"If no one is brave enough to bear the heavy burden, how can any expect our lands to be kept safe?" the leader had told her, years ago, on her first night witnessing this reality.
She took a long breath of night air, still warm with summer, and glanced at the men, who were now trying to carefully lower the corpse into the hole they had made while keeping it upright. Their difficulty proved how uncommon this method was, even for their band. The last such had been more than a decade ago.
"Use the stones," she murmured, gesturing to the large bag of river pebbles that had been next to the body.
The click of stones and the slide of sand were the only sounds for a long while until finally, the body was buried up to its neck in the ground, only the battered face still free. This was a warning to any others who thought they could sneak in like rats.
"Leave."
She watched the others go and then turned for the lake. She had been entrusted with the task of verifying that no obvious traces were left behind, nothing that might have fallen from a pocket when heaving bodies into the waters. She flicked on a tiny torch and checked every area of the lake. Satisfied, she retraced their steps into the arid wilds and circled back into town. There were many here who would understand the warning, who would remember the wave of tension that had fallen across their tiny township the last time. Still, she felt no pity for those whose hearts would be broken anew. If anything, a reminder of what happened to even the lawful when they strayed would do everyone good and help maintain the peace.
****
Rosa Kay woke to the sound of crying. She squinted at her digital clock, the blue numbers letting her know it was two in the morning. Rosa flopped back against her pillow, raven hair spreading in a fan around her head, and covered her eyes with her arm. She had been dreaming. A good dream. With no ghosts or secrets to mar the experience. She tried to lure the images back, to remember what it was that had been making her feel so happy. So free.
The crying continued, and Rosa sighed, sitting up and shaking off the last traces of sleep. She slid her legs off the bed and padded out of her room. Ahead, down the darkened hall, another figure approached, a little taller than Rosa, with curly black hair in disarray around her angular face.
"She woke you too, huh?"
Rosa managed a small smile for her eldest sister, then shrugged. "If you go make the cocoa, I'll calm her down." Lucia nodded and headed for the stairs. "Don't forget the marshmallows."
Lucia chuckled under her breath, shaking her head as she disappeared from sight.
Rosa took a steeling breath, turned and knocked on the bedroom door, behind which a muffled voice still cried.
"Camelia? Can I come in?"
There was a hiccup in the crying, then a tear-stained ascent.
Camelia Kay, the youngest of the three, was curled into a tight ball on her bed. Although already twenty-one, she had suffered their family's tragedy at only nine and seemed to suffer worse than the others.
Or maybe Lucia and I merely know better than to let our emotions show so openly.
"Come here, hermanita," Rosa said, pulling her little sister close and planting a kiss in the night dark hair they had all inherited from their mother. Camelia’s naturally tan complexion, another gift from their mother, was blotchy and red.
Of the three of them, Rosa was the only one to have inherited their father's eyes of bright, pale jade, the other's getting their mother's hazel brown.
"I'm sorry, Rosa. I didn't mean to disturb you, but the nightmare...I'm sorry," Camelia sobbed, sounding as if she were still a child.
Rosa hugged her tighter. The nightmare. The one they all shared, fought and cried over. "It's okay, Cam. You're awake now. It is over."
Over. That was what the police said twelve years ago.
She let her jade eyes travel over her sister's tear-streaked face and patted down her hair.
It wasn't over. It was never over.
"You're right. I am sorry for waking you."
"Nah, we don't mind. You know Rosa will take any excuse to enjoy some of my hot cocoa deluxe with extra marshmallows," came Lucia's voice from the doorway. She carried a tray bearing three steaming mugs in her hands.
Cam managed a small laugh and pushed herself straight, dabbing her face dry with the tissues that Rosa held out.
They each took a mug and sat in silence for a moment, enjoying the illusion of happiness, the warmth, chocolate, and sugar created. As Lucia drew Cam into a conversation about happier memories, Rosa let her eyes drift to the framed photograph they all had in their rooms. In it, their mother and father smiled, eyes twinkling with happiness and pride as they sat on either side of their three daughters. It had been taken a week before the nightmare began, none of them knowing that the bubble of pure, innocent happiness was about to burst.
2
In such a small town, everyone knew everyone and, for the most part, the people of Naco behaved like
