Rubbing the slab of hard yellow soap Doña Antonia had given me into the almost colorless cloth, it hit me that no one was punishing me. The women were just doing what needed to be done: the clothes were dirty and needed washing, and all the women were pitching in. Heartened to be included, I worked as hard as I could, as long as I could, until I had washed all the clothes assigned to me and dropped them back in my basket, which sat in knee-deep water next to me.

Just as I turned back to shore, a wave of pain lashed across my forehead, the light of day suddenly so unbearably bright I closed my eyes and covered them with one hand, the other resting on the rim of the basket.

Moaning, I heard the words “DO NOT MOVE” whispered inside my head.

Nausea flooded me, then passed. I opened my eyes, shielding them from the glare off the water, my headache fading with the echo of the words in my brain.

I knew who had spoken to me.

Void of expression, Beya held my gaze. She stood knee-deep in the river just a couple of yards from me, the basket of soaked clothes balanced against her hip dripping steadily into the still water.

I heard her murmur, “DO NOT MOVE. DO NOT LOOK DOWN. LOOK AT ME.”

I obeyed. The words hummed in my head, repeating over and over and over, “DO NOT MOVE DO NOT LOOK DOWN LOOK AT ME, DO NOT MOVE DO NOT LOOK DOWN LOOK AT ME,” a one-note song sung in basso profundo. Thirty seconds passed like this, a minute; then a pause—it was as if I was waiting for her to “say” something else. Had I invented this whole thing? The longer we looked at each other, the more convinced I became that I was losing my mind, yet I was riveted, enthralled. A buzzing circle of energy coursed between us, binding us; her eyes burning black.

A child shrieked up on the hill, only in play, but we both looked away from each other, severing our communication, if it had happened at all. I gathered my thoughts, brought myself back to where I was and what I was doing, what was expected of me. The sounds of talking and laughter between the women, the whine of insects, began to leak back into my awareness.

That’s when I noticed the top section of the fish gate, maybe two yards from me, jerking side to side, before it began to sink—bit by bit—as if something were pulling it, until it sank completely, dragged under the silty brown water.

Her voice in my head whispered, “DON’T MOVE. DON’T SCREAM.”

My head whipped back to focus on her face as if she had physically forced me to do so.

“STAY CALM. LISTEN TO MY VOICE.”

All the women shouted at once. They abandoned their baskets and splashed toward the bank, snatching their children from the shallows as they ran barefoot across the dark sand, the thumping of their footsteps loud in my ears as I searched Beya’s face.