Revised from the original on August 12, 2026
Up until then, Ellie’s summer visits in the campo had always felt easy and carefree. Of course, her Mami was always on her: Y Ellie ya, change out of that boy shirt y péinate antes de saludar. But the tios and tias never really looked at the girl long enough to notice when she raced down the hill to the river basin to kiss Isa under a canopy of ceiba trees. Of this, Tio Virgilio was certain.
The week started like any other trip to the casita in August. Ellie and her family arrived late in the night from Nueva York to the familiar sound of Tio Virgilio’s guard dogs at the gate. Everyone expected to be up early with the roosters’ crowing, but for the first time in memory, they made no sound. The tios and tias could not explain their silence. When Ellie walked outside the wooden casita to feed them that morning—a macuto filled with corn kernels in her arms—she noticed their small bodies hunched, squatting into round balls of feathers. She asked Tia Mary if the roosters were sick.
No, Tia said. Pero, los animales siempre saben cuando hay algo malo en el aire.
Ellie’s mother shot her sister a stern look. Por favor, no comienses, she said, dismissing what Tia said as more of her crazy rambling. But as the morning went on, worry began to spread through the casita.
The missing crow was bad enough. But that was not the only thing in the casita that had gone missing. A newspaper article Ellie hid in her suitcase in between her assigned summer books had disappeared overnight. After unpacking, she had tucked it between the mosquito net and the mattress of the bed she shared with Tia Mary. She planned to show the article to Isa first thing, at the river basin. In secret. But come morning, the cut-out was nowhere to be found. Ellie searched the floors, lifted up the mattress, and came up short. No article. Only the cacata webs and small insect carcasses caught on the net. Almost instantly, Ellie moved to blame her brother Johnny, but learned that he was off early that morning to the colmados with primos Chepe and Nino. Of this, Tio Virgilio was certain.
With the disappeared crow and cut-out, Ellie knew something already felt different about the day and something worse was coming to the casita.
Two hours later, Ellie and Isa started on the secluded trail they had discovered and could now map with their eyes closed—past the sour smell of manure from Tío Virgilio’s conuco, under the umbrella of flamboyán trees, and into the towering platano and carambola plants. Thirteen-year old Ellie kept stopping on the trail because she felt like they were being followed. Like a pair of eyeballs past the green thicket was tracking their movements. As she made her way down, her body twitched at every stalk creaking in the wind. Listen, she said. Did you hear that?
It’s probably just Alfonso, Isa said.
I thought you said he’d meet us there.
Or maybe it’s an animalito.
Ellie suddenly felt like one of Tio Virgilio’s scariest children’s stories was coming to life, with fangs and teeth. A bamboo stalk creaked in the distance and Ellie pulled Isa into the shrubs with her. She searched to see if her older brother Johnny had followed them. If she had to pick a monster, she chose her brother over a creeping creature in the woods.
Isa laughed out loud at her friend, then continued on ahead, barefoot and unafraid of the critters that could latch on. Stop worrying, she said, her shiny curls bouncing along behind her. Y por fin, stop thinking about that viejo’s children's stories.
Though Isa was only a year older, it felt to Ellie like Isa was now suddenly too old to believe in the cuentos they had grown up with.
After the fifteen-minute hike down, the trees opened up to the Jánico river, blue-green and alive. Ellie looked at how the tree limbs hugged the river bank tight. Every time she came to the basin, she remembered Tio Virgilio’s story about the river flood of 1958 and wondered how hard his hold on the tree limb had to be to survive the raging waters that took three of his childhood friends. He’d flex his wiry muscles, tip his sombrero de paja, and tell Ellie and Johnny, that’s why you gringos have no cojones, spitting out the chewing tobacco so it hit the ground next to them with a thwack. Ellie wondered if she would be able to hold on tight if the river waters suddenly grew angry and rough with her that morning.
Alfonso was waiting in the water. Isa settled herself on a rock next to him and arranged the coladores they had brought with them to do what they had come for.
Y tu no saluda? Alfonso yelled at Ellie.
Chacho, claro que si, Ellie said as she walked towards him, planting a kiss on each side of his cheek. He looked different than Ellie remembered. Slimmed out. His cheeks had hollowed and the dyed blonde at the tips of his hair made it look like a halo. Pretty, like a billboard model in New York.
