Francisco el Penitente Santero had not spoken a word in days, having decided to “enter himself” like an “Apostolic Serpent,” shedding his old skin to dress his nakedness with mortification and repentance, as the good Saint Bonaventure had taught in his doctrines for the novice friars who had descended upon the landlocked territory of Francisco’s kingdom three centuries before.

And as Caridad became more and more fixed in his consciousness, worse than any of the pine splinters that stayed lodged in his palms, Francisco el Penitente became more determined to exorcise her out at whatever price to his body and soul. “More bitter than death I find the woman who is a hunter’s trap, whose heart is a snare and whose hands are prison bonds,” Francisco el Penitente recited. “He who is pleasing to God will escape her, but the sinner will be entrapped by her.” He moved his lips, quoting chapter and verse from Ecclesiastes, but did not let a sound come out of his mouth.

And yet, despite this determination to rid Caridad the Hunter’s Trap out of his mind, he was not convinced that his obsession with Caridad La Armitaña Santa was at all of the carnal kind. If not for fear of committing heresy, he would venture to say that he looked upon her as one looked upon Mary. In Francisco’s eyes, Caridad had proven herself to be all that was chaste and humble with that year of self-imposed ascetic life in a cave.

Even the first time he saw her he was taken aback by the glow her body emanated. Despite the beating of the sun on his brow and the cross that bent his bare back on that Good Friday he knew that it was not delirium. One less faithful might have dismissed what he saw as a mirage caused by the pain he had chosen to endure emulating the passion of Christ. But Francisco el Penitente knew what he saw in Caridad was nothing short of a blessing, an unmerited reward for the physical suffering he was imposing on himself as penance.

When he saw the quiet young woman trailing behind his godmother he already knew who Caridad was. Everyone knew the family of La Loca Santa of Tome. Despite what anyone wanted to say or not about the elusive youngest daughter, she could not be of this world, having returned from the dead before a hundred witnesses.