by Alisa Valdes
“A painter hanged herself there.”
Yazzie looked devastated. “Yes,” she said, sorrowfully. “That’s it. That’s right. I feel that. Oh, that poor, miserable woman.”
“It’s amazing you picked up on that,” I told her.
“I pay attention,” she said. “As should you. You have a tail.”
“I’m sorry?”
“A tail. That’s what the Pueblo people say to someone who refuses to see the truth. They have a tail but they don’t see it.”
“Nice. I hope it doesn’t make me look fat.”
Yazzie cracked a grin and took a tentative seat at the edge of the floral sofa. “Do you remember the story from Isleta, of the two boys whose parents told them never to go South to hunt?” she asked.
“No.”
“I gave it to you to read, some time ago.”
“Sorry. I don’t remember it.”
“Here’s the short version. The parents tell the boys not to go south to hunt, and do you know why?”
“Nope.”
“Because there is a woman to the south who eats children.”
“Ah. Good thing this hospital is North, then.”
“North of some things, perhaps. But south of others.” She watched me for a long time, as though waiting for me to understand something that, honestly, eluded me.
“Okay, I get it. Fine. You think Dr. Bergant wants to eat me.”
Yazzie continued to stare disconcertingly at me. “These things are not meant to be taken literally, Maria.”
“Fine. I’m glad no one will eat me, then.”
“Do you know what happened when those brothers went south to hunt, disobeying their parents warnings?”
“Let me guess. They got eaten by an old woman.”
“No. She tried to eat them. She sealed them in an oven each night, when it was very hot, and every morning she and her husband, who was also a witch, came out, drooling with hunger and anticipation, only to find that the boys were inside, unhurt, and the oven was cold.”
“Ah, good.”
“They were able to do this, these boys, because they had learned much from their elders; they’d paid attention and they were clever. More clever than the witch.”
“I see.”
“If you had read the story, you would know that in the end, the boys outsmarted the witch again and again, by playing her game and letting her think she had gotten the better of them. In the end, they play hide and seek near a lake, and the old woman thinks she knows where the boys are, only they’ve hidden beneath the bright hot whiteness of the sun, and she cannot see them there. The boys know where each other are because they sing the hide and seek song, which goes like this.”
In typically Yazzie fashion, she stopped and sang for a while. Like so many of the Pueblo songs, it sounded liked random syllables, half-chanted to an odd meter I could never quite figure out. I enjoyed having the company, but found her behavior extremely weird, even given all I’d gone through to that point.
“The boys eventually come out, and the witch woman goes to hide in the bottom of the lake. When she emerges, the boys remind her of the agreement she has made to them, and they shoot her with their bows and arrows, and the old man, too.”
“Yazzie, I know you mean well, but these stories, they don’t make sense to me.”
“That’s because you aren’t listening.”
“I am listening, to every word.”
“Then you aren’t hearing.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” I asked. “Is it so hard to just say it in plain English?”
She pointed to the painting. “That came to me, after your call. Look at it. I’ve told you what I’ve come here to tell you. Listen harder. You are among shape shifters. You are in the presence of witches. Be smart. Prepare your bow and arrow. Remember that song.”
With that, Yazzie hugged me with a promise to return the following day, and left as quickly as she’d come. I sat alone in the room for a moment, listening to the embers crackle in the fireplace, and trying not to be afraid of the ceiling and its tragic history. Then I unwrapped the painting Yazzie had given me. It depicted a bullfight, the horrible Spanish practice whereby a matador kills a defenseless bull before a large and cheering crowd. The bull in the painting sat on its haunches, looking away from the matador, whose knives were raised in an energetic pose, as though he were about to sink them into the beast’s neck. The words You are not my brother had been painted beneath the scene. I tried to understand what it meant, and failed.
