Until one night, she confronted Benedita. “Who is the boy in the woods, mother?” The question fell like a gunshot. Benedita froze, the wooden spoon still in her hand, her eyes wide. “What boy, Joana? What is this story?” But Joana was no longer a child. “I saw, mother. I saw you with him. Who is he?”
“He is your brother.” Benedita sat down slowly on the mat, her face aged by pain. And then she told her everything. She told her about the night of the birth, about the dark-skinned baby, about the Mistress’s order. Joana listened to it all in silence. And when her mother finished, tears were streaming down the girl’s thin face. “He is the colonel’s son?” Joana asked, her voice trembling. Benedita nodded yes. “Then he is the brother of the boys in the Big House,” Joana murmured, processing the enormity of that secret. “And if they find out, what happens?”
Benedita held her daughter’s hands tightly. “They will kill him, Joana. They will kill me. And maybe you too.” Fear hung between the two of them like a shroud. Joana promised to keep the secret, but that revelation changed something inside her. She began to observe the twins, Benedito and Bernardino, with different eyes. They were Bernardo’s brothers, but they lived in opposite worlds—one in a palace, the other in hell. And this injustice began to boil inside her like water in a cauldron.
Years passed slowly, heavy as a chain. Bernardo grew strong and smart, learning to survive in the woods, hunting lizards, fishing in the creek, building traps with vines. Benedita continued to visit him, but her fear increased every day. The boy was getting bigger, harder to hide, and more curious about the world beyond the trees. “Why can’t I go there, Mother Benedita?” he would ask, pointing toward the farm. “Because that is no place for you,” she would reply, but the answer was never enough.
Bernardo felt there was something wrong, something no one was telling him. He dreamed of children playing, plenty of food, soft beds, but he always woke up in the same damp shack, eating flour with rapadura, sleeping on an old mat.
It was on an August afternoon that everything began to fall apart. Benedito and Bernardino, now 10 years old, escaped the governess’s watchful eyes and rode into the woods, laughing loudly, seeking adventure. They carried toy rifles carved from wood and wore straw hats. “Let’s hunt jaguars!” shouted Benedito, the bolder of the two.
They ventured deeper and deeper until they heard a strange noise. Someone was whistling. They stopped their horses and dismounted, curious. They followed the sound until they spotted the shack. And it was then that they saw a boy with brownish skin, barefoot, wearing rags, sitting on a log, whistling a sad melody. Bernardo looked up and saw the two fair-skinned boys, mounted on horses, dressed like little lords, and he froze. “Who are you?” asked Bernardino, the shyer one, frowning.
Bernardo didn’t answer. He had been taught never to speak to strangers, never to be seen. But it was too late. Benedito laughed, finding it funny. “It’s some runaway kid. Let’s tell my father.” But something in Bernardo’s face made Bernardino hesitate. There was something familiar in those dark eyes, in that way of tilting his head. “Wait,” Bernardino said, getting off his horse. “Do you live here?” Bernardo, frightened, nodded yes. “Alone?” Bernardo hesitated, but eventually nodded. “No, Mother Benedita comes to see me.”
The name fell like a stone into a silent well. Benedito and Bernardino looked at each other, confused. Benedita was the slave who worked in the Big House. Why would she be looking after a boy hidden in the woods?
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