Catalina repeats a senseless litany. Fernando says the word law and deaf ears reject it and return it to him transformed into a sneer. “The one born at the eclipse” cries out as the Cross is crucifying him. Winiktón harangues an army of shadows. Xaw Ramírez Paciencia stammers out the false testimony that will condemn his people. Julia laughs. Doña Mercedes Solórzano mumbles a secret. Marcela and Lorenzo, the martoma and his wife, Felipa. And others who had no name or face. And others who fell along the roadways. And others who were abandoned. And others who dragged themselves along until they met their end.

Idolina listens for an instant, seized with terror. And she cries out as if she, too, were being crucified, and Teresa Entzín López, her nana, runs to her side, solicitous, and takes her in her lap and strokes her hair and tells her a story to soothe her and put her to sleep.

“In other times—you weren’t born yet, child, and maybe I wasn’t born yet either—there was in my village, the old people say, an ilol of great power.

“With one glance at a horizon she knew if it brought prosperity or scarcity; she recognized destiny in the appearance of men and expelled disease from the bodies of those who suffered from it.

“To everyone’s great fright, this ilol had a son made of stone. He spoke as people of reason speak; he gave counsel to the pilgrims who came to witness this prodigy; he made cripples walk and abundant harvests pour out from the cornfields.

“The fame of the ilol and her son spread in all directions throughout the highlands. Her name was repeated in Huistán and in Tenejapa, in Mitontic and in Oxchuc, in Zinacantan and in Pantelhó.

“The stories came to be told even in Ciudad Real itself. The lords who dwell there were moved to amazement, but they did not consider it prudent to show their approval as long as they were not certain of the truth.

“So they sent as their emissary a servant of God. He went along the roads asking where the ilol’s stone son had his lodging.

“He found them both at last in a cave. They were richly dressed and bejeweled and he asked them, in the name of the lords of Ciudad Real, to consent to accompany him and be known and examined.

“This was agreed upon and the ilol and her son arrived in Ciudad Real and were received with honors by its principal men. And after the festivities and the banquets, the testing commenced.