“When I bend down to blow on the fire, steam from the pots envelops my face and drenches it with moisture. Hot drops run down my throat, my shoulders. And still I am cold; my teeth chatter, my joints ache. Ay, my eyelids close by themselves because I do not want to see the sun. How dark it is in here. I have to feel my way, as if I were at the bottom of a cave. A cave! An echo resounds against the hollow rock. Lizards crawl, hunting moisture. My feet slip on the cold slabs of stone. And this wet darkness penetrates to my bones. It is as if I had died and were buried, wrapped in an old petate. And I do not have the dog with me, the dog who must help me cross the rivers. The dog, the tiger of San Roque, protector of brujos. No one, no one. It is impossible to go forward. I am going to rot away here, in the grave, in the cave.

“But sometimes I find little stones to play with. Little stones and big ones. Moss. No, no moss, I do not want to sleep. Stones. Like the ones I once found.

“They were my secret. Lorenzo knew about it. But Lorenzo was carried off by the great pukuj and has forgotten everything. His head is like an empty bell. Only I know where the cave is, where the stones are. There are three of them. They have faces like a person’s face. They speak. I have heard them speak. But I ran away because I was afraid. I was a little girl and shadows frightened me. Today . . . today I am not frightened even to live with a man who is not mine and not to know who he belongs to. I lost him, they wrenched him away from me. Like the trees along the roadway, I had all my wealth spread out around me. Anyone who passes by covets it. And I, blind, unmoving, I stand here being tom apart, being stripped of everything. I don’t know how to defend myself. I cannot. Now I am going to open this fist which cannot keep hold of anything. I am going to untie the knot of my love that held nothing more than air. I am alone. This must be understood completely. Alone.”