Chapter 1 Summary

La Loca is just three years old when she dies. Her mother, Sofi, is awakened at midnight by the howling of the animals and, after checking on her three older daughters, finds the baby jerking and foaming at the mouth. With her mother and sisters screaming and moaning around her, the baby dies.

However, at the Mass, the lid of the coffin opens and La Loca sits up. In front of the terrified witnesses, she rises into the air and lands on the church roof. Father Jerome asks her if this is the work of God or the Devil, but Sofi screams at him, "calling the holy priest a pendejo [pubic hair] and hitting him." Sofi tells him not to start that backwards thinking about her child, and that the Devil does not produce miracles, which this surely must be.

La Loca says...