I love children.

Even now, that’s the only explanation I can conjure for the events at Puerto Ánimas. Everything that happened, this never-ending cycle of death, comes down to that irrational but unyielding reality:

I love children.

#

“I love children!” I said in Spanish to the fisherman as he battled with the boat’s groaning engine. He could barely hear me over the roaring thunderstorm. The waves swayed the boat like a frenzied mother kicking a cradle to silence a shrieking infant. We were soaked in rain, my teeth rattling so hard I was afraid they’d shatter. The fisherman pulled with all his might on the motorboat’s chain, trying with no success to revive it.

“That’s why I took the job,” I continued. “All kids deserve an education. It doesn’t pay a penny, but—oh!” the boat lurched violently, almost sending me off-board into the dark waters. I held on to the edge, gulping for air. The fisherman kept his gaze on the sea. He pulled the chain in one-two-three intervals, as if giving the engine CPR. “The posting said it was far, but I never imagined…

The man did not spare me a single glance. He hadn’t spoken to me since I gave him 150 pesos to take me from Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, to the island. I could understand his annoyance. I tend to ramble when I’m nervous, and the more I realized the engine might never come back to life, the more I felt like telling this stranger every little detail of my existence.

I wanted him to know it was my first time in Oaxaca, but my mother was born in Puerto Ánimas. She crossed the Grande when she was just fifteen, carrying a silver lighter and all her sorrows, and never looked back. She intended to sell the lighter once she got to the other side, but no American would buy it. Turned out my grandfather lied to her: the lighter wasn’t silver, but tin. The elaborate design of a mermaid on its surface was not hand carved, but a print. The imposter soon became a symbol for the whole trip. After the failed attempt to get money from the lighter, my mother ended up taking the same farmer job she had in Mexico, with the exception it was now on a land she knew nothing about. An earth she could not taste and unravel the way she could with the one that witnessed her birth. Seven years later, I was born. I grew up in Austin, where Oaxaca felt like a fictitious, faraway land I only talked about during cultural week at school. A place brimming with dangerous, unseen monsters tamed only by the deadly glares of one-eyed brujas. A place I denied any connection to during high school, but vehemently boasted about in my college applications. A senior thesis at UT for a Bachelor’s in Education. A first job at remote Puerto Ánimas that felt more like volunteering than an actual career.

“Ahuevo!” the fisherman shouted. He yanked the engine’s chain, and the motor came back to life with an angry roar. Then the whole boat was vibrating and we slowly made our way out of the ocean’s ruthless claws, leaving a sopping cloud -the culprit of our almost-drowning- behind us.

#

Puerto Ánimas is a small island near Oaxaca. Population 200, the people live mostly off fishing and the few travel vloggers that visit every year to display their “sustainable” lifestyles. According to the online posting, there were about twelve children that needed instruction. It’s a common thing in Mexican rural areas to have one-teacher classrooms, often with inexperienced volunteers teaching all grades at once. The island’s distance from civilization made it impossible for the children to travel to school every day, which meant that, given the posting’s date, they would’ve been at least three months without school by the time of my arrival. This made my heart clench, but it also filled me with an inexplicable excitement. I would get to go back to where my mother was born and give something to the community responsible for my existence.

“Puerto Ánimas,” said the fisherman.

I stared at him blankly. The boat was at least twenty feet from the island— a distant, dim mass of land in the dark.

“But—

He shook his head, definite.

I knew the superstitions— after all, I was my mother’s child. It wasn’t for no reason that she hid mountains of salt under my bed, cleansed the house with burning sage every two weeks, and made me kneel to Virgin Mary every night begging for protection. I knew about the rituals, the prayers, the convictions. What I didn’t know was they would go as far as to make this man strand me in the middle of nowhere, expecting me to swim.

“The tide is low,” he said, more to himself than to me.

I love children, I reminded myself.

And then I jumped into the sea.

#

I had only heard about sand fleas in horror stories. Awful tales of bloated bloodsuckers the size of figs that latched onto your skin to suction plasma. But no legend prepared me for the horrid creatures that clung to my skirt as I made my way through the desolate beach towards the only source of light visible in miles. I fought the urge to vomit, holding tight to my suitcase and shaking off the insects, which shone the color of bare bones in the night. The air was sultry, the thin sand in the breeze sticking to my skin and hair. By the time I reached the small row of cabins, coated in sand and bugs, I was certain I resembled an apparition. I knocked on the only house with lights inside. At first nothing, but then the door opened with a moan and an old man with leathery skin emerged. He looked me up and down, frowning.

