"What happened with this last hotel?" I asked. "Was it a success?"

"It didn't burn, if that's what you mean," Domingo said. "However, the resort did not thrive. The Grand Canyon was becoming the tourist spot of choice. The Phoenix Hotel opened in 1886 to much fanfare and publicity. It closed in 1893 after losing money for several years in a row. Some estimates say it was losing as much as forty thousand dollars a year-and that was the value of the 1890s dollar."

"But the hotel wasn't wrecked," I said, "and no vandals burned it-so it must not have stood empty all that time."

"No," Domingo agreed, "it did not. Since it was closed as a hotel, the building has been a sanitorium, a YMCA, a Baptist College, a social club, a summer resort, a film-company headquarters, and a Catholic seminary. It even served as a training camp for a famous boxer in the early nineteen hundreds. In between, it often stood empty. I remember coming up here and sneaking in through a broken window to explore. My friends did this more often than I did, and several of them even lived here as members of a 'Chicano power' group when they were students at Highlands University."

"But you didn't?" I asked.

"No." Domingo shook his head. "The Castle interests me, I will not deny that, but I could not live here."

There was something in the way he said "could not" that rang warning bells, reminding me of how he had spoken of his worry that the House might not like him learning conservation techniques by working here. It occurred to me that the way Domingo spoke of Phineas House was how someone might speak of a demanding parent-or lover.

I felt obscurely jealous.

"Shall we walk around the outside, then go in, Mira?" Domingo asked.

"Sounds good," I said, and fibbing valiantly. "I can't wait to see what's inside."

If from the outside, the Montezuma Castle was overwhelming in its size and stony solidity, once on the inside, it overwhelmed the senses with not only the present beauty but a sense of past hopes and dreams.

In the entry foyer, now the King Hussein Welcome Hall, the registration desk had been preserved, along with the hundreds of tiny cubbyholes that once held room keys. The shining painted door to the hotel safe remained, though the safe was no longer in use. The enormous terra-cotta brick fireplace balanced against the honey-glow of polished woodwork everywhere.

The dining hall, though converted to the needs of a functional college, still was framed by elaborate stained glass windows, their jewel tones in vibrant argument with the two lime-green and yellow, six hundred pound, handmade glass fixtures hanging from the ceiling in the room's center. The intricacies of the modern glass sculpture fascinated me, but even as I admired them, they reminded me of Medusa on a particularly bad bad-hair day.

Although I had originally looked forward to this tour, I found I wasn't eager to probe the building's secrets. The Castle tingled against my senses as bright colors normally did, teasing me with an added intensity that shouldn't have been there given the structure's muted hues. I resisted an urge to flee, reminding myself over and over again that I had been the one to ask Domingo for this tour.

Domingo's tour was idiosyncratic to say the least. He told me how the new elevator shaft had been drilled and how the old one was now used as a cable conduit. He told me about ceilings lowered just a few inches to permit wires to be run without being visible, and about the challenges involved in putting in sprinkler systems without ruining the elaborate ornamental patterns that adorned the ceilings of some rooms.

"And, of course, given the history of fires in this building's various incarnations," I said, "no one was going to skimp on fireproofing-even if it did mean drilling through ornamental work."

"Better a small hole," Domingo said, "than a large fire."

The Castle possessed a liberal scattering of stained-glass windows, many meticulously restored with glass that perfectly matched those panes that had survived vandalism and ill use. Even amid my tension, their colors made my heart sing. I soothed myself with the way they took the clear brilliance of the New Mexico sunshine and transformed it into almost solid color.

Like a kaleidoscope, I thought, and wished I'd thought to bring one of the teleidoscopes along. It would be fun to see the detail here replicated into shifting mandalas.

Domingo explained that parts of the Castle were still sealed off, awaiting need, and, quite honestly, reducing the cost of the tremendously expensive restoration. Millions had already been spent-ironic, considering the original hotel had cost something like $750,000.

