"MY FATHER DELIVERED his news story, and then took me home," Monica told Will. "He locked himself in his room for a few hours while I just freaked out. I thought he was mad at me. When he came out, he was drunk. It was the one and only time in my childhood I saw him like that. He was finally able to hug me and tell me that I had done the right thing. I made him promise he wouldn't tell a soul about my confession." his news story, and then took me home," Monica told Will. "He locked himself in his room for a few hours while I just freaked out. I thought he was mad at me. When he came out, he was drunk. It was the one and only time in my childhood I saw him like that. He was finally able to hug me and tell me that I had done the right thing. I made him promise he wouldn't tell a soul about my confession."

"The part I don't understand," Will said, "is what your mother saw in the communists." He bent down to pet a mangy, skinny, black dog that had wandered into the store and looked at them with hungry, haunted eyes.

"Be careful with that dog," Monica said. "I'm sure that he hasn't been immunized." She continued, "Max was the son of our family nanny, Francisca, who cared for both my mother and me as children. Mami and Max had crushes on each other during their entire childhood, but of course, a courtship was strictly forbidden. Eventually, it became an unfulfilled Romeo and Juliet thing. By the time my mother felt strong enough to defy our family's social code, she was already married to my father, and Maximiliano was adjuntado adjuntado to someone in a common-law marriage. Obviously, he never spoke of her, and I only caught a quick glimpse of her once, in a supermarket. My mom called her 'the witch.' I was afraid of her, but I felt sorry for her too." to someone in a common-law marriage. Obviously, he never spoke of her, and I only caught a quick glimpse of her once, in a supermarket. My mom called her 'the witch.' I was afraid of her, but I felt sorry for her too."

"I wonder," Will said, "if they had just left them alone if they wouldn't have eventually grown apart and lost interest in each other, especially being from different worlds. It's the lure of forbidden fruit. ... And how did the pauper of our story get to be a medical doctor?"

Monica shrugged. "First of all, he went to some semi-accredited program in El Salvador, which issues medical degrees in less time than it takes to get a bachelor's degree in the States. My grandfather paid for it-less an altruistic gesture than a move to gain power and influence over Max. He must have had a sense that Max already had my mother hooked, and Abuelo wanted to put an end to it. Although the degree couldn't buy him a fancy practice in San Salvador, it allowed him to hang a shingle outside his door, write prescriptions, and practice general medicine as a humble country doctor. Eventually, he dedicated his medical training almost exclusively to aiding the revolutionaries. Not exactly what my grandfather had in mind."

"Ya vamos a cerrar, senorita," the shopkeeper warned. Monica negotiated another fifteen minutes, so she could finish the story. the shopkeeper warned. Monica negotiated another fifteen minutes, so she could finish the story.

"Anyway, after my confession, my mother called to tell me that the Conus Conus she had gone to see was probably not a she had gone to see was probably not a furiosus furiosus, but that she thought it was worth examining. She had placed it in a dishpan of seawater and had intended to take it back to the university lab. She was unsure when that might be because Max had asked for her help with some campesinos who needed medical attention. They were headed for El Trovador, a coastal farm not far from Negrarena. She asked me to cover for her by telling my father that she had gone to Guatemala for a few days. I told him the truth instead. Eventually, our anger was replaced by worry."

"Was your grandmother alive?"

"Yeah. But I begged my dad not to tell her what was going on. I wanted to keep it between us, because I feared an over-the-top reaction from Abuela."

Will reached across the table and took her hand, squeezed it. "I'm so sorry all this happened."

Monica nodded and gently pulled her hand away.

Will looked down, crushed the b.u.t.t of his cigar into a plastic ashtray on the table.

"Finish your story," he said, glancing up at a clock on the wall. "She's going to kick us out in five."

"There's not that much more to tell. I got to stay home from school for weeks on end. I stayed with my grandmother at the beach house. I guess we were both in a sort of personal seclusion, trying to deal with what was happening. She was always surrounded by people, always so formidable, so in control. But in the weeks after my mom went missing, Abuela doped herself up with tranquilizers and slept most of the day. Eventually, my dad told me that I should prepare myself for the probability that my mother might never come back. She didn't. A witness said they saw her thrashing far out, and so all we could conclude is that she drowned. By fall I was enrolled in junior high in Connecticut."

"What about Grandma Borrero?"

"Abuela? She came to visit us in Connecticut a few times, but my dad didn't want us to return to El Salvador. She died eight years ago."

"And so who got all your family's money?" Will asked.

