The Temptation of Demetrio Vigil (33 page)

“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.