Chicken Soup for Your Two Souls

Sixteen-year-old Miguel "Atsa" Hayou hesitated on the porch of the small wood frame house. A shiver passed through him. He was getting cold feet... in more ways than one.

The walk over didn't take long and he'd grabbed his thin leather jacket instead of his puffy winter coat. Now he wished he'd been less concerned with style. The myth of the sunny Southwest was based in truth; it was sunny, even in winter. But it also got a lot colder than people in other parts of the country seemed to think. January in Northern New Mexico could be downright bitter. Atsa thought winters might even be worse here in Bloomfield, a small town near Farmington in the Four Corners region. The Colorado border lay not so far away, and travel to scenic Durango, with all its snow, took only a couple of hours by car. At least Durango had some natural beauty. If he decided against college at UNM in Albuquerque, he might go to Durango. On the other hand, Albuquerque, lying several hundred miles South and located in a valley, was a lot warmer.

Any place would do, Atsa thought. God, he hated school. The teachers were as bad as the kids - worse, sometimes. And that fucking Stu Sollen, he was such a bully. Atsa was already dreading Monday.

It was a quiet Saturday morning. Thin patches of snow lay here and there; the sky was bright. The town water tower rose up above everything else, the words DZILTH NA O DITH HLE painted on its bulbous round body. Atsa had picked up enough Navajo to know what it meant: "The place of the whirling mountains."

But nothing around here was whirling except maybe his head. He wasn't sure what caused his dread: The thought of asking for what he needed, or the old stories -- which gave him a thrill of fear when he was little -- that this house was occupied by a bruja, or maybe a devil. Or the ghosts of children the bruja had lured into her house and eaten...

Atsa shook off the thoughts. They were ridiculous kid stuff. The house wasn't so spooky. If anything, Atsa was surprised at how well kept up it was, and how ordinary. It all made sense, of course; Mrs. Taliwood wasn't a witch at all, but rather a curandera, a traditional healer. Atsa thought it was funny that so many of the town's Catholic residents made no distinction between a curandera and a witch, but those same people would still go to the Shaman for a Blessing Way if they violated one of the old tribal taboos.

Atsa himself had gone to the Shaman a few weeks earlier. He was hoping for medicine, the kind of medicine that white culture overlooked. But the Shaman had no poultice or herbs for him. The old man offered no long-held tribal wisdom. He waved burning sage at Atsa and chanted. That was about all he did. Of course, it didn't help.

And now here he was, desperate enough to turn to the curandera. He knew what his parents would say: Trust in Jesus. Atsa had prayed hard to Jesus, but that didn't help either. As for white culture and its snake oil? He'd found some stuff online, weird stuff. Typical white culture torture stuff. He'd tried it, though. When Jesus didn't help, he'd tried it, and then he went to the Shaman. All he had to show for it was three strikes.

Atsa felt a painful rushing behind his eyes. Reality blotted out of focus around him for a brief moment. Prayers. Shamans. Blessing Ways. Curanderas. It was all goddamn nonsense. His parents would be shocked if they knew what he thought of church, and tribal customs, and the pride they took in their middle class life. If they knew he was here on Mrs. Taliwood's porch, that would shock them, too. This was something good Christians like them just didn't do. But the biggest shock would be the reason he was here.

And nothing could help, Atsa thought, suddenly certain that coming here was one more fool's errand. He was doomed. He might as well just go home. He came close to doing just that - but then the front door opened and a tiny woman with a wise, wizened face peered up at him.

"Yes?" she asked.

Atsa stared at her, startled. He considered turning tail and running. But here she was; in his desperation he was willing to go with it. "I... is this where the curandera lives?" he asked.

"Yes," the tiny woman said.

"You're Mrs. Taliwood?" Atsa asked.

"Yes," the tiny woman said again.

He stared at her.

"Maybe you should come in," Mrs. Taliwood said.

***

Atsa sat at the table in Mrs. Taliwood's kitchen, hands nervously gripping the edge. It was an old-fashioned table, like something from the 1950s, with a thick metal strip outlining the Formica top. His jacket was hung on the back of the chair. The kitchen was hot, and humid with the steam that rose from a large, simmering pot. The room smelled delicious.