"All that could be done to restore the structure and preserve it from further decay was done," Domingo said, as if he were reassuring me, "but the expense of cosmetic work in areas that were not needed for classrooms or offices was a necessary savings."

"What parts did you work on?" I asked.

"Bits of everything," he said, "but perhaps I am proudest of the work done on window frames and doors. Wherever possible, the original wood was restored and reused. However, the doors had not held up as well, and replicas were made. We took great care that the replicas match the originals. There are no cheap hollow-core doors here, no aluminum window sashes."

Again, I had the sense that he was telling me something important. I tried to find out more.

"I suppose that the need for wood was because it will shrink and expand with the changes in the weather, not like metal."

"That is so," Domingo said. "Metal is fine in many types of construction, but not always against wood. A wooden house with wooden fixtures swells and contracts with the weather-almost as if it is breathing."

I felt I was close to something there, but I couldn't quite grasp it-and I was afraid to ask more. There was an unwritten rule here-I knew that much. Domingo might hint, but he could not tell me what he knew or suspected.

Or perhaps I was reading too much into his words. Maybe they were nothing more than what any devoted conservationist might say when faced with the damage modern construction techniques can cause in an old house. Hadn't Domingo explained to me how the steel trusses put up in the late thirties to support the vast expanse of the dining room floor had ended up damaging the very structure they were meant to hold? Hadn't I myself seen how a metal screw or nail used to mend a piece of antique furniture would eventually split and ruin the wood?

"I'm amazed at how well the Castle adapted to use as a school building-and the care that was taken to do the work," I said. "Wouldn't it have been easier to wreck the place and start over?"

"Easier ... maybe," Domingo said, "but remember, the Castle is not just a beloved local landmark. It was named one of 'America's Treasures' by the White House Millennium Council in 1998. It was the first property west of the Mississippi to be so honored. More than local protest would have been raised if it had been destroyed."

"And," I said, thinking out loud, "preservation of such a building is right in keeping with the mission statement of the United World College. I don't mean they're dedicated to architecture, but they are to preservation-of cultures, of peaceful interaction. Saving a lovely old building and showing that old ways can blend with new needs is almost a metaphor for what they're doing."

"I think they would like that you see this, Mira," Domingo said. "I think some of the administrators may have taken criticism for spending so much money on a building when there are so many other problems in the world that need to be solved. It is not spoken of, of course, but whenever a vast sum is expended on one thing, there are always those who think it should have been spent on another."

"Like the story in the Bible," I said, "about Mary Magdalene and Judas arguing over how she should have sold the ointment she rubbed on Jesus's feet to raise money for the poor. Sometimes we need beauty and grandeur to inspire us to be the best we can be-to remind us of what humans are capable of when they turn their minds to something beyond the purely practical. We have the capacity for art, for beauty. I think we should use it."

Domingo reached out and squeezed my hand, a brief touch, quickly retracted, hardly different from what Hannah might do, but I felt his warmth against my skin when he dropped his hand away.

"Mira, you must have been an inspiration to all those children in Ohio. I hope that you will not stop teaching-wherever you choose to stay."

He coughed then, and turned to lead the way up a wonderfully curving staircase that went into one of the towers. I followed, light footed and with a fluttering heart, feeling ridiculously pleased.

Careful, Mira. Spanish people touch a lot more than Anglos do. He may not have meant anything more than what he said. Don't start having a midlife crisis now, and getting all goofy over a man just because you're newly orphaned and out of place.

But my sensible self couldn't convince my heart. I was getting far too fond of Domingo Navidad to pretend his words-and the hint that he cared whether I stayed or went-didn't matter.

We did a lot more touring that long weekend. After I swore I could handle more walking, Domingo took me to the Hermit's Cave, where, in the latter eighteen hundreds, resided an Italian mystic who the locals claimed could heal at a touch. I liked the story, which seemed to belong to the misty reaches of the Middle Ages in Europe, rather than to almost modem times, but I liked it even better when Domingo told me how the Hermit always denied doing anything magical, saying that all he did was use medical techniques he had learned in his travels.

