Fernando lost track of the days in his convalescence. In the gloom of the hut day and night seemed to meld together, shadow for eclipsing shadow. Eventually, Chico and the others came to visit him. Whether they had spent the intervening time mustering up the nerve to cross the witch’s threshold, or bracing themselves for

IV Fernando watched the shadows play over the clapboard walls, chinked with cracked clay, packed with moss and palm floss. In the flicker of the oil lamp, the shadows bent and twisted, undulating salacious and sinister over the racks of dried herbs, the grubby tallow candles, the rough-hewn shelves of bones and beads and carved

Fernando didn’t have long to wait. He was out smoking on the crumbling, graffitied overlook, surveying the motley sprawl of Cortez old and new, when Pedro’s crew-cab truck drew up beside him. Pablo sat in the backseat. Their looks were sober, grim. “Primo,” Pedro said. Fernando nodded to him. Crushing out his cigarette beneath his

It was one of Lalo’s guys who first alerted him to the trouble. Fernando followed him downstairs, weaving after him along the broad path he cut through the seething torrent of the crowd. Fernando went out back to find himself pitched headlong into a scene of scandalous turmoil. In addition to Lalo, Fernando saw that

Fernando would have to begin again, distancing himself from her. There were many ways he could accomplish this. The goal was to wean Felicia off him without provoking her to hysterics. Fernando enjoyed playing with women. He even enjoyed tormenting them a little—but to cause them real pain was never his intent. Women’s tears of