“We’re not ready yet,” he said in Spanish.

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir. But my name is Amaia Villalba. I’m the new teacher. My flight was delayed, and then there was the storm… do you know who I can talk to?”

The old man narrowed his wrinkled eyes in suspicion.

“I’m here for the kids? There’s twelve of them. They haven’t been to school in months.”

“The kids,” he spat, as if he didn’t believe me.

“My mother is from here— was. Consuelo Villalba.”

The old man studied me again, a flash of sadness in his eyes. Finally, he went back into his house, threw on an old sweater, and groaned. “Come with me,” he said. “I’ll take you to the teacher’s place for the night. Tomorrow you can go back to wherever you came from.”

#

The old man took me down a desolate lane of dark houses spread sporadically in a sad attempt of a main street. We walked for what felt like forever, his silhouette a few feet before me, blanketed in the heavy night. Our shadows merged in the moonbeams—sad, elongated shapes caressing the path. He never looked back, and he used nothing to light his way. My clothes stuck to my skin, dried by the cold wind, making me shiver. The sound of waves accompanied us the whole time, persistent regardless of how far we got from the ocean.

Finally, we reached a tiny, airy hut. The walls gleamed a pale yellow under the moonlight, covered in creepers and cotton-white flowers shining in the moonbeams. Something about it made my throat clench with sorrow. The old man stepped into the porch and held the door open for me.

“It’s been abandoned for a while,” he muttered. “So careful with the critters.”

“What happened to the last teacher?”

The old man ignored my question, his deep eyes glued to my face. He watched me as I made my way up the porch, dragging my damp suitcase behind me. His raspy hand reached out to stop me when I got to the door.

“If your mamma’s Consuelito, then you know how to pray,” he said.

I shrugged.

“I recommend you do it, señorita. I recommend you do it…”

Something about the hut amplified the sound of the waves outside. I tossed and turned in my small bed, the old, dusty sheets clinging to my sweaty skin. I had always found the ocean lulling, but these waves were more than that. They felt impossibly close to me, deafening. It was like pressing your ear to a conch: the echoing, roaring sound of the sea all I could hear, its presence so gripping it was hypnotizing. The tiny house, consisting of no more than a poorly equipped kitchenette and a meagerly decorated living area, swung back and forth with the waves the whole night, sending me into a state of stupor that remained with me for the entirety of my time at Puerto Ánimas.

#

Morning greeted me like the gates of Hell had just been opened inside the tiny hut. A blinding, burning sunlight woke me from my slumber, filling every inch of the space and making it bulging hot. I sat on the mattress, shielding my eyes with my forearm. Then I noticed: the white sheets I had slept in were covered in specks of crimson, as if someone had poked me with a needle all night, causing my skin to bleed into minuscule spots of blood on the covers. I scratched my arms, legs face. Fucking bed bugs…

Wincing at the light, I got up and washed my face at the rusty sink in the kitchen. The water gushed out brown at first, but slowly became transparent enough for me to rinse my face beneath the stream… and quickly gasp in pain and draw back. The water was boiling hot. It and stayed that way no matter how long I waited, filling the room with steam. I washed my face drop by drop. My flesh raw red, I stepped out of the hut into the scorching sun outside.

They waited in a half circle around the cabin, completely immobile. At least twenty locals, all staring at me with wide dark eyes. Women with grocery bags dangling from their arms, men carrying all sorts of construction tools, old people with bibles. They mumbled amongst themselves as if I were an animal in a zoo, something they could look at and comment on. Their tone denoted wonder. Curiosity. And almost… gratitude? Adoration. My stomach lurched as I thought about the White Savior complex and wondered if I had started imagining things already. I might not have been white, but my Americanness, the invisible arrogance and the singsong, slurred way my Spanish slipped from my lips made me feel like an Other, an outsider playing classroom in a world I did not understand.

