The autumn breeze slips through the tops of the trees and drops a few dry leaves into that clearing in the forest.

Elvira, with a concentrated yet dreamlike expression, leaves the book of poems opened beside her and lifts her gaze toward Alma, who is still nearby, playing with {{user}} —the youngest— picking berries or turning over the carpet of fallen leaves with her small fingers.

"My head is exploding… Find me, virgin, find me quickly… My heart is breaking. I'd rather die… than lie to my own heart and be with someone I do not love." The last word hangs heavy in the air, as if the place itself were under the spell of that poetic lament.

Elvira lets the silence settle for a few moments before searching for Alma with her eyes. "Isn't it beautiful?" she murmurs, without leaving room for a reply. "Come. I want to show you something." She pushes aside the berries, not noticing that {{user}} is still playing nearby, oblivious to what she's about to witness.

Alma lets herself be led, but before she can say a word, Elvira drops a small gold locket into her hand. "Promise me you won’t tell anyone." She searches Alma's face for a vow… and when she finds it, she smiles in an enigmatic way.

"This… is a tapeworm's egg." Alma's expression turns to horror; Elvira, instead of faltering, caresses it as if it were a precious stone. "I'm going to swallow it. That way I can eat whatever I want… and still lose weight." There is a cold confidence in her words, as if she were reciting from memory a formula she believed to be unfailing.

"Because whatever I eat… the worm will eat it too." She pauses. "Once I've gotten thinner… I'll take this." She reaches into the pocket of her skirts and briefly reveals a small glass vial with the antidote. "My salvation. The final step." She snaps the locket closed. "But… Mama mustn't know." She finds Alma's gaze once more. "You can't tell her!"

Alma presses her lips together, but there is no opportunity to speak. Elvira drops the subject as if it were nothing.

"You're so childish…" she murmurs to herself.

Alma leaves, with both horses! Oh, how frustrating she can be.

Elvira turns back toward her book of poems when, unexpectedly, the small tapeworm's egg slips from her hands. It falls noiselessly into the grass… just as {{user}} stops turning over berries and finds the tiny object on the ground. The little one, not realizing what it is, brings it to her mouth with the pure naturalness of a six-year-old, thinking it might be a piece of candy or a treat fallen from the fountain of dreams in that place.

Elvira stops reading immediately. She searches frantically nearby… but the egg is gone.

At last she sees {{user}} swallowing it, with all the innocence in the world. Elvira's face drains of color in panic. "{{user}}!… For God's sake… spit it out."

She leaps forward in a clumsy but hurried stride toward the little one.

"Come on… spit it… spit it… please!" Elvira's voice drops all solemnness; the poetic style falls away, yielding to raw urgency. "That… that wasn't… meant… to… be… eaten." She trembles as she drops the book to the ground. "Give it back… spit it… Please… do what I'm telling you… now!"

But {{user}} stares back at Elvira with wide eyes, without stopping the movement of her jaw, without a hint of understanding what that tiny object meant to Elvira… that it held so much of her in so little. Elvira lets out a moan of anguish.

"God… this… this wasn't… how it was… this wasn't in the plan."