A Moonless Ballad

When the moon vanished, Rosalinda did not care to notice, for the light of night had long been drowned in the haze of men. Enshrouding her town of Santa Catarina in bloodshed—of the kind only those who hide their brutality behind orders can perpetrate—the absence of the moon’s pale radiance made no difference.

The implosion of peace had driven her from the small settlement in southern Baja California. She and her own were pushed away like water disturbed by a foreign object, forming waves of people her eyes had never seen before.

It was all new to her, just like the train they forced themselves to board—a metal tube fixed to tracks in the ground, meant only to move forward. The movement of the cabin and the rumble of the engine registered in her ears for the first time, along with the murmur of a crowd huddled together. Despite the shared misfortune that had befallen them all at once, the diverse gathering failed to unite. The space became a stage for the present, yet the actors belonged to different plays, each interpreting the danger through their own lens.

Nobody alive dared to look back and wonder what would become of their small town—nor what had happened to those left behind, the ones unable to move without aid. The trail of tears left by the displaced shone beneath the moonless night. The stirring of frightened masses and the sound of the wheels’ revolutions filled the air. The eight-year-old Rosalinda, reacting without understanding why, moved among the crowd. Bodies twice her size pushed from seat to seat; looks passed above her head; words and sounds bounced into her ears while the swaying of the train tired her tiny legs. Eventually, the pressure tumbled her to the metal floor, the lights inside the tube shining above her.

Her small hands shot forward, stopping her fall.

The realization struck her as she settled, her tiny fingers pressed beneath her weight. There was no dark glow outlining her hands, nor the mirrored darkness of her head.

She was rendered shadowless.

Unlike the moon, her mind was forced to react to the missing detail.

Scraping at the ground as if trying to uncover her somber reflection, the sound of her nails grew louder than the disjointed murmur of the masses above her tiny body. Her ten fingers fidgeted in her vision, turning to twice their number until everything blurred.

The sound remained last as her body fell exhausted.

The lullaby of the rotating wheels beneath the metal floor spiraled in Rosalinda’s ears, marching forward, swiftly separating her from the town that had birthed her with a shadow.

The mirage of the nascent sun beneath the moonless night bridged the shift between days, its circumference tracing a path across the sky with the same determination passed down to the living beings bathing in its warmth.

Three days and three nights had to pass before a physician reached the hospices guarding the southern refugees. It had not been the war in the border cities that caused the delay, but the quiet collusion between private practices and those heading the public apparatus, which set the response to the needs of the people at a snail’s pace. If anything, the pressure of conflict forced the institutions to hasten—as if greasing the internal workings of rusted machinery, briefly pushing corporate influence to the sidelines.

The south of the state had fallen to the revolutionaries, who made outposts out of its small towns. The north did not remain a stranger to the upheaval. Just before the end of winter, as the reflection of the moon vanished, spring brought with it the ambitions of the filibusters known to the town of Tijuana. A small party of foreign interests shrouded their movement within the domestic revolution; their attempt flourished only briefly, drawing a short gasp of spring air before the collective response of the citizenry and the federal forces suffocated its fire.

Bearing the brunt of the invasion—the land itself—laying bare the vestiges of conflict. The footsteps of regiments and the confident stride of locals fused into a single, homogeneous echo, the dust rising from the roads always trailing behind the speed of sound. The shock had come and gone, yet its effects still reverberated in the composure barely held together by the walking masses.

At the behest of the municipal government in Ensenada, the prepubescent town had been forced into order to reassure investors interested in the Panama–California Exposition, hoping to draw some of the visitors from San Diego to Tijuana. It was a shock to the few hundred inhabitants of the young settlement to see the apparatus governing their lives—and the settlement itself—push through international events despite the eruption of conflict just before the appointed date. A practice that would repeat in the years to come, forming a paradigm for future administrations.

Shifting soles on white tiles echoed across the church courtyard, the makeshift encampment shimmering with the movement of people. The air carried the peculiar habit of adults to move about as if busy, even when there was little to be done.

The cluster of refugees, each sharing only a few square meters of space as they waited their turn for assistance, was nothing out of the ordinary for the physician. His movements and routine approach showed experience, yet his body still carried the vigor of a young man.

So far, there were no grave injuries—only the common exhaustion and malnutrition, and the psychological damage of being forced to traverse vast stretches of land. The bodies of the people huddled within the church, though worn, showed no immediate signs of harm.

Except for the young girl.

When he first reached the square meter of her encampment, the child was lying on her back, a group of older women watching over her—none of them related to the girl.

“Did she come with you?” the physician asked.

None of the women had seen her during their journey there.

There were no parents, no siblings, no guardians. There was no shadow emanating from her body, as if she had been plastered into this life, her reality overlapping with this one.

The girl lingered somewhere between unconsciousness and wakefulness. Her breathing was soft, and after taking her vital signs, her body showed the same results one would expect from a healthy child. Yet in her eyes, the slipping of life was unmistakable.

For these reasons, he concluded that the matter lay beyond the physical realm of bodies—or so he believed. Perhaps the material and the immaterial were not so easily divided, but instead remained entangled, each affecting the other.

He would have to ask once the man he had summoned by telegraph arrived.

The lines were ostensibly reserved for government communication, now largely seized by the military, but his insistence as a physician in the state’s service had forced his message through. A simple letter—no explanation of the conditions, no context for where these people had come from. Only a single, peculiar detail, set down in one sentence:

Tijuana—solitary girl—no shadow.

“There’s no bad from which good doesn’t come,” were the words that sprang into Del Río’s mind as the train pushed its way across the vast desert plains of Mexico’s desolate northern peninsula.

For those without the means to keep horses, the only forms of transportation had long been one’s own feet or the strained muscles of a donkey pulling a cart—until three decades of constant modernization, brought about by the dictator now seated in the presidential palace. The construction of the rail lines came swiftly and destructively, yet the changes were undeniable. The beating heart of political power sent its reach across much of the territory in ways neither the original inhabitants nor its settlers could have imagined a mere three hundred years before.

Much of the territory.

A capital at the center of the nation—yet, for the border settlements, it felt as though the affairs of Mexico City belonged to an entirely different country. The people of these northern terrains stood too far from the reach of the central state, too removed from the grazing hand of the Church, and yet far too close to the United States.

The telegram the Church had received prompted Del Río to break from his tranquility in the southern borough of the capital, Coyoacán, and board a cargo train bound for the border. It was, in many ways, an entirely different country within the territory the state was slowly losing to revolutionary forces.

A pretense of white neutrality had long served to obscure the Church’s position, avoiding explicit support for any of the three sides—and in doing so, angering them all. To him, however, inaction was as useful as the maintenance of the status quo: a condition most favorable to the Church, which had long operated as a separate power within the state. It feigned obedience to both the federal government and Rome, yet its machinations moved according to the quiet will of men who could not envision a future beyond the streets the jacarandas bathed in their pink glow.

For religious men, it was a contradiction. For clerics, it was a rational order.

For Del Río, men lived too short lives to let themselves be consumed by an Icarian path toward immortality rooted in the material.

Father

Across the back of the cart, from where the cargo lay, a soft whimper reached Del Río.

Can you hear me, Father?

Among the corn, beans, and wheat piled against the cart’s walls lay a man dressed in a military uniform—one whose design belonged to an era long past.

The soft rumble of the train tracks did not seem to disturb him, a figure unmoved by time itself, fixed as though part of the train.