♦
My therapy session with Dr. Bergant the next day went very much like the others, except that this time, she told me she had communicated with her husband’s dead grandfather, and had learned that a protection ceremony was needed for me to be able to see Demetrio again. Any lingering doubts I might have had about her sincerity disappeared then, because I had not mentioned the protection ceremony idea to her; she had brought it on her own. She was one of us. She understood. It was amazing, and beautiful, the way the universe had brought us together in my time of need.
“I think it’s important that you see him, don’t you?” she asked me.
“Yes. I feel crazy without my phone, thinking I’ll never see him again or hear his voice.”
“He told me how to do it,” she said. “We could do it after sundown this evening, if you trust me.”
I thought about it. “You’re not just trying to mess with me, are you?” I asked her.
Dr. Bergant looked hurt and offended. She told me she thought we were destined to meet, and that The Maker had put her in my path to help me connect with Demetrio and override my mother’s cruelty. I had never told her that Demetrio used the term “The Maker” either; I was sold now on her as someone who understood me.
That evening, just after dark, Dr. Bergant came to retrieve me from my room. I went with her to her Mercedes coupe, and together we drove along the bumpy road, off the hospital grounds, to a nearby side road and then onto a series of rough and narrow dirt roads that led into a more heavily wooded area. Soon, she parked, and I followed her along a hiking path along a mesa, down an embankment, and into a clearing next to a large pond that was iced over. The moon was out, and while it wasn’t full, the night was clear and starry, and it shone a bright whitish light over the eerie nocturnal scene.
“Helpers,” she announced, after we’d taken our places next to the lake. “Come now.”
From the shadows of the dead reeds and trees around the pond came sounds, and five hooded figures appeared, surrounding us in what felt very much like a pagan sort of way. It honestly felt ridiculous, because even though I knew the truth of what I’d been through, I certainly hadn’t shed my practical cynicism and former skepticism.
The five hooded figures began to drone, a low note, chanting in unison as Dr. Bergant removed a golden chalice and bottle of wine from her bag. She poured the wine, and they passed it around, handing it to me last of all.
“I’m underage,” I said.
“Drink,” said Dr. Bergant. “Just one sip, for ceremonial purposes.”
I did as she requested, and she began to speak the words of what sounded like a prayer, in Latin. I wasn’t fluent in that language, of course, but as was the case with every student at Coronado Prep, I’d taken enough of it to understand some words.
Mentere sorridono
La terra e il sole
E si ricambiano
D’amor parole
This was something about earth and sun, and smiles and love. No problem.
E corre un fremito
D’imene arcano
Da’ monti e palpita
Fecondo il piano
This was about hugs and coming down from the mountains. Nice, I thought. I began to grow excited thinking that I might see Demetrio again. Dr. Bergant continued:
A te Disfrenasi
Il verso ardito
Te invoco, o Satana
Re del convito
Now, I was no master
linguist, but I could have sworn this last bit was something about invoking Satan. I kept listening, and became very aware of the movements of the hooded figures around us now. My eyes had adjusted more to the darkness, and I saw that their robes were not brown, as Demetrio’s had been in the dream, but red, and that the hems appeared to be writhing, like snakes.
“What’s going on here, Dr. Bergant?” I blurted, suddenly overcome with a terror and sick. My stomach hurt terribly, probably from the wine, or whatever it was that I’d drunk.
Dr. Bergant smiled at me as she continued her chant, but it wasn’t her usual reassuring smile of sweetness; this smile was vile. It had a wanton quality, a sadistic perverseness to it. She came closer to me, and reached out her hand to stroke my hair in a disturbing way.
“This is so not cool,” I said, doubling over with the pain in my gut. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be helping me.”
Small reddish lights began to glow within the pond, faintly, and I could see something moving there, beneath the ice, like bloody large fish swished around below. The hooded figures began to touch one another in a filthy way, panting disturbingly, and moving closer to me.
“No!” I cried, fighting the pain in my gut to run from them. I lurched, and pushed past a couple of them, while Dr. Bergant continued her terrible chant, in a scream now.
