For a moment, I just lay on mybed, vaguely aware of my amazing, astonishing dream, so unlike any other dream.For the first time ever I was conscious of all I had done.  

"Nelida?" I whisperedas a soft, raspy, murmuring, coming from the other end of the room, intruded onmy reveries. I sat up only to lie back quickly as the room began to spin aroundme.  

I waited for a few moments, thentried again. I stood and took a few hesitant steps. I collapsed on the floorand hit my head against the wall.  

"Shit!" I cried outwhen the room kept spinning around me. I'm fainting."  

"Don't be so dramatic,"Florinda said, then giggled as she saw my bewildered face.  

She touched first my forehead,then my neck, as if she were afraid I might be running a fever. "Youaren't fainting," she pronounced. "You need to replenish yourenergy."  

"Where is Nelida?"  

"Aren't you happy to seeme?" She took my arm and helped me back to the bed. "You're faintwith hunger."  

"I'm not." Icontradicted her, more out of habit than conviction. Although I didn't feelhungry, I was certain my dizziness was caused by a lack of food. Except forbreakfast, I hadn't eaten at all during the day.  

"We wondered why youdidn't," Florinda said, responding to my thoughts. "We prepared sucha delicious stew for you."  

"When did you gethere?" I asked. "I have been silently calling you fordays."  

Closing her eyes, Florinda made ahumming sound, as if the noise would help her remember. "We have been herefor several days, I think," she finally said.  

"You think!" I wascompletely taken aback, my temper getting the better of me. I quicklyrecovered. "Why didn't you let me know that you were here?"  

More than hurt, I was puzzledthat I had failed to notice their presence. "How could I have been sounaware?" I mumbled, more to myself than to her.  

Florinda regarded me with acurious expression in her eyes. She seemed surprised by my bafflement.  

"If we had let you know thatwe were here, you wouldn't have been able to concentrate on your work,"she remarked sagaciously. "As you well know, instead of writing yourpaper, you would have been pending on our comings and goings. All your energywould have been spent in trying to find out what we do, wouldn't it?"  

Her voice was low and raspy, anda strange, excited light made her eyes even more shiny than usual. "It wasa deliberate act on our part that you should work without distractions,"she assured me.  

Then she went on to explain thatthe caretaker had helped me with my paper only after he was satisfied with whatI had done so far. She claimed that in dreaming he found the inherent order ofmy notes.  

"I, too, saw the inherentorder of my notes," I said smugly. "I, too, saw it in adream."  

"Of course you did,"Florinda readily agreed. "We pulled you into dreaming so you could work onyour paper."  

"You pulled me into dreaming?"I repeated.  

There was something startlinglynormal about her statement. Yet at the same time it made me feelapprehensive.  

I had an uncanny sense that I wasfinally close to understanding what dreaming-awake was, but somehow I couldn'tquite grasp it.  

In an effort to make sense, Itold Florinda all that had happened from the moment I saw the caretaker and thedog in the yard.  

It was difficult to make it soundcoherent, for I couldn't decide myself when I had been awake and when I hadbeen dreaming.  

To my utter bewilderment, I couldrecall the exact outline of my paper as I had seen it superimposed on myoriginal draft. "My concentration was far too keen for me to have beendreaming," I pointed out.  

"That's precisely whatdreaming-awake is," Florinda interrupted me. "That's why you rememberit so well."  

Her tone was that of an impatientteacher explaining a simple but fundamental point to a backward child."I've already told you that dreaming-awake has nothing to do with fallingasleep and having a dream."  

"I took notes," I said,as if that would invalidate her statement.

Seeing her nod, I asked her if Iwould find whatever I saw in dreaming-awake jotted down in my own handwritingon my pad.  

"You will," she assuredme. "But before you do, you'll have to eat first."  

She rose and, holding out herhand, helped me to my feet. To put a semblance of order to my appearance, shetucked my shirt into my jeans and brushed off the pieces of straw sticking tomy sweater.  

She held me at arm's length andregarded me critically. Not satisfied with the results, she began to fuss withmy hair, tweaking the unruly strands this way and that.  

"You look quite frightfulwith your hair sticking out all over the place," she pronounced.  

"I'm used to taking a hotshower upon awakening," I said, and followed her out into thecorridor.  

Seeing that she was headingtoward the kitchen, I told her that I had to go to the outhouse first.  

"I'll walk with you."Noticing my displeased face, she added that she only wanted to make sure Ididn't get dizzy and fall into the shit hole.

Actually, I was glad to hold onto her arm as we made our way to the yard.

I almost fell as we steppedoutside, not so much from weakness as from the shock of seeing how late in theday it was.  

"What's the matter?"Florinda asked. "Do you feel faint?"

I pointed up at the sky. A faintgleam was all that remained of the sun's light. "I can't possibly havelost a day," I said. My voice had all but vanished even before I finishedspeaking.  

I struggled to assimilate theidea that indeed a whole night and the whole day had passed, but my mind wouldnot accept it. Not being able to account for time, measured in the usualmanner, unhinged me.  

"Sorcerers break time'sflux," Florinda answered my thoughts. "Time, in the fashion wemeasure it, doesn't exist when one dreams the way sorcerers dream.  

"Sorcerers stretch orcompress time at will. For sorcerers, time is not a matter of minutes or hoursor days but an altogether different matter.

"When dreaming-awake, ourperceptual faculties are heightened," she proceeded in a patient, measuredtone:  

"However, when it comes toperceiving time, something altogether different happens. The perception of timedoes not become heightened but is canceled out completely."  

She added that time is always afactor of consciousness; that is, to be aware of time is a psychological statethat we automatically transform into physical measurements.  

It is so ingrained in us that wecan hear, even when we are not consciously aware of it, a clock ticking insideus, subliminally keeping track of time.  

"In dreaming-awake, thatcapacity is absent," she emphasized. "A thoroughly new, unfamiliarstructure, which somehow is not to be understood or interpreted as we normallydo with time, takes over."  

"Then all I will everconsciously know about dreaming-awake is that time has either been stretched orcompressed," I said, trying to come to grips with her elucidation.  

"You will understand a greatdeal more than that," she assured me emphatically:  

"Once you become adept atentering heightened awareness, as Mariano Aureliano calls it, you'll be awarethen of whatever you wish because sorcerers are not involved in measuring time.They are involved in using it; in stretching or compressing it atwill."  

"You mentioned earlier thatyou all helped me into dreaming," I said. "Then some of you must knowhow long that state lasted."  

Florinda said that she and hercompanions were perennially in a state of dreaming-awake, that it was preciselytheir joint effort that pulled me into dreaming-awake, but that they never kepttrack of it.  

"Are you implying that Imight be dreaming-awake now?" I asked, knowing the answer before sheresponded. "If I am, what did I do to reach this state? What steps did Itake?"  

