“So gross!”

Lydia whispered in Devin’s ear. Devin listened, then began nodding and giggling.

“Look, María,” Lydia said, pointing. “The horse has five legs.”

María noticed the fifth leg for the first time. It was pink and crusty and peeling. Also, it was shorter than the other four. It didn’t even touch the ground.

“Do you see it, María?” Lydia asked.

“Yes.”

“It needs help.”

“Huh?”

“You need to pull it down so it touches the ground.”

“I don’t want to.”

“If you don’t, the horse will fall over. It will die. It will be your fault.”

“I don’t want to touch it.”

“We’ll tell Mrs. Ramirez you killed the horse.”

She looked at the leg. Maybe she could just pull it quickly. Then the horse would be okay, and Lydia and Devin would leave her alone.

She stepped to the fence.

“Go on!” Lydia urged. “Pull it down.”

“I can’t reach it.”

“Climb under the fence.”

María hesitated.

“Hurry up! Climb under the fence.”

María went down on all fours. Leaving Angela on the ground, she crawled beneath the fence rail. Then she was right next to the horse.

“Grab it!” Lydia said.

“Pull it!” Devin said.

María grabbed the horse’s leg. It was smooth and thick and warm. She pulled it. But instead of going down it went up, breaking free of her grip, disappearing into some kind of sheath.

María looked back at Lydia and Devin, confused.

They were bent over, laughing so hard tears came to their eyes.

María smiled hesitantly, wondering what she had done that was so funny, and wondering if maybe they would be nice to her now.

Jack

1

I heard them before I saw them. Pita was speaking in Spanish in a long monologue. By the sound of the choppy, unnatural cadence of her speech, she was reciting what she’d memorized for the documentary.

Sure enough, when the trees filtered away, she was standing before the hut that contained the shrine, over-enunciating her words and gesturing to the dolls attached to the wall, as though she were an action reporter covering a breaking news event. Pepper stood ten feet away, his video camera perched on a tripod. He was watching Pita on a small LCD screen. Nitro was behind him, arms folded, legs slightly apart, his back to me. Jesus sat against a tree, the leg with the sprained ankle stretched straight before him.

When Pita saw Rosa and me she did a double-take. She stopped midsentence, her mouth ajar.

The others turned, confused, surprised.

Rosa shied behind my legs and gripped my hand tighter.

“Who the fuck is that, chavo?” Nitro blurted.