Page 18

III

María cannot wait a fortnight.

The countess sucked her teeth at the request, muttered about spending time on tonics that would only go to waste while Andrés is still away. But then her husband sent word that he would be back in León soon, and thus the old hag gave her leave to come again.

And so María steps into the welcome dark a second time.

The widow, Sabine, does not look surprised to see her, but she does look glad, rising from the table where she was bent over her work.

“María,” she says, the name easy as an exhale. It is the first time in her life she has enjoyed the sound.

Sabine glides toward her, hand reaching not for the empty bottle María was about to offer, but past it, toward her shoulder, her throat, her cheek, cool bare fingers resting on warm skin.

“I remember now,” says the widow, meeting María’s gaze, and she doesn’t realize a strand of copper has escaped her scarf until Sabine twists the lock around her finger.

“The child in the woods, blithely plucking poisoned blooms.” Her hand lingers, the curl twisted like a ring. “How long ago was that?”

“Ten years,” answers María.

“So many?” asks Sabine.

“And yet,” says María, who has thought this week of little else, “you were a new widow then as well.”

Sabine’s palm dips, the hair abandoned as she plucks the empty bottle from María’s hand and turns away. María wonders if she’s angered her, but when Sabine glances back, there is amusement flashing in her eyes.

“Two kinds of women have leave to wander through this world alone and unmolested. Nuns, and widows. And I am not close enough with God to be a nun.”

“So it is a lie, then.”

Sabine taps the empty bottle thoughtfully against the table.

“No. I did have a husband. Once.” There it is again, that flash of teeth.

A smile so slight and yet so dazzling that when María sees it, the ground seems to pitch downhill.

She finds herself leaning forward, the urge to follow, or to fall.

“How did he die?” she asks.

The widow’s smile widens. “Slowly.”

Sabine. Sabine. Sabine.

María finds herself holding the name, like a cube of sugar, on her tongue, in the days between their meetings. Dwelling on how strange and sweet it tastes.

Sabine Boucher.

It is French, she tells María on her next visit—to think, her brother Felipe was right, all those years ago—and yet, there is hardly any accent to the widow’s speech, her Spanish crisp and clean.

“All things wear smooth in time,” she says by way of explanation, though she does not look old enough to have such wear.

Sabine. Sabine. María finds cause to say the name aloud as often as she can. On the third or fourth visit, she finally admits how much she likes the sound.

“María is a lovely name,” counters the widow.

To which the younger woman only snorts. A short, derisive sound. “My mother told me once that it means bitter. ”

Sabine plucks a stem of lavender from its bundle, twists the sprig between her fingers. “It also means beloved .”

María wrinkles up her nose. Perhaps, she says, but she has never liked it. It is so commonplace, so plain, like starched linen when she dreams of silk. She hates the way it sounds in her mother-in-law’s mouth, like a sharp tug on a short chain.

Sabine looks at her kindly. “A name is like a dress. It might be by nature pretty or plain, but it is the person wearing it who matters most.”

María considers, looking through a jar of herbs. Studying the face beyond. “If names are dresses, mine simply does not fit.”

“So take it off,” says Sabine blithely, handing her the lavender as if it is a torch. “Who would you be? What name would better suit you?”

María brings the dried flower to her nose. To that, she has no answer ready.

But she will think on it.

The summer drags itself over coals.

The day is blistering, the city baking in the August heat, and for once, María has not had to orchestrate her escape.

The countess declares she cannot endure the sun and has skipped the market, preferring instead to soak her feet and hear the gossip in the comfort of her home.

María would surely have been forced to stay and keep her company if not for the widow’s gifts.

Last time, she returned with a tonic to ease the countess’s headaches, another to help the ever-restless count sleep through the night, and so they’ve deemed these visits a suitable pursuit.

Of course, María is not allowed to go alone. She is sent in the company of a maid, a makeshift jailer, but it’s shockingly easy to buy an hour’s peace with coin and threats, and she came armed with both.

The dark shop welcomes her when she arrives, and so does Sabine.

“Come,” says the widow when María produces the empty tonic bottle. “I will show you how to make this batch yourself.”

María recoils slightly at the prospect, not because she doesn’t want to know, but because it feels like a door threatening to close.

“Surely that is not good business,” she says, trying to make her voice light, playful even. “After all, if you teach me, I’ll have no need to visit your shop.”

No need, she says, when what she means is no reason, no excuse. When what she wants to say is that these stolen hours have been some days a saving grace, and others the only thing that keeps her from stepping off her in-laws’ slanted roof.

Sabine purses her mouth in disapproval. “Knowledge is power, María. Never turn it down. Besides,” she adds, cupping the stone bowl, “no one else needs to know what you do. It can be a secret, shared. Now, fetch me the jar of nettle from the shelf behind you.”

María turns to the wooden ledge, and frowns. There are a dozen jars of herbs, their names written in a quick, sloped hand. She studies them, as if the curved lines will arrange themselves to sense. They don’t.