"The simplest stepimaginable," Florinda said. "You didn't let yourself be your usualself. That is the key that opens doors.  

"We have told you many timesand in many ways that sorcery is not at all what you think it is.  

"To say that to stopyourself from being your usual self is sorcery's most complex secret soundslike idiocy, but it is't. It is the key to power, therefore the most difficultthing a sorcerer does.  

"And yet, it isn't somethingcomplex or impossible to understand. It doesn't boggle the mind, and for thatreason no one can even suspect its importance or take it seriously.  

"Judging by the result ofyour latest dreaming-awake, I can say that you have accumulated enough energy,through preventing yourself from being your usual self."  

She patted my shoulder and turnedaway. "I'll see you in the kitchen," she whispered.  

The kitchen door was ajar but nosound came from the inside. "Florinda?" I whispered.  

A soft laughter answered my call,but I couldn't see anyone.  

As soon as my eyes becameaccustomed to the penumbra, I saw Florinda and Nelida sitting around the table.Their faces were unnaturally vivid in that tenuous light. Their same hair,their same eyes, their same noses and mouths, gleamed as if lit by an innerlight. It was the most eerie thing to see two beings so totally alike.  

"You two are so beautifulthat you're scary," I said and stepped closer.  

The two women gazed at eachother, as if to validate my statement, then burst into a most disturbinglaughter. I felt a curious prickle running down my spine. Before I had a chanceto comment on their odd sounding laughter, they stopped.  

Nelida beckoned me to sit on theempty chair beside her.  

I took a deep breath. I had tostay calm, I told myself as I sat down.  

There was a tenseness and acrispness about Nelida that unnerved me. She served me a plateful of a thicksoup from the tureen standing in the middle of the table.  

"I want you to eateverything," she said, pushing the butter and a basket with warm tortillastoward me.  

I was famished. I attacked myfood as if I had not eaten for days. It tasted wonderful. I ate all there wasin the tureen and washed down the buttered tortillas with three mugfuls of hotchocolate.  

Satiated, I slumped back in mychair. The door to the yard was wide open and a cool breeze rearranged theshadows in room.  

Twilight seemed to be lastingforever. The sky was still streaked with heavy layers of color: vermilion, deepblue, violet, and gold. The air had that transparent quality that brought closethe distant hills.  

As if propelled by some innerforce, the night seemed to shoot out of the ground. The shadowed movements ofthe fruit trees in the wind, rhythmic and graceful, swept the darkness up intothe sky.  

Esperanza burst then into theroom and placed a lit oil lamp on the table. She regarded me with unblinkingeyes, as if she had difficulty in focusing.

She gave the impression that shewas still concerned with some otherworldly mystery, that she wasn't yet quitethere. Then slowly her eyes thawed, and she smiled as if she knew now that shehad returned from a great distance.  

"My paper!" I cried outupon discovering the loose sheets and my notepad under her arm.  

Grinning broadly, Esperanzahanded me my notes.  

Eagerly, I examined the sheetsand laughed out loud upon seeing the pages on the pad filled with precise anddetailed instructions- written half in Spanish, half in English- on how toproceed with my term paper. The handwriting was unmistakably mine.  

"It's all there," Isaid excitedly. "That's how I saw it in my dream."  

The thought that I might be ableto zoom through graduate without having to work so hard made me forget all myfor anxiety.  

"There are no shortcuts towriting good term papers," Esperanzaa said. "Not even with the aid ofsorcery. You should know that without the preliminary reading, the note taking,and the writing and rewriting, you would never have been able to recognize thestructure and order of your term paper in dreaming."  

I nodded wordlessly. She hadspoken with such an incontestable authority that I didn't know what tosay.  

"What about thecaretaker?" I finally managed to ask. "Was he a professor in hisyouth?"  

Nelida and Florinda turned toEsperanza, as if it were up to her to answer.

"I wouldn't know that,"Esperanza said evasively. "Didn't he tell you that he's a sorcerer in lovewith ideas?"  

She was silent for a moment, thenadded softly, "When he is not taking care of our world, as befits acaretaker, he reads."  

"Besides readingbooks," Nelida elucidated, "he reads a most extraordinary number ofscholarly journals. He speaks several languages, so he's quite up to date withthe latest of everything. Delia and Clara are his assistants. He taught them tospeak English and German."  

"Is the library in yourhouse his?" I asked.  

"It belongs to all ofus," Nelida said. "However, I'm sure he's the only one, besideVicente, who has read every book on the shelves."  

Noticing my incredulous expression,she advised me that I shouldn't be fooled by appearances regarding the peoplein the sorcerers' world.  

"To reach a degree ofknowledge, sorcerers work twice as hard as normal people," she assured me."Sorcerers have to make sense of the everyday world as well as the magicalworld. To accomplish that, they have to be highly skilled and sophisticated,mentally as well as physically."  

She regarded me with narrowed,critical eyes then chuckled softly.  

"For three days, you workedon your paper," she explained. "You worked very hard, didn'tyou?" She waited for my assent then added that, while dreaming-awake, Iworked on my term paper even harder than I did while awake.  

"Not at all," Ihastened to contradict her. "It was all quite md effortless." Iexplained that all I did was see a new version of my paper superimposed on myold draft, and then I copied what I saw.

"To do that took all thestrength you had," Nelida maintained. "While dreaming-awake, youchanneled all your energy into a single purpose. All your concern and effortwent into finishing your paper. Nothing else mattered to you at the moment. Youhad no other thoughts to interfere with your endeavor."  

"Was the caretakerdreaming-awake when he looked at my paper?" I asked. "Did I see whathe saw?"  

Nelida rose and walked slowly tothe door. For a long moment she peered out into the darkness then returned tothe table. She whispered something to Esperanza, which I didn't hear, and thensat down again.  

Esperanza chuckled softly thensaid that what the caretaker saw in my paper was different from what I saw andwrote down. "Quite naturally so, for his knowledge is by far more vastthan yours."  

Esperanza stared at me with herquick, dark eyes that somehow made the rest of her face seem lifeless."Guided by his suggestions, and according to your own capabilities, yousaw what your paper ought to read like. That's what you wrote down."  

"While dreaming-awake, wehave access to hidden resources, which we never use ordinarily," Nelidasaid, going on to explain that, the instant I saw my paper, I remembered theclues the caretaker had given me.  

Noticing my incredulousexpression, she reminded me what the caretaker had said about my paper:"Too many footnotes, too many notes and sloppily developedideas."  

Her eyes radiated sympathy andamusement as she went on to say that since I was dreaming and I am not asstupid as I pretended to be, I immediately saw all kinds of links andconnections that I hadn't noticed before within my material.  

Nelida leaned toward me, ahalf-smile playing over her lips as she waited for my reaction.  

