I held my breath. The limbs of the pinyon pines stiffened. Behind closed lids, I saw the scrublands, the austere blueness of the sky, the fig trees past ridges. They all spoke a language I could only begin to understand. I opened my eyes and everything could turn into a miracle: sand into water, blasphemous tongues into instruments of worship. You just have to believe strongly enough.
Frey Hernando, before he died, had made an arrangement. Arguing with a man of God would only leave me weary. And who was I to argue against whatever dictums, dogmas were handed down from a mountain? Frey Hernando had chosen a girl I never met for me to marry. I was to take a simple path to find her.