Isa lifted her arms and shimmied her light-pink camisole off above her head, revealing the hand-me-down Victoria Secret bra one of her tías had no doubt sent over in a plastic barrel from the States. She looked so hot, Ellie thought. Then Isa reached down and removed the oversized t-shirt Ellie had draped over her body. Ahora, ponte a trabajaí, she said, exaggerating the í in her campesino accent in a way that made Ellie melt and laugh at the same time.
At the river basin, Ellie and Isa tried to create their own adventures; holding their breath underwater to see who could last the longest, daring each other to plunge from the tallest jutting rock, and on this visit, searching for the gold Ellie’s 80-year-old Abuela had told them she’d found at the basin when she was their age.
Isa had heard fulanos from the campo rumor that there were still flecks in the river even after the Gol’Que mierda left it barren from over mining. You can't even find tilipia in those waters por el Gold Quest Mining Corp, Ellie had heard Abuela say. The fish were all gone, just like the gold was rumored to be. But as soon as word spread that there could still be some left, the girls hatched a plan: collect enough yellowy flakes so Isa could move to New York and be with Ellie. Isa would stay with one of her Tias or cousins, go back to high school and become whatever she wanted. Eventually, they would be able to marry each other now that gay-marriage was officially legal. Ellie had first heard the news on the Telemundo news cycle that Mami constantly played in the background (and which she had learned to tune out like white noise) until her mother’s scratchy voice pierced the air with: Esto gays estan acabando con el mundo. But the energy in the streets had been palpable enough for Ellie to ignore any comment Mami would make. Couples that looked like Ellie and Isa—butch and femme–celebrated in the streets, hand-in-hand, and not one of them looked over their shoulders, like she did constantly. Ellie imagined them both in white one day, holding hands at an altar. All they needed was enough money for a plane ticket. Alfonso was at the river to help them. And if they got lucky, to save some gold for the peluqueria he wanted to open.
There has to be por lo menos un chin buried in here, Ellie said to Isa. They stood waist-deep in the cool water, passing the coladores they’d stolen from Tío Virgilio’s conunco along the river’s sediment. Ellie shook the grainy sand frantically through the strainer in her wet hands. Only glossy pebbles glinted back at her through the soot. But not a speck of gold had appeared.
Your crazy aunt might be right, Alfonso said, pulling his own metal strainer out. There’s no Río de Oro here anymore.
Since Ellie was a little girl, she’d heard the hushed stories of Mami’s sister. Rumor had it when Tia Mary was sixteen, she found enough gold for guagua seats and ran away with an haitíano the family had warned her against to the north. For a year, your Tia was bewitched, Mami had told Ellie. Then one night, he just abandoned her. When word reached the campo that Tia was insoportable, the entire family hopped in a car, driving through dirt roads and hills for four hours, and ripped her from her bed in Puerto Plata. When she got back, Tia cried bloody murder in the casita so loud that the vecinos from the hill over could hear. They all agreed that she’d been endomoniada, placed under a spell. Now, Tía Mary walked around the campos yelling about how the gringos had stolen the country's gold, and were going to claim everyone's land with it. That they had robbed the campesinos of the little bit of soul they had left. On Ellie's trips back to the island, Ya nos robaron todo and Stop being traicioneros, sounded up and down the dirt roads like a morning rooster.
There has to be some gold left, Isa said. Chepe said he found enough gold to buy cervezas for a week. Y tu sabe he’s always walking around smelling like vinagre.
That boy is a hablador, Alfonso said.
Ellie looked up from the gray and black pebbles she was picking out from the colador and noticed how Isa’s body had taken on the shape of the land; curves swelling from places that kept her eyes glued, caramel skin shimmering from the sunlight that peeked in through the branches. Ellie swallowed the sight of her like a shot of the best spiced Mamajuana. When she heard the crunch of leaves underfoot from the distance, she turned her head towards the path they had run down an hour before and opened her eyes wide.
I feel like something bad is about to happen, Ellie said as she searched the forest. Isa swam towards where Ellie had been shifting the strainer. She pulled herself up from the water, bumping shoulders with her.