"It's time you know whatmade you see a better version of your original paper." Esperanza sat upstraight and gave me a wink as if to emphasize that she was about to reveal amajor secret. "When dreaming-awake, we have access to directknowledge."  

I could see the disappointment inher eyes as she regarded me for a long moment.

"Don't be so dense!"Nelida snapped impatiently:  

"Dreaming-awake should havemade you realize that you have, as all women do, a unique capacity to receiveknowledge directly."  

Esperanza made a silencinggesture with her hand and said, "Did you know that one of the basicdifferences between males and females is how they approach knowledge?"  

I had no idea what shemeant.  

Slowly and deliberately, she toreoff a clean sheet from my notepad and drew two human figures. One head shecrowned with a cone and said that it was a man. On the other head, she drew thesame cone, but upside down, and said that it was a woman.  

"Men build knowledge step bystep," she explained, her pencil poised on the figure crowned with acone:  

"Men reach up. They climbtoward knowledge.  

"Sorcerers say that men conetoward the spirit. They cone up toward knowledge.  

"This coning process limitsmen on how far they can reach."  

She retraced the cone on thefirst figure. "As you can see, men can only reach a certain height. Theirpath toward knowledge ends up in a narrow point: the tip of thecone."  

She looked at me sharply."Pay attention," she warned me and pointed her pencil to the secondfigure, the one with the inverted cone on its head.  

"As you can see, the cone isupside down, open like a funnel. Women are able to open themselves directly tothe source, or rather, the source reaches them directly, in the broad base ofthe cone.  

"Sorcerers say that women'sconnection to knowledge is expansive. On the other hand, men's connection isquite restricted.  

"Men are close to theconcrete," she proceeded, "and aim at the abstract.  

"Women are close to theabstract, and yet try to indulge themselves with the concrete."  

"Why are women, being soopen to knowledge or the abstract, considered inferior?" I interruptedher.  

Esperanza gazed at me with raptfascination.  

She rose swiftly, stretched likea cat until all her joints cracked, then sat down again.  

"That women are consideredinferior, or, at the very best, that female traits are equated as complementaryto the male's, has to do with the manner in which males and females approachknowledge," she explained:  

"Generally speaking, womenare more interested in power over themselves than over others.  

"Power over others isclearly what males want."  

"Even among sorcerers,"Nelida interjected, and the women all laughed.

Esperanza went on to say that shebelieved that originally women saw no need to exploit their facility to linkthemselves broadly and directly to the spirit.

She said women saw no necessityto talk about or to intellectualize this natural capacity of theirs because itwas enough for them to put their natural capacity in action, and to know thatthey had it.  

"Men's incapacity to linkthemselves directly to the spirit was what drove them to talk about the processof reaching knowledge," she stressed. "They haven't stopped talkingabout it.  

"And it is precisely thisinsistence on knowing how they strive toward the spirit; this insistence onanalyzing the process that gave them the certainty that being rational is atypically male skill."  

Esperanza explained that theconceptualization of reason has been done exclusively by men, and that this hasallowed men to belittle women's gifts and accomplishments. And even worse, ithas allowed men to exclude feminine traits from the formulation of the idealsof reason.  

"By now, of course, womenbelieve what has been defined for them," she emphasized:  

"Women have been reared tobelieve that only men can be rational and coherent.  

"Now men carry with them aload of unearned assets that makes them automatically superior regardless oftheir preparation or capacity."  

"How did women lose theirdirect link to knowledge?" I asked.

"Women haven't lost theirconnection," Esperanza corrected me. "Women still have a direct linkwith the spirit.  

"They have only forgottenhow to use it; or rather, they have copied men's condition of not having it atall.  

"For thousands of years, menhave struggled to make sure that women forget it.  

"Take the Holy Inquisition,for example. That was a systematic purge to eradicate the belief that womenhave a direct link to the spirit.  

"All organized religion isnothing but a very successful maneuver to put women in a lower place. Religionsinvoke a divine law that says that women are inferior."  

I stared at her in amazement,wondering to myself how she could possibly be so erudite. [* erudite- having orshowing profound knowledge]  

"Men's need to dominateothers and women's lack of interest in expressing or formulating what they knowand how they know it has been a most nefarious alliance," Esperanza wenton:  

"It has made it possible forwomen to be coerced from the moment they're born into accepting thatfulfillment lies in homemaking, in love, in marriage, in having children, andin self-denial.  

"Women have been excludedfrom the dominant forms of abstract thought and educated into dependence.  

"Women have been sothoroughly trained in the belief that men must think for them that women havefinally given up thinking."  

"women are quite capable ofthinking." I interrupted her.  

"Women are capable offormulating what they have learned," Esperanza corrected me, "butwhat they have learned has been defined by men.

"Men define the very natureof knowledge, and from that knowledge they have excluded that which pertains tothe feminine.  

"Or if the feminine isincluded, it is always in a negative light.

"And women have acceptedthis."  

"You are years behind thetimes," I interjected. "Nowadays women can do anything they set theirhearts to do. They pretty much have access to all the centers of learning, andto almost anything men can do."  

"But this is meaningless aslong as women don't have a support system; a support base," Esperanzaargued:  

"What good is it that womenhave access to what men have when women are still considered inferior beingswho have to adopt male attitudes and behaviors in order to succeed?  

"The truly successful womenare the perfect converts: They too look down on women.  

"According to men, the womblimits women both mentally and physically.

"This is the reason whywomen, although they have access to knowledge, have not been allowed to helpdetermine what this knowledge is.  

"Take for instance,philosophers," Esperanza proposed. "The pure thinkers.

"Some of them are viciouslyagainst women.  

"Others are more subtle inthat they are willing to admit that women might be as capable as men were itnot for the fact that women are not interested in rational pursuits.  

"And if women are interestedin rational pursuits they shouldn't be because it is more becoming for a womanto be true to her nature: a nurturing, dependent companion of themale."  

Esperanza expressed all this withunquestionable authority.  

Within moments, however, I wasassailed by doubts. "If knowledge is but a male construct, then why yourinsistence that I go to school," I asked.

"Because you are a witch,and as such you need to know what impinges on you and how it impinges onyou," she replied:  

"Before you refusesomething, you must understand why you refuse it.  

"You see, the problem isthat knowledge, in our day, is derived purely from reasoning things out.  

"But women have a differenttrack, never, ever taken into consideration.

"That track can contributeto knowledge, but it would have to be a contribution that has nothing to dowith reasoning things out."  

"What would it deal with,then?" I asked.  

"That's for you to decideafter you master the tools of reasoning and understanding."  

I was very confused.  

"What sorcererspropose," she explained, "is that men can't have the exclusive rightto reason.  

"Men seem to have it nowsimply because the ground where men apply reason is a ground where malenessprevails.  

