The waning moon cut through the shadows of the abandoned barracks when Juan Bautista Ferrer woke up naked, tied up. The ropes cut through her swollen wrists and the rag stuffed into her mouth drowned out the desperate screams. He tried to move, but the ties held him firmly to the rammed earth floor.

The smell of moo and sour urine invaded his nostrils. The darkness was almost total. A few slow steps approached. María de la Soledad emerged from the shadows carrying something that was moving inside a burlap sack. The light of a trembling candle revealed the skeletal face of the spinner, the one who should be dead.

Do you remember when you left me in the bush so that the vermin could eat me alive?” she whispered with her voice broken by consumption. Juan Bautista opened his eyes wide. It was impossible. Three weeks ago he himself had tied her to the seiva. He had seen the scorpions approach the skinny and motionless body. How the hell was she there? You, you died. He groaned through the rag. Maria smiled.

A toothless smile that froze the foreman’s blood. I died, yes, for three days and three nights, but the vermin, they taught me things. They showed me that whoever plays with poison one day ends up trying his own remedy. He emptied the first sack on Juan Bautista’s bare and sweaty chest. Five gero scorpions fell like drops of poisonous rain.

They immediately began to itch, seeking refuge between the folds of skin wet with terror. “Every bite is for every hour I spent tied to that tree,” she said calmly, watching her body twist. “Now you’ll know what it’s like to die slowly.” Feeling the poison burn inside, Juan Bautista tried to scream. But the sound came out muffled and desperate.

The body began to swell. The muscles contracted in violent spasms. Maria emptied the second sack, then the third. The candlelight danced on the stone walls, casting shadows that seemed to laugh. “Antonio Pérez will be next,” he said, putting away the empty sacks. Then José de la Cruz and all the others who laughed when they left me to die.

Juan Bautista’s eyes rolled back. Foam erupted from the corners of his mouth. The body arched in a final convulsion. Maria blew out the candle. In total darkness only the dry noise of a body that stops fighting death was heard. Three days and three nights left me suffering, he murmured to the corpse.

Three days and three nights I will leave you here for the vermin you like so much. He turned and left the barracks. Outside, the night wind carried the smell of the flowers of the field and the distant echo of the drums of the neighboring hacienda. But Maria didn’t hear any of that, she only heard the names that were still on her list.

Act two, The Valley of Cruelty. It was November 1719 and the San Benito hacienda groaned under the dominion of Don Sebastián de la Vega. The coastal plains of Veracruz were teeming with the wealth of sugar cane, a wealth built on 91 enslaved bodies that sustained the luxury of the big house with blood, sweat, and tears that no one counted.

The property stretched for leagues of red land, where the sun rose between the cane fields and set over the barracks. Two realities separated by a few meters apart. But by an infinite abyss of humanity, María de la Soledad, 26, had been working as a spinner for 12 years. His skinny body, bent over his use, denounced the consumption that gnawed at his lungs like a termite on old wood, always coughing, always spitting blood.

For the foremen it was a dead weight that consumed provisions without producing enough. This consumptive black is becoming a nuisance. Juan Bautista Ferrer grumbled every morning watching Mary bent over the loom. But the boss kept her because her hands, ah, her hands spun fine cotton like a spider’s web, even with her fingers trembling with fever, she produced threads that the ladies of the capital envied.

It was their only protection against the fate that awaited useless slaves, until that protection had an expiration date in the implacable calendar of captivity. The barracks woke up at 4 a.m. to the bell of the big house. 40 families crammed into cubicles of 3 square meters, children crying, old people moaning, the smell of sweat, urine and despair mixed in a symphony that only those who lived captivity know.

“Get up, Olga Sanes,” shouted Antonio Pérez, the second foreman, banging on the doors with a piece of wood. The cane does not cut itself.” María got up slowly trying to contain the morning cough that woke up halfway through the ward. At her side, Joaquín Congo, a 40-year-old man who had lost three children sold to other haciendas, helped her get up.

