Carolina

Carolina told me a story today. She's 15, and she was born in Mexico. She had an argument with her history teacher about whether or not she's an American. She says she's not, she's proud to be from Mexico and to have lived there until she was ten.

One day, right after her fourth birthday, Carolina and her cousins felt eyes watching them while playing on the patio of her house in Mexico. Something watched them from the trees. Her cousins got frightened and started to run away. They yelled at Carolina to run away too, but she wasn't fast enough. A bruja flew down from a tree and swooped her up.

The bruja flew Carolina to a cave, put her down and made her sing and dance and tell stories to the other witches there. Carolina did what they told her, and after a while she lay down to sleep. She woke in the grass of her backyard near the patio of her family's house. She had been with the brujas all night.

Carolina went indoors to see her mama and papa. They said, "Which cousin took you home?" Carolina told them what had happened, that she'd been gone all night. She asked her cousins why they didn't tell her parents about the bruja. The cousins all said that they were afraid they'd get beaten if they told what happened.

Then Carolina looked at me and said, "No one believes me when I tell that story, but it really did happen to me."