The Witch's Dream. ©1985 By Florinda Donner-Grau.

Part 1: Chapter 01.

It began for me with a transcendental event; an event that shaped the course of my life. I met a nagual. He was an Indian from northern Mexico.

The dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy defines nagual as the Spanish adaptation of a word that means sorcerer or wizard in the Nahuatl language of southern Mexico.

Traditional stories of naguals- men of ancient times who possessed extraordinary powers and performed acts that defied the imagination- do exist in modern Mexico.

But in an urban or even rural setting today, actual naguals are purely legendary. They seem to live only in folktales, through hearsay, or in the world of fantasy.

The nagual I met, however, was real. There was nothing illusory about him.

When I asked him out of well-meant curiosity what made him a nagual, he presented a seemingly simple, and yet utterly complex idea as an explanation for what he did and what he was.

He told me that nagualism begins with two certainties: the certainty that human beings are extraordinary beings living in an extraordinary world; and the certainty that neither men nor the world should ever be taken for granted under any circumstances.

From those sweet, simple premises, he said, grows a simple conclusion. Nagualism is at once taking off one mask and wearing another.

Naguals take off the mask that makes us see ourselves and the world we live in as ordinary, lusterless, predictable, and repetitious; and put on the second mask, the one that helps us see ourselves- and our surroundings- for what we really are; breathtaking events that bloom into transitory existence once, and are never to be repeated again.

After meeting that unforgettable nagual, I had a moment's hesitation due solely to the fear I felt on examining such an imposing paradigm.

I wanted to run away from that nagual and his quest, but I could not do it. Some time later, I took a drastic step and joined him and his party.

But this is not a story about that nagual, although his ideas and his influence bear heavily in everything I do. It is not my task to write about him or even to name him. There are others in his group who do that.

When I joined him, he took me to Mexico to meet a strange, striking woman- without telling me that she was perhaps the most knowledgeable and influential woman of his group.

Her name was Florinda Matus. In spite of her worn, drab clothes, she had the innate elegance of most tall, thin women.

Her pale complexioned face, gaunt and severe, was crowned by braided white hair and highlighted by large, luminous eyes.

Her husky voice and her joyful, youthful laughter eased my irrational fear of her.

The nagual left me in her charge.

The first thing I asked Florinda was whether she was a nagual herself.

Smiling rather enigmatically, she further refined the definition of the word. She said, "To be a sorcerer or a wizard or a witch does not mean to be a nagual. But any of them can be one if he or she is responsible for and leads a group of men and women involved in a specific quest of knowledge."

When I asked her what that quest was, she responded that for those men and women it was to find the second mask; the one that helps us see ourselves and the world for what we really are- breathtaking events.

But this is not the story of Florinda either, despite the fact that she is the woman who guides me in every act I perform. This is, rather, the story of one of the many things she made me do.

Florinda once said to me, "For women the quest of knowledge is indeed a very curious affair. We have to go through strange maneuvers."

I asked her, "Why is that so, Florinda?"

She said, "Because women really do not care."

I told her, "I care."

She replied, "You say you care. You really do not."

I responded, "I am here with you. Does that not speak for my caring?"

Florinda said, "No. What happened is that you like the nagual. His personality overwhelms you. I am the same myself. I was overwhelmed by the preceding nagual; the most irresistible sorcerer there was."

I said, "I admit you are right but only partially. I do care about the nagual's quest."

She replied, "I do not doubt it. But that is not enough. Women need some specific maneuvers, in order to get at the core of themselves."

I asked, "What maneuvers? What core of ourselves are you talking about, Florinda?"

She said, "If there is something inside us that we do not know about- such as hidden resources, unsuspected guts and cunning, or nobility of the spirit in the face of sorrow and pain- it will come out if we are confronted by the unknown while we are alone; without friends, without familiar boundaries, without support.

"If nothing comes out of us under those circumstances, it is because we have nothing.

"And before you say you really care for the nagual's quest, you must first find out for yourself whether there is something inside you. I demand that you do that."

I replied, "I do not think I am any good at being tested, Florinda."

She said, "My question is, 'Can you live without knowing whether or not you have something hidden inside you?'"

I asked, "But what if I am one of those who have nothing?"

Florinda replied, "If that is the case, then I will have to ask you my second question, 'Can you go on being in the world you have chosen if you have nothing inside you?'"

I responded, "Why, of course I can continue to be here. I have already joined you."

She explained, "No. You only think you have chosen my world. To choose the nagual's world is not just a matter of saying you have. You must prove it."

I asked, "How do you think I should go about doing that?"

Florinda said, "I will give you a suggestion. You do not have to follow it, but if you do, you should go alone to the place where you were born. Nothing could be easier than that. Go there and take your chances, whatever they may be."

I said, "But your suggestion is impractical. I do not have good feelings about that place. I did not leave in good standing."

She replied, "So much the better. The odds will be stacked against you. That is why I picked your country. Women do not like to be bothered too much. If they have to bother with things, they go to pieces. Prove to me that you are not that way."

I asked, "What would you suggest I do in that place?"

Florinda replied, "Be yourself. Do your work. You said that you want to be an anthropologist. Be one. What could be simpler?"

The Witch's Dream. ©1985 By Florinda Donner-Grau.

