Incantation Read Online Free PDF Page A

time, when he wasn’t studying.
    Your brother thinks he’s so special and important,
Catalina said later when we met at the well in the Plaza. I had gone back and forth to the well three times that day so my grandmother could wash all of my brother’s clothes.
He doesn’t seem so special to me.
    My brother was too busy with his studies to notice things that were obvious to other people. He forgot the dinner hour. He forgot to wash his face. Even when he lived with us, he was more often at the church than he was home.
    Well, he is special,
I said.
He doesn’t have time for foolish things.
    Really?
There was something in Catalina’s voice I hadn’t heard before.
Are you saying I’m a fool?
    I felt my heart sink. She was angry. I hadn’t meant for that.
    I’m only saying that you and I don’t have to study like Luis. We’re lucky. We can do as we please.
    Your brother is just like everybody else, you know,
Catalina said as we walked home.
No better. And maybe worse. I hate people who think they’re better than everyone else.
    I thought of saying something, but I didn’t. All of our lives, I had told Catalina everything. Now I was afraid not just of what I might say, but of what she might hear. She didn’t seem like the Catalina I had always known.
    We walked along together, the water sloshing out of our buckets. Well water, cold water, water that was so heavy it was difficult to balance the buckets.
    Look, there’s a dove,
I said, pointing to the fields beyond our houses.
    A dove in the garden was good luck, a sign of excellent crops to come.
    Don’t be silly.
We had reached Catalina’s yard.
It’s a hawk.
She seemed pleased by my mistake.

    C ATALINA SAID I should ask my mother if I could come to her house for dinner. Her mother was making sausage, the hot kind. Didn’t I just love those? I was surprised that Catalina didn’t remember I never ate sausage.
    I told Catalina I was having my stomach sickness. Another lie. I suppose in some way what I said was the truth. I wasn’t avoiding dinner at Catalina’s because of the sausage that I could push to the side of my plate, or because Luis had so few nights at home before he had to return to the seminary. It was Catalina. She was the reason my stomach hurt. I wasn’t quite as certain that I knew her down to her soul.
    When it came right down to it, I wasn’t so sure she knew me either.

    M Y BROTHER WAS the sort of person who could tell how other people felt just by looking at them. He knew that I missed him. He made time for me alone. That evening instead of going to Catalina’s house, my brother and I went walking up into the hills to look for lavender to bring home to my mother, which was her cure for headaches and fevers.
    Luis let me take my little pig along; we fashioned a collar out of yarn and led Dini with a rope. We laughed when the pig found some mushrooms right away and when he wouldn’t move after we came upon a berry bush. We had to stand there each time and let Dini eat his fill; when he still wouldn’t budge, my brother picked up the pig and carried him. We laughed together till our sides hurt.
    Your baby is too fat,
my brother teased me.
    I felt we had stepped back in time, before Luis had become so serious. Even now Luis seemed too young to be a priest. I wanted him to stay at home, to be my brother again and not someone who soon would be an important man. Some people like Catalina might resent his high position.
    Are you sure the seminary is what you want?
I asked my brother.
    Luis was holding bunches of lavender. He was kind and thoughtful; some girl would have been so lucky to have him as her husband.
    I want to protect and serve our people,
Luis said.
    We walked back in silence.
    My brother’s answer had not meant yes. It had meant our grandfather wanted this future for my brother, and as a loyal grandson, Luis’s life was in our grandfather’s hands. Like Friar deLeon, Luis would soon be privy to the town government’s