“Where did you get this?” he asked. Catalina, without hesitation, said a distant relative had given it to her. Don Roque eyed her suspiciously but said nothing more. He handed her half a kilo of beans, a kilo of corn, two tallow candles, and tortillas wrapped in paper. No change. That was enough. Catalina accepted it, packed the items in her shawl, and left with her children, feeling their eyes on her back.
Behind them, murmurs swirled like a disturbed hive. Back in the grotto that afternoon, Catalina cooked the beans in an old can found among the abandoned house’s rubble. No salt, but the children ate as if it were a feast. Tomás chewed slowly, eyes closed. Lupita smiled with her mouth full. Carlitos smeared broth over his face, asking for more. Catalina watched them eat and felt relief she hadn’t known in months.
But unease lingered, pressing on her chest and stomach—food and exhaustion could not lift it. In towns like San Isidro del Monte, news traveled fast, and money, however little, raised questions. She was right. The next morning, while washing the children’s clothes in a puddle of rainwater outside the grotto, she heard voices approaching.
Strong, rough men’s voices, accompanied by horses’ hooves striking stones. Catalina stood quickly, heart in her throat, and told the children to hide inside the grotto without making a sound. Tomás obeyed immediately, leading Lupita and Carlitos into the darkness. Catalina stood at the entrance, hands still wet, waiting. Three men arrived.
Two were cowboys, weathered, hats dirty, rifles slung over their shoulders. The third, the ranch foreman, a tall, thin man named Jacinto, had viper-like eyes and a scar from ear to mouth. He dismounted slowly, surveying the grotto, the abandoned house, and finally Catalina. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
Catalina, her voice firm though trembling inside, told him she was seeking refuge, that she had nowhere else to go, that she only needed a place where her children could sleep without getting wet in the rain. Jacinto smiled, but it was not a kind smile; it was the smile of a man who knew his power and took pleasure in it. He told her that the land belonged to Don Erasmo, that everything on the mountain—including the grotto and the old house—was his, and if she wanted to stay, she would have to pay rent.
Catalina felt the ground shift beneath her feet. She asked how much. Jacinto scratched his chin thoughtfully, as if calculating. Then he said a ridiculous, impossible sum: twenty pesos a month. Catalina didn’t have a single one. Jacinto knew it. Everyone knew it. Then he stepped closer, too close, and suggested they could arrange another kind of payment—implying that a single woman could always find a way.
Yes, he meant it. And as he spoke, his eyes roamed slowly and openly over Catalina’s body. She stepped back, hands clenched into fists. She told him no, that she would rather leave than accept that. Jacinto laughed, short and dry, and reminded her she had nowhere else to go, that nobody in town liked her, that Don Erasmo controlled everything, and if she tried to steal or do wrong, she would end up in jail—or worse.
Then he mounted his horse, turned his back, and before riding off, shouted over his shoulder that she had three days to leave—or come up with the money. Three days, not one more. The horses’ hooves faded down the mountain, leaving Catalina trembling with rage and fear. Tomás emerged from the cave, pale, with Lupita and Carlitos clinging to his shirt. He asked what they were going to do. Catalina did not answer immediately.
She stared at the abandoned house, at the trapdoor she had discovered, at the cellar filled with coins that no one seemed to know existed. For the first time in a long while, she felt something stronger than fear: fury. That night, when the children slept, Catalina returned to the cellar, carrying a lit candle that illuminated the damp walls and the crates stacked along them. She knelt before one of the larger crates and carefully opened it.
Inside were more coins, but there was something else: an old book with a worn leather cover, pages yellowed and stained with damp. Catalina opened it with trembling hands. She couldn’t read well, but recognized words, names, dates, amounts, and at the end, a phrase in black ink still legible: “May whoever touches this treasure bear the curse of the dead who guarded it.” Catalina slammed the book shut, her heart pounding in her ears.
She looked around the basement, feeling the weight of the silence, a chill not from the air but something deeper, older. Then she heard it—a scratching, as if something clawed at the wall from the other side. She froze, the candle trembling in her hand. The scratching stopped, and in the heavy silence that followed, she heard slow, heavy breathing, very close. Catalina ran from the basement, dropping the candle, stumbling on the steps, and didn’t stop until she was outside, under the starry sky, gasping like she had just emerged from underwater.
She stood trembling, hands on her knees, trying to comprehend what she had heard. There was no logical explanation, and worst of all, she had to decide: stay and face whatever lived down there, or let her children return to the streets, hungry and cold. There was no choice—there never had been.
The next two days passed like a slow nightmare. Catalina slept little. Every time her eyes closed, she heard scratching on the walls, the heavy breathing from beneath the earth. During the day, she tried to act normally in front of the children. She cooked what little they had, told them made-up stories, sang songs her mother had taught her. But inside, something was breaking—a fear, a despair, something worse tied to the old book, the silver coins, and the curse written decades ago.
On the second night, Catalina returned to the cellar, this time without a candle. She carried a torch made from dry branches wrapped in rags soaked in lard, found in a jar inside one of the crates. Its light was stronger, steadier, illuminating everything clearly. The cellar was larger than she had thought: two solid stone walls, and at the back, an adobe wall, newer, fragile.
She approached slowly, pushing boxes aside. Then she saw it: a small hole, about the size of a fist, cold air escaping, smelling of damp earth and something sweet, nauseating, like rotting meat. Catalina knelt, holding the torch close. The light revealed a narrow tunnel stretching inward, descending diagonally into darkness. From deep within, she heard a sound that chilled her: a low moan, almost human—or something that had once been.
Catalina stumbled back, tripping over boxes, and the torch fell, extinguished under her foot. Darkness swallowed the basement. She sat on the cold floor, heart pounding painfully. She didn’t know if what she heard was real or a trick of exhaustion, but she knew she couldn’t stay. She hurried upstairs, closed the trapdoor, and dragged a large stone to cover it.
Then she returned to the grotto, where the children slept peacefully, unaware. That morning, she made a decision: if they were to survive here, she had to know what lived below. She had to know if the curse was real or just words meant to scare thieves. And she had to know before Jacinto returned. If they came back and discovered the cellar, the coins, Catalina knew they wouldn’t leave her with anything. They would throw her out—or worse, accuse her of theft and imprison her—leaving her children alone, abandoned, starving in a town that had never wanted them.