Part 1: Chapter 02.

Years later, following Florinda's suggestions, I finally went to Venezuela, the country of my birth.

On the surface, I went to gather anthropological data on healing practices. Actually, I was there to carry out, under Florinda's guidance, the maneuvers necessary to discover whether I possessed hidden resources, without which I could not remain in the nagual's world.

The agreement that my journey must be a solitary one was nearly drawn out of me by force. With strong words and decisive gestures, Florinda served notice that under no circumstances should I seek counsel from anyone around me during the trip.

Knowing that I was in college, she strongly advised me not to use the trappings of academic life while in the field. I should not ask for a grant, have academic supervisors, or even ask my family and friends for help.

I should let circumstances dictate the path to follow; once I had taken it, I must plunge into it with the fierceness of women on the warrior's path.

I arranged to go to Venezuela on an informal visit. I would see my relatives, I thought, and gather information on any possibility for a future study in cultural anthropology.

Florinda praised me for my speed and thoroughness.

I thought she was humoring me. There was nothing to praise me for.

I mentioned to her that what worried me was her lack of instructions. Again and again I asked her for more details about my role in Venezuela.

As the date of my departure approached, I became increasingly anxious about the outcome of it all. I insisted, in no uncertain terms, that I needed more specific instructions.

Florinda and I were sitting in wicker chairs, comfortably padded by soft cushions, under the shade of one of the many fruit trees growing in her huge court patio.

In her long unbleached muslin dress, her wide-brimmed hat, fanning herself with a lace fan, Florinda looked like someone from another time.

"Forget about specific information," she said impatiently. "It will not do you any good."

"It certainly will do me a lot of good," I insisted. "I really do not understand why you are doing this to me, Florinda."

"Blame it on the fact that I am in the nagual's world; on the fact that I am a woman and that I belong to a different mood."

"Mood? What do you mean by a different mood?"

She gazed at me with remote, disinterested eyes. "I wish you could hear yourself talking. What mood?" she mocked me. Her face expressed tolerant contempt. "I do not go for seemingly orderly arrangements of thought and deed. For me, order is different from arranging things neatly. I do not give a damn about stupidity and I have no patience. That is the mood."

"That sounds dreadful, Florinda. I was led to believe that in the nagual's world, people are above pettiness and do not behave impatiently."

"Being in the nagual's world has nothing to do with my impatience," she said, making a humorous, hopeless gesture. "You see, I am impeccably impatient."

"I really would like to know what it means to be impeccably impatient."

"It means that I am, for instance, perfectly conscious that you are boring me now with your stupid insistence on having detailed instructions. My impatience tells me that I should stop you. But it is my impeccability that will make you shut up at once.

"All this boils down to the following. If you persist in asking for details guided only by your bad habit of having everything spelled out, in spite of my telling you to stop, I will hit you. But I will never be angry at you, or hold it against you."

In spite of her serious tone I had to laugh. "Would you really hit me, Florinda? Well, hit me if you have to," I added, seeing her determined face. "But I have got to know what I am going to do in Venezuela. I am going crazy with worry."

"All right! If you insist on knowing the details I consider important, I will tell you.

"I hope you understand we are separated by an abyss, and this abyss can not be bridged by talk.

Males can build bridges with their words. Women can not. You are imitating males now.

"Women have to make the bridge with their acts. We give birth, you know. We make people.

"I want you to go away so that in aloneness you will find out what your strengths or weaknesses are."

"I understand what you say, Florinda, but consider my position."

Florinda relented, dismissing the retort that arose to her lips.

"All right, all right," she said wearily, motioning me to move my chair next to hers.

"I am going to give you the details I consider important for your trip.

Fortunately for you, they are not the detailed instructions you are after.

What you want is for me to tell you exactly what to do in a future situation, and when to do it. That is something quite stupid to ask. How can I give you instructions about something that does not yet exist?

I will give you, instead, instructions on how to arrange your thoughts, feelings, and reactions. With that in hand, you will take care of any eventuality that might arise."

"Are you really serious, Florinda?" I asked in disbelief.

"I am deadly serious," she assured me.

Leaning forward in her chair, she went on speaking with a half smile about to break into a laugh.

"The first detailed item to consider is taking stock of yourself. You see, in the nagual's world, we must be responsible for our actions."

She reminded me that I knew the warrior's path. In the time I had been with her, she said, I had received extensive training in the laborious practical philosophy of the nagual's world.

Therefore, any detailed instructions she might give me now would have to be, actually, a detailed reminder of the warrior's path.

"In the warrior's path, women do not feel important," she went on, in the tone of someone reciting from memory, "because importance waters down fierceness.

"In the warrior's path women are fierce. They remain fiercely impassive under any conditions.

"They do not demand anything, yet they are willing to give anything of themselves.

"They fiercely seek a signal from the spirit of things in the form of a kind word, an appropriate gesture; and when they get it, they express their thanks by redoubling their fierceness.

"In the warrior's path, women do not judge. They fiercely reduce themselves to nothing in order to listen, to watch; so that they can conquer and be humbled by their conquest; or be defeated and be enhanced by their defeat.

"In the warrior's path, women do not surrender. They may be defeated a thousand times, but they never surrender.

And above all, in the warrior's path, women are free."

