The Second Ring of Power (3 page)

I paced on the floor again. The bed had been placed at the very
epicenter of some converging
lines. The clay slabs had been cut in
sharp angles to create converging motifs that seemed to
radiate
out from under the bed.

"I have no words to tell you how impressed I am," I said.

"Words! Who needs words?" she said cuttingly.

I had a flash of insight. My reason had been betraying me. There was
only one possible way of
explaining her magnificent
metamorphosis; don Juan must have made her his apprentice. How
else
could an old woman like dona Soledad turn into such a weird, powerful being?
That should have been obvious to me from the moment I laid eyes on her, but my
set of expectations about her had not included that possibility.

I deduced that whatever don Juan had done to her must have taken place
during the two years I had not seen her, although two years seemed hardly any
time at all for such a superb alteration.

"I think I know now what happened to you," I said in a casual
and cheerful tone. "Something
has cleared up in my mind right
now."

"Oh, is that so?" she said, thoroughly uninterested.

"The Nagual is teaching you to be a sorceress, isn't that
true?"

She glared at me defiantly. I felt that I had said the worst possible
thing. There was an
expression of true contempt on her face. She was
not going to tell me anything.

"What a bastard you are!" she exclaimed suddenly, shaking with
rage.

I thought that her anger was unjustified. I sat down on one end of the
bed while she nervously
tapped on the floor with her heel.
Then she sat down on the other end, without looking at me.
"What
exactly do you want me to do?" I asked in a firm and intimidating tone.

"I told you already! " she said in a yell. "You and I are
the same."

I asked her to explain her meaning and not to assume for one instant
that I knew anything.
Those statements angered her even more.
She stood up abruptly and dropped her skirt to the
ground.

"This is what I mean!" she yelled, caressing her pubic area.

My mouth opened involuntarily. I became aware that I was staring at her
like an idiot.
"You and I are one here!" she said.

I was dumbfounded. Dona Soledad, the old Indian woman, mother of my
friend Pablito, was
actually half-naked a few feet away from me,
showing me her genitals. I stared at her, incapable
of formulating
any thoughts. The only thing I knew was that her body was not the body of an
old
woman. She had beautifully muscular thighs, dark and
hairless. The bone structure of her hips as
broad, but
there was no fat on them.

She must have noticed my scrutiny and flung herself on the bed.

"You know what to do," she said, pointing to her pubis.
"We are one here."

She uncovered her robust breasts.

"Dona Soledad, I implore you!" I exclaimed. "What's come
over you? You're Pablito's
mother."

"No, I'm not! " she snapped. "I'm no one's mother."

She sat up and looked at me with fierce eyes.

"I am just like you, a piece of the Nagual," she said.
"We're made to mix."

She opened her legs and I jumped away.

"Wait a minute, dona Soledad," I said. "Let's talk for a
while."

I had a moment of wild fear, and a sudden crazy thought occurred to me.
Would it be possible, I asked myself, that don Juan was hiding somewhere around
there laughing his head off?

"Don Juan!" I bellowed.

My yell was so loud and profound that dona Soledad jumped off her bed
and covered herself
hurriedly with her skirt. I saw her putting it on
as I bellowed again.

"Don Juan!"

I ran through the house bellowing don Juan's name until my throat was
sore. Dona Soledad, in the meantime, had run outside the house and was standing
by my car, looking puzzled at me. I walked over to her and asked her if don
Juan had told her to do all that. She nodded affirmatively. I asked if he was
around. She said no.

"Tell me everything," I said.

She told me that she was merely following don Juan's orders. He had
commanded her to
change her being into a warrior's in order to help
me. She declared that she had been waiting for
years to
fulfill that promise.

"I'm very strong now," she said softly. "Just for you.
But you disliked me in my room, didn't
you?"

I found myself explaining that I did not dislike her, that what counted
were my feelings for
Pablito; then I realized that I did not
have the vaguest idea of what I was saying.

Dona Soledad seemed to understand my embarrassing position and said
that our mishap had to
be forgotten.

"You must be famished," she said vivaciously. "I'll make
you some food."

"There's a lot that you haven't explained to me," I said.
"I'll be frank with you, I wouldn't stay
here for
anything in the world. You frighten me."

"You are obligated to accept my hospitality, if it is only for a
cup of coffee," she said
unruffled. "Come, let's forget
what happened."

She made a gesture of going into the house. At that moment I heard a
deep growl. The dog
was standing, looking at us, as if he understood
what was being said.

Dona Soledad fixed a most frightening gaze on me. Then she softened it
and smiled.

"Don't let my eyes bother you," she said. "The truth is
that I am old. Lately I've been getting
dizzy. I think
I need glasses."

She broke into a laugh and clowned, looking through cupped fingers as
if they were glasses.
"An old Indian woman with glasses!
That'll be a laugh," she said giggling.

