“Where is it?” someone yelled. A man, with as monstrous a voice as she’d ever heard.

Someone responded, and though she couldn’t make out the pleading words, she’d know her mamá’s tone and cadence no matter what.

“How much must I destroy before you tell me?” the monster said.

Whatever reply her mamá made was drowned out by a great crash. Something large had been knocked to the floor. The table maybe. Then came the kettle, clanging against the stone hearth, and the girl stopped digging to put her hands over her ears.

The crashing and pounding went on and on, raining dust onto her head as she cowered in the dark. She pressed her palms to her ears, hard, hard, harder, until her skull hurt.

Silence came, as sudden as a blow.

The girl dared to remove her hands and lift her head, and it seemed that her heart pounding into the strange new quiet was as loud as a scream, and surely if the monster was still up there, he could hear it too.

Boot steps traversed the floor above, slow and deliberate. Her mamá said one word, clear and bold: “Please.”

The thunk that came was not so loud as before, but there was a wetness to it that made a bit of pee blossom warm in the girl’s drawers. She clenched tight—clenched her legs, her breath, her soul—and prayed for the monster to go away.

Instead, he continued to sift through all the things that belonged to them, and the girl knew they were in ruins, even without seeing. The table, which they had painted together with vines and flowers. The clay vase on the mantel. The iron spit and the spice rack above it, hanging with dried lavender. The cupboard with the missing drawer where the girl kept Rosita, her straw doll. The rope bed with feather ticking that she and Mamá shared.

The monster was searching for something, even though she couldn’t imagine what. She and Mamá barely had enough food to eat, much less a treasure worth searching for.

The boot steps ceased. Light peeked through the slats above her head. The monster had pulled up the braid rug that covered the door to the cellar.

No, no, no, no, the girl prayed. Mamá was always praying. Praying for more food, praying her toothache would get better, praying Horteño the blacksmith would leave her alone. The prayers never seemed to work, but the girl didn’t know what else to do.

A hinge squealed as the monster found the iron ring and gave it a yank.

No, please, no.

Light poured down the ladder, and the girl had been in the dark for so long that it hurt her eyes.

“Ah, there you are,” said the monster.

A tiny whimper bled from her lips.

“Why don’t you come up?” he asked reasonably.

She shook her head fiercely.

An arm reached for her, draped in the finest, palest linen she’d ever seen. Fingers curled, beckoning her. They were long and slender like spider legs, with skin as white as a cloud.