"Are you sure you won't have some soup?" Mrs. Taliwood asked from behind him, bustling over the stove where a the pot simmered and a kettle of water had just whistled.

"No, but thank you," Atsa said.

"My soup is very nourishing," Mrs. Taliwood said, setting about with a teapot and a strainer of crushed leaves. "Very healing."

Atsa was so nervous and tied up in knots he didn't think he'd even be able to down the tea. But he accepted the cup when Mrs. Taliwood poured it out for him.

"You won't want any milk or sugar for that," she said. "It's not like Lipton's. It's my own herbal mixture."

Atsa took a sniff and touched the hot brew to his lips.

Mrs. Taliwood finally sat down at the table. "So, young man," she said. "What brings you to my door? You want something to make you big and strong?"

"Have you got something like that?" Atsa asked.

"Soup," Mrs. Taliwood said.

Atsa laughed in spite of himself.

"But that's not why you're here," Mrs. Taliwood went on. "Are you sick?"

"I... maybe."

"You look like a healthy young man to me. Is it a matter of love? Are you love sick?"

Atsa had never thought of it that way, but it fit.

"If you're here for a love potion, I'm sorry, but there is no such thing," Mrs. Taliwood said.

"No," Atsa said, disappointed.

Mrs. Taliwood sipped her own cup of tea, and gazed at him serenely. She seemed unhurried, not waiting for anything... She seemed, Atsa suddenly felt, to be doing just what he had imagined she might: Peering right inside his heart and mind.

"You know," Mrs. Taliwood said after a minute or two, "before the white people came and brought us Jesus, our ancestors believed that we all have two souls."

"I heard something about that," Atsa said. "Two-spirits."

"You're thinking about na'dleeh," Mrs. Taliwood told him. "Is that what you think you are? A na'dleeh?

"Isn't that... what you're talking about... ?" Atsa started to feel like he'd walked into a trap.

"No," Mrs. Taliwood said. "I mean having two souls. It's not really part of Din� culture. We're talking about the ancestors. The Anasazi."

Atsa was totally our of his depth.

"There are stories handed down through the generations, tribal lore... the legends healers tell their students... Well," Mrs. Taliwood sighed, "it doesn't matter. You're not here about that."

"But I am," Atsa blurted, hurrying to say the words before he could chicken out. "I mean, I'm here about being a two-spirit... a na'dleeh."

"So?" Mrs. Taliwood took another sip of her tea.

Atsa did the same, suddenly feeling shy.

Mrs. Taliwood waited.

"I think I like... I mean, I know I do. I like boys," Atsa said.

"So?" Mrs. Taliwood said again.

"But I can't!" Atsa cried.

"Why not?" Mrs. Taliwood held her saucer in one hand and the teacup in the other. She kept that pose, waiting to hear his explanation. When Atsa couldn't bring himself to go on, she added, "There's nothing wrong with it."

"Tell that to Mom and Dad," Atsa said. The words broke a dam inside him. "They are big in the church, you know. And Dad is part of the tribal government. You know what they have to say about it. 'One man, one woman.' 'Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.' "

Mrs. Taliwood put her cup down and laughed. "Those are white people talking. It doesn't matter if our own people are saying the words. It's the white people who came up with those ideas. The Din� never believed any of that."

"That's great, but it doesn't help me," Atsa said.

"Why do you need help?" Mrs. Taliwood asked.

"Because I don't want to feel like this. I want to like girls."

"But you don't," Mrs. Taliwood said.

"No, but I want to," Atsa said.

"But that's not who you are," Mrs. Taliwood said.

"I want to change that," Atsa said.

"That's why you came here? To change who you like? How do you think that works?" Mrs. Taliwood asked him.

"I looked online about it," Atsa said. "I read about conversion therapy. I tried to -- I put my hands in ice water while looking at magazine pictures of handsome men. I held ice cubes in my fingers until the pain was just killing me. I did it over and over, every day, for three weeks."