Nothing bad is going to happen, Isa said, reaching out and tucking a loose strand from Ellie’s tightly braided hair behind her ear. She leaned in, planting her lips full on Ellie’s. In front of Alfonso, they could kiss. He was one of them. But Ellie felt eyes in the bushes and quickly moved away from Isa.
Hay, tu si ere manganzona.
Ellie turned to stare and in between the spaces, she made out a shape stooped low and lurking like a chupacabra. It was her older brother Johnny. Another scramble in the trees sounded and she panicked that others from the casita had seen. Let’s just get out of here, Ellie said, stepping out of the river towards the clothes they had left on the rock. It’s too cold anyway. She slipped on her jean shorts, put the tee back on, and tied the strings of her dirty Converse sneakers tightly around her ankle.
Isa and Alfonso were still in the water. ¿Vienen? said Ellie. The fear of having been found out overweighed everything else. If Johnny told anyone what he had seen, would she have to kneel on rice for hours, staring at the wall? Receive a whip with the correa? Would her mother get her church friends to perform an exorcism and try to rip her feelings out?
We’ll see you later, flaca, Alfonso called out.
Ellie began her climb back to Tio’s conuco and left them to search for the gold on their own.
Ellie knew what she was long before anyone else noticed. But she hid it. The only ones who suspected what Ellie really was were the kids at school back in Brooklyn who bullied her over the fact that she never shared who any of her crushes were. They had started calling her names like dyke, lesbo, and said she was disgusting. She was a girl that dressed like boys, donning baggy pants when Mami would let her. Johnny had seen the bullying happen on walks from catechism classes, but he said nothing. So she clung to a small group of trusted friends, just as she did in the campos. They were brown and from the projects, like her. They downloaded the latest indie-rock music off Limewire and avoided the stoops where Johnny had started smoking pot with his crew.
Ellie hid the truth about herself from everyone, but mostly from Johnny. When he wasn’t around, she stared hard at the posters of half-naked women Mami allowed him to put up on their shared bedroom walls. Johnny often joked about people like her and threw around the ‘f’ slur in conversation with his friends. One time, Ellie overheard Johnny joking with his friends over the fact that Yeison, the gay kid on his baseball team, was being benched all season. Without ever saying it to her face, Johnny made certain that Ellie knew a pata like her didn’t have a place among their friends and primos. Ellie was certain that she would never be accepted by Mami, Abuela, her Tios and Tias, but what hurt her most was knowing that her older brother would never accept her either. She tried to be careful. But at the river basin that day, Ellie hadn’t been careful enough. Now Johnny knew. And Ellie feared that he was going to taunt her with the truth the entire time they were in the campo.
When Ellie got back from the river, she turned the house upside down looking for Johnny. She searched every inch of Tío’s farmland. Peered around every corner, every opened door. Every muffled voice, snorting pig, and mooing cow felt like a pointed finger, a ticking time bomb. She searched the grounds of the conuco—found her tios dragging branches in the field, machetes dangling from their waists. Abuela was rocking in the wooden mesedoras, peeling habichuela rojas plucked from the conuco at her side. But no Johnny.
In the bedroom they all shared, she found Tia Mary sitting on the edge of her mattress. Ellie’s summer books were scattered on the bed around her thighs and her laminated cut-out was in Tia’s knobby fingers. Three nights before boarding the flight, she used her mother’s sewing scissors to cut out the front page headline and the accompanying photo of two men kissing and laminated it with rows of scotch-tape: New York Allows Same-Sex Marriage, Becoming Largest State to Pass Law.
Where did you find that? Ellie asked.
I found it this morning, Tia said. Uno de los pollitos iba llevárselo.
Damelo,” Ellie said, wondering if it had blown out from under the mattress in the night.
What does it mean? Tia said, thumbing the spot on the photo where the two men’s lips met.
Nada, I brought it from school.
Do you feel this way?
A hot flash flooded Ellie’s face. She fidgeted with the hem of her ripped, wet shorts. Stared at the verruga on Tia’s cheek turned pink and wrinkled.
No, she said as she shook her head.
Confía en mi, mami, Tia said.
