"Your abuelita first sought to convert to Christianity nearly twenty years ago," he said. "My uncle, who was a sacerdote in Izamal before me, refused to perform her baptism. He said the magic she drew from the Snake—the keeper of secrets and the tempter of Eve and Adam—was evil. She sought to prove him wrong. But even after seeing the work she was doing among the people of this region—among the poor, the sick, and the wounded—he refused to allow her to join the church. He was of the old school, a man born before the Awakening. He just didn’t understand.