A look of something like disappointment came over Mrs. Taliwood. She set her cup down onto her saucer. "Did it help?" she asked him.

"Not like it was supposed to. When I look at the refrigerator, my hands hurt. But when I look at a handsome man, I feel... pleasure. All through me. And down... down there."

"Yes," Mrs. Taliwood said. "You're gay."

"Now who's talking like white people?" Atsa said.

Mrs. Taliwood narrowed her eyes at him.

"My dad says that 'gay' is a white thing and white culture is trying to poison us," Atsa explained.

"Your father," Mrs. Taliwood said, still looking disappointed. "I know him. Since he was a boy, always with the white Jesus stuff. And then he tries to talk about how the whites are destroying our culture. And he's more white than Navajo - the conquistadors were white. I don't care how they try to spin it with the 'tri-culture' they are always talking about."

"Yeah, I hate that too," Atsa put in.

"Your father looks at you as more Din� than he is," Mrs. Taliwood said. "Your mother is pure Din�. Well, she's not, really, but that's the story her family tells. Well, your father, he went around the bend for her just because of her bloodline. He's proud that his son has so much Din� in him. So much like him. It's a stupid macho thing, just like his churching. Tell me something, mijo, do you want to be straight because of him? To make him proud? He's never going to be proud of you for yourself. He wants you to be the things he wishes he was. Excuse me for saying so, but he's a pinche cabr�n."

Atsa didn't blame her for thinking so. He'd heard his father inveigh against curanderas in much the same overheated, vitriolic way he slammed gays. Hearing the old woman come out with something so vulgar seemed paradoxical and funny. But Atsa was feeling too sad and anxious to laugh.

"I just want to be normal," he said.

"You are normal," Mrs. Taliwood said. "Don't you know that? Our ancestors knew it. Two-spirits were part of the tribe like anyone else. They had special work to do. Sometimes the gods would speak to them in ways they don't speak to others."

"Mrs. Taliwood," Atsa said, trying to cut through it and get to the problem, "I can't live like this. I hate school. They pick on me. And if my dad and mom ever found out I am how I am, they'd kick me out of the house. Then what? Where would I go? How would I get to college? I want to do things with my life. Can you help me?"

"Yes, of course," Mrs. Taliwood said, matter-of-factly.

"You can? Why didn't you just say so?"

"Because we had to talk about what was wrong before we could solve the problem. Now we have. Now I can offer you healing."

"And you can make me not gay?"

Mrs. Taliwood slapped the tabletop with a thin, spindly-looking hand. She was stronger than she seemed. The slap resounded through the kitchen and the teacups jumped.

"Young man, you listen to me. I am not going to make you 'not gay.' Being gay is not your problem. The gods did not make you to be anyone other than who you are. Do you trust in them?"

"Dad says we have to trust Jesus," Atsa said, feeling bewildered by her sudden forcefulness.

"What Jesus?" Mrs. Taliwood scoffed. "The white Jesus? El Jesus rubio? Do you think they have blonds where Jesus comes from?"

She kept talking about the white Jesus, and now it was the blond Jesus. Atsa didn't see what that had to do with anything, so he didn't answer.

"Jesus or any of the gods," Mrs. Taliwood said, leaning forward. "They need you to be who they made you to be. You want to go to college and make something of yourself? That's good. That's you living up to the potential the gods gave you so you can do the work they want you to do. But you spend your life lying to yourself, you are going to be stuck in a dither. You can't live like this? You're right. But the problem isn't who you are. It's how you think about who you are. You keep on this way and you're right to be scared: You won't get anything done. You know your uncle Willy? You'll end up like him, that burnout."

Why was she yelling at him like this? Was she going to help him or not? She said she wasn't going to make him like the other boys, but she seemed to think she could help him. But how? Like this? It was too much. Confused and hopeless, Atsa started crying.

Suddenly, Mrs. Taliwood was standing behind him, patting him on the back. Her hands surprised him, they were so strong and hot. Not the frail hands they looked to be. And soothing: Her hands seemed to draw the tension out of his body.

