Blood Secret by Kathryn Lasky Page A

moonless night, a night of deep shadows. She could barely discern the outline of the cellar door, and yet she moved inexorably toward it. She opened the door and stood on the first step. She let her eyes adjust and then began to descend the stairs. Her steps were sure, her vision clear, but her heart beat madly as she lifted the lid of the trunk.
    The lace was exactly where she had left it. She picked it up, looked at it, and replaced it carefully. Now she took the Bible and opened it. It was a Spanish Bible, and although the pages were yellow with age, it did not seem that old. Not as old as the lace, maybe even centuries younger. But then a fragment of a piece of paper drifted from it, almost lazily, yet in its idle course it seemed to beg her attention. She picked it up. It was not a piece of the Bible’s pages. No, there was handwriting dim with age. Jerry shined the flashlight on it and squinted at the spidery script.
     
    Querida Brianda,
    Estoy muy emocionado. Te das cuenta, en tan solo dos días, ambos haremos la primera communion. Así, no solamente seremos primos de sangre, sino que también seremos primos de espíritu a través de Jesús. ¡Que bien!
    She slowly began to translate the Old Spanish. It was hard. Whole sentences remained undecipherable. The word orders were strange. Sometimes she was not sure what the verbs were because they cropped up in funny places. There was something about a veil, a Communion veil Jerry thought, but she wasn’t sure. A bit of meaning began to melt out from the paper.
    Dear Brianda,
    I am so excited. Just think, within two days, on exactly the same day, we shall both make our First Communion. So we are not only cousins by blood but shall be cousins of the spirit through Jesus. How fine!
    How fine indeed! Jerry felt a quickening within her. It was as if a storm of butterflies suddenly rose in agolden flight inside her chest. The paper seemed as fragile as the wings of a butterfly. Time began to slip from its harness. Jerry held the paper and closed her eyes for a second. Instead of blackness or the crazy jig of neon squiggly lines that had danced on the inside of her eyelids, this time she glimpsed a dim light, a light from an unimaginable distance that had traveled like the light of ancient stars.
     
    The House in the Wall
C ALLE DE P UERTA V IEJA DE B ISAGRA
T OLEDO , S PAIN
J ANUARY 1449
     
    Beatriz
     
    The baby is crying again. I can hardly write this letter to my cousin between his crying and the hinges of the city gates creaking. Well, in truth, I am more accustomed to the city gates than a baby’s cry. My room here in our house in the walls is right next to the gates. Those creaks of the hinges have been a part of my life since I was born. It’s the baby I am not used to. I just don’t see why he had to be born this week of all weeks! The week of my First Communion! I have waited ten years to become acommunicant in the church of our Lord and there is the party planned and everything. All those hours I had to spend with Padre Hoya and then Sister Maria Theresa. Sister Maria Theresa has an ugly mole right above her lip with a hair growing out of it. It was very hard to concentrate on the catechism. Sister would ask the questions of, say, the first lesson, and I would answer.
    “What must we do to save our souls?”
    “To save our souls, we must worship God by faith, hope, and charity….”
    And all the time I answer and she bobs her head, that little hair sprouting from the mole waggles about. It is a credit to my powers of concentration that I could learn the catechism so well, and now with this baby yowling? Why, oh, why did little Enrique have to come this week of all weeks? I know this is selfish, but it is really my week.
    I know that to think this way, so close to the day of my First Communion, is not proper. Sister Maria Theresa is too old to read these sins of my heart. She still thinks that if my feet dare touch the ground when I kneel I shall have to