Chapter 24: Natalia — Summary and Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary {#summary}

In the aftermath of a hurricane, Natalia sits alone on her balcony, staring at the small slice of ocean visible between two tall buildings. She wonders how many people in the mountains are digging graves in their backyards, tears in their eyes. The view bothers her—not because of the buildings themselves, but because they remind her of everything she lacks and everything that seems designed to push her down: man, weather, God, and spirits alike.

The chapter is anchored by her grandmother Iris's repeated warning, delivered every hurricane season from June through November: nameless things travel with a storm, and after a hurricane passes, the best thing is not to go out. Iris's stories were always warnings. People vanished during hurricanes, taken by the unnamable thing that rode the wind and rain. The old and sick sometimes walked out into the storm willingly, never to be seen again. Farm animals gave birth to two-headed offspring or writhing masses of flesh with extra limbs. Rivers in the mountains turned ungodly, swallowing boats and houses. Children spoke in tongues. Old folks talked to the dead as if they stood before them. People who lived alone died mysterious deaths, their bodies rigid, faces frozen in horror.

Natalia's relationship with these stories followed a familiar arc: she believed them as a girl, dismissed them as a teenager, and returned to believing them as an adult once she began examining her family's history. The turning point came during her first year of college, when an old friend named Zoé invited her over for food. In the backyard, Natalia spotted a small, weather-beaten wooden cross in the ground. Zoé explained it was her little brother's grave. He had been born during a hurricane nine years earlier with a horn in the middle of his forehead. His father had killed the infant with a brick, tied a rosary around its neck, stuffed another in its mouth, and buried it in the wet earth so the thing still lingering after the storm could take its unbaptized soul.

Zoé touched Natalia's shoulder and told her every culture has things that seem brutal to outsiders, and that this was no worse than much of their history, which was ugly. Her words did not match the smile on her face.

The encounter sparked an idea. Natalia spent the next six or seven weekends traveling up and down the mountains, interviewing people she had known all her life about their experiences during and after hurricanes. Her oral history project produced a list of thirteen missing people—a significant number for the small mountain town of Jayuya—and seven babies born with what locals called the curse, or as one old man put it, rain babies. The stories her grandmother had told her, which had sounded like old-lady tales, were all true.

That realization awakened something in Natalia: a thirst for knowledge that sent her to libraries and the Internet. She devoured books on folklore, magic, rituals, and Caribbean history. The breadth of everything she had previously ignored became a heaviness in her soul, which she felt she could only cure with knowledge. She studied history, then religions—Christianity, Buddhism, Voodoo, Hinduism, Santería, Palo, Rastafarianism, Islam—then sociology, politics, philosophy, feminism, diaspora studies, and the dark hidden side of colonialism and post-colonialism. She stayed the course, earned her BA, and continued studying to become a nurse so she could get paid while helping people.

The more she learned, the more she wanted to know. That unquenchable thirst was behind her desire to escape. Puerto Rico was too small to contain her. She wanted to visit Madrid, Venice, New York, Tahiti, Paris, El Salvador, Cuba, Sri Lanka, London, Tokyo, Nairobi, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, and Uruguay. She wanted to see the pyramids and the Nazca Lines from the air. She wanted to drink the world. And she wanted Gabe to come with her, to experience a different world so he could become as curious as she was.

She checks her phone, knowing it will have no signal. She knows Gabe and his mother are fine but still wants to hear from him. She also knows that if the signal does not return soon, he will show up at her place—it is the way he is built.

Looking at the dark slice of sky above the ocean, she recalls someone saying the sky after a hurricane looks like it has been in a fight, like someone took a hammer to it. She thinks of a bloated corpse hanging over the island, something abused waiting to fall and crush them all. Part of her wishes the sun would return and the power would come back on, but a smaller part relishes the destruction because it reminds her how broken everything in Puerto Rico is, how even the most basic things constantly malfunction, and how she has to leave. There is too much to lose by staying.

She will leave with or without Gabe, though she would prefer the former. Gabe is good, pure in a strange way connected to his simplicity and how he filled the hole left by his father's death with love for everyone else in his life. People who love unconditionally and recklessly are rare. But Gabe is also a bit stupid, provincial. He loves her perfectly and stupidly, just as he loves his mother and friends. He thinks that is enough. Natalia knows it is not.

Key Events {#key-events}

Natalia sits on her balcony after a hurricane, reflecting on her grandmother Iris's warnings about nameless things that travel with storms.
Iris's folklore is recounted: missing people, deformed animal births, rivers swallowing homes, children speaking in tongues, the old talking to the dead, and mysterious deaths.
Natalia recalls Zoé's story of her brother, born with a horn during a hurricane and killed by his father, who buried him with rosaries to protect his unbaptized soul.
Natalia conducts an oral history project in Jayuya, documenting thirteen missing people and seven babies born with the curse or as rain babies.
Her research sparks an obsessive pursuit of knowledge across folklore, religion, history, philosophy, and post-colonial studies.
Natalia resolves to leave Puerto Rico, with or without Gabe, and lists the places she dreams of visiting.
She reflects on Gabe's unconditional love and his provincial simplicity, concluding that love alone is not enough.

