Holy Officers
Ava
The breakfast on my plate has gone cold, barely touched. The morning sun streams through the small kitchen window as I sit in silence, my mind still back in the square last night, and in those shadowed alleys where secrets whispered louder than the drums.
I was brave last night and the day before. I offered to help Luca without hesitating. Promised to stand by him, to face whatever danger might come. At the time, it had felt easy, but only because I didn’t believe any of it was real.
I had been telling myself this was a dream, a coma fantasy stitched together from half-remembered history books, Renaissance fairs, and period dramas. I thought I’d wake up at any moment, maybe in a hospital bed, Patrick at my side, my mom holding my hand.
When you think you’re dreaming, it’s easy to be fearless. It’s easy to chase danger like it’s part of a story you’re playing out. It’s easy, even fun, to offer yourself up like a hero when you believe you’re untouchable.
But now, in the fragile light of morning, that illusion is crumbling. I’m not asleep. I’m not back home, and the longer I stay in this world, the more it feels like I may never leave it.
What if I’m really stuck here?
What if I never see my family again? Never hear Patrick laugh or text my sister or walk into Target like it’s no big deal?
What if I die here?
"Ay, niña," Abuela Maria says gently, setting down a cup of tea in front of me. Her sharp eyes study my face. "Why are you so quiet this morning?"
I look up at her, startled, but say nothing. I don’t know how to explain this weight sitting on my chest. I don’t even know where to begin.
She doesn’t press. She just sits beside me, her voice soft. “Sometimes the world is too large for our hearts to carry all at once. When that happens, we must share part of ourselves.”
I look at her, the knot in my throat tightening.
She sips her tea, then continues, “You do good. You be brave. You choose kindness. That is all. The rest, will fall into place.”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
After breakfast, Abuela Maria tucks a bundle of neatly folded clothes into a basket, among them a dress I’d borrowed for the parade, and insists we walk them back. The breeze outside is warm, tugging at my sleeves and ruffling Abuela Maria’s scarf as we make our way down the winding path. The village is just beginning to stir: a boy carrying firewood, two women laughing over a bucket of soapy linens, a dog asleep in the shade of a cart.
When we reach the cottage, Catalina greets us with a warm smile. She’s around my age, maybe a little younger, and her arms are dusted with flour. “You didn’t have to bring them back,” she says, taking the basket with a grateful nod. “They looked better on you than they ever did on me.”
I smile faintly. “Still, I wanted to thank you.”
Before I can say more, a toddler appears at her skirt, clutching a wooden spoon and blinking up at me with enormous brown eyes. Another child follows, then a third, barefoot and giggling, hiding in a doorway.
“Come in, please,” Catalina says, stepping aside. “I have a bit of cider cooling and my mother’s dozing. It’s quieter now than it will be all day.”
Abuela Maria answers for both of us with a gracious nod, and soon we’re inside the small, sunlit cottage. An elderly woman naps in a chair near the hearth. The children settle near a corner with wooden toys while Catalina pours us each a cup of cider.
“My husband will be returning for his noon meal soon,” she says, handing me the warm mug. “The second he walks through the door, the children begin running and jumping again, but for just a moment, they may sit and play if we are lucky.”
I nod slowly, trying to picture what my life would’ve looked like if I’d grown up here, if this had always been my world. How many children would I have? Would we have been able to stay together or would we be torn apart the way Luca’s family was?
She disappears for a moment, then returns with two more folded dresses. “You should keep these. I’ve outgrown them.”
“Thank you,” I say as I take them from her, stunned by her generosity. She probably only has a few dresses. These are soft and worn, the fabric patched but carefully mended. I run my fingers over the stitching, over seams that someone, probably Catalina herself, had fixed late at night after the children were asleep.
Something tightens in my chest. This isn’t a dream. These people are real, and their lives are real. Their kindness, their struggle, their small, generous gestures–they’re not figments of a fevered imagination.
Catalina’s children laugh softly behind me. Abuela Maria thanks her again.
“Anything for you, Abuela,” Catalina says warmly, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek as she balances her youngest on one hip. “You’ve helped me more times than I can count.”