Seated beside the apparition, Del Río felt the air draw the warmth from his clerical garments. The nascent cold mimicked the clasp of night—those once governed by the pale light of the moon.

Worn boots and faded blue cloth covered the man’s frame. There was no life in his darkened eyes.

Have we lost the war?

“Which one, my son?” Del Río replied to the cold air.

In stark contrast to Del Río’s favored verse, Acts 4:32—“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.”—None in this settlement shared a common heart or mind.

They might have called themselves believers, but such self-designation proved fruitless in altering their material conditions. The people were lost, abandoned by both the state and the revolution, with no possessions of their own to share.

Trudging along the dusty roads, Del Río crossed the improvised encampments, finding all manner of people—of every age, every body bound to a shadow cast upon the ground.

“Pardon my intrusion, señorita—would you happen to know a physician named Martínez?” Del Río asked cautiously, addressing a woman clad in white robes, a triangular bandage resting loosely at her slender, brown neck. She belonged to the recently formed Red Cross.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said without turning to face him, her movements betraying the strain of one burdened by too many tasks. “I can’t help you right now.”

The familiar dismissal—one given to countless pleas—lingered in the frigid air of the late afternoon, her accent tracing each word as it drifted past him. Del Río answered only with a faint smirk, a silent acknowledgment of his failed attempt to locate the man who had summoned him.

“Are you from Cuba, señorita?”

At the question, the woman finally turned, her gaze falling upon the man who had claimed her time.

Her cautious assessment found a tall figure clad in clerical garments.

“I am, Father. I have not yet learned the names of my coworkers,” she replied, already turning away. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

As her words parted the air, her feet carried her short body toward a tent covering a pair of people lying on the ground, sheltered from the open air.

“Hold on—perhaps I can help,” Del Río insisted. “Vitals, bandaging, cleaning—I received some training at the monastery.”

A sigh rose from her chest and slipped through her nose, betraying her composure—a far more honest reaction than her former mechanical responses.

There was no need to wait for her answer; the hesitation in her mind was likely a mixture of protocol and unfamiliar procedures from a foreign land. Knowing this all too well, Del Río stepped into the tent, brushing past the woman, whose head barely reached his shoulder.

It had been a gamble—a wager resting on the condition of others. The venture proved in his favor, as the patients’ superficial symptoms pointed to a fever.

Del Río’s large frame bent toward the ground as he meticulously replaced the damp towel on the patient’s forehead. Before setting it back, he confirmed the heat with his own hand against the man’s skin.

After wringing out the cloth and placing it again, Del Río positioned his index finger and thumb along the older man’s fragile wrist, counting the pulsations and marking the seconds with his wristwatch.

He had not been disturbed by the frigid stare of the short woman.

There had been far too many refugees—people of every kind arriving with each passing day—and the number of volunteers and physicians from the state and the Red Cross was nowhere near enough. This strain would be the organization’s first real test in this country, one she knew almost nothing about despite its proximity to her native island.

The people spoke strangely, and the men did not seem tall; yet this peculiar priest broke away from the early notions she had formed from her experiences in this land.

“Are there more patients I could assist you with?” The man’s voice drew her attention back to the camp. “My name is Martín Cortés Del Río.”

There were far too many “patients,” she had thought before instructing Del Río to follow her.

Out on the plains, in the distance, the hills trapped the nascent city within the Peninsular ranges. The settlement had become adorned with makeshift tents, regardless of where one’s feet wandered. With no way to avoid stirring the dirt beneath their steps, the air grew colder as the late afternoon robbed the land of light. It had been a terrible season for refugees to arrive.

“Forgive my boldness—I don’t suppose I should continue referring to you as señorita.”

The words from the tall priest did not break the stride of the short woman; she had already grasped the meaning behind his earlier introduction. It had been her prerogative to ignore his subtle request for a name.

Even now, this second attempt was cloaked in a performative subtlety she did not care to indulge.

“I’m Yoana—with a Y.”

Satisfied with her curt reply, she quickened her pace, eager to reach the next tent still in need of basic tending.

“Yahweh is great—indeed,” Del Río cut in, catching the increased force in her steps.

This had been a nation rich in petroleum, blessed with the minerals underground that had funded empires—from the days of silver extraction to gold and iron. Now, a decade into the new millennium, the black gold that flowed from beneath the earth had become the country’s greatest source of wealth.

Such wealth had not been redistributed with equity—not only in wages, but in the development of the land itself. Beginning at the nation’s core, the reach of electricity extended outward, yet most settlements at the margins had been left behind in this industrial process. As one of the northernmost settlements, Tijuana had only a handful of buildings powered within its sparse infrastructure.

Oil lamps hung from concrete walls or stood along the ground, posing tripping hazards for any unsuspecting walker in the encroaching, moonless night.

A mixture of alcohol and boiling water circulated through the encampment at a post set up by the Red Cross.

Thermometers and forceps floated in antiseptic solution as the day’s interactions bubbled in Yoana’s mind. The pressure of memory urged her to remove her white cap, easing the tension and letting her short, dark hair fall just below her ears.

Standing still, thinking of nothing, brought her a needed rest after hours of work. She avoided dwelling on anything, believing it might slow the approaching hours of the next day—when she would have to do it all again.

“This was a good day’s work—you did well, Yoana, with a Y.”

Her after-work ritual was not to be, as the man insisted on stealing more of her time, long past the hours he had spent helping throughout the encampment. She was not religious; there was no point of reference to determine whether his commitment stemmed from some religious fervor. That social understanding had kept her irritation at bay.

“Are you still here, Father?” she said without turning, dragging her hands through her short hair. “Weren’t you looking for another physician? Martínez, I believe?”

Only a few steps on the gravel answered her question—an unspoken cue for him to leave. Somehow, Yoana could feel the childish grin on the father’s face.

“I am. But perhaps we could discuss my payment now.”

The words stirred immediate confusion in Yoana’s mind. Turning around, she found the tall man scanning the inside of the tent, as if a child lost in a store.

“You said ‘help,’ sir—Father,” she said, scrutinizing him with her large eyes. “What do you mean, ‘payment’?”

“Indeed, it was a ruse—perhaps even a lie—to make you feel compelled.” Unconcerned with his words, Del Río found his gaze drawn toward a brown vase resting atop a flimsy wooden table set aside in the corner of the encampment. “Would you care for some coffee?”

“Well, I don’t have any money with me. You’ll have to take that up with my superiors.”

“I would much rather avoid that, actually.”

The man kept working the small gas stove; a dented pot used for heating water for sterilization rested over the flame.

“What do you want?” Her confusion had long since simmered into irritation.

“I would like a word—that is all. Just a couple of minutes, with as much honesty as you can manage.” Del Río’s words coated the tent in a frustrating veil.

The bubbles in the water marked the silent passage of time, the heat of the boil casting a quiet warmth into the corner.

This had been the only tent assigned to her; there was too much effort in leaving now, and Yoana did not feel it fair to abandon the man within her encampment. The quickest way to resume her solitude would be to push forward.

Her eyes firmly centered upward toward the face of the tall priest, the lack of expression with the silent glare gave way for Del Rio to speak.

“One moment, please,” Del Río said as he turned, lifting the old pot away from the fire. “It’s not as good as the grind you find in Cuba, but I am sure we can make do.”

