On the bitter shore she found only the deserted sand, the waves swallowing the footprints, and her red scarf, soaked and half-buried. She picked it up with trembling hands, pressed it against her face, and stayed there, her gaze lost in a landscape she no longer recognized…
By Nuria Ruiz Fdez.
HoyLunes – But that story —the real one— had begun a few hours earlier. Lucía couldn’t sleep. The heat was suffocating, thick enough to be caught between her sweaty hands. A ceiling fan stirred the dry westerly air; a mosquito buzzed in her ear, and she tried to brush it away with faint swats. The last argument with her mother had been intense, heavy with reproach. Sharp words cut through the air: accusations of disobedience, shouting over coming home late, looks of disappointment that hurt more than any blow. Her mother couldn’t understand her silences, and Lucía felt trapped between guilt and anger, her heart pounding wildly as each phrase stabbed deeper into her chest. And the morning’s conversation with Youssef kept beating in her head like a slow, stubborn drum alternating between one memory and another.
—“I found something strange in the house today,” she had told him as they walked across the school courtyard. “A trapdoor in the floor of a room we never use, full of junk belonging to my mother’s cousin—the one who left us the house when we moved from León. When I opened it… there was a staircase. I went down with a flashlight and found… boxes and sacks piled up, with a sweet, pungent smell that almost made me faint. When I opened one, there were stacks of rectangular blocks wrapped in clear plastic, dark brown, almost greenish. It was disgusting! They were stacked one on top of the other, giving off an intense, heavy scent that seemed to cling to the air even after escaping from its tightly sealed box”. Youssef looked at her, eyes wide, the lump in his throat rising and falling as he swallowed slowly. “Don’t you dare go back down there or tell anyone about it”, he warned.
“Forget about it and be very careful. I’ll find out who owns that stuff, but…” —he sighed, and his voice dropped, thick with fear— “don’t say a word to anyone. All right? See you tomorrow”. He grabbed her by the shoulders, made her promise, and they agreed to meet again the next day.
Outside, the small village of barely 150 inhabitants breathed in silence. From the window, the Rock of Gibraltar slept across the bay—black and majestic, barely outlined by the port lights. Only the water murmured, scratching at the white sand of the shore.
Then, a sound broke the calm: the engine of a motorboat approaching from the darkness of the sea. At first it was a distant murmur, a low growl growing louder as it moved up the river mouth. No voices, no words—only the persistent purr of the motor, measuring the night with its rhythm. Suddenly, it stopped. The silence that followed was almost physical—a tension suspended over the water. A faint thump against the hull, a quick movement, as if someone unloaded a weight or jumped ashore. Then, nothing. Only the river’s breathing and, in the distance, the Rock—witness to shadows and secrets, motionless and eternal.
Lucía paid no attention; she had heard such nocturnal sounds before. She pulled the sheet over her head despite the heat and drifted into sleep.
Minutes later, two shadows slipped through the open window. Lucía uncovered herself but couldn’t react. One of them held her arms and legs; the other pressed a cloth over her mouth that brushed her nose—and everything slowed. The edges of the room lost shape, voices—whispering—faded into a muffled murmur. She could only remember the red scarf on her wrist, a gift from her father on her last birthday, months before he died, and a shiver ran through her before she vanished into unconsciousness.
One of the kidnappers turned on the bedside lamp, its light dim and trembling. He searched for paper and a pen and wrote:
—I’m going to look for my future. Don’t follow me. Leave me alone.
Quietly, he placed it on the table in the living room, beside the soup tureen, which for a moment seemed to hold its breath. Its porcelain curves reflected the light as if they could see, and each handle trembled faintly, reaching for something beyond their grasp. It watched as the footsteps faded, as the shadows of the kidnappers dissolved, unable to intervene—trapped in its silence. The soup tureen remained there, rigid and alert, an impotent witness to what had happened that night.
As they carried her away, the wooden window slammed violently against the bedroom wall; in the stillness of the night, the crash echoed like a dying heartbeat. They ran with the young woman slung over their shoulders like a sack. The damp sand clung to their steps as they advanced toward the shore.
There was no time to hesitate: they jumped into the boat. The engine roared instantly, and they sped away—leaving behind silence and darkness.
The moment she heard the slam, Margarita sat up in bed. She had taken a sleeping pill, as every night, but the sound woke her. Barefoot and frightened, she hurried to the living room. On the table lay a folded piece of paper, written in her daughter’s trembling handwriting:
“I’m going to look for my future. Don’t follow me. Leave me alone”. She ran to the bedroom and saw the empty bed. Her heart gave a jolt.
To be continued…
#hoylunes #nuria_ruiz_fdez,
