His eyes land on you.
“We have a woman here,” he continues, “who has been spreading dangerous methods. Stones that explode. Floors that catch fire. Witchcraft that distracts from real work.”
Murmurs ripple.
Marta Baeza smirks.
You feel your heartbeat in your throat, but you don’t step back.
You step forward.
“You set my woodpile on fire,” you say calmly.
The room snaps quiet.
Don Álvaro’s face doesn’t change, but his eyes sharpen.
“That’s a serious accusation,” he says.
You nod. “It is,” you agree. “That’s why I’m not accusing you. I’m accusing whoever benefits from me freezing.”
You let the words hang.
You watch men shift uncomfortably, because everyone understands benefit.
Don Álvaro lifts his chin. “Enough,” he says. “I’m offering a solution.”
He gestures, and two men carry in a sack of wood and drop it at the front like a trophy.
“This,” he says, “will go to the household that commits to order. A household led by a man who can guarantee labor.”
The message is clear.
He’s trying to return power to the old shape: male hands, female dependence.
You look at the sack, then at your children.
You could take it and survive easier.
But the cost would be everyone’s future.
So you do the thing nobody expects.
You laugh once, quiet and controlled.
Then you say, “Keep it.”
Gasps.
Whispers.
Don Álvaro’s eyes narrow.
You lift your chin.
“I don’t want your wood,” you say. “I want you to answer why a widow’s home was targeted. Why women are being threatened for learning to keep babies warm.”
Don Álvaro’s voice drops. “You’re stirring rebellion.”
You tilt your head. “No,” you correct. “I’m stirring heat.”
The room trembles with tension.
And then Rosalía, Gonzalo’s mother, steps forward from the crowd, coughing but standing.
She lifts her shawl slightly, showing a bundle at her waist.
“A stone,” she says hoarsely. “Warm. Safe. Saved me.”
She looks at Don Álvaro. “If you call that witchcraft, then you’re calling God’s earth a witch.”
People murmur, conflicted.
Faith is a weapon too out here, and Rosalía just picked it up.
Don Álvaro’s face darkens.
He sees his grip slipping.
So he swings for blood.
He points at you.
“And what will you do when the stones aren’t enough?” he demands. “When you run out of river rocks? When your children cough? When you’re begging again?”
You feel something inside you settle, calm and heavy.
Because you’ve been hiding a secret warmer than any stone.
You take a breath.
Then you say, “I won’t run out.”
The room stills.
Don Álvaro’s eyes narrow. “Explain.”
You look at the crowd, at the women, at the children, at the men who think survival belongs to them.
And you choose your moment carefully.
“I found a warm spot by the arroyo,” you say. “The earth is warm beneath the surface. Not magic. Not superstition. Heat from below.”
A sharp inhale moves through the room like wind.
Don Álvaro’s face changes instantly.
Not disbelief.
Greed.
You see it in the way his pupils tighten, in the way his jaw sets.
You realize, too late, that you just lit a flare over treasure.
He steps forward. “Where?” he asks, too eager.
You smile, small and sharp.
“You want it?” you say. “Then sign a community agreement.”
His face hardens.
“You don’t own the arroyo,” he says.
“I don’t,” you agree. “But I know where it is. And I know how to use it without destroying it.”
Don Álvaro’s voice turns icy. “You’ll tell me,” he says, like a command.
You shake your head. “Not you,” you say. “Us.”
The word us hits like a stone thrown at a window.
Don Álvaro’s nostrils flare.
He looks around, expecting the town to back him.
But the town is cold.
And cold changes loyalties.
Women begin murmuring to each other.
Men look at their wives, at their coughing children.
Nobody wants another baby buried in frozen ground.
Gonzalo steps forward, face tense.
His eyes flick to you, then to Don Álvaro, then to his mother.
He swallows.
Then, in a voice that sounds like he’s ripping pride out of his own chest, he says, “We should hear her terms.”
Don Álvaro glares at him.
“You’re siding with a widow?” he snaps.
Gonzalo’s jaw tightens. “I’m siding with my mother breathing,” he replies.
The room shifts.
That one sentence is a lever.
It moves the weight.
Don Álvaro realizes he’s losing, so he tries one last tactic.
He laughs, loud and cruel. “Fine,” he says. “We’ll all go see this warm spot. Right now.”
A mob.
Exactly what you didn’t want.
Your heartbeat spikes.
If they rush it, they’ll ruin it, fight over it, fence it, claim it.
Someone will get hurt.
You raise your voice. “No,” you say. “Not right now. Not like that.”
Don Álvaro sneers. “Afraid you lied?”
You look him in the eye.
Then you say the line that changes the meeting into a negotiation.
“I’ll show it,” you say. “But only with twelve women and twelve men. One from each row. No more. And we sign the agreement first.”
Don Álvaro opens his mouth, then closes it.
Because saying no makes him look like the one choosing death.
He forces a smile that’s all teeth.
“Agreed,” he says.
You feel the trap even in his agreement.
But you’ve built traps too, quietly, with paper and witnesses.
The next morning, the selected group walks with you to the arroyo.
The wind bites.
The ground crunches with frost.
People clutch shawls tighter like they’re hugging life.
You lead them to the bent mesquite and the dog-head rock.
You kneel and dig.
When the warm soil appears, the group gasps.