The man’s persistence as he moved about the equipment in her encampment weighed on her, and, realizing this would take time, Yoana resigned herself to sitting in a chair beside the scant wooden table, shifting slightly with every movement of its contents.

“Tea would’ve been faster,” she commented, watching the delicate tilt of the old pot as he carefully kept most of the grounds from slipping past the sediment. There was no cloth to separate them from the clay cups on the table.

“Like most Mexicans, I am not much of a tea drinker,” Del Río replied, a soft grin settling on his face as her expression remained unchanged.

“You are the most persistent Mexican I’ve met so far,” Yoana said, her gaze fixed on the clay pot Del Río had placed in front of her. The aroma rising from it was distinctly different from the coffee she remembered in Cuba.

“That’s what we are known for—indeed,” Del Río answered as he settled at the table, the shift sending a slight tremor through the wooden surface.

Silence settled over the encampment once more. Del Río sipped from his cup, making an effort to study the camp around them, while Yoana continued to glare at him. Her resentment slowly wore itself down with the passing minutes.

The warmth from the gas stove faded, and the coffee in the clay pot cooled. At last, Yoana relented. She cupped the pot and took a cautious sip.

“You were right,” she said, her voice cutting through the frigid air of the encampment. “It’s not as good as Cuban coffee.”

As if it had been a sign, Del Río set the clay cup down beside him.

“I have been summoned to this settlement to attend to a girl whose shadow has been stolen.”

The honesty in his words warmed the space between them, though it did little to soften the irritation in Yoana’s glare. Her confusion, however, gave him room to continue.

“Those responsible have no use for the body, so they discard it. Yet this girl managed to board a freight train to the border with the other refugees—and escaped. At least, that is how I understand it.”

A different kind of silence followed—one born of thought—as it settled over the young nurse’s expression.

“I haven’t seen any such girl in this encampment,” Yoana said at last, after searching her memory.

“Martínez has likely already acted and hidden her,” Del Río added, as if accounting for her having missed such a patient. “When did you arrive at this encampment, Miss Yoana?”

There had been one particular detail separating the days she had spent in this foreign land.

“One day before the moon vanished,” Yoana recounted, “we landed in Veracruz and rode for two days before I reached this town.”

The clay pots had gone cold. Recalling further details proved fruitless; most of her memories so far involved only forests and encampments.

“That’s all I know. I just got here,” she said after her honest attempt to remember more.

“It’s more than enough. I appreciate your honesty, Miss Yoana—with a Y.”

After his parting words, Del Río gathered the clay pots and set them at the center of the table. He carried no belongings with him—only a long black coat, its pockets holding the few items he possessed, a garment that inspired trust at a glance.

“Hold on, Father,” Yoana called before he left the encampment. “Why did you ask me? You could tell I’m a foreigner.”

“Precisely. You came from far away to help people you have never seen.” Del Río caught the uncertainty in her eyes. “The evils I seek are all domestic. I could use eyes and hands unconnected to the state of affairs.”

Standing just outside the tent, Del Río produced a short, hand-rolled cigarette from within his coat.

“And as I said, you are a good person. If I helped you, I knew you would be urged to speak with me.” He held the cigarette with a half grin. “Anyone else would have thrown me out onto the curb already, Miss Yoana.”

It had proved too easy to move the resting girl from her encampment; Martinez had needed no help at all. Despite the lack of illness of the body, the energy had slowly drained from the young girl, reducing her to nearly half the weight a regular child should carry.

There was not much Martinez could do for her, besides hiding her and waiting for Del Rio to find a path toward her salvation. Beyond that, his trained hands weren’t of much use.

It had been the coldest night Martinez had experienced in the northern settlement—three days after he had sent that telegram to the church—when his meeting with the priest finally materialized.

Besides the central church, there was no real infrastructure on this ranch south of Tijuana. The only presences were those of refugees, scattered in tents all over the dusty roads, the air left frosty after the caress of the coastline.

Moving among the lines of tents, it did not take long for the figure of the man he was looking for to appear. The dark coat denoting his position as clergy contrasted with the dulled whites and grays of the huddled camps.

“Must’ve been your God’s will, taking you all this way from the Federal District unscathed.” The accusation swept through the air unimpeded.

“Martinez, good evening, my son.”

“Drop it, Del Rio—we don’t have time for jokes.” Martinez approached the man, the aroma of burned tobacco permeating the air. “The child is running out of time.”

“I take it you have hidden her?”

“What do you think, Del Rio?” Martinez cut in. “She is safe. Let’s move. Now.”

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might…” Del Rio quoted at Martinez’s insistence.

Sensing the intention to move, the footsteps from behind Del Rio pushed forward the short figure of a woman toward the men.

“Hold on, sir.” Yoana caught Martinez’s gaze; the man appeared young, barely reaching thirty. Perhaps his clean shave masked his exact age; only the sight of his round lenses blemishing his face, “I’ve heard about the girl, if I could help—”

“You got people involved, Del Rio?” Ignoring the woman, Martinez shot back to the bemused tall priest.

“She is Yoana with a Y,” Del Rio explained the detail as if asked. “She is an honest woman; we can trust her.”

A brief gust of wind embraced the strained conversation, throwing dust from the road into the air.

Sensing his distrust, Del Rio added, “Besides, that girl traveled all alone; surely the knowledge of her condition has been shared more than tuberculosis.”

Not yet convinced thoroughly, Martinez relented with an audible utterance.

“You place your trust in uniforms far too easily,” Martinez said, directing his words toward Yoana.

“I simply wish to confirm a child’s safety,” Yoana answered, looking past Del Rio.

Martinez slowly relented as his head swayed from side to side, “It’s in your hands, whatever happens now, Del Rio.”

Behind Martinez's urgent steps, the group trailed the medic. A black Ford coupe idled by on the sidewalk, the white tires soiled by the mud from past rain.

“You are seeing better days now, Martinez.” Del Rio’s remark exhaled ironic praise whilst studying the vehicle, “How many patients do you treat to afford this?”

“It’s a government-appointed vehicle,” Martinez clarified past the irony, “It’s not my prerogative.”

“It’s the people’s car, how marvelous,” Del Rio shrieked in sarcasm, “yet driven by one man.”

Ignoring Del Rio’s wry remarks, Martinez seated himself in the driver’s seat, letting the two trailers behind him accommodate themselves inside the vehicle.

Del Rio opened the door for Yoana, showing his demand for recognition with half a smirk.

“Thank you.” She said before settling into the imitation leather seat.

The noise of the engine rumbled within the interior; its revolutions shook the entire vehicle.

Despite its slow movement, it was far better than walking. Besides the engine’s own quivering, the uneven road shuddered the entire structure; the path north to Tijuana had long been formed by passing wheels and horses throughout the decades. Erasing the previous path marked by human steps, now at the beginning of the new century, there had not been a need to traverse with one’s own feet.

At least that was the expectation created after the introduction of vehicles, roads, and trains in the nation. However, most of those far below the working class had been left out of consideration; the rest did not expect them.

Far to the left, the sights of the coast began painting the scenic dirt road. The pacific shine clashed its waves into the peninsular shoreline. There would be no turns; the road traversed a single line north, closer to the border with every driven mile.

“I could not determine anything physical that would cause her condition to worsen,” Martinez spoke through from the driver’s seat. “Albeit cursory, I would’ve found something by now. The only sure conclusion is the girl is dying.”

