The Influence(47)

Now that he was ten, he was moving away from her emotionally, toward Tom, and while that was the way it should be, she still didn’t have to like it.

In fact, there were a lot of things she didn’t like.

She’d found herself distracted lately. Yesterday, for example, she was pretty sure Lita had stopped by to see her, but when she tried to recall the visit, nothing came to mind. She could not for the life of her remember why Lita had come over or what they had talked about or how long she had stayed.

Something was wrong. Something had been wrong for awhile now. Things had not been right since…

She didn’t want to think about it.

Except she could think of almost nothing else.

Darla had never been religious, but she was seriously considering going to Father Ramos’ church. He seemed like a good man, a nice man, and from what everyone said, he had a handle on what was going on here. Maybe he could explain to her what was happening.

Explain what was happening?

That wasn’t really why she was thinking of going to church, was it?

No.

She’d had the fear of God put into her.

She’d heard that phrase all her life—the fear of God—but until now had not really known what it meant. The New Year’s party had changed that, and everything that had happened since was just further confirmation. Like the Wizard of Oz, God was great and terrible, and those who incurred His wrath, as they all had, were doomed to suffer His punishments.

Tom and Dylan were laughing at some sports joke, and she smiled with them, though she had no idea what was so funny. She felt sad again, looking at her boy, the fear abating for a moment. Everything seemed to be falling apart, and she wished it was six years ago and Dylan was four, and that damn New Year’s Eve party had never happened.



****



Weekends were boring.

Dylan would have preferred to attend school seven days a week. It was a long bus ride to Willcox, but it was worth it because other kids were there. He had friends at school, other boys he could play with. Here at home, he was pretty much stuck with his parents, and while he loved them and all, they weren’t that much fun to hang around, and he usually spent a lot of time by himself.

There were other kids in Magdalena and the surrounding area, but not that many and none his own age.

Often, when he tired of playing computer games and his dad was too busy to throw the ball around and there was nothing worthwhile on TV and he wasn’t in the mood to watch a DVD, Dylan ended up hiking by himself near the M mountain. He didn’t know if the mountain had a real name, but that was what the people in town called it, and he had actually gone up to the M before and walked around the giant letter. He’d even sat in the middle of it. From down by his house, the M looked like it was made of white powder, like the stuff they used to mark off a football field or draw the lines between bases, but when you got up close, it was actually made up of boulders painted white and arranged in the shape of the letter.

The trails on the mountain branched off in seemingly infinite directions, and he wasn’t sure if some of them were animal paths or if they were all manmade. Sometimes he saw other people hiking, couples mostly, adults, but he liked it better when he was by himself and there was no one else in sight.

Like today.

Dylan walked up a narrow switchback trail he’d never been on before. There were hoofprints on the hardpacked dirt, though no shoeprints other than his own, as far as he could tell. He should have brought some bottled water—his mom was always on him about that—but the day was pretty cool and he didn’t plan to be gone that long.

From up ahead, behind a large outcropping of rock that looked almost like a miniature castle, Dylan heard what sounded like two kids talking. One of them laughed at something the other one said, and Dylan’s heart sped up with what could have been excitement, could have been apprehension. For this had the potential to go either way. The kids might be happy to have someone new to play with and welcome him to their hideout, or they might resent the fact that he’d discovered their secret spot and start throwing rocks at him.

He approached cautiously, not sure whether to announce his presence.

The boulders that made up the outcropping were larger than they’d appeared from further back, and he could see spaces between them that looked almost like passageways. Cool, he thought.

“Hey!” Dylan called out. “Is anyone there?”

He knew there was, and figured he could judge by the response he received whether he should continue on. But the kids ignored him, kept talking and laughing amongst themselves, and he realized that he could not make out a single word they were saying. That was odd. This close, he should have been able to hear them more clearly, and he wondered if the reason neither of them had responded to his shout out was because they couldn’t hear him. Sound did strange things when you were up here.