How do you feel today, Mary? Just as always, Joaquín, dying, but not yet dead. Rosa María, a 30-year-old woman who took care of the barracks’ vegetable garden, brought María herbal tea every day. They said that Rosa knew secrets that her mother, an African from the coast of Mina, had taught her before she died.

“Take this, sister,” he said, handing her the gourd with the bitter liquid. “It will give you strength to hold out for another day.” The routine was always the same. breakfast, watery corn atole and sometimes a piece of hard cupcake like the sole of a shoe. Then I work until the sun went down. Maria stayed in the big house, spinning cotton wool while listening to the family’s conversations.

It was there that he learned about the world beyond the hacienda, about the laws that spoke of manumission, about asenados who freed slaves, about a Mexico that maybe one day, just maybe could be different. Those laws of the crown are the gossip of bureaucrats in Madrid, Don Sebastián said during lunch. As long as I live on this hacienda no order from the king enters.

The patron was a 50-year-old man with a graying beard and small eyes like rosary beads. He liked to demonstrate his power. When a slave disobeyed, he ordered 50 lashes to be applied in front of everyone to serve as an example. He explained to his children. The black man has to know who is in charge. The foremen competed in cruelty.

Juan Bautista Ferrer, the principal, was known for hanging cats in front of slave children. He said that it was so that they would learn that everything that does not produce dies. Antonio Pérez had another hobby, burning slaves with a hot iron when he caught some laziness.

He left the mark in the form of a cross so that God would forgive the sin of indolence. José de la Cruz, the youngest of the three, preferred more subtle methods. He mixed ground glass into the food of slaves he considered troublesome. A slow and painful death that passed for a natural disease. “A sick person is like a lame horse,” laughed José de la Cruz. Better to sacrifice it before it becomes a loss.

“Maria witnessed all of this over the course of 12 years. He saw 10-year-olds die of exhaustion. He saw pregnant women being beaten until they lost their child. He saw old people being abandoned in the bush when they could no longer work. And he kept every image, every scream, every tear, as if it were thread winding up in the use of memory.

One day in September, Maria is dancing when she overheard a conversation that changed everything. The consumptives are not going to last much longer, Juan Bautista told Antonio Pérez. Yesterday he spat blood in front of the visitors. The skipper felt embarrassed. And what does he want to do? He said to give him a solution in the way that seems best to us.

Maria continued spinning as if she had heard nothing, but inside something broke. After 12 years of faithful service, producing the best yarns in the region, they were simply going to dispose of it like garbage. That night in the barracks he told Joaquín and Rosa what he had heard. “They’re going to kill me,” he said, his voice too calm. Don’t talk like that, Maria. Rosa took his hands. There is still time. You can improve, Rosa.

Maria looked into her friend’s eyes. I’m going to die anyway. The disease will take me. But first, first I want to settle accounts. Joaquín understood immediately. Maria, don’t do stupid things. Revenge doesn’t bring anyone back. It’s not about bringing anyone back, Joaquín. It is about justice. How many people have we seen die here, how many children, how many old people.

And they sleep peacefully every night as if nothing had happened. They fell silent. Outside, crickets sang and the wind swayed the leaves of the cane fields. But inside the barracks something was born that the three of them could not yet name. It was bigger than rage, colder than hatred.

It was justice waiting for its moment. Two weeks after the overheard conversation, Maria woke up in the middle of the night with a cough that seemed to want to rip her lungs out of her mouth. Blood dripped onto the dirt floor like red rain. Rosa ran to help her. Sister, you’re very bad. You need to rest.

There is no rest for those who were born to suffer roses, but maybe, perhaps there will be a settling of scores. Joaquín approached when he heard the conversation. Mary, you can’t think about those things. It’s too dangerous. Dangerous. Maria laughed, but it was a joyless laugh. Joaquín, I’m going to die anyway. Sickness will kill me or they will kill me. So make it do something worthwhile.

