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for her misfortune, for passing along her cursed inheritance.
    That evening, Clara wanted to rid herself of any affection she might feel toward her mother or the child growing inside that would carry on their name. As she watched the moon disappear behind the clouds, she cried for love lost, for orange blossoms and olives, for
saetas,
for a revenge that now tasted of other men. Clara found no solace in the cold mountain air, in the icy stillness that caused her bones to ache. It was only when, instead of stars, she saw a pair of black eyes shining in the night that her pain subsided. Clara took in the air and closed the balcony doors. Those eyes belonged to Padre Imperio.
    The next morning she set out for her mother’s house. The sky was white, as if it held all of the snow that had yet to fall over the town that autumn. It was mid-December, that month of frozen streams and struggling to keep warm. Clara found her mother in bed. She hadn’t seen her since the day she told her she was opening a brothel upon her return from the city. Hearing her daughter arrive, the old woman sat up. Her blind eye was closed, the black one watchful. Clara saw how much thinner and older she looked.
    “Did you stop eating?”
    “I’ll soon have no choice. Just look at your poor mother! Yesterday I had to kill one of the hens. But don’t you worry, you just enjoy your mansion.”
    When her daughter began receiving locals, the witch’s own business suffered. The cat bones had not been out of their sack for days. This was how the women in town—who most required her divination—settled the score for their husbands, brothers, and sons letting off steam with Clara in her house done up like a castle. All orders to repair hymens or prepare potions against evil eye ceased. Only the occasional hunter, unaware of their collective revenge, dared buy an amulet. If things continued this way, it was quite possible she would not be able to pay her rent at the end of the month.
    “Gather up the remaining animals and come with me.”
    “It’s about time you reconsidered. Your pigheadedness in becoming a whore is ruining my business.”
    “Then come help me with mine. I suspect it’s going to do very well.”
    “It could do even better if you listen to me. You need more girls. I’ll take care of finding them. After all, in a few months, when you start to show, you won’t be able to receive them.”
    They gathered up cooking and stew pots, jars of magic ingredients and kitchenware, the three remaining hens and the goat. They piled it all into a rickety cart and set out for Scarlet Manor.
     
    Not long after the Laguna witch moved into the brothel, news came of Spain’s defeat in the war against the Cuban rebels and the United States, and with it the loss of the few remaining lands belonging to the empire. Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico would now be held by the Americans. Shaken by the misfortune, Padre Imperio climbed into the pulpit that Sunday, spread his arms like an eagle, and sermonized on the evils of sugar, which came primarily from Cuba, forbidding its consumption in coffee and sweets, calling on the faithful to protest in the bitterness of defeat. As Mass ended, the first snow began to fall and autumn became winter at last. The streets, the square, the church and fountain, the cemetery on the hill, the fields all around, the pine forests, the mountains, and the banks of the Duero River were covered in a layer of powdery snow. Padre Imperio recognized the devil’s dirty trick, sending a dusting of Cuban sugar to humiliate him. He locked himself in the sacristy, tormented by the sight of white caps softening mountain peaks. The entire town suddenly plunged into the eternity of winter and refused to come out until freezing nights turned the snow hard, and men and animals alike had soiled it with their comings and goings. When the snow was just snow again, Padre Imperio went on walks to free his mind of his memories of dead soldiers