Ask almost anyone who grew up in Tucson what to avoid near the river after dark, and you'll hear the same answer: La Llorona.

Her name means "the weeping woman," and her story is one of the oldest in the Southwest. It has been told for hundreds of years across Mexico and the borderlands, and no one knows exactly where it began. The most familiar version goes like this. A woman, heartbroken after being abandoned by the man she loved, drowned her own children in a river. When she realized what she had done, it was too late. She died on the riverbank, and she has been wandering ever since, searching the water and crying out for her children.

Tucson has its own versions. In some, she's a woman who crossed the border from Nogales, Sonora, leaving her children behind. Soon after, the Santa Cruz River flooded, and the children were swept away and washed up toward Tucson. In others, the story is more familiar and more tragic. What stays the same is the wail, a long, mournful cry that carries over the water.

People have reported seeing her in a long white gown along the Santa Cruz River, and the South Stone Avenue underpass is a traditional spot for sightings. One legend says that anyone who tries to touch her will be burned. Another says she has no face at all.

For generations, parents have also used her as a warning. Be home before dark, or La Llorona will get you.

There's a poetic Tucson twist to all of this. For much of the year, parts of the Santa Cruz are dry, a "ghost river" winding through the city. Then the monsoon arrives, and the water comes rushing back, just as the legend says it always does. Each fall, the figure of La Llorona also walks quietly through downtown in the All Souls Procession.

Tucson's own folklorists have heard so many tellings that at least one says plainly: she's real.

So the next time you're near the river at dusk, and the wind rises, listen closely.

Next Friday: the Rialto Theatre and the piano that wouldn't stay quiet.