Two months earlier (Tuesday, March 1, 2022) Santiago, Chile

Seb was working hard on his Chilean accent. It was so difficult, they slurred their words together, and the strange sing-song cadence was hard to do.

He had cut his hair short and then bleached the tips. And changed his eyebrows with a bit of plucking, spent a lot of time tanning, and lost a lot of weight on the run. He had found some eyeglasses at a shop that had a minimal prescription, which also surprisingly helped his reading. The clothes he scrounged were preppy and more middle-class boring than his gang wear.

He didn’t think anyone would recognize him. But it was hard to be sure. He had found a job at a laundromat and made sure to be as respectable as possible. The lady who ran the laundromat, an old woman named Daniela had been too kind and didn’t ask questions.

Seb knew he was putting her at risk. He didn’t worry about it too much.

Seb had been reading a book about a family of Chileans during the military takeover of Pinochet 1 while waiting for a load of laundry to finish. The television, an old flat screen that had been hanging in the corner since well before Seb had been born, was out again and he had picked up this book to pass the time.

He would not admit he was enjoying it, young boys from gang neighborhoods did not read literary novels for fun. But he was engrossed and had carried the book with him on the train back to his small apartment he shared with other children. He had gotten engrossed in it and was sitting in a small restaurant when he had randomly overheard two gang members talking about looking for an Argentino and a reward. It could have been him, but it may not have been.

One of the gang members shook him down for cash on his way out, and Seb was scared he would be recognized. But he gave over one of his stashes of pesos and was careful to speak minimally.

That made him double down on the accent and learning everything he could about growing up in Santiago. He spent his time at the laundromat, running errands for Daniela, and eyeing the futbol fields, but didn’t go near them. Nothing close to his past.

He wished he spoke Portuguese so he could hide in Brazil. Even if Brazilians were the worst people on Earth. Those who would have blocked Argentina’s glorious ascent to the World Cup - well there was no pity for them in futbol or war.

He knew it had been dumb to flee to Chile since his father had worked here in the mines seasonally. But his father had a bunch of Chilean pesos stashed away next to that strange dagger, so it was the easiest choice. Seb wondered if he should have just fenced the dagger, but he wasn’t giving up whatever his father had died for. he almost dumped it in the trash so many times.

Five days earlier (Friday, April 15, 2022) - Santiago, Chile

Seb had his rhythm down. His new persona now fit him, a young kid, down on his luck, trying to get back into school and go to college. His height helped him some to pass for older than his thirteen years. Doña Daniela probably thought he was a runaway, which was too close to the truth. She encouraged him to read and study, which he did, but he did not like it at all.

His Chilean accent was much better. It still slipped some, but he thought he could mostly pass for a native. He still lived in the same shitty apartment in a crap part of town, but it let him horde more money so he could run. Maybe he would try and go to North America, that would be far enough. But then he would need a passport to fly there or to Mexico to cross illegally.

He thought about doubling back to Buenos Aires. What if he lived with Doña Ines? It made his chest hurt in spasms of homesickness. Even as he longed to go, he knew it was stupid.

He was sitting in the same restaurant as before, eating some empanadas that were not as good as home, when he saw some of the same gang members come in. There were more of them, and a couple of them were in bad shape.

He listened as they talked about how they had been cornered and beaten up looking for the Argentino and a knife. It was hard to follow their slang, so different than lunfardo from home.

And then he heard something that made his heart stop. A tall woman, short spiky hair, and freckles. It was her. She was here, looking for him. He had been a fool to be so complacent. To not have run to Uruguay or Brazil or even an estancia. Why had she come here and not Buenos Aires? Did they know he was here?

Then he caught himself, he was no coward. His home streets of Villa 31 knew he was going to be someone to fear when he got older. He was going to give her the knife. Right in the gut for killing Papa.

April 20, 2022 - Maipú, Chile

It took surprisingly few days to find her. She was desperate to find him. Why now? She was traveling with a group of Carabineros, the police. After two days, he followed them to find them working out of a warehouse in Maipú, an industrial district near Santiago.

He took to using his off time to watch the warehouse. He watched the officers come and go. He wanted to catch her and get her alone so he could get answers. He dreamed about stabbing her over and over again, screaming for his Papa. And even if he knew his Papa had been an abusive drunk, the stress of running, time, and nostalgia had sanctified him in Seb’s mind.

He kept away from where he had hidden the dagger. It was nowhere close and he had to trust it would not be found, buried next to a dusty street thirty minutes walking from the furthest a train would take him.

He was loitering on a street corner with a view of the warehouse entrance, a baseball cap pulled tightly to hide his hair and keep his appearance looking different when a hand went over his mouth and strong hands pulled him back around the corner and he felt a knife across his throat… Seb stilled. This was it, he had been caught and he was going to see his Papa. Tears started to gather.

The person who had him, expertly locked his arm up, never letting the knife waver and frogmarched him to where two others stood.

“Te liberaré. Ningun ruido.” the voice said in an accent that Seb could not place. Seb nodded yes gently and the knife release his throat and then he suddenly felt a gag go over his mouth which caused him to start bucking. A bag went over his head next and they shoved him roughly - he felt his legs hit the edge of the open van door he should have noticed earlier and he fell forward, unable to catch himself and hit his nose.

They hauled him in and then ziptied his hands, he could hear the door close and the van start to move. His captors spoke in a language he had never heard before. It sounded Middle Eastern perhaps.

Eventually the van pulled over and they pulled him out. He was outside somewhere and they pulled off his mask.

There were five masked people regarding him. Two men and three women in black clothes with rifles and handguns both. He stood there, face exposed, on a random empty road outside of the city and they were shining a light in his face.

“He’s a young one,” said a woman in English.

“¿Por que miras al almacén?” Again, that strange accent from the guy.

“I speak English. What does it matter?” Seb felt resigned.

“Hey, look at me,” one of the women said.

¡Cagada! he thought to himself. He couldn’t escape with his hands tied behind him on this open road, so he looked up, right into the flashlight.

The woman pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper, it had been crumpled in the past, but was now neatly folded. They looked from the paper to the boy and back again.

“¿Donde esta la daga?” the same woman asked and turned around the paper to show a drawing of Seb and a picture of the dagger he had found.

"The House of Spirits" by Isabel Allende