“Good morning,” I said. It sounded more like a question than a good-natured wish. One of the women stepped forward, her piercing eyes on mine, and smiled the biggest grin I had yet received from somebody. She walked towards me and pulled me into a tight, asphyxiating embrace. Her long hair brushed my cheek, and I could not help but notice she smelled like my mother. Her proximity and the familiar scent of herbs and soap softened me, returning her hug.

“Welcome back,” she said. “My name is Fátima.”

I finally broke away from her, and she turned me around, as if in display before the crowd. “She’s Consuelo’s daughter!” she shouted.  “She’s been returned to us!”

They cheered. And for some inexplicable reason, their clamor chilled me to the very bone. She turned to me, smiling.

“Let’s take you to the children.”

#

The island’s schoolhouse was in reality a small wooden cabin that served like a classroom. It was built on top of a steep hill, overseeing the ocean like a lighthouse. I walked next to Fátima, who threw furtive glances at me every now and then. It made me uncomfortable.

“We tried installing a satellite, but no signal will get here. Plus, you studied to be a teacher, right?” I nodded. “Well, you must be familiar with the old ways.”

“What ages are the kids?”

“Oldest one is twelve. Youngest one five.”

I nodded again, my head spinning to figure out how I’d teach such different ages. I was just about to ask for more details when we made it to the top of the hill.

“This is it,” said Fátima, enthused. “Welcome.”

And that’s when I heard it. The purest, most gentle laughter in the world. The cabin’s door swung open and a little girl with flaming red cheeks and the biggest eyes I’d ever seen ran straight towards me holding her arms up high, two massive ribbons adorning her head like a crown. I swung her into my arms out of instinct, surprised by her immediate closeness to me. She smiled and caressed my cheek with a chubby hand, filled with trusting familiarity.

“You’re the new teacher,” she said.

“Yes. My name is Amaia.”

“I’m María. I knew you would come.”

#

The children were a peculiar group. They had not been to school for longer than I imagined, so they were all miles behind from the average. We spent the first day sitting in the small cabin and going around saying names and numbering the things we loved. There was a boy named Omar, nine, who loved the ocean. He collected conches from the burning sand, and kept them all in his backpack and pockets so he could hear the waves whenever he felt lonely. I couldn’t help but wonder why he had to carry them around: I could hear the roaring waves all the way to the hilltop, a phenomenon I could still not explain. There was a scrawny, brooding twelve-year old named Juliana who was obsessed with tragedy. She kept a knitted pink notebook in her bag where she documented all the tragic events she ever heard about, from the death of her cat a few months ago to the 1985 earthquake in Mexico. She asked if she could read an excerpt from it and began a gruesome tale of a mother whose infant had died in their sleep. I had to stop her to keep the youngest kids from crying. Lastly, there was little María. She was all dolls and ribbons and singing, but she had an inexplicable fear of loud noises. I had to constantly remind the classroom to stay quiet when around her, for sometimes even the drop of a book could send her spiraling into an ear-wrenching tantrum.

I asked the children if they had any questions for me. “What was it like where you came from?” Omar rushed to say.

“Different. Very different from here.”

“Were you scared when you arrived on the island?”

“No. Why would I be?”

He simply shrugged. “My mom says it must be scary. ‘Cos we’re so different and all.”

I smiled and caressed his cheek. “I’d never be scared of you,” I said. “You’re my kids.”

Omar smiled. “Do you want one of my conches?”

#

As the weeks passed, my pockets filled with Omar’s collection. He gifted me conches every chance he got, smiling like it was the first thing he’d given me. In fact, all the children loved giving me presents. María drew something new for me every day and Julieta loved writing me long, detailed notes on all sorts of things that interested her. It could be anything from a songbird she watched that morning to the death by drowning of one of her father’s fisherman friends. I registered the children’s learning styles. I catalogued their needs, their likes, their worries. The days felt monotonous. The islanders rarely spoke to me. I woke up every day in my little oven by the beach and walked uphill to see the children at the schoolhouse. They were always waiting, early no matter how much I rushed to be there before them. I attributed it to their parents, who all had to start work before dawn. I soon accepted that the children had no interest in math and sciences. Instead, they wanted to hear every story from the books I had brought with me, as if I was their window to an outside world they knew nothing about, but imagined the way some kids dream of magical kingdoms. I would gather them in a circle, María climbing on my lap, and read them a hundred tales about dragons and princesses and sultans and thieves. One time I read them an Arabian myth of a sultan who was devoured by a tiger his subjects gifted him.