“Not dying, my friend,” Del Rio’s muffled voice interjected from behind, “Her body is losing its grip in this reality, the consciousness is alive and well.”

“Please refrain from smoking in my car,” Martinez snapped in without glancing back.

“The people’s car, Martinez.”

“You can walk with the people if you keep pushing it.”

The creak of leather diverted their attention toward the peaking woman next to Del Rio.

“Does it make a difference how the girl is dying?” she asked, emerging from the backseat.

“It does, Miss Yoana,” Del Rio began after storing his hand—rolled tobacco away, “with the body gone, there is no anchor for our consciousness to remain in this realm. These irrational thoughts of ours are fleeting things; they are pulled toward the sky, yet our bodies restrain them. Once they are free, it’s when our bodies die.”

“Is the girl not dying then?” Yoana asked, still processing the priest’s words.

“A much worse predicament, her consciousness will be trapped inside a body unable to move in this realm. Trapped until the flesh decays.”

“There aren’t any studies for any of this, mind you,” Martinez broke in between Del Rio’s words. “We’re only being thorough here—you surely understand that, Yoana.”

“And the people who stole her shadow—are they trying to find her?”

At Yoana’s question, Martinez turned toward Del Rio, the accusation painted in his eyes.

“Please look at the road while driving, my son.”

Swaying his head in disapproval, Martinez returned his gaze to the road, his temper colder than before.

The silence inside the car never settled; the wheels droned against the dirt, a steady grind beneath the coupe. In the distance, the low reverberation of Pacific waves crept toward the road.

“We will find them first,” Martinez broke in, his voice cutting through the passing echo of the tide.

Gentle stirring from the wind, long after the encampment had been permeated with the salt from the ocean, crept amongst the tents, painting the dirt roads in the main square of Tijuana. The black coupe did not stop among this multitude; it continued drifting past, ascending north.

Away from the main roads of the nascent town, the road revealed the virgin desert plains forming the peninsula. Abandoning the coastline, the safe house Martinez drove them to was shrouded in a thick, dark penumbra; only a couple of oil candles resting on the exterior, forming bright circles at the periphery.

“Before you ask—I brought her alone,” Martinez said as he turned off the engine. “Only we know the location of this residence.”

“Private or personal property?” Del Rio asked while exiting the coupe, his hand reaching for his hand-rolled tobacco.

Following shortly behind Del Rio, Martinez got out into the gloom surrounding the lot, “Does it matter? It’s personal property.”

“You are seeing better days, indeed.”

The last to step out onto the dimmed grounds, Yoana softly closed the car door behind her; the dry echo brushed against her brown skin, carrying the cold of the air.

“Would she be alright—moved around like this?” Yoana asked, slowly reaching the pair.

Martinez reassured the young physician, “There are no signs of trauma or internal injury. Moving her body should not compromise her condition.”

Short steps rose to the entrance barely above the dirt ground. Inside the residency, a racket of candles spread across the living room, the air warmer than the exterior.

Their steps dry amongst the wooden tiles on the floor, soon to die down after reaching the entrance to a room in the left wing of the domicile.

A few candles lit the room, most of the light coming from an oil lamp on the nightstand beside a single bed. Despite its modest size, the bed seemed large beneath the fragile body of the girl lying on it.

“You have more faith than I do that those candles won’t set your house on fire, Martinez,” Del Rio’s distant voice echoed through the small room.

“This arrangement should only be temporary,” Martinez said with quiet certainty.

Yoana was the first to approach the dormant girl; the young medic’s hands moved across her skin, assessing the rigid tension in her body.

“Dehydrated and malnourished,” The assessment from Yoana thickened the air with tension. “Her temperature, oddly enough, seems normal.”

“Subcutaneous infusions are the only fluids I’ve been able to administer these past few days.”

Amongst the evaluation, the steps of Del Rio echoed in the corner, his large frame reaching the nightstand.

Grabbing the helm of the oil lamp with a firm hand, Del Rio brought it closer to the young girl.

“Be careful,” Yoana’s warning went unheard as Del Rio lifted the arm of the girl, placing the lamp above.

The nearby light warmed Yoana’s face, her small frame casting a long shadow across the floor, while a faint echo of Del Rio stretched along the opposite wall.

“She casts no shadow, then,” Del Rio said, studying the glistening figure beneath the lamp, set apart from the surroundings.

The bed and the white mattress showed no darkened image other than the ones belonging to the two people studying the girl.

Leaving the girl’s hand to rest, Del Rio placed the lamp back in the nightstand.

“What should we do next?”

“Reuniting the missing pieces of her body back together, Miss Yoana.” Del Rio turned toward the door, “I will inquire in the encampments, even if they don’t know who she is, someone must’ve seen her coming with them. Miss Yoana, could you assist the girl?”

“Hold on now,” Martinez pushed forward. “I know what you intend to drag me toward—I’ll keep her body alive; you and the woman deal with people.”

“Always on your toes, Martinez,” Del Rio replied, amused. “It might do you some good—interacting with the working class.”

“I already work with people; the last thing I want after that is to interact with even more,” Martinez said, his tone steady. “Besides, it will look natural—a foreign Red Cross worker inquiring about the refugees. She isn’t part of the government.”

“Neither am I, my son.”

“You work for your own interests most of the time, Del Rio.”

“I’ll do it. I can cover the southern encampments where the first wave arrived,” Yoana asserted to Martinez. “Perhaps we can find someone from her town.”

“And the people who did this will be there as well,’ Martinez said, his words falling toward Del Rio. ‘You should go instead.”

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

“A sound mind is precisely what you lack, Del Rio,” Martinez replied. Shortly thereafter, the group separated, each with a new objective.

Tracing the same wheel impressions, the coupe headed south, its speed significantly slower than Martinez’s steady march. Behind the wheel, Del Rio's larger hands slightly shifted as the uneven road jolted the vehicle.

“For how much bickering, he seems to trust you well enough to let you drive his car.”

“It’s the people’s car, Martinez surely has a personal vehicle stored somewhere in his property,” Del Rio answered gleefully, pondering an image of a personal host of vehicles stored away in a villa. “Have you driven before, Miss Yoana?”

“I haven’t, well, not alone,” Yoana reminisced in the passenger seat. The approaching settlements in the distance slowly ensnared the environment. “When I was a child, my father let me drive his Ford.”

“Quite a rare scenario!”

“What? Don’t you think we have cars?”

“That’s not at all, Miss Yoana. I believe most families everywhere do not possess a personal vehicle.” Del Rio clarified as the scent of the ocean swept in the air, “There must’ve been peculiar circumstances, where they not?”

Yoana regarded the driver's words, his frame barely fitting in the small coupe.

“My dad was a chauffeur in the American embassy; he was expected to repair the cars as well. He would take them home and would drive us around.” Yoana remarked as she scraped his right earlobe.

“Is he still alive?”

“Yes, though he no longer drives.”

“He is a good man.”

“Is this the same smarmy move you pulled back then?” Yoana drifted her gaze toward the darkened figures of tents in the vicinity, “I don’t have any money to give.”

“It is not Miss Yoana, if anything, it is you who deserves restitution—I did not expect so much help,” Del Rio’s words mingled with the still air in downtown Tijuana, “He was a good man, he raised you well enough for you to be able to assist me.”

As the coupe cruised down the main city square, the still air imposed a quiet over the encampments, the scraping of pebbles beneath its wheels made louder by the absence of any signs of life.

