dona Soledad. I began to look for clues. I thought that if I
watched carefully, their voices or the expression on their faces
would betray how much they knew. But they remained silent
and let me do all the talking. I began to doubt that I should
volunteer any information at all. In my effort to figure out
what to do and not blunder, I ended up talking nonsense.
Lidia cut me off. In a dry tone she said that I should not con-
cern myself with dona Soledad’s health because they had al-
ready taken steps to help her. That statement forced me to
ask her if she knew what dona Soledad’s trouble was.
You’ve taken her soul, she said accusingly.
My first reaction was to defend myself. I began to talk
vehemently but ended up contradicting myself. They stared
at me. I was making no sense at all. I tried again to say the
same thing in a different way. My fatigue was so intense that
I could hardly organize my thoughts. Finally I gave up.
Where are Pablito and Nestor? I asked after a long pause.
They’ll be here shortly, Lidia said briskly.
Were you with them? I asked.
No! she exclaimed, and stared at me.
We never go together, Rosa explained. Those bums are
different from us.
Lidia made an imperative gesture with her foot to shut her
up. She seemed to be the one who gave the orders. Catching
the movement of her feet brought to my awareness a most
peculiar facet of my relationship with don Juan. In the count-
less times that we had roamed together, he had succeeded in
teaching me, without really trying, a system of covert com-
munication through some coded movements of the feet. I
watched Lidia give Rosa the sign for horrible, a sign given
when anything that happens to be in sight of the signers is
unpleasant or dangerous. In this case me. I laughed. I remem-
bered that don Juan had given me that sign when I first met
don Genaro.
I pretended not to be aware of what was going on in order
to find out if I could decode all their signs.
Rosa made the sign that she wanted to step on me. Lidia
answered with an imperative sign for no.
According to don Juan, Lidia was very talented. As far as
he was concerned she was more sensitive and alert than Pab-
lito and Nestor and myself. I had always been incapable of
making friends with her. She was aloof, and very cutting.
She had enormous, black, shifty eyes that never looked straight
at anyone, high cheekbones and a chiseled nose, which was a
bit flat and broad at the bridge. I remembered her having red,
sore eyelids and everyone taunting her on account of that.
The redness of her eyelids had disappeared but she continued
to rub her eyes and blink a great deal. During my years of
association with don Juan and don Genaro I had seen Lidia
the most, and yet we had probably never exchanged more
than a dozen words with each other. Pablito regarded her as
a most dangerous being. I always thought she was just ex-
tremely shy.
Rosa, on the other hand, was very boisterous. I thought she
was the youngest. Her eyes were very frank and shiny. She
was never shifty, but very bad-tempered. I had talked with
Rosa more than anyone else. She was friendly, very bold and
very funny.
Where are the others? I asked Rosa. Aren’t they going
to come out?
They will be out shortly, Lidia answered.
I could tell from their expressions that friendliness was not
what they had in mind. Judging from their foot messages they
were as dangerous as dona Soledad, and yet as I sat there look-
ing at them it occurred to me that they were gorgeously beau-
tiful. I had the warmest feelings for them. In fact, the more
they stared into my eyes the more intense that feeling became.
At one moment it was sheer passion that I felt for them. They
were so alluring that I could have sat there for hours just look-
ing at them, but a sobering thought made me stand up. I was
not going to repeat my bungling of the night before. I decided
that the best defense was to put my cards on the table. In a
firm tone I told them that don Juan had set up some sort of
trial for me using dona Soledad, or vice versa. Chances were
that he had also set them up in the same fashion, and we were
going to be pitted against one another in some sort of battle
that could result in injury to some of us. I appealed to their
sense of warriorship. If they were the truthful heirs of don
Juan, they had to be impeccable with me, reveal their designs
and not behave like ordinary, greedy human beings.
I turned to Rosa and asked her the reason for wishing to
step on me. She was taken aback for an instant and then she
became angry. Her eyes flared with rage; her small mouth
contracted.
Lidia, in a very coherent manner, said that I had nothing to
fear from them, and that Rosa was angry with me because I
had hurt dona Soledad. Her feelings were purely a personal
reaction.
I said then that it was time I left. I stood up. Lidia made a
gesture to stop me. She seemed scared or deeply concerned.
She began to protest, when a noise coming from outside the
door distracted me. The two girls jumped to my side. Some-
thing heavy was leaning or pushing against the door. I noticed
then that the girls had secured it with the heavy iron bar. I
had a feeling of disgust. The whole affair was going to be re-
peated again and I was sick and tired of it all.
The girls glanced at each other, then looked at me and then
looked at each other again.
I heard the whining and heavy breathing of a large animal
outside the house. It might have been the dog. Exhaustion
blinded me at that point. I rushed to the door, removed the
heavy iron bar and started to open it. Lidia threw herself
against the door and shut it again.
The Nagual was right, she said, out of breath. You think
and think. You’re dumber than I thought.
She pulled me back to the table. I rehearsed, in my mind,
the best way to tell them, once and for all, that I had had
enough. Rosa sat next to me, touching me; I could feel her leg
nervously rubbing against mine. Lidia was standing facing me,
looking at me fixedly. Her burning black eyes seemed to be
saying something I could not understand.
I began to speak but I did not finish. I had a sudden and
most profound awareness. My body was aware of a greenish
light, a fluorescence outside the house. I did not see or hear
anything. I was simply aware of the light as if I were suddenly
falling asleep and my thoughts were turning into images that
were superimposed on the world of everyday life. The light
was moving at a great speed. I could sense it with my stomach.
I followed it, or rather I focused my attention on it for an
instant as it moved around. A great clarity of mind ensued
from focusing my attention on the light. I knew then that in
that house, in the presence of those people, it was wrong and
dangerous to behave as an innocent bystander.
Aren’t you afraid? Rosa asked, pointing to the door.
Her voice disrupted my concentration.
I admitted that whatever was there was scaring me at a
very deep level, enough to make me die of fright. I wanted
to say more, but right then I had a surge of wrath and I
wanted to see and talk with dona Soledad. I did not trust her.
I went directly to her room. She was not there. I began to
call her, bellowing her name. The house had one more room.
I pushed the door open and rushed inside. There was no one
in there. My anger increased in the same proportion as my
fear.
I went out the back door and walked around to the front.
Not even the dog was in sight. I banged on the front door
furiously. Lidia opened it. I entered. I yelled at her to tell me
where everybody was. She lowered her eyes and did not
answer. She wanted to close the door but I would not let her.
She quickly walked away and went into the other room.
I sat down again at the table. Rosa had not moved. She
seemed to be frozen on the spot.
We are the same, she said suddenly. The Nagual told us