"Let us, then, apply reasonto a ground where femaleness prevails; and that ground is, naturally, theinverted cone I described to you; women's connection with the spirititself."  

She tilted her head slightly toone side, considering what to say.  

"That connection has to befaced with a different aspect of reasoning. An aspect never, ever used before:the feminine side of reasoning," she said.

"What is the feminine sideof reason, Esperanza?"  

"Many things. One of them isdefinitely dreaming." She regarded me questioningly, but I had nothing tosay.  

Her deep chuckle caught me bysurprise. "I know what you expect from sorcerers.  

"You want rituals,incantations. Odd, mysterious cults. You want to sing. You want to be one withnature. You want to commune with water spirits. You want paganism. Someromantic view of what sorcerers do. Very Germanic.

"To jump into theunknown," she went on, "you need guts and mind. Only with them willyou be able to explain to yourself and to others the treasures you mightfind."  

She leaned toward me, eager, itseemed, to confide something.  

She scratched her head andsneezed repeatedly, five times as the caretaker had. "You need to act onyour magical side," she said.  

"And what isthat?"  

"The womb." She saidthis so distantly and calmly, as if she were not interested in my reaction,that I almost missed hearing it.  

Then suddenly, realizing theabsurdity of her remark, I straightened up and looked at the others.  

"The womb!" Esperanzarepeated. "The womb is the ultimate feminine organ.  

"It is the womb that giveswomen that extra edge; that extra force to channel their energy."  

She explained that men, in theirquest for supremacy, have succeeded in reducing woman's mysterious power, herwomb, to a strictly biological organ, whose only function is to reproduce; tocarry man's seed.  

As if obeying a cue, Nelida rose,walked around the table, and came to stand behind me. "Do you know thestory of the Annunciation?" she whispered in my ear.  

Giggling, I turned to face her."I don't."  

In that same confidentialwhisper, she proceeded to tell me that in the Judeo-Christian tradition, menare the only ones who hear the voice of God.

Women have been excluded fromthat privilege, with the exception of the Virgin Mary.  

Nelida said that an angelwhispering to Mary was, of course, natural.

What wasn't natural was the factthat all the angel had to say to Mary was that she would bear the son ofGod.  

The womb did not receiveknowledge but rather the promise of God's seed.

A male god, who engenderedanother male god in turn.

I wanted to think, to reflect onall that I had heard, but my mind was in a confused whirl.  

"What about malesorcerers?" I asked. "They don't have a womb, yet they are clearlyconnected to the spirit."  

Esperanza regarded me withundisguised pleasure, then looked over her shoulder, as though she were afraidto be overheard, and whispered, "Sorcerers are able to align themselves tointent, to the spirit, because they have given up what specifically definestheir masculinity, and they are no longer males."  

Chapter 17  

The manner in whichIsidoreBaltazar was pacing about the room was different from the way he usuallycovered the length of his rectangular studio. Before, I had always been soothedby his pacing.  

This time, however, his stepsrang with a disturbing, oddly menacing sound. The image of a tiger prowling inthe bushes- not ready to pounce on a victim but sensing that something was notquite right- came to mind.  

I turned away from my paper andwas about to ask him what was the matter, when he said, "We are going toMexico!"  

The way he said it made me laugh.The gruffness and seriousness of his voice warranted my joking question,"Are you going to marry me there?"

Glaring at me, he came to anabrupt halt. "This is no joke," he snapped angrily. "This is thereal thing."  

No sooner had he spoken than hesmiled and shook his head. "What am I doing?" he said, making ahumorous, helpless gesture. "I am getting angry at you, as if I had timefor that. What a shame! The nagual Juan Matus warned me that we are crap to thevery end."  

He hugged me fiercely, as if Ihad been gone for a long time and had just returned.  

"I don't think it's such agood idea for me to go to Mexico," I said.

"Cancel anything pending.There is no more time." He sounded like a military man giving orders.  

Since I was in a festive mood, Icouldn't help retorting, "Jawohl, meinGruppenfuehrer!"  

He lost his tightness andlaughed.  

As we drove through Arizona, amost peculiar feeling suddenly flooded me.

It was a bodily sensationsomething like a chill that extended from my womb to my entire body and broughtgoose bumps all over my skin; the knowledge that something was wrong.  

There was in that feeling a newelement I had not encountered before; absolute certainty, without a tinge ofbeing right or wrong.  

"I just had an intuition.Something is wrong!" I said, my voice rising against my will.  

IsidoreBaltazar nodded, then saidin a matter-of-fact tone, "The sorcerers are leaving."  

"When?" My cry wasquite involuntary.  

"Maybe tomorrow or the nextday," he replied. "Or perhaps a month from now, but their departureis imminent." [* imminent- close in time; about to occur]  

Sighing in relief, I slumped onmy seat and consciously relaxed.  

"They have been saying thatthey're leaving since the day I met them more than three years ago," Imurmured, but I didn't really feel right about saying it.  

IsidoreBaltazar turned to glanceat me, his face a mask of sheer contempt.

I could see the effort he wasmaking to erase his dissatisfaction.  

He smiled, then patted my kneeand said softly, "In the sorcerers' world, we can't be that factual. Ifsorcerers repeat something to you until you're cynically bored with it, it isbecause they want to prepare you for it."

He fixed me momentarily with hishard, unsmiling eyes and added, "Don't confuse their magical ways withyour dumbo ways."  

I nodded wordlessly. Hisstatement didn't anger me: I was too scared for that. I kept quiet.  

The journey didn't take any timeat all, or so it seemed to me. We took turns sleeping and driving, and by noonof the following day we were at the witches' house.  

The instant the car's engine hadbeen shut off, we both jumped out of the car, slammed the doors shut, and ranup to the witches' house.  

"What's the idea?" thecaretaker said.  

He was standing by the frontdoor, seemingly bewildered by our abrupt and loud arrival. "Are you twofighting or chasing each other?"  

He looked at IsidoreBaltazar andthen at me. "Gee! Running like this."

"When are you leaving? Whenare you leaving?" I repeated mechanically, unable to contain my growinganxiety and fear any longer.  

Laughing, the caretaker patted myback reassuringly and said, "I'm not going anyplace. You're not going toget rid of me that easily."  

His words sounded genuine enough,but they didn't relieve my anxiety.  

I searched his face, his eyes, tosee if I could detect a lie. All I saw was kindness and sincerity.  

Upon realizing thatIsidoreBaltazar was no longer standing beside me, I tensed up again. He hadvanished, as noiselessly and swiftly as a shadow.  

Sensing my agitation, thecaretaker pointed with his chin to the house.

I heard IsidoreBaltazar's voice,rising as if he were protesting, and then I heard his laughter.  

"Is everybody here?" Iasked, trying to move past the caretaker.