Eventually, the Hermit left the Las Vegas area-maybe because of the strain of being regarded as a living saint. Sadly, soon after he took up his new residence, he was murdered. The killer was never found.

We went to the campus of Highlands University and walked among the fine solidity of its building. Highlands began as a branch of something called the "Normal" University system. Domingo admitted he had no idea what this meant, but that old books frequently referred to the Normal University as one of the highlights of Las Vegas. Domingo proudly told me that today Highlands is increasingly important to education in northern New Mexico.

As contrast to the Normal, we drove by and looked at the exterior of the State Hospital. There Domingo told me both about how the early insane asylum had developed from the charity of a single Spanish don, and about the doctor who stripped down to their skeletons the corpses of those indigent patients who died without family or friends to care about what happened to their bodies.

I found myself wondering if Colette had really been a resident of that formidable institution, and was happy that it was a holiday, so I wasn't tempted to go in and ask.

From Domingo's tales I realized anew how violent this region had been. Today it is rather thrilling to read about the presence of outlaws and vigilantes, but for the farmers and shopkeepers who were their victims they were rarely heroes.

Although we were gone for long spans each day, I doubt Phineas House felt neglected. After a few restaurant meals, Domingo and I found ourselves drifting back to that property where we dwelt both together and apart. One day I cooked chicken on the grill. Another Domingo made some of the best burritos I'd ever had. It was very companionable, but for that one handclasp and those enigmatic roses, Domingo behaved with perfect friendliness, and I reluctantly decided he probably wasn't interested in me at all. It was Evelina, his sister, who called and invited me to join them at the family cookout on Labor Day itself.

Maybe he's gay, I thought. He's never been married. Maybe his heart was irrevocably broken by someone. I wish I knew Evelina better and could ask a few questions. I'd hate to make a fool of myself though.

And Evelina, busy with coordinating a cookout for what seemed like at least half her neighborhood, was hardly available for intimate chats. I tried to take comfort in the fact that Domingo didn't seem interested in any of the many attractive women who chatted with him over the course of the afternoon, but then he didn't treat me any differently either.

I tossed sticks for Blanco, played catch with Enrico, and made small talk with the other guests. It would have been a good party, but for my nagging sense that I was missing at least one subtext to the weekend-and my sensible self telling me that in this, at least, I was simply fooling myself.

15.

It is feared that the soul, projected out of the person in the shape of his reflection in the mirror, may be carried off by the ghost of the departed.

-Sir James G. Frazer,

The Golden Bough

INSIDE THE LINES.

After the emotional ups and downs of the weekend, the arrival of Tuesday and the return of the painting crew was a distinct relief. I went out and painted some griffins that were guarding the exterior of a dormered window outside the music room. I listened to the painters' anecdotes about their adventures over the weekend, and was pleased to find my command of colloquial Spanish had gotten a whole lot better.

Indeed, I had to restrain myself from teasing a young fellow after he told a rather ribald story-one he certainly would not have told if he'd known I understood. I'd read the same anecdote almost word for word in a book. Happily, one of his fellows called him on it, and I had the pleasure of listening to the young man's attempts to defend himself.

Moreover, I had the pleasure of feeling like one of the crew. They weren't gossiping about me behind my back or grumbling about my odd demands for precise colors and detail. They were simply enjoying doing a challenging job right.

It was a good time, but when the mail arrived late morning, bringing with it the box from Betty Boswell, I was glad to clamber down from my ladder and see what she had sent along from Aunt May's library.

Betty had chosen eight books, one volume of which was the abridged Golden Bough Aunt May had mentioned. Two others must be the dictionary set she had been sold by the sympathetic bookseller. The other five were familiar to me in that I remembered seeing them on Aunt May's bookshelf, but as I'd never shared her interest in comparative religions-beyond the field trips we'd taken together-I hadn't done more than dip into them.

Now I picked up the Frazer and started browsing. Once I got a feel for his writing style, it was surprisingly absorbing stuff. I carried the book with me into the kitchen and read about priest-kings, dying gods, and fertility rituals while I munched on a sandwich.