“Are tigers real?” they asked me.

“Yes.”

“No way!”

“I’ve seen them.”

“Were you scared?”

“No. Tigers are more scared of humans than we are of them.”

“But why? If they’re much bigger. And they have big teeth!”

“Well,” I said. “They are physically stronger than us. But humans are brighter.”

“We are?”

“Yes. Because we know what they’re afraid of. Nothing gives you more power than knowing what someone who wants to hurt you fears deep inside their hearts.”

“And what are tigers afraid of?”

I smiled, taking my mother’s tin lighter out of my pocket. I had carried it with me every day since her death, and that day I felt like adding some drama to the story. “Fire.”

I flicked the lighter on, expecting the children to laugh and cheer. But what happened next will never cease to haunt me. Little María screamed, crawling away from the flame. The other children recoiled as María’s wails filled the cabin, her tiny body convulsing with sobs, writhing on the floor. Her cries were so high-pitched I swore my ears would bleed for a second. I ran to her, throwing the lighter back inside my pocket. I showed her my bare hands, palms open, as if I were a criminal proving I had no weapons.

“It’s alright! You’re okay!” I tried touching her, but she kicked and scream, wailing even louder as she weaseled away from me, her small body a writhing animal.

“María, the fire is gone!”

After a minute that felt like eternity, María finally looked up at me, big eyes puffy with tears. I showed her my empty hands and she jumped into my arms, hiccupping. I held her tight against my body. The other kids watched, mute, as María clung to my neck, fighting for air between sobs.

“There’s no tigers here,” she whispered.

#

Rations came to the island once a week, on Thursday nights. If we wanted something from the mainland, we had to put it in a list and give it to the captain. He was a bitter man who didn’t even look at me every time I gave him my long list of classroom utensils: crayons, watercolors, scissors, notebooks, and endless orders of color paper. It made my blood boil— these children deserved the best resources on the planet. Not long after my arrival, I had plastered the schoolhouse with their art, their childish incantations hanging from every wall. Sea animals, conches, families, smiling people. Tigers. I often told the kids to take some home, but they refused, saying they liked how the classroom looked covered in them. It was their shrine, and they didn’t want any of their masterpieces to leave it. I never saw any of the children go home. Their parents would come once we were done with school and play with them outside the wooden cabin long after I locked it and told them school was over for the day. They would watch me leave and wish me a great rest of my evening. Then they would run to their kids and play in the school gardens. Hug them, swing them in the air, cover them in tender kisses. All I ever saw from them, to the very last minute, was love.

#

One day they asked me for a new story. We had read endless fairytales from the books I got from the mainland, but this time the children sat in their usual circle on the cabin’s floor and asked me to tell them a different tale. Something of my own— something from when I was a child. Little María sat on my lap and asked me to braid her long hair and knit ribbons into the intricate design. I said I didn’t have any good stories and sent Omar to get a picture book. But he remained still.

“We want you to tell us a story,” he insisted.

I had nothing to give them. I adjusted María in my lap and thought hard about something we hadn’t read. Something I forgot to bring with me. That’s how I got the idea.

“Okay,” I started. “Come, sit around me. Get comfortable.”

The group came closer, thirsty for story. All but Juliana, who stayed put, eyeing me with a look that made her seem like an old woman. I tried shaking off the thought. After a deep breath, I started the one narrative I hadn’t brought with me on paper:

“All children, except one, grow up.”

#

The children became obsessed with the story. They asked me about the lost boys every day afterwards, so much I began to develop a slight resentment towards them. Where was room for different narratives if all they wanted to hear about was Neverland? Peter and the lost boys were all the kids wanted to discuss; all they were interested in sharing. Did they collect conches too? Were they into dolls? Why weren’t there any girls in the group? Did their parents ever notice they were missing? After weeks of interrogations, I realized I didn’t know the story at all, not to the level they needed me to understand it. I began making up answers. Yes, they collected conches. There weren’t any girls because they figured out a way off Neverland, but the boys didn’t believe them, so they stayed behind. Yes, their parents never stopped looking for them. I did this while grading math problems, vocabulary lessons, geography maps. I told the kids to focus on their current tasks, but it was pointless. The battle had been lost before it started.

Imagination is a wild phenomenon when you’re a child. The kids soon started swearing they’d seen fairies or heard the mermaids’ chants. They dreamed of pirates and Indians, of vengeful captains and flying boys. And for some inexplicable reason, they dreamed of tigers too. The felines were as fantastical to them as were the other creatures; entities spawning exclusively from the pages of fairytales. Omar would put his ear to his conches and swear he’d heard a tiger’s roar. I reassured him it was just the waves, but he was convinced the predators were watching the schoolhouse.

“Look,” he’d say to me at times, pointing at the windows. “They’re watching us. They’re waiting for you to leave.”

One day, I got distracted for a second. I was braiding María’s hair as Juliana read to me a newspaper clipping about a woman who’d been dismembered by a panther. “That’s not for children, Juliana. Where’d you get that?”

“My mother brings me the papers—

Right then, the smell of something burning interrupted me.

“Children? Children, what are you doing?!”

I sat María on a desk and sprinted towards the farthest corner of the schoolhouse, where a group of kids crouched by pile of paper. Omar led the group, flicking my tin lighter on and off as he tried and failed to burn a twig.

“OMAR!” I snatched the lighter from him, stepping on the paper to put out the small flame he’d started. “You NEVER play with fire, you hear me? Never.”

His eyes filled with tears as I towered above him, fuming. “Where’d you find this? You can’t go through my things!”

A tear slid down his cheek. My heart clenched. I took a deep breath and crouched before him.

“No, don’t cry—I’m sorry. Listen, what you just did is dangerous, okay?”

He nodded and more tears rolled down his cheek.

“Promise me you’ll never do it again.”

He looked me dead in the eye. “I was just trying to protect you, like Peter.”

“What?”

 “I was just trying to keep the tiger away.”

#

Soon, the cabin’s walls threw the Neverland story back at us: drawings of lost boys, pirates, mermaids, and fairies appeared everywhere I looked. I loved to run my fingers through the walls and caress their little paper worlds. María liked cataloguing the drawings for me, telling me story the behind each of them. That’s Omar’s house, that’s Juliana’s dog, that’s my mommy. That’s a tiger in Neverland trying to catch the fairies. On one occasion, I found a strange watercolor of a small cabin in a hill, surrounded by what looked like a thousand stars—the schoolhouse turned into a galaxy of endless orange constellations. I questioned María about its origin. But for once, she was hesitant to speak. I squatted before her, holding her little hands in mine.

“María? Who painted that?”

She shrugged, a mischievous smile on her face. I frowned— “María?”

“Juliana. Juliana did it. But I can’t tell you more, it’s a secret.”

She scurried away into the patio, leaving me to my thoughts. I waited for the break to end, then approached Juliana, holding the drawing before me. “This is a beautiful piece,” I said. “I had never seen you draw like this. What is it?”

Juliana looked up from her knitted notebook of tragedies and dug her eyes onto mine. “You know what it is,” she said.

An inexplicable fear filled my stomach, so strong I wanted to retch. A chill went down my spine as I held hard to Juliana’s desk, trembling, triggered by something unfathomable. Juliana rushed to wrap my hand in hers, taken aback.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s the school. That’s all. It’s us.”

Somehow, her words calmed me. I nodded and went back to teaching, a taste of ash in my mouth for the rest of the day.

#

I went home that day feeling lightheaded. The children stayed behind as usual to play with their parents, and I made my way to the hut by the beach with a sinking feeling in my stomach. To my surprise, Fátima was there, a basket of pan dulce hanging from her arm.

“Evening, Amaia,” she said. “How are the children?”

“Thriving,” I replied. “They’re so imaginative. So… brilliant.”

Fátima smiled, filled with pride. “They’re good children. But it’s you that brings them such light. I expected nothing less from Consuelo’s daughter.”

“You knew my mother?”

“We went to that same schoolhouse together. Then she left and it was like she took a piece of us, you know?”

“Sounds like her. She was so easy to love—

“But she’s given it back.” She stepped towards me and uncovered her basket, handing me a freshly baked concha. I accepted it, almost in trance, and took a bite. “That’s how it works, Amaia. You always give back. You always return.”

That night, I dreamed of the waves again. The heat in the hut made me toss and turn all night as the sea in my dream engulfed me, thrusting me against Puerto Ánimas’ shore, my lungs bursting with salt water. My mother stood regal by the beach, watching. She parted her lips to say something, but her voice was stolen by the roar of the waves.

#

It was the children’s idea to hold the Neverland celebration. I was sad we didn’t have any school holidays due to our class’s size, so it took very little convincing to get me to take the day off grammar and geography and let the kids roam free. I asked them to come dressed as their favorite character and we covered a wall in kraft paper for a classroom mural. We sang and chattered as the children painted a massive picture of Neverland filled with fairies and magical beings. María drew a pirate, eye-patch and all. At one point, Juliana stepped up and grabbed a blue piece of chalk. She stood before the mural and drew a long, ethereal figure in an airy nightgown.

“That’s beautiful, Juliana!” I said. “Is that Wendy?”

She kept drawing, sharp-focused. A small hand wrapped around my fingers. “No. Can’t you tell, silly? It’s you!”

I looked down to find María staring at me with wide brown pupils. I sat on the floor to be eye-level with her. “It’s very nice that you guys think of me that way.”

“No, you’re not Wendy,” said Juliana. “Wendy leaves in the end. And you’d never leave us, would you?”

The children stopped drawing to look at me, waiting for my answer. They came closer, encircling me, expectant. A dozen large dark eyes on mine.

“Of course not,” I said.

“Never?”

“Never.”

#

It was that promise that made me go back. A few weeks after the incident, I was on my way downhill after leaving the children with their parents when I felt a bizarre lightness in my dress, accompanied by a sudden surge of panic. I thrusted my hand in my pocket, feeling around frantically… a multitude of conches fell to the ground, their shiny frames accusing my negligence. My heart fell with them. The lighter. It was gone. I retraced my steps—there was not a single moment that day I had used it. Someone must’ve taken it. That fucking tiger. Panicked at the thought the children playing with fire in the small wooden schoolhouse plastered with paper drawings, I bolted back uphill. It was sunset, and the golden light guided my way towards the school as my throat burned with exertion, the constant lull of the ocean filling my ears, making me lightheaded by the time I reached the top, out of breath from the climb.

I smelled the smoke before I saw anything.

“Children!”

The cabin burned like an ancient pyre, engulfed by flames. The thick, fierce tongues came out the windows, consuming the façade. The smoke rising from the construction was black and smelled of charred baby flesh.

“CHILDREN!” My voice got lost in the gale.

That’s when I saw them. The whole village, every single person on the island, knelt around the burning schoolhouse, eyes shut in prayer. An eerie, cold murmur filled the air, rising the hairs on the back of my neck. They muttered a mantra over and over again, their eyes glued to the burning cabin… no, not to the cabin. I held on to the nearest tree for support as my eyes followed their gaze.

“No!”

On the ground around the schoolhouse lay the children, limp, sprawled motionless on the darkened sand as the adults prayed, their small bodies coated in ashes. I could barely breathe, my heart hammering against my ribs as I got closer to the cabin, the children’s faces expressionless, void of life. It was carnage. I did not know I was sick until a spurge of vomit left my body, splashing the sand before me. I stepped towards the children, but my hands were suddenly on the ground, shaking. My throat burned with gastric acid and screams. The adults prayed even louder, some weeping, some hitting their chests with full fists. A few mothers yanked their hair off their scalps, the thick strands falling in balls to the ground, some burning if they met the sparks of fire in the air. I stayed by the praying circle, frigid. I could feel my body screaming without my permission. I could not take my eyes off the children—my children, as the fire slowly reached them… that’s when I regained motion. I stood up and half-walked, half-crawled towards the schoolhouse.

A familiar voice stopped me. “Amaia. It must be this way.”

Fátima blocked my way, solemn. The fire gleamed in her irises.

“GET THEM OUT! TRY CPR!”

My eyes landed on little María, whose empty pupils were still open, glassy. Two purple circles surrounded her sockets like a Munch painting, her little face a nauseating shade of gray. Tiny black veins protruded from her burst skin. Asphyxiation by smoke. I knelt by her little body, but she was rigid to the touch.

“Somebody DO SOMETHING!”

Something exploded inside me, sending me back into full motion. I turned to Fátima, wrath boiling in my veins just like the water in my hut’s pipes.

“You killed them! You killed my children!” I screamed. Behind me, the prayers got louder, deafening. Fátima yanked me off María’s body with unimaginable strength.

“No! Let me go, let me go!”

Fátima held tight onto me. An iron grasp. I caught a glimpse of Omar, his face pressed against the soil, a small, spikey conch sill in his hand. My vision turned red. Fátima held me still, then looked into my eyes, her gaze hypnotizing.

“You’ve been returned, we cannot break the cycle.”

“MURDERER! My children! My children….”

“By the power of Consuelo Villalba, we command you—

Then everything went black.

#

I woke up boiling in my hut by the beach, the scorching heat gluing me to the sheets. I was drenched in sweat, and prayed it was all a nightmare. The schoolhouse, the flames, the corpses. I thought of everything I could do: call the police, steal a boat and go to the mainland screaming I had just witnessed mass murder. My body felt made of clay, my movements slow, erratic. I scrambled to my feet and crossed the room towards my bag, packing what I needed for my escape… and that’s when I found it. Its pink pages shining before me, foreboding. Juliana’s knitted notebook. I picked it up and, animated by an inexplicable force, flipped through it.

The notebook was an almanac of death. Animals, islanders, people from the mainland. A strange archive of tragedy. I flipped through the pages until one made my heart stop. There, on the notebook’s last page, was a drawing of the schoolhouse on the hill, almost identical to the one I had seen on the wall a few weeks before. But what the watercolors had made me think were stars, the graphite made a lot clearer for me. Fire. Long, vicious tongues licking the cabin, burning it to the very ground. From a window, a small child’s face stared at me, drenched in tears.

#

I don’t remember anything about the run. By the time I came back to my senses, I was standing by the edge of the ocean, the water licking my toes. To my relief, the sand fleas were nowhere in sight. I cried, my tears fusing with the salty waves as I mourned the children charred at the top of the hill, the babies whose spirits I had spent the last months of my life with. A convulsive sob took over me, making me shake by the ocean’s feet. For some reason, I thought about my mother. About her warmth, her sage, her prayers. I should have listened to her. I should never have come here. Lulled by the waves, I realized no one would come for me. It was Saturday—it would be almost a week until a living soul came to the island. But I could not stay a second longer in that cursed place. The answer was simple: I would have to swim. Gathering courage, I walked into the water, the salt sticking to my dress, making it heavier with every step I took. I welcomed the warm waves. I had no plan, but longed to be anywhere, anywhere but there—

“You always think you’ll make it.”

I turned with a jolt. Right there, at the beach, was the old man who had first taken me to my hut. I held his gaze, tears still wet on my face. “I need to go home.”

“You can’t,” he said, gentle. “You will just spend the next weeks at the bottom of the ocean. And then you’ll come back saying you’re here to teach.”

I felt my soul slide off my chest and land on the sand at my feet. “The fire,” I whispered, my whole world resolved into a single memory. “They were playing and there was a fire.”

The man nodded, empathetic. “We always pray that you return. It is only then we can see the children. You give them life, Amaia. Or whatever this thing is.”

The waves roared in my ears, ominous. Suddenly, I understood why I never stopped hearing them. Why the children never left the cabin.

“I should’ve been watching them,” I said. “They were afraid of the tiger.”

“There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

“I’m so tired.”

“Then don’t come back.”

“I can’t. I love children.”

#

I walked back to the schoolhouse in silence. When I reached the top of the hill, the whole island was there, eyes wide with expectation. But it wasn’t them I wanted to see. I walked straight past Fátima, indifferent to her open arms. Slowly, but burning with determination, I stepped into the wooden cabin.

A thousand drawings welcomed me, plastering the walls. Pirates, mermaids, lost boys, tigers, fairies. And there, at the center of the room, as fresh as the first time I saw them, were the children. My children. Without a word, I sat on the floor. Slowly, they mimicked my motion, forming a circle around me. Omar handed me a conch. María crawled into my lap— my arms were ready for her. Across the room, Juliana gave me a silent nod, understanding finally blossoming between us. In her hand was the silver lighter.

“Are you the new teacher?” María asked. Cautious, trying me.

“No,” I said. “It’s just me.”

María beamed and a cheer resonated across the room.

“She remembers us!” All twelve children were joyous. I hushed them. Smiled.

“Are you comfortable? Very well. Let’s begin. All children, except one, grow up…

The End.