Monica made a face at him and, looking around, said, "Shh. Remember where you are."

Will clamped a hand over his mouth. Monica lowered her voice too. "The short answer is Jorge, who is my great-uncle. Jorge was the only living Borrero brother by then. In her last will and testament, my grandmother left everything to my mother, a.s.suming that my mother would eventually pa.s.s it down to me. Seven years after her disappearance, Tio Jorge had my mother legally declared dead. By then my grandmother had developed Alzheimer's disease and was unable to make any adjustments to her will. Somehow, Tio Jorge got every last penny."

Will said, "It sounds like your grandmother didn't really believe your mother was dead or she would have revised the will to include you."

Monica slapped the tabletop with one hand. "That's what everyone said, that she was in denial." She paused, looking off into the distance. "But I saw her mourning. It was no show."

"She may have mourned the death of the relationship rather than the person."

"My dad's theory is that as the executor of Abuela's estate, Jorge was able to manipulate the legal process in his favor." Her eyes drifted up to the wall clock. "That's my story and our time is up." She stood, and Will paid the woman. They stepped out into the dimly lit street and headed back to the guesthouse.

In the street, they kept an eye out for danger, and Monica asked that they walk on the side of the street that was most illuminated. Will slipped his hands into his pockets, then brought his feet together and stopped.

"What?"

He looked around, crossed his arms in front of him, and stared down at the packed-dirt road. "Hmmm."

She waited, and he shifted his position, tugging at his lower lip, before he turned to her and said, "Have you ever wondered if ... your dad ..." He let the sentence trail off.

Monica tilted her head. "If my dad reported Max's whereabouts to the militares militares in a jealous fit?" in a jealous fit?"

Will shrugged. "Did it ever cross your mind?"

"Of course it did, years later. But I honestly don't think he did. He loved my mother, and he knew that it was dangerous for her to be near Max. I know in my heart that he would never send harm her way, he just wouldn't."

As she finished speaking, she felt a pair of eyes boring into her back. Her heart skipped a beat and she jumped back when she saw the black figure that was shadowing them, eyes shining in the pale light of the moon.

A second later, she laughed and put her hand over her heart when she saw that it was the dog from the restaurant. "Oh, that's bad luck."

"What's bad luck?" Will said, just as he saw the same shadow and jumped and put his arms protectively around her shoulder.

"El Cadejo is following us."

"You know this dog?"

"No, it's a local legend. If a small black dog follows you, it just might be the dreaded Cadejo. He's part of a collection of local folklore-there's a crazy woman named La Siguanaba who kills men near rivers, and she has a son who's a Freddy Krueger type." Monica looked up at the barrel-tile roofs of the small buildings, at the chipped plaster exposing brown adobe bricks beneath. She scratched her head, trying to remember. "There's also a phantom wagon, just like the rickshaw in that Kipling story. El Cadejo announces tragedy-or delivers it, I can't remember which."

Will took a step toward the dog. "Shoo! Go home, mutt."

"Shoo?" Monica said, rolling her eyes. "He doesn't know shoo shoo, Will. He doesn't speak English."

Will tried kicking one foot in the air, and the dog bowed his head but didn't budge. "How do you shoo a dog in Spanish, then?"

Monica picked up a pebble, held it up to the light. "You throw a small rock at him, then you say s.h.i.t s.h.i.t without the without the i i. Like this: Shhht." She stomped her foot and tossed the rock at the dog, which he caught in his mouth, sampled, then let drop on the sidewalk.

Will punched his fist through the air. "Wow, you really showed him."

"Chuchos are tough. They're not scared of anything but hunger." She put her hands on her hips. "If this dog is the legendary Cadejo, he has demonic powers. He might beat us home by crawling up the front of that building and appearing on the other side, just like a lizard." are tough. They're not scared of anything but hunger." She put her hands on her hips. "If this dog is the legendary Cadejo, he has demonic powers. He might beat us home by crawling up the front of that building and appearing on the other side, just like a lizard."

Will went through his pockets. "I wish I had something to give him, I feel sorry for him."

They hurried through the darkened streets, and when they pa.s.sed through the entrance of the inn, Will grabbed Monica's shoulder, turned her around, and said, "Hey."

Monica felt a sudden panic that he might kiss her, just by the way he said "Hey." She stared down at his rubber sandals, tilted her head, pushing an ear toward him with her face still turned away. "Hmm?"

"I hope you weren't offended by what I suggested about your dad. ... I was playing at being an amateur detective, but I feel badly about saying it. This is your life, for G.o.d's sake, not a whodunit novel. It was a stupid thing to say, and I apologize."

