Elena

Elena is a former participant in a group whose gatherings she attended with her mother. Her departure followed the animal sacrifices she encountered there; later, what she told Amaia Salazar about those gatherings returned to Amaia during the attempt to sacrifice Ibai, making Elena an important source of warning even though the novel gives her little direct presence in that climactic scene.

Background and Gatherings

Elena and her mother attended meetings that Amaia initially considers alongside older women’s gatherings in Baztán. She imagines women meeting in a farmhouse to sew wedding trousseaus or baby layettes, exchange recipes and advice, pray the rosary, and tell stories of witches. The comparison places Elena’s past within a familiar pattern of women gathering and sharing knowledge, but Amaia’s recollection of Elena’s reference to «El Sacrificio» darkens that apparent likeness. The gatherings Elena knew were not simply an extension of ordinary domestic sociability.

Why She Left

When Amaia asks Elena what made her abandon the group, Elena answers briefly: the sacrifices. Asked what she means, she lists roosters, cats, and lambs. The exchange establishes a concrete reason for her departure without explaining every detail of the ceremonies or the group’s practices. Its brevity is telling: Elena names the boundary she could not accept, while the animal victims make clear that the gatherings had crossed from social or religious association into ritual violence.

Her Account and the Attempt on Ibai

Elena’s earlier account becomes consequential when Amaia enters the place where Ibai is being held. The child lies in the middle of an intricate design that appears to have been drawn in salt or white ash, surrounded by candles. Rosario kneels beside him with a dagger, while Doctor Berasategui watches and recites something like a song. As Amaia takes in the scene, the episodes Elena had narrated come forcefully back to her. The novel does not specify that Elena described every object or action Amaia now sees; rather, her testimony has given Amaia a framework for recognizing the scene as part of the same ritual world.

Narrative Role

Elena’s contribution is therefore indirect but pivotal. Her account connects the apparently convivial meetings of her past to the danger Amaia confronts in the present, and it gives the remembered word «El Sacrificio» a concrete, threatening counterpart. The contrast between the everyday forms of women’s gatherings and the animal sacrifices Elena names also complicates any easy distinction between domestic custom, belief, and organized ritual. The available episodes establish Elena’s decision to leave and the later relevance of what she disclosed, but do not describe her subsequent life or provide a separate resolution for her story.