“You cannot read?” ventures Sabine, appearing at her elbow.

María’s jaw clenches. “No.” A simple word, when the truth is messier.

She’d broached the subject with her in-laws over supper, more than a year before, when the boredom reached its peak.

She had been eyeing the books in the count’s study for some time, in hope of a diversion, had even anticipated the shadow that crossed the countess’s face, and quickly said she wished to learn so she could teach her children.

Even touched her stomach for good measure.

To María’s surprise, the count himself agreed to teach her.

But every time she went to meet him in his study, his hands began to venture from the page and purpose to her arm, her back, her waist. He’d lick his lips as he sounded out the letters. Sniff her hair as he leaned close.

When the man’s wrinkled hands began to wander farther south, she’d abandoned the pursuit.

“I wanted to learn,” María says now, glaring at the apothecary shelf, the labels nothing more than mocking curls and crosses. “But I lacked a proper teacher.”

“Well then,” says Sabine, reaching past her to pluck the nettle from the shelf. For a moment they are as close as cloth, draped together in the dark. The widow’s breath a cool whisper on the back of María’s neck. Her mouth, inches from her skin.

“Let’s see if I can help.”

María is not a patient pupil.

Her temper is quick to burn, and hard to quench.

Sabine makes her draw letters in a layer of fine sand, again and again, until she knows their shapes, before slowly stringing them together.

“What a cursed venture,” she hisses more than once, slashing her hand through the sand with such force that it goes everywhere. A cloud, raining silent on the wooden floor. But the widow only produces more.

Week after week, the lessons little more than snatches, her annoyance clashing with Sabine’s persistent calm, until slowly, somehow, the tangled letters become sounds and the sounds take shape.

“Ro . . .”

She sounds out the letters on a label.

“. . . me . . .”

Wills it smooth.

“. . . ro.”

María blinks, as the sounds become a word.

“Romero.”

Rosemary.

She thrills in recognition. It is like finding the keys to a locked door in your house, discovering a whole new room beyond.

Sabine cups her pupil’s face, delighted. “You have such a quick mind.”

María blushes, brief and hot, then scoffs, and slumps, frustrated, back into her chair. “At this rate, it will take a lifetime.”

“There are worse ways to spend a life,” says Sabine, still looming over her.

María lets her head fall back, looks up into the widow’s peculiar eyes.

This close, they are not an even blue, but shot through with silver light, somehow bright despite the darkened shop.

Only a foot of space between their faces, and it has never felt so far, so close.

For a moment, María thinks of Ysabel, head bent over hers in the western alcove.

But she suspects that if she reached up now, to touch the widow’s cheek, the other woman would not pull away.

Not even if her fingers drifted, if her thumb slipped across the widow’s lips, soft and petal pink.

But the moment passes, and María does not reach.

Her fingers twitch, but stay against her dress. Sabine withdraws, and María is left feeling strangely winded.

The hour is almost up, and she knows that she should rise and go, and leave the widow to her work. But the fact is, she does not want to. So she lingers, lets her eyes drift closed, savoring the fact the summer heat has broken, the shop stones cooling in its wake.

Soon, the room fills with a strange new scent, warm and woody.

María glances toward Sabine, finds the woman stirring a mixture in a small bowl balanced atop a flame, the heat contained within a metal dish. Watches as she pours the contents, which are dark and thick as pitch, into a little cup.

Sabine returns to the table and places the cup before María.

“What is this?” she asks.

“A reward,” says the widow, “for your resilient study.”

María considers the mixture. It is the color of polished wood, the thickness of tallow, and according to Sabine, it is called chocolate.

“It was a gift,” she explains, “from a grateful patron.”

María nods at the single cup. “Surely we should share.”

But Sabine only shakes her head. “It is too rich for me,” she says, a little sadly. “But it would be a crime for such a gift to go to waste. Go on,” she adds, and then, a little softer, “I want you to enjoy it for me.”

María lifts the cup to her lips and takes a sip.

The liquid rolls over her tongue, at once bitter and sweet, thicker than wine and thinner than fruit, and her eyes slide shut as she holds it in her mouth, savoring the taste.

It is unlike anything María’s ever tried. It coats her tongue, and the flavor lingers in her throat. And yet, as soon as she has swallowed, she wishes she hadn’t. It is gone, and she is left not satisfied, but wanting.

When she finally opens her eyes, she finds Sabine watching her with rapt attention. Her teeth prick at her lower lip.

“Well?” she asks, eyes blazing in the shop’s thin light.

And what can María say? In that one sip, she has drained the little cup. She would gladly have another. She would have it with every meal. Every day for the rest of her life. And it would still not be enough.

“If I had this,” María says, “I would drink nothing else.”

Sabine’s mouth splits into a shallow smile.

“Strange, isn’t it?” she says. “The more you taste, the more you want.”