"They are inside," hesaid, blocking my way with his outstretched arms. "They can't see you atthe moment."  

Seeing that I was about toprotest, he added, "They were not expecting you. They want me to talk toyou before they do."  

He took my hand and led me awayfrom the door. "Let's go to the back and pick up some leaves," heproposed. "We'll burn them and leave the ashes for the water fairies.Perhaps they'll turn them into gold."

We didn't talk at all as wegathered pile after pile of leaves, but the physical activity and the sound ofthe rake scratching the ground soothed me.

It seemed we had been gatheringand burning leaves for hours when suddenly I knew that there was someone elsein the yard.  

I turned my head quickly and sawFlorinda.  

Dressed in white pants andjacket, sitting on the bench under the zapote tree, she was like an apparition.Her face was shaded by a wide-brimmed straw hat, and in her hand she held alace fan. She seemed not quite human and so remote that I just stoodmotionless, absolutely amazed.  

Wondering whether she was goingto acknowledge me, I took a few hesitant steps toward her.  

Upon noticing that she didn't inany way register my presence, I waited, undecided.  

It wasn't that I was trying to protectmyself against being refused or being slighted by her, but rather, someundetermined yet unconsciously understood rule kept me from demanding that shepay attention to me.  

However, when the caretakerjoined Florinda on the bench, I reached for the rake propped against a tree andinched my way toward them.  

Grinning absentmindedly, thecaretaker looked up at me, but his attention was on what Florinda wassaying.  

They spoke in a language I didn'tunderstand, yet I listened to them, entranced.

Whether it was the language orher affection for the old man, I didn't know; but her raspy voice was unusuallysoft and strange, and hauntingly tender.

Abruptly, she rose from thebench.  

As if she were propelled by somehidden spring, she zigzagged across the clearing like a hummingbird; pausingfor an instant beside each tree; touching a leaf here and a blossom there.  

I raised my hand to call herattention, but I was distracted by a bright blue butterfly weaving blue shadowsin the air.  

It flew toward me and alighted onmy hand.  

The wide, quivering wings fannedout and their shadow fell darkly over my fingers. It rubbed its head with itslegs, and after opening and closing its wings several times, it took off again,leaving on my middle finger a ring in the shape of a triangular butterfly.  

Certain that it was but anoptical illusion, I shook my hand repeatedly. "It's a trick, isn'tit?" I asked the caretaker in a shaky voice. "It's an opticalillusion?"  

The caretaker shook his head, andhis face crinkled into a most radiant smile. "It's a lovely ring," hesaid, holding my hand in his. "It's a magnificent gift."  

"A gift," I repeated. Ihad the briefest flash of insight, but it disappeared, leaving me lost andbewildered.  

"Who put the ring on myfinger?" I asked, staring at the jewel. The antennae and the thin,elongated body dividing the triangle were fashioned in white gold filigree andwere studded with tiny diamonds.  

"Didn't you notice the ringbefore?" the caretaker asked.  

"Before?" I repeated,baffled. "Before what?"

"You've been wearing thatring since Florinda gave it to you," he replied.  

"But when?" I asked,then held my hand over my mouth to stifle my shock. "I can't rememberFlorinda giving me the ring," I said more to myself than to him. "Andwhy haven't I noticed the ring before?"

The caretaker shrugged, at a lossto explain my oversight, then suggested that perhaps I hadn't noticed the ringbecause it fit so perfectly on my finger.

He seemed about to say somethingelse but stopped himself, and instead suggested that we pick up some moreleaves.  

"I can't," I said."I have to talk to Florinda."  

"You do?" he mused, inthe manner of one hearing a ridiculous and probably unsound idea.  

But he didn't persuade me to thecontrary, and said, "She's gone for her walk," pointing with his chintoward the path that led to the hills.  

"I'll catch up withher," I stated. I could see her white-clad figure weaving in and out ofthe high chaparral in the distance.  

"She goes far," the caretakerwarned me.  

"That's no problem," Iassured him.  

I ran after Florinda, then sloweddown before I caught up with her. She had the most beautiful walk: She movedwith a vigorous, athletic motion, effortlessly, her back erect.  

Sensing my presence, she came toan abrupt halt, then turned and held out her hands in a gesture of greeting."How are you, darling?" she said, gazing at me. Her raspy voice waslight and clear, and very soft.  

In my eagerness to learn aboutthe ring, I didn't even greet her properly. Stumbling over my words, I askedher if she had put the ring on my finger. "Is it mine now?" Isaid.  

"Yes," she said."It's yours by right." There was something in her tone; a sense ofcertainty that both thrilled and terrified me. Yet it didn't even occur to meto refuse the no doubt expensive gift.  

"Does the ring have magicalpowers?" I asked, holding up my hand against the light so that each stonesparkled with a dazzling radiance.  

"No," she laughed."It doesn't have powers of any sort.

"It is a special ring,though. Not because of its value or because it belonged to me, but because theperson who made this ring was an extraordinary nagual."

"Was he a jeweler?" Iinquired. "Was he the same person who built the odd-looking figures in thecaretaker's room?"  

"The same one," shereplied. "He wasn't a jeweler, though. He wasn't a sculptor either.  

"The mere thought that hemight be considered an artist made him laugh. Yet anyone who saw his workcouldn't help but see that only an artist could have executed the extraordinarythings he did."  

Florinda moved a few steps awayfrom me and let her eyes roam across the hills, as if she were searching formemories in the distance.  

Then she turned once more towardme and in a barely audible whisper said that whatever this nagual made, whetherit was a ring, a brick wall, tiles for the floor, the mysterious inventions, orsimply a cardboard box, it invariably turned out to be an exquisite piece; notonly in terms of its superb craftsmanship, but because it was imbued withsomething ineffable. [* ineffable- defying expression or description]  

"If such an extraordinaryindividual made this ring, then it has to have some kind of power," Iinsisted.  

"The ring in itself has nopower, regardless of who made it," Florinda assured me:  

"The power was in themaking.  

"The nagualwho made thisring was aligned so thoroughly with what sorcerers call intent that he was ableto produce this lovely jewel without him being a jeweler.  

"The ring was an act of pureintent."  

Reluctant to sound stupid, Ididn't dare admit that I had no inkling what she meant by intent.  

So I asked her what had promptedher to make me such a marvelous gift. "I don't think I deserve it," Iadded.  

"You will use the ring toalign yourself with intent," she said.

A wicked grin spread across herface as she added, "But, of course, you already know about aligningyourself with intent."  

"I know nothing of thesort," I mumbled defensively, then confessed I didn't really know what intentwas.  

"You might not know what theword means," she said off-handedly, "but something in you intuits howto tap that force."  

She brought her head close tomine and whispered that I had always used intent to move from dream to realityor to bring my dream- whatever it might have been- to reality.  

