ernando Díaz sat in the shade of the village church in Polinyino, Aragón, and dumped his pouch of polished stones into his hand. His father was inside the church, but Fernando, age eleven, had disrupted mass enough times that his father was content to leave him outside.
A stone slipped through his fingers and rolled in the dust. Fernando crawled after it. It stopped near a hole, the size of a brick or two, in the church’s wall.
“Little boy,” called a voice.
Fernando froze. He looked about and saw no one. The voice came from the church. Was it an angel, sent to chasten him for not attending mass?
“Little boy,” called the voice again. It came from below him; a movement through the gap in the wall caught his eye.
“Are you in the dungeon?” Fernando whispered. “They keep you there to burn you.”
“You’re a smart boy,” said the voice. “Do you fear God?”
Fernando’s eyes grew wide. What if this was an angel, in disguise, sent to test him? “I do,” he declared. “Of course I do.”
“Then, in God’s name, will you do a good deed for a woman about to die?”
Fernando scuttled back away from the church wall. People about to be burned were wicked, he knew. He shouldn’t talk to the woman. But he couldn’t even see her. And she was, after all, soon to die. Fernando hated the burnings. He pitied the poor sinners.
But this woman didn’t sound forlorn.
“You must keep this a secret. Never tell a living soul. Do you promise me that?”
Fernando had no intention of ever telling anyone he was talking to a convict. “I swear it.”
“Good boy.” The woman poked her fingers out through the hole. “Listen closely. Do you know the little house outside of town, on the winding road heading east, where Pedro and Maria live with their son, Bertran? Sturdy fellow, dark eyebrows? The old man has a limp, and their mean black cat has but one eye?”
“I know it,” said Fernando. “That’s the meanest cat in Polinyino.”
“You speak the truth. Can you go to that house, without anyone knowing, and give Bertran a message?”
That would be easy enough. “I can,” the boy said.
“Blessings on you, bright child,” said the old woman. “Tell him, ‘They’re coming. Go quickly. I gave you an hour, at most. Take good care of Papà. Go with God.’”
“‘Go with God,’” repeated Fernando. He hoped he could remember it all.
“He will be terribly sad to hear your message,” the old woman said. Fernando caught the catch in her voice. “Only that grieves me now. But tell him I said all shall be well.” She paused. “Unless he forgot to thin my onions this morning, and then I’ll haunt him when I’m dead, forevermore.”
Fernando felt sorry this friendly voice had to die. Would she really haunt her son over onions?
“Most of all, dear child,” it said, “never, ever tell a living soul I spoke to you, nor you to me. Once you give the message to the young man, he will vanish, and no one else in the wide world ever need know.”
Fernando promised. As a child, he understood secrets. He could run and deliver the message, and be back before the end of mass.
“And remember to never tell lies,” she called after him. “Liars are always found out in the end.”
He shivered. Why had she said that? Did she know? Perhaps others also knew about his lying to Mamà, that very morning, about the dropped basket of eggs?
He headed out of town toward the one-eyed cat’s house. The heat of the day bore down upon him. Imagine, building a fire to execute a sinner on such a day as this! Was he wrong, he considered, to have made a promise to a wicked person? Should he try to forget it, and stay far away from where sinners made their dwelling? But he’d promised. Breaking promises was lying. That must be why she’d given that strange warning. But which was the greater sin? To lie, or to help a heretic?
Somehow, in spite of the heat, a nightingale found the will to sing. Fernando sat down under a shady tree to hear the tune, and wondered what to do next.