The Sweet Scent of Death(An abbreviated sample from the beginning of the novel, Spirit Wind) A fuego fanto formed in the street below and drifted toward the noise of the plaza, sucking warmth into the cold shadows that ran around it. Its white fire was too bright to look at directly. I closed my eyes and waited, shivering, cheek against my basket’s rough shuckwork. The sweet scent of death—fragrant oils, wine, spices, and precious sweet woods—eddied up our street. Tonight a fortune would be burned with the body of one man. The plaza crowd roared. Smoke and sparks streamed turned the dark sky into glowing lizard skin: They had lighted the pyre. Like all the other slave women who had brought food to the funeral feast, I should have helped serve, but I had slipped away, obeying My Lady. After midnight, town would celebrate the feast of reversals, when men dressed as women, and women as men. From the clamor in the poorer quarter the party was starting before the funeral was over. 
This morning Lady Mercedes had told her servants she wanted her people home behind barred gates. “When conventions are suspended, law often fails too,” she had said, pendants of jade swinging at either side of her turtle throat. No matter that she seldom went out anymore, she rose and dressed every morning as if she would have guests. When the day grew cooler, and the back of the house smelled of all the good things cooking, people came, to ask advice, to be courteous, to gossip… A trio of fantos drifting by paused, as if sensing in my presence. I closed my eyes again, hoping I looked drunk or sleep. The cold, glowing lights are drawn to unusual places, things, and people. A slave never wants to attract attention. We are property, invisible, and to step out of that protection brings punishment, swift and sure, from owners and slaves alike. You must know your place. Or act as if you did, I reminded myself. This is your chance. Are you going to waste it? I was on my way back from taking almond liquor and braised jack to the feast in the plaza. If I went in, gathered my nerve again in the sanctuary of my owner’s house, I could say I had been asked to bring more hot pepper sauce for the jackrabbit. Our household made the best. I shivered as the distant crowd roared again. The sky over the plaza was white. There must be hundreds of fuegos fantos gathered there for me to be able to see their glow from here. The Alcalde had gone to his gods accompanied by his most favored servants as, when her time came, I would be sent to sent to serve my mistress, who was older by far than Leon Ildefonso. Rosa, our ancient housekeeper, said My Lady could remember the last silver ship landing. I wondered what a ship of metal had looked like, sailing toward our shore and whether the sea had been green, gray, or blue as dye-wort. Rosa told the stories her grandmother had told her, of the days before the ancient things had, one by one failed, until the people of the town had come to live as they did now. In those days, Rosa said, there had been no slaves… The first burst of fireworks spangled the sky. There would never be a better moment than this. Don’t think, I told myself. Do. Do it now. I stood up and swung my basket to my head. It was harder to balance empty than full, and I thought of leaving it behind, but it was my excuse to move freely anywhere. I was coming from delivering something or going to get something. I had woven it myself in the black, red, and blue patterns I had been taught as a child. Like a child, I touched my basket with one hand to keep it steady, hearing shrill laughter from our kitchen. Even our slaves were tipsy tonight for My Lady’s servants were always frightened. Those who went to the Dead Lands were forever possessions, not persons. If I did not go, I would always be a slave, and I—I had been born free. I had a birthright and must claim it… The scent of ripe apricots came and went on the breeze. I touched my basket again, reminded of the slave’s way to move quickly without arousing questions. Slipping over the banister, I made my way down the tree espaliered against the wall and into the fruit gardens. It had been a long time since I had sneaked into the grounds this way. I moved from low-pruned tree to tree, trained fingers seeking out the fleshy softness of the ripest fruit in the dark. A gift of apricots would let me pass unquestioned. I could feel the gaze of the house’s duende on me as I moved but the old thing in its niche was decades past the time when it could speak. 
Loaded basket on my head, I let myself out the side gate. In the street, I put my gift down in the dust and draped my head cloth to conceal my face. I was fifteen and well-grown for my age. I did not glance back, although I felt shame at what I was doing. Lady Mercedes was kind, treating her few servants almost as if they were her young family, killed by fever a quarter century ago. She would be hurt by my running away, but she would not keep her grip on her affairs forever. My feet knew the way, if my heart did not. Delores is going to take a longer and stranger journey than she can imagine:
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