Frazer didn't have a whole lot on mirrors, but what he did have gave me a new perspective. He discussed reflections in the same section that he did shadows. Essentially, he didn't define a great deal of difference between the two: Both were copies of the self, both were thought by primitive peoples to be vulnerable to magical attack.

I thought how, as with the tale of Snow White's stepmother and her magical mirror, these ideas had continued down to the present day. Peter Pan met Wendy because he lost his shadow. Hadn't she sewn it back onto his foot? And wasn't there a Mary Poppins story where Jane and Michael's shadows come to life and take the children to some party? I was sure there was. The story ended with all those whose shadows had gone out without them coming sleepwalking to look for them-they felt the loss, as, well, as if their own souls had gone from them.

How did this fit in with my mother's obsession with mirrors? Frazer claimed that mirrors and reflecting pools were to be avoided, lest one's soul be taken away. Colette had surrounded herself with mirrors, doted upon her own reflection.

Mildly frustrated, I selected another book from the collection: Robert Graves's The White Goddess. Skimming, I gathered that the author was attempting an even more ambitious effort at comparative religion than Frazer had. Graves's goal was to find connections for the present day back to an ancient Moon Goddess, something that he saw as a lost feminine principle.

Hope fluttered in my heart as I flipped back to the index, for Colette was most certainly a very feminine female. However, Graves disappointed me. I only found one reference to mirrors. This proved to be part of a discussion of mermaids, which in turn seemed to be part of a discussion of Muses.

Graves seemed not to know what to do with the mirror in question. In one sentence he dismissed it as a possible artist error-a substitution for, of all things, a quince! In the same sentence, with only a semicolon's pause to note his shift, he says that the mirror probably stood for "know thyself" and was a part of some ancient mysteries. By the end of the paragraph, again without any explanation other than his own fluid connectivity, Graves states that the mirror was an emblem for vanity.

Remembering Colette at her makeup table, that aptly named "vanity," I could almost believe this last, but in the end I found Graves too facile for me, and put the volume aside.

Graves had mentioned several names that were not familiar to me, so next I reached for the dictionary. The entries were terse, even cryptic, but tantalizing. I hunted up the entry for mirrors, and found it satisfactorily substantial. Skimming over the brief list of words associated with mirrors, I found hints of both Graves and Frazer. Doubtless, were I better read in the area, I would have recognized the contributions of other eminent scholars. Toward the very end of the entry were subcategories related to specific mirrors. One of these entries seemed oddly familiar, but I couldn't place why. Aunt May had said something about this section, but this was something else ... .

It was a reference to seven mirrors that in the cabalistic tradition were tied to specific types of divination. Unlike the references in Frazer and Graves, these were very solid, practical mirrors. The dictionary's brief listing included what metals each mirror was to be made of, the planets each was associated with, and noted that each was meant to be used on a specific day of the week in order to divine answers to specific types of questions.

I'd been looking at the books in the first-floor front parlor, and now I rested the thick volume in my lap, trying to figure out why this seemed not precisely familiar-I was sure I had never encountered anything like this before-but somehow connected to something I'd seen, and recently, too. Then it hit me, and I got to my feet so quickly that I nearly dropped the dictionary. Instead I tucked it under my arm and rushed up the stairs to Colette's room.

Now that I knew how it was done, I managed to get the secret compartment holding the kaleidoscopes open quickly, without spilling the contents all over the floor. Examining the neat rows of kaleidoscopes I found what I had remembered. Seven of the kaleidoscopes were inscribed with emblems I vaguely associated with various planets. There was the round circle with the dot in the center that stood for the Sun. There was the circle with the arrow coming off it at an angle that today is more commonly used to mean "male," but started as the sign for the planet Mars. There was its mate, the circle with the cross below that stands for both "female" and "Venus."

