The rain came sideways off the Atlantic, as it always did in winter, hammering the stone streets of Betanzos with a flat, relentless sound. Miro Valdés pulled his collar up and walked faster, because the thing was spinning behind him.

His grandmother, Elvira, had been curandeira in her younger years. A healer. The kind of woman people came to at midnight with fevers, with cattle that wouldn't calve, with children who spoke in voices not their own. The parish priest had disapproved. The neighbors pretended not to know. But when someone was sick, they came to Elvira's door anyway.