Dogs

Woke up in the middle of the night with weird noises outside. Panting and rubbing sounds or so it seemed. The atmosphere was of a sullen and nervous kind, a fair warning of the terror it is to run into the Obscure Police at night. I came downstairs feeling nauseous and feeling it almost impossible to breathe. The phone rang. I rubbed my laptop's touch pad with my index, bringing it back to life. It was 3:35 a.m.. I decided to answer the phone. It was the Mayor, still up at that time of the night.

"There are two dogs in front of your house. Try not to look through the windows."

I told him I heard those panting and rubbing sounds and he agreed. Said I should by no means look through the window and hung up. I went back to my room, astonished and haunted. What was that supposed to be now? Why would Andrés call me at that time? Maybe he "saw" I was going to look around until I found the source of the panting and rubbing noises and had decided to warn me against doing it.

The noises were loud; too loud for the still of the night and too weird to let me sleep. i decided, against all advice to look and see at once what the hell that was all about. When I opened the window, it was morning already. When I turned around to go down ad see what was outside, I couldn't help but screaming in total astonishment: my nightstand was turned upside down, the armchair in the corner had been turned too not to mention my closet door had been ripped off its hinges.

I started feeling pain all over my body and sat down on my bed, trying to understand what happened. It was long past three thirty a.m. when I heard the weird noises outside. Andrés called me and told me there were two dogs in front of my house. I tried to sleep and ended up trying to peek, but it was morning already. Only I got all this mess in my room right now. I started to try to think of what happened between me waking up and opening the window. Or did it happen when I opened the window?

My God. I do remember it now. It was not in the morning when I opened the window. It was 3:40 a.m. at most.What I saw sent me back ricocheting against the walls and furniture in my bedroom as a massive rubber-band ball breaking everything my body could touch on its way. It was two black dogs, one smaller than the other. The larger one covered the figure of the other. The horror of seeing them in the middle of the night in that wilderness was what had sent me back like a firearm kickback.

By the window, I heard the sound of a horse approaching. I looked through the window afraid of looking through the window. The things you see when looking through the window here in Taurinos. To think I had always dreamed of a large window kitchen where I could cook looking at the fields and mountains for Mother Nature's inspiration, but my plans seemed to have all fallen through.

It was master Danilo. Left all that mess behind. I went down and started boiling water for coffee. The old countryman heard me with attention as I told him about my sleeping night. He was astonished and while he proposed to help me tidy up my room, said he himself had heard the noises next to his house. I asked him what time and he said it was well past three in the morning.

"Master Danilo it was more or less the same time it happened here!"

I was nervous and he perceived my impatience. After the story of the dog at Anderson's hardware store when a black dog came springing on me when I was inside Duílio's car already I caught myself nervous thinking of dogs and all of these spooky things.

"Do you remember, could you see what they were doing? I didn't have the nerve to look you see, I'm not curious about this kind of thing at all, you know."

"Only saw the dogs. It was too fast for my eyes to follow, it's the only thing I remember", I said, skimming the coffee.

He was in silence for some time. I was nervous with it all and with his silence.

"Were they a female and a male dog?"

I was ready to ask him how in the world he expected me to have noticed something so stupid but I did remember the two were male and asked myself how in the world I could remember something so stupid.

He was silent for some more time when I answered his question. I wondered now what the reason was for his thoughtful silence.

"A candy for your thoughts, master Danilo."

"The wintertime. They always come in the wintertime."

"Who comes?"

He turned his eyes to me as though I knew it already.

"The dogs, "sá" Stella", he said it serious.

"Is this good or bad?"

"Neither good nor bad, it is just something that the dogs choose to do. But it's among them, it is not something for you to be looking through the windows at. I told you before to avoid looking through the windows; sometimes it is best to simply go outside and look, it will do you less harm than otherwise, however weird it might seem to you."

He also told me I had to be wary of people looking at me through the windows from the outside of my house, especially the kids. As on the day Arthur stuck his head through my window to encourage me to open the gift he gave me. I told him what had happened the day before, with Aparecida fainting in her kitchen and Renan's double lunch.

He told me it was the vision of the kid framed by the net door on top of the issue that was being discussed that took her nervous system to such a high rotation it simply collapsed. I thought he might be so right there. When Adriano and I looked at the scene, Renan had already walked in the kitchen and was helping her back on her feet again.

"And of course he was annoyed of being called a spook. He probably heard it from you, from a part of your talk…" noted the old countryman.

"Yes, he probably did, it was a relaxed talk after all."

"And he is right, even so the kid is just another inhabitant of this town, "sá" Stella. He gets offended for being considered as something different, as a ghost. As "sêo" Duílio said, he is just one more of these brats that live in this town."

Out of the blue, Andrés and Adriano appeared at the kitchen's window, scaring the hell out of me and frightening even the old countryman. After scolding the two brothers, I offered them breakfast. They did accept it as castaways would. The Mayor looked at me and said, "of course you had to go and open the windows to look in the middle of the night", and still hadn't told him about the mess in my room (in case he hadn't still "seen" it by himself).

"I was telling her pretty much the same, plump fellow", the old countryman smiled a strange smile, one that tried to create a better environment where there's visibly no perspective of improvement. The kids were looking at him and he was looking at the kids, all of us in total silence. This silence began to annoy me as hell.

"What is this now supposed to be? Can anybody tell me what this new sensation is?"

"What?", asked the Mayor innocently as he picked up the coffee pot from the tabletop.

"Andrés Silva Conselheiro, don't be so ridiculous, what else are we fucking talking about????"

"Easy, Miss Grisam, it was just a joke… Easy!" The Mayor was pale in the face. He was scared with my emotional outburst. Master Danilo himself seemed very impatient with his childhood mate. I was nervous. Let them perceive it well.

I've been neurotic about these bizarre things happening in town all the time. Things that won't stop happening, driving you mad all the time. Why I decided to stay here was a question that had unfortunately ceased to have the need of an answer.

"Every end of winter, the black dogs start coming and do nobody knows what, because nobody has the nerve to look", explained Adriano, bringing up the theme of the end of the winter that master Danilo had begun with.

"Well, she dared to", said the Mayor pointing at me.

"How many dogs are they?", I cut him short brusquely.

"It's two in every one of Taurinos' houses", Andrés answered slowly and a bit afraid of my reaction, it seemed, not looking very directly at me.

"What do you mean?", I asked him astonished.

"Yes, there are two dogs outside each house. At the same time Andrés called you there were two in front of our house, yours, Arthur's and so it goes", added Adriano.

"I told you I had heard them next to mine too, "sá" Stella", confirmed the old countryman.

"But where do they come from???"

"we expected you to know and tell us", explained Adriano. The other two just nodded.

"Me???"

I was bewildered. Now it was me who was supposed to know everything. Well, why not, since I had created that town and everything that exists in in. How could I expect them not to expect me to know everything about it?

"I have no clue what it can be. You yourselves have told me more than I'd ever dream to know about it. Why do you think I know anything about something Andrés told me about a few hours ago at 3:30 something in the morning?"

Night, endless night over the mountains of Taurinos. From today's meeting, only master Danilo and I remained talking, for lost time. We went out to the porch, I turned on the light and the moths and other nocturnal little creatures had already started to land on the porch wall attracted by the light, casting weird and twisted shadows across the brick surface.

Cold was certain to be hellish tonight. Hardly had the Sun gone down it went cold as hell in town. Something typical of the Mantiqueira Ridge without matter and without a spirit we live on. A crystal-clear night and an absolutely cloudless awaited us outside.

I went inside for a coat as master Danilo ransacked his backpack in search of a leather jacket of his own. I brought out a thermos jug, cups saucers and the like for some coffee, dumped it all on the porch coffee table. Outside the limitless starry sky in this legendary and imaginary town.

We stared at the sky in respectful contemplation. For lost time. It should be seven, eight in the evening, but who'd care to count the time before the greatest show on Earth?

Distant sounds of horses that would sooner or later be here. I glanced at master Danilo and he brought his ear close to the ground as he always did to assess our security in the fields. Said it was probably the two kids, but that there was no reason to go in. We were looking at the sky as the horses came in a crescendo in the still of that night wilderness. Only the natural sounds and the still distant horses were heard.

The two stopped at my gate and waved at us. I glanced at master Danilo and the two lads waved at us again, as though they were calling us. The old countryman seemed all cautious as I told him I was going to talk to the police officers.

"I don't like how their looks feel, calling us like that, from a distance, "sá" Stella", he declared.

"They're only inhabitants of this town, remember? Only some brats who live in town."

As we approached the gate I got those old chills coming up and down my spine, chills that only grew in intensity as the light of the porch got lost in the outer shadows of my land. Sometimes I thought of putting up a post at the gate for better lighting. Sometimes I thought if it was worth it. Sometimes I thought if answering a call from the Obscure Police at night was worth it.

The two never got off their horses, as if horses and boys were one piece only. The look of the two was shady, charged, fluorescent, still more by the penumbra the end of the porch light let in.

""Sá" Stella, don't you go any closer than that", the old countryman advised me.

"You two can come to the gate, there's no problem", said Renan's tiny voice. A mild tiny voice, obscure and shady as the night around us. The darkness made me nervous in that moment.

"What do you want?"

"We're telling people not to leave at night on account of the dogs that have been appearing in town, you know", explained the elder policeman.

"What about these dogs after all? Are they dangerous?"

"Did you see them dogs?", asked the younger policeman.

"Just a glimpse through the window."

"You could find yourself in deep trouble just by looking through the windows, you know", the elder policeman was talking to me again.

"I found myself in a big one this morning."

The eyes of the two were horrible at that time in that penumbra. The old countryman avoided looking directly at them. I stared, fascinated by that vision of the two in black, getting mingled with the darkness around them and the white of their eyes that was fluorescent in that moonless night darkness; my insistent stare made the two glance at each other. They asked me to find accommodation for master Danilo in my house and insisted that he should sleep over. Needless to stay we accepted the suggestion right away.

"Is it alright with you? Can you possibly stop staring at us like this?", asked Renan, seeing that I couldn't get my eyes off him and his partner.

Moony

The phone rang. It was Donana, asking whether I had met Renan the night before. I said I did in the fields while I was watching the night sky. As everyone else in town, she wanted to know what made me stay in the fields at night watching the sky. I explained we had to spare some time to just do nothing, and so forth. She seemed not to have understood a thing just the same.

Still she changed subjects saying her son was moony as she had never seen. I said I always thought of Renan as something between an armored car and a soap bubble. Very mighty and very fragile, ready to explode at the slightest contact. She didn't grasp it at first but ended up agreeing with my vision.

"And they stopped at your side to stare at the sky too?"

"They were there with me for the remainder of the night, silent. All night without a word. They looked hypnotized."

"Don't you think it can do them harm? Never seen Renan doing this kind of thing, Miss Grisam"

"Well it might not do them good, but it sure will do them no harm, Donana."

"What do you think they do at night?"

"Well, don't they chase the outsiders or whatever out of town?"

"But is it all?", Donana inquired.

"I wouldn't say it's all. I think it must be hell doing what they do at night. If this does them no harm, what would watching the sky do?"

There was an extended pause on the other side of the wire. Then Donana said goodbye, said she had things in the oven. It was really ten in the morning, a time when women traditionally started cooking for lunch so it could be on the table by noon.

I dropped by the farm Taurinos a bit later. Andrés was at the Town Hall dispatching documents. Documents of what, seems there was nothing else to do in this town, there was never a street in bad conditions, never something missing or in need of repairs. Aparecida, Adriano and I were in the kitchen talking while I helped Aparecida with the cooking.

"And so she called you to ask you about the boy?", Aparecida inquired, absorbed in slicing kale so finely that I couldn't help but being afflicted by the thought she'd slash here fingers doing it.

"Actually she wanted to know if I had been with him", I answered as I went about slicing cucumber.

"Had you?", asked Adriano.

"Yes, the two showed up out of the blue in the fields…"

"Miss Grisam! Holy mother of God!", the woman was appalled at the very thought.

"But no, they weren't in armor, they were only in black and covered with blood", I answered trying to refrain from a seizure of laughter and making the Conselheiros' matriarch cross herself, "odd, they never said a word and we were there for the whole of the night in total silence…"

Adriano frowned and assumed an expression of one thinking deeply.

"So they didn't go there to scare you this time?", Aparecida asked.

"Well, it frightens you always a little bit, because I was alone and we always think they are coming in armor. But I didn't hear anything strange as I approached my ear from the ground…"

"For Mithra's sake, don't you ever do it, Miss Grisam! They say it's no good to hear them two approaching at night ear close to the ground…"

"Well, it's no good but better than sticking the ear to the ground anyhow, mom", said her eldest son, "if someone does it it is because they want to go insane, deaf or both, no?"

"Oh, there isn't a single thing I like about this talk… Can't we just change subjects?"

There was a pause, but it hadn't been five seconds since her request and Adriano and I heard her scream. When we turned our eyes to the scene, Renan was at her side, all in black, grumpy, staring serious at us, helping the poor woman back on her feet again. Adriano ran to his mother and got the little policeman rid of her weight. Renan was strange and shady as hell. Not that he wasn't usually strange and shady, but it was a different strange and shady look this time. I would never know how to explain but it filled my spine with chills.

"I hate it when you go talking about me and my partner as if we were spooks", he said in a tone that was as strange and shady as his looks.

"But you do like to frighten people, no? You're proud of how terrible you are", retorted Adriano still bringing his mother back to consciousness.

"Fuck you! I'm no spook, you hear me? I'm a lad as anyone else in this town!"

I signaled to Adriano so he could let the boy speak. I could see the moment when the boy was going to get armed in front of us and it would be hell on earth. Not to mention what would happen to Aparecida; the very subject was enough to get her all startled. The very sight of the brat all in black made her collapse to the floor.

"What's brought you here, Renan?", Adriano asked when the brat seemed to have relieved a bit of his emotional pressure.

"I came to ask you if I can have lunch with you today."

And he stayed for lunch. He was waiting and I called Adriano for some private words; asked him to take me t the farm Teixeira. He didn't get it, but took me anyhow. I couldn't believe Aparecida was brave enough to stay alone with Renan in her kitchen.

We got in the farm Teixeira and Donana came to welcome us. She invited us for lunch. I said we only wanted to talk to Renan, but followed me as we walked in the family's dining room. Renan was the first one to see and he beamed at us.

"You could have called first. So much trouble coming here."

Adriano stared at me, eyes wide open. Apparently the story of the aspects haunted him too. When we went back to the farm Taurinos, Renan and Aparecida were already having lunch. Obviously they had decided not to wait for us. Renan again told me I could have phoned him.

"If you asked me I'd have told you I was having lunch with my family" he observed, half shy, half murky.

At his side, Aparecida was none the wiser. I quickly changed subjects to avoid another collapse of the Conselheiros' matriarch. We talked a lot and Renan seemed especially amused by our talk and gave his contributions too. He was less and less shady as the meal progressed. At the end of the lunch, alone with him and Adriano on the porch I asked him why the heck he would want to have lunch in two places at once, places that were at least five kilometers far one from the other.

"We were too silent at my family's table today. I was sad."

Adriano and I glanced at each other. At the farm's gate, an unidentified car stopped and delivered Duílio at home, late for lunch.

Stargazing

Downtown with Adriano buying for the month at the Souza's Serve Well To Serve For Life. I make a point of carrying all of the bags, he only has to drive. I found I gave too much trouble to the family already with my requests for staple transportation. The youth loved to drive so he agreed and even proposed to take me every month. Duílio wouldn't take long to agree, a sign that either he trusted his elder a lot or was fed up with my requests. I hoped for the first alternative but since I had Adriano as a helping hand I wouldn't need to pester Duílio any longer.

Adriano and I went to Zé of the Depths to eat. Incredible, he even had Minas cheese pastries and all that jazz. The snack window on the counter didn't look like a toothless mouth this time. We walked in without noticing a table in the background. We crossed the bar and sat at a table beside that one. I felt a chill up my spine that bothered me but it was something at first I could not identify. I started moving my eyes slowly to my left side. Anderson was sitting at the table in the darkest corner of the bar, exactly by our side. If I reached out I could touch him. Adriano saw him and stood up from the table with his pastries and a bottle of Coke.

"I'll be waiting in the car", he growled, not happy with the company. Anderson was silently looking at him as he got out of the bar heading for the car. His eyes fell on me as soon as Adriano disappeared from his field of vision.

"How much do I owe you for the work on the lock?", it was the first thing I asked him.

"I've told you, you've paid for the lock already."

"So what you mean is that every time you got to fix something in my house this will be the price to pay? Nightmares and having you come out of your store as a black dog out of the blue? There's no Procon here, but there's the Council of Taurinos' Ancient Society."

"Next repair will be charged in money, I promise", he was quick to act.

"I hope so."

I got out of the bar with my things and went to eat in the car with Adriano. I wasn't angry with Anderson. I was in fact a bit afraid of him.

At night, went out on my own. Went to a field nearby to gaze at the night sky, spend some moments enjoying the beautiful starry skies of Taurinos. I opened a mat on the ground, sat down and let myself be absorbed by that wonder. The Southern Cross, the Air Pump, Coma Berenices. How many more constellations could I ever spot?

It hadn't been half an hour since I had gotten to that spot when I heard a distant murmur. In time, it grew clearer and I could tell what it was. Horses. As usual I wouldn't take long to have company. And it was likely to be bad company.

I wasn't moving. If those kids kept on playing these tricks, I'd bring them to Council myself. I was so sick of all of that. The horses came closer but unlike the other occasions, the sound of the night wouldn't die away. As carefully as I could I bent over and placed my ear near the ground. Nothing strange. The horses came closer and closer. I set my ear exactly on the ground against all recommendations from master Danilo and the Obscure Police itself. Again, nothing strange. The horses came closer and closer; now they could be seen, weren't they coming from somewhere behind me.

As usual, the horses slowed down as they approached me. I had the impression I heard a metal clash somewhere and the sounds of two people walking, one at each of my sides. They sat down. I looked at my left side with the corner of my eyes and there Anderson was, sitting. On the right side it was Renan. None of them said a word. I was in silence myself. The fact that on such vast fields the two would stop exactly by my side seemed to stubbornly mean something to me.

I didn't remember spending so long with those kids without a word like that. It was or seemed to be hours there. After a period that seemed an eternity, the policemen rose from the ground and once on their horses, disappeared in the last darkness of the night that preceeds the dawn as silent as they had appeared.

It hadn't been half an hour since they left when I saw the day's first break. I stood up, folded the mat and saw blood splats on the grass the two had been sitting upon. That indicated that their night had been hectic. I figured the time stargazing did them good. And like them, I took the long way home too.

The figure of the dog

First it was the void. Then my body falling into the void, a chasm far beyond the wildest descriptions I could ever gather. An infinite chasm where I kept falling non-stop, a horror scream choked in my throat, unable to find a way out of it.

I woke up, don't know how I woke up from that and was sitting on my bed enjoying the sensation of horror and unreality of the post-sleep moment. When I moved my left leg an object almost pierced me. A screwdriver on my bed. How would it end up here?

Went down to the lower floor. The window facing the porch was ajar. Tried to open the door. It was locked. Locked??? That door had never been locked since the construction of the house. The lock was not the same anymore. I went to the window to look and stepped on something sharp, metallic that nearly pierced my bare foot. A key, on a key-chain on the floor. I tried it in the new lock and it worked smoothly and effortlessly. Went out to the porch and there was no one out there. A cold wind of a Sun half obscured by clouds plagued me for a while. I walked back in, shut the door but didn't lock it and went to the kitchen to make coffee. It was nine and something in the morning.

While I had coffee, master Danilo dropped by. I offered him coffee and he had hardly sat down to drink it when I went on to tell him about the horrific dream, the screwdriver on the bed and the change of the front door's lock. He heard me attentively and in time started to frown.

"The locksmith came to work, solved your problem with the lock and caused you some sleep disturbances", said the old countryman with no shadow of a doubt as he spoke.

"Do you think that…"

"I'm sure. He came here, fixed the lock and spent good time in your room strangling you. It was what I told you happened to my grandpa when he told me of Jurupari."

Anderson was checking some merchandising at the store's entrance at the end of the afternoon when Duílio turned the car to enter the square and parked the car by the curb on the side of the street. Master Danilo and I got off the car, Duílio stayed in waiting. Anderson beamed as he saw us but saw his smile met no correspondence.

"Did you like the new lock?", he asked a bit embarrassed, glancing at master Danilo and me alternately.

"Loved it. What I didn't like about it was the price."

"Ah, I wouldn't do it for the money", he beamed again.

"Only for the sheer pleasure of squeezing my throat would you do it, wouldn't you?"

His beam disappeared definitively now. He stared silently at me and then resumed his checking of his merchandise, "you sometimes speak too much."

Master Danilo and I glanced at each other.

"Yup, that is what I have always heard about Adriano, remember? By the way, his family only hasn't called you saints."

Anderson was silent. I told him that either I spoke too much or they'd admit to what they did too little. I asked him if they had expected me to be silent about their idiocy during the Jamboree. He wouldn't reply and only looked up on his clipboard for data. I handed him the screwdriver I had found on my bed. He snatched it from my hand, embarrassed and nervous and walked into the store to put the tool away.

"They are taking the matter to Council?", now he looked worried when he returned to the front of the store, "because if they are…"

"Are you going to reopen the case of the Celestial Gardener?"

Anderson was silent again. He now saw master Danilo and I were one step beyond their plan B. He asked us to go because he had already messed his calculations twice. The old countryman seemed willing to cooperate, but I intended to speak with the blacksmith some longer.

Anderson saw I wasn't going to leave so soon and beamed at me. A luminous smile, luminous and weird as hell, deforming the edges of his face, from edge to center turning all of his face into a horrific, grotesque and twisted smile from the ugly face I knew from so many nights on duty.

I got lost in the dead light of that beam until it got mixed with another and all of a sudden I had Duílio and master Danilo shaking my head as I collapsed on one of the square's benches.

"Eh, "sá" Stella, sometimes the time to go is sooner than we expect…"

"What do I do here, I want to go back there, talk to…"

"You're nuts, you're not going back there, let's get out of here before he decides to come to the square."

People started to gather to help or simply see what was going on; I feared they formed a circle around me. I looked at the hardware store entrance and in its inner penumbra, I had the impression of having seen a dog or something to that effect. There was no dog at the store.

"What dog is that one at the entrance of the store?", I asked the two as I rose from the bench, "this is why I tell you we must get out of here soon, for instance, right now", said Duílio opening his car's door and tucking me in. I wanted to open the window, but Duílio was faster and closed it again.

A black mass sprang from the inside of the store (spreading the people at the square all over like they were pigeons and they screamed running to the surrounding streets) and smashed its face and nose against the glass of the window I had wanted to open. A black dog. A monstrous one.

Desperately, Duílio maneuvered the car onwards brusquely hitting the dog on its side and making it almost go over the car, falling at our back. I never knew Duílio to drive so fast in the narrow streets of the town. We took no more than ten minutes to be back on the farm Taurinos safely.

Night fell over Taurinos. I asked Duílio to drive me home directly. I offered master Danilo to sleep over and he ended up agreeing to, so frightened he still was. When we got to the gate in front of my house, chills filled the spines of the three of us: there was a black horse tied to my house's gate. Duílio glanced at us interrogatively, master Danilo and I glanced at Duílio as interrogatively as he did. Renan? He didn't have the keys of my house. There was no one in front of the house, there seemed to be no one at the porch either. Unless they were behind…

…or inside the house.

Master Danilo, Duílio and I got in by the other side of the fence, avoiding to pass near that horse. The light of the stars was the only light in that dark pathway to my porch. We approached the house slowly using nothing more than our eyes used to the dark of the night to see through the path. No one at the porch.

I turned on the porch's light and the moths and other nocturnal little creatures had already started to land on the porch wall attracted by the light, casting weird and twisted shadows across the brick surface. I turned the key as slow as I could. The two men watched me in astonishment as I did it. I opened the door very slowly too. Turned on the room light and there he was, sitting in an armchair in the dark.

Knowing beforehand it might be him didn't soothe the impact of seeing him in the penumbra of my room. He had a key-chain in his hand. Said it was extra keys in case I needed them and dropped them on the coffee table. He stood up and went away, passing the men that stared more astonished than before. I went out to the porch to talk to him but there was no one there anymore. Neither he nor his horse were there any longer. Not even a sound of a horse departing and galloping away.

"He went home, "sá" Stella, or on Police duty, since he is in black", said master Danilo as he saw me back in the room. Duílio still had his eyes as big as saucers while he crossed himself madly on the couch.

I told Duílio that he could wait until coffee was ready. He did. We were talking about today. I insisted that what I saw leaving the store was a black dog. They said they had never said it was not. Said what they really doubted was that Anderson had any dog at his store.

"So the big dog which sprang from inside the store was…"

"It was, Miss Grisam. This is why I was crazy to get out of the place. Didn't you see the crowd being spilled all over like they were beans? That's what the people say, a horse, a dog or a duck, these things."

"If didn't shut the car window he'd get in the car, "sá" Stella; well it would be hell if he made it past the window. He's just passed me by and see the chills will never end."

"And he is just one of these boys that live in this town, that's all he is", added Duílio.

Whirlpool

Adriano dropped by home today. Said his mother wanted to come but sent him first to see if it was possible. I told him old friends like us needed no frills like those.

Aparecida showed up a bit later, followed by Duílio. So I thought to myself now I realized it had been a week or so since we last talked. I stayed home like I had been grounded by invisible forces. Went places, but not to the farm Taurinos. So the mountain had to come to Mohamed.

"The event was so pretty", Aparecida was telling me, "never seen such polite youths in my life. They'd help me even with the chores in the kitchen, can you believe it?"

"I do believe you", and I remembered the scout Renato, his love of his honor and his correctness. Poor child wasting his precious time in this absurd town.

"And there were songs they sang", and she hummed The Tree In The Wood and some other lullabies, "they held some very pretty ceremonies there. The kids engaged in archery, so many things happening at the same time you wouldn't believe", and she sounded enthusiastic about the event.

Duílio said he had found it strange that I wouldn't be on the farm Taurinos any of the days during the event. Told him I felt much the same. That the presence of the scouts here twisted everything.

"I mean it in a good sense, but it changed everything in my routine", I played it by the ear to see what the talk would develop into.

The couple and Adriano eventually said they didn't understand why Andrés only returned home the day before. Asked me if he had been here all this time. I said he sometimes escaped to the Town Hall, but that he stayed here most of the time.

"Miss Grisam, he promoted the event and wasn't even there", explained Adriano, "we had to stand for him during the event, it sucked big time. It was a pretty event and all, but wasn't it weird that the host and his group did not appear?"

At this point, I started to think if I should tell them that Andrés and Bruno, as well as each and every scout in his group remained here because someone did them the favor of locking them in time within the first or second day of arrival, a day on which they should stay here and wait for the Jamboree to begin. And all of this probably due to the argument between the scout Renato and the fearsome duo downtown. I ended up telling them all about it. The Obscure Police didn't even ask me to keep it secret anyhow. The Conselheiros didn't like a speck of my account, however small. I made them see the boys from Taurinos played their games among themselves and we were always in the middle of the whirlpool.

"See if we get it from the beginning it was Andrés and Renan together up to their necks in that story of the Celestial Gardener with Arthur getting at them", I explained what my theory was, "now it's Andrés and Bruno together up to their necks in this story of the Jamboree. The actors change, though the game is always the same: rules of one are broken and one tries to fight back. In the case of the Celestial Gardener I needed nothing more than going into the Sanctuary to set the wheel in motion. In the case of the Obscure Police master Danilo needed nothing more than saying chupacabras invaded my land to get things down and running. It is much like an uncontrollable and permanent feud of all against all, where what is the least important is the reasons why, and the most important thing is the feud itself."

"My good Mithra! Chupacabras, Miss Grisam? Like those in Varginha?", asked Aparecida, frightened. I explained to them what had happened and what had been arranged with the Obscure Police. The feeling of strangeness of the scouting group and the promise master Danilo and I made to each other of not letting the scouts find out about the weird happenings in town. What was just like trying to empty the sea, with some five hundred people coming to and fro within the rural area of Taurinos. Adriano didn't like my explanation much, it seemed.

"Master Danilo and I had to make up an excuse very quickly", I added, "Renan learned about his excuse somehow and made his own mountain out of a molehill from that fact. As if it were revenge for the time in the Sanctuary or even his old dislike of the nicknames he's given as the Obscure Police itself, you see. But it's all just like Duílio said the other day, those brats are always fighting for no reason at all and we just keep getting caught in the middle of this whirlpool."

The Conselheiros didn't know what to do, this was clear to me. The anger was the anger they naturally nourished against Renan and now Anderson, the newest "millennial" member of the Obscure Police. Other than that, it was like they themselves were trapped in that same feeling of stupor the scouts all fell prey to. Would it be the Obscure Police bringing time to a stop again?

"These children are all deranged, and we don't know what to do anymore", said an uncomplaining Duílio.

Duílio does his part, beating his two little creatures to a pulp whenever "necessary". This has never solved any problems, "sêo" Octávio beating Renan to a pulp has never solved any problems; what good would it be after all? Where would it end? Because they knew nothing would solve the problem, the parents preferred to vent their spleen on the kids whenever they felt they "needed" it (though I'm against beatings, sometimes I can't crucify the parents for that — at least not like the Obscure Police crucified Taurinos' ex-Mayor some ten days ago).

"What are going to do?", asked the patriarch.

"I'd love to take the Police to a Council", affirmed the Mayor's elder brother.

"What for? You'll put Renan working with cattle with Andrés or paying communitarian service at the Town Hall for two weeks or two months, then it happens all over again?", I questioned the solutions of the land to these issues though I had no better ideas myself.

"I don't know if it's going to be any good, but it is for sure better than letting them get away with it, no?", declared Adriano, upset with my questioning.

The young constructor was such a sweet teenager, but had a history of conflicts with me that was worth considering no matter what I said to him. However, I told him that he was right: the humblest of punishments was far better than just no punishment at all.

"I too agree with my son. If we can't stop them from doing what they do let's at least make them see that what they do has its consequences", declared Aparecida, supported by her husband. The Conselheiros seemed in agreement on this issue.

Andrés appeared soon after. He wasn't very enthusiastic about taking the officers to Council. Even advised us against it. We all wanted to know why. He never explained his reasoning beyond two or three superficial reasons.

Would it be because Renan considered him a traitor for joining Bruno with such a nature-oriented purpose after the "humanization" of the bulls in the very dawn of Taurinos? Because he didn't want to further the policeman's irritation since Renan already considered him a traitor? Eventually I gave up raising those mysterious and ancient points with Aparecida so close and so prone to fits and faints.

"There's a point we haven't looked at", I added, "what if there's punishment for Renan and Anderson for that reason (and for the crucifixion of the ex-Mayor too) and what if Renan accepts it but calls for punishment for the Celestial Gardener too? After all the Gardener left signs of a garden I told him to remove entirely from my house and this was seen by the scouts who made it a campsite during the event. By the way, he'd be right in invoking something like this and I'd support him on this one, if you ask me. If there was no punishment for the Celestial Gardener, why punish the Obscure Police?"

"Lend your ears to this voice of wisdom", recommended Andrés. Funny things was, it didn't sound as a satire or mocking, he did speak serious. Like me, he seemed to understand the implications of it all.

"And maybe that's even their plan after all", Andrés went on in mild voice, "as on the day Renan had it out with Anderson at the Mithraeum. He played to lose, because he wanted to drag the locksmith to the chasm together with him. What if he's thinking of doing the same with the Celestial Gardener? Who can assure he's not? Who knows what goes on on that little mind?"

Master Danilo showed up a bit after and found it strange to meet the whole of the Conselheiro clan reunited in my house. But said that in spite of the harm done he agreed with Andrés none of them should be taken to Council. He agreed with Andrés' theory it might be their plan, said it was perfectly possible, "we don't know what has remained loaded there from the time of the Sanctuary punishment and then there was Andrés joining Bruno and it might have been like treason to him. I'm not even speaking about the ancient times, but right from this episode of the Celestial Gardener recently."

There was a huge, almost eternal limitless pause.

Leutenant

I woke up from one of the most frightening nightmares I had ever had. I turned on my bedside lamp, appalled and there was a black thing on my bed looking like a weird protuberance amid the sheets. I rose, frightened with that and was just about to scream when the protuberance or whatever it was, looked me in the eyes and screamed on its turn.

Then, I discovered the origin of the nightmares. It was Renan. Sleeping with me on my bed. He explained he had had a nightmare so he came to sleep in my bed. I thought he'd gone home, but he had slept here instead, the 'lil devil. This is why I had the fucking harsh nightmare. I was looking at him as he spoke, sleepy, but still scared with the nightmare. And he remained there. Talking to me. A tiny nightmare that hadn't even taken off his boots to sleep.

"I don't want you to sleep in your boots", I said severely and the little black thing shrunk. Took off his boots and let himself fall on the bed again. I stroked his head slightly, thinking of the reality of those people outside trapped on any day almost a week away from us now. I got up, left the boy fallen on the bed and went to make coffee. When I came down to the kitchen, ran into the other policeman sleeping on the couch. I was well-guarded and the nightmares were only collateral damages of having the two little monsters sleeping in my house at once. I didn't wake Anderson up, but didn't try to be silent as I did the things I usually do when I make coffee. The blacksmith woke up spontaneously and apologized for not telling me beforehand they were going to sleep here.

When coffee was ready, we heard Renan coming down the stairs. We were having breakfast in silence for some time.

"What are going to do now?", inquired the blacksmith breaking the spell of silence.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to eat some more cheese-bread", asserted Renan, with his usual tiny luminous smile.

"I'm talking about the scouts, Renan; this problem with their time still like this", Anderson was impatient with his partner.

"Beats me! Andrés and Bruno bring this bunch of hipsters to town, fall in the same spell as the others and there's still a garden that is here and is not here that is a work of the two other hipsters, of my elder brother too that is another fucking hipster."

The little boy voiced my thoughts. Master Danilo arrived and joined the Dunno Club here at home. The old countryman himself couldn't think of anything noticeable.

At about six o'clock, I paid a long overdue visit to master Danilo at the traditional time we once set for visits in his house. The house had changed a lot; it was a house more in the sense of its masonry now. CEMIG's standard electricity post in front of his house. I even brought my laptop, counting on the electricity. The old countryman wasn't expecting me so soon and was happy with the surprise.

"Now come on inside, "sá" Stella", he said beaming, "I was just about to boil some water for coffee."

And he showed me the power-points in his house, the electric bulbs now everywhere, happy as he was with his new source of light. He told me now he could spend more time reading.

"Kriosene lightens well, but you haven't a clue they dirty everything; all around you is a mess." And he smiled again.

"And what now, master Danilo?", I asked bringing the subject back to the order of the day.

He was silent for a while. Eventually he said he had been thinking of what could have happened and that he came to no conclusion. It might be everything and it might be nothing, he said. I agreed. With a town this chaotic as Taurinos has always been, there might come a day when a knot is going to lock over town and we are finally going to run out of absurd solutions to our problems and the know won't unlock anymore. The old countryman agreed there was a possibility that this could happen, thought the idea simply frightened the hell out of him.

Coffee was ready and we drank in silence for some time. Master Danilo looked at me in a weird fashion and told me he had been examining his memory and that one of the things that happened on the day the scouts arrived in town was exactly that we had arranged for me to visit him in his newly-reformed house. I remember that we really did, something I ended up doing in such a spontaneous fashion. He said that from everything he could remember it was one of those really different things that happened on that day.

Night was beginning to fall and we suddenly heard the gallop of horses out there in the distance. I glanced at master Danilo. The two horses stopped in front of master Danilo's house and I was going to take a peek at the window when the countryman pulled me back by the arm.

"Never look through the window with a sound of horses at this time of night. The window frames whatever is outside with a lot of crispness and gives you a view just like it is one of these magnifying lenses. It was what happened when you saw Renan once through the window at your porch, remember?"

"So what do we do?"

"We wait", he whispered with his left index on his lips.

The horses had stopped. The sensation was that of the heavy stuffy air we had experienced so many times. An unbreathable air, when everything around us, coffee-pots, firewood stove, bulbs seemed to come to life, but of a different and morbid kind. The old countryman crossed himself.

"Master Danilo! Do come outside, let us talk!", the voice was that kind of deep bass vomit of a voice passed through a grinder and wrapped in the sound of hundreds of gasoline drums coming downstairs. It was Anderson speaking. I thought: what the hell would they want with master Danilo in that aspect? In that specter?

"You can open up now, master Danilo we're no longer armed", now it was Renan's tiny voice, "I even brought cheese-bread; you don't deserve it, but I did bring some", he said as he walked in, showing us a white handkerchief, "to celebrate your decision of finally coming to visit master Danilo's new home."

"Renan, there are at least twenty loaves of cheese-bread in that bag", laughed Anderson, glancing at master Danilo and me mischievously.

Master Danilo and I glanced at each other clueless. At least I did not understand a thing whereas he seemed to know a bit of what was being talked about.

"Master Danilo we highly respect you and your wisdom. You weren't dissing us with that chupacabras thing, were you?"

"Thought we had already discussed that, Renan", I made an attempt.

"You were wrong. But you did it right when you decided to visit master Danilo. The scouts have just left town", retorted Renan, "I'd only liberate them from their time if you decided to pay master Danilo a visit and now that you're here, they're gone. Your 'lil friend was crying as he stepped on the bus. I guess he didn't believe he lost seven days here n this town."

"So it was you all the time", the old countryman refused to believe what he heard.

"And they were in my house earlier today pretending to worry about the kids' fate out there on my lawn, can you believe it?"

Like the old countryman, I still refused to believe the two had held the scouts back on the day they first set foot here for a Jamboree. I was staring at the two boys in black while they rehearsed their best giggle, something typical of those tiny Mineiros. Infuriated, I said they should go away. Anderson replied I was not in my house.

"Neither is she nor are you, mister!", the old countryman cut him short, "this is hardly the way you treat your elders, sô Anderson! You've heard her, get your things and go."

They rose from the chairs "next time we're called any nickname whatever it is, things are going to boil in town, this I promise", growled Renan, snatching the cheese-bread bag from the table and going out sulky, followed by his loyal (and also sulky) lieutenant.

I was puzzled when I understood they had held time still until I came to visit master Danilo. The countryman said he had commented about the idea of the visit to them on the same day it came about, but would never figured out Renan and Anderson got it and used it as a limit for their curse of time. Because no one would ever imagine Renan and Anderson would get it and use it as a limit for their curse of time.

Circe

Renato told me he couldn't wait until the Jamboree started. Miguel woke up early today. I saw him out of the tent at about eight. Offered him and Renato some coffee but they turned it down as usual, telling me they had already eaten. Andrés was nearby overhearing our conversation and told me he needed to talk to me. He had a certain laziness showing all over his body, a stupor I couldn't identify or classify. In the kitchen while I had (and he scavenged) some coffee he told me it was time for his scouting group to move to the stage of the Jamboree at last.

"When does the event start at all? I thought it was already going on…"

"Tomorrow", he took off his glasses and started cleansing the lenses slowly, like in slow motion, as he stared at me.

"God, it seems it's been days it should have started… Oh well…"

I was wondering whether I had already asked him about the event's starting date. Something didn't match anything at all. I already thought of my house as Circe's refuge. A sorcerer whose house no one had ever managed to leave. Echoes of Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel in his Exterminating Angel? Echoes of English writer William Golding in his Lord Of The Flies?

Even master Danilo was astonished when he learned the scouts still hadn't left my house for the Jamboree. But I remembered I had seen the scout Renato downtown. The leader of the scouts had never left it here. Not even when he was abducted by the Caipora in his eternal pursuit of cigarettes, but the scout really had. I remembered it had been already a week since I last went to the farm Taurinos myself. The old countryman seemed not to get the hang of anything at all. I myself seemed not to get the hang of anything at all.

Questioned, Renato left his circle of fellow scouts and joined us for a while. I asked him subtly what he thought of my house. I didn't know but I wasn't prepared to hear what he had to say to me. Neither was master Danilo.

"Wondrous", he replied, "I'm not sure if I have already told you how beautiful I think your garden is. I still haven't managed to explore it all and I don't think I'll have the time to."

He beamed a luminous smile as the children here usually do. Master Danilo and I nearly broke our necks when we glanced at each other, "you said garden?", we asked.

"Yes, this beautiful garden you got, falls, bridges and all", he nodded. Miguel walked up close and praised the garden like there was tomorrow too. Master Danilo and I couldn't stop glancing at each other. I asked the leader about today's date. He asked me why I cared so much about full dates and I came up with a story of a memory problem.

"Today's January the 24th 2011", he informed me shrugging, almost at the same time as the scout Renato, "can't wait until the Jamboree starts at once", and the two smiled that luminous smile that is so common here.

Later when Master Danilo and I were alone and he commented that their calendar was so different from ours, but I stopped him with a gesture.

"Master Danilo, not only is their calendar different from ours, but it is also the same date Miguel gave me when they first arrived in town. If it's what I think, they've been living on the same day for over five days now."

"Yup, you can tell by their talk they are trapped on the exact they they first set foot here", the old countryman was astonished, "what now, "sá" Stella?"

This was the reason why we had seen the boy scout Renato downtown, but never on the farm Taurinos, where everything was supposed to happen. They wouldn't go because it was not time yet: the Jamboree still hadn't started. And they'd never go because the Jamboree wouldn't start any more. Because it had already started and ended. Only then did I understand how big a mistake it had been to allow them to come and put up their tents in my land.

The Obscure Police showed up a bit later to complicate things a bit further. The two were once more irritated by the presence of the scouting group still in my house and came to ask me when they'd finally leave town. I told the Police that the Jamboree had not even started to them because they were yadda yadda yadda.

"Worst of all is this garden they say they can see around my house", I added leaving the two puzzled.

"Garden? What garden?", their vocal timing was just perfect.

The police officers promised not to take on the aspects of two black talking kids that spat fire from their mouths and went to pull out the Mayor and Bruno from their tents. With an embarrassed smile towards the scouts and their leader, we all went in my house and the Obscure Police was annoyed at the two they called hipsters, demanding explanation from them. Andrés and Bruno looked like two morons. As if they were lost in the spell of Circe. Master Danilo and I could notice they were part of it. As Andrés had been trapped in the Sanctuary, now he and Bruno shared the same fate of not being able to move on from the day when the scouts came to town. I said this to the Police when none of the scouts seemed to find the words to define what they were going through. The officers let their wave of youthful hate subside to fall in a deep abyss of perplexity.

"Wow there are even things like this", Anderson crossed himself as a good Christian would.

"And what about this garden thing?", Renan reminded, beginning to get annoyed and making me annoyed as well.

Andrés and Bruno affirmed they knew nothing about a garden. Asked them what day it was today. They frowned at the question but eventually said it was August the tenth, 2009. Renan frowned at the answer, Anderson frowned at the answer, Master Danilo and I frowned at it too. Only Andrés and Bruno didn't frown because they had fallen prey to that strange sensation of stupor that was no different than the one I saw in the other scouts of the same group. The long nights spent under the starry sky: stupor.

"Renan, Anderson, are you sure this technique of stopping time is safe?", was the first thing I asked.

"So we're to blame for this one too???", the youngest prepared to get at me.

"Renan, for Mithra's sake, I'm not blaming you, we only need an answer. We need to eliminate some possibilities to…"

The drone switched to a lower key. He eventually said if it were for their bringing time to a stop it would have been the first time. Master Danilo didn't know what to make of it all.

"So what about this garden? The scouts can see it while Andrés and Bruno can't", Anderson reminded, beginning to get annoyed and making me annoyed as well.

"On that night with the musicians from Rio…", the old countryman started, "oh, but you won't start sermonizing us again, will you?", Renan cut him short and I told him to shut up and listen first, "… did you notice if they were looking all around as if they were admiring something, "sá" Stella?"

"Didn't, if they at anytime saw there was a garden there either they disguised it well or didn't care much for gardening."

Renan added that when the Obscure Police arrived terror installed everywhere and even if they paid attention in the musicians' behavior they wouldn't be in position of enjoying any garden, what I found to be extremely logical.

"The rain", master Danilo said in an epiphany.

We looked at the window, see if it was going dark outside. The old countryman laughed and explained he was talking about the rain which fell on town just one day before the scouts arrived. The only incident we could take notice of in the sequence of days before the event.

"The rain has stopped it all, hasn't it?", said the Mayor from his corner, smiling like a moron.

I asked the Mayor if he couldn't notice days and nights were passing and judging by his answer, one could say he wouldn't tell days from nights at all. Bruno did not perform better as he tried to explain what the last days had been to him.

"I think it'd be better if we called Arthur; wasn't it him who sent this rain?", suggested Anderson.

Arthur arrived two hours later on his horse. He was staring at the tents as he progressed across the land to my porch. He seemed embarrassed when he walked in. Didn't seem to want to look anyone of us in the eye.

"Arthur, what was there in that rain you made fall?", was the first thing I asked him as he took a seat.

"Water, no?", he replied despite himself as if I had asked him the most absurdly obvious question ever. It was obvious too he wanted to be elsewhere not here in my house answering questions like that.

"And did no hidden, potential or magic seeds came along with the water?"

The young Feletti frowned.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

""Sêo" Arthur, the scouts can't leave "sá" Stella's house anymore. There's more though. They can see a garden around the house that none of us can see and by the looks it is the same garden you wanted to set here and had to remove."

We explained that there was even the issue of an eternal August the tenth 2009, that neither Andrés nor Bruno saw the garden but that they were equally affected by the stillness in time. Arthur's astonishment only grew at each new word he heard.

"When you told me to remove the garden it must have somehow remained there but could not be seen by anyone from Taurinos any longer", he explained much to our bewilderment, "and the rain must have shown it to them outsiders. It might have doubled its energy and now it can be seen but only by outsiders. "

"This no doubt explains why neither Andrés nor Bruno see the garden. But if I can ask you why did you let the garden remain here if I had asked you to remove it completely?"

"I thought I had done it but you've shown me something has remained. And I just don't know why."

"So there are things you can't control", I questioned him.

"Yes I guess I'm not so different than you in some respects."

And the boy smiled a satisfied smile when he saw my embarrassed expression. But rather than satisfied he seemed sad. Said he was not able to foresee what could happen when he set the garden in my house.

"We just wanted to do something good to you. There was no way of seeing it'd end like this…", and he began to appear nervous, glancing everywhere and nowhere with what seemed to be a lump in the throat.

"Arthur, no one is placing blame on you for anything. We only need to find a way out of this mess. Besides, we aren't even sure this garden is the cause of the issue with the scouting group."

"Yes, we still have the Police to blame", Renan reminded, beginning to get annoyed and making me annoyed as hell.

"Wasn't there the issue with the bell? Couldn't it be back in trouble?"

"Sure not", Anderson denied immediately, "and were the problem back it would affect all of us, wouldn't it?"

Anderson finished by saying they applied the technique of bringing time to a stop more times on the farm Taurinos during the Jamboree and this affected nothing in those people's time. Exactly as they did here, but more times.

He was right. Only the rain and the garden we couldn't see remained as likely causes.

Clint Eastwood

Renato woke up today. He's been practically sleeping for twenty-four hours after experiencing the Obscure Police. It wasn't much for what he must have gone through. But he was way better, this I knew for sure. He ate well for breakfast what is good sign. My pantry is getting empty. I need to go to Souza's to buy things I need and replace the ones I lack.

"The kids were talking to me while I tried to sleep, Miss Grisam", the boy said it terrified as he remembered the experience.

"I know", I replied swallowing a gulp of coffee; he regarded me serious.

"I can see you don't believe in me. I know it's hard to believe it, but I swear, I'm not lying! The two were really talking to me. They only said bad words and swore at me all the time."

"I do believe in you."

He was eating without a word, staring at me, probably thinking of a way to "persuade" me he was being true.

"Nobody believes in me. Since I spoke about that man that was talking to Miguel…"

"I do believe in you and in him", I assured the boy; he almost choked with the bread.

"But how come the two things are true, Miss Grisam! How can't he be himself?"

"There are so many things in this town that got positively no explanation. How come two kids come and talk to you? Who's ever heard of talking kids? I believe it because I saw the two kids coming out of your tent and beside your bed up there in my guest room."

He was silent. Seemed not to have managed to think of something coherent to go with my argument.

"So you don't think it was your friend talking to Miguel?"

"I guess it was someone who looked like him but was definitely not him at all."

The Obscure Police appeared soon after, followed by master Danilo. I asked Anderson if he wasn't working as a shopper any longer. He told me his father was taking care of business during the Jamboree, while he patrolled the town with Renan. The two saw the boy scout and Renan was going to say something when I signaled to him to make him stop. They were quiet despite themselves because they were in my house. This never stopped them from fulminating the young boy scout with their fiery eyes. Renato was not afraid of them, what only made for greater risk; he had learned to smile in the face of difficulties early in his scouting life.

The boy scout excused himself and went out after washing the dish and cup he used in spite of my requests that he left it all in the sink. He passed the policemen by and greeted them even knowing who they were. He received a sulky silence as a retribution from them and went away.

"You need to control this hate that manifests in you sometimes, you know", said master Danilo when the boy left, prolonging their long face a little bit more,"it often disturbs much more than it helps. You'd be better off if you could save all this energy for your work and nothing more. People have nothing to do with this, kids."

"Fuck, one more scolding and I'll be fucked. My two ears are so hot from the scoldings that you could fry on either of them", the eldest flatfoot was infuriated and wouldn't stop the river of cuss words from running so soon.

"All that's wrong in town is wrong because it was done by the Police, I just can't stand it", added the the youngest flatfoot.

"Well I think you'd better stand it like the men you are", I said, "people who do things and never stand for them can be found in any garbage can. And you know this is absolutely not the case of you two. Another thing is I'll take you to Council if you come around again in aspects of black talking kids or whatever to torment my guests at home. My house is no ghost train."

"You can't stop criticizing us for a minute, can you? What the fuck!", Anderson was outraged and sulky.

"You did it wrong, can expect me to criticize you. The other day weren't it for my intervention you'd have killed three musicians from Rio de Janeiro. You stay up late watching those films on TV and think you're like the tough guys who can do anything. You're no Clint Eastwood."

Later on, master Danilo came to tell me what I already knew: that to the moment there were no signs of the troop leader who had vanished, Miguel. I'm starting to get nervous with the situation, thinking of what had become of the poor man. How did he disappear? Where was he right now? Who was the man who Renato saw talking to Miguel when he vanished, if not master Danilo? We had covered the whole town with Adriano, we even got back to the spot where the Obscure Police had its initiation. From there to the shores of the lake where Basilisk Island is and there was nothing of him to be found there.

We were interrupted by new voices outside. I'm nervous when it happens, I have regretted lending them the lot for camping so many times because of this. Andrés and Bruno were outside with the other scouts discussing something. At a distance I saw that Bruno had something in his hand looking like a little box.

"Did you start smoking again, master Danilo?", inquired Andrés, knowing the past habits of the old countryman.

The countryman glanced at me and back at him. Said he didn't. Andrés handled him the box Bruno had been holding. It was a box of Souza Paiol cigarettes. He looked at me not getting the hang of a single thing. I understood our current standings even less than him.

"I've just found it under my tent, half in and half out of the canvas", affirmed Renato, repeating what he had already said to Andrés and Bruno.

"If you're not smoking again, who'd pass by here and tuck this box under Renato's tent? He swears that the box of Souza Paiol was not there when he first put up his tent", questioned Bruno.

"I do swear for my honor", confirmed Renato.

Master Danilo turned to Renato again as though he had been enlightened by something new, "you were the last to see Miguel talking to a man you said looked exactly like me. Do you remember what they were talking about?"

The boy scout stopped for a while and thought back to that time. He didn't seem to be able to remember.

"It's important that you remember the most you can", advised the old countryman to the kid.

The boy scout thought back to that time a bit more. Still, he didn't seem to be able to remember.

"Nothing? No, nought, no nothing at all?", Andrés encouraged him.

The boy scout thought back to that time a little bit more. Now he seemed to be able to remember.

"He asked Miguel for a cigarette and Miguel said smoking was no good. I guess the man didn't like it but I didn't stay to hear any more of it, because it was none of my business anyway. Also I had to catch some firewood for the night. It was the last I saw of him."

"Lord, why didn't you tell us that before?", master Danilo glanced at me, reviving old echoes of ancient contacts with entities in the forest. Well, maybe not that ancient.

"Sorry, didn't feel it was important at all", the kid confessed, astonished.

I assured it made a world of difference, "now we practically know who it was who met Miguel before he vanished. But it was nice that you could remember what happened, we'd never have an idea weren't it for you. Actually, we only have to thank you."

"Do you know the man who took Miguel away?", he stared at us at the top of his suspense. Andrés and Bruno were in a state of suspense too, expecting to be surprised.

"We have an idea who he is. Master Danilo and I met him in a forest near here."

The old countryman confirmed. Said we'd need to get one or two boxes of Souza Paiol to get the man to return Miguel (of course he never told the kid it was the Caipora to avoid inspiring even more awe to the boy in such a weird town with talking kids and all). Bruno said he was going to town and could buy them. The old countryman said he'd go himself. That minors should never buy cigarettes even for the others.

"Did he abduct Miguel on account of cigarettes???", inquired Renato on the top of his perplexity.

"It seems so", replied the old countryman.

Renato made a point of coming with us. At first, I didn't want him to go, but in the end I thought it was good for him to see that master Danilo was not lying. The old countryman went to town and got back later, bringing two boxes of Souza Paiol. The five of us went to the forest.

It had been a while since we were walking maybe half an hour. Andrés discussed with me the best way to eradicate the Caipora of town, Bruno found his plan nasty, Renato understood nearly nothing, and master Danilo and I told him these things were not "eradicated". They were as part of everything else in the mental world of that forest as the plants and brooks of the place.

We were in a deeper part of the forest now. The three scouts followed us in suspense. Andrés looked like he was frightened. When we got to the clearing where I saw the Caipora for the first time we stopped and sat down on the ground, waiting. The old countryman opened the box of Souza Paiol, drew a cigarette from it and lit it. You could tell he took puffs from the cigarette despite himself as if it were an unalienable part of the ritual that he under no circumstances could skip. Renato looked, ignorant of what was being done, but didn't dare to ask us anything breaking the silence when no other did it, one more proof of both his sensitivity and sensibility. The old countryman smoked. It was Bruno who took our attention to a distant whistle.

"Here he comes. Well on the third puff I took… Hush now, everybody", master Danilo smiled.

"Master Danilo?! Is it you again, master Danilo?"

Renato was astonished. The voice was his voice. He stared at us in search of an explanation and only got requests for silence. The sticks and leaves were breaking on the way, trodden by something that approached us. Then it was time.

When he appeared at the clearing, it was the boy scout Renato. Appearing before the boy scout Renato himself. The young Varginhense shook and trembled all over, unable to move. Never thought the vision of oneself could inspire one with so much awe. Andrés and Bruno stared in astonishment; a bit less than Renato but astonishment anyhow.

"Eh, it's you again, master Danilo. And brought the best brand!"

The "boy scout Renato" and the old countryman sat together and smoked in silence. No one dared to say a word. The old countryman asked for the troop leader's whereabouts. The Caipora said he was in his tent. That he had never left the tent. I reasoned about it as being suspended animation or hibernation or something of the kind. He was there, but he was not there. Present and unavailable at once.

I ran into the boy scout Renato sitting by the porch wall in my house, still in the dark of the end of the day. I turned on the porch light and the moths and other nocturnal little creatures already started to land on the porch wall attracted by the light, casting weird and twisted shadows across the brick surface. I asked about Miguel and Renato said he had gone to bed after the day of discoveries. The boy was still in awe of everything he had seen and felt.

"This is why I told you I believed both you and master Danilo", I said when he brought up the subject.

"It was hard to believe until I saw it. We think it only exists in the Folklore Week at school…"

"Yup, they are not only stories people tell. They are alive in this town."

Master Danilo showed up soon later. Asked about Miguel too and got the same answer from the boy scout. Renato apologized to the old countryman for the confusion and the latter stroked his head slightly, "no worries, hadn't I seen it with my eyes I myself wouldn't have believed."

"I could never figure there was such a strange town right beside Varginha", confessed the kid, "what is this place where so many weird things happen?"

I glanced at the old countryman less than sure of what I had to do. He decided the issue for me, asking me if I had spotted any other constellation in the sky as on the other night. I said I didn't and we were going to start a totally new subject if it weren't for the boy's tenacity and persistence.

"What kind of place is this?", he insisted.

I made him give me his word of honor he would never tell anyone about it and told him about Taurinos. He heard me silent as if he were trapped in a well of wondering. Finally asked me if he had died. I said he hadn't. Asked me if Andrés and Bruno were devils. I said they weren't though I myself had my doubts.

""Sá" Stella, you might scare the kid like this…"

"He is a brave boy, master Danilo. Besides, now he knows exactly where he stands."

Temporary offer

I called Andrés inside today. Told him Renato was having a nightmare after another. He woke up from one just to fall sleep again as if he was being sucked into a hole and the rigmarole of the nightmares started all over again.

No wonder his sleep was rather troubled after an encounter like that with the Obscure Police. Andrés was angry with that. He didn't expect so much confusion. Not to mention there was still no sign of Miguel anywhere near here. Also there was no sign of hope it'd be possible let alone easy to find him.

I took the Mayor to the guest room to show him the sleeping boy scout. As I opened the door, both our horror and astonishment were complete: the two black kids I saw coming out of his tent were silently watching the boy in the dark, one at each side of his bed, as tiny and heinous succubi. As I turned on the light, they were not there. As I turned off the light, they were there again.

"They're using the boy's own energy to watch him", said Andrés, whose astonished eyes let fear and concern shine through.

I called the Police. Anderson was the first lightning rod I found on my way. I told him what they were doing was an absurdity. I had promised to hold myself back and not to criticize them, but there was never a chance for self-control when it came to the Obscure Police. I called Renan and repeated the speech. I went back to the guest room to finally find the scout sleeping soundly and calmly again. No shadow of the two black kids at his sides.

Andrés was puzzled at how fast I got the Police to release Renato from their fatal charm using nothing but a telephone. I told him when we know the origin of the problem it gets easier to get to a solution. I said that besides telling the two off I had promised to give them some eats and drinks at the end of the day, more precisely at six. Andrés didn't like the story very much. Said I could bring out a habit in them as, for instance, giving food to a saint or entity to get them to solve your problems. I told him I thought it reminded me a lot of candomblé or umbanda, Afro-Brazilian cults in which food is exchanged for advantages, whatever they are.

"They'll end up eating breakfast, lunch and dinner whatever time they show up, so what difference does it make?", I inquired him.

Andrés said they could grow more and more demanding in time, but let the discussion about my offers die away. I thought of myself as a medicine woman putting up offers in food for gods somewhere in the city limits of Taurinos. Not to mention it was almost like giving them a prize for what they did, instead of punishing the duo for abuse of authority. So the tiny little night creatures would come and have coffee with me.

Renato spent the rest of the day sleeping. We spent the rest of the day looking for Miguel to no avail. No sign of him anywhere.

I told Andrés he could stay and eat with us if he wanted to. The scouts were reunited around a bonfire in front of my house, at the center of the circle they had formed with their tents. Andrés stayed. When they're invited to eat, these boys from Taurinos are always so sane and punctual. Six o'clock and the sound of the horses was heard. One or two minutes later, the two were knocking on my door. They walked in, complaining about the boy scouts they called hipsters. I thought they had no good will lost between them towards those people. They just asserted again the boy scouts were a bunch of obnoxious hipsters.

They were eating and staring at me and Andrés. Andrés and I were eating and staring at them.

"Don't you stare at us at this time of the day", warned the blacksmith.

"Well, so stop staring at us at any time of the day", asked Andrés.

"Did Andrés have to be here too? Why is he here so nosy?", complained Renan.

"For your information, Miss Grisam invited me especially for the event", clarified Andrés, eyes turned to me.

"How cute, Miss Grisam invited me especially for the event", Anderson scorned Andrés, "she promised the meal to us not to you."

"I promised the meal to the three of you that are with me now."

"But this is just not fair, Miss Grisam, it was us who…", Anderson started.

"…were torturing the scout? I know it was you."

"It was not what I meant, Miss Grisam", he was embarrassed.

"But this was what you had to say. It gives me the impression I'm rewarding you for that load of shit you did last night."

"And why did you have to do that shit to Renato? The fella is always so peaceful, does no harm to anyone…", Andrés questioned furious.

"This is not wat I came here for", Anderson stood up. I told him to stay and finish eating. Said it so assertively he seemed to be frightened. The younger one didn't feel intimidated. Said Renato was cheeky enough to give them moral lessons in the middle of the street. I said the scout was only saying something obvious to them. I asked him if he would find funny to find himself trapped in the Sanctuary again.

"No one here was laughing at your situation. not even the ones who trapped you into the Sanctuary. So you think it's a reason for laughing? Or what if Anderson disappeared, you'd be all concerned about his disappearance; can you picture us laughing at you in a situation like this?"

There was a huge, extended, almost eternal limitless never-ending pause. The two kept on eating and drinking normally (of course a bit sulkier than before). I knew it was going to be that shitty, it was always that shitty but I have to say that sometimes I toggled to a fuck off mode and let it all fuck off. They finished their meal and they'd have gone away in silence if Renan didn't ask me to talk to the boy scout.

"Tell the fellow to show some respect to people he doesn't know."

"No one failed to show respect to you or anyone else in town, dude", Andrés stared at Renan and just shook his head.

They uttered no other sounds and went away to patrol the town. I was doing the dishes and Andrés was staring at me in the kitchen. He seemed to see a ghost in me or something of the kind. I don't know if the offer I made to them worked out. The umbandistas live on the physical plan and their entities live in a kind of heaven called Aruanda. They'll always have a way of knowing if their offer worked out and brought them any benefit. I live on the same plan as these entities. Still I never know for sure if the agreements we make work out in any sense.

Kids

The boy scouts from the group of Varginha were reunited in a council in front of my porch. It was eight in the morning. I heard their voices but tried to guess what it was through the window as I had breakfast. In time, I found out they spoke about their leader, Miguel. I went to the porch when the debate seemed to have subsided and Andrés almost used my nose as a knocker when I opened the door.

"I was really going to call you", he said smiling embarrassed.

"Tell me something I don't know. For instance, were you talking about Miguel? What happened to him?"

"He's gone. No one knows where he is, Miss Grisam."

Bruno approached us but said nothing that could add to what Andrés had already said. The two were worried. I was worried. None of the boy scouts of the group saw Miguel when they woke up. Renato joined us and said he had seen someone talking to Miguel the night before and that was the last he saw of him.

"Can you tell us what he looked like? Have you seen him in the city?", inquired Andrés.

"That's him coming there. The man I saw with Miguel", replied the boy scout seeming perfectly sure of who it was.

We looked that way and it was master Danilo coming up to us. We asked him if he had seen the leader of the troop but he didn't seem to understand what we were talking about.

"But I saw you talking to him last night", asserted the boy, absolutely baffling all of us. He seemed to be so sure of what he said, what only made for more and more confusion.

"The young man must have seen someone with the same look as me. I didn't talk to your leader anytime yesterday", master Danilo assured.

We were in an ever-growing process of confusion. The boy probably didn't believe in the old countryman, but didn't dare to discuss what would incur calling master Danilo a liar. Andrés and Bruno glanced at the two and at me alternately, not catching a thing of what was going on. I said we could spend the day discussing who was who or start looking for the leader immediately.

And we turned the city upside down. He was nowhere to be found. We asked the Obscure Police if they had happened to see him. They laughed a lot with the episode but promised to keep an eye on the man. Seeing a man disappear in Taurinos was not my idea of fun, but I tried to avoid criticizing the two and risk another little wave of hate from them. The last thing I'd ever need was the two tiny monsters able to help but not helping. But Renato didn't seem to think likewise. No wonder he didn't as he didn't know the duo as I did.

"It's wrong to laugh at people's misfortunes, did you know?", declared Renato, looking serious at the two, taking exactly the path I avoided taking. Renan and Anderson frowned at him, saw Renan stretch his neck as he always did when he was angry and hadn't I held them back they'd have sprung on to the boy scout. Renato prepared to defend himself and his viewpoint when I miraculously managed to get them all to hold their horses. The Obscure Police were glaring at the scout at the top of their rage.

I had to ask the old countryman if he had hidden something he could not say at that very moment. I said I didn't have any doubts about him, but that the boy had been so categorical and assertive about it being master Danilo that the idea occurred to me. Master Danilo denied having omitted or lied about anything at all. He simply had no reasons for that. I believed the countryman, but was absorbed like him, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Don't you have of of these… aspects?"

He laughed. Said he had no aspect other than the one I already knew. The more I thought about it, more confused I felt. He himself wasn't of help at that moment.

A t night, silence was everywhere. It should be eleven-thirty or so. I couldn't sleep a wink after a whole day looking for the leader of Andrés and Bruno's troop that mysteriously vanished from their campsite. To think I hoped he internet would send me to sleep quickly.

I went to the porch, but left the lights off to avoid the moths and other nocturnal little creatures landing on the porch wall attracted by the light. I sat in the rocking chair like a farmer in the country.

However, the still of the night didn't hide not everything was calm: Renato's tent shook in a weird fashion as if he tried to stretch and didn't fit the size of the tent. I let my eyes wander around and saw none of the other tents moved like his. As I looked overall, I caught sight of two black horses tied to my gate. I stood up from the rocking chair all but terrified. They were here. I ran to the boy scout's tent and opened the zipper in a single blow. From the inside there ran two heinous black kids with eyes more than just wicked, spitting fire from their open mouths, one of the most bizarre, absurd and frightening things I've ever seen and the poor boy scout all shrunk at the back of the tent, eyes as big as saucers, gazing at me. I looked back at my house's gate, but there was no shadow of horses there anymore.

"The kids were talking to me… You won't believe me, but the kids were talking to me…"

The tree in the wood

Renan and I were standing in front of Anderson's hardware store. Waiting for Anderson so we could leave. Then I saw this boy scout from the group of Varginha who greeted us with a luminous smile, walking into the store for something. I was nervous, now I am nervous every time I see a scout walking in a store.

After some time, Anderson came out of the store. I asked them why ride in black on their black horses in this sun? They said they wanted to be an awe-inspiring Police even in broad daylight. Anderson changed subjects swiftly and said the scout was buying rope and that he was asking for an invoice.

"Can't your father tell him he's got no invoice book of his own?"

"Well, he can, but if the boy insists he'll give one to him for sure", said the blacksmith.

That cruel dilemma. Walking in and taking a chance of making things seem weird for the boy by attempting to stop Alberto from writing an invoice for him. The boy went away apparently tranquil and I said to myself, "what happened to solve the problem so easily?"

Anderson was about to walk in again, curious, when his father stepped out and explained to his son he had no invoice book. Said none of the shoppers in Taurinos he knew of had one. I thought to myself: living in Taurinos is living in formal informality.

"He is a mortal, isn't he?", asked the shopper to his son, curious, watching as the scout walked away.

"Yeah, Dad. He is a mortal."

Later I asked the two if they had visited me yesterday. They said I knew they did. That I should know at least, since the two spoke about helping out during the Jamboree by freezing time and acting in the in-betweens to cause the smallest impact possible. I said I understood the two, but finding the tent outside all covered with blood and guts and worst of it all, along with their leader, was not what I'd exactly call the smallest impact possible. They started to criticize me again, infuriated. And they were criticizing me all day long. I've noticed that the new tactic of the Obscure Police is to defend themselves by attacking. And by criticizing. I know I haven't been the nicest with them these days, but they haven't been any nicer than me on their turn.

"Now about this chupacabras thing, let's stop it while we still have a choice", Renan was annoyed as hell, "who the fuck called us chupacabras?"

"We invented it for the leader of the scouts. Would you like me to speak about the presence of the Obscure Police in town? Is it supposed to be obscure or not?"

"Well, Anderson and I understand the excuse, but let's stop it right now, get it? I've already had to swallow the Obscure Police thing", he said, glancing at Anderson and making him blush, "now if you start with this business of chupacabras we'll leave no stone unturned in this town, or I'm not Renan Augusto Giacomin Teixeira."

"And I'm not Anderson Nascimento Caldeira either", Anderson was quick to add.

Commented with master Danilo that the kids hated the comparison with the chupacabras. He laughed and found it natural. But agreed with me when I said the two were so horrible working they'd run rings around any chupacabras.

"The younger lad must have been mad. Calling him Obscure Police that was a pretty name made him want to kill you, let alone chupacabras. It was going to be another war like the one you, Andrés, Renan had with the Celestial Gardener."

"Do you really think it would?"

"Should the subject arise it's better to change subjects you know."

One of the scouts came to talk to us. Asked me who the two boys in black were he saw in town with me. I said they were agents.

"Police agents?", the kid asked me curious.

"Oh, they just ride their horses through town and tell the adults if they see something wrong going on."

"I know, they are like lollipop men", said the boy with an understanding smile.

"More or less… Some days they remind me of something in the same shape as a racket, I have to admit."

This time it was master Danilo who had to suppress a seizure of laughter that was brewing. Our desperation is our fuel. I recognized the scout. It was the one we saw at Anderson's hardware store earlier today. We were happy with the outcome of the invoices' episode, but now I suspected that that boy could tell his leader people wouldn't issue invoices in Taurinos. Wasn't I a bit paranoid about all of this invoice business, after all?

Andrés has been learning the life of a Mayor is full of responsibilities. Even more when he has to hide the fact he is a Mayor from five hundred fellow boy scouts. And he has had to address issues in infrastructure on the very farm Taurinos. He was lucky that the Department of Public Works slept next door to him. Adriano had created a complex infrastructure for the event on the farm Taurinos where all of the present scouting groups, except for the group from Varginha. Only Adriano knew how the complex really worked, but it was no real problem as the Jamboree would soon come to an end and the complex wouldn't be necessary any longer. Andrés said he was working to open more space on the farm Taurinos so that his group could join all of the others already there.

The invoice boy scout was called Renato. We ended up befriending each other. And Renato told me he was upset by the distance from here to the Jamboree.

"It is where everything is happening, Miss Grisam", he said with the eyes shining.

Oh it really is. I was picturing all of the five hundred boys around a bonfire singing something like this:

"All in a wood there grew a fine tree, the finest tree that ever you did see, and the green grass grew around, around, around. And the green grass grew around. And on this tree there grew a fine bough, the finest bough that ever you did see. And the bough on the tree, and the tree in the wood. And the green leaves flourished thereon. thereon, thereon. And the green leaves flourished thereon. And on this bough there a fine twig, the finest twig that ever you did see. And the twig on the bough, and the bough in the tree, and the tree in the wood, And the green leaves flourished thereon. And on this twig there stood a fine nest. The finest nest that ever you did see. And the nest on the twig, and the twig on the bough. And in this nest there sat a fine bird, the finest bird that ever you did see. And on this bird there grew a fine feather. The finest feather that ever you did see. And of this feather was made a fine bed. The finest bed that ever you did see. And on this bed was laid a fine mother, the finest mother that ever you did see. In the arms of this mother was laid a fine babe, the finest babe that ever you did see. And the babe he grew up and became a fine boy, the finest boy that ever you did see. And boy put an acorn all into the earth, the finest acorn that ever you did see. And out of this acorn there grew a fine tree, the finest tree that ever you did see."

The Tree In The Wood, nursery song, public domain.

"Have you lived here for long?", he inquired, pulling me out of my deliria.

"Some six months"

"Oh, so it's recent", said the boy beaming at me.

Recent. Some fifteen, sixteen thousand years ago only. But what are fifteen, sixteen thousand years in the time of our planet anyhow?

I asked Andrés why his group remained segregated here. I told him that the scouts here were upset they were so far from the stage of the Jamboree where things were really taking place. He said once again he was striving to get his group to join the others by opening more space on his farm.

"So you mean there was room for all of the scouting groups from Minas Gerais except for yours?"

Andrés didn't know what to say to me as an answer. Tried to change subjects by asking if I was not feeling fine with them occupying my land.

"If you don't want us to stay anymore, I can find another place for us to stay", he said a bit offbeat and disappointed, gazing at the ground. I got him by his chin and raised his head so his eyes met mine through the lenses full of the dust from the cerrado.

"Andrés, don't change subjects, you know perfectly well this is hardly the reason for my question. You can stay as long as you need, I don't mind."

"Well so that's it, there was room for all of the scouting groups from Minas Gerais except for mine", he now looked slightly annoyed.

I was silent. His explanation was not convincing but I had no better explanation to be perfectly honest. Out of the blue, my laptop started acting up inside my house again, sending a song to Winamp that soon got to the speakers and filled all my house with music, interrupting brusquely the activity the scouts were engaged in out here.

"It was an April morning when they told us we should go. As I turn to you, you smiled at me. How could we say no? With all the fun to have, to live the dreams we always had. Oh, the songs to sing, when we at last return again."

Achilles' Last Stand (fragment), written by Led Zeppelin in Presence, 1976, Swan Song, Atlantic.

I walked in to turn the player off and have dinner.