The next morning, while on the porch of the big house, Maria heard the boss talking to the foremen. “Maria’s situation is unsustainable,” Sebastian said, smoking his pipe. Visitors are uncomfortable with their cough and production has fallen by half. “Patron,” Juan Bautista suggested. I’ll solve that today.

There is a part of the mountain where vermin are in charge of the service. Natural, noise-free. Good idea, but leave it for after dinner. I don’t want tumult during the day. Maria felt her heart race, but her hands continued to spin as if nothing had happened. Now he knew exactly when and how he was going to die. All that remained was to decide what to do with that information.

That afternoon, while she was working, María observed every movement of the foremen. He studied their routines, their habits, their fears. Juan Bautista always checked the abandoned barracks before nightfall. Antonio was secretly drinking brandy behind the tool shed. José de la Cruz liked to walk alone to the lagoon to fish.

They all had vulnerabilities, they all had moments of loneliness and Maria was going to use each of them. As the sun began to set, three shadows approached Hilado’s house, where María, Juan Bautista, Antonio Pérez and José de la Cruz worked, all armed with machetes. Mary called John the Baptist. Enough is enough for today. Let’s go for a walk.

She got up slowly, putting the use in the pocket of her tattered dress. Where are we going, my master? To meet some vermin that miss you. The three laughed. Mary showed no fear, which irritated them. They walked in silence along the path that led to the closed mountain. At every step, Maria memorized the road, the trees, the stones, the sounds.

Everything could be useful later, if there was an after. They came to a clearing where a giant seiva grew. Its roots emerged from the earth like the arthritic fingers of a buried giant. “It’s perfect here,” Antonio said, sampling a sturdy vine. They forced Maria to lean on the rough trunk of the Seiva.

Juan Bautista tied his wrists with wet vines. “The kind that squeezes when it dries. You’ll turn into vermin food right here, [__] laughed José de la Cruz, spitting at his feet. Scorpions and vipers will make a feast with your rotting flesh. Finally, this hacienda will be freed from a useless mouth,” Antonio added.

Maria looked at the three men who decided their destiny as if they were masters of life and death, who plays with poisonous beasts. One day he ends up stung, my master, he said with a calmness that caused the three of them inexplicable shivers. And you, you are going to meet each one of them. Juan Bautista let out a nervous laugh.

The dead don’t talk, bold, and tomorrow you’ll be well dead. Dead. Maria smiled. Sometimes death teaches things that life cannot. The three walked away laughing and commenting on where they would go to drink to celebrate. Their voices were lost in the growing darkness of the mountain.

Maria was left alone, tied up with the night closing around her like a black cloak full of menacing sounds. But I wasn’t afraid. He had something much more dangerous. He was certain. The first night was one of discoveries. Mary learned that the creatures of the mountain were not her enemies, they were her teachers. A lacranguero approached his bare foot.

Instead of stinging, he seemed to study it. Then he walked away as if recognizing something familiar. “You know what it’s like to survive in the dark too, don’t you?” whispered Maria. During the second night the snakes arrived. One [ __ ] curled up in his ankle, but did not attack. It just stood there warming itself with the heat of the human body.

“Do you know who the real poisons of this earth are?” murmured Mary, feeling the cold skin of the snake. “And it’s not us.” On the third night, when Maria was already delirious with thirst and her chapped lips were bleeding, she heard footsteps in the bush. Joaquín Congo and Rosa María emerged from the shadows carrying a lamp and a gourd with water.

María Rosa ran towards her. You’re still alive. Barely but alive, she managed to say in a hoarse voice. Joaquín cut the ropes while Rosa poured water into her friend’s parched mouth. “We are looking for you for three days,” Joaquín explained. They said you were dead, but Rosa dreamed you were alive. “I died, yes,” Maria said, accepting a piece of piloncillo that Rosa had brought.

