1912
Tenerife, the secrets of the Barranco de Badajoz
In the Barranco de Badajoz, whoever disappears comes back sooner or later. The problem is when.
The night of San Juan, Tenerife. The valley burns with bonfires, and Sargento Marta Perdomo climbs to the barranco with two coffees: one for herself, one for a friend who has been gone for twenty-seven years. At the mouth of the old gallery, a dying man is waiting. His pocket holds coins from 1957. His watch is stopped at 3:17. He disappeared in 1958 — and has not aged a day.
Three days later, a barefoot girl comes down from the barranco asking for Marta. It is Idaira, her best friend, who vanished on the night of San Juan in 1999. She is still seventeen. She thinks she has been gone an hour. And on her wrist is the mark of four fingers.
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From that night on, the mountain keeps giving people back. Someone waits at the threshold. And counts. To understand, Marta must trust a geophysicist, a German researcher and an old candlemaker who guards a book sealed for five centuries — and face one question: if the door opens again, who has to go back in?
The Barranco de Badajoz is real. Its legends are documented. The science in this novel is real. The door isn’t. Maybe.
If you find a candle that doesn’t burn down its wax, don’t blow it out. Someone has counted it.