"I'm sorry," the curandera said. "You're just a boy. You didn't come to hear about these things. You came to me for healing. That's what I am going to do for you."

"But you said you can't make me normal," Atsa said.

Mrs. Taliwood tugged at him, and Atsa stood up from the table. He expected her to escort him to the door and shove him out onto the street. He would have to start all over again... but what options did he have left?

Mrs. Taliwood gripped his hands in her small, strong, hot grip and looked him over. "You got a blessing way, didn't you?" she said, startling him.

"I... yes." How did she know?

"And it didn't work?"

"No," Atsa said.

"But you're wrong," she said. "It did work. That's why you're here. You're looking for healing, and I can give it to you, but it's not the healing your mind tells you to want. The truth is you like boys, and your spirit knows it. I should say, your two spirits. Your two souls."

Mrs. Taliwood gently propelled Atsa out of the kitchen, but didn't take him to the door. Instead, she steered him to her living room, which was dark and cozy. "Now here's what you're going to do," she told him. "You're going to lie down on my couch and nap for a while. In an hour, I'm going to get you up. You're going to eat some of my soup, and then I am going to send you home with some medicine."

"Medicine?" Atsa asked.

"And you are going home to tell your parents what you told me: You are na'dleeh. Only, you might want to say you're gay, because I don't think your dad knows enough Navajo to understand that word."

"They'll hate me," Atsa muttered. He was feeling heavy and worn out. Maybe it was the brief crying jag, or the tea. The sofa looked comfortable. There was a hand-crocheted afghan draped over its back. It would be nice to lie on that sofa, Atsa decided, and wrap up in the afghan. He could definitely sleep there. "They'll beat me up. They'll throw me into the street," he heard himself saying. It all seemed so dim, and so distant.

"They won't do anything like that," Mrs. Taliwood said, as Atsa sank onto the couch. "If they do, I will take you in myself until you can go to UNM. It's UNM you want to go? Albuquerque?"

Something else she couldn't have known, not with Farmington's selection of colleges and universities right near by: San Juan College, a local branch of UNM, New Mexico Highlands... Then there was Colorado State University, not so far away. He could live in Durango, Atsa thought, his mind already drifting toward sleep. The mountains there didn't whirl, but they were gorgeous... peaceful...

Mrs. Taliwood reached over and tugged the afghan over him. He found a small pillow and tucked it under his head. He was so, so weary...

"You're going to be okay," Mrs. Taliwood told him.

That was the last thing he heard until she said, "Time to wake up."

Atsa blinked his eyes open.

"It's been an hour. More than an hour. I decided to let you sleep a little longer. You needed it." Mrs. Taliwood was already walking out of the living room, into the kitchen. A moment later, Atsa heard scuffing and clanging. "Come get your soup," Mrs. Taliwood called.

Atsa stood and made his way unsteadily across the room. He felt like he was floating, free of anxiety's heavy chains. He'd never been so at peace. He had no worries about school, the bullies, that goddamn mean motherfucker Stu Sollen... his parents... church... he knew these were problems, but right now they seemed beside the point.

Atsa entered the kitchen and sat at the table, where a bowl of Mrs. Taliwood's chicken soup was waiting for him. He picked up the spoon.

The soup was amazing.

"More?" Mrs. Taliwood asked him, when his bowl was empty.

"No, thank you," Atsa said. "It was really good soup, Mrs. Taliwood. Thank you."

She held out a thermos. "Take this," she said. "It's your medicine. Drink it a little at a time for the next two days, whenever you need some. After that, throw anything away that's left. Then you wash my thermos before you bring it back to me."

"Two days?" Atsa took the thermos and gathered his jacket off the back of the chair where he'd been sitting before. "Will it stay good in the thermos? Should I put it in the fridge?"

"It's going to be fine in the thermos for two days," Mrs. Taliwood told him. "It's more of my chicken soup."

"Chicken soup won't stay good for two days in a thermos," Atsa said.

"Mine will," Mrs. Taliwood said. "Now get going. Go straight home and talk to your parents. Drink the soup a little at a time, when you need it, today and tomorrow. I want that thermos back when you're done."

