Summary

Chapter 4, “The Purgatory Spot.” One night, during a power blackout, Chula and Cassandra encounter both Petrona (whom they see smoking with a friend) and a pair of identical twins named Isa and Lala. They become friends with the twins, who taunt them about the possibility that the frail-looking Petrona is a ghost, and who later tell them that the only way to prove whether she is or she is not is to ask the “the Blessed Souls of Purgatory” (26). As they search for the place where they can contact the souls (The Purgatory Spot), they pass a large house where, Isa and Lala say, a wealthy and mysterious woman called The Oligarch lives. Also on their search, the four girls encounter Petrona and her friend, the two of them dressed in maid’s uniforms and with a large bundle of money that Petrona...