Chapter 15 of 15·6 min read·The next day, from late morning into the afternoon
The House Near the Plaza
By the time we reached San Luis, the sun had gone white over the roofs, and my guide’s horse was blowing hard. I had spent the last mile watching every man who turned his head toward us. Most were looking at the horse, or at the dust on my skirt. I told myself so each time.
The plaza stood near the church. I carried Sister Inés’s copy folded inside my reticule, with my brother’s note beside it. The ink had blurred at one corner where I had held the pages too tightly. Antonia Ortega. Two daughters. Living near the plaza three years ago.
“Do you know the family?” I asked my guide.
He looked over the roofs. “I know where they were. That is not always where they are now.”
It was a fair answer. We asked at a bakery, then at a small shop where a woman was sorting beans into a bowl. The shopkeeper remembered Doña Antonia and pointed us toward a house on a narrow street, close enough to the plaza that a person could hear the church bell without opening a window.
My guide stayed with the horses. He had brought me this far, and I had no right to ask more of him. I went to the door alone and knocked.
A woman opened it a hand’s breadth. She had dark hair pinned without fuss and a pale scar along her chin. Her eyes went from my face to the saddle-worn hem of my dress.
“Doña Antonia Ortega?”
“Who is asking?”
“My name is Evelyn Bell. My mother was Margaret Bell. Her sister was Isabel.”
The woman did not move. Then she opened the door wider.
“Come in.”
The front room was tidy and close, with a table, two chairs, and a small crucifix hung above a shelf. A girl of perhaps sixteen sat by the window mending a sleeve. She stopped when we entered, needle held between her fingers.
“This is my daughter Rosa,” Antonia said. “Rosa, this is your mother’s cousin. I believe.”
“First cousin once removed, I think,” I said. “If I have counted it rightly.”
Rosa gave a shy half-smile. “That is a long way to be cousins.”
“It is,” I said. “I am glad of it all the same.”
Antonia asked me to sit. I stayed standing until she sat herself, then took the chair opposite. The words I had practiced on the road seemed too grand for the little room. I set the copied register on the table and opened it to the entry.
“Your grandmother was María,” I said. “Her mother was Isabel, my mother’s sister. Sister Inés showed me the original at St. Brigid’s.”
Next
Evelyn and Antonia must decide how to answer the stranger at the door before he can use the Ortega family records against them.
Antonia read the names. Her thumb rested on Isabel’s, and for a moment her face softened in a way that made her look younger.
“My mother spoke of her,” she said. “Not often. She was born after Isabel died. I had thought there might be some record, but no one came looking.”
“I am sorry I did not come sooner.”
“You could not have known.” She looked up. “You have been traveling a long way.”
“Yes.”
Rosa set down her sewing. “Is there more?”
I looked at Antonia. She nodded once, but she did not answer for me.
“There is a man who says my family owes a soul,” I said. “He claims I am the last living issue of the line. I have told him that I am not certain. This record proves Isabel had descendants. And you are here.”
Rosa’s hand tightened around the cloth.
Antonia leaned back. She did not look frightened. That did not mean she was not. “What does he want from us?”
“I do not know. He has rules he must follow, but I do not understand them all. If I tell him you are living, it may give me grounds to dispute his claim. It may also bring his attention to you.”
“You came to tell us anyway.”
“I did.” The honesty of it hurt more than a lie would have. “I will not ask you to help me. But I could not take your names and use them without telling you.”
Antonia studied me a little longer, then reached for the register copy. She turned it carefully, as if it were an old thing already, and smoothed the fold with her palm.
“I have two daughters,” she said. “Rosa is here. Teresa is married and lives north of town. They are both well. That is what you need to know.”
It was more than I had dared hope. My mouth opened, but I could not find a proper answer. I looked at the two of them—the young woman with her needle, the older woman with Isabel’s name beneath her hand—and felt the years my brother had kept me from seeing. My family had not ended at my mother’s grave. It had gone on without knowing me.
I pressed my fingers together in my lap. “Thank you.”
Antonia reached across the table and covered them. Her hand was warm and dry. I had not been touched by a relative since my brother died. The kindness nearly undid me, and I lowered my head before either of them could see how close I was to crying.
Rosa came around the table and set a cup beside me. “It is only water.”
“I am obliged to you.”
“It is just water,” she said, and sat again.
That made me laugh, a small, unsteady sound. Antonia’s mouth turned upward. For a few minutes we spoke of ordinary things: the road, the price of flour, whether the church roof had been repaired. I told them I had a guide waiting outside. I did not mention Mateo or the settlement. I was not ready to explain the whole of my journey, and Antonia did not press me.
Then she asked, “The man who came to St. Brigid’s. Did he know your name?”
“Sister Inés did not say.”
“He came here after the winter rains. He said he was gathering family entries for a legal matter. He wanted my marriage record and asked how many children I had.” Antonia’s fingers settled on the table’s edge. “I refused. He came again last week.”
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“He said he would return when I had reconsidered.”
A sound came from outside: boots stopping in the street. Antonia looked toward the window. Rosa stood and went to the side of it, careful not to put her face against the glass.
“There is a man by the corner,” she said. “The one with the gray hat.”
I rose. I could see only part of him between the shutters: a neat coat, a narrow brim, one hand resting on the head of a cane. He looked at our door, then turned his attention to the plaza as if he had merely paused to admire the church.
My burned mark prickled beneath my sleeve. I kept my hands still. I would not use magic because a man had found a street corner. I would not tell the Pale Rider where I stood by reaching for a power I could not command.
Antonia closed the front shutters. “He has been watching the house.”
“Then we should not keep you here,” I said. “I can leave. I can take the road out before he—”
“No.” Her answer came quickly. She seemed surprised by it herself, but she held to it. “If he is asking after my daughters, leaving you to go alone will not protect us.”
“I do not want to bring harm to your family.”
“Nor do I want a stranger deciding what my family is allowed to know.” She picked up the register copy and handed it back to me. “You said the record may help you dispute his claim. We will find the priest and have him confirm it. After that, you tell me what you need before you tell it to anyone else.”
A knock sounded at the door.
Rosa moved toward the back of the house. Antonia stood between her and the entrance, one hand raised to keep me from going forward. The knock came again, measured and polite.
“Doña Antonia?” a man called from outside.
She looked at me. I could see the question in her face, but she did not ask me to answer it. I folded the register copy and put it away.
“Do not open the door,” I whispered.
“I had not intended to.”
The man waited, then said, “I have come about the Ortega family record.”
Antonia’s jaw set. “He has found us,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied. “Now we find out what he means to do.”