I felt sick, wild, alone and chased. It was utterly dark, except for the light from the moon.
This way, mamita.
I heard his voice, just as I had the night I visited his grave. I looked about me manically, hoping for the blue and gold lights of his outline. He did not disappoint me. I saw him, just a bit further ahead, but only for a split second before he flamed out and disappeared again.
Fast as you can. Run toward the moonlight, fast, as though you meant to hide behind it.
I did as he’d told me, and sprinted toward the moon in the eastern sky. Behind me, I heard a terrible cracking noise, and then screaming as a branch from one of the cottonwoods appeared to break and fall upon two of the hooded figures. I screamed.
Toward the light, Maria. Fast as you can go.
I ran, stumbling over branches and twigs, uneven ground, running like I’d never run before, and then, faintly, I heard the song, from just the other side of the next hill. A woman’s voice, chanting the syllables that yesterday had seemed unintelligible to me. It was not loud, or forceful. I stopped for a moment to listen for it, and there it was. Yazzie’s voice, singing to me in the night, the hide and seek song. As she sang, it appeared to me that the plants and trees moved their boughs to allow me to pass easily toward the sound.
“This can’t be happening,” I whispered, even as it was.
I ran through the cleared path, stumbled over the hill, tripped, and fell. The singing, then so close, stopped, and I saw a woman’s figure silhouetted against the nearly full moon. It was familiar. Yazzie.
“How did you know?” I whispered, aware of the powerful scent of gasoline all around us.
“We’ll talk later,” she said. “Now, you follow me and do as I say.”
The sound of a match lighting came next, and then a massive torch ignited at the end of a stick.
“This is the sun,” she told me. “Hide behind it so they may not see your face. Do not look them in the eye. Follow me.”
Yazzie stepped toward the pond now, with the torch held before her. At the top of the hill, she stopped. I saw the little valley lit up from the torch, and was able to make out the figures of four people moving toward us, three in robes, and one Dr. Bergant.
“Flora and fauna helpers, now is your time,” said Yazzie, and to my astonishment, birds, hundreds, maybe thousands of them, came from the trees in a ruckus of noise, and descended upon the figures that ran toward us. The humans shrieked as they were pecked and stabbed by beaks in the night. Yazzie began to sing again, softly yet powerfully, a haunting melody, and I saw now that she was dressed in traditional ceremonial clothing, with moccasins upon her feet and feathers in her hair.
“Flora and fauna, capture and leave the woman for me,” she said, and the birds focused their efforts of the figures in hoods, all of whom had fallen to the ground in fetal positions to protect themselves.
“Come, Maria,” she said.
I followed. Yazzie found Dr. Bergant held to a tree by the arms of the tree itself. I could not believe my eyes. The more Dr. Bergant squired, the more tightly the tree wound its branches about her.
“But how?” I asked.
“Everything has a spirit,” Yazzie told me. “Everything helps you now that you have joined the rank of seers.”
Dr. Bergant squirmed in the grip of the ancient cottonwood, the light of the torch obscuring Yazzie’s face, though we were perfectly able, behind the fiery glow, to see the doctor.
“You will pay for this,” screamed my doctor.
“I have seen what you tried to do here, doctor,” Yazzie said, sounding sane and strong as I had never heard her before. “And we have two choices upon us tonight. In choice one, you go into the pond, victim of a terrible accident, and the world mourns for you. In choice two, you agree to sign the papers to release Maria from Rancho la Curación, and you are allowed to resume your life with the provision that in the event you come near her again, you will then sink to the bottom of the pond, victim of a terrible accident.”
“Who are you?”
“I am nature, a seer, a spirit in touch, I speak for the creator of all good things. You will not harm this child.”
Dr. Bergant struggled, only to be held more tightly by additional branches that moved, snakelike, on their own to trap her.
“No,” said Dr. Bergant.
“Uncle,” said Yazzie to the tree. “Pressure.”
