Summer of the Mariposas

As they journey to Hacienda Dorada, the girls come across a donkey with a cart. Pita is convinced she can communicate with the donkey. Juanita and the twins insist on riding the donkey to save their strength. The donkey seems harmless, so Odilia agrees. Juanita notes how peaceful life is without iPods or cars, and Odilia muses, “This is how our ancestors must have felt” (177). Through Pita, the donkey asks if the girls want to stop for some water and rest. The donkey runs off the path with Odilia’s sister in its cart. He stops by the mouth of a small cave. Odilia realizes that the donkey is the warlock, but not before he casts a spell on the girls that renders them unconscious.

Odilia wakes in the cave, surrounded by the corpses of butterflies that are attached to her sisters’ hair and legs “like dried pressed flowers” (183). The warlock is hunched over a bubbling cauldron. He explains that he has perfected his recipe so that Odilia and her sisters will barely feel it when it kills them. He believes that by sacrificing them, he will break his curse and become as powerful as a god. While the warlock works, Odilia loosens the ropes that bind her hands.