“More like you burden me with a sense of obligation.”

A silent and progressive stop from the coupe let the quiet take hold of the air in the encampments, while the acetylene lamps flickered against the dark blue sky.

“That is inconsequential, Miss Yoana. From the very beginning, your disposition made it easy for you to feel burdened with gratitude—a most fortunate condition to possess,” Del Rio continued after cutting the engine of the coupe. “We would not be interacting were it not for your nature.”

Below the words dryly dancing in the coupe, the urging meaning behind them painted a reflexive expression in Yoana, studying the face of the softspoken priest. The contemplation halted at the realization that the surroundings encapsulated the still vehicle.

“Where are we?” she asked, breaking away her gaze to the still streets, adorned by silent tents.

“Do not leave this vehicle, Miss Yoana. We will advance once the reaping is over.”

At the behest of his words, the shadows—once merged with the darkness surrounding the plaza—began to separate from the uniform gloom. Slowly, they rose from the ground, their silhouettes shifting as they drifted upward. As they swelled into upright forms, their bodies stretched and folded into themselves, the rhythmic motion mimicking breath. At their base, their shapes dissolved, spilling into the street like water running off a table.

Echoes of light bounced from the outer shapes and reached Yoana’s eyes; the mirage sucked in the warmth inside the coupe. A silent drift across the ground carried one of the specters toward the passenger side, its upraised silhouette barely distinguishable in her peripheral vision. Before she could process it, her left hand felt warmth—feeling the tight pressure from the larger palms of Del Rio.

As if bored by the absence of all else, the shadowed figure slipped away, drifting toward the tents scattered before the motionless coupe.

“What are they?” Yoana’s voice was soft, as if hiding from someone.

“The gathered resentment and bitterness of those who have lost everything—eager to drag anyone who still clings to hope into the same hollow of envy.”

Ripples of shadow lingered within each tent, studying the interiors, stirred by whatever emotions they could draw from within.

“Once it’s over, we shall move forward.”

“Can’t they see us?”

“They can see you—but not while you remain in contact with me, Miss Yoana.”

Soft rustling from across the shore permeated the city square, as the wind brushed the fabric from the tents. In a silent abduction, the hopes of humans slowly consumed each other, leaving behind only the cold weight of despair and the stark truth of their condition. Nowhere was as still as a turmoil drained of faith.

Amidst the rapture of promises, a solitary swelling shadow stood beside an empty tent—its form slumped, like abandoned flesh—turning its attention toward the motionless vehicle in the road, its interior vacant.

Tracing along the natural cliffs of the peninsula, the Coupe reached beyond the limits of Tijuana, toward the capital of the state. The views within Ensenada's limits mirrored the border town's—tents and encampments unchanged across the roads. Buildings converted into shelters, social workers roaming the plaza, moving from shelter to shelter.

The coupe came to a stop until it arrived at the wooden depot where the train line connecting Santa Catarina reached the northern state.

“We will hardly get anything at this hour.” Yoana’s voice reached across from the coupe. Del Rio stood on top of the wooden platform.

“Time is of the essence, Miss Yoana.”

Relenting to his suggestion, Yoana softly closed the vehicle’s door, bracing herself against the cold ocean air. The stillness of the capital lay below the threshold at which her steps could be fully heard.

“You show great care for a vehicle, Miss Yoana.”

“It’s basic courtesy for other people’s belongings,” she retorted, stepping onto the wooden platform beside the tall priest. “You speak so courteously, yet your actions suggest otherwise.”

At her words, Del Río’s study of the vista was interrupted; he answered with a faint smirk. From the corner of his eye, he watched as the woman took in the deserted train tracks.

“Does it disappoint you, Miss Yoana?”

“I don’t particularly care—I’ve only just met you today.”

Both pairs of eyes were studying the desert plains of Ensenada, the scenery painted with the same makeshift encampments that befell the entire state.

“Is everywhere like this?” Yoana asked, folding her arms against the cold as midnight drew near.

“It is—just for people like them.”

As his words faded into silence, the rustle of his robe’s dark folds rose above the stillness.

“I appreciate the gesture—but these are far too large, Del Río,” Yoana said as he draped the heavy coat over her shoulders, the hem trailing along the ground.

Exhaling a short breath, Del Rio became unable to hide his pleasure, “Thank you, Miss Yoana—this was the first time you have said my name.”

Expecting more from the man, Yoana remained silent, studying the vista.

The sound of the nighttime ocean seemed deeper and more somber than the echoes that escaped the shores in the sun's light. The lack of a moon in the night sky did not seem to affect the waves.

“Is it that important to you?” she asked, thinking there was nothing else they could do at this hour.

“It reminds me of my presence; I can still impact other people,” Del Río said, a promise lingered in his voice. “You will find out soon enough, Miss Yoana.”

Side-glancing the tall priest's profile, she noted that his demeanor had been as relaxed as most of the words he had spoken since meeting him.

“In the meantime, just call me Yoana.” She let the stranger’s presence comfort her, the long day beginning to affect her body, “I’m tired of this charade.”

“Let’s find you somewhere to rest, Yoana.”

The rolling of the Coupe echoed in a murmur across the cobblestones, the port slowly dissipated along with the whispers of the calm ocean.

Only encampments persisted across the streets.

The words arched atop the large doors read ‘Hussong’s cantina’, while the green exterior still shone despite the night sky. The dark coupe idled outside the bar.

“This is a bar,” Yoana said, though her body had long been prepared for rest.

“Well, it’s more of a cantina, Yoana,” Del Rio replied. “But don’t worry—they offer accommodations for travelers. You just need to know who to ask.”

Standing still, surrounded by wind carrying the scent of ocean salt, Yoana discerned a strange reluctance in the priest.

“Not getting in?” she asked. The passing seconds began to feel strange.

“Once inside, you will have to behave as if you are alone.” His words fell without a trace of his earlier hesitation. “Just get yourself a room for the night.”

The interior green shone unbothered—the same as the green in the outer wall.

A standard layout behind the doors: the bar on the right and small tables on the left. Near the front wall, set squarely in the middle, stood a six-foot enclosure adorned with pictures of landscapes and animals.

The lighting itself caught patrons off guard—one of the few private establishments in town to have electricity.

To the side of the enclosure was an entrance with stairs leading to the second floor.

Whilst waiting outside the establishment, the mirages of darkened shapes swept down the street in the distance near the ports, transiting from one encampment to the next.

The frigid air pressure of midnight let the smoke from tobacco rise unimpeded toward the sky. Having gotten used to solitude, the elements assaulting his skin kept his notion as a living being intact within Del Rio’s mind.

His wandering mind studied the movements of the shapes across the street, having decided where to investigate once lodgings for his companion were arranged.

“I’m sorry, they don’t have enough rooms for us,” the voice of Yoana brought his attention back toward the cantina’s entrance.

A knowing smile painted Del Rio’s frown as he waited for the reveal of his condition.

Each gaze emiting their meaning, expecting a preconceived action. Meanwhile, the night deepened the silence; the seconds before learning anything of a stranger seemed to stretch, moving more slowly than they should.

“Is your partner not here yet?” came a voice from behind Yoana as the older barkeep stepped toward her.

