Page 65 of Sweeter than Honey

My stomach aches. “I like being here with you, too.” I reach out to caress her smooth skin with the back of my hand. She closes her eyes, leaning into my touch. She brushes my fingers gently with her lips, a soft kiss.

We both know that we’ve crossed a threshold. This is more than just sex. Lily has an odd expression on her face, like she’s trying to decide whether to say something.

Curiosity gets the better of me. “What is it?”

“I…I wanted to ask you,” she says tentatively, avoiding my gaze. “About what I found that day, in your cabinet.”

My nostrils flare slightly.

“It looked almost like a wooden toy,” she continues. “I wondered…”

“It’s an old thing,” I say, stiffly. “I should get rid of it.”

Her eyes crinkle in concern. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I just thoughtthat you didn’t like kids much, from how you reacted to Eli the first time. But then you were so good with him when you put him to bed that night…”

I turn my face away, a spasm in my chest.

Lily sits up sharply. “Renata…Renata, you’re crying…”

I pull a handkerchief from my pocket, and wipe the red tears away.

I was born in Mexico City in New Spain. It was before the revolution. The air crackled with something new approaching, although I never got to see it.

My family was well-respected and we didn’t want for much. I hardly ever saw my husband, who worked long hours as an artisan in the booming silver industry. I ran a tight household, ensuring that our accounts were kept in good standing, our attire was appropriately fashionable for our rank, and our social status was cemented in our tight-knit community.

I had some bad luck. Back then, it was common to lose babies. Three stillborn, so when my fourth lived to his fifth year, I was overjoyed. He was the sun in my life. The bright beam of happiness that lit my days. I allowed myself to love him, and I cared for him the best I could. I even bought him a painted, spinning top to play with.

But fate is cruel. And outbreaks were common in densely populated cities like our’s. When my son first developed a fever, I prayed that it would quickly pass. But it worsened, and he became sicker and sicker. It was agony, watching the light dim from his eyes.

Desperate, I asked everyone I knew if there was some cure, some physician, some remedy I hadn’t investigated. I tried everything. My rosary was ever-present in my palms, my fingers sore from counting its beads. My husband said that it was God’s decision, that if our son was not meant for this world, I must accept this and let him go. But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t bear to hope for another baby, not after the ones I had lost.

Then the laundry girl told me something. She said that there were strange foreigners who had recently arrived in our city. Her brother had broken his leg badly in an accident, and he had traded information for a cure that healed him as though his leg had never broken in the first place.

She took me to the foreigners. They could only receive visitors aftersundown, and when I met them, I realized why. Their drawn, pallid skin and pale eyes seemed like they had never seen light.

I explained that my son was sick, and that I would trade anything for his recovery.

“Anything?” asked one of the foreigners. The one who was clearly in charge. The one with the impossible violet eyes, like a demented spirit. “Would you give yourself?”

I thought he meant my life. I suppose thatwaswhat he meant. And I agreed, immediately. I’d asked God so many times to trade my life for my son’s. Perhaps this was another sort of God. At that point, it didn’t matter to me.

They followed us back to our house, where my son was sleeping. He looked so small, in his bed. The foreigner drew a blade from his sheath and sliced his own skin. He fed his blood to my weakened son.

It worked immediately. His fever broke, and his eyes were bright once more.

It was the last time I ever saw him.

I went with the foreigners, that night. Nothing could have prepared me for what came next. I woke in the earth, and I pulled myself up from its depths like a demon crawling up from Hell. I knew I could never return to my son, to my mortal life.

I’d made a deal with the Devil.

I stole my new name from the laundry girl.

Renata. Reborn.

Lily’s face is wet with tears.

“I…I had no idea…” she chokes. “I’m so sorry, Renata.”