Once the three men had gone away that day the spell of solitude under which Caridad had lived peacefully was broken, but she remained in her cave home in a daze, trying to remember what her life was like before she got there.

There followed another disorienting event, worse than the abrupt appearance of the penitentes who tried to make her do something she didn’t want to do. After so many, many months of tranquillity—through heat, winds, snow, and blooming cactus again, her entire mountain was invaded up to the threshold of her very cave home by hundreds of people!

What did they want? As the first dozens arrived, she thought they had come to get her by force—like those three men—and she went deep inside the cave to hide. But later, she heard them call to her: “Oh Holy One! We beg you, please take pity on us!” “Your blessing, Little Hermit!” “I beg you, santita armitaña, help my mi’jito!” or “Cure my dying padre!” or “… a mi abuela!” or “a mi pierna coja que ya no sirve pa’ nada!”

Of course, all this was confusing to Caridad, who, having been away from society for so long, made no connections between those please and her recluse existence and she just went deeper into the cave until all the voices finally went away.

Unbeknownst to Caridad, however, down below some of the daily newspapers had reported the pilgrimage to her mountain with “eyewitnesses” who had supposedly seen her. Some claimed to have been touched and blessed by her and still some others insisted that she had cured them! One man said that when he laid eyes on her, he saw a beautiful halo radiate around her whole body, like the Virgen de Guadalupe, and that she had relieved him of his drinking problem. One woman showed the press a small scrap of cloth that she said she had torn from la Santita Armitaña’s robe!

“Robe?” Sofi said, after she read the article. “What was my daughter wearing when she left here anyway?” she asked doña Felicia, who was at the stove making fideos in one pot and preparing a purification baño for a neighbor in another. “Distracted” as she tended to be at that stage in her life, she accidently sprinkled a little camphor oil in the fideos that was meant for the baño in the other pot for a woman down the road with espanto. But decided that it couldn’t hurt too much, even if it gave the food a suspicious taste.

“I can tell you she wasn’t dressed for the occasion, cheri!” doña Felicia laughed. “But then, who’s to say how a handmaiden of Christ should dress!”

“A handmaiden of Christ? Now who is calling her that?” Sofi asked.