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talking about the Arriases’ trial. The rumors were terrible. There were whispers on the street and in the Plaza, slander spoken as though it were pure and true. Some said that Señora Arrias killed small children, and that was the reason her sunflowers grew so well, because she sprinkled the children’s blood on the ground. Others swore the Señor practiced magic that ruined his neighbors’ crops. Together, they had taught their daughters the devil’s language. They had made the rainy season last so long that there were many bad olives on the trees.
    On one thing everyone seemed to agree: The Arriases were Jews who were only pretending to be Christian. Someone had turned them in, and although the witness was never named in court, his testimony was believed by the judge. Once a person was officially accused, there was no argument and no defense. The accusation itself sealed a person’s guilt.
    The judge had come from a hundred miles away; he was living in the old Duke’s palace. The armory behind the palace was also populated now; it had been turned into a prison. If anyone was arrested, they were sent to the armory; their children were given away to an old, respected Christian family who would raise them properly. As for the accused, a conviction of heresy meant one thing: death.
    Our family prayed for the Arriases; our whole congregation did. Friar deLeon said a special prayer for them, one I had never heard before, a plea to St. Esther, a saint he said was invoked only at the most terrible of times. She was a queen who had to pretend she was someone other than her truest self in order to save her people. She was so beautiful, my grandmother whispered as we sat in the cool, dark church, that the persecutors who wanted to hurt her people believed whatever she told them.
    Some lies were to hurt and some were to heal, my grandmother told me. I wasn’t so sure. I hadn’t wanted to hurt Catalina, so I didn’t tell her about the way I felt about Andres. But now there was a distance between us.
    Just because something is unspoken doesn’t mean that it disappears.
    That evening, before dinner, while I was still wearing my Sunday clothes and the strand of pearls my grandparents had bought for me on the day I was born, I saw something through the window. There was a shadow inside the Arriases’ house. I knew I shouldn’t go next door, but I did. Maybe it was a bad spirit or a curse brought to life. But it could be something else. Perhaps Marianna had run away from the new family she’d been given to and was hiding in her old house. Perhaps the arrest had been recognized as a terrible mistake and the officials had let the family go. Could it be that they were back living their lives in their own house, free from terror?
    But it was nothing like that. Nothing at all. I crouched by the window so I wouldn’t be seen. When I peered over the ledge I could see Catalina and her mother going through the drawers on the tall wooden bureau, taking out the linens Señora Arrias had stitched. Señora Arrias made beautiful lace, intricate as a map of the stars.
    Catalina and her mother forced open another drawer and then rejoiced; there was the silverware, the candlesticks the family used on Friday nights.
    I ran back to my house, breathless, my legs shaking.
    That very evening Catalina and I were supposed to have a needlepoint lesson from her mother. The thought of it made me sick. Just as I’d heard that blue stone weeping, I saw Catalina grabbing the silver when I closed my eyes. Some things you cannot wish away or think away. They become a part of you when you remember them.
    I thought over what I would do, as though Catalina were no longer my friend, but someone I had to trick. When the heat of the day was over, I went to Catalina’s house at the time of our lesson and knocked on the door. I knew Andres was there and that he’d be waiting for a good excuse to join us—he’d bring us some fruit perhaps, or cold water; all the