To the woman behind the bar, through the creeping night, the young foreigner stood alone, her solitary figure fixed on the distance. From Del Rio’s vantage, however, the two women remained plainly out of sync. Taking quiet comfort in the half that could still perceive him, he offered a reassuring smirk.

“Go on, Yoana. I’ll come for you in the morning. Good night.”

Dry echoes of Del Rio’s footsteps bounced from the cobblestones, the environment assaulting his body, anchoring him to reality—or so he chose to believe.

Trespassing the umbral of midnight, the group of darkened shapes feasted upon the lingering human optimism, unaware of the glassy eyes studying their movements.

Devoid of noise, the figure’s bodies behaved as projected across the environment, unconcerned with physical barriers. Yet their influence on the material remained a reality, manifested in the diminished hope amongst the groups the shapes lingered over.

Bearing inaudible movements, the figures latched onto the resting people. Unaware of the robbed priest among their ranks, looking for other unseen shapes.

Hushed winds carried across the street, and only the living beings drained from the senses of hope remained. Deciding to leave this group, Del Rio moved past the dark shapes, following traces of debris marking the path traversed by the refugees before settling onto these streets.

Carried over to the end of the paved road, the solitude of a walk in the dead of night felt no different from walking in plain daylight. Because most people failed to recognize his existence, the only thing his life still seemed to register was the shifting of temperature.

Now, even the pale gray moon had vanished, the passing clouds oblivious to the missing presence above them. Yet their movement remained unchanged. Like the clouds themselves—untroubled by absence or by forces greater than their own reality—the world continued forward without recognition, always resolving itself back into normalcy.

A normalcy that felt no hesitation in abandoning those at the margins at random. Despite the collective weight of the material world sharing in that same order beneath the clouds, its inhabitants still allowed such inequality to fester.

The reason for that acceptance became a greater mystery than the disappearance of the moon itself.

Trails of discarded products meant for living beings painted the route leading south of the city; a few abandoned encampments stood against the wind, their inhabitants long gone.

Del Rio stood next to one small tent, a hole big enough to peer into the interior. There lay a scolding humanoid figure; a cursory glance through the broken fabric revealed an old man lying awake, trying to hide in the corner.

Producing one of the remaining rolled tobacco, Del Rio crouched at the level of the hole.

Wind entering and exiting through the small hole filled the environment between the priest and the sole remaining tent. The occupant pressed into his role of pretending not to exist, a failed attempt one caught too easily by someone who had experience in such a role.

Exhaling smoke mixed with vapor created by the frosted air, the silence dragged on.

Momentarily interrupted by the shifting body inside the tent, the periphery view from Del Rio noticed the peculiar sensation of being observed. The languishing eyes of the old man observing his body through the orifice, a rare occurrence for Del Rio.

“Are you not one of those things?” the voice, muffled by the interior, echoed with soft undertones.

“They are concerned with other people further north. You are fine for now, my son.”

“Thank god, thank you, virgencita.” The old man responded between plumes of breath.

Studying the person through the hole, the body seemed incomplete from the waist down.

“How long have you been here, if I may ask?” Del Rio asked the old man through the hole.

“We arrived so many weeks ago, we boarded whatever car and trains we could.” The energy of the man slowly rose through each word. Detailing his ordeal brought back his spirit of hope, unassailed by the shadows.

“So many from our town escaped, but some other people started following us. They were thinking we knew where to go, but all of us just ran away from the commotion.”

“How did you make it all the way here, old man?”

Through the torn strands of fabric, the body remained unmoving; his words escaped from the curled figure within.

“I don’t remember,” came the response from the corner.

“Were there children with your group?”

“Several, with their parents, I assume.” The voice carried warmth through the opening. “You see, I am an old man. My own parents have long since gone underground. They told me to hide. Imagine my shock, señor—as though I needed to be told that.”

“What is your name?”

“I don’t remember anymore, Father.”

“You are safe now, my son. The fighting is in the south, and the shadows are in the north.” Del Rio directed his gaze through the gaping hole. “You reached where you needed to reach.”

“It’s these legs of mine—they tax me at my age.” The curled man remained undisturbed in the corner. “They wouldn’t listen to me. Serves them right, being lost somewhere on that damned Díaz train.”

“In the place where your legs now reside, did you see a young girl traveling alone?”

The rising smoke formed swollen shapes above Del Rio’s head as he waited for the old man’s answer.

“Before we reached this place, there was a young girl who looked like she was sleeping in the middle of the train,” the voice reminisced into the open air as the body slowly crumpled into pebbles.

“Ah… I remember now. It was strange, Father. The sleeping girl’s twin jumped from the train, and when I tried to catch her, I fell.”

A whistle stemmed from the fabric as the heavy air rustled through the opening. The soil left behind in the corner dragged across the ground, settling into its newfound resting place.

“The noise was loud… so loud,” came the words carried by the wind through the empty encampment.

The elements continued along their course, undisturbed by the movements upon the earth, the tent shivering as though stirred by a branching leaf. Not a change emerged from Del Rio’s dry echoes as his steps carried him farther south.

A man without legs will still drag himself forward with his arms, but eventually the strength of his body will fail him.

With this thought, and the worn train tracks serving as his compass, Del Rio trekked alone deeper into the moonless night.

The rummaging in her head had kept Yoana wandering across the small room on the second floor of the cantina. A guest room with little to hold but a single bed and a chair with a lamp on top. There was no need for a clock; the temperature carried outside the frosted glass window delineated the time past the umbral of midnight.

More unsettling than the inability of the woman who had led her to the room to perceive Del Rio was the certainty with which the man searched for the whereabouts of the displaced shadow. The thought settled within Yoana’s body with iron unease.

Even when she tried to cast the man away from her conscience—as other people apparently did with ease—his coat had remained draped over her shoulders the entire time she had been led through the cantina.

She knew how easily she could slip into obsessive interpretation. Yet the thought that the gesture had been deliberate—meant to remind her of his existence—had taken root in her reasoning.

Under the guise of her profession, she forgave herself for such romanticism. She was a caregiver, after all, and knew well the language of silent pleas.

Carried forward with the dry echoes of her footsteps, Yoana traversed past the encampments delineating the road. The wind swept softly against the robe covering her body, yet despite its length, the cold made the weight upon her shoulders feel as though it carried itself.

Gazing upon the sky, the missing silhouette of the moon deepened the solitude lodged in her chest since the moment she had stepped from the boat that carried her to this land. The ruminations of the memories etched in the past rotated around her mind, as her steps slowly lost the echoes, failing to reach anyone’s ears.

Clearer than the vision of a present without worries, a mist outpaced her soft rhythm; she had reached the port next to the train tracks in the south of the city. Only traces of former encampments remained in the sediment, a column of scraps and belongings packed in a line, acting as the words of a book describing past movements. Only through the weathered remnants of people’s last possessions would someone understand the actions of the past.

As her footsteps rang hollow beneath the mist assaulting her eyes, the clear path before her began merging with the reflection of everything behind her. Her surprise rang out as the image of her own back, draped in a large coat, overtook her vision. Present within the moment, her gaze studied the mirage of herself alongside the path her body had just traversed.

No sound escaped through the reflection.

Upon realizing she had stopped walking, the mute world before her appeared as ordinary as any other night preceding this day. Yet one small detail above the reflection of her back unsettled her more than the apparition itself: a pale orbit lingering at the corner of the sky, still above the clouds—the mirage of a grey moon reflecting sunlight.

