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Hondo gave me a weird look, and right when he opened his mouth to say something, the chicken turned and bolted toward Ms. Cab’s house.
“Hey, wait!” I shouted as we all hurried after the bird.
The chicken pecked at Ms. Cab’s front door, then tilted its head at me. It rolled its eyes before it went back to striking the door with its beak.
“I think it wants to go inside,” I said.
Brooks rang the doorbell and peered in through the front window. “No one’s in there.”
Hondo turned the doorknob. It was unlocked. He raised a brow and gave me a sly smile. “Let’s see what the pollo wants.”
Ms. Cab would string us up by our ears for going in uninvited, but before I could protest, the chicken bolted inside and over to the living room. It jumped onto the coffee table, stomping and clucking loudly.
Hondo looked around. “This place is creepy, Zane. How can you work here?” Then he picked up the box of eyes.
I hollered, “Stop!”
But it was too late. He had already opened it, and his face was turning green. “They’re… they’re moving!” He dropped the box and all the eyeballs rolled out onto the floor. And then my iron-biceps, champion-wrestler uncle passed out.
Brooks hurried over and put a pillow under his head while flapping her hand back and forth across his face. “Hondo? Hondo?”
The chicken hopped off the table and hurried around the living room, picking up the eyeballs one at a time and putting them back in the box. Except one unfortunate eye that went splat in its beak.
That’s when I realized. “Ms. Cab?”
She stuck the last eyeball in its place and nodded slowly. How the heck had she turned into a chicken? Then I remembered what Muwan had said, that all the seers had been taken care of. If the seers had all been turned into animals, they couldn’t warn the gods about Puke’s evil plan.
Hondo stirred awake, rubbing his head. “¡Ay! Necesito un médico. O tequila. Necesito tequila.”
He was like my mom—whenever he got freaked out (or mad during a wrestling match), Spanish flew from his mouth like hurricane winds. As I helped him sit up, I said, “Pretty sure Ms. Cab doesn’t have any tequila. Do you really want me to call a doctor?”
Hondo shrugged me away. “Who said anything about a doctor?”
Then Mr. Ortiz walked in the open door. “¿Qué pasó? Where’s Antonia?”
Brooks and I shared a glance. Ms. Cab jumped onto the sofa and ran back and forth, squawking like a bird on fire. She was trying to tell me something, but what? Hondo got to his feet groggily, rubbing his head. “Tell that thing to shut up. It’s giving me a headache.”
I sat on the sofa and began to pet Ms. Cab’s feathery head, thinking maybe that would calm her down. She jabbered on and on, until her clucks began turning into words. Bawk! What—Bawk!—do I have to do to—Bawk! Bawk!—get your attention, Zane Obispo?
“You can talk?!” I shrieked.
Everyone went stone still and stared at me. Even Ms. Cab stopped fussing. Oh, Zane, she said. You can hear me. Thank the gods. Then she blinked and her beak formed a perfect O. Oh my… that means…
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“I’m part god.” The words felt like marbles in my mouth. “Telepathy.”
The others rushed toward me with a flurry of questions.
“It can talk?”
“You can understand chicken-speak?”
“What do you mean part god?” That was Hondo.
I held my hand up to silence them. “This chicken is Ms. Cab, and she’s talking to me, and I can’t hear her over your voices, so stop jabbering!” Yeah, they looked at me like I’d just fallen off the loony-bin truck—everyone but Brooks.
Ms. Cab stretched her neck, and I resumed petting her. I was kidnapped, Zane… at the crossroads to Xib’alb’a. Some stupid lower demon of the underworld threw a sack over my head. She shuddered. Me! Secret-keeper of the Great Soothsayer!