Character Development {#character-development}

Natalia emerges in this chapter as a character defined by restless intellect and a determination to escape her circumstances. Her belief arc—childhood faith in her grandmother's stories, teenage skepticism, adult re-embrace—mirrors a broader journey toward understanding her culture and history. The oral history project transforms her from passive listener to active investigator, and her subsequent studies reveal a woman who uses knowledge as both a cure for heaviness and a ticket out. Her love for Gabe is genuine but qualified; she sees his goodness clearly while also recognizing what she considers his limitations.

Gabe, though absent from the scene, is characterized through Natalia's eyes: pure, loving unconditionally and recklessly, devoted to his mother and friends, but provincial and, in Natalia's assessment, a bit stupid. His anticipated arrival at her door—because that is the way he is built—shows his reliability and his inability to stay away when she might need him.

Iris, though dead, looms over the chapter as the source of the folklore that shapes Natalia's worldview. Her repeated warnings, delivered every hurricane season, become the lens through which Natalia interprets the storm's aftermath.

Zoé serves as a catalyst, her brother's tragic story providing the evidence that reconnects Natalia to her grandmother's beliefs and launches her research.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs {#themes-symbols-or-motifs}

Hurricane folklore as cultural memory. The chapter treats Iris's stories not as superstition but as a repository of communal trauma. The oral history project validates them, suggesting that folklore encodes real suffering—disappearances, deformed births, unexplained deaths—that official language softens into words like missing or presumed dead.

The nameless things. The recurring phrase about nameless things traveling with storms functions as both literal belief and metaphor for the unseen forces—colonialism, economic inequality, broken infrastructure—that shape Puerto Rican life. Natalia's list of what pushes her down—man, weather, God, spirits—connects the supernatural to the systemic.

The blocked ocean view. The buildings that block Natalia's view of the Atlantic symbolize the economic inequality that surrounds her. Wealthier residents enjoy an uninterrupted vista; she gets a scrap. The view is a daily reminder of what others have and what she lacks.

The mangled sky. The image of the sky after a hurricane, looking beaten and angry, and Natalia's thought of a bloated corpse hanging over the island, extends the storm's destruction into a metaphor for Puerto Rico itself—something broken, abused, waiting to fall.

Rain babies and the curse. The babies born with deformities during hurricanes represent the human cost of these events, and the violent response to them—the father killing his own child—shows how fear and belief can turn brutal.

Provincial simplicity vs. ambition. Natalia's contrast between her own hunger for the world and Gabe's contentment with love and home frames a central tension: whether love can be enough when one partner dreams of escape.

Why This Chapter Matters {#why-this-chapter-matters}

This chapter provides essential context for Natalia's motivations and worldview. It explains why she is driven to leave Puerto Rico, what she believes about the supernatural forces surrounding the storm, and how her relationship with Gabe is structured around a fundamental incompatibility she has already identified. The chapter also deepens the novel's engagement with Puerto Rican folklore and post-colonial themes, grounding the story's supernatural elements in a specific cultural tradition. Natalia's oral history project—thirteen missing people, seven cursed babies—gives the reader a concrete sense of the stakes and the recurring nature of these tragedies. Her decision to leave with or without Gabe sets up potential conflict in the chapters ahead, while her knowledge of the nameless things positions her as someone who understands the dangers the storm may have brought.

Study Questions and Answers {#study-questions-and-answers}

1. How does Natalia's belief in her grandmother's stories change over time, and what causes each shift?

Natalia believed the stories as a girl, dismissed them as a teenager when they seemed boring and old-fashioned, and returned to believing them as an adult after she began examining her family's history. The pivotal moment was Zoé's story about her brother, born with a horn during a hurricane and killed by his father. That account, combined with the oral history project that documented thirteen missing people and seven cursed births, convinced Natalia that her grandmother's warnings were grounded in real events.

2. What does the chapter reveal about the relationship between folklore and historical trauma in Puerto Rico?

The chapter suggests that folklore functions as a vessel for communal memory. Iris's stories—people vanishing, animals born deformed, rivers swallowing homes—sound like superstition but are validated by Natalia's interviews, which produce a list of missing people and cursed births. The chapter also notes that official language wraps these events in innocent words like missing or presumed dead, implying that folklore preserves truths that official discourse softens or erases.

3. Why does Natalia plan to leave Puerto Rico, and what role does Gabe play in that plan?

Natalia's thirst for knowledge and her sense that Puerto Rico is too small to contain her drive her desire to escape. She wants to experience the world—to visit dozens of countries and see its wonders. She wants Gabe to come with her so he can become as curious as she is, but she is determined to leave with or without him. She loves Gabe's unconditional, reckless love but believes his provincial simplicity means he cannot understand why she must go.