Fool's Journey by Mary Chase Comstock

had automatically envisioned the statue of the Madonna in church,
serene, beautiful and distant. But now that he had seen her for himself, he
felt otherwise. She conjured images of mythic tales, true enough, but she was
flesh and bones nonetheless.   He could
still see her, perched nervously on the edge of that single bed, reaching her
hand out to him, as if to …
    No.
Her gesture had been innocent. His thoughts were not. Here he was, fantasizing
like a dreamy adolescent.
                And if she had this effect on someone who had considered
himself immune, what must it be like for her students? Those wet behind the
ears niños lounging around campus,
sporting the growth of their first unpromising beards. Madre de Dios!   They didn't
have a prayer.
                It
reminded him of the time just after he had come to the United States. The
school in rural Oregon hadn't had any English as a Second Language program, so
he'd been assigned to a "special" classroom. Other students called it
the "retard room." He'd despised it, despised the way the teacher's
bright red lips formed big words, loud and slow, as if he were deaf or stupid.
Then, one day, a student teacher had arrived from the state college. She looked
like an angel from heaven, long golden hair and impossibly blue eyes. She'd
spoken to him in Spanish and he'd fallen in love.
                The other students had been quick to notice how his eyes
followed her when she walked into the cafeteria, how he blushed when she
stopped by his table to say hello. "The beaner's got himself a
girlfriend," they'd smirked. Then they made loud kissing noises on the
backs of their hands that made him want to beat them senseless. But he knew he
couldn't cause trouble, draw attention to himself. He'd barely made it across
the border with Aunt Rosa and, until she found a way for them to stay, they
both had to be as inconspicuous to authority figures as possible.
                He
shook his head, remembering those times and the torture of unrequited,
adolescent love, made all the more noble by its impossibility. There was no
doubt in his mind of Deirdre's effect on male students—any male for that
matter. Here he sat, as smitten as any teenager. And if someone was a little
twisted—as one of those who surrounded Deirdre clearly was—he didn't like to
think of the possibilities.
                Still, it wasn't just attraction that held him here.
Something nagged at him in a way he didn't quite understand. Maybe it was her
tone as she'd explained her fears, maybe the tarot cards she'd drawn, maybe
that first sight of her, stricken with fear on her own doorstep.  
                Deirdre's refusal to go to the police puzzled him. He
knew all kinds of people who would no more step into a precinct office than
they would comb their hair with pruning shears, but they had good reasons:
outstanding warrants. Deirdre acted like a criminal on the lam, which, for
someone who looked like she'd just walked out of finishing school, was pretty
weird. His aunt had warned him this might be the case, but she hadn't said why.
                Whatever secrets Deirdre held, he
was more worried about her than he had let on. He glanced up at the window
again and felt the fear scurry across his heart.

XIII.

 
                The
next morning, Deirdre slept in and awoke surprised that she had. Forget-time . That’s what she had called
sleep as a child. Nightmares hadn't bothered her then. Those had come when she was
awake. It was different now. The nights were full of memories viewed through
dreams, jumbled and disproportionate.
    As
she stretched in the pale autumn light, she thought of the sign Manny had made
on her forehead the night before: protection against the evil eye. Perhaps that
accounted for the peaceful night. Once awake, however, there was no returning
to the dreamless refuge of sleep.
                She had a plan