I'd have to look the others up, but I was sure about these. I lifted out the kaleidoscope marked with the Sun sign, and checked its characteristics against those listed in the dictionary. The outer casing was of hand-beaten gold, the shining, ruddy warmth of the metal still showing tiny hammer marks. I put the eyepiece to my eye, and was delighted by mandalas of gold-dust intermixed with minute rubies and multifaceted golden topaz.

The next kaleidoscope in line bore the characteristic crescent shape that even small children know is the mark of the Moon. This casing was dull grey, but when I rubbed my finger against the metal, the tarnish came away, revealing the gleaming metallic white of pure silver. The silver within the object chamber at the kaleidoscope's end had fared better than the casing, probably because the object chamber was sealed away from the outer air. Flakes of metal shown silver-white, mingling in patterns with the bluish white opacity of moonstones and the pale pastels of irregular pearls.

Mars came next, out of order in how we post-Galileans arrange the solar system, but making perfect sense in the ancient order of things. After the Moon, anyone can see that Mars and Venus are our closest neighbors.

The casing for this kaleidoscope was also dull grey, but no amount of rubbing brightened it, for the metal in question was the war god's favorite metal: iron. In a damper climate, the metal might have shown rust, but New Mexico's dryness had preserved the iron's dull solidity. The images I viewed through the kaleidoscope's eyepiece were anything but dull. Here the red planet was given his due, his warrior's booty. Rubies glittered against bloodstones, jasper, agate, garnets, and even against chips of ruddy sandstone.

I only looked briefly through this eyepiece, because according to the dictionary, the day on which the Mars mirror was used was Tuesday, when the kaleidoscope might be consulted as to enemies and lawsuits, neither of which I thought I had-and if I did, I didn't really want to know.

My own superstitious reluctance to look made me hesitate, considering whether I'd spent too many hours reading books whose authors seemed to at least half-believe in their subject matter. Wasn't I a practical woman? I was a schoolteacher, for heaven's sake! Then I looked around the room where I sat, remembered where I was, remembered, too, how this room had come to be so spotlessly clean. If I could accept the silent women, then there was a lot more I needed to accept.

Even so, I put the iron-cased kaleidoscope back in its holder and reached for the next one. Here the formula called for a mirror of crystal encasing mercury. The kaleidoscope maker had invoked this by making the case from slabs of smokey quartz crystal, the rock nearly transparent in some places, in others heavily veined with darker lines. This was the first of the lot not constructed in the "traditional" round-barrel shape usually associated with kaleidoscopes. Instead, the casing was a rough triangle, the seams joined with a metal solder.

I studied the case, thinking about what I knew regarding how kaleidoscopes are made. It had been that knowledge as much as the planetary emblems on each case that had made me think of these devices when I'd read the entry about the seven cabalistic divining mirrors.

You see, the working heart of every kaleidoscope is a reflective surface-essentially, a mirror. In a cheap child's toy, this might simply be a folded piece of metal with a polished inner surface. In the more elaborate kaleidoscopes, high-grade mirrors are used, at least two for each reflecting system. Two-and three-mirror kaleidoscopes are the most common, but more mirrors can be used, as long as the reflecting chamber is properly aligned. The shape of the mandala the viewer will see is affected not only by the number, color, and quality of the mirrors used, but also by the angle at which the mirrors are placed.

The casing exists for no other reason than to hold the mirrors in place. I'd demonstrated this to my students in a summer "Art and Science" course, showing them how a simple kaleidoscope could be made with mirrors, duct tape, and a small plastic container to serve as an object chamber. These makeshifts were neither pretty, nor particularly durable, and my students always agreed it was worth the trouble to make a casing.

In my classes, we usually used premade cylinders, everything from potato chip cans to cardboard tubes to PVC piping. However, as the kaleidoscope in my hand showed, a triangle encasing the mirrors could work as well or better. At arts-andcrafts shows, I've seen casings with six or eight sides; I've seen cases created from stained glass, polished wood, and precious metals. The Victorians, who were the first to enjoy kaleidoscopes after Sir David Brewster invented them in 1813, loved elaborate exteriors for their "elegant philosophical toys." In the intervening years during which the kaleidoscope was relegated to a role as a cheap children's toy, these elaborate exteriors were neglected, but I doubt they ever will be again.

