The Poetry of Secrets by Cambria Gordon

Author:Cambria Gordon [Gordon, Cambria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

They rode home by way of the river. As Pepe loped, his hooves lifted off the ground, so at times she felt as if they were floating.

Behind her, Diego brought his head forward so that their faces were touching. His breath caressed Isabel’s cheek. Then he removed one hand from the reins and turned her chin toward him, resting his lips on hers. A few moments later, he did it again. And then again. He could not go one hundred meters without kissing her.

To her right, the river churned, fueling her with blue-gray energy that moved through her veins like blood. To her left, the marshy grass was wet and green, filling her lungs with verdant air.

Her hair, so carefully braided, was completely undone.

She was completely undone.

Reluctantly, they said their goodbyes at the same spot where they had begun. Yet nothing was the same for her. It never would be. Where the south gate archway appeared dull and dirty earlier, it now looked shiny and clean. Even the pigs nosing around in the slop that collected alongside the road endeared themselves to her.

“Buenas tardes,” she called happily to an old basket weaver. The woman gave Isabel a toothless grin.

But as she walked home, her felicitous thoughts began to darken. She had always lived a double existence: a Crypto-Jew by birth, a Christian on the outside. Today she faced another duality: betrothed to Don Sancho, her heart with Diego. How could she marry that putrid creature after seeing what life could be like with Diego? Their days would not cease to be stimulating. And their nights … She trembled, imagining his body lying next to hers. It would be a world of ideas and beauty, rather than a world of punishment and fear. For Don Sancho was the Inquisition in human form. Tears welled in her eyes. The abject frustration! She finally felt pure joy and she did not know how to keep it.

Once when she was small, she held her breath to see how long she could go without air. Her cheeks turned purple and her eyes burned before she exhaled in a forceful motion, her lungs gasping for life. Her body acted on its own accord. In a way, she had been doing that same thing her entire life. Acting on instinct. For surviving in a Christian country meant perpetrating a lie. Being a good New Christian and never questioning anything.

Until now.

She no longer wanted to merely survive. She wanted to live! She wanted to act of her own volition to secure happiness. To have free will. All free people deserved a choice, in both religion and marriage.

But this was impossible because she needed to survive.

It was a circular argument.

There had to be a way out of the maze.

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