Y por qué? Ellie said. You’re endemoniada. Her tongue felt thick and heavy in her mouth as soon as she said it.
Tia Mary’s lips pressed into a thin line on her face and then her hand whipped Ellie across the face. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand. She moved slowly around the room, her bata billowing around her small body. It was a moment for Ellie to bridge the silence and apologize. But by that point, a knot like a hard boiled egg had lodged itself in Ellie’s throat.
Cuando te volviste tan malcriada? Tia asked. She exited the bedroom, taking the cutout with her, and leaving Ellie alone in a room that built with heat.
With no working television in the campo, the primos had to find their own ways of staying engaged. They roamed the ceiba all day, returning back home when their mothers and abuelitas came out the casitas yelling their names like cotorras and handing out jalaos de orejas and corretasos to get inside for dinner. One summer, the dirt road had collapsed, a giant sinkhole appearing in its place. They had sat on the edge of the hole and told each other the scariest stories they could come up with about the things living in the black abyss.
Ellie usually looked forward to this time, but not today.
Out in front of Tio’s conuco, the campesino primos had gathered to play a game of policías y ladrones. Every shrub, leaf, and root had lost its color and turned blue by that time. In that dusk, they could only see the reflection of the bright full moon in each other’s eyes and the silhouettes of each other’s mismatched, teenage bodies. And there was Johnny in the middle of the group.
Since Johnny was the eldest of the group at fifteen, he called the shots of the game. He stood tall over them, illuminated like a Santo by the plastic flashlight he pointed at himself from under his chin. He explained the rules of the game they would be playing in Spanish, so the primos could understand. They would divide into two groups: the police officers and the thieves. Officers would give the thieves a head start, but once the chase began and you were tagged, straight to jail you went. Johnny, Chepe, and Nino were of course part of the policias. Ellie, Isa, and Alfonso, part of the ladrones. Free ladrones could tag the captured ones to make them free again. The game was over once all the ladrones were trapped in jail.
Once the game began, the lot of primos scattered across the campo brush, navigating the campo’s dense thicket through the almost pitch-black to find cover. Ellie followed Isa’s outline in the dark, her hips swaying gently in front of her as they trailed up the hill behind Johnny. To jump over shrubs and tree roots, Isa’s hand reached back to guide Ellie up. But Ellie refused her help, worried that Johnny was watching. At the top of the hill, Ellie could still see the glow of bombillos in Tío Virgilio’s casita through the trees. At the casita, the tios continued to banter over bottles of Brugal, and the tias shared the last bits of neighborly bochinche while they finished cooking dinner. The lights of the casita and the adults’ distant laughter promised Ellie the way back when the primos were all done playing their game.
Johnny’s last rule of the game stated that the primos had to remain quiet. They were all to stay hushed, not a peep or a shout, or they would be banished to the jail in the animal den.
As the children went quiet to begin the first round, the rustling plantain trees and sounds of the campo’s fauna were a scary movie soundtrack of its own. The clicking of the cicadas and the croaking of the frogs made the stories about demon possessions and the chupacabra seem even more real. It didn’t help that on their way to Tio Virgilio’s casita from the airport, she passed meat stands on the road with severed goat heads left on picks to dry, muddy-dark blood forming into pools beneath them on the rods.
All the primos agreed to Johnny’s rules. They were giggling and pinching at each other and placing bets on who would trip and yell the loudest.
Isa poked at Ellie’s waist to ease her tenseness. Relájate, Ellie.
Ellie’s skin tingled from her touch, a fluttery feeling rising up in her stomach. As Johnny’s countdown began, the primos were off, each quietly crunching the ground beneath them as they found cover. Ellie took measured, hurried strides, stepping over roots and crouching under branches. She was still the smallest of the group at thirteen and she knew Johnny would never side with her in front of the primos. If anything, they’d joke along with him if she dared to ask them for help, squealing about how the little gringa lost her footing every time she came back, Ya se le perdio lo de tiguere, they’d mock. Then they all waited for the policias to find them.
They heard the animals in the den down the hill; the soft clucking of the chickens in Tio’s coop and the quiet snorting of the pigs. Ellie shivered. The campo night was cold, and though the air was thick, wind from the hilltop chilled it enough so that the cool whipped against her ankles every so often and made her buckle like a goat that’s been scared.
