I ducked into a small room that held the hole in the ground full of dirt. I watched as an older woman who was somewhere in her seventies and missing a canine tooth crouched down low and spooned dirt into a plastic grocery bag. She crossed herself. I smiled at her as she ducked under a low eave and walked back out into the light.

“The gift shop is selling containers,” my father whispered behind me. He stood in the curved doorway and handed me a few circular plastic containers.

“Your mother will want one for each of us.”

I crouched down and touched the dirt. The hole in the ground couldn’t have been more than two feet around. The dirt was fine and soft and cool to the touch. It felt strange, not like the pebbled dirt outside.

“Do you think it’s real?” I whispered.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“They say you can rub it on the parts of your body that are sick and it’ll help,” he said, reading a brochure.

I held the dirt in my hand and let it sift through my fingers back into the hole.

“Where are you going to put it?” I asked.

“I should just crawl in there,” my father said.

“I thought about that, but it’s too small.”

He looked back at the brochure while I spooned dirt into a container.

“It says people try to eat it, sprinkle it on their food like salt, but you’re not supposed to.”

“Why would anyone do that?” I asked.

“I’m sure they think it’ll heal them quicker,” he said. “People love shortcuts.”

“Do you think Mom will try to eat it?”

“That’s not funny,” he said, but I could tell he was laughing a little bit.

My mother came in and stared at the hole and said, “This is it?”

My father helped her crouch down and she immediately cupped the dirt, pulled her shirt down, and rubbed it on her chest.

“They said don’t eat it,” I said.

“I won’t.”

She eyed the hole like she was thinking about it, though.

“I want a candle. Did you get me a candle?”

“I didn’t know if you wanted St. Jude or someone else. We can go choose one,” my father said. “Will you fill these for your mother?”

“Make sure to fill them up all the way,” she said.

I leaned back down over the hole and watched them walk into the light. I stared at the hole and wondered how it could still be so full after people had taken so much from it. I dipped the spoon back in the dirt. But instead of pouring it into the container, I put the spoon in my mouth.