A Maça no Oscuro

What goes missing in this story is not a weapon but the crime. A fugitive arrives at a farm in the far Sertão of Brazil. The two lonely sisters who live there and have never left it say yes, sir—some help with our hens and the broken fence there would be fine. A few apples fall. The corn grows taller. The man sweeps out the silo and a brightness seeps into the sisters—their hands assuming new meanings in the simple opening of canisters, their manicured fingers feeling around the sides. When the police arrive with a description, one sister flinches. The other closes her eyes. Only one has to say it: Deus meu, he’s in our barn.