Unable to interrupt her, I had kept gazing at Florinda, fascinated though not quite grasping what she was saying.

I felt acute despair when she stopped as though she had nothing more to tell me. Without quite wanting to, I began crying uncontrollably. I knew that what she had just told me could not help me to resolve my problems.

She let me cry for a long time and then she laughed. "You really are weeping!" she said in disbelief.

"You are the most heartless, unfeeling person I have ever met," I said between sobs. "You are ready to send me God knows where, and you do not even tell me what I should do."

"But I just did," she said still laughing.

"What you just said has no value in a real-life situation," I retorted angrily. "You sounded like a dictator spouting slogans."

Florinda regarded me cheerfully. "You will be surprised how much use you can get out of those stupid slogans," she said.

"But now, let us come to an understanding. Fm not sending you any place. You are a woman in the warrior's path, you are free to do what you wish, you know that.

"You have not yet grasped what the nagual's world is all about. I am not your teacher; I am not your mentor; I am not responsible for you. No one but yourself is.

"The hardest thing to grasp about the nagual's world is that it offers total freedom. But freedom is not free.

"I took you under my wing because you have a natural ability to see things as they are; to remove yourself from a situation and see the wonder of it all.

"That is a gift. You were born like that. It takes years for average persons in the nagual's world to remove themselves from their involvement with themselves and be capable of seeing the wonder of it all."

Regardless of her praise, I was nearly beyond myself with anxiety.

She finally calmed me down by promising that just before my plane left she would give me the specific detailed information I wanted.

I waited in the departure lobby of the airline, but Florinda did not show up at all.

Despondent and filled with self-pity, I gave free rein to my despair and disappointment. With no concern for the curious glances around me, I sat down and wept.

I felt lonelier than I had ever felt before.

All I could think of was that no one had come to see me off. No one had come to help me with my suitcase. I was used to having relatives and friends see me off.

Florinda had warned me that anyone who chose the nagual's world had to be prepared for fierce aloneness.

She had made it clear that to her, aloneness did not mean loneliness but a physical state of solitude.

The Witch's Dream. ©1985 By Florinda Donner-Grau.

Part 1: Chapter 03.

Never had I realized how sheltered my life had been.

In a hotel room in Caracas, alone and without any idea of what to do next, I came to experience first hand the solitariness Florinda had talked about.

My parents were not in Venezuela at the time, and I was unable to contact my brothers by telephone.

All I felt like doing was sitting on the hotel bed and watching TV. I did not want to touch my suitcase. I even thought of taking the plane back to Los Angeles.

Only after tremendous effort did I begin to unpack.

Neatly tucked inside a pair of folded slacks I found a piece of paper with Florinda's handwriting. I read it avidly.

Possessed by Florinda's decisiveness, I picked up the phone, and dialed the number of an old friend of mine. I was not sure she would still be in Caracas.

The polite lady who answered the phone gave me other possible numbers to call because my friend was no longer at that address.

I called all of them, for I could no longer stop. The beginning was taking hold of me.

Finally I located a married couple I knew from childhood who were my parents' friends.

They wanted to see me immediately, but they were going to a wedding in an hour, so they insisted on taking me along. They assured me it was all right.

At the wedding I met an ex-Jesuit priest, who was an amateur anthropologist.

We talked for hours on end. I told him of my interest in anthropological studies.

As if he had been waiting for me to say a magical word, he began to expound on the controversial value of folk healers, and the social role they play in their societies.

I had not mentioned healers or healing in general as a possible topic for my study, although it was foremost in my mind.

Instead of feeling happy that he seemed to be addressing himself to my inner thoughts, I was filled with an apprehension that verged on fear.

When he told me that I should not go to the town of Sortes, even though it was purported to be the center of spiritualism in western Venezuela, I felt genuinely annoyed with him.

He seemed to be anticipating me at every turn. It was precisely to that small town that I had planned to go if nothing else happened.

I was just about to excuse myself and leave the party, when he said in quite a loud tone that I should seriously consider going to the town of Curmina, in northern Venezuela, where I could have phenomenal success because the town was a new, true center of spiritualism and healing.

"I do not know how I know it, but I know you are dying to be with the witches of Curmina," he said in a dry, matter-of-fact tone.

He took a piece of paper, and drew a map of the region.

He gave me exact distances in kilometers from Caracas to the various points in the area where he said spiritualists, sorcerers, witches, and healers lived.

He placed special emphasis on one name: Mercedes Peralta. He underlined it and, totally unaware of it, first encircled it, then drew a heavy square around it and boxed it in.

"She is a spiritualist, a witch, and a healer," he said smiling at me. "Be sure you go and see her, will you?"

I knew what he was talking about. Under Florinda's guidance, I had met and worked with spiritualists, sorcerers, witches, and healers in northern Mexico and among the Latino population of southern California.

From the very beginning Florinda classified them.

Spiritualists are practitioners who entreat the spirits of saints or devils to intercede for them, with a higher order, on behalf of their patients.

Their function is to get in touch with spirits and interpret their advice. The advice is obtained in meetings during which spirits are called.

Sorcerers and witches are practitioners who affect their patients directly.

Through their knowledge of occult arts, they bring unknown and unpredictable elements to bear on the two kinds of people who come to see them: patients in search of help; and clients in search of their witchcraft services.

