Since we’d learned the information about the Rite, Juan, Stephen, Tali, and I were never apart. We were all in agreement to save Gaspar, to stop the cycle. The discussion was settled. I didn’t have any more doubts that it was the right decision, but sometimes, still, the possibility of continuing Juan’s life, of keeping him alive inside Gaspar, seemed like a horrible miracle that was worth trying.

Juan was in Buenos Aires because he had found a door. Stephen was with him. This trip was to make sure the door was still open, that it was in effect a passage to the Other Place, and that it would open again for him. Finally, after so many years, the Other Place had appeared.

Something else had appeared, too, unexpectedly. Something the Order didn’t know how to deal with and that I had to take care of, because, in part, it was my fault.

Betty was the new problem, my cousin, distanced from the Order for so many years now. Why had I felt compassion for her? Some days earlier, we had listened together as the radio announced the coup d’état. She had cried; luckily, my parents were in another room, because they surely would have celebrated. My father had told me, though, that I needed to be careful with those who had taken power. He said the same about Stroessner’s soldiers every time I went to Paraguay. My dad was in agreement with them ideologically, but he insisted that they were animals. But I knew how to take care of myself. If I couldn’t ward off a few idiot soldiers after so many years learning from the Order, then it had all been for naught. And that’s without taking into account that I possessed a Hand of Glory. I’d never had any incidents. They didn’t even look at me. At the border, they waved me through respectfully.

Betty came down to the beach with her daughter, whom she sat beside Gaspar. They liked to play together. Gaspar didn’t seem to notice that Adela was missing an arm. Of course, Gaspar didn’t know that Juan had cut it off, certainly against the baby’s will and her mother’s. Not Juan, of course. The Darkness. The girl had been chosen. Betty had ignored my order not to leave the house during the days of the Ceremonial, and the Darkness had seen baby Adela, so tiny, younger and slighter than Gaspar. The mutilation on such a little body was shocking.