The Cult’s Infant Victims

Families’ grief, suspicious financial changes, and repeatedly empty coffins reveal the cult’s victim-selection rules and the fate of the children.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

A Baby Taken at Night

A Baby Taken at Night A calculated killing An intruder uses a polar bear toy to smother an infant in her crib, leaving a misleading mark and a trace of saliva. The method imitates the folklore of Inguma. A disguised crime The intimate domestic setting disguises deliberate violence as a familiar infant death. The opening establishes the novel’s central tension between supernatural interpretation and human agency.

A Mother’s Suspicions

A Mother’s Suspicions Conflicting accounts Inés Ballarena recalls a car leaving during the night and notices a mark on the baby. Valentín Esparza denies visiting and tries to close off further examination. Grief becomes testimony The family’s distress is not itself proof, but the grandmother’s persistence directs police toward evidence that would otherwise be hidden by a routine death certificate.

The Substituted Coffin

The Substituted Coffin A weight without a body Police learn that Valentín Esparza placed sugar packets under a towel in his daughter’s coffin. The false weight was meant to make the empty space appear occupied. A repeated concealment This device recalls other coffins filled with gravel or sugar. The substitution suggests that families or accomplices have repeatedly hidden the removal of children’s remains.

A Second Infant Disappears

A Second Infant Disappears A grave opened Yolanda Berrueta’s explosion exposes her twins’ coffins and a third small casket. Photographs show that the third container holds a sugar bag rather than the ashes everyone assumed were inside. An older loss emerges The casket belonged to Haizea, Yolanda’s first daughter, who died before the twins were born. Her body may have been removed as part of the same pattern.

The Eligibility Rules

The Eligibility Rules A narrowly defined victim The former cult member says the offering had to be an unbaptized girl younger than two, killed by suffocation. The group treated prospective victims as objects, discouraging ordinary attachment. A ritual explanation The group believed a child’s soul remained between worlds and could serve as a vehicle for supernatural requests. That belief supplied a rule-bound justification for murder.

the novel’s opening

the morning after the death

after the funeral-home incident

after the Ainhoa cemetery explosion

after the protected witness’s account