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outside on the porch. But before she could go back inside the chabola she walked back over and picked it up.
    "Someone will come along and steal it if I leave it out here. It's better to take it inside with me where it'll be safe."
    But no one ever visited the little chabola, not even her coworkers or the father of her child. Maybe everyone knew to stay away from the old one-eyed mansion hunkered in a hollow at the end of a road leading to nowhere. Perhaps Rancher Ford had spread the word to stay away from Yani. She had heard how he could be a jealous man despite his philandering.
    Taking the box back inside with her but fearful of leaving it out in plain sight where Maria might see it, Yani remembered a loose floorboard in the room that served as her. Working the wood free from the floor she lowered the box into the cavity, replaced the board, and laid a rug over it before pulling her bed on top of it.
    When she finally fell into a fitful sleep her dreams were as surreal as any she'd ever had save for back in Cuba... for what seemed like hours packs of gray wolves stalked her from the shadowy recesses of the bedroom and when they vanished they were replaced with something even more terrifying though she couldn't see what.
    A shadow seemed to materialize in the corner of the room and though she thought she might be dreaming the soupy darkness whispered to her the way a lover might and she wondered for an instant if Rancher had come back to her. Only the shadow was taller than her lover and when it moved she let out a scream awakening both herself and the sleeping baby who started to squall as if he too might be having the same dream.
    The next morning Yani took little Willem and the box as well as her spade piling them all into a little wagon which she hauled to a long abandoned church not far from the chabola. Eons ago a fire must have savaged the building leaving the adobe brick walls still standing though blackened on the inside. In the center of the church grew an enormous sycamore tree testifying to how old the church really was.
    Digging at the roots of the tree Yani managed to hollow out a sort of cavern underneath it large enough to insert the box inside. All the while she worked at the church she kept raising up and looking about making sure no one else came around. Willem gurgled happily in the wagon watching his mother as she dug and he seemed to be humming along to the same song she'd been hearing since the box arrived.
    Once she felt satisfied the hole was deep enough that the box would be in good hands beneath the tree she covered it with dirt taking care to reestablish the covering of debris just the way she found it. Surveying her work before leaving she felt satisfied that even should someone come prowling around the church there was no indication that someone had buried a treasure on those hallowed grounds.
    The box still lay buried there. She knew it was there because it sang to her just like it used to sing to Maria, only the melody didn't frighten Yani. It seemed a familiar tune, one she had heard many times in the past.
    Despite herself she smiled as she thought about the tall giraffe looking down upon her while humming softly, and poor old Josephine. Or maybe she imagined it all... she could never be certain. All that happened so long ago that it may well have been but a mirage. Who could she ask? No one... speaking to Evalena about the past might well dredge up matters best left sleeping.
    Yani wondered if she should dig up the stone and hand it over to Evalena... after all, it had been sent to her years ago. But she discovered that she didn’t want to part with it. Even though she'd forgotten all about the box and the object inside of it until Evalena showed up again, having it close lent her a sort of comfort that she'd never known before.
    The stone sang her to sleep each night though Evalena didn't appear to notice the melody. Yani wondered if only a special few were capable of hearing the stone or