Healers are practitioners who strive exclusively to restore health and well-being.

Florinda made sure she added to her classification the possible combinations of all three.

In a joking way, but in all seriousness, she claimed that in matters of restoring health, I was predisposed to believe that non-Western healing practices were more holistic than Western medicine.

She made it clear that I was wrong.

Healing, Florinda said, depended on the practitioner and not on a body of knowledge.

Florinda maintained that there was no such thing as non-Western healing practices.

Healing, unlike medicine, was not a formalized discipline.

She used to tease that in my own way, I was as prejudiced as those who believe that if a patient is cured by means of medicinal plants, massages, or incantations, either the disease was psychosomatic or the cure was the result of a lucky accident that the practitioner did not understand.

Florinda was convinced that a person who successfully restored health, whether a doctor or a folk healer, was someone who could alter the body's fundamental feelings about itself and the body's link with the world- that is, someone who offered the body, as well as the mind, new possibilities so that the habitual mold to which body and mind had learned to conform could be systematically broken down.

Other dimensions of awareness would then become accessible, and the commonsense expectations of disease and health could become transformed as new bodily meanings became crystallized.

Florinda had laughed when I expressed genuine surprise upon hearing such thoughts which were revolutionary to me at the time.

She told me that everything she said stemmed from the knowledge she shared with her companions in the nagual's world.

I followed the instructions in Florinda's note. I let the situation guide me, and I let it develop with minimal interference on my part.

I felt I had to go to Curmina, and look up the woman that the ex-Jesuit priest had talked about.

When I first arrived at Mercedes Peralta's house, I did not have to wait long in the shadowy corridor before a voice called me from behind the curtain directly in front of me that served as a door.

I climbed the two steps leading to a large, dimly lit room that smelled of cigar smoke and ammonia.

Several candles, burning on a massive altar that stood against the far wall, illuminated the figurines and pictures of saints arranged around the blue-robed Virgin of Coromoto.

It was a finely carved statue with red smiling lips, rouged cheeks, and eyes that seemed to fix me with a benign, forgiving gaze.

I stepped closer.

In the corner, almost hidden between the altar and a high rectangular table, sat Mercedes Peralta.

She appeared to be asleep, with her head resting against the back of her chair; her eyes closed.

She looked extremely old.

I had never seen such a face. Even in its restful immobility, it revealed a frightening strength.

The glow of the candles, rather than softening her sharply chiseled features, only accentuated the determination etched in the network of wrinkles.

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

They were large and almond shaped. The whites of her eyes were slightly discolored.

At first her eyes were almost blank, but then they became alive and stared at me with the unnerving directness of a child.

Seconds passed and gradually under her unwavering gaze, which was neither friendly nor unfriendly, I began to feel uncomfortable.

"Good afternoon, dona Mercedes," I greeted her before I started to lose all my courage and run out of the house.

"My name is Florinda Donner, and I am going to be very direct so as not to waste your valuable time."

She blinked repeatedly, adjusting her eyes to look at me.

"I have come to Venezuela to study healing methods," I went on, gaining confidence. "I study at a university in the United States, but I truly would like to be a healer. I can pay you if you take me as your student. But even if you do not take me as your student, I can pay you for any information you would give me."

The old woman did not say a word.

She motioned me to sit down on a stool, then rose and gazed at a metal instrument on the table. There was a comical expression on her face as she turned to look at me.

"What is that apparatus?" I asked daringly.

"It is a nautical compass," she said casually. "It tells me all kinds of things."

She picked it up and placed it on the topmost shelf of a glass cabinet that stood against the opposite wall.

Apparently struck by a funny thought, she began to laugh. "I am going to make something clear to you right now," she said.

"Yes, I will give you all kinds of information about healing, not because you ask me, but because you are lucky. I already know that for sure.

"What I do not know is if you are strong as well."

The old woman was silent, then she spoke again in a forced whisper without looking at me; her attention on something inside the glass cabinet.

"Luck and strength are all that count in everything," she said.

"I knew the night I saw you by the plaza that you are lucky, and that you were looking for me."

"I do not understand what you are talking about," I said.

Mercedes Peralta turned to face me, then laughed in such a discordant manner that I felt certain she was mad. She opened her mouth so wide I could see the few molars she still had left.

She stopped abruptly, sat on her chair, and insisted that she had seen me exactly two weeks ago late at night in the plaza.

She had been with a friend, she explained, who was driving her home from a seance that had taken place in one of the coastal towns.

Although her friend had been baffled to see me alone so late at night, she herself had not been in the least surprised. "You reminded me instantly of someone I once knew," she said. "It was past midnight. You smiled at me."

I did not remember seeing her, or being alone in the plaza at that hour.

But it could have been that she had seen me the night I had arrived from Caracas. After waiting in vain for the week-long rain to stop, I had finally risked the drive from Caracas to Curmina.

I knew full well that there would be landslides. It turned out that instead of the usual two hours, the drive took me four.

By the time I had arrived, the whole town was asleep, and I had trouble finding the hostel near the plaza, which had also been recommended to me by the former priest.

Mystified by her insistence that she knew I was coming to see her, I told her about him and what he had said to me at the wedding in Caracas.