Monica looked up and smiled, relieved. "I told you, I'd thought of that possibility myself. It didn't happen that way, I'm sure of that. But it's a perfectly logical conclusion."

The innkeeper was awake and nervous and fussed at them like a mother for being out so late despite her warning. Monica thanked her for her concern and wished her a good night. Monica stepped toward Will and gave him what was supposed to be a quick hug and said, "Night." But he kept her locked in and pulled her closer to him, one arm around the small of her waist, the other around her shoulders.

"I'm glad you told me that story," he said. "I feel like I've known you for a long time."

And when he let her go, the look on his face was open and flushed and serious and made Monica dizzy. How easy it would be to bring her face a little closer to his. Just an inch or two closer and they could change the course of their budding friendship forever. It was the longest journey a chin could ever make. What unknowable danger might lurk if she were to let herself look up at him with eyes that howled the truth about her full-moon crush?

"Next time," she said, pointing a finger into the center of his chest, "it'll be your turn. We'll get cigars and you can tell me a long story about your life with Yvette."

As a cold shower, it worked. He stepped back, nodded his head, smiled briefly. "Good night, Monica Winters Borrero," he said. "See you in the morning."

Monica turned and walked down the hall toward her room. She could feel his gaze descending her dorsal side like fingers reading the braille of her backbone. She heard his fading footsteps as he disappeared down another hallway.

In her room, she went to the window. She cranked the metal handle that opened the gla.s.s jalousies. Outside, the same black dog from the store was watching her from the street, its tongue hanging out, its eerie eyes shiny and flat as metal coins. He gave Monica the creeps, so she pulled the curtains closed, not wanting to think more about the mythical Cadejo, precursor to misfortune.

chapter 12 THE CHANNEL.

Yvette Lucero remembered being on a sailboat that was motoring out of a channel. It was an overcast day, a bit chilly. Red and white buoys dotted the gray water. A large sign stated there was to be NO WAKE NO WAKE. She read the sign out loud, several times, and wondered if this meant that she should abandon hope. Still, it was a channel, and that in itself invited possibilities.

Her husband was standing at the helm, tan and handsome. He blew her a kiss and the sunlight caught on the gold band around his finger. An orange dog was moving excitedly about the deck. Yvette shivered in the damp air, looked down at her arms, and saw they were covered in gooseflesh. She rubbed herself once and got up and moved across the boat, stepped onto the ladder, and went down to look for a sweatshirt, scratching some bug bites on the backs of her legs. Her mother was sitting in the galley. She looked up and tried to hide something but it was too late, Yvette had already glimpsed a section of knitted pale green and yellow yarn in her lap. Her mother was knitting a baby blanket. Yvette wagged a finger at her and her mother smiled guiltily and pretended to be interested in the newspaper that was lying on the table. "You promised no baby pressure, remember?"

Yvette felt kinship without emotion for these two people, something like the pleasant but detached curiosity one might feel upon viewing old films of long-dead relatives whom you never met. The thrill was in discovering that a fresh strip of visual footage had been added to the meager inventory, a brand-new, never-been-seen episode appearing upon a screen that had been in a numbing and continuous loop for as long as she could remember.

She felt a needle drive into her spine again. The sailing memory bubble collapsed into a noisy fizz, and she scrambled to compact herself before the avalanche of mental snow buried her in its suffocating blue.

This time, as her anger began to rise with the pain, she wondered if there would be more gifts of memory waiting. She would consider this a fair trade. As the pain cascaded toward her, she curled up into herself. She folded into a child who shriveled into a fetus, then an embryo the size of a peppercorn, who decomposed into a zygote, then nothing but coiled strings of DNA and a tail.

She discovered that the less of her there was, the less they could hurt.

chapter 13 PALE PINK LIPS.

The crow of a rooster woke Will Lucero long before dawn. The rooster's crow alarmed a dog and triggered a compet.i.tion of howls and c.o.c.k-a-doodles that continued for hours. He wedged his head between two pillows but it was futile to pursue sleep with all the racket outside. By the time the sun began to illuminate the edges of the dusty window curtains of his rented room, he had been awake for two hours, and yet he wasn't at all irritated. As his feet stepped down on the cool tile floor, he had the sensation that he was waking up to a different world from the one he had gone to sleep in the night before. Sometime during the night, he had woken up and attached words to the absurdly premature feelings that had taken hold of him over the last week.

I'm falling in love.