“For three days and three nights I died, but the vermin, they brought me back.” Rosa helped Maria up. His legs were shaking, but he managed to stand up. “The foremen think you died, Rosa said. Everyone in the barracks thinks it better that way. Maria looked at the seiva where she almost died. María de la Soledad really died. Who survived was something else.

They walked in silence through the mountain until they reached a cave that Joaquín had known since he was a child, a perfect hiding place where no foreman would ever set foot. “You can stay here,” Joaquin said. I will bring food secretly and I will bring medicines,” Rosa added. Mary sat on a smooth stone at the bottom of the cave.

The light from the lamp danced on the rocky walls, creating shadows that seemed alive. Joaquín Rosa said in a slow voice, I need something from you, anything, sister. I need you to help me find the vermin that were my companions here in the bush. Scorpions, 100 feet, spiders, poisonous snakes. Rosa and Joaquín looked at each other. Maria, Joaquín began.

They left me here to die. Maria’s voice hardened. They laughed at my agony, they were amused by my suffering. Now the time has come for you to meet the teachers who taught me how to survive. They remained silent for long minutes. Outside the crickets sang and the wind swayed the leaves.

But inside the cave something ancient and unforgiving had just been born. Okay, Maria,” Rosa said. “Finally, we’re going to help you prepare the presentations.” That night, in the vicinity of the Seiva, where Maria almost died, three people began to hunt the most venomous vermin in the bush and the vermin seemed to be waiting for them.

For the next 15 days, Maria recovered in the cave with the dedication of Rosa and Joaquín. But it wasn’t just her body that grew stronger, it was her determination, her intelligence, her thirst. At night, the three of them went out to hunt the vermin that would become the instruments of revenge. Maria had discovered something extraordinary.

After three days living with them in the bush, the poisonous animals seemed to recognize her. They did not attack, on the contrary, they followed their instructions like soldiers obeying a general. “They know that you survived what they survive every day,” Rosa explained, watching a lacrangüero calmly climb up Maria’s arm.

“You have become part of the mountain, sister.” Maria kept the vermin in burlap sacks that Rosa sewed especially for this purpose. Small holes allowed breathing, but prevented escapes. In two weeks she accumulated a lethal collection: 12 gero scorpions, giant centipedes, six capulin spiders and four small but deadly naulacas.

“Each of these vermin is worth a year of suffering,” Maria said, organizing the sacks in the cave. And I suffered 12 years. During the day, Joaquín would bring information about the foremen’s routine. Rosa would scatter stories about ghosts in the bush around the barracks to explain the strange noises that sometimes came from the forest. Juan Bautista goes to the abandoned barracks every day, Joaquín reported. Always alone, always at the same time.

Antonio drinks brandy secretly after dinner, Rosa added, in the same place behind the shed and José de la Cruz. He fishes alone in the house every Friday morning. Maria smiled. It wasn’t a smile of joy, it was the smile of someone who had just received the last pieces of a deadly puzzle.

“We’ll start with the most cowardly,” Juan Bautista decided. The first attempt occurred on a rainy Wednesday. Maria waited for Juan Bautista to enter the abandoned barracks for his nightly round. Joaquín and Rosa stood guard while she hid in the shadows, but Juan Bautista brought unexpected company, two new slaves who did not yet know the rules of the hacienda.

“Not today,” Maria whispered. “I don’t want innocents to get hurt.” They waited a week. On the second attempt, Juan Bautista arrived at the barracks alone, but armed with a pistol he didn’t usually carry. He suspects something, Joaquín observed. Someone must have told him something. Or he has smelled death in the air, María murmured.

The perfect opportunity came on a Friday in November. Juan Bautista was checking the abandoned barracks when he tripped in a hole and sprained his ankle. He fell to the ground moaning in pain. It was then that Joaquín and Rosa emerged from the shadows. What are you doing here? Juan Bautista shouted, trying to get up.