Ellie, you’re done, Johnny said, tagging her from behind. Pa la carcel!
Ellie jumped up, rolling her eyes at the predictability.
Coño, Ellie yelled as one of her shins scraped a branch, slicing a thin red line across her shin. Me di!
Bawk, bawk, la marimacho is scared, Chepe yelled out from the distance.
Why don’t you macho up? Nino clucked. He was laughing hysterically.
Ellie held her breath. She knew the insult had been coming. The cousins were already looking Ellie up and down for wearing the oversized shirts. Eso no era de Johnny, Nino had asked her. Ellie had defended herself, said that Nino wished they had packed it in a plastic-barrel from New York, like all of his other clothes. Nino had quieted. Ellie could tell she had stung him.
Now they were retaliating.
I’m not a marimacho! Ellie yelled. She wanted badly to run towards each primo, push them down the hill so that they too could feel the scald of their words.
Johnny joined in, clucking along, each sound a stone thrown in her direction. But just four days ago, Johnny had rescued her. Before they arrived at Tio Virgilio’s casita, Mami, Ellie, and Johnny needed to jump out of the jipeta to push it up the muddy hillside road that led to Tio’s casita. Ellie had been determined to push the car alongside her family, but she lost her footing in the mud and almost slipped beneath the car. Johnny yelled, afraid that Ellie would be crushed under the weight of the vehicle. He’d alerted the entire campo that the family had arrived. After pulling herself up from the dirt, Johnny hugged Ellie so hard that she had to push him off.
Now Johnny shone his flashlight down at her face. Go to the jail, Johnny said. His hand pointed towards the bombillos of Tio’s casita. She wondered where Isa and Alfonso were hiding. Where had they sought refuge?
A knot built up in Ellie’s throat as Johnny backed away. She made her way towards the animal den, pulling apart branches, unsure of where she was stepping but following the light towards Tio’s casita.
Then it happened—the bombillos in the casita went off and the campo went pitch black.
¡Se fue la luz! Ellie heard the adults cry out in unison from inside the house.
Un apagón.
Ellie could only feel her way through the dark. She had to overcome her fear of the night now. She fought through the panic building in her body. She listened for the animals in Tio’s den to guide her. They shuffled, as if picking up on something, as if sensing that something darker than the night was among them.
When she reached the animals, Ellie felt her way along the metal fence of the den. She neared a baby goat, standing next to its sibling, and the image of the blood pouring out of the goat's head on the way to the campo returned to her, crystal-clear in her mind. She peeked inside and noticed that the animals had all gathered at the end closest to Tio’s house, away from her, walking over each other in agitation. She stuck her hand in, and a goat let out a bleat, panicked and distressed. Ellie knew something wasn’t right, but she was alone in the designated jail.
A low, feral growl escaped from an animal nearby. It was guttural and unnatural. Ellie froze, her breath hitched. A shadow cast itself above her body as she took her next careful step toward Tio’s conuco. Every single hair in her body stood up as if on command. Afraid to turn around and look at what was now behind her, Ellie stared down into the tin of water the animals drank from and froze in shock at what she saw in the reflection: the Chupacabra. It looked just like the monster that had haunted Ellie’s imagination growing up. It revealed its bloodshot beady eyes, hunched spine, and spikes jutting out of its skin like a deformed, rabid bat that would rip out her esophagus with its fangs in one swipe. It hissed. Ellie yelled as loud as possible to warn the other children: “¡El Chupacabra! ¡El Chupacabra!”
As the inverter turned on inside the casita, the creature took off, and all the primos began running behind her, joining in on Ellie’s panicked screams and proclamations. They had seen it too, Ellie thought. Nobody, not even their campesino primos, was immune to the terror a possible chupacabra on-the-loose incited. She joined the primos and ran towards the casita.
Johnny was the first to get Tio Virgilio from inside, “Tio! Tio! ¡El Chupacabra!”
The adults stirred to turn their heads away from the chisme and gather themselves from cackling and conversations over coffee.
¿Y es verdad? Tio asked.
