Page 17 of An Immaculate Deception

She blinks. “The mill hasn’t been operational in years.”

For all that is holy, I could just slap Leandro right now. He hasn’t even started the renovations?

“Take me to the mill.”

It takes us a few minutes to reach an outbuilding with a slanted, shingled clay roof. There’s nothing in it but the old mill. Thick cobwebs stretch between the centerpiece gear’s teeth. The belowground compartments for the distilled sugar liquid are dry and covered in algae at the bottom. No one has even bothered to clean the space yet. Dry leaves and patches of invasive weeds blanket the ground. Not a single sugarcane stalk anywhere in sight, nor any hint of blackstrap molasses. The shingled clay roof is exposed from below, patchy and discolored. The posts holding up the roof are covered in white stains of varying sizes. The walls are a hideous patchwork of cracked stone with deep craters black as obsidian. The stone is so rough and broken that if I pull out any part of it, I’m sure the entire wall will collapse.

“We should get going.” Maria das Dores hovers at the edge of the outbuilding, not daring to come any closer.

I’m furious. What has Leandro been doing here all these months? He certainly made it sound like progress was well underway. I can’t recall if he said this in plain language or merely implied it, but there was a lot of I already spoke with so-and-so and we are going to build this and that. Yesterday he talked about wall-embedded cabinets and teacups with mustache catchers…Useless notions. Leandro is full of ideas, but—I fear—no action.

It’s dire. We need the mill to be operational for the fazenda to be profitable. Surely he’s living off his father’s finances now, but what about when we have a baby and a family of our own?

Has he been just having fun in town? That lavender-scented room. Has he been using this fazenda as a place to entertain women in private?

I wipe my damp temples and try to dispel the calamitous thoughts. The mill’s gears look like they haven’t turned in twenty years. I lean over the large front gear to inspect it and my heart freezes in my chest. Three arrow-shaped heads stare at me with lidless, unblinking golden eyes. Their gray-scaled, limbless bodies coil into one another so tightly that they move as one. One hisses, flicking its forked tongue. Another rises up, unblinking eyes mesmerizing me so that for a moment I am transfixed. I gaze into its eyes, and there lies an alien expanse at once repellent and appealing.

It rears its head back, about to strike.

I scream and jump back.

“What is it?” Maria das Dores asks, wide-eyed.

“A nest of jararacas.”

She lets out a breathy “oh” and we quickly put space between us and the viper-infested mill.

9

It takes all of my self-control not to march into Leandro’s study and demand an explanation for the sorry state of this place. Instead, I follow Maria das Dores back to the casa grande, where we end the tour in the kitchen. I wonder if the comendador knows how little his son has accomplished, or if Leandro has been telling him the same tall tales he’s been telling me. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that Leandro never outright stated renovations were underway, but rather implied it by painting a very vivid picture of his plans and vision.

“Sinhá Madalena?” Maria das Dores says, bringing me back to the present. “Do you have any questions?”

I look around the dense kitchen. Rows of wall-mounted shelves and dressers packed tight with ceramic mugs, tin colanders, spice jars, silver jugs, and canisters with preserved goods. A dozen pots and copper saucepans hang from the ceiling above the central table. A modest four-person table sits flush against the wall, where the servants eat their meals. Beside it, a narrow table with an array of cooking wares and…

I stop in my tracks. Inside a cake stand, encased by an oval glass lid, lies a mottled white-gray cake, consumed with fuzzy mold. I freeze, unable to peel my eyes away from the sight. I’ve seen bread and fruit occasionally dotted with specks of gray, but this is something else…Maria das Dores turns away to fetch me an oil lamp, muttering that it’s too dark to go up without it, and I cannot believe anyone would talk about anything in this room while this abomination lies in plain sight. Just then I see the mass twitch. It shifts oddly, as though it’s alive. I blink. A fissure opens and an army of black dots bursts through, scattered here and unified there. Dozens of ants tunnel through craters in the mound’s collapsing body. They crawl freely through the mass, emerging from the insides in clumps, and my stomach turns. There is condensation on the inside of the glass lid, and I suspect that if the lid were to be lifted, the whole kitchen would be consumed by a nightmarish, foul odor. Nausea flares at the thought and I clamp my hand against my mouth.

“Deus do Céu,” I mutter, “what is that, Maria das Dores?”

I point to the mold monster.

She turns to look at it. “Fubá cornmeal cake.”

“Perhaps so, a decade ago.”

She hands me the oil lamp.

“You are the cook,” I press. “How can you keep such a thing in the kitchen? If Leandro sees—”

“He ordered me to keep it.”

I’m speechless. “Why would he do that?”

She gives me the I-only-follow-orders shrug. “Now, if there’s anything else you should require…”

I head to my room, lamp in hand. Sometimes foods get forgotten for days or weeks, but not long enough to turn into that. Why has Leandro ordered her to keep a putrid, rotting cake lying around? Why did he make it sound as though renovations were well underway, when he hasn’t even started? It’s as if the house is falling prey to mold and slime and vipers and grime and whatever else moves under the earth.

Why did he lie about whoever has been staying in that lavender room of late? Why was the police inspector here?