The tree responded by wrapping a thin, flexible branch around the doctor’s neck, and tightening.
“Okay!” screamed Dr. Bergant. “But it’s not me,” the doctor whined. “I am not the one who sought her out.”
“Then who are you working for?”
“The boy.”
“Which boy?”
“Demetrio Vigil,” she said, and my blood ran cold.
“You lie,” said Yazzie in a low, angry hiss. “You work for the boy’s chindi, the one who tempts him, and now you try to fool the girl.”
“I work for Demetrio Vigil,” repeated Dr. Bergant, and the tree squeezed her harder, eliciting a nauseating shriek of pain from her.
“You have one last chance to amend your declaration for truth,” said Yazzie, calmly. “I see all things. The maker sees all things, and your repentance will be appreciated and rewarded. You still have time to redeem yourself.”
“I work,” repeated Dr. Bergant in a sneering, laughing, hideously ugly tone of voice, “for the girl’s one true love, Demetrio Vigil.” She cackled out an evil laugh now, and it echoed through the forest.
She lies, mamita. It’s not me. I have never seen her before.
“Meme,” said Yazzie to the old tree, stroking its bark lovingly. “Uncle. I have tried to take the correct path, but this chindi is not worthy of the righteous path. I ask you to do what you must, to protect the spirit of this dear child.”
I watched, in complete shock and horror, as the tree lifted my pretty young psychiatrist, and threw her, as though she were a child’s doll, toward the pond. In the eerie glow of the torchlight, I saw her fly like a tiny comet, her piercing scream of terror ending only with the sound of a terrible crack opening in the ice, and her falling through it, where she appeared to be devoured quite quickly and happily by whatever it was that swam and thrashed bloodily beneath.
“Oh no,” I cried, covering my face with my hands. “That’s terrible.”
“It is self-defense, Maria. That was what she intended to do to you,” Yazzie told me, as the tree regained its original shape and stillness.
“Thank you, uncle,” said Yazzie, embracing the tree.
“But why did she want to hurt me?” I asked.
“To tempt
Demetrio into a trap of some sort, I suppose. He’s what they want. Not you. You’re the way they get to him. You, I sense, are the bait.”
“But why?”
“I do not know. This is what he warned you of. This is why he cannot see you.”
“But I saw him, tonight! He sent me to you!”
She put her arm around me, and guided me back through the woodland, to where her Jeep awaited us on the mesa.
“So he came, then,” she said, sadly. “His love for you is greater than his love for himself.”
“That’s beautiful,” I said. “Right?”
“Perhaps,” she said, turning the key in the ignition. “But the blindness of young love often leads, too, to great tragedy. We’ve only just begun this journey. Fasten your seatbelt.”
FINAL THIRD
tercio de muleta
{whereby the matador prepares to kill the bull}
The following week, after Rancho la Curación’s administration announced that my doctor was mysteriously missing, I was assigned a new doctor, a harsh, cold, cruel man with a pinched nose, to whom I spoke only the words I knew I needed to speak to convince him of what he needed to be convinced in order to release me to my mother. In short, I falsely confessed to having been temporarily rendered crazy by the stress of my auto accident, and I said I missed my old life and would do anything, and take any pill, in order to regain it. The pills went beneath my tongue then down the sink drain. The lies went to the center of this man’s tiny brain, where they worked, as lies often do, to appease the wicked, and I was given back to my mother fully rehabilitated and, they claimed “cured”.
My mother drove me home with a smug satisfaction dancing like a twitch upon her lips, believing the hospital had broken my spirit and brought me to my senses. She had even planned a reconciliation dinner at the country club, for me and Logan, and even though I hated every minute of that steak and caviar nonsense, I allowed him and my mother to believe I cared for him and wouldn’t mind dating him again if he could forgive me my trespasses. He was delighted, of course, and expressed this by posting a new “Welcome Back Maria” page on Facebook. We were going to Winter Ball together after all. Oh, joy.