I made up my mind then to be rude and get out of there, without any
explanation. But before I
drove away I wanted to leave some
things for Pablito and his sisters. I opened the trunk of the car
to
get the gifts I had brought for them. I leaned way into it to reach first for
the two packages that
were lodged against the wall of the
back seat, behind the spare tire. I got hold of one and was
about
to grab the other when I felt a soft, furry hand on the nape of my neck. I
shrieked
involuntarily and hit my head on the open lid. I turned
to look. The pressure of the furry hand did
not let me
turn completely, but I was able to catch a fleeting glimpse of a silvery arm or
paw
hovering over my neck. I wriggled in panic and pushed
myself away from the trunk and fell down
on my seat with
the package still in my hand. My whole body shook, the muscles of my legs
contracted and I found myself leaping up and running away.

"I didn't mean to frighten you," dona Soledad said
apologetically, as I watched her from ten
feet away.

She showed me the palms of her hands in a gesture of surrender, as if
assuring me that what I
had felt was not her hand.

"What did you do to me?" I asked, trying to sound calm and
detached.

She seemed to be either thoroughly embarrassed or baffled. She muttered
something and
shook her head as though she could not say it, or did not
know what I was talking about.

"Come on, dona Soledad," I said, coming closer to her,
"don't play tricks on me."

She seemed about to weep. I wanted to comfort her, but some part of me
resisted. After a
moment's pause I told her what I had felt and seen.

"That's just terrible!" She said in a shrieking voice.

In a very childlike gesture she covered her face with her right forearm.
I thought she was
crying. I came over to her and tried to put my arm
around her shoulders. I could not bring myself to do it.

"Come now, dona Soledad," I said, "let's forget all this
and let me give you these packages
before I leave."

I stepped in front of her to face her. I could see her black, shining
eyes and part of her face
behind her arm. She was not crying. She
was smiling.

I jumped back. Her smile terrified me. Both of us stood motionless for
a long time. She kept
her face covered but I could see her
eyes watching me.

As I stood there almost paralyzed with fear I felt utterly despondent. I
had fallen into a
bottomless pit. Dona Soledad was a witch. My body
knew it, and yet I could not really believe it. What I wanted to believe was
that dona Soledad had gone mad and was being kept in the house
instead
of an asylum.

I did not dare move or take my eyes away from her. We must have stayed
in that position for five or six minutes. She had kept her arm raised and yet
motionless. She was standing at the rear
of the car,
almost leaning against the left fender. The lid of the trunk was still open. I
thought of
making a dash for the right door. The keys were in the
ignition.

I relaxed a bit in order to gain the momentum to run. She seemed to
notice my change of
position immediately. Her arm moved down, revealing
her whole face. Her teeth were clenched.
Her eyes were
fixed on mine. They looked hard and mean. Suddenly she lurched toward me. She
stomped
with her right foot, like a fencer, and reached out with clawed hands to grab
me by my waist as she let out the most chilling shriek.

My body jumped back out of her reach. I ran for the car, but with
inconceivable agility she
rolled to my feet and made me trip over
her. I fell facedown and she grabbed me by the left foot. I
contracted
my right leg, and I would have kicked her in the face with the sole of my shoe
had she
not let go of me and rolled back. I jumped to my feet
and tried to open the door of the car. It was
locked. I threw
myself over the hood to reach the other side but somehow dona Soledad got there
before I did. I tried to roll back over the hood, but midway I felt a
sharp pain in my right calf. She
had grabbed me by the leg. I could not
kick her with my left foot; she had pinned down both of
my
legs against the hood. She pulled me toward her and I fell on top of her. We
wrestled on the
ground. Her strength was magnificent and her
shrieks were terrifying. I could hardly move under
the gigantic
pressure of her body. It was not a matter of weight but rather tension, and she
had it.
Suddenly I heard a growl and the enormous dog jumped on
her back and shoved her away from
me. I stood up. I wanted to get
into the car, but the woman and the dog were fighting by the door.
The
only retreat was to go inside the house. I made it in one or two seconds. I did
not turn to look
at them but rushed inside and closed the door
behind me, securing it with the iron bar that was
behind it. I
ran to the back and did the same with the other door.

From inside I could hear the furious growling of the dog and the
woman's inhuman shrieks. Then suddenly the dog's barking and growling turned
into whining and howling as if he were in
pain, or as if
something were frightening him. I felt a jolt in the pit of my stomach. My ears
began
to buzz. I realized that I was trapped inside the house.
I had a fit of sheer terror. I was revolted at
my stupidity in
running into the house. The woman's attack had confused me so intensely that I
had lost all sense of
strategy and had behaved as if I were running away from an ordinary
opponent who could be shut out by simply closing
a door. I heard someone come to the door and
lean against it, trying to force it open. Then there were loud knocks
and banging on it.

"Open the door," dona Soledad said in a hard voice. "That
goddamned dog has mauled me."

I deliberated whether or not to let her in. What came to my mind was the
memory of a
confrontation I had had years before with a sorceress,
who had, according to don Juan, adopted
his shape in
order to fool me and deliver a deadly blow. Obviously dona Soledad was not as I
had
known
her, but I had reasons to doubt that she was a sorceress. The time element
played a
decisive role in my conviction.
Pablito, Nestor and I had been involved with don Juan and don
Genaro for years and we were not sorcerers at all;
how could dona Soledad be one? No matter
how much she had changed she could not improvise something that would
take a lifetime to
accomplish.

"Why did you attack me?" I asked, speaking loudly so as to be
heard through the thick door.
She answered that the Nagual had told
her not to let me go. I asked her why.