I said, "He was quite insistent that I look you up. He mentioned that your ancestors were sorcerers and healers- famous during colonial times, and that they were persecuted by the Holy Inquisition."

A flicker of surprise widened her eyes slightly, and she asked, "Did you know that in those days accused witches were sent to Cartagena in Colombia to be tried? Venezuela was not important enough to have an Inquisitorial tribunal."

She paused, and looking straight into my eyes, asked, "Where had you originally planned to study healing methods?"

I vaguely said, "In the state of Yaracuy."

She inquired, "Sortes? Maria Lionza?"

I nodded. Sortes is the town where the cult of Maria Lionza is centered.

Maria Lionza is said to have been born of an Indian princess and a Spanish conquistador, and she is purported to have had supernatural powers.

Today, she is revered by thousands in Venezuela as a saintly miraculous woman.

"I have already talked with two women healers. Both agreed that you are the most knowledgeable; the only one who could explain healing matters to me."

Making it all up on the spur of the moment, I talked about the methods I wanted to follow: direct observation, participation in some of the healing sessions while tape recording them, and, most important of all, systematic interviewing of the patients I observed.

The old woman nodded, giggling from time to time.

To my great surprise, she was totally amenable to my proposed methods. She proudly informed me that years ago she had been interviewed by a psychologist from a university in Caracas, who had stayed for a week right there in her house.

She suggested, "To make it easier for you, you can come and live with us. We have plenty of rooms in the house."

I accepted her invitation, but told her that I had planned to stay for at least six months in the area.

She seemed unperturbed. As far as she was concerned, I could stay for years.

"I am glad you are here, Musiua," she added softly.

I smiled. Although born and raised in Venezuela, I have been called a musiua all my life.

It is usually a derogatory term, but depending on the tone in which it is said, it can be turned into a rather affectionate expression referring to anyone who is blond and blue-eyed.

The Witch's Dream. ©1985 By Florinda Donner-Grau.

Part 1: Chapter 04.

Men and women with closed eyes were sitting beside me on old wooden chairs arranged in a circle.

Startled by the faint rustle of a skirt swishing past me, I opened my eyes, and gazed at the candle burning on the altar in the semidarkness of the room.

The flame flickered and sent up a single black thread of smoke.

On the wall appeared a woman's shadow with a stick in its hand. The shadow seemed to impale the heads of the men and women.

I could barely stifle a nervous giggle upon realizing that it was Mercedes Peralta, placing big, hand-rolled cigars in everyone's mouth.

She took the candle from the altar, and lit each cigar with it.

Then she returned to her chair in the middle of the circle.

In a deep monotonous voice she began to chant an unintelligible, repetitious incantation.

Suppressing a fit of coughing, I tried to synchronize my smoking with the rapid puffing of the people around me.

Through teary eyes I watched their solemn, mask-like faces becoming momentarily animated with every puff until they seemed to dissolve in the thickening smoke.

Like a disembodied object, Mercedes Peralta's hand materialized out of that vaporous haze. Snapping her fingers, she repeatedly traced the air with the imaginary lines connecting the four cardinal points.

Imitating the others, I began to sway my head to and fro, to the rhythmic sound of her snapping fingers, and her low-voiced incantations.

Ignoring my growing nausea, I forced myself to keep my eyes open so as not to miss a single detail of what was occurring around me.

This was the first time I had been allowed to attend a meeting of spiritualists. Dona Mercedes was going to serve as the medium, and contact the spirits.

Dona Mercedes' own definition of spiritualists, witches, and healers was the same as Florinda's; with the exception that she recognized another independent class: Mediums.

Dona Mercedes defined mediums as the interpreting intermediaries who serve as conduits for the spirits to express themselves.

She understood that mediums were so independent that they did not have to belong to any of the three other categories. And they could also be all four categories in one.

"There is a disturbing force in the room." A man's voice interrupted dona Mercedes' incantations.

Smoldering cigars perforated the smoky darkness like accusing eyes as the rest of the group mumbled their agreement.

Dona Mercedes rose from her chair, and said, "I will see to it."

She went from person to person, pausing for an instant behind each one.

I yelled out in pain as I felt something sharp piercing my shoulder.

Dona Mercedes whispered into my ear, "Come with me. You are not in a trance."

Afraid I would resist, she took me firmly by the arm, and led me to the red curtain that served as a door.

"But you yourself asked me to come," I insisted before I was pushed out of the room. "I will not bother anyone if I sit quietly in a corner."

Just before she noiselessly drew the curtain shut, she murmured, "You will bother the spirits."

I walked to the kitchen at the back of the house, where I usually worked at night transcribing tapes, and organizing my gradually growing field notes.

Swarms of insects clustered around the single bulb dangling from the kitchen ceiling.

Its weak light illuminated the wooden table standing in the middle of the room, but left the room's corners in shadows; where the flea-ridden, mangy dogs slept.

One side of the rectangular kitchen was open to the yard.

Against the other three soot-blackened walls stood a raised adobe cooking pit, a kerosene stove, and a round metal tub filled with water.

I walked into the moonlit yard.

The cement slab where dona Mercedes' companion Candelaria spread out well-soaped clothes to whiten in the sun each day shone like a silvery puddle of water.

