The Hacienda

But if God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, if He is three in one in the Trinity, then God knows nothing of loneliness. God knows nothing of standing with his back to a gray morning, of dropping to his knees in the dust.

Words can damn or bless in equal measure, and are never to be used lightly.

When a man makes a promise, he makes it on his honor. When a witch makes a promise, they feel it in their bones.

Colonialism carved the landscapes of our homes with ghosts, It left gaping wounds that still weep

Our relationship was founded on one thing, and one thing only. My world was a dark, windowless room, and he was a door.

my world was a dark, windowless room, and he was a door.

Fate had been unkind to me, but sometimes, its pettiness worked in my favor.

Industry will rise and fall, men will scorch the earth and slaughter one another for emperors or republics, but they will always want drink.

I savored the memory of her voice. The way her whisper held a profane, exquisite power over me, how its brush could send an aching trill down my spine.

Should is an oddly powerful word. Shame and anger have a way of flying to it like coins to a lodestone.

Family is all we have when things fall apart,

It is said that mortal life is empty without the love of God. That the ache of loneliness's wounds is assuaged by obedience to Him, for in serving God we encounter perfect love and are made whole. But if God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, if He is three in one in the Trinity, then God knows nothing of loneliness...God knows nothing of loneliness, because God has never tasted companionship as mortals do: clinging to one another in darkness so complete and sharp it scrapes flesh from bone, trusting one another even as the Devil's breath blooms hot on their napes.

I was a sinner. I was a witch. I had sinned and would sin again, like all men. But whatever my decisions meant for life after death was between me and the Lord. All I could do was serve the home and people I loved using every gift I was born with.

Juana had always been headstrong, almost churlish, but there was a wildness to her now, one that spoke of something shattered within her.

Bitterly though I admitted it, in one respect, Vicente was perfectly right about me: I had no gift for civilizing, not as criollos like him defined it. Nor had I ever wished for it.

I could rationalize this decision away. It was easy, too easy. She was a lost soul who sought help and I gave it; thus was my vocation. I could repeat that sentence like a litany, like a prayer, a meditation of pious deceit, but it still would not change the truth. I was giving in to temptation. Every decision I made that kept me close to her, that offered the opportunity to be close enough to touch her hand or smell her hair, was a sin. I wanted it all the same.

It was right for Beatriz to leave. Just as it was right for me to stay here, on this land, with the people who needed me most. That did not mean saying goodbye would be easy.

All this time, I thought knowing what was right would bring me peace or contentment. Instead, sorrow draped leaden across my shoulders as I watched the empty horizon, every fiber of my being willing the carriage to turn back.

Even when she walked into the most sickened of houses to purify their energy with copal and smudging of burnt herbs on the walls and hearths, houses so diseased she ordered me to stand outside with the inhabitants, the voices rippled off her like water off silver, her aura as impenetrable as a warrior's gleaming shield. She was a prophet in a land that had been stripped of its gods: a healer of the sick, a beacon in the night. She reached into steel-dark clouds to control the storms of the rainy season, seizing lightning as her reins and bending them to her will to turn harvests into gold. She called the voices to heel and banished them. I was not her.

My eyes filled with tears. How scornful I had been of Mamá insisting I should marry for love. How convinced I was that I was right to be practical, to sacrifice a loving partnership like she and Papá had for an estate in the country and financial security

Of his enemies in the Church, the insurgent priest said they were Catholic “only to benefit themselves: their God is money. Under the veil of religion and of friendship they want to make you the victims of their insatiable greed.

And at twenty, I faced a ticking clock: marry soon, when I was seen as fresh and virginal and desirable, or marry not at all.

I wanted to cup a room in my palm, to tell it to be still, to tell it to hush.

It was a sin, and I knew it, and suddenly I realized that I didn't care. For if sin was all I had standing between myself and the darkness, I would take it.

There is no draft more bitter than that of helplessness.

A wink of color caught my attention in the mirror. Two red lights stared at me from a darkened corner beneath the window. I blinked, and they were gone. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. An oily feeling slipped over my shoulders.

Shh.” I cupped his face in my hands, running my thumbs over his cheeks. I wanted to memorize the feeling of his stubble against my palms, the shape of his lips as they parted. His dark eyelashes, framing eyes that looked up at me with utter trust. With a longing so open and deep it sent an ache through my chest. No looking back. No looking forward. “Then don’t.” I lowered my face to his. “Just be with me now,” I breathed against his lips. “Be.

There is no draft more bitter than that of helplessness

You must cast them out, she would say. You are your mind’s sole master. Banish them. Tell them to mind their own business and leave you be.