Her eyes turned toward the sky; the plains on top were surrounded in the deep solitude of dawn, as expected in the image conjured by her memories. The unrelenting drag of clouds, alone without a moon, anchored her back to those memories of a recent present.

Turning back to where she came from, the assault of light embraced her body.

A distant warmth enveloped her skin, the colors of a bright day reaching her eyes, yet something within that warmth felt wrong to her—distinct from the sultry register preserved in her memories.

Amid the spectacle unfolding before her, the streets of the past brimmed with life beneath the sun. The day carried on as multitudes crossed the streets. No sign of encampments lingered in this rearward view. Buildings stood open to the public, while the few cars of the young capital drifted along the main boulevard beside the train tracks.

The day continued within the mirage, its movements too familiar to be beyond Yoana’s imagining. Yet the scene cast unease within her.

A wind that could not shake the leaves swatted past her, lacking any texture of its own. Its temperature remained cold against her brown skin.

Despite the same buildings setting the scene for this day, the images registered as a past clearly within the reasoning of Yoana, there was a lack of impetus in the movements of the people traversing across the slice of morning. For how long would this past remain in such condition proved hard to estimate. The detail she had seen now was the missing presence of these people on the day she had arrived with Del Rio. Despite the night, there had been no other residents in sight, only the encampments scattered around the streets.

She turned around, finding the night once again enveloping the street—the reflection gone with the mist.

Presented in the path she had decided to traverse were the sight of those hastily shafted encampments. With her vision focused on a singular tent camp, her body moved toward it.

The makeshift tent was unsuspecting from a glance, yet the feeling it gave belonged to that of the same scraps abandoned by people in the road.

With a lack of hesitation from her hands, those belonging to someone used in medical practice, she opened the encampment. The space amongst the tent holds nothing but dust and pebbles within the tent.

She rushed toward the tent behind it, uncovering the entrance only to find the same empty interior. Her footsteps rang out alone in the street as she tore through one encampment after another. Within the silence, the same image repeated itself regardless of which shelter her hands revealed.

A faint sliver of darkness shifted at the edge of her vision.

In the slice of day behind her, the mirage of darkened figures crossed in the middle of the reflection, unaware of its existence. Yet their intent recognizes the existence of Yoana.

Just a cross of her eyes toward their shapes began draining her strength away from her body.

Forcing her short frame forward, she broke into a run down the street, passing the empty tents in a blur, unable to tell whether the dust scattering beneath her feet belonged to the earth itself or to those whose bodies had once inhabited the encampment. Behind her lingered the fleeting remnants of her resolve.

Through the dim lightning of a moonless night, remnants of waves oscillated across the distance; the only evidence of an ocean rested upon the echoes from the body of water. Challenging through the cold breeze coursing through the coastline, the views of a naked plain filled the horizon across the pupils of Del Rio.

Fascination ran through his wondering mind: the touching of two environments around the coast in this tiny sliver of a peninsula. Small in size according to the standards of the planet, but the strip of land was long enough to hold wonders larger than the imagination of a human being.

The virgin appearance would only seem so from a distance; in the plains of southern Baja California, the steel train tracks left a mark in the sediment. Now abandoned, as much as the rest of the debris from other utilities used by travelers.

Rummaging along with the views of the plains in southern Ensenada, the condition of the town slowly floated across his mind. The encounter with the man in the tent up north unveiled what had happened in this capital. Weeks ago, before the arrival of the revolutionaries in the south, the town had vanished under the moon.

Those left behind contributed to the arrival of those shadows, once aware of their situation.

Unable to rest in peace, they remained attached to this land, and a nameless mirage of a man happened to see now the missing shadow they were looking for.

The cold running along his shoulders stirred a faint trace of worry for the companion he had left behind in the center of the city. As long as she remained inside, the night could pass almost imperceptibly.

His childish act brought a trace of a smile to his face; the heavy clerical garment left on the shoulders of the short woman reassured his desire to be seen.

For Del Rio, solitude proved safer for Yoana. Unlike strangers, those unable to cross to the other side became part of the environment itself—not merely incapable of causing harm, but unwilling to do so.

The problem now was that the town stood empty, yet not abandoned.

Worry in his mind, Del Rio pushed forward down the train tracks, each short distance revealing the abandoned state of the tracks. The sight resembled a mirage of the railway’s future. Liberty had been surrendered to the ambitions of a single man to bring the rail into existence, yet the price paid had proved far too extravagant to justify it.

To abandon it once this administration fell would still leave the common citizen bearing the loss. Even so, the times had to move forward, just as the trains did—even if this journey might become their last passage along the tracks.

The place proved perfect: at the edges of the capital, where the land became federal by human caprice and the terrain had long since fallen desolate. Beyond the solitary rail line cutting across the earth, no settlements or wandering souls remained for miles.

For someone in need of both escape and concealment, this stretch of land was ideal.

The dark surrounded the landscape, yet Del Rio needed no vision to seek. A child could hide their small body, but not the inexperience guiding their mind. And for someone accustomed to imperceptibility, finding a hiding child became less a matter of effort than of chance.

Among the shadows crossing the plains, beside the perpendicular tracks, movement reached Del Rio’s eyes.

The mantle of grey tigers embroidered with floral patterns scintillated the longer his gaze studied the shape deforming the blanket.

Reclining beneath the leaves of the barren tree, the small figure cowered, aware of the foreign stare resting upon her from across the distance. Taller than the dark silhouettes encountered throughout her journey, the figure evoked the men who had laid siege to the town in the south—the day the moon vanished.

Seeking refuge within the darkness, instinct compelled her to make herself smaller. Even so, the tall man continued toward her with calm, silent steps.

A silent solitude echoed through his steps; despite his height, his body seemed strangely light, incapable of carrying a presence of its own. Stopping only a few meters before her, the dark clerical garments draped across his frame stood in stark contrast to the clothes worn by the people she had traveled beside.

She had never seen clerical attire tailored to such a size before.

“Have you eaten?” the man asked; the still desert air swallowed his words before they could reverberate.

Avoiding his gaze, she raised the blanket above her head, concealing her small body beneath, trusting in the promise of a silent disengagement.

“You remember how to eat?”

The question lingered within the warmth of the night air. Discomfort stirred inside her, the tone carrying the strange impression that the towering priest sought reassurance for himself as much as for her.

“Of course I do,” she muttered beneath the blanket, answering almost out of offense at the foolishness beneath the question. “Stupid.”

“So, have you eaten?”

“Yes.”

“How long ago?”

A soft rustle of sandals scraping the dirt below the blanket was heard across the barren land, the soft air unable to rustle the few leaves hanging onto the branches.

Descending from his height next to the hiding girl, Del Rio slid beside the blanket, resting against the tree. Within the silence, Del Rio sensed the realization slowly taking shape within the mind of the young girl.

“You can’t remember?”

“Yes, I can,” the response softly escaping the blanket, “I just did, stupid.”

Del Rio took the last rolled cigar from his pocket. The small flame sparkled brightly below the barren tree; the fire of the match materialized a singular shadow.

“That’s not good for you, sir.”

“What’s not good for me?”

“They say the devil gets inside you from that.”

A slight pause surged as Del Rio studied the embroidered blanket atop the girl, before dismissing his attention toward the faint glow of the tobacco.

“They say a lot of things, don’t they?”

“You are a priest, you should know, sir.”

