Stay? Don't even think about it. I had Sarah halfway to freedom. While the Army was still getting its act together, we could lose ourselves someplace in the forest where nobody would find us, and when Steve got here tonight . . .
"Sar, come on, it's time." I pulled away from Marcelina and slipped my arm around her. "Nothing here is what you think it is."
"Are we leaving?" she asked, her eyes blank.
"Yes, honey, we're leaving. This very minute."
The dense forest was all about us, and I'd just carry her into it if I had to. In the coming storm, nobody was going to find . . .
That's when I noticed I was beginning to have gastric rumblings. Damn. Never, ever eat "native" food, no matter what the social pressure. That damned "visit" . . .
When I turned to ask Marcelina if she would help me get Sarah outside, I noticed she'd been joined by the two women, both still in their white shifts, who'd just fed me the sickly
sweet atole. And more women were behind them, all staring at me, expectant, as though wondering what I would do.
Maybe it was my imagination, or the dizziness that was abruptly growing around me, but it also seemed they'd painted their faces with streaks of white, designs like the men in the square were putting on.
"She's going to be all right," Marcelina was saying. "But we have to get you back now. You'll need your strength."