Doing justice, a voice answered behind him. John the Baptist turned and saw Mary alive, standing, carrying a sack that moved by itself. You, you died, I tied you to the tree myself. I died, yes. Mary approached slowly. But you forgot one thing, John the Baptist. Those who die truly sometimes come back to collect outstanding debts. Joachim held the foreman’s arms while Rosa put a cloth in his mouth.

They dragged the man into the abandoned barracks, where Maria had prepared ropes and more sacks of vermin. Do you remember when you left me in the bush so that the vermin could eat me alive?” whispered Maria, tying Juan Bautista to the dirt floor. You said they would have a party with my rotten flesh. She emptied the first sack on the foreman’s bare chest.

Five scorpions fell like drops of poisonous rain. Now it’s your turn to feel the bites. The scorpions began to attack immediately. Juan Bautista squirmed, but the ropes didn’t work. Maria emptied the second sack, then the third. “Each sting is for every hour I spent tied to that tree,” she said calmly, watching her body swell.

“Now you know what it’s like to die slowly, feeling the poison burn inside.” John the Baptist tried to scream, but the sound was drowned out. The muscles contracted in violent spasms. The body swelled like a wineskin full of rotten water. In 20 minutes he was dead. One, Maria said, putting away the empty sacks. Two are missing.

Joaquín and Rosa helped hide the body in a part of the bush where the wild pigs would take care of the rest. The next morning they would spread the story that Juan Bautista had eloped with a slave from another hacienda. No one will miss him,” Rosa said. “And if they do,” Joaquín added, “they will think he became a deserter.

” The second death occurred two weeks later. Antonio Pérez maintained the habit of drinking brandy secretly behind the tool shed. Rosa prepared a special surprise for him. She poisoned the brandy with a combination of herbs that she had learned from her mother.

Ground casingine seed, diefencha leaves and oleander sap, a mixture that caused convulsions, vomiting blood and death in a few hours. It will look like he died of drunkenness, Rosa explained. It happens to a lot of drunks out there. Antonio drank the poisoned brandy on a Thursday night. He began to feel ill during the early morning.

He vomited blood until dawn and died alone behind the shed surrounded by his own vomit. They found the body. The next morning, the boss was irritated, but he didn’t suspect anything. “Damn drunk, he grumbled. I warned him that drinking so much would kill him. Two, María said that night. One is missing. José de la Cruz was the most careful of the three.

After the death of Juan Bautista and Antonio, he changed his routines. He stopped fishing alone. He began to be always armed. He slept with the door locked. He is afraid, Joaquín observed. “Fear is little,” said María. “He knows that something is wrong, but he doesn’t know what.” The opportunity for José de la Cruz came unexpectedly.

The patron saint organized a party to celebrate the safra. He invited ascendants from the region, local authorities and even some politicians from the capital. It was the perfect occasion. During the party, José de la Cruz was in charge of security. He patrolled the surroundings of the Casa Grande while the guests drank and danced.

Maria, Rosa, and Joaquin waited until he was gone to check the back of the property. That’s when they acted. Rosa distracted Jose de la Cruz, pretending to be a runaway slave who wanted to surrender. While he chased her, Joaquin attacked him from behind with a piece of wood. Jose de la Cruz fell unconscious.

They dragged him to the same abandoned barracks where Juan Bautista had died. When he awoke, he was bound and gagged. María was sitting in an old chair organizing her sacks of vermin. José de la Cruz said calmly, “You like to mix ground glass into the slaves’ food, don’t you? You said it was so they would die slowly, so it would look like a natural illness.”

José de la Cruz’s eyes widened in terror. “Today you will learn another kind of slow death.” María stood up, holding a large sack. “These are baby nauyacas, small but with concentrated venom. One bite kills in an hour, two bites kill in half an hour.” She emptied the sack onto José de la Cruz’s legs. Three small nauyacas spread across his body.

“I’m going to let them roam over you,” Maria said. “Each one will choose where to bite, and you’ll feel every drop of venom entering your bloodstream.” Jose de la Cruz tried to move, but the ropes held him firmly. The snakes slowly climbed up his body, searching for the best places to strike.