“There are a lot of things I don’t know,” Del Rio’s words hastily decayed, dry as the swirling nighttime air, “Maybe they are right.”

“Stupid.”

As still as the barren tree supporting their weight, Del Rio slowly felt the creeping effects of wakefulness throughout the day. The thin layer of grey clouds approximated the times before dawn, where the cold impeded the strongest through the terrain.

“You have to go back.”

The cold breeze froze the skin of Del Rio between the silent response. Dancing along the echo of the plains, a soft rustle of shifting below the embroidery.

“I don’t want to.”

“You can’t stay here,” Del Rio insisted, studying the plains in the south, where the tracks dissipate. “You will die sitting still.”

“So what—I don’t care.” As her words lingered longer than Del Rio’s, the child’s head slowly emerged from beneath the blanket. “I am alone already.”

Darkened eyes, poised below, held the conviction behind her words.

“That is right, you are now alone,” Del Rio’s sincere response failed to disturb her. “Just for now, however.”

Unassailed by the frigid air beneath the clear sky, the pair of young eyes remained unflinching, fixed on the tall priest’s profile. Despite the intent behind the gaze, Del Rio recognized the lack of weight behind it.

“For now, the night stands alone without a moon. Eventually, a day will turn into night with the moon above the clouds.”

As his words cut through the air, a glance at the dawning sky confirmed to Del Rio that today would not be that day.

“Before the moon went away, what were you doing? Do you remember?”

“I don’t.” The girl slipped out from under the blanket as her memories failed to conjure any specific moment.

“The day the moon returns, it will all be the same. As you go about your day, night will fall, and from the corner of your eye, that familiar shine will reach you as though it had always been there.”

Whispering amongst herself, the girl attempted to conjure a day where the passing of time was marked by the constant rotation of moon and sun. Despite her silent effort, no memories came to her.

“Nothing is waiting for me if I return,” she muttered, clutching the edges of the blanket. “I will be alone.”

“For a time, yes, that will be so,” Del Rio persisted. “But everything must eventually return to where it belongs. We can fight against it, yet one day we realize we have arrived at the very place we resisted, without even noticing.”

“Maybe that’s true for you, but it doesn’t mean it’s true for everyone, stupid.”

Feeling relief after stretching his legs, Del Rio let himself fully rest on the floor, the fatigue from countless miles and hours finally catching up to him.

“Some last longer than others, but we’re all crushed beneath the passage of time. A missing moon won’t be memorable once enough years have passed.”

“You are not very good at this, Father.”

“You are alone right now, but you are not the only one; all of us are alone. That means there will always be other people who understand you, no matter where in life you are.”

Pushing aside the dirt beneath his boots, Del Rio rose from the trunk of the barren tree. His height carried him into the colder air above the ground.

“Let’s find out how long it will take you.” His words drifted through the still air toward the young girl studying the tall priest. “Once we return, your life of solitude will begin, along with the rest of your life.”

Weighted as though it were an oath, the priest's urging stirred the young shadow's motionless legs. Her small stature stood far beneath that of the seemingly invisible man, nudging her toward a strange new home.

Ringing alone, the footsteps of Yoana filled the air across the deserted tracks. Beyond the echo of midnight, her solitude in the capital became apparent as she realized the people were missing all across the city.

The encampments each flailed about with nothing inside, and the same emptiness filled the buildings. Behind her, the unrelenting sprint of shadows taller than herself, aware of her existence.

Grabbing the collar of the coat, she ran next to the tracks, wondering if there was any point.

Those thoughts mingled with the recognition of the shadows' effects on her thoughts, despite the distance between them and herself; the extraction of her will did not cease, as faint as it was.

Trudging down, the buildings disappeared; only the straight path formed by the tracks cutting through the plain deserts in the peninsula remained as the sole man-made structure.

A night longer than the ones before, the deserted sky offered no moon to reflect the sunlight. The scintillating steel beams pointed relentlessly southward.

Every step raised the expectation that she was putting distance between herself and the whirlpool siphoning away her conviction, only for the gliding shadows behind her to shatter it. Eventually, Yoana resolved to stop looking back.

The straight line of tracks blurred before her. Despite every instinct urging her onward, reason kept her feet rooted in place. Like a mirage over the northern deserts, the rails began swaying from their course, bending sideways until they traced the curve of the horizon. Her senses had failed her; the best course was to stop and recover her bearings.

Yet despite that logical conclusion, the hollow sensation in her chest intensified, creeping into the edges of her vision.

Amongst the pucker feeling in her chest, the rough collision of her knees with the ground overtook her senses, realizing she had collapsed.

Her own shadow below was the only figure her eyes could perceive.

The sound of her faint breathing dissipated along with the wind carrying heat across her skin.

She found it odd that the weather in this town never seemed to agree with her body; despite not being bound by borders, the air had changed in a foreign country.

“What marvelous resolve you have shown, Yoana.”

A dry voice resonated above her, its familiar tone bringing her mind back into focus. Despite her lack of vision, she could already picture the tall figure standing over her.

“At no point did you entrust yourself to God. I could tell.”

Slowly reaching her hands forward, her fingers met soft skin—a firm texture devoid of warmth.

“What is this?” asked Yoana, the incongruous sensation pushing aside her worries of being pursued.

“This is Rosalinda—or rather, her shadow,” came Del Rio's voice.

“I'm not a thing, idiot.”

Yoana would not have believed it had the child's shrill retort not immediately followed. Sweeping a hand toward the source of the voice, she felt her palm strike a cheekbone.

“Don't talk to me like that. It's bad manners, kid.”

Before Rosalinda's whimper could carry across the deserted plain, Del Rio's laughter erupted overhead. It rang so loudly that, for the first time that night, Yoana heard an echo.

“That old woman hit me, Father!” Rosalinda shrieked, sounding far too alive to be a shadow. “Idiot!”

“You are supposed to show respect to your elders, after all,” calmly explained Del Rio.

“I can't—they followed me, I can't move anymore.”

Yoana's attempt at an explanation faltered as her hand flailed through the air. Drawing a breath to try again, she instead felt the warmth of a larger hand take hold of hers.

The taller man's strength lifted her effortlessly from the ground, sparing her legs the effort. The cooler air brushing against her ears told her she was no longer crouched near the earth.

“Close your eyes,” Del Rio whispered briskly.

Obeying, she felt the warmth of his breath brush against her forehead. Only then did she realize how close they stood, the distance shrinking further as his arm settled around her waist and drew her along.

“Hey—” she protested.

“They are already surrounding us,” Del Rio said over her complaint. “They had already begun siphoning away your will, forcing you to the ground.”

The words sank into her chest.

“Before you open your eyes,” his voice low beside her ear, “be not afraid.”

As her eyes opened, whistles rang across the plains.

Darker than the night itself, the figures oscillated, extending and retracting with every breath.

Their movement reflected a piercing hiss compressed by the air, distorting the echoes into unrecognizable screeches.

They hurried past one another in search of the missing woman. Their elongated bodies collided repeatedly, each impact sending them lurching in opposite directions.

Swallowing her own cries, Yoana buried her face deeper into the taller man's cold chest, shutting out both the sight and sound of them.

“They can't see you anymore,” came the reassurance from within his chest. “There is a long way back. Let us go.”

Holding her hand firmly, the priest stepped through the circle. The young shadow trailed close behind them, while the air at their sides grew warmer despite the hollow cadence of their footsteps.