The wash hanging on the lines looked like white stains against the darkness of the stucco wall encircling the yard.

Outlined by the moon, fruit trees, medicinal plants, and vegetable patches formed a uniform dark mass humming with insects and the strident call of crickets.

I returned to the kitchen, and checked the pot simmering on the stove.

No matter what time of day or night, there was always something to eat. Usually it was a hearty soup made of meat, chicken, or fish, depending on what was available, and an assortment of vegetables and roots.

I searched for a soup plate among the dishes piled on the wide adobe shelves built into the wall. There were dozens of unmatched china, metal, and plastic plates.

I served myself a large bowl of chicken soup, but before sitting down, I remembered to scoop out some water from the nearby tub and replenish the pot on the stove.

It had not taken me long to familiarize myself with the habits of that eccentric household.

I started to write down what had transpired in the meeting. Trying to recollect every detail of an event or every word of a conversation was always the best exercise to fight off the sense of loneliness that invariably came upon me.

The cold nose of a dog rubbed against my leg. I searched for leftover pieces of bread, fed them to the dog, and then returned to my notes.

I worked until I felt sleepy and my eyes burned, strained by the weak light. I collected my tape recorder and papers, then headed toward my room, situated at the other end of the house.

I paused for an instant in the inside patio.

It was patched with moonlight. A faint breeze stirred the leaves of the gnarled grape vine; its jagged shadows painted lacy patterns on the brick courtyard.

I felt her presence before actually seeing the woman. She was squatting on the ground, almost hidden by the large terra-cotta pots scattered throughout the patio.

A wooly mop of hair crowned her head like a white halo, but her dark face remained indistinct, blending in with the shadows around her.

I had never seen her in the house before.

I recovered from my initial fright by reasoning that she must be one of dona Mercedes' friends, or perhaps one of her patients, or even one of Candelaria's relatives, who was waiting for her to come out of the seance.

I said, "Pardon me. I am new here. I work with dona Mercedes."

The woman nodded as I spoke. She gave me the impression she knew what I was talking about; but she did not break her silence.

Possessed by an inexplicable uneasiness, I tried not to succumb to hysterical fright. I kept repeating to myself that I had no reason to panic because an old woman was squatting in the patio.

"Were you at the seance?" I asked in an uncertain voice.

The woman shook her head affirmatively.

"I was there, too," I said, "but dona Mercedes kicked me out."

I felt relieved all of a sudden and wanted to make fun of the situation.

"Are you afraid of me?" the old woman asked abruptly. Her voice had a cutting, raspy, yet youthful sound.

I laughed. I was about to say no with a flippant air, when something held me back. I heard myself saying that I was terrified of her.

"Come with me," the woman ordered me matter-of-factly.

Again my first reaction was to follow her boldly; but instead, I heard myself saying something I had not intended. "I have to finish my work. If you care to talk to me, you can do it here and now."

The woman's voice boomed, "I command you to come!"

All the energy of my body seemed to drain out of me at once.

Yet, I stated, "Why do you not command yourself to stay."

I could not believe I had said that. I was ready to apologize, when a strange reserve of energy flowed into my body, and made me feel almost under control.

"Have it your way," the woman said, and stood up from her squatting position.

Her height was inconceivable. She grew and grew until her knees were at my eye level.

At that point I felt my energy leaving me and I let out a series of wild, piercing screams.

Dona Mercedes' companion Candelaria came rushing to my side. She covered the distance between the room where the meeting of spiritualists was taking place and the patio before I had time to gasp for air, and scream once more.

"Everything is all right now," she repeated in a soothing voice that seemed to come from far away.

Gently, she rubbed my neck and back, but I could not stop from shaking.

And then without wanting to, I began to cry.

"I should not have left you by yourself," she said apologetically. "But who would have thought a musiua would see her?"

Before any of the other participants in the meeting came out to see what was going on, Candelaria took me to the kitchen. She helped me into a chair and gave me a glass of rum.

I drank it and told her what had happened in the patio.

The instant I had finished both the rum and my account, I felt drowsy, distracted, but far from drunk.

Not only did Candelaria put me to bed, she also placed a cot alongside so that she would be there when I awoke.

Dona Mercedes stepped into my room, and said, "Leave us alone, Candelaria."

After a long silence, dona Mercedes began, "I do not know how to say this, but you are a medium.

"I knew this all along." Her feverish eyes seemed to be suspended in a crystalline substance as she studied my face intently.

"The only reason they did let you sit in the seance was because you are lucky. Mediums are lucky."

In spite of my apprehension I had to laugh.

"Do not laugh about this," she admonished. "It is serious.

In the patio you called a spirit all by yourself, and the most important spirit of them all came to you; the spirit of one of my ancestors. She does not come often, but when she does, it is for important reasons."

"Was she a ghost?" I asked stupidly.

"Of course she was a ghost," she said firmly. "We understand things the way we have been taught. There are no deviations from that.

Our beliefs are that you saw a most frightening spirit; and that a live medium can communicate with the spirit of a dead medium."

"Why would that spirit come to me?" I asked.

"I do not know. She came to me once to warn me," she replied, "but I did not follow her advice."

Dona Mercedes' eyes became gentle, and her voice grew softer as she added, "The first thing I told you when you arrived was that you are lucky.