When the four words came to him, they zipped into his room like a line of fireflies, buzzing and snapping with eerie luminescence. Their arrival left him stunned and unable to do anything but repeat them over and over, watching their secret display of fire and magic.

It was the closest thing to the mighty "thunderbolt" he remembered reading about in The G.o.dfather- The G.o.dfather-Michael Corleone sees Apollonia for the first time on a trip to Sicily, and in a sudden, blinding flash he is transformed into a man who is so in love he can't even remember his own name. Not exactly the same thing here, Will thought. He'd first walked into Monica's office in late May, so he'd known her for over a month now. Still, he recognized the truth in the fiction. It really does shoot you out in another dimension. The proof was that he found it amusing and even slightly charming to be woken up by c.o.c.ky farm animals two hours before dawn.

He stared at his face in the mirror as he brushed his teeth, then rinsed his mouth with bottled water. This new state of heart didn't feel at all disloyal to Yvette. For some time now he had begun to imagine that Yvette's soul was already in the next place, waiting for him. He believed it was Yvette who had sent him this gift because she could see that his time on earth would be long.

He looked up at the bare clay tiles of the ceiling. "Yvette," he mouthed. "Thank you, baby."

Sylvia wouldn't see it that way, of course, but he decided not to worry, there was no need to act on anything at this point. For now, he just wanted to enjoy the feeling of being totally smitten, like slipping into a warm bath on a cold winter's day.

He stepped into his rubber flip-flops, took his shaver, shaving foam, soap box, and towel and headed down the hall to the shared shower. Inside, there was no electricity, and the only light came through in beams of sunshine blasting through the perforations in the decorative brick that b.u.t.ted up to the ceiling. The shower had a single k.n.o.b and a single temperature-freezing cold. He remembered the innkeeper's suggestion that he shower in the afternoon, because her method of warming frigid well water consisted of piping it into a large outdoor cistern that was painted black in order to absorb the sun's heat during the day. But he was a creature of habit, and so he stuck one shin into the spray and grimaced as he forced himself to step into its stream. Goose b.u.mps sprang up on his arms and chest. He almost cried out as the needles bounced off his chest, and he soaped himself up in record-breaking speed.

As he showered, he wondered if Monica had thought about him as she laid her head on her pillow the night before. He felt himself grow warm down below at the recollection of holding her for a brief moment the night before. He impressed himself with his body's healthy reaction to the memory, considering that he was standing in a cascade of ice water.

As he dried himself with a towel, the warm, salt-heavy air lifted the chill. A cloud pa.s.sed over his breezy morning humor when he thought of the difficulty that this new beginning might face: Monica was not comfortable with his circ.u.mstances; she had made that clear last night. Still, he understood that he had entered a s.p.a.ce of possibilities. Existence in this intoxicating s.p.a.ce was usually the privilege of the very young-where some aspect of the future can still be impacted by boldness, imagination, and luck.

the posada posada, guesthouse, was built in a square, in the tradition of the old Spanish colonial style, with an overgrown courtyard at its center. On the inside, each room along the edges of the square opened directly to a hall lined with wicker chairs and rockers in various states of disrepair. Will found Bruce sitting in the hallway, drinking his coffee and talking to an old man. They both faced the garden, which was alive with the strange clicks, chirps, and calls of tropical birds, frogs, and insects. was built in a square, in the tradition of the old Spanish colonial style, with an overgrown courtyard at its center. On the inside, each room along the edges of the square opened directly to a hall lined with wicker chairs and rockers in various states of disrepair. Will found Bruce sitting in the hallway, drinking his coffee and talking to an old man. They both faced the garden, which was alive with the strange clicks, chirps, and calls of tropical birds, frogs, and insects.

There were few guests at the posada posada. In the dining room Will got a cup of coffee and a slice of flat, sweet, delicious breakfast bread rolled in sesame seeds. He pondered the day ahead: more meetings with the Caracol staff. He had to call in to work. He had left at the height of the Mystic Victorian project, and even though his father and brother had told him not to worry, he had serious concerns about their juggling the finances in his absence.

Despite his concerns about Yvette and the clinic, the trip was an unexpected mental vacation. He liked El Salvador, at least he was impressed with the natural beauty he had seen on the trip down from the capital-the looming volcanoes, the lush mountains, and the dark, desolate virginity of Negrarena. He was surprised that the capital itself was so hypercommercialized. His only point of reference was Puerto Rico, since he had never been anywhere else in Latin America. Despite Puerto Rico being part of the United States, the two places were similar in the blocky, concrete constructions of the middle cla.s.s, the iron bars over the windows, the walls and gates and thick foliage that waved in the tropical air. But even the wealthiest Puerto Ricans didn't necessarily have the live-in servants that were commonly employed by middle-cla.s.s Salvadorans. "Even the maids here have maids," Bruce had said. "You can get a live-in to work full-time, six days a week, for about a hundred and twenty dollars a month. I pay almost that much in Connecticut just to have my house cleaned once."