She glanced at me expecting nodoubt for me to draw the obvious conclusions.

Seeing my uncomprehendingexpression, she added, "Both the inventions in the the caretaker's roomand the ring were made in dreams."  

I still don't get it," Icomplained.  

"The inventions frightenyou," she said equably. "And the ring delights you. Since both aredreams, it can easily be the reverse..."

"You frighten me, Florinda.What do you mean?"  

"This, dear, is a world ofdreams. We are teaching you how to bring them about all by yourself."  

Her dark, shiny eyes held minefor a moment, and then she added, "At the moment, all the sorcerers of thenagual Mariano Aureliano's party help you enter into this world and are helpingyou to stay in it now."  

"Is it a different world? Oris it that I am different myself?"  

"You are the same but in adifferent world." She was silent for a moment then conceded that I hadmore energy than before. "Energy that comes from your savings and from theloan all of us made you."  

Her banking metaphor was veryclear to me. What I still didn't grasp was what she meant by a differentworld.  

"Look around you!" sheexclaimed, holding her arms out wide. "This is not the world of everydaylife."  

She was silent for a long time,then in a voice that was but a low, gentle murmur, added, "Can butterfliesturn into rings in the world of daily affairs; in a world that has been safelyand rigorously structured by the roles assigned to all of us?"  

I had no answer.  

I looked around me; at the trees,at the bushes, at the distant mountains.

Whatever she meant by a differentworld still eluded me. The difference had to be a purely subjective one, wasthe thought that finally occurred to me.

"It isn't!" Florindainsisted, reading my thoughts. "This is a sorcerer's dream. You got intoit because you have the energy."  

She regarded me quite hopelessly,and said, "There is really no way to teach dreaming to women. All that canbe done is to prop them up, so as to make them realize the enormous potentialthey carry in their organic disposition.

"Since dreaming for a womanis a matter of having energy at her disposal, the important thing is toconvince her of the need to modify her deep socialization in order to acquirethat energy.  

"The act of making use ofthis energy is automatic; women dream sorcerers' dreams the instant they havethe energy."  

She confided that a seriousconsideration about sorcerers' dreams, stemming from her own shortcomings, wasthe difficulty of imbuing women with the courage to break new ground.  

Most women- and she said she wasone of them- prefer their safe shackles to the terror of the new.  

"Dreaming is only forcourageous women," she whispered in my ear.  

Then she burst into loud laughterand added, "Or for those women who have no other choice because theircircumstances are unbearable- a category to which most women belong, withouteven knowing it."  

The sound of her raspy laughterhad an odd effect on me.  

I felt as if I had suddenlyawakened from a deep sleep and remembered something quite forgotten while I hadslept: "IsidoroBaltazar told me about your imminent departure. When areyou leaving?"  

"I'm not going anywhereyet." Her voice was firm, but it rang with a devastating sadness:  

"Your dreaming teacher and Iare staying behind. The rest are leaving."

I didn't quite understand whatshe meant, and to hide my confusion I made a joking comment.  

"My dreaming teacher,Zuleica, hasn't said a single word to me in three years. In fact, she has nevereven talked to me. You and Esperanza are the only ones who have really guidedme and taught me."  

Florinda's gales of laughterreverberated around us, a joyous sound that brought me intense relief, and yetI felt puzzled.  

"Explain something to me,Florinda," I began. "When did you give me this ring? How come I wentfrom picking leaves with the caretaker to having this ring?"  

Florinda's face was full ofenjoyment as she explained that it could easily be said that picking leaves isone of the doors into a sorcerers' dream provided one has enough energy tocross that threshold.  

She took my hand in hers andadded, "I gave you the ring while you were crossing; therefore, your minddidn't record the act.  

"Suddenly, when you werealready in the dream, you discovered the ring on your finger."  

I looked at her curiously. Therewas something in her elucidation I couldn't grasp; something so vague, soindistinct.  

"Let's return to thehouse," she suggested, "and recross that threshold. Perhaps you'll beaware of it this time."  

Leisurely, we retraced our steps,approaching the house from the back.  

I walked a few steps ahead ofFlorinda so I could be perfectly aware of everything. I peered at the trees,the tiles, the walls; eager to detect the change or anything that might give mea clue to the transition.  

I didn't notice anything, exceptthat the caretaker was no longer there.  

I turned around to tell Florindathat I most definitely had missed the transition, but she was not behindme.  

She was nowhere in sight. She wasgone and had left me all alone there.  

I walked into the house.  

It was, as had happened to mebefore, deserted.  

This feeling of aloneness nolonger frightened me; no longer gave me the sensation I had beenabandoned.  

Automatically, I went to thekitchen and ate the chicken tamales that had been left in a basket.  

Then I went to my hammock andtried to put my thoughts in order.  

I woke up and found myself lyingon a cot, in a small, dark room.  

I looked desperately about me,searching for some inkling of what was going on.  

I sat bolt upright as I saw big,moving shadows lurking by the door.  

Eager to find out whether thedoor was open and the shadows were inside, I reached under the cot for thechamber pot- which somehow I knew to be there- and threw it at the shadows. Thepot landed outside with an excessively loud clatter.  

The shadows vanished.  

Wondering whether I had simplyimagined them, I went outside.  

Undecided, I stared at the tallmesquite fence encircling the clearing, and then I knew in a flash where I was:I was standing in back of the small house.

All this went through my mind asI searched for the chamber pot, which had rolled all the way to the fence.  

As I bent to pick it up, I saw acoyote squeeze through the mesquite fence.

Automatically, I threw the pot atthe animal, but the pot hit a rock instead.

Indifferent to the loud bang andto my presence, the coyote crossed the clearing.  

It turned its head audaciously severaltimes to look at me.  

Its fur shimmered like silver.Its bushy tail swept over the various rocks like a magic wand. Each rock ittouched came to life. The rocks hopped about with shiny eyes and moved theirlips, asking peculiar questions in voices too faint to be heard.  

I screamed; the rocks movedappallingly fast toward me.  

I immediately knew that I wasdreaming.  

"This is one of my usualnightmares," I mumbled to myself. "With monsters and fear andeverything else."

Convinced that once I had recognizedand voiced the problem, I had neutralized its effects on me, I was about togive in and settle down to live a nightmare terror when I heard a voice say,"Test the track of dreams."  

I wheeled around.  

Esperanza was standing under theramada tending to a fire on a raised platform made of cane heavily coated withmud. She looked strange and remote in the gleaming, moving light of the fire,as if she were separated from me by a distance that had nothing to do withspace.  

"Don't be frightened,"she ordered.  

Then she lowered her voice to amurmur and said, "We all share one another's dreams, but now you are notdreaming."  

Doubt must have been written allover my face. "Believe me, you are not dreaming," she assuredme.  

