In 1898, after she had been away for seven days, María Expósito appeared one morning in the Villaviciosa plaza, a bare space in the center of town, with a broken arm and bruises all over her body. She would never explain what had happened to her, nor did the old women who tended to her insist that she tell. Nine months later a girl was born and given the name María Expósito, and her mother, who never married or had more children or lived with any man, initiated her into the secret art of healing.
Maria #3