Johnny began a rant about how the creature was swooping in and out of the sky, stalking them like prey, repeating how it had almost stolen Ellie if they hadn’t run into the house fast enough. Ellie couldn’t tell if the primos were being serious, but together they had convinced Tio to go outside and check on the animals.
Before leaving, Tio turned to the adults to mention that ladrones could be trying to steal his livestock, something every neighbor had convinced themselves was a possibility. With his shotgun in hand, Tio stepped out to investigate the incident. Tia Mary was at his side, carrying another shotgun.
The primos, all curious, followed behind as Tio scoped the land. The primos, including Johnny and Isa, trailed behind the adults and their campesino cousins.
After ten minutes on the lookout, everyone threw their hands up in defeat. Tio joked about how the Chupacabra could have a feast tonight because he would have succumbed to the bottle of Brugal waiting for him inside. Ay, que se coma lo que sea.
Ellie shrieked. That’s it?
No matter how urgently Ellie pleaded for them to continue the search, no one listened. Tio returned with her other uncles, laughing about finding the real monster—a tarantula so big it could have gotten to one of the children and eaten them up.
Ellie knew there were otherworldly things in these campos, but was what she had seen real? Was the creature really still out there? She refused to go out that night, though Johnny and the other primos had kept exploring. She quadrupled the prayers Mami had taught her.
When Johnny returned, Ellie stood up to confront him. I know you saw us, she stuttered.
Johnny turned his back to her. Before sleeping that night, he turned to look at her, winked, and made three mocking kissing sounds.
By the second full day in the campo, Ellie had made her mind up: she would end things with Isa. She didn’t want to give Johnny any other reason to torture her. She wasn’t ready to come out yet.
Before the family’s welcome party at Tio Virgilio’s, Isa came to ask Ellie to go to the river. She guided Isa to the top of the conuco’s water tank that Tio opened every time it rained. They had swam there together as children, catching the sapitos that would make their way in and releasing them out into the campo.
“We have to stop doing this,” Ellie said. She stared out at the campo. The hills rolled lime green, their brilliance burning.
“You’re too chicken to follow your own heart. What happened to our plans?”
“Johnny knows. That’s what happened.”
“When are you ever going to stand up for yourself?” she said. She hopped down from the tank and walked toward her own family’s casita. Words now failed her. Ellie felt as if the chupacabra had reached down her throat and pulled out her voice. She was doing what everyone wanted.
By 5pm, everyone had gathered in the family’s living room for a welcome party. Dozens of plastic white chairs pushed around the sala to create a pista de baile in the middle as the adults and primos danced to bachata and merengue típico, the bocina’s base blaring so hard, it rattled the crucifix of Jesus Christ nailed to the wooden wall.
Ellie’s skin still tingled hours after the chupacabra sighting and the looming threat of exposure by Tia Mary and Johnny. At the party, Isa avoided Ellie and danced with Johnny. Ellie watched as her older brother twirled Isa like they had all been taught as kids. She swallowed back the bile rising in her throat, thinking about Johnny’s kissy noises the night before, the stewed goat Abuela had cooked for lunch now acid on her tongue.
Esa mujercita si sabe bailar, Ellie heard the Tíos say over the twang of bachata guitars and drums. She turned and saw their noses pointed toward Isa, one Tío lifting his foot off the floor in excitement.
Though Isa was only a year older than Ellie at fourteen, the adults had always treated her like she was older; even Ellie’s own mother asked Isa to do things they never asked of Ellie: Go to the carretera and get me a cigarro. Tell fulano to play me these numbers in the lotto. Go clean the floors para la fiesta tonight. It seemed that, though only a few years had passed since all the primos were treated like children with Ellie, the campesino boys and girls here in DR had matured hastily, some as old as Johnny with kids of their own.
Across the sala, Tia Mary danced with Tio Felipe. Ellie wanted to puke thinking about how she had insulted her. When she slept on her bed last night, Tia Mary’s back was turned to Ellie. They hadn’t talked outside of Ellie’s daily chores: feed the chickens, grind the cafe, mash the platanos for the morning mangu. So when Ellie caught Tia Mary’s eyes on her, she averted her gaze, catching Tío Virgilio’s eyes accidentally. He appeared promptly before her in the sala, his calloused hand outstretched for a dance. Ellie hated dancing at occasions like these. And Tío’s farm stench would always cling to her body after they were done dancing.