I stepped a bit closer.  

Not only did her voice soundunfamiliar, but she herself was different.

From where I was standing she wasEsperanza; nonetheless, she looked like Zuleica.  

I moved very close to her. Shewas Zuleica!  

Young and strong and verybeautiful. She couldn't have been more than forty years old. Her oval face wasframed by curly, black hair that was turning grey. Hers was a smooth, paleface, highlighted by liquid, dark eyes set wide apart. Her gaze was indrawn,enigmatic, and very pure. Her short, thin upper lip hinted at severeness, whilethe full, almost voluptuous lower lip gave an indication of gentleness and alsopassion.  

Fascinated by the change in her,I simply stared at her, enthralled.  

I definitely must be dreaming, Ithought.  

Her clear laughter made merealize that she had read my thoughts.  

She took my hand in hers and saidsoftly, "You're not dreaming, my dear. This is the real me.  

"I am your dreaming teacher.I am Zuleica.  

"Esperanza is my other self.Sorcerers call it the dreaming body."

My heart thumped so violently itmade my chest ache.  

I almost choked with anxiety andexcitement. I tried to pull my hand away, but she was holding me with a firmgrip that I couldn't break.  

I pressed my eyes tightly shut.More than anything I wanted her to be gone when I opened them again.  

She was there, of course, herlips parted in a radiant smile.  

I closed my eyes again, thenjumped up and down and stomped on the ground as if I had gone berserk. With myfree hand, I slapped my face repeatedly, until it burned with pain.  

All to no avail: I couldn't wakeup. Every time I opened my eyes, she was there.

"I think you've gotenough," she laughed, and I commanded her to hit me.  

She readily obliged, striking twosharp blows on my upper arms with a long, hard walking stick.  

"It's no use, dear."She spoke slowly, as if she were very tired.

She took a deep breath and let goof my hand.  

Then she spoke again."You're not dreaming. And I am Zuleica.

"But when I dream, I amEsperanza; and something else, too, but I am not going to go into thatnow."  

I wanted to say something,anything, but I couldn't speak. My tongue was paralyzed and all I managed toproduce was a whimpering, doglike sound.

I tried to relax with breathing Ihad learned in a yoga class.  

She chuckled, seemingly takenwith my antics: It was a reassuring sound that had a soothing effect on me: Itradiated so much warmth, such deep confidence, that my body relaxedinstantaneously.  

"You're a stalker," sheproceeded. "And you belong, by all rights, to Florinda."  

Her tone brooked [* brook- put upwith something or somebody unpleasant] no argument, no contradiction."You're also a somnambulist and a great natural dreamer, and by virtue ofyour ability, you also belong to me."

One side of me wanted to laughout loud and tell her that she was raving mad.

But another side of me was incomplete agreement with her claim.  

I asked hesitantly, "Bywhich name do you want me to call you?"

"By which name?" sherepeated, gazing at me as if it should have been self-evident. "I'mZuleica. What do you think this is? A game? We don't play gameshere."  

Taken aback by her vehemence, Icould only mumble, "No, I don't think this is a game."  

"When I dream, I amEsperanza," she continued, her voice sharp with intensity.  

Her face was stern but radiantand open without pity all at the same time.

"When I don't dream, I amZuleica.  

"But whether I am Zuleica orEsperanza or anything else, it shouldn't matter to you. I am still your dreamingteacher."  

All I could do was nodidiotically. Even if I had had something to say, I wouldn't have been able todo so.  

A cold, clammy sweat of fear randown my sides. My bowels were loose and my bladder about to burst. I wanted togo to the bathroom and relieve myself and puke.

I finally couldn't hold it anylonger. It was a matter of disgracing myself right there or running to theouthouse.  

I had enough energy to opt forthe latter.  

Zuleica's laughter was thelaughter of a young girl: It followed me all the way to the outhouse.  

When I returned to the clearing,she urged me to sit beside her on the nearby bench.  

I automatically obeyed her andsat down heavily on the edge; nervously putting my hands over my closedknees.  

There was an undeniable gleam ofhardness but also of kindness in her eyes.

It came to me in a flash, as if Ihad known it before, that her ruthlessness was, more than anything else, aninner discipline.  

Her relentless self-control hadstamped her whole being with a most appealing elusiveness and secretiveness;not the secretiveness of overt and furtive behavior, but the secretiveness ofthe mysterious; the unknown.  

That was the reason I followedher around, whenever I saw her, like a puppy dog.  

"You've had two transitionstoday," Zuleica explained. "One from being normally awake todreaming-awake and the other from dreaming-awake to being normally awake.

"The first was smooth andunnoticeable: The second was nightmarish.

"That's the normal state ofaffairs. All of us experience those transitions just like that."  

I forced a smile. "But Istill don't know what I did," I said. "I am not aware of any steps.Things just happen to me, and I find myself in a dream, without knowing how Igot there."  

There was a glint in hereyes.  

"What is ordinarilydone," she said, "is to start dreaming by sleeping in a hammock or insome kind of a strapping contraption hanging from a roof beam or a tree.Suspended in that fashion, we don't have any contact with the ground.  

"The ground grounds us:Remember that. In that suspended position, a beginning dreamer can learn howenergy shifts from being awake to dreaming and from dreaming a dream todreaming-awake.  

"All this, as Florindaalready told you, is a matter of energy. The moment you have it, off yougo.  

"Your problem now is goingto be whether you'll be able to save enough energy yourself since the sorcererswon't be able to lend it to you anymore."

Zuleica raised her brows in anexaggerated manner and added, "We'll see. I'll try to remind you, the nexttime we share one another's dreams."

Seeing the dismay on my face, shelaughed with childlike abandon.  

"How do we share oneanother's dreams?" I asked, gazing into her astonishing eyes: They weredark and shiny with beams of light radiatingting from the pupils.  

Instead of answering, Zuleicadropped a few more sticks into the fire. Embers burst and spilled, and thelight grew brighter.  

For an instant she stood still,her eyes fixed on the flames as if she were gathering in the light.  

She turned sharply and glancedbriefly at me, then squatted and wrapped her strong, muscular arms around hershins.  

Looking into the darkness,listening to the crackling fire, she rocked from side to side.  

"How do we share oneanother's dreams?" I asked again.  

Zuleica stopped rocking. Sheshook her head, then looked up, startled, as if suddenly awakened.  

"That's something impossiblefor me to explain now," she stated. "Dreaming isincomprehensible.  

"One has to feel it, notdiscuss it.  

"As in the everyday world,before one explains something and analyzes it, one has to experienceit."  

She spoke slowly anddeliberately. She admitted that it was important to explain as one went along."Yet, explanations sometimes are premature. This is one of thosetimes.  

"One day it will all makesense to you," Zuleica promised, seeing the disappointment in myface.  

