“Now I believe your father was from Lewis,” the woman said, her voice shaky but emphatic. She stared at the blood, cast a horrified glance at the half-concealed bodies, and didn’t look at Alejandro at all, which must have taken quite an effort. “I sure do. Oh, my God. I never… My God, in broad daylight… Jesus Christ.”
Alejandro straightened at last, looking almost entirely human. He stared at the woman. She met his gaze for a moment with horrified wonder, but looked away again before Miguel, once more at her side, needed to warn her about that. She said rapidly, “I don’t know anything, I don’t want to know anything, I don’t care what you people do, anyway they attacked you, not that it’s any of my business, alright? Take the car, just take it, that’s fine, I don’t care, somebody else can find the bodies, it won’t be the first time lately, alright?”
“Alejandro…” Natividad began.
“You won’t call the police,” said Miguel. Though he spoke to the woman, his raised-eyebrow look was for Natividad.
“No. No! I swear I won’t! I swear!”
The woman was starting to cry, which was kind of awful. Natividad said quickly, “She’s telling the truth, you know. She really is. You must be able to tell that as well as I can, ’Jandro.” That was why her twin had made the woman deny it, of course: so Natividad and Alejandro could hear the truth in her voice. She patted her brother anxiously on the arm. The human shape of his arm was reassuring, but his muscles were still hard with tension.
“We can leave right now, get out of town immediately,” Miguel put in smoothly. “Anyway, I bet the police here don’t want to interfere with Dimilioc. Whatever they know or don’t know or have figured out since the war, you know there’s got to be a long, long tradition in this town of staying way out of Dimilioc business.”
Alejandro rubbed his hands across his face. The anger was ebbing at last, or at least he was getting it under control. He dropped his hands, stared at Natividad for a moment, and then said, his voice gritty with the remnants of black dog rage, “Me de igual. Está bien.”
“Right,” said Natividad, relieved. “Right. Bien.” She patted his shoulder.
Natividad thought the woman might change her mind and call the police after all as soon as they were gone, but she didn’t say so. Anyway, Miguel was right, of course. The people of Newport, including the police, undoubtedly did have a long tradition of staying out of Dimilioc business, so probably there would be no trouble. Or not from the police. Natividad wished she knew whether those black dogs could possibly have belonged to Vonhausel. But Vonhausel shouldn’t have dared trespass on Dimilioc territory. She looked at Miguel.
“They can’t be Vonhausel’s,” her twin said, answering her exact fear. “Right on the edge of the Kingdom Forest? I don’t believe it. They were strays.” But despite his firm tone, Miguel was frowning. He said abruptly, “Dimilioc should have tighter control than this. Strays, here? I wonder how strong Dimilioc actually is, now…” But then, as Alejandro shifted his weight, Miguel fell abruptly silent.
Natividad said nothing. She didn’t want Alejandro to know how scared she still was. Then he would be angry again, and his shadow would press at him, and she didn’t dare cost him even a shred of his control. They had this good car now, and soon they would be at Dimilioc, and then her brother would need every bit of his control. So, Natividad tried to think of cheerful things – hot chocolate, say. Except then she thought of Mamá’s kitchen, and Mamá, and that was worse. So, then she tried to think of nothing at all.
2
The car finally got irretrievably stuck a few miles north of Lewis, on a nameless road that twisted up the sides of steep rocky hills and then chopped its way back down again.
Miguel was much better with cars and driving than either Alejandro or Natividad, and someone had to drive, but the road got worse and worse, and Natividad was not surprised when her twin finally lost control on one particularly steep curvy bit. When the car skidded, Alejandro put out an arm to brace her, and Miguel took his foot off the gas, and the car slid gently sideways off the road and tucked itself into a snowdrift at the base of a granite ridge. The gentle impact was little worse than when the bus had hit potholes in parking lots on their way north. Natividad uttered a small scream, mostly to tease her twin. Miguel winced, embarrassed. “Sorry,” he said to both of them. “Sorry. It’s not like normal driving. I thought I slowed down enough.”