But no matter how elaborate, the casing isn't the kaleidoscope. If the mirrors are the heart, and the eyepiece, well, the eyes, then the object chamber is the guts. The object chamber is the container that holds the objects that tumble and twist, ready to be transformed into an infinity of mandalas when the kaleidoscope is turned. As with other aspects of Professor Brewster's creation, object chambers have evolved over time. Some use stained-glass wheels. Others are brackets meant to hold interchangeable spheres-often your standard cat's-eye marble. Still others hold viscous liquids in which various objects are suspended. The patterns of these last never remain constant, but are in constant motion.

When I looked into the Mercury kaleidoscope, I saw that this object chamber held liquids. The heavy, silvery one was almost certainly real quicksilver. The others might have been colored oils. They shifted and slipped about each other, carrying with them drifts of glitter and infinitesimal emeralds. Tomorrow, if I wished, I could consult this one on matters relating to finance.

I set the Mercury kaleidoscope back in its place, then lifted the next, the one dedicated to Jupiter. The tin casing had resisted tarnish better than had the silver. Moreover, the artist had followed a Spanish tradition and pierced the surface in intricate patterns. Usually, pierced tin is used to decorate lamp shades and candelabra, to let the light can shine through. This artist had instead put a thin layer of gold foil beneath the tin. It created a fine illusion, giving back the lamplight in irregular little stars.

Examining the interior of Jupiter's kaleidoscope, I felt fairly certain that the mirrors used for the reflective chamber were tin, just as the cabalistic spell had demanded. They gave back the light more reluctantly than did the silver or gold, but with a muted steadiness. Jupiter's object chamber was dominated by white and azure. I saw tiny lightning bolts intermixed with the gems and bits of glass, and wondered if I augured for success with this, if they would form some sort of recognizable pattern.

There were two kaleidoscopes left. Venus's copper sheath had greened, but as with Mars's iron, Saturn's dull lead stubbornly refused to be affected by the passage of time. Again, the items in each object chamber were coordinated to the colors and symbols related to the appropriate planets, the kaleidoscopic patterns brilliant and enigmatic.

As I set Saturn's kaleidoscope back in its place in the drawer, I wondered how one actually used these to divine. The dictionary's entry had been complete, as far as it went, but offered no directions as to how these divining tools were to be used. Did I just gaze into them as a carnival gypsy did into her crystal ball, or did I need to say magic words or wave my hands or something?

In my reading, I had come across a reference to the need to smear oil on the divining tool in question-though that one had been a polished shield, rather than a mirror. Did I need to do something similar here? The kaleidoscopes were sealed systems, but maybe the elaborate casings played a role in the effectiveness of these divining scopes that they did not in a normal kaleidoscope.

And how did the teleidoscopes fit into my evolving theory that Colette had employed these as divining objects? Unlike the kaleidoscopes, teleidoscopes lacked an object chamber. Effectively, the world served as the object chamber for a teleidoscope. The type of lens set at the end-Colette's all seemed to be spheres-affected how those external scenes were transmitted to the mirrors, but that was all.

I opened the drawer containing the teleidoscopes and studied their casings. They did differ from each other, but there was no tidy planetary symbol to tell me what each might be used for. I considered what the different names Brewster had given his creations meant-for although the word "kaleidoscope" has entered our general language, coming to mean any repeating image, or even any broad view, the word did not exist before Brewster coined it for his invention.

Brewster derived "kaleidoscope" from three Greek words meaning "to see a beautiful form." "Teleidoscope" in turn meant "distant-form viewing." Thus, the kaleidoscope seemed to be intended to be employed to see beauty, to create art. The teleidoscope's purpose didn't seem much different from a telescope, a "far-seer." I guess Brewster must have been less impressed with the teleidoscope than with the kaleidoscope, or maybe any word he could invent that would mean "to see the world busted up into fragments and rearranged into interesting patterns" would simply have been too much of a tongue twister.