I was lucky, too, until someone broke my luck.

You remind me of that person. He was as blond as you are.

His name was Federico and he also had luck, but he had no strength whatsoever.

The spirit told me to leave him alone. I did not, and I am still paying for it."

At a loss as to how to take the sudden turn of events, or the sadness that had come upon her, I placed my hand over hers.

"He had no strength whatsoever," she repeated. "The spirit knew it."

Although Mercedes Peralta was always willing to discuss anything pertaining to her practices, she had quite emphatically discouraged my curiosity regarding her past. Once, and I do not know whether I caught her unaware or whether it was a deliberate move on her part, she revealed that she had suffered a great loss many years ago.

Before I had a chance to decide whether she was actually encouraging me to ask personal questions, she lifted my hand to her face, and held it against her cheek. "Feel these scars," she whispered.

"What happened to you?" I asked, running my fingers over the rough scar tissue on her cheeks and neck.

Until I touched them, the scars had been indistinguishable from the wrinkles. Her dark skin felt so brittle I was afraid it would disintegrate in my hand.

A mysterious vibration emanated from her entire body. I could not shift my gaze from her eyes.

"We will not talk about what you saw in the patio," she said emphatically. "Things like that pertain only to the world of mediums, and you should never discuss that world with anyone. I would certainly advise you not to be afraid of that spirit, but do not beckon her foolishly."

She helped me get out of my bed, and led me outside to the same spot in the patio where I had seen the woman. As I stood there inspecting the darkness around us, I realized that I had no idea whether I had slept a few hours or an entire night and day.

Dona Mercedes seemed to be aware of my confusion. "It is four in the morning," she said. "You have slept almost five hours."

She crouched where the woman had been. I squatted beside her between the shrubs of jasmine hanging down from wooden lattices; like perfumed curtains.

"It never occurred to me that you did not know how to smoke," she said, and laughed her dry raspy laughter.

She reached inside her skirt pocket, pulled out a cigar, and lit it.

"At a meeting of spiritualists, we smoke hand-rolled cigars. Spiritualists know that the smell of tobacco pleases the spirits."

After a short pause, she put the lit cigar in my mouth. "Try to smoke," she ordered.

I drew on it, inhaling deeply. The heavy smoke made me cough.

"Do not inhale," she said impatiently. "Let me show you how."

She reached for the cigar, and puffed at it repeatedly, breathing in and out in short even spurts.

"You do not want the smoke to go to your lungs, but to your head," she explained.

"That is the way a medium calls the spirits.

From now on, you are going to call the spirits from this spot.

And do not talk about it until you can conduct a spiritualist's meeting all by yourself."

"But I do not want to call the spirits," I laughingly protested. "All I want is to sit in one of the meetings and watch."

She regarded me with a threatening determination. "You are a medium, and no medium goes to a meeting to watch."

"What is the reason for a meeting?" I asked, changing the subject.

"To ask questions of the spirits," she promptly responded. "Some spirits give great advice. Others are malevolent."

She chuckled with a touch of malice. "Which spirit shows up depends on the medium's state of being."

"Are mediums, then, at the mercy of the spirits?" I asked.

She was silent for a long time, looking at me without betraying any feelings in her face.

Then in a defiant tone she said, "They are not if they are strong."

She continued staring at me fiercely, then she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were devoid of all expression.

"Help me to my room," she murmured.

Holding on to my head, she straightened up. Her hand slid down my shoulder, then to my arm, the stiff fingers curling around my wrist like carbonized roots.

Silently, we shuffled down the dark corridor where wooden benches and chairs covered with goat hide stood rigidly against the wall.

She stepped inside her bedroom. Before closing the door she reminded me again that mediums do not talk about their world.

"I knew the instant I saw you in the plaza that you were a medium, and that you would be coming to see me," she affirmed.

A smile, the meaning of which I did not understand, crossed her face. "You have come to bring me something from my past."

"What?"

"I do not quite know myself. Memories, perhaps," she said vaguely. "Or perhaps you are bringing my old luck back."

She brushed my cheek with the back of her hand, and softly closed the door.

The Witch's Dream. ©1985 By Florinda Donner-Grau.

Part 1: Chapter 05.

Lulled by the soft breeze and the laughter of children playing in the street, I dozed all afternoon in the hammock that hung between two soursop trees in the yard.

I was even oblivious to the scent of powder detergent mingled with the pungent odor of creosol with which Candelaria washed the floors twice each day; regardless of whether they were dirty.

I waited until it was nearly six o'clock.

Then, as Mercedes Peralta had requested, I went and knocked on her bedroom door. There was no answer. Quietly, I stepped inside.

Usually at that time, she was through with the people who came to her to be treated for one malady or another. She never saw more than two a day.

On her bad days, which were quite frequent, she saw no one. On those occasions, I took her for rides in my jeep and for long walks in the surrounding hills.

"Is that you, Musiua?" dona Mercedes asked, stretching in her low-hanging hammock, fastened to metal rings built into the wall.

I greeted her and sat on the double bed by the window.

She never slept in it. She maintained that from a bed, regardless of its size, one could have a fatal fall.

Waiting for her to get up, I looked around the oddly furnished room that never failed to enchant me.