Ellie accepted Tio’s hand but quickly searched the room for a way out. After a full song, she located Alfonso on a plastic chair—mouthed ¡Ven aquí! —and bounced her eyebrows for him to grab her before Tio began running his feet to the güira of the next track with Ellie in tow.
¿Puedo robársela? Alfonso asked, reaching his freshly-manicured hand out to Tio. After glancing at the clear polish on his nails, Tio passed Ellie’s hand over as if disgusted.
¿Y quién lo mordió? Alfonso said to Ellie, his eyes downcast and trailing after Tio. Then he spun her around. Ellie loved the way Alfonso spun her in circles, their hips in sync. When the song stopped, the two of them bent over huffing, laughing at their silly moves, how they had switched roles—Ellie leading and Alfonso following—and how they sucked at it bad.
It was 1am when almost everyone had left and it was on Ellie to clean with the women. They packed up food and swept the floor, collecting the glass bottles stacked around them. That’s when Ellie saw Chepe and Nino shoving Johnny. Intoxicated and swaying. Her brother’s furrowed brows, the sweat glistening off from the sides of his caesar shape-up. Though Johnny was taller and older, Chepe and Nino almost doubled him in size. Physical labor in the campo had made them stalky. Johnny had the build of a lanky baseball pitcher.
Ellie walked towards the cooler next to where the boys were chugging frías.
He likes you, Chepe said. He shoved her brother.
Nino egged him on, punching his shoulder. You gonna let that slide?
Johnny winced. Watch and see, he said. He walked towards the conuco where the primos still lingered.
Ellie leaned the mop against the side of the wall, sneaking out before any of the tias noticed. She followed, crouching behind them until she could hide behind the metal fence of the animal den. She watched Isa and Alfonso talking in the distance. Her insides churned and her heart thumped in her chest. She remembered the face of the chupacabra. How it had stared up at her in the reflection, its fangs bloodcurdling.
Johnny approached them. Mira este pájaro, he said, sticking his chest out big. You think you can stare at me all night like a pato and I wouldn’t notice? He shoved Alfonso towards the den.
Ellie slid down against the wood, a profound wave of cowardice freezing her in place. She wanted to yell, No, Johnny, no. But she remained silent.
Hit him, Johnny, Chepe yelled.
Ellie peered through the wooden slats. Johnny punched Alfonso, sweeping him onto the ground. Alfonso coughed blood. The primos took turns, each one taking the best shot they could and holding Isa back. They stopped when a shot gun suddenly rung in the air. Ellie saw Tia Mary holding Tio Virgilio's escopeta in her arms, smoke swirling above her head from the gun's fire. Before her aunt could see who they were, the boys had taken off, each retreating into the ceiba.
Y qué fue lo que pasó aquí? Tía asked when she approached them.
Isa’s cries pierced the air. Esos monstruos, she repeated, over and over. When Ellie left her hiding place in the animal den and walked towards them, she did so with her head hung low.
Deja que el chupacabra les enseñen, Tia said.
Isa looked at Ellie and words struggled to form on her lips.
“Alcahueta!” Alfonso said as he wiped his mouth of blood. He struggled to walk back to the casita with Isa and Tia Mary. His arms were around both of their shoulders and the two of them supported him as he limped back to the casita.
Ellie stood there frozen, watching them disappear. In the bucket of water where the animals drink, Ellie stared long and hard at the strange reflection looking back at her in the glow of the moonlight.
The next two days in the campo passed slowly. She cared for the hens, grounded the coffee beans, and then went to the river basin alone. That morning, when she dropped the handful of corn into the coup, she noticed a hen was missing. When she walked into the kitchen, she found her mother had already boiled and defeathered it, but was still struggling to pluck out the remaining stubborn quills from its wings.
That aunt of yours is so difficult, Mami said, her back to Ellie in the doorway, her spine hunched over the dead bird. She is never going to learn.
What happened? Ellie asked. She sat at the table and began peeling platanos with a butter knife.
