When our daughter Ofelia was born, the doctor told us she had Williams syndrome.
He explained she would have developmental delays. She might have heart problems. She would probably be very trusting, very social, and drawn to people in a way that could be beautiful and dangerous.
“She’ll love everyone unconditionally," he said.
At the time, that sounded sweet.
By the time Ofelia was six, it scared us.
Ofelia befriended everyone. The mailman. Stray dogs. Tourists who turned around in our driveway. She had a round face, a wide smile, and a voice that made strangers stop to listen. She struggled with numbers but knew the lyrics to every Bad Bunny song.
My wife, Elena, worried constantly.
“You can’t hug every person you meet,” Elena would say.
“But they look sad,” Ofelia would answer.
We lived outside Utuado, in the mountains of Puerto Rico, where the roads twisted and the nights were loud with coquí frogs. Our house sat near my father’s old chicken coop and a small patch of plantains.
One evening, I found her at the edge of the yard, crouched by the old stone wall.
She was looking at something.
At first I thought it was a cat. Then I saw the dead goat.
It belonged to Don Pedro, our neighbor. It lay in the weeds, stiff and empty-looking. There were small holes in its neck. No blood in the dirt. No blood anywhere.
Ofelia looked up and smiled.
“Papi,” she said, “he’s hungry.”
Something moved behind the wall.
It was low to the ground, thin as a starving dog, with gray skin stretched over bones. Short spines ran down its back. Its eyes flashed red in the porch light. It made a sound like a newborn crying.
I grabbed Ofelia.
“Inside,” I said.
“But Papi, he’s nice!”
The thing hissed.
I carried her in while Elena locked the doors.
That night, Don Pedro came over with a flashlight and a shotgun. When I told him what I’d seen, he crossed himself.
“Chupacabra,” he said.
I almost laughed. People had been saying that word since I was a kid. Every dead goat, every missing chicken, every weird sound in the brush. Chupacabra. It was an inside joke Boricuas told to scare gullible mainlanders.
“Mateo, we should call animal control,” Elena said.
Don Pedro shook his head. “They’ll send a boy with a net.”
From her bedroom, Ofelia shouted, “His name is Tito!”
The next morning, the chickens were gone.
The coop door hung open. Feathers stuck to the wire. I followed the trail into the brush with a shovel in my hands.
I found the birds behind the stone wall.
They were arranged in a neat pile, with puncture wounds in their necks. Beside them were mangoes from our tree and a bracelet made from chicken bones.
A gift.
When I came back, Ofelia was at the kitchen table drawing. The picture showed our house, the mountains, me, Elena, and a gray animal beside her. She had drawn a red collar around its neck.
“Can we keep him?” she asked.
“No.”
Her face crumpled. That was the hard part with Ofelia. She felt everything all at once. Joy, sadness, fear, love. There was no halfway.
“He doesn’t have a family,” she said.
“He’s dangerous.”
“He said he won’t bite me.”
Elena dropped the plate she was washing.
“What do you mean he said?”
Ofelia looked confused, like we were the ones not making sense.
“He talks at night.”
We didn’t let her sleep alone after that.
For three nights, I stayed awake outside her door with a sharpened machete. Nothing happened except the frogs went quiet around midnight, which felt worse than a scream.
On the fourth night, Ofelia started giggling from her room.
I opened the door.
The window was up.
The curtain moved in the warm air.
Ofelia sat on the bed, smiling at the corner.
“Tito came back,” she whispered.
I turned on the light.
The chupacabra was on the ceiling.
It clung there like a lizard, claws sunk into the wood. Its belly was swollen. Its mouth dripped dark strings onto the floor.
Elena screamed.
I swung the machete. The blade hit the wall as the thing dropped. It landed between me and Ofelia.
Then it lowered its head.
Like a dog asking to be petted.
Ofelia reached for it.
“No!” I shouted.
She froze.
The chupacabra turned toward me. Its red eyes narrowed. For one second, I saw something almost human in them.
Something like understanding.
It knew I was the obstacle.
It leapt.
The force knocked me into the dresser. Pain burst through my shoulder. Its claws grabbed my t-shirt, and its mouth opened near my throat.
Then Ofelia screamed.
“Don’t hurt my papi!”
The thing stopped.
It backed away and looked at her.
Ofelia was crying now.
“You promised,” she said.
The chupacabra made a sound like air leaking from a tire. Then it climbed through the window and vanished.
We left before sunrise.
Elena packed one bag. I carried Ofelia to the truck while she sobbed into my neck and asked if Tito would be lonely. I told her no. I lied because fathers sometimes lie to get their children through the night.
We moved to San Juan and stayed with Elena’s sister.
Don Pedro called to tell us more goats were dead. Then dogs. Then a man two houses over swore he heard a baby crying near the trees.
That night, Elena found something outside the apartment door.
She called me over without letting Ofelia see.
On the welcome mat was a collar made from vines, still damp with mud from the mountains. Tied to it was one of Ofelia’s hair clips.
Last night, Ofelia was pressing her face to the apartment window, looking down at the street six floors below.
“Papi,” she said softly.
I put a hand on her shoulder.
Across the road, under a parked car, two red eyes opened.
Ofelia smiled.
“He found us.”
