She drove me herself to Chascomús. And she gave me her instructions. I was to feed the caged ones every day. My mother is not the only member of the Order who searches for a medium or tries to summon the Darkness on her own, but as far as I know, she’s the only one who uses this method. She brought me to the shack where the cages were, and then she left. The smell made me vomit and I ruined my red Mary Janes, my favorites. I ran out. But the next day I went back: one of the employees left the food at the door of my room, and he had orders to force me to fulfill the task. Otherwise, my mother would come back. That possibility was worse than the shack. It was kept locked with a padlock, and inside, the darkness was absolute. I left the trays inside the cages. The smell of shit and piss and blood made me throw up every time. All that summer I brought plates of food, very often spoiled, to the caged ones. I walked with my hands extended, and if I noticed they were very still, I prodded them to see which ones were alive and which dead. If there was a dead one, I also had to take care of the body. I buried two under the pear trees, following instructions my mother gave me over the phone. They didn’t look human, and the smaller one had no eyes. One day, I heard a howl so intense coming from one corner that I disobeyed the orders I’d received and went to get a flashlight. The light made all the others shriek and for a moment I thought I was surrounded by winged demons, but I took a deep breath and steeled myself. I could always be tough when I needed to. I recognized the face that was wailing: they were looking for him in town, there were posters of a rough identikit drawing up everywhere, in the shop, on light poles, in the police station. Someone wanted him back, someone loved him. The rag over his eyes was so dirty it had maggots. I bore the filth, his suffering, for several days, until I couldn’t take it anymore and removed the bandage. I cleaned him up as best I could, but I’m sure he’d already lost his eyes by the time Mercedes decided he was no good to her and threw him out like all the others. His name was Francisco, and he was four years old. The identikit said he had dark hair, but in my mother’s prison he’d gone completely bald.