Siempre peliando. She still doesn’t want to leave the campo. No matter how many times we try to send for a visa.
Ellie looked down at the brown and white feathers scattered on the cement floor.
She is stuck in the past. Still thinking of that man.
Cuando la endemoniaron? Ellie said.
He would have only brought her peligro.
But why? Ellie asked. She searched for a reason that made sense.
Because he was haitiano. He would never have given her una vida digna, Mami said. She loosened the plume she had been tugging at. That’s why we needed to get her. Aveces, hay que hacer sacrificios.
Ellie stopped peeling the plantain in her hand. A wave of recognition rolled through her. She understood the sacrifice of denial—Isa and Alfonso walking away from her—the burden of a love that is shamed.
Where is she? Ellie asked.
She rushed out of here to wash clothes at the river, Mami said.
Ellie pushed herself out from the chair. She did not turn back as Mami called out for her to finish peeling.
This time, she abandoned her torn up Converses in the kitchen and stepped on the mud, dirt sliming up between her toes. She welcomed the tiny creatures that could’ve latched on. She allowed the roots braided into the ground to kiss her feet and crouched under the matas on the trail.
When she reached the bottom, where the ceiba trees opened up to the blue-green river, Ellie walked over to where her aunt was sitting on a river stone and took a seat next to her. Tia was washing the family’s sullied clothes from the week, smacking the shirts against the rocks, lathering the fabric with jabon de cuaba. Ellie watched as the purple-brown water shifted gently into the river, washing away the dirt with the current. Tia once again dunked the clothing into the water. When she lifted the fabric up, it was brilliant in the sunlight, the hue deeper than before.
I know what they did to you, Ellie said.
Sometimes the hurt we bury will make you feel like you are going crazy, Tia said. She rubbed more jabon de cuaba into the sheets. Over time, you learn how to hold on. Tia handed Ellie the jabon de cuaba. She poked her lips to the bucket of clothes, gesturing for Ellie to join. She grabbed one of Johnny’s hand-me-down shirts. She lathered it in soap as Tia wiped her hands dry on the skirt of her bata and reached into her bra, pulling out a folded photograph.
My Jean was born in a batey, un pueblo mucho más pobre que el de nosotros. He wanted to help his family and so he left. He was building the roads you came on, Ellie.
And then she paused. I know they told you I was possessed.
Ellie stopped scrubbing the t-shirt she had reclaimed. She looked at her Tia and nodded.
Well, I was not. I was devastated, Tia said. They told me he had abandoned me. The neighbors. Your tios. My own sister. Tu mama. She sucked in a sharp breath. But I knew that he hadn’t. We were going to start a family. They just didn’t like the idea of an haitiano with a rubia from the campo. And they knew he didn’t have a cedula. So while he was working one day, they called the policia and took him. They sent him to Haiti, a place he had never been.
Tia dug into her bra and uncovered a picture for Ellie to hold. Ellie wiped the soapy water off her hands and held the photo of Tia and Jean dressed as bride and groom.
You were married?
Not officially. But our friends knew. She winked at Ellie. Just like Alfonso knows about you, Tia said.
What happened to Jean?
He lives in Haiti now. But let me tell you one thing. Aunque ha pasadao muchos años, I know we will meet again.
She started digging into her bra again and this time unfolded the cut-out newspaper from home. Don’t let the monsters keep you down, Tia Mary said.
Ellie held the cut-out and bit her lower lip as Tia stood up slowly with the laundry to walk back up towards the conuco. She stared down at her reflection in the river. Then the girl who wore boy shirts looked at the picture of the two men in her hands and waded into the raging waters. She could hold on.
Before evening, she would make her way to Isa’s casita alone. It wasn’t that far. And for the first time, she would not be looking over her shoulder.
Of this, Tio Virgilio was certain.
Contributor Notes
Emily del Carmen Ramirez is a queer Dominican American writer born and raised in the clattering heart of a Brooklyn, NYCHA community. She is a 2025 Kweli Emerging Writer Fellow, and an alum of PEN America Emerging Voices, Periplus Collective and VONA . She is currently at work on an interlinked short story collection that explores Dominican folklore and identity.
