The Boy in the Rain

In the summer I turned fifteen, my parents shipped me off to a village tucked in the highlands of Guatemala, hoping the old ways would straighten out my rebellion. My grandmother’s house was a squat adobe with a tin roof, and the village was a cluster of cobblestone streets where every face was familiar and every door open until the last light fled. I thought it would be a vacation, a freedom from my parents’ rules. My cousin Ana, who was sixteen and wise to the world’s cruelty, and my youngest aunt, Lucia, who was only fourteen but had eyes that had seen too much, were my companions in that strange, dusty place.

One night, the air was thick with the promise of rain. My older cousin, Mateo, who was twenty and had a truck, and his girlfriend, Sofia, decided to drive to the central plaza to buy sweet bread from the late-night bakery. They let Ana, Lucia, and me pile into the back of the truck. The plaza was empty but for a row of old buses, their paint peeling, their engines silent. They were the overnight buses that would carry villagers to the city at dawn. We jumped out of the truck and started playing tag among the buses, our laughter echoing off the tin roofs.

That’s when I saw him. A boy, maybe our age, wearing a black shirt and dark trousers, standing at the far end of the bus row. He was just standing there, watching us. I nudged Ana. ‘Who’s that?’ I asked. She squinted. ‘No one I know,’ she said. ‘Maybe he’s from the next village.’ The boy didn’t move. He just stared. Then, without a word, he turned and ran into the narrow alley behind the bakery. I felt a chill despite the warm night. ‘Let’s follow him,’ I said, the rebellious spark in me igniting. Ana grabbed my arm. ‘Don’t. My mother says there are things in the dark better left alone.’ But I was fifteen and foolish. I pulled away and ran after him.

I found him standing at the end of the alley, near a storm drain that had long rusted shut. He was looking at me, his face pale in the dim light of a distant streetlamp. ‘Who are you?’ I asked, trying to sound brave. He didn’t answer. He just pointed at the drain. I looked down. There was a small, dark object stuck in the grate. It was a child’s shoe, wet and muddy. I looked up to ask him why, but he was gone. I heard Ana’s voice calling my name behind me, urgent. I turned and walked back, feeling a creeping unease.

The next morning, I told my grandmother about the boy. She turned ashen. ‘What boy?’ she demanded. I described him. She crossed herself. ‘That is the ghost of the boy who died in the flood, twenty years ago. He drowned when the rains swelled the river. They never found his body. He wears black because they dressed him for the funeral.’ I felt a cold knot in my stomach. ‘But why did he show himself?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps he wants you to find his body,’ she whispered.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The image of the boy pointing at the drain haunted me. I woke Ana and Lucia, and we snuck out with a flashlight. The drain grate was still there, but the shoe was gone. Instead, there was a piece of paper, folded and wet. I unfolded it. It was a child’s drawing of a river, and a stick figure floating, with the words ‘El río se lo llevó’ – The river took him. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air.

We traced the river that ran behind the village, following the boy in our mind. The river was a swollen brown snake, churning from a week of storms. At a bend where the current slowed, I saw something white caught in the roots of a fallen tree. My heart raced. We waded in, the water cold and clinging. It was a bone, a small one, like from a child’s arm. Ana gasped. ‘We should tell someone,’ she said. But I had an idea. Maybe the boy’s ghost was restless because his remains were never given a proper burial. We gathered the bone, and a few more we found nearby, and placed them in my empty backpack.

We took the bones to the church and told the priest. He was old and believed in such things. He listened, his eyes wide, and then he took the bones and promised to give them a Christian burial. That night, as the rain began to fall in sheets, I dreamed of the boy. He was standing at the edge of the river, and he smiled. The next day, the rain stopped, and the sun came out. The ghost never appeared again.

But I learned something that summer. Some places hold their secrets tightly, and the dead don’t always rest. And sometimes, a rebellious teenager is just the one to set them free.