The blessed water trickled upon the infant’s sleep, pronouncing him Maria das Dores.  His cry of betrayal echoed in the serene sanctuary, pleading upwards to the gothic columns, where it ricocheted from the stone ears of the Saints, deaf from centuries of parishioners’ petitions. Padre Lucas proceeded with the baptismal ceremony, his austere voice disregarding Maria das Dores’ supplications. “I shall remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I shall place my spirit in you, and make you keep my laws and sincerely respect my observances.” Maria das Dores, for consolation, moulded his tiny body closer in his mother’s arms, just as…

  Along cornfields, past woods, across creeks, Francisco led the villagers to the birthing stones. Large boulders, christened by him as the mothers, covered the crest of the ridge on the rocky landscape of Serra da Senhora da Freita. The Sunday excitement was so high that Mass was prayed on the trail while the rosary of people following Francisco trekked beneath dawn’s first rays. The villagers could have been his goats, but for the prayers echoing against the rising escarpment. Prayers far louder than the tinkle of livestock bells. Francisco had been criss-crossing the range since he was a child. First, accompanying his cousins and the herds of sheep, later,…

  Olive and cork trees will dot the landscape. We will not fan wind into this image. Instead, we will ignite a blazing sun, tinting the landscape crimson, blurring the horizon lines in the fashion of southern memories. The stunted yellow grass will rest still. We will prompt a raven to shriek and burst the silence. We will place three little shepherds on their backs under a holm oak, name them Lúcia, Jacinta and Francisco. For the sake of pastoral as well as literary coherence, let us surround them with a flock of sheep. The sheep are secondary to the story but may become a minor recurrent symbolic theme. We…