up with an internal fire that propels my legs forward.
I reach the sidewalks. Doctor Lobo’s house is behind me, and I don’t dare look back. I have no plan but to leave the house far behind me.
When I can no longer run, I walk. If I could no longer walk, I would crawl.
On all fours like a louse looking for a hole in which to hide.
I imagine he is behind me, fast on my heels.
I pass a yellow house where a couple sit on their front porch, reading aloud to each other.
I try to shout out to them for help, but the noise that comes out of my throat is hoarse and feeble. They see me, point, and stare.
My vision starts to blur. The sun rises high in the sky, blazing. Every muscle in my body burns. I fear I am moving achingly slow.
A carriage rolls to a halt beside me. I try to recall what Doctor Lobo’s carriage looked like, but I cannot be sure. Nor can I tell which direction it came from—Doctor Lobo’s mansion?
The door opens and I start to turn away in terror, but to my surprise, it is Leandro who steps out. He helps me up, then tucks me into the seat.
“You’re bleeding!” he says once we’re in the carriage. “What happened?”
“Take me far away from here. Make haste!”
The carriage takes off. I look out the window and don’t see Doctor Lobo anywhere on the road.
I do not know if he chased me. I do not know if he ever even noticed I escaped.
The road looks eerily deserted now. Flowering trees sway in the wind as if nothing bad ever happened.
The couple that was reading on their porch now stand on the sidewalk, book in hand, looking out.
“What’s happened?” Leandro repeats. He tears off a piece of his shirt to bandage my cuts.
“It’s not my…” I trail off. It’s not my blood, I don’t think, but I’m not sure. (No, I am sure, I am sure I killed her.) But I have cuts on my arms from squeezing through the broken window. The blood drips down over my arms and elbows. They are superficial wounds, but some of the blood is mine.
“My baby…” I press a hand to my belly. A sickening feeling comes over me.
Will my baby be harmed by all this? I hope to God that my baby wasn’t injured in the process, yet I can’t imagine that he wasn’t.
This is all punishment because of what I did last night.
I try to calm myself, to remind myself that I wasn’t actually harmed in the ritual…
Was I? No, no, if I had been, how would I have been able to run so much? However, that girl…
“I never should have allowed him to take you away,” Leandro says. “I wasn’t thinking straight last night, I drank too much. But this morning I came as soon as I rose. For God’s sake, what happened? Did he hurt you?”
I swallow. I can’t even begin to imagine how I can explain myself—what version of events I can offer that doesn’t incriminate me.
“We need to get you to a doctor,” Leandro says.
“No more doctors!”
“Why not?”
“Doctor Lobo is a dangerous man.” I pause. “How did you know I would be here?”
“What?”
“Last night he was meant to take me home. How did you know he never took me home? You knew to come look for me here.”
Leandro pales. “I…Last night while you waited in the carriage, he told me he planned to take you to his house. I told him not to. In my inebriated state, I believed him when he acquiesced. But this morning when I woke up sober, I remembered what he said and had a bad feeling about it. Did he hurt you?”
“I agreed to stay in his house overnight only so I wouldn’t show up at Mother’s door so aggravated.
He was meant to take me to Mother’s house today.
But I woke in the middle of the night.” I pause.
“I heard a noise. I went downstairs and I came upon a dark chamber where…there was a secret ritual of sorts. It was some sort of black magic ritual, I believe.”
His jaw drops in shock. “A black magic ritual?”
I nod. No one must ever know what I did. I shall take that to my grave. But what of the men? Will they come after me?
“I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see.”
This part is true. I was not meant to see the dead girl.
I was supposed to believe I was stabbing a wax doll, a ritual effigy.
If the blindfold hadn’t come off, Doctor Lobo wouldn’t have left me in that room to wake up alone, imprisoned.
Now I know about the girl who was murdered in their sacrificial ritual, and I am a liability to them.
I curse myself. God. I killed that girl. But she did not react at all when I stabbed her…She must have been heavily sedated. Doctor Lobo is a physician; it would be easy for him to arrange such a thing.
“What did you see?”
I shake my head. “Don’t ask me, Leandro, I dare not speak of it.”
Leandro doesn’t press. But I feel him staring at me. I know he’s wondering how I came to be in my underpinnings. Or is it merely my guilt that makes me think so? Guilt not only for what I did to the girl, but what I did with Doctor Lobo.
“I escaped by breaking a window and climbing through it. I cut myself in the process.”
I wonder if Leandro will point out that this doesn’t explain why I have blood on my hair and my back as well.
Leandro says, “Before Doctor Lobo, my family physician was Doctor Amado—”
“Leandro, what I need is the police.”
“The police?” Leandro sounds disturbed.
I bite my lips. I want to go to the police inspector and tell him these men may be hunting me. But what version of events will I tell them? And what if they find out I killed a girl?
I rub my temples. The murder weapon, the ceremonial dagger…I left it there. After the window broke, I dropped the dagger and left it there.
“Never mind,” I correct myself. “Don’t send for the police inspector yet. Just…just take me home.”
Heavens, if I show up at home like this, how will I explain my current state? Bleeding and semi-naked, disheveled. My stomach tightens. I look around me, and I notice familiar terrain. The carriage pulls into the driveway of the Fazenda Santa Tereza. I sit up, confused.
“Why are we back at your house?” I ask.
Leandro stares at me blankly. His face is a mask of confusion and it tells me he’s still not back to his usual self. He’s that shell-shocked version of himself that infuriates me.
“Leandro, pull yourself together!” I cry, and he looks frightened.
“I-I’m sorry,” he stammers.
Perhaps it is for the best that we’re back here. If I clean myself up, I can arrive at Mother’s house looking composed, dressed up, and clean. All I have to explain are a few bruises on my arms. Yes…that is what I will do.
“Maria das Dores will clean my wounds,” I tell him, “then you’ll have the driver take me home.”