“Well, be thankful for that much,” Father Jerome sighed and put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her. He had once talked to the bishop about the case of the resurrected child, but had not brought himself to mention the details about her flying or her announcement regarding her otherworldly travels. The bishop had dismissed it as an example of the ignorance of that community and added that such “resurrections” were commonly reported where proper medical attention was not given.

“And what do you think happened to your sister?” Sofi had asked Fe’s opinion one evening out of desperation. She knew Fe did not have clairvoyant faculties, but her calmness about the matter puzzled her mother so that she wanted to hear Fe’s speculations.

“Which_____?” Fe asked. Sofi could not hear the second word to her question because of the fact that Fe had severely damaged her vocal cords during the days when she had so violently and ceaselessly screamed; as a result, when she spoke now her voice was scratchy-sounding, similar to a faulty World War II radio transmitter, over which half of what she was saying did not get through, something like talking to Amelia Earhart just before contact was broken off altogether and she went down.

Sofi understood her daughter, while exercising to the fullest the patience granted to her to endure the particular life she had been given. Nevertheless, being only human, she answered with exasperation. “Of course I mean Caridad! I’m too scared to even think of la Esperanza … bombs falling, prisoners of war paraded on the television every night. ¡Dios mío! God only knows what has happened to m’jita …!”

“Did you __ think ____ Cari ____ eloped?” Fe suggested. Poor Fe, she never did get over Tom. All she seemed to think about were bridal gowns, floral arrangements, and the June wedding she never had.

“Caridad get married? To whom?” Sofi asked.

To whom indeed.

A year passed before Caridad was found one day living in a cave in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It was Francisco el Penitente and two of the hermanos from his morada who found her quite by accident. No one knows why they were up there just before Holy Week, all on horseback that afternoon, when they spotted the traces of a fire someone had made and followed their noses to the cave that turned out to be Caridad’s home.

The young woman was hardly recognizable. You can imagine what she looked like after not having changed her clothes or been in contact with a single human being for four seasons!

More than likely she had bathed in the stream that ran a few miles down below, but Francisco would not have ventured to gamble on it. At least we know what her water supply was and from the other things the men found that day, jackrabbit pelts and the bones of other similar small animals, it was also apparent as to how she kept herself alive. Now, how she kept herself warm during that bitter winter that had just passed, besides with animal skins and maintaining a fire, no one will ever know.