The part Will was not prepared for was the shocking, highly visible poverty-children running around naked, little huts made of adobe and sticks, or the occasional rash of shacks made out of tinplate and cartons. There were barefoot men peddling enormous bundles of coal or wood, which they carried on their shoulders like Atlas bearing the weight of the world. And despite the billboards advertising American brands, the place had a certain rawness-a feeling that its origins were closer to the surface, less diluted by the outside world, more cleanly contained. Perhaps the inability of the largest part of the population to afford imports kept the culture a bit unspoiled.

Will sat down on a rocker with his coffee and warm, fragrant bread next to Bruce and the old man. The old man, who hailed from Venezuela, had a white mustache that didn't match his thick, black eyebrows. He said that his grandson was at Caracol, but had not responded to treatment. He claimed he had seen two patients get up and walk out with their relatives. He pointed a finger at Will's face, got really close, and said, in Spanish, "Your wife could emerge. Get ready."

"Ready?"

The man nodded. "She won't be the same person, though, you know that?" He pressed his thumb between his index and middle finger, as if lowering the plunger of a needle. "The venom is to brain stupor"-he pointed to his head-"like a jumper cable to a dead car battery."

"A battery has to be in a certain state to accept the charge," Will replied.

"Exactly," the man said. "That's the unknown factor-does this person have any capacity left? And then, what's it going to look like when that brain receives the charge? One of the patients left Caracol a raving lunatic, strapped to a wheelchair up to the neck. By coming here you're greatly increasing the chances of an emergence but abandoning the gentleness of a slow, natural awakening. The person is altered by the jump forward in their capacity to be conscious."

Will's recall of Monica's words outside her house in Connecticut coincided with her appearance in the hallway. I felt something when I ma.s.saged her, Will. I felt life I felt something when I ma.s.saged her, Will. I felt life. He felt a little current wash through his body, and he wondered if it was obvious because he noticed Bruce looking at him oddly. Will stood up as she approached and the two older men followed suit.

"Did you all hear the rooster and the dog making all that racket this morning?" Monica said. She was wearing a marigold sundress, fitted on top and falling loose almost to her ankles, with a white seash.e.l.l necklace around her neck. Her hair was twisted behind her head, and a few coils of it had escaped and curled at the base of her neck. She wore no makeup except for a soft wash of lip gloss. The scent of acetone followed her, and the nails on her fingers and toes were a shiny, wet, pale pink. Her eyes seemed a bit darker today, green and speckled like the skin on an avocado. He laced his fingers behind his head and dared to take in a long, thirsty look at her while her father looked directly at him. Monica was the most refreshing sight he had ever laid eyes on, clean and simple and beautiful. Her presence implied coolness and sensual joy: a glimpse of cascading water on a hot, stifling day.

The older men groaned at the mention of the noisy animals, and the old man said he had searched for a machete to slice off the rooster's head, but had had no luck because it was too dark to find anything. Monica laughed and kissed her father lightly on the cheek. She looked up. "And you, my friend?" she said to Will.

"I woke up a new man today," he said. "C'mon. I'll show you where they keep the coffee." As she followed him into the dining room, he wondered if indeed it was her gaze that he felt run up and down his body, lingering somewhere in the middle-or if it was just his own memory of watching her last night, mixed with a bit of wishful thinking.

To conjure last night's sense of intimacy and camaraderie, Will thought he'd pick up the conversation at the point they had left off. "What about Maximiliano's wife?" he whispered to Monica as a servant woman put yet another wheel of cheese bread upon the dining room table.

Monica looked at him, startled. "What about her?"

"You said he had a wife. What ever happened to her?"

"Can we talk about her after I've had my coffee? Tell me how Yvette is doing."

Will poured himself another cup of coffee and took a sip, then handed her a clean set of silverware. "And what makes you think I want to discuss Yvette's imprisonment before I've had my my morning coffee?" morning coffee?"

She clinked her empty mug against his. "That's your second cup." He noticed that she carefully examined the inside of her mug, then took a napkin and wiped it before she let him pour her coffee.

"Why'd you do that?"

"Bug parts," she said. "Welcome to the jungle."