At the moment I wanted to use Jason’s head as a soccer ball. I let go of Phaedra and pulled my wallet out. I said to Jason. “I’ll bet a twenty that in less than a minute, I’ll have you singing like a little girl.”
Jason chuckled. “A twenty, huh?”
He walked beside me. I turned and put my back to his friends. I lowered my sunglasses.
His eyes came to mine. His irises popped to the size of marbles. His red aura bloomed crimson red and his smirk sagged into a big wide O.
I whispered into his ear. “You know ‘I’m a Little Teapot’?”
“I…think…so.”
“Good. On three, start singing. Loud. Add the dancing part.”
“O…kay.”
I put my sunglasses back on and counted.
He set his hands on his hips and bounced on his knees as he sang loud, exactly as I’d told him. His buddies stared. The other students pointed and laughed.
The hypnosis would last about a minute. When it wore off, Jason would have no idea what happened, though his throat would be sore from singing so loud.
I led Phaedra to the Toyota. She watched Jason and barely smiled. I got a sense that she didn’t draw much satisfaction from his humiliation.
I did.
Phaedra climbed into the 4Runner like she wanted to leave.
I got in. “I have some questions for you.”
She kept her face down and ignored the commotion of everyone else laughing at Jason. She said, “I don’t want to talk here.”
“Understandable.” I started the engine.” Where to?”
Phaedra cinched her safety belt. “The place I go when I want to be alone.” She pointed west. “It’s my secret place. My hideout.”
Phaedra looked strained and shrunken as if she were caught in a giant fist of anxiety and unhappiness. I couldn’t pry a word out of her.
She pulled a water bottle from her backpack and sipped. For the next half mile her silence dragged across my mood like an anchor.
I slowed for the county road along Pinos Creek, the way to Gino’s. Phaedra motioned to keep going.
She fished a paper napkin from her jacket. She swiped her eyes and her nose. “Do you understand now?”
I wanted to ask, about what? But that would sound like I wasn’t paying attention. I kept quiet and waited for her to elaborate.
“Do you see what my life is like?”
“It can be hard.”
“This is just one day. They’re not going to get any better.”
“Sure they will. Soon you’ll be out of high school.”
And then? I shut up. I could see where Phaedra was going with this. After graduation the worst symptoms of the Huntington’s would begin.
Phaedra looked out the side window.
“That was you last night?”
She cocked her head toward me.
“The mind signals,” I said.
“Who else could it have been?”
“Just making sure. The world of the supernatural still surprises me.”
“What’s your point?” she asked.
“Thanks. You saved me last night.”
She shrugged. You’re welcome.
I asked, “How did you know Cleto and the others were coming after me?”
“I overheard my uncle give them orders.”
“What orders?”
“You want his exact words?”
“If you remember.”
“They were, kill Gomez. Exact enough?”
“Why didn’t you call? I don’t like you using the mind power on me.”
“I couldn’t,” Phaedra snapped. “It was late and I’d left my phone in the kitchen. I couldn’t fetch it. My uncle was up all night and he would’ve seen me.” Her cheeks flushed with anger. “You know what?”
I made eye contact.
She moved to punch my arm. I caught her fist.
She squirmed to pull her hand free. “You don’t trust me.”
I let go of her hand. “I want to trust you.”
“Then start.” She rubbed her knuckles. “You can be such a jerk.”
Jerk? I’d expected insensitive asshole. Jerk had such an adolescent accuracy that the comment stung.
“Being a jerk comes from being careful.”
“Do you trust me or not?” she asked.
Times like now, Phaedra tormented me like an itch I couldn’t reach. “Yes, I trust you.”
“Was that hard?” She turned in her seat away from me and mumbled, “I thought vampires were cool.”
That itch was acting up.
When we passed a gravel road going north, she said, “That’s where I live with my uncle.”
I slowed for a look. Oaks and lindens created a tunnel over the road, which ran straight to a one-story house with a chain-link fence. “Want to stop?”
“No, keep going.”
After another mile she told me to turn south. We took a narrow paved road that curved up an incline into the pine trees. The asphalt ended at a steel gate along a barbed wire fence. A sign on the gate read: NO ACCESS. RIO GRANDE NATIONAL FOREST.
I halted. Phaedra hopped out in an animated rush. She lifted the chain looped over a post at one end of the gate and waved me through. I drove onto a dirt road. She secured the chain behind us and got back in.
Her expression transformed, like she’d changed masks, from sad to happy.
The road turned into a trail that became a wide spot between the trees. We got as far as we could without plowing into the brush.
We both got out. Phaedra slung her backpack over her shoulders. The trees filtered warmth from the sunlight and I felt the chill against my face. Dense mats of pine needles and patches of dry grass spread across the rocky ground.
Phaedra hiked beside me. We started at a brisk pace but she tired and slowed.
She motioned that she wanted to rest and sat against a large boulder mottled with lichen. She guzzled from her water bottle. Up here, the air remained cool enough for the vapor in her breath to show.
“Where’s your hideout?” I asked.
She pointed to the trees behind her.
I saw nothing but forest.
Her eyes made a look-again expression.
This time I saw a horizontal line among the Ponderosa pines. It was the roof of an earth-colored shack that blended into the surroundings.
I followed Phaedra toward the shack. As we got closer I could see that the shack was made of adobe daubed with mud. The vigas and rough lumber holding up the roof had bleached to the same soft gray as the dead wood around us.
“Kind of hard to get to,” I said.
“It’s a hideout. That’s the point.” Phaedra removed brush that had rolled against the shack and helped camouflage it. The eaves of the pitched roof came to my chest.
I asked, only half joking, “Who made this? Midgets?”
“Penitentes.” She went to the south side of the shack.
“Penitentes?” I repeated, analyzing the word as I translated it. “Those who seek penance?”
“They were a lay order of the Franciscans.” Phaedra led me to a short door. “They migrated to the San Luis Valley from Santa Fe almost two hundred years ago.”
The door was the same bleached color as the rest of the wood. The planks were uneven and held in place with rusted square-faced nails. She swiveled a board on the door and stuck her hand through the gap. After fumbling with a lever arrangement, she pushed the door open. “This is called a morada. Means dwelling but it’s more like a little chapel. There used to be dozens all up and down these parts. It’s what the town was named after.”
“So why did they build this place up here?” I asked.
“To hide their secret rituals. Rites of self-flagellation. They used cactus and whips made from yucca.” Phaedra said this with an enthusiastic lilt like she would’ve enjoyed watching.
“What a fun bunch,” I said. “I would’ve come here for drinks and to play cards.”
We ducked through the low doorway and stepped down to a dirt floor. Inside, the ceiling was tall enough for me to stand upright. Wire hooks dangled from the joists. Smudges on the wood marked where people had once hung lanterns.