Just then, the front door creaks open and Catalina’s husband steps inside, bringing a breeze of orange blossoms and woodsmoke with him. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, his tunic damp with sweat, his face lighting up as his children run to him squealing with excitement. He scoops one up into his arms with practiced ease and leans down to kiss Catalina on the cheek, their quiet affection unfolding right in front of me like something sacred.
I should look away, but I don’t. My heart stirs as I watch him play with his children, hear Catalina’s soft laughter, see the life they’ve built here. It’s simple, but it’s whole.
I wonder—what would that life look like with Luca?
I picture his arm around me. A child who looks like him. A home that smells like firewood and bread. A quiet, shared life in this strange world that doesn’t feel so strange anymore.
Abuela Maria gently places a hand on my arm. “We should let them eat.”
I nod, startled out of my thoughts. “Yes, of course.”
We say our goodbyes, and Catalina squeezes my hand, saying, “You’re welcome here anytime.”
Abuela Maria and I walk quietly through the dusty streets, the basket now filled with dresses that smell like citrus soap. The air is thick with heat, but a breeze curls through the alleys, rustling linen from windows and stirring the hem of my borrowed skirt.
Back inside Maria’s cottage, I set the basket down by the door and then, maybe because I’m tired, or maybe because I’ve started to care more than I meant to, I ask sheepishly, “Are you really everyone’s Abuela?”
Abuela Maria chuckles, her laugh warm and low like a lullaby. “Not by blood, no. But I take care of people as though I am.”
I smile, my heart tugging at the softness in her voice. “Luca calls you that.”
She nods, turning back toward the kitchen to start a pot of stew. “He was just a boy when he came here. His parents were… gone. I made sure he ate, that he wore dry socks in the winter. He started calling me Abuela one day, and I never asked him to stop.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Only that it fits. Luca doesn’t seem to belong to anyone, not really, and yet he belongs to everyone. He looks out for the people of these neighborhoods, plays games with the children, and carries water for the older men whose backs are too stiff to bend.
He’s good in that effortless way. The kind of good that doesn't need to announce itself. I find myself wondering where he is now, what he’s doing. If he’s thinking about last night. If he almost kissed me, or if I just imagined that part.
It’s my… what? Seventh? Ninth day here? I’ve lost track. Everything blurs together. The days bleed like watercolors.
I help Abuela Maria with a few evening chores, peeling root vegetables, sweeping ash from the fireplace, folding linens that smell like fruit and lavender. We eat a modest dinner of stew and flatbread in silence, and when I lie down that night, cocooned in a blanket on the bed by the window, I don’t think of Patrick or my old apartment.
I think of Luca.
His voice. His handsome face. The way he hesitated just long enough to make me wonder what might have happened if we’d kissed.
Sometime deep in the night, I wake to shouting.
Not the usual drunk laughter or barked orders from guards. This is sharper and more urgent. A woman screams out in the street, and I sit up so fast the blanket falls to the floor.
Abuela Maria is already at the window. Her face is pale in the moonlight. I join her, peering through the slightly warped glass.
Down the street, torches bob in the darkness like fireflies. Hooded men in heavy robes stand outside a neighbor’s house, the same one where a man waved to us yesterday, holding a baby on his lap. The same baby I smiled at.
Now, that man is on his knees in the dirt. Two men in gleaming armor hold him down while another reads from a scroll. His wife is screaming, clutching the baby to her chest. A young boy, maybe eight or nine, is shoved toward the wagon by a fourth man.
I cover my mouth. “What are they doing?”
Maria’s voice is tight. “The Holy Officers of the Inquisition.”
My stomach knots. The words hit like stones.
“They serve the king and queen directly,” she whispers. “They don't answer to reason, or mercy.”
The family is loaded into the cart. The man doesn’t resist. He only keeps his eyes on his family as the torchlight recedes and the night grows quiet again.
Abuela Maria closes the shutters with a trembling hand, and I stand frozen for a long moment, caught somewhere between fear and disbelief. This isn't history class. It isn’t a textbook chapter, a museum exhibit, or a lecture I listened to in college.
It’s happening right here and now. And Luca—
My heart lurches.
Where is he? What if he’s next?