He hadn’t driven so far in a long time. Rosario always insisted that he drive at least once a week, just so he didn’t get out of practice. The car was too small for Juan, like almost everything: pants were too short, shirts too tight, chairs uncomfortable. He checked to be sure the Auto Club’s guide was in the glove box, and they set off.

“I’m hungry,” said Gaspar.

“Me too, but we’re going to stop for breakfast at this great place I know. In a while, okay?”

“If I don’t eat, I’ll throw up.”

“And my head hurts when I don’t eat. Be strong. It’s just a little while. Don’t look out the window or you’ll get even dizzier.”

He himself felt worse than he wanted to admit. His fingers were tingling, and he recognized the erratic palpitations of arrhythmia in his chest. He adjusted his sunglasses and asked Gaspar to tell him the story he’d read the night before. At six years old, the boy already knew how to read quite well.

“I don’t remember it.”

“Yes, you do. I’m in a bad mood, too. Let’s try to change it together. Or are we going to be all pissy for the whole trip?”

Gaspar laughed at Juan’s use of the word “pissy.” Then he recounted the story of the jungle queen who sang while she walked through the trees. Everyone liked to listen to her. One day some soldiers came and she stopped singing and became a warrior. The soldiers caught her and she spent a night locked up, and then she escaped, but to escape she had to kill the guard keeping watch over her. No one could believe she was strong enough to have killed him because she was very thin, so she was accused of being a witch and they burned her at the stake—tied her to a tree and set fire to it. But in the morning, instead of a body, they found a red flower.

“A tree of red flowers.”

“Yeah, a tree.”

“Did you like the story?”

“I don’t know, it scared me.”

“That tree is called a ceiba. There aren’t many around here, but when I see one, I’ll show you. There are a lot of them near your grandparents’ house.”

In the rearview mirror he saw Gaspar frown.

“What do you mean there are a lot?”

“That story is a legend. I’ve explained what a legend is.”

“So the girl isn’t real?”

“Her name is Anahí. Maybe she did exist, but the story about the flowers is told to remember her, not because it really happened.”

“So did it really happen or not?”

“Both. Yes and no.”

He liked to see how Gaspar got serious and even angry, how he bit the side of his lip and opened and closed a hand.

“Do they burn witches now, too?”