“I am not a mule to be tugged around,” she said in the bravest voice she could muster.
“We have to get a move on before the parade begins. Otherwise we will be stuck here. Haven’t you seen it in your hometown? The great dancing parties of Saint Jon the Shepherd?”
She opened her mouth, but no reply came. It was her favorite time of the year, when Galeno became alight in the revel and all pious inhibitions were thrown out the door. Her gaze found the nozariel men around the corner, their drums and red-stained garments, the stitched bunches of dyed yarn hanging from their ankles and waists. She had seen those clothes before on the acolytes and volunteers serving the archbishop during the holiday. The outfits were designed to flutter in the air with their rhythmic dances and stomping feet. But the statuette the nozariel men carried was of Ches, and not at all like Saint Jon’s.
Were their parties like their resemblance to humans, a close cousin that appeared the same when one didn’t look too hard? Or was Saint Jon’s celebration a bastardized version of the nozariels’ traditions? Once, Do?a Rosa had told Eva how so many Penitent beliefs were stolen from nozariels, renamed as to appease the enslaved workforce in a land where the human colonizers were the minority. Eva was glad to see it with her own eyes, after living so long under the lies of her family.
“We’re here to get you geomancia rings. It’s what you wanted, no? To become great and feared?” he prodded in a poor attempt at persuasion.
She only flexed her jaw, holding back the intention to correct him. He had misinterpreted her desires so thoroughly, but she wasn’t interested in educating him.
“All right,” she said.
He let her go. “I liked you better when you didn’t fight everything I asked of you.”
As he walked away, Eva glared at the back of his fair hair. She was squeezed by a deep disappointment. Her dream of freedom with the valco man who treated her as an equal was turning bitter in her mouth. She braced herself and tried not to dwell. Just as she had gotten into this, she would find a way out.
They went into a trading post as the cloud-blotched sky turned stark with the shadows of the dying sun. A shopkeeper sat on a rocking chair on the porch, his bloated child playing with twigs and rocks by his side. They were shaded by eaves heavy with plantain bunches and sacks of cassava and the occasional pork rinds.
They walked through a screen door woven from leaves and seeds, which rattled as Javier opened it for her. The shack was hot and smelled of sweat, like a dirty rag overdue for washing. The trader gestured at the pots and bags filled with trinkets and stones and spices to either side. Among the goods was a tray of sliced fried plantains and queso de mano. At once Eva’s gaze fell on the plantains. She was so hungry she could have eaten the whole dozen of them. Javier bought them for her.
“I’m looking for conduit jewelry,” he told the shopkeeper.
Eva was too hungry to listen to them. The plantains were cold—probably cooked early in the morning—but the edges were still crunchy, the center sweet from a properly ripened plantain. She stared at the street through the screen door, daydreaming herself into the celebrations, even if here they worshipped Ches. From the thrum of the faraway drums, it sounded like it had already started.
Moments later Javier turned to her, showing her a necklace with a crystal container.
“Did you eat them all?” he asked, amused.
Eva was in the process of chewing the last one, so it was no use lying about it. She shrugged.
“Not that I wanted any.”
She sucked the gunk off her teeth and said, “You don’t care for nozariel food, remember?”
“Right.”
He showed her the necklace and said, “It’s not the prettiest, but it’s got the biggest crystal container.”
Her eyes went from the necklace to the shopkeeper, who had a display of jewelry laid out on a velvety cloth across from him.
“To hold your iridio,” Javier said as he wrapped his arms around her （she flinched, expecting something else entirely） and latched the necklace to her neck. “You’re also getting rings for geomancia.” This close he looked young, boyish, like the highborn boys who’d come to visit her grandfather’s court and ignored her for being bastard born and ugly. Heat radiated in waves off him, making it even harder to breathe in the already sweltering day.
He gestured to the rings. “Try them and see which one fits you. Not the silver ones, though. Gold complements your color.”
Eva did her best to disregard the compliment. Eventually they left the shop and walked straight into a sea of people.
The parade for Ches—or Saint Jon the Shepherd. Eva couldn’t tell if there was a difference. The crowd was as big as the village population. Everyone had taken to the streets, all dressed in clothes dyed a pigmented red. With their torches burning bright in the darkness of early dusk, they were an ocean of crimson.
The people’s singing bordered on shouts. They danced, and sang, and followed the Ches statuette, which was now far from view.
“Le le le lo, time that pass don’ come back!” the leader of the procession sang the same lyrics Eva had heard all her life.
Then the voice of a woman near the front of the procession rang out. “Evil time!”
And the crowd sang, “Don’ return!”
Eva let the sound of drums percolate to her bones, mouthing the lyrics.
Dancing women stomped past her, their breasts bouncing and their eyes on her.
“Wretched time!”
The men followed them, also stomping.
“Don’ return!”
As they passed, one, two, three people stepped between Eva and Javier. It was a fleeting moment of separation, of darkness and confusion and loud voices, and at once Eva recognized it for what it was. A distraction.
Her opportunity to slip away.
She delved into the crowd, one hand warming her new iridio pendant and her fingers heavy with the new rings of geomancia. She didn’t know how to use iridio and could hardly consider herself adept at geomancia, but it didn’t matter.
Her grandmother had once told her that people didn’t get to choose their time. That opportunity simply came and went, whenever the Virgin willed it. It was up to her to recognize the chance. Eva had followed the principle when she’d allowed herself to be enthralled by Javier’s coaxing letters, which had massaged her into leaving everything behind. It had been her opportunity to take rein over her life. Just like now was her opportunity to right her mistake of tying herself to him. She’d left Galeno to be free, and free she was going to be.
She ducked her head low and zigzagged from person to person, falling in pace with the procession leaving the village.
If she lost herself within, then she could make her escape.
Thirsty for her independence, Eva slipped away.
The buzz of excitement filled her lungs. Eva’s heart joined the chorus, beating hard and fast at the prospect of what was ahead. The distance between her and Javier doubled, then tripled as she walked with the crowd. She even dared herself to join the chanting, to feel included. They exited the boundaries of the village, parading down the road.
She had seconds before Javier discovered she had left, and he was going to come looking in the most obvious place. So she squeezed out of the crowd and jumped into a thicket that led straight into the jungle. Those glittering threads of magic tickled her goodbye as she went, and the chanting faded behind her, replaced by a vibrant nightly cacophony: the chirping of insects and the distant caress of wind on leaves.