Florence insisted, with all the sternness she could muster in her exhaustion and desperation. No one was paying attention to what was happening around them, nor did they notice Gaspar start slowly backing up, and Stephen with him.

Mercedes was the only alert one. Her beastlike face sniffed at the air. She had noticed the change that the others were unable to perceive, bewildered as they were by that field of hanged bodies, and above all by the reappearance of Eddie, the vanished heir. The place behind the door had never had a smell on the previous excursions Gaspar had led. Now, however, there was a swelter in the air, a stench of old meat and sun-warmed crypt, of rotten milk, of menstrual blood and hungry breath, of dirty teeth. The breathing of a filthy mouth.

We need to leave, Mercedes said, but they didn’t hear her. They ignored her. But she had realized. The place was a mouth.

Gaspar met his grandmother’s eyes and nodded. She was right. They had to leave. So he shoved several members of the Order who, not understanding, didn’t try to catch him, and he ran. Stephen was behind him, lagging. Some people tried to follow them, but a head start of a few meters in that place without enough oxygen was insurmountable. They couldn’t run, no one had any air except for Gaspar, who had time to turn around to watch the useless efforts, to raise his head toward the moonless night and wonder, if there was no moon, no stars, what was the source of that lowering light, so like a cloudy sunrise? When he reached the scrublands, the swamp was giving off a repugnant stench and he felt a wave of nausea. Behind him, he heard Stephen’s choking, disgusted cough. He didn’t want to help him, but if he managed to get out, he would need him to fight the guards. He retraced his steps and dragged Stephen by the arm, pushed him. They had time to escape from the Order’s members, who were falling to their knees on the grass, gasping, but he didn’t know how long they had in relation to the resurrection of the world around them. Everything was waking up and crawling, flowing, sticking out tongues, drooling. The hanged man was starting to sway, though the wind was imperceptible. There were noises in the water. There were no hands along the path through the swamp, though. They were allowed to pass. Gaspar touched the wall of stone, like a mountain, and found the passageway, a short, high tunnel. At the end, the doorknob that opened the door. And then, the hallway of the Puerto Reyes guesthouse.