Atsa walked home, still gliding on a cloud of serenity. Time had little meaning. The walk was unreal, but lush with details that his mind took in unfiltered. The day was still cold and bright. A thin layer of snow lay underfoot. He felt like he was in two places at once: With Mrs. Taliwood, back in her kitchen... and now here, in his mother's kitchen, as he stepped through the door into his home. It felt as though everything were happening simultaneously.

Dzilth na o dith hle he thought, feeling almost drunk.

His mother and father were both there. That made no sense. His father should have been in Farmington, as he was most Saturdays, taking care of the store. His mother should have been at the church, where she spent all weekend every weekend with meetings, Sunday school, and other church business.

Both of them turned to him when he came through the door.

"Take off your shoes," his mother said. "Don't track mud and snow on my floor." She focused on the thermos as he set it on the counter. "What's that?"

Atsa tugged off one shoe. "Chicken soup."

"Chicken soup?" his father asked. "Where did you get it? Was it that pretty Ana Maria?"

Atsa got his other shoe off and let it fall next to its twin on the mat by the door. "It's chicken soup for my two souls."

His parents looked at him in puzzlement.

"I mean my two spirits," Atsa said.

"What are you saying?" his father asked.

"You know what two-spirit means," Atsa said. "Look at me. You know who I am. You're the two people who mean everything to me. But nobody... nobody female is going to mean that much to me. Ever. If I am lucky maybe I will find a guy you can call your second son. But I'll never have a wife you can call your daughter."

His parents looked at him, stricken.

"Mom? You understand what I mean? Dad?"

"Oh, Miguel," his mother said, holding out a hand as if to take him to her bosom. "My son - I'll always accept you. But you should think about what you're saying."

"I have, for a long time. I tried everything to be different, but... this is who I am." Atsa looked to his father. "Dad?"

"We will help you, son," his father said. It could have been a threat, coming from someone who had publicly said the things about gays that his father had. He'd called for gays to be subject to electroshock, or drugs, or whatever medical science could do, in his words, to "straighten them out." But the man standing in front of Atsa right now was nothing like the man who drew cheers and applause from crowds when he spoke out against gays. Atsa heard no such threat in his father's words.

That didn't mean they weren't planning to send him to some kind of "gay cure" boot camp -- something else his dad had talked about in public, and the reason Atsa had tried to freeze the gay feelings out of himself with those goddamn ice cubes.

Well, they hadn't thrown him out yet. That was something.

"Thank you," Atsa said. Then, taking the thermos, he walked out of the kitchen and into his room.

***

His sense of serenity didn't last, but that, Atsa thought, was why Mrs. Taliwood had sent him home with a supply of her soup. Every hour or so, as feelings of overwhelming fear started to re-surface, Atsa would open the thermos and take a swallow. It was the same chicken soup Mrs. Taliwood had fed him at her kitchen table, and with every sip he regained the tranquility the curandera had given him. That sense of being in two places at once - here in his room and also there, in her warm kitchen -- came back to him.

The day passed. There were no explosions of sudden rage from his parents. No jack-booted ex-gays crashed through his door to drag him away to a camp to "cure" him. Atsa's dad had publicly called for gays to have their "sex demons" exorcised, but no exorcists arrived at the house, either.

"Sex demons." Atsa laughed to himself. He loved his dad, but come on. Ata had never had sex -- not yet -- and he was pretty sure that even if he had two spirits, neither of them was a demon. But all the same, he knew now who he was. So did they. There was no going back.

Life was going to be different, Atsa thought, doodling in his biology notebook. Then, he decided: Life was going to be good. Time to stop trying to be what he thought they wanted for him. Time for him to start working out what he wanted for himself.

Atsa went back to his homework. Assignments finished, he put on some music. The rest of the house was quiet. He thought his parents must have gone off to do their usual Saturday business. There was no accounting for how they both happened to be home when he arrived. Had Mrs. Taliwood somehow set it up? But he didn't see how. Even if she had called the store and the church and told his parents to be home when he got there, they wouldn't have had time to manage it. The walk home took less than fifteen minutes. His mother could have made it by then, but his father would have had to drive back to Bloomfield from Farmington. That would take him half an hour or so. No, they had both been home because...

Because they had both been home. Just like Mrs. Taliwood somehow knew they would be. Just like she knew they wouldn't attack him or throw him out of the house... though that could still happen, Atsa thought. Well, if so, he felt strong enough to take on whatever challenges that would present. Had Mrs. Taliwood actually meant it when she said she'd take him in? Atsa tried to envision it: Living in the curandera's house. Benefiting from her wisdom. Growing strong from her soup.

About six o'clock that evening, well after dark had fallen, Atsa felt restless. It wasn't the same old anxiety and dread. It was something new - or rather, something old, something he'd had before he hit puberty and started worrying about sex and desire. Anticipation. Curiosity. A conviction that wonderful things were waiting for him. Atsa felt like the world might somehow be new... like he was new. He wanted to go out and see it, all of it.

Atsa walked to the pizza place, where he knew many of his schoolmates would be on a Saturday night. Including, he thought, that goddamn Stu Sollen. Stu was getting meaner all the time; a few days ago he had scrawled the word FAG on Atsa's locker with a Sharpie pen.

Atsa paused outside the pizza place. He fished the thermos out of his backpack, unscrewed the top, and took a gulp of the soup. The thermos was amazing. The soup was still as hot as ever. Atsa replaced the lid, almost put the thermos back, then hesitated. He opened it once more and took a bigger gulp. Then, feeling ready, he stowed the thermos away and walked in.

No one noticed him at first. Then Amanda Wiegenstock saw him. "Oh, hey, Miguel," she called.

Others turned to look.

"Miguel," Terry Miller said.

"Hey Atsa," Jerry Vigil said. Next to him, Mike Alvarez and Mandy Cherego nodded.

Then Stu Sollen came up.

"Hey, faggot," he said. There was a weird, slanted grin on his face, and a spark in his eye that said he was looking for trouble.

Atsa answered Stu's crazy, evil grin with his own bright and amiable smile. "Listen, cabr�n," he said in a friendly tone of voice. "You call me that again, you write shit on my locker, you piss me off -- I am gonna kick your lily-white ass." He shone his smile even more brightly onto Stu Sollen.

Telling Stu Sollen off this way, Atsa felt like he was two inches taller. Then he realized he was taller -- the result of not slouching. He had unconsciously drawn himself to his full height, buoyed by some inner force.

The chicken soup, he thought.

Stu Sollen seemed to be sizing him up. Then something happened: His psycho grin seemed to straighten itself out and the malicious glitter went out of his eyes. "You're okay, Miguel," he said. "Even if you are a..." Stu Sollen gave Atsa a broad look, almost a wink. "A little pinche bastard."

Stu Sollen laughed. Atsa laughed. He didn't think Stu Sollen was cool or likable. He was laughing because Stu Sollen sounded like such an asshole, trying to throw a Spanish word like that. Stu Sollen had only lived in Bloomfield for two years, since his mother and stepfather married. Before that he lived in Los Alamos, until his parents split up because his dad was screwing some other, younger woman.

Well, everyone had problems. But Stu Sollen wasn't going to be Atsa's problem any more. He realized Mrs. Toliwood was right. Other people were the source of his fear and his self-hatred. He didn't have to accept that from anyone else for one minute more.

***

Saturday night turned out to be fun. Sunday was peaceful, in spite of church, where the priest delivered a sermon about marriage equality and the evils of same-sex parents. Atsa asked himself if the priest had ever even listened to his own argument. It was ridiculous. If gay people kept marrying each other, the priest declared, if the people didn't rise up and demand a change in the law, then there would be no parents for many small children.

Or maybe, Atsa thought, the small children would have heterosexual parents. They wouldn't have to see a gay mother or father suffer, or a straight parent struggle with the lies a gay spouse told. Those little kids wouldn't have to see a marriage dissolve that should never have happened in the first place.

Anyway, Atsa couldn't imagine that a kid with two dads or two moms would be any worse off than a kid like Stu Sollen, whose parents were straight and divorced. And Stu's stepfather - Atsa had heard - liked to drink and use his belt on Stu. No wonder Stu was such a bully. Probably having two moms or two dads was just fine, as long as the parents... whatever combination of men and women they might happen to be...weren't fucked up.

Like that priest was fucked up. Arrogant pendejo. And his stupid sermon -- what was a guy who had sworn off sex and family doing, saying that people should or should not marry whoever they wanted, whoever they loved?

Some day Atsa would meet... someone. He didn't know who. But he'd know it when it happened. If there was magic in the world, that would be the way it found him - not through the Shaman or even the curandera.

Atsa knew right then and there that he would have the family he dreamed of.

The last of the soup was gone by Sunday night. Atsa washed the thermos with hot, soapy water. Before he did, he took one last whiff of the empty thermos. He liked the recipe. He wondered what Mrs. Taliwood used in the soup. Maybe some lime juice?

Atsa left the house early on Monday morning, the thermos in his hand. He wanted to deliver it to Mrs. Taliwood on his way to school, and to thank her. But when he reached her house, he halted in his tracks.

The house looked different. It looked abandoned. The place hadn't been so shabby on Saturday morning.

Atsa was about to step on to the porch when a man's voice startled him.

"Help you?"

Atsa looked toward the voice. Across the vacant lot next to Mrs. Taliwood's house there was a parcel of land and a trailer home. A man stood on a small wooden porch built snug to the trailer. He looked like he was on his way to work.

"You looking for someone?" the man asked.

"I wanted to return this thermos," Atsa said.

"Return it? To who?"

"To Mrs. Taliwood."

"Who?"

"The curandera? She lives here."

"No, kid, no one lives there. I hear about the curandera, people come looking for her all the time. But I've been here twelve years, and no one ever lived in that house while I've been here."

Stumped, Atsa turned back to the street and headed off to school.

The thermos was real and heavy in his hand. It really existed; so had the medicine Mrs. Taliwood had given him; and so, too, had Mrs. Taliwood.

Atsa didn't understand what had happened, but he didn't need to. Maybe, he thought, it sometimes was enough to have faith.

***

Susan Salcedo paused in front of the house where they said the curandera lived. Her friend Amy said that the house was haunted. Amy said nobody lived there for years and years - nobody but ghosts. Tomas Delatorre said the same. Evil spirits, he said. That's all the house contained.

Susan thought the house had a warm and friendly look. It seemed neatly kept up. She tentatively climbed the steps to the porch and stood in front of the door.

Maybe she climbed the steps too fast. Her heart jumped in her chest. "Whooo!" Susan chortled, swaying. "Head rush!" She took a deep breath and stood still. That was better. She turned her attention to the front door of the house. Should she knock, or...?

Suddenly, the door opened. Susan gasped with surprise. A tiny woman with a kindly, careworn face looked up at her.

"Yes?" the curandera asked.

Susan started giggling in embarrassment. "Oh my god," she trilled. "Sorry. You totally freaked me out. Sorry. My friends said that no one lived here, but..."

"Well, I live here," the woman said.

"My friend Amy said she came to find the curandera because she was looking for some kind of herb that you can use for an abortion. But she said the house was empty."

"Well," the tiny woman said, opening the door wider as if by way of invitation, "maybe I didn't want to see your friend. I don't let just anyone in."

"Really?" Susan stepped through into the warm house, which smelled of something cooking - something really nice. "So why are you letting me in?"

"You seem like someone with a good soul," the curandera said. "Or maybe even two souls."

"What?" Susan giggled. "Are you serious?"

"Never mind about that right now, honey. Come in, come in to the kitchen and tell me what's troubling you." The curandera moved deeper into the house. Susan followed, shutting the door behind her. Ahead, she saw a tidy kitchen, with an old table - a table with a metal edge and a Formica top. Susan made her way slowly to the kitchen, her curious eyes taking in the framed pictures on the wall, the shelves loaded with jars full of dried herbs.

The curandera's voice floated back to her: "Can I offer you some soup?"

For Yonatan