"We'll have to be more careful with you then," I answer ominously. "I didn't realize you were quite so... breakable."
Her eyes harden, and I leave her to stew in her anger as I retreat to her bathroom, gathering the supplies I need. When I return, she is still sitting at the small table, staring down at the hands tangled together in her lap.
"It's time to clean your tattoo," I inform her.
She straightens her spine and tries to glance back at me as I step beside her and drape her hair over one shoulder. She shivers, and I turn her chin away from me, forcing her gaze forward.
Slowly, I peel off the sanitary wrap. I use a wet, soapy cloth to wash over the ink, and fight the strange desire to trace over the symbol of my ownership with my fingers. It’s my family crest. A crowned skull and crossbones flanked by roses and dueling revolvers. This image leaves no question who she belongs to. And to witness my mark upon her skin is more powerful than I expected.
Ivy sucks in a breath as I wash her with a gentleness I'm certain she doesn't expect. I want to inform her it isn't for her benefit, but only so I know the wound will heal properly.
When I have finished cleaning her, I apply more salve, rubbing it into her skin until she bows her head, as if to say it feels good to have a monster's hands upon her. I rub her longer than necessary and then wipe my hands.
There is still work to be done this evening, and I feel as if I am behind already. But it is no longer at the forefront of my mind when my palm skates down over her shoulder and dips into the silk nightgown, skimming over her breast.
Ivy closes her eyes and leans back into me, unaware of how much it affects me when she melts into me. I close my eyes too, hating her for tempting me this way. Hating her for her name. Her blood. Her sweetness that I want to imbibe, even as she poisons me.
My free hand grazes over her neck, reaching for the rosary, only to come up empty. Her shoulders stiffen, and our eyes collide at the same time. Mine dark and hungry, and hers, terrified.
"Santiago," she whimpers.
I grasp her jaw and squeeze it shut. She swallows audibly, and I lean down to her face, my lips a breath from hers.
"I'm beginning to think you actually like my punishments, dear wife."
20
Ivy
He has me on my feet in an instant. All the tenderness of a moment ago has vanished almost like it hadn’t happened. Like I imagined it.
“Santiago.” Holding my arm at an awkward angle, he picks up the rosary from the nightstand and marches me out of my room, his footfalls sure while mine are silent. “You’re hurting me.”
“I’m being more than patient with you when you seem incapable of following one simple instruction.”
We hurry through the house, and I try to keep up while taking it all in, all the shadowy corridors, the dimly lit spaces, richly textured carpets and curtains, intricately carved wood. It’s out of an old vampire movie, this place.
“Slow down,” I ask when I slip on the stairs he hurries us down.
“Keep up,” he retorts, righting me before I fall.
There’s no one around, and I wonder what time it is. All I can see is that it’s nearly a black night apart for a sliver of moonlight.
“Where are we going?” I ask when we walk through the large kitchen, also dark and ancient looking with only the appliances seeming to be from this century.
He pulls open the door and is about to take a step but pauses and looks at my bare feet.
“Do you ever wear shoes?” he asks, but he’s not waiting for my reply. I don’t even think it’s a real question. But in the next instant, he has me hauled over his shoulder, the flimsy nightgown riding to the tops of my thighs, the wind cool against the backs of my bare legs.
I bounce on his shoulder and look back at the house. It’s even bigger than I’d realized. Four floors with spires disappearing into the low-hanging clouds and thick ivy crawling along the walls. At the center is a large arched window, the glass stained, at the head the window segments creating an ornate circle.
No. Not a circle.
A rose. The segments make up the petals.
De La Rosa. Of the rose.
A light goes on in one of the upstairs windows in a separate part of the house. Through the cast iron I see movement. A woman’s figure. When she sees us, she draws the curtain wider and openly watches.
But in the next instant, I hear a heavy door creak on its hinges as its opened, the smell of church enveloping me again. I crane my neck to look around the small chapel as Santiago closes the door and sets me on my feet.
I take in the pews, six on each side. The wood simple. Kneelers in each without cushions and worn Bibles in two of the pews.
At the back left corner is the baptismal font. It’s large and ornate, made of the same material as the altar. In the opposite corner is a simple confessional. In the place of doors is a deep red velvet curtain to give the penitent the impression of privacy.
Santiago walks to the altar. He doesn’t stop to make the sign of the cross. Doesn’t bow like the nuns taught us to. I wonder about that. About his devotion. His belief. He has a fascination for religion, I think. I don’t know. But after what he did yesterday, how he did it bending me over the altar in the chapel, a sacred place, pouring wax from the altar candles onto my hips. A devout man would not do that, certainly. And then there’s the rosary. Why give me a rosary on our wedding night? Why become so angry when you find I’m not wearing it?
At the altar, he doesn’t raise his head to acknowledge the crucified Christ. Instead, he picks up a box of matches and lights several candles. I notice, though, that the red of the tabernacle lamp glows, and I wonder who maintains it. If there’s a priest or if it’s him.
I think about the woman at the window. “Does your sister live here? At the house I mean?”
He finishes lighting the candles and blows the match out.
I take in the two framed photographs on the altar. It’s a strange place to keep photos, but I wonder if it isn’t his father and brother. I step closer and think yes. I remember seeing them just a few times, and there is a resemblance. They died in that explosion that scarred him.
When I look at Santiago again, I find him watching me, and I take him in. His scars. The tattoo on his face. I glance at those photos again.
He walked away scarred but alive.
They died.
Something inside me feels a tenderness I can’t describe in that instant. I don’t know what it is. Why this matters. I don’t know if it’s the look in his eyes. The loneliness he wears like a coat. No, a second skin. Not something one can remove.
Is that why all this hardness?
But then he slips the rosary out of his pocket and sets it on the altar and bends to open a chest set beneath the altar.
“Strip, Ivy,” he says without bothering to look at me.
My heart does a double beat. “What?”
He glances behind him as he rummages through the chest. “Strip and kneel.”
“We’re in church.”
He pauses, turns to look at me and half-laughs then shakes his head and resumes his work.
“Strip and kneel. I won’t ask you again.”
I glance back at the door, but no one will come in. I turn to look up at the altar. At Christ. Apart from the wedding, I haven’t been to church since I left home. I told my father I went weekly but I never did. I haven’t been to confession since then, either. Do I even believe anymore? I don’t know.