The first bite was on the neck, the second on the wrist, the third in the groin. José de la Cruz died within 40 minutes, convulsing and foaming at the mouth. “Three,” said María, gathering the snakes into the sacks. “Now all the students have been introduced to the teachers.” They hid the third body in the same part of the woods where the wild boars had devoured Juan Bautista.

The following morning, word spread that José de la Cruz had absconded with some of the party money. During the following months, the San Benito ranch became known throughout the region as a cursed place. Three foremen disappeared in less than two months. The slaves whispered tales of supernatural vengeance.

But María, Rosa, and Joaquín knew the truth. There was nothing supernatural about it, only justice served at the right time by the right instruments. And the scorpion spinner hadn’t finished her work yet. With the three foremen dead, the San Benito ranch was plunged into an atmosphere of fear and suspicion.

Don Sebastián hired new overseers, but they didn’t last long. Some fled during the night after hearing strange noises in the woods. Others asked to be fired, claiming the slaves had different looks. María had truly changed. In the six months following her resurrection, she became a legend among the captives. They whispered that she spoke with wild animals.

She could walk through the mountains without being bitten by a snake that knew secrets even the oldest African women didn’t. She became someone else, a younger slave remarked, or perhaps she became something else. Maria still lived in the cave, but now Rosa and Joaquín had joined her permanently.

The three formed a secret sisterhood dedicated to protecting the most vulnerable slaves and punishing the cruelest oppressors. During the day, Rosa returned to the barracks to maintain appearances and gather information. Joaquín worked in the sugarcane fields, but he observed everything and reported at night. María remained hidden, but her presence was felt throughout the plantation.

He had become the all-seeing eyes, the all-hearing ears, the memory that held every injustice, and the hand that collected every debt. Don Sebastián began to have nightmares. He dreamed of scorpions climbing the curtains of his room. He would wake up sweating and shouting Juan Bautista’s name. His wife was already talking about calling a priest to bless the estate.

“There’s something wrong with this property,” Doña Mariana said during breakfast. “The slaves look at us differently, as if they know something we don’t.” “Womanly nonsense,” the master grumbled. “Black people are all the same; they only respect those who are firm.” But deep down, he felt it too.

The hacienda had changed; the silence was different, the shadows seemed alive. And at night, when the wind blew from the sugarcane fields, he swore he heard whispers coming from the mountains. In December 1719, a new foreman named Manuel Carballo arrived at the hacienda. He was a young, ambitious man who came from the mines of Guanajuato with a reputation for being efficient and brutal.

The owner hired him hoping he would restore order to the property. Manuel began implementing immediate changes: he increased the workload, reduced the food rations, and installed shackles on the feet of the older slaves to prevent them from escaping. “This plantation lacked discipline,” he told the owner, “but I’ll fix that in no time.”

“That’s when he made his fatal mistake. Manuel chose Joaquín Cono as an example, falsely accusing him of stealing sugar and ordering him to be flogged in front of all the slaves. Fifty lashes, he announced, so that no one would forget who was in charge here. Rosa ran to warn María. She found her in the cave organizing her vermin like a general organizing his troops. ‘Sister, they’re going to kill Joaquín.'”

Maria stood up slowly. Her eyes shone with a cold light Rosa had never seen. She said calmly, “They won’t.” That afternoon, while Manuel prepared Joaquin’s public flogging, Maria left the mountain for the first time in six months, but she didn’t come alone. She brought her teachers.

The slaves were gathered in the courtyard when they saw a skeletal figure emerge from the woods. It was Maria, but transformed. Her hair had turned completely white. Her sun-scorched skin was the color of ancient bronze, and in her hands she carried several sacks that moved on their own. “Stop everything!” she said in a voice that cut through the air like a knife.

Manuel turned around, irritated. “Who are you, you insolent Black woman? How dare you interrupt?” He stopped talking when he saw Maria’s eyes. They were eyes that had seen death up close. Eyes that had learned secrets no human being should know. “I’m the one they left to die in the mountains,” Maria said.

