Talia concluded that her grandmother was still in transit, among the hordes of the world’s newly dead, and if the traffic in the underworld was anything like rush hour in Bogotá, it would take her a long while to arrive. As soon as Perla sat down to rest, she would have time to visit her family.

Since there was no money for a cemetery plot with a proper tomb, Perla was cremated. Mauro sent the ashes to Elena in a package that was lost in the mail for three months before it arrived. During those months, Talia imagined her grandmother’s ashes traveling the world, flying over oceans and jungles and deserts, seeing things they’d only seen on television, the world outside the barrio she’d hardly ever left.

Talia had no idea what her mother did with those ashes. She’d wanted to reserve a scoop for herself, but Mauro said it wasn’t right to divide Perla’s remains, and she belonged more to Elena than to either of them. But Talia thought it was wrong to parcel her away from Colombia, a country she said she’d never leave, even if the gringos granted her a visa, even if her daughter and grandchildren made lives elsewhere. Now what was left of her was already in New Jersey and Talia was the last of her family line in the Andes.

There was a girl at the prison school who called herself an espi-ritista, claiming she could cast spells and speak to the dead, and if a girl gave her their portion of dinner, she would cook up an hechizo or call upon whichever ancestor they wanted. She was fat from getting everyone’s rice and potatoes, but most of the girls only wanted her to harm people they felt wronged by in life—relatives, rivals, the judges who sentenced them. One night Talia gave the girl her whole slab of pork, tough as plastic, but she would eat anything. Later, in their dormitory, Talia told the girl to bring Perla to talk to her. The girl closed her eyes, recited some nonsense words, and said Talia’s grandmother would appear to her that night in her dreams.

It didn’t happen. When Talia complained the next morning, the girl swore her grandmother had appeared to her, she just didn’t remember it. “The memory of her visit will come to you in the future,” the girl said. “Be patient.”

If they’d been in the outside world, Talia might have smacked the girl. But since they were already locked up, all she could do was wait.

In the bathroom at a roadside restaurant near Oiba, Talia pulled some cash from her underwear. When she came out, she went to the counter and bought two sodas and empanadas. She found Aguja in the parking lot polishing the handlebars of his moto and gave him one of each.

He sipped from the can. The liquid turned his top lip orange. “You said you would tell me why you’re in such a hurry once I got you out of Barichara.”