Pêro pushed through the hordes toward the front entrance of the Sé Cathedral. One by one, a group placed dead bodies on the cathedral’s threshold. A crowd surrounded the deceased, praying for peaceful and swift entrances to heaven. Amazingly, the walls of the church remained upright, while everything around it lay in ruin. The side chapels had crumbled, along with the main nave ceiling. Its congregation was outside, a swarm of panicked bees whose hive had been suddenly struck, knocked to the ground. Hundreds of shocked worshipers shouted for family members. Before Pêro, a happy father and son embraced one another, desperate and overjoyed. In the chaos, Pêro found himself turning the malachite stone in his pocket over and over.
He scanned the living.
Is that Isabela over there?
Is that I