Things had been arranged there with a look of purposeful incongruity.

The two night tables at the head and foot of the bed, cluttered with candles and figurines of saints, served as altars.

A low wooden wardrobe painted blue and pink blocked the door that opened to the street.

I wondered what was inside, for dona Mercedes' clothes- she never wore anything but black- hung everywhere, from hooks on the walls and behind the door, at the head and foot of the iron bedstead, and even from the ropes holding the hammock.

A crystal chandelier, which did not work, dangled precariously from the cane ceiling. It was gray with dust, and spiders had spun their webs around its prisms.

An almanac, the kind one tears a page from each day, hung behind the door.

Combing her fingers through her white mop of hair, Mercedes Peralta heaved a deep sigh, then swung her legs out of the hammock and hunted about with her feet for her cloth sandals.

She sat still for a moment, then moved to the high narrow window facing the street and opened its wooden panels.

She blinked repeatedly until her eyes adjusted to the late-afternoon light beaming into the room.

Intently, she gazed at the sky, as if she were expecting some message from the sunset.

"Are we going for a walk?" I asked.

Slowly, she turned around. "A walk?" she repeated, arching her brows in surprise. "How can we go for a walk when I have a person waiting for me."

I opened my mouth ready to inform her there was no one outside, but the mocking expression in her tired eyes compelled me to silence. She took my hand, and we walked out of her room.

With his chin buried in his chest, a frail-looking old man dozed on the wooden bench outside the room where Mercedes Peralta treated people who came for help.

Sensing our presence, he straightened up. "I do not feel too well," he said in a toneless voice, reaching for his straw hat and the walking stick lying beside him.

"Octavio Cantu," Mercedes Peralta said, addressing herself to me, but shaking his hand.

She led him up the two steps into the room.

I followed close behind.

He turned around with an inquiring expression in his eyes as he gazed at me.

"She has been helping me," she said. "But if you do not want her with us, she will go outside."

He stood there for a moment nervously shifting his feet.

His mouth twisted into a lopsided smile, and with a touch of helplessness he murmured, "If she has been helping you, I suppose it is all right."

With a swift movement of her head, Mercedes Peralta motioned me to my stool by the altar, then helped the old man into the chair directly in front of the high rectangular table.

She seated herself to his right, facing him.

"Where could it be?" she mumbled repeatedly, searching among the assortment of jars, candles and cigars, dried roots, and scraps of material scattered on the table.

She sighed with relief upon finding her nautical compass, which she placed in front of Octavio Cantu.

Attentively, she studied the round-shaped metal box.

"Look at this!" she cried out, beckoning me to move closer.

It was the same compass I had seen her examine so intently the first day I walked into that room. The needle, barely visible through the opaque, badly scratched glass, moved vigorously to and fro, as if animated by some invisible force emanating from Octavio Cantu.

Mercedes Peralta used the compass as a diagnostic device only if she believed the person to be suffering from a spiritual ailment rather than a natural disease. So far, I had been unable to determine what criteria she used to differentiate between the two kinds of maladies. For her, a spiritual ailment could manifest itself in the form of a bout of bad luck as well as a common cold, which, depending on the circumstances, might also be diagnosed as a natural ailment.

Expecting to find some mechanical contraption that activated the needle, I examined the compass at every opportunity. Since there was none, I accepted her explanation as a bonafide truth. She said that whenever a person is centered, that is, when body, spirit, and soul are in harmony, the needle does not move at all.

To prove her point, she placed the compass in front of herself, Candelaria, and me. To my great astonishment, the needle moved only when the compass was in front of me.

Octavio Cantu craned his neck to peer at the instrument. "Am I sick?" he asked softly, gazing up at dona Mercedes.

"It is your spirit," she murmured. "Your spirit is in great turmoil."

She returned the compass to the glass cabinet, then positioned herself behind the old man and rested both hands on his head.

She remained that way for a long time; then with quick, sure movements, she ran her fingers down his shoulders and arms.

Swiftly, she stepped in front of him, her hands brushing lightly down his chest, his legs, all the way to his feet.

Reciting a prayer that was part church litany, part incantation- she maintained that every good healer knew that Catholicism and spiritualism complemented each other- she alternately massaged his back and chest for nearly a half hour.

To give momentary relief to her tired hands, she periodically shook them vigorously behind her back. She called it casting off the accumulation of negative energy.

To mark the end of the first part of her treatment, she stamped her right foot three times on the ground.

Octavio Cantu shuddered uncontrollably.

She held his head from behind, pressing her palms to his temples until he began to draw slow, difficult breaths.

Mumbling a prayer, she moved to the altar, lit a candle and then a hand-rolled cigar, which she began to smoke with even, rapid puffs.

"I should be used to it by now," the old man said, breaking the smoky silence.

Startled by his voice, she began to cough until tears rolled down her cheeks. I wondered whether she had accidentally inhaled the smoke.

Octavio Cantu, oblivious to her coughing, continued to talk. "I have told you many, many times that whether I am sober or drunk, I only dream one dream.

I am standing in my shack. It is empty. I feel the wind and see shadows moving everywhere. But there are no more dogs to bark at the emptiness and at the shadows.

I awake with a terrible pressure. It feels like someone were sitting on my chest; and as I open my eyes, