By dawn, the storm had passed.
She hadn’t remembered agreeing to hold him.
She remembered waking up with Tomás kneeling beside her, tears streaking his face, begging her to look. She remembered the midwife pressing the child into her arms before she could protest.
And she remembered the moment her skin touched his.
Warm. Solid. Real.
For a moment—just a moment—she had wondered if the terror had been a trick of pain and exhaustion.
But now, as the morning light crept into the room, that feeling returned. The crawling certainty beneath her ribs.
The baby nursed quietly, his eyes closed at last. Too calm. Too still.
María stroked his dark hair with shaking fingers. “Tomás,” she murmured. “He hasn’t blinked since sunrise.”
“Am I?”
The baby unlatched suddenly, turning his head toward the doorway. His eyes snapped open.
Outside, something moved.
A shadow passed the small window—too tall, too thin, its shape wrong against the morning light.
The baby gurgled softly.
Happy.
By the third day, the dogs refused to come near the house.
“Your child has strong lungs,” they said politely.
But they would not meet María’s eyes.
At night, the baby slept without waking.
At night, María did not.
She lay rigid beside Tomás, listening to the child’s breathing—slow, measured, adult. She could feel it through the thin mattress, vibrating faintly through the floor.
Sometimes, she thought she heard other sounds beneath it.
Scratching.
Once, unable to bear it any longer, she rose and leaned over the cradle.
The baby lay on his back, eyes wide open in the dark. Watching the ceiling.
Watching her.
She staggered back, heart pounding.
“Tomás,” she hissed, shaking him awake. “Look.”
He squinted into the darkness. “What?”
The baby turned his head.
Tomás flinched. He hadn’t meant to—but he did.
The child’s eyes gleamed, catching moonlight that shouldn’t have reached them. And for just an instant, Tomás saw something behind them. Something vast.
Old.
The baby smiled again.
Doña Eulalia returned on the seventh day, carrying a bundle of herbs and a look of grim resolve.
“You must take the child to the river,” she said without preamble. “Before the full moon.”
María clutched the baby tighter. “You said he was human.”
Eulalia’s eyes softened. “I said nothing because I did not know. But now I do.”
Tomás stepped between them. “You’re talking about killing my son.”
“No,” Eulalia said quietly. “I am talking about returning something that was never yours.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance, though the sky was clear.
The baby began to laugh.
It was not the sound of an infant.
It was too deep. Too knowing.
The windows rattled.
Eulalia crossed herself again, backing toward the door. “If you do nothing,” she said, voice trembling, “the mountain will take payment in other ways.”
That night, María dreamed of roots winding through her body, of stone pressing against her ribs from the inside. She dreamed of the mountain opening its eye.
When she woke, the baby was standing in the cradle.
Standing.
His tiny fingers wrapped around the rail, legs trembling under his weight. His head lolled slightly, as if his body hadn’t quite caught up to what he was.
He looked at her and spoke.
“Mamá.”
The word was wrong in his mouth.
María screamed.
They fled before dawn.
Tomás wrapped the baby tight against his chest as they followed the narrow mountain path toward the river. The forest loomed around them, silent and watchful. No birds sang. No insects buzzed.
With every step, the baby grew heavier.
“Tomás,” María gasped. “He’s too big.”
Tomás looked down.
The bundle in his arms shifted.
The face looking back at him was no longer that of a newborn.
It smiled.
Behind them, the mountain groaned.
And the river waited.
