The disembodied footsteps swirled around her, the doors of the pantry and bedrooms slamming open and shut with a deafening force. A sudden flash erupted inside Margarita's mind, and an overwhelming darkness consumed her, leaving her trapped in a terrifying blindness—a spectral void. Shadows within shadows darted toward her, then scattered in terror, fleeing from the witch. From her.

And yet, in the distance, she saw it.

A glowing point of light—like a cat's eye glinting in the abyss of her thoughts.

She drew closer, drawn like a moth to a flickering lantern.

It was a tear in a... veil.

She pressed her eye against it and glimpsed flickering shapes, silhouettes, vague and wavering—like opening one's eyes beneath the surface of a lake.

"Luisito," she thought. "¡Luisito!"

She saw them now. Luis and Isidro, walking together down the street. At last, she could see them—though hazily, faintly.

Then, from nowhere, a figure lunged at Isidro, stabbing him once, twice, three times. As he collapsed, his son, frozen in shock, failed to grasp what was happening before the attacker struck him hard under the chin, a vicious blow that sent him crumpling to the ground, unconscious.

Like a sack of potatoes, the man grabbed the lifeless child by the ankles, threw him over his shoulder, and bolted into the night.