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forward. What body part would he include this time?
    â€œThey took out his kidneys and sold them.” Señor Gonzalez grinned, enjoying Tía’s gasp of horror.
    Tío Esteban laughed and slapped his knee. “Epifanio, you can’t live with both kidneys gone. No es posible, ” Tío reminded him.
    But Señor Gonzalez didn’t care what Tío thought. The more gruesome the story, the better.
    â€œY a otra mujer,” he continued. “They took out her baby and stole it. And then they cut out her female organs and sold them to a barren woman in Saudi Arabia.”
    He paused, looking around the circle for dramatic effect. “I can’t say in this company what they took from the poor woman’s husband, but they sold them to an infertile rich old man in Guadalajara who didn’t have a son of his own to inherit his millions.”
    Then we laughed out loud. But my laughter was nervous. The stories seemed different this time, now that I was leaving. Maybe I didn’t believe everything Señor Gonzalez said, but the basic idea of kidnapping someone and then selling his organs seemed like it could happen. Weren’t there sick people all the time who needed a liver or a heart?
    The sun fell down below the horizon. Doña Maria pulled her shawl more tightly around her and inched closer to the fire. Though the evening was still warm, she shivered. We all moved toward the warmth.
    Doña Maria put her fingers lightly on my forearm. “M’ijo,” she murmured, “When you travel through the wasteland of the desert, you must take special care.”
    No one ever gave away the secrets of Don Clemente’s operation. But Doña Maria believed, like all of us, that I’d walk through the desert to cross la línea.
    â€œIn that place of desolation,” she continued, “a ghost now walks at night. They say it is La Llorona. That I can’t say for sure. But this much I know. She’ll attempt to lure you away from your path. Cover your ears so you don’t hear her wailing. Don’t make the mistake many have made, of following her.”
    She looked me in the eye, her voice quiet. “Those who pursue her are never found again. Their bodies dry up and fly away with the wind.”
    I reminded myself that I didn’t believe in La Llorona. It was just a story that everybody told. There were a hundred different versions; of course one of them would put the wailing woman in the desert. But who knew what might happen crossing la línea? Lots of people were never heard from again.
    â€œHow do you like my chupacabra? ” Chuy asked suddenly, changing the subject. Out of his pocket came his latest carving.
    Chuy’s “goatsucker” figure had sharp spines all the way up and down its back and claws sticking out from its hands and feet. Chuy had painted it bright green. Its glowing red eyes reflected the light from the dying fire. The thing looked real, and evil.
    â€œThe chupacabras have migrated north,” Tío Esteban said with authority. “They’re no longer satisfied with draining the blood from cattle and other farm animals.”
    Reports of mutilated goat and cow carcasses, their blood sucked dry by the chupacabra monster, came from all over Mexico. We’d all heard this part about the creatures’ move into new territory. And the last time he told it, Tío even claimed that the chupacabras were really aliens, here to colonize Earth.
    â€œThey now prey on humans, especially those out alone, at night, with no protection,” he cautioned.
    He didn’t look in my direction, but everyone knew the story was pointed at me. Maybe the chupacabras were imaginary, but other creatures out in the desert were real. A scorpion was real. A culebra was real. People died all the time from their poison.
    Tío took Chuy’s carving in his hand, turning it around and upside down. He studied the eyes, the tongue, the