Approaching slowly. I am the one who returned to teach the last secrets. She released Joaquín from his bonds while Manuel tried to draw his pistol, but Rosa and two other slaves held him down. “Take him to the abandoned barracks,” María ordered. “It’s time he met my friends.” They dragged Manuel along, screaming and kicking.

The other slaves followed him silently, like a religious or funeral procession. In the abandoned barracks, Maria made Manuel watch as she emptied scorpions, snakes, and spiders onto the floor. “You like whipping innocent people,” she said calmly. “My masters like to lash out at guilty people. Let’s see who’s more efficient.”

She released Manuel into the midst of the vermin. He tried to run, but the bites began immediately. Scorpions on his feet, snakes on his legs, spiders on his arms. In 10 minutes he was on the ground convulsing. “Each bite is for every lash you gave to innocent people,” Maria said, watching Manuel slowly die.

“Now you know what it’s like to be the target of pain.” When Manuel stopped moving, María turned to the slaves who watched in silence. From this day forward, she announced, “Whoever touches one of us will know my masters.” News of Manuel’s death spread through the plantation like wildfire. The master was terrified.

Four men dead in eight months, all under strange circumstances. “I need soldiers,” he told his wife. “I’m going to ask the viceroy for protection.” But before he could take any action, Maria decided to end her revenge once and for all. On Christmas Eve of 1719, she entered the main house.

The boss was alone in his office, drinking cognac and looking at papers when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He thought it was his wife, but when he turned around he saw Maria standing in the doorway. “How did you get in here?” “The same way death enters houses, boss.”

Without asking permission, Maria carried a large sack that swung violently. “You ordered me killed,” she said, approaching. “You let three men tie me to a tree to feed the vermin. I—I can give you money, gold, your freedom, boss.” Maria smiled. She still hasn’t understood. I am free now. Free from life.

Free from fear, free from hope, and now I’m going to free you too. She emptied the sack onto the office floor. Ten rattlesnakes, six giant scorpions, and four black widow spiders swarmed through the luxurious room. The boss tried to flee, but Maria locked the door. “They will teach you the final secrets, boss, the same ones you tried to teach me in the mountains.”

The first bites started on his feet, then on his legs. The boss collapsed convulsing among the expensive furniture and imported carpets. Now he knows, Maria said, sitting in an armchair and watching the man die, what it’s like to be in the woods, alone, surrounded by vermin, knowing that no one will come to save you.

The master died within 15 minutes, foaming at the mouth on the floor of his own office. Maria gathered her belongings and left the big house. Outside, Rosa and Joaquin were waiting for her with horses ready for escape. “Are you ready, sister?” “It’s done.” Maria mounted her horse. “The debt has been paid with interest.” The three of them left at dawn, taking with them 15 other slaves who chose to flee.

They continued toward the mountains, where it was said that the runaway slaves had founded free towns. In the following years, the story of the scorpion’s antler spread throughout Veracruz. The newly arrived landowners hired overseers more carefully. Some even improved the treatment of their slaves for fear that María would appear on their properties.

The San Benito hacienda was abandoned. They said it was haunted, that at night you could still hear the sound of looms working and scorpions crawling on the wooden floors. María lived her last years free, working as a midwife in a palenque (a type of cockfighting arena). She died in 174 at the age of 51.

Surrounded by friends and respected as one of the most feared and effective liberators of her time, her last vermin were released in the mountain that had taught her to survive and where, according to the inhabitants of the region, they still live, waiting for someone who needs to learn the secrets of ultimate justice.

Since that December dawn in 1719, on the plains of Veracruz, every foreman avoids walking alone when the vermin come out to hunt and when the wind blows from the sugarcane fields on moonless nights; it is still possible to hear the distant sound of a spindle turning and the small steps of scorpions searching for debts that have not yet been paid. The End.