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By Root 1040 0

Teresita all the secrets that could be taught. She taught of the blood and of the blood time, of the power of it, of the surge in strength that it brought. She taught her of the strangely twinned helplessness and immense powers of the gravid mother with life teeming in her belly. She taught Teresita secret words, and she taught her dangerous prayers. They knelt together in the gravel and prayed; they rose at dawn and prayed. Huila blessed her with smoke, anointed her with oils, bathed her naked in a desert pool green with algae and alive with tiny fish the color of coins. She fed Teresita secret foods, and she took her to speak to the rattlesnakes.

“You have power,” Huila said.

Teresita, usually quiet about her secrets, confessed: “I make Fina and Gaby fly.”

“Oh?”

“I take them to cities sometimes.”

“Oh.”

“At night.”

“Be careful,” Huila told her. “You are in danger, and those around you are in danger. You have chosen a way fraught with danger. Be careful.”

Be careful of men, of dark spirits, of power, of love. Be careful of the plants, be careful with your own emotions, be careful with your pride. Devils, angels, lies, illusions, sex, God himself—be careful. Beware of your father. Beware of me. Beware of Gabriela, the People, Buenaventura, the buckaroos. Beware of yourself.

The first trembling came upon Teresita in those days.

It was a morning like any other morning. They had slept late—Tomás made love so often with Gaby that on some nights they were devastated until ten or eleven in the morning. The hacienda ran itself—Segundo knew what to do, the workers knew what to do, Millán from Rosario knew what to do, even Buenaventura knew what to do. Some of the People were offended by Tomás’s love, but most of them thought it was funny. The saying was: Love is the last thing to die. But the People changed it to: Love is the last thing to wake up in the morning.

Even Huila was asleep. She and Teresita had presided over a difficult birth that had lasted for three days. The mother was in such agony that nothing had helped. Herbs, teas, belly rubs, nothing. It was a terrible, long session with Huila and Teresita asleep on their feet. And a strange thing had occurred, so strange that it had Teresita awake early, even though Huila was still asleep. Awake in the courtyard, looking at the plum tree, and praying.

The night before, when she had thought surely that the mother would die on her back, if only from the pain, Teresita had felt the old nighttime glow in her hands. It was odd—she had not asked her hands to go to sleep. But they felt golden. Hot.

She suddenly sensed that she was intended to put her hands on the mother’s belly.

She laid her palms on the mother, and the mother gasped. Teresita could feel the heat growing in her hands. The mother sighed.

“What are you doing?” Huila asked.

“Taking away her pain,” said Teresita, but they did not seem to be her words—they seemed like words of another in her mouth.

The mother sighed again.

“Good,” she said. “Yes, so good.”

She moaned.

“Hot. Honey. It’s hot honey pouring on me!”

And then the baby had come.

Now, Teresita wondered what had happened. She looked at her hands. They looked the same. They didn’t feel strange, didn’t tingle at all. She sniffed them, rubbed them slightly, flexed her fingers.

Then God spoke.

The Voice said:

“Do you believe in me?”

“I do!”

The Voice said:

“If you believe, stand.”

She stood.

The Voice said:

“Walk around the house until I tell you to stop.”

She went to the gate, turned east, and hurried around the house.

Huila came out an hour later. She scratched herself, looked for a ripe plum, then saw Teresita go by the gate. She was sweating, her hair pasted to her forehead.

A long moment later, she passed again.

“Child?” Huila called.

She went to the gate and yelled: “Child!”

Teresita vanished around the far corner. She was hurrying around the house. She must be cutting along the narrow lip of the arroyo in back. Huila stepped out into the road. It took several minutes, but Teresita appeared and came storming toward her.