Read Incantation for Free Online Page A

while he’d be trying to send me a message in the way he looked at me, and I would try not to let anyone see when I sent him a message back.
    Usually I would be happy about such plans, but when Catalina opened the door I told her I had to miss our needlepoint lesson.
    I was sick today,
I told her. It didn’t even feel like a lie.
I keep having pains in my stomach.
    But we planned this! My mother has been expecting you!
    I couldn’t help but wonder if Catalina’s mother had something to do with the Arriases’ arrest. Certainly, she had been quick to denounce them in public after the trial. She’d been quick to take what belonged to them.
    I wouldn’t want to bring up my dinner in your house,
I said. I knew Catalina was squeamish—and indeed, she backed away.
    Promise me we’ll do it tomorrow,
Catalina said.
    She made me curl my little finger with hers to seal the bargain, and then she had us both make the sign of the cross. I hoped God wasn’t judging me too harshly for not confronting Catalina about being in the Arriases’ house. I made the sign of the cross the way my family always did: forehead, lips, shoulders.
    Everyone in your family does that all wrong,
Catalina said.
    No, we don’t,
I said.
    I was thinking about how we went to the same church as the Arrias family. I was thinking about the look on my grandmother’s face when they were arrested.
    When I went to leave, Catalina stopped me.
    Let me wear your pearls to seal the promise.
    I reached up and touched the necklace at my throat. It was the only thing of value that I owned. The only gift my grandparents had ever given me. Catalina saw me hesitate.
    Maybe you’re not as good a friend as I thought you were,
she said.
    Why would you think that?
    Catalina shrugged.
It seems I can’t depend on you for anything.
    Then she backed off; her pride had been hurt. She wasn’t certain she wanted anything from me now. And what did I want?
    For everything to be the same as it had been.
    For Catalina to be my friend once again.
    You can depend on me,
I said. I wanted it to be true, as it had been in the past.
Take them,
I said.
I want you to have them.
    I took off the pearls and watched as my friend fastened them around her neck. Wearing them, she looked exactly the same, my oldest, dearest friend, Catalina.
    How do I look?
she asked.
    I had never noticed how much the outside of things mattered to Catalina.
    Beautiful,
I said.
    That was enough for her. That was what she wanted.
    But what I really meant was:
They are still mine.
    That was my third lie to Catalina.
    After three there was no point in counting.

    S OON ENOUGH , another decree went up in the Plaza, posted directly across from the well of heaven. Citizens were to report anyone they suspected of being false Christians to the court. If they did not, they themselves might be found guilty of heresy, jailed, and then judged.
    The Plaza was crowded and noisy. There were many strangers in town, from cities that were far away. Vendors with carts were selling filled grape leaves and almond cakes the way they did at festivals. There was a juggler who threw silk scarves into the air and caught them as they fell back to earth. There was a man selling rabbits, skinned and bloody, their bodies hanging from a pole he wore across his back.
    The area around the decree was so mobbed, I had to read it from a distance, squinting my eyes, concentrating hard in order to make out the letters. At last I could see.
    There was a list of the ways to tell who was a hidden Jew:
    They wear clean clothes on Saturday.
    We did that, but only to air out our best clothes to wear to Sunday Mass.
    They light candles on Friday night.
    We did that, but only to see by candlelight, for soon enough it would be dark.
    They fast twice a year.
    We did that, but only to remember my father.
    They tell stories of Queen Esther.
    We did that, but only because she was a saint spoken about in church.
    They do not eat pork.
    We did that, but simply because