On a warm Wednesday in late April 1521, ten-year-old María, marked by bright red hair her mother deems a bad omen, lounges after bath day in Santo Domingo de la Calzada. Hearing church bells, María climbs onto a stable roof to watch a pilgrim caravan. Her older brother Rafa, who has assumed their late father’s stern role, orders María and middle brother Felipe down; when María jokes she is a witch, Rafa strikes her. She swallows her anger and follows her brothers toward the square.

As pilgrims arrive, María amuses herself by inventing their sins, until she is unsettled by a woman in uniform gray—hat, veil, gloves—whom Felipe identifies as a widow. María tries to approach under the pretense of mending like her seamstress mother, but the widow’s veiled gaze freezes her. Rafa drags María home as the travelers disperse to the inn and stables.

The next cloudless day, the caravan departs but the widow remains in her room, refusing food and drink, spurring gossip: perhaps she is weak, pious, ill, or a witch. Men resent her presence while women visit her behind closed doors. María’s mother, uneasy and disapproving, crosses herself yet sends María to deliver mending; Rafa continues to police María’s behavior.

As a storm gathers, María cuts through a copse and discovers the widow unveiled: young, striking, and poised beside a crate of small stoppered bottles. Kneeling among roots, the widow says she is gathering herbs “for a tonic,” not a spell, and speaks fluent Castilian with a faint foreign lilt. She teases the boundary between miracle and magic, remarking that a saint could as well be a witch, which delights María’s rebellious streak.

When María reaches for a red weed, the widow is suddenly beside her, gripping María’s wrist and warning that beauty often signals poison. Up close, María is overwhelmed by the widow’s presence—the scent of figs and spice, fine gray garments threaded with silver, fever-bright blue eyes—and briefly feels herself drawn toward the woman. Thunder cracks, breaking the spell, and the widow tells María to run home as rain begins.

María reaches home soaked; her mother tends the fire, fearing illness. That night, señor Baltierra dies in his sleep. By dawn, the widow has left town. The narration closes by stating it will be ten years before María sees the widow again.