With a quick, light motion, sherose to her feet and went to stare at the flames, as if her eyes needed to feedon the light.  

Her shadow, thrown by the fire,grew enormous against the wall and the ceiling of the ramada.  

Without so much as a nod, sheturned with a sweep of her long skirt and disappeared inside the house.  

Unable to move, I stood rooted tothe spot.  

I could barely breathe as theclatter of her sandals grew fainter and fainter.  

"Don't leave me here!"I yelled in a panic-stricken voice. "There are things I need toknow."  

Zuleica materialized by the doorinstantly. "What do you need to know?" she asked in a detached,almost distracted tone.  

"I'm sorry," I gabbled,glancing into her shiny eyes.  

I examined her, almosthypnotized. "I didn't mean to shout," I added apologetically. "Ithought you had gone into one of the rooms."  

I looked at her beseechingly,hoping she would explain something to me.

She didn't. All she did was askme again what it was I wanted to know.  

"Would you talk to me when Isee you again?" I blurted out the first thing that came into my head;afraid she would leave if I didn't keep on talking.  

"When I see you again, wewon't be in the same world as before," she said. "Who knows whatwe'll do there?"  

"But a while ago," Iinsisted, "you yourself told me you are my dreaming teacher.  

"Don't leave me in darkness.Explain things to me. The torment I experience is more than I can bear. I amsplit."  

"You are," she admittedcasually. "You certainly are split."

She looked at me, her eyesbrimming with kindness. "But that's only because you don't let go of yourold ways.  

"You're a good dreamer.Somnambulist brains have formidable potential. That is... if you wouldcultivate your character."  

I hardly heard what shesaid.  

I tried to put my thoughts inorder, but I couldn't.  

A succession of images of eventsI didn't quite remember went through my mind with incredible speed.  

My will exercised no control upontheir order or their nature.  

Those images were transformedinto sensations that, however precise, refused to be defined; refused to beformulated into words, or even into thoughts.

Obviously aware of my incapacity,Zuleica's face lit up in an expansive grin.

"We have all helped thenagual Mariano Aureliano to push you into the second attention all along,"she said slowly and softly:  

"In there, we find fluencyand continuity as we do in the world of everyday life.  

"In both states, thepractical is dominant. We act efficiently in both states.  

"What we can't do in thesecond attention, however, is to break what we experience into pieces so we canhandle it, so we can feel secure, so we can understand it."  

While she talked, I was thinkingto myself, 'She's wasting her time telling me all this. Doesn't she know that Iam too stupid to understand her explanations?'

But she continued to speak,smiling broadly, obviously knowing that for me to admit that I was not toobright meant that I had changed somehow: Otherwise, I would never admit such anotion, even to myself.  

"In the secondattention," she continued, "or as I prefer to call it, whendreaming-awake, one has to believe that the dream is as real as the everydayworld.  

"In other words, one has toacquiesce.  

"For sorcerers, all worldlyor otherworldly pursuits are ruled by irreproachable acts, and in back of allirreproachable acts lies acquiescence.  

"And acquiescence is notacceptance. Acquiescence involves a dynamic element: It involvesaction."  

Her voice was very soft, andthere was a feverish gleam in her eyes as she finished. "The moment onebegins dreaming-awake, a world of enticing, unexplored possibilities opens up;a world where the ultimate audacity becomes a reality; where the unexpected isexpected.  

"That's the time when man'sdefinitive adventure begins. The world becomes limitless with possibilities andwonder."  

Zuleica was silent for a longtime: She seemed to be debating what else to say.  

"With the help of the nagualMariano Aureliano, you once even saw the glow of the surem," she began,and her soft voice, turning wistful, became softer still:  

"The surem are magicalcreatures that exist only in Indian legends; beings that sorcerers can see onlywhile dreaming-awake at the deepest level.

"The surem are beings fromanother world: They glow like phosphorescent human beings."  

She wished me good night, turned,and disappeared inside the house.  

For a second I stood numbed, thenI dashed after her.  

Before I reached the threshold Iheard Florinda behind me say, "Don't follow her!"  

Florinda's presence was sounexpected that I had to lean against the wall, and wait for my heartbeat toreturn to normal.  

"Come and keep mecompany," Florinda said. She was sitting on the bench, feeding thefire.  

The elusive light in her eyes,and the ghostly whiteness of her hair was more like a memory than avision.  

I stretched out on the benchbeside her, and, as if it were the most natural thing to do, I placed my headin her lap.  

"Never follow Zuleica, orany one of us for that matter, unless you're asked to do so," Florindasaid, combing her fingers through my hair:

"As you know now, Zuleicaisn't what she appears to be. She's always more, much more than that.  

"Never try to figure herout, because when you think you have covered all the possibilities, she'llflatten you out by being more than you can imagine in your wildestfantasies."  

"I know," I sighedcontentedly.  

I could feel the tension drainingFrom my face. I could feel it leaving my body.

"Zuleica is a surem From theBacatete Mountains," I said with absolute conviction. "I've knownabout these creatures all along."  

Seeing the astonishment inFlorinda's face, I went on daringly, "Zuleica wasn't born like an ordinaryhuman being. She was established. She's sorcery itself."  

"No," Florindacontradicted me emphatically. "Zuleica was born. Esperanzawasn't."  

She smiled down into my face and added,"This should be a worthy riddle for you."  

"I think I understand,"I murmured, "but I am too insensitive and can't formulate what Iunderstand."  

"You're doing fine,"she chuckled softly. "Being as insensitive as you normally are, you mustwait until you are really, really awake, 100 percent in order to understand.Now you are only 50 percent awake.  

"The trick is to remain inheightened awareness. In heightened awareness, nothing is impossible tocomprehend for us."  

Feeling that I was about to interrupther, she covered my lips with her hand and added, "Don't think about itnow.  

"Always remember that you'recompulsive, even in heightened awareness, and your thinking is notthorough."  

I heard someone moving in theshadows behind the bushes. "Who is there?" I asked, sitting up.  

I looked all around me butcouldn't see anyone.  

Women's laughter echoed acrossthe yard.  

"You can't see them,"Florinda said sleepily.  

"And why are they hidingfrom me?" I asked.  

Florinda smiled. "They arenot hiding from you," she explained. "It's just that you can't seethem without the nagual Mariano Aurliano's help."  

I didn't know what to say tothat. On one level, it made perfect sense, yet I found myself shaking my head."Can you help me see them?"  

Florinda nodded. "But youreyes are tired: They are tired from seeing too much. You need tosleep."  

Purposefully I kept my eyes wideopen; afraid to miss whoever was going to come out of the bushes the moment myattention slackened.  

I stared at the leaves and theshadows, no longer knowing which was which, until I fell into a deep, dreamlesssleep.