Old Hearst Highway took its name from Alan Hearst, a landowner who used the last days of his ill-gotten money to have an ever-muddy path paved so God didn't judge him to have done nothing worthy before the man was found hanging on horse wire in a neighbor's field. Local legend claimed a note written by the Devil had been left in his bloody nose and on that note was a curse scrawled in arcane letters unknown to any reader. Ever since, the road has evolved into different states of disrepair before finally being christened a highway during Ford presidency. This singular vein stretches eleven miles and connects the bustling town of Cypress Hill to the interstate towards Gulf Breeze. Most traffic casualties are possums and deer— the few remaining are birds swooping down in fatal daredevil attempts to snatch free food as if the explosive momentum of multi-ton monsters of steel was a neverending display of dominance these birds were too Alpha to avoid. There is no New Hearst Highway.

Chale Manuel Xaxalpa Suárez lived in the least boggy quarter of this boggy boondock. A man with crags for a face and a mind born of early 1970s machismo, he folded into the tired and weedy boonies as well as any other ethnic face. One day months ago, he caught grainy photographic evidence of mysterious figures and an unknown structure beyond the distant treeline which seemed to support the outrageous possibility that neighbors existed. He remains a skeptic.

Yet he lived on this postage stamp of land for long enough to see that the sins of Alan Hearst left behind a shadow culture beyond the veil of normalcy. The monkey-tailed monster that just laid waste to his yard and now his toilet alike was only the most tangible of a hundred fifty years of incursions by the paranormal bizarre.

And that paranormal bizarre never let themselves fall so conspicuous into the light. What Yulaan did was illegal for the haunts.

Senior had never seen with his eyes anything so beyond the mundane, rather retelling others the ambiance that thickened the air like the meat around the vein. Spectres photographed in old homes, unknown faces in the distant bushes, triangular formations in the sky, premonitions from behind the milky walls of sleep, all things claimed and yet nothing he himself was allowed to enjoy. And for years, he and his wife watched an eccentric grandson split from his siblings and seek kinship in the fleeting bizarre, wishing that he might one day experience some undeniable proof of the residue of Hearst's evil.

The scar-crossed, electrical-haired girl exploding a tree and eating pan-fried ham hocks was the exclamation mark ending those years.

Vicente looked out the door again, and his cup spilled its tea onto his trembling hand. The corner of his eyes itched, and the broken trees scratched them. "What should I do?"

"I'll tell you what you can't. Absolutely do not ship her to any government or large organization that expresses interest in her. I can assure you that certain people already know about her."

Vicente sipped. "They might come for her then."

"No, boy, I mean they just know she exists. They don't know what you know. For all they know, you've kidnapped someone and are trying to throw off their trail."

Each breath came deliberately as if waiting for a cancer diagnosis. "Really."

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"They don't know everything. They want you to think they do because that illusion of absolute power is necessary—" Senior pinched his fingers and gestured massively, "absolutely necessary to keep the rich and powerful where they are."

A red robin fluttered unto a patch of scattered twigs and broken eggs. It packed about the still body of a tiny robin, twisted its head about, hopped away, and flew off. Vicente followed its path until it left his life forever, a dot of red faded into the background.

Thump, thud, thump, thud— Yulaan came downstairs. Both men hurried back inside.

Vicente rushed back to the stove, only to stop by a force snagging him in place. His muscles felt stiff, as if they had all been turned off.

"No need for further treats, Vicente." The cane stood upright when Yulaan let go. She crossed her legs and floated into the air, holding her hands in a lotus pattern.

Senior watched as if he had seen the Lord. "So that's it."

Yulaan hovered in the living room, her hair lifted even further to the point her bangs uncovered her closed eyes. Her tail curled around her body like a ring.

Senior's dog lay beneath her, licking its lips and resting its head on its paws.

Vicente felt awake.

Senior felt renewed.

The terror and fears that had gripped them fell away.

All things felt right and harmonious. What had they been so scared of? It was all silly.

Then it faded. What filled them in its place was the tepidity of mundanity. They felt as if Yulaan wasn't there at all, or perhaps if she was an old familiar face.

Vicente sat down on a couch while Senior took his rocking chair, his dog jumping into his lap.

Yulaan let one foot touch the floor before the second several seconds later. "I understand you human lot, you would rather a less explosive demonstration."

She opened her eyes right as she let her bangs fall over them. The bangs and a few shocks of hair barely obeyed gravity— most of the rest remained skyward, and the plume caught by the vertebra looked like a blooming black flower on her head.

"Yeah, that's better than blowing up my trees. I don't need blood pressure that high at my age."

Yulaan cracked her back and stretched. Some fatigue weighed her down enough for her to find comfort. A touch of relief flowed through Vicente, enough to nod. The ground she walked on did not crack and shatter.

Her tail coiled around her midsection and she threw herself onto the corduroy loveseat.

Senior said, "You said something earlier. You mentioned that thing about energy and the Force. With your hair and sitting and— what was it, chai?"

Yulaan curled herself up and wrapped her tail around her body, the length enough to do so one full time and a half. "Chi." Then she lifted a finger and let fairylike orbs twirl and whirl. To suggest the ethereal texture should be roughened by a wicked spasm of static now came as ludicrous. If light could have form, she created it.

Vicente's tea was so cold it stung going down.

With a quick lick of the lips, Senior asked, "Many many years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and made rock and roll music, I knew a good man. He ran a school over in Gulf Breeze, on Uri Lane, and he would teach people— do you understand what I'm saying? Do I need to explain anything? Shake your head if—"

Yulaan raised her head off her knees. Her tail's end fluttered on the seat. Senior stopped.

"Yeah, I got it, thanks."

Senior laughed.

Then he went on. "When I first come into America, came to America," and then he stopped and laughed at something known only to him. "Bleh! Both might work. When I first came to America, I knew a man who would teach the, uh, the Asian martial arts. Kung fu mostly. A white man with a beautiful lady. He would tell us all the time about her homeland. And over there, they already knew about chi pretty well."

Yulaan dropped her head onto her knees, smooshing her cheeks with a huff.

She lifted her hand and let the lights flutter around her fingers again. Yet this time electric starters zapped off the tips of her fingers, cracking into the air by a second-finger's length on each. The five tendrils of electricity wiggled and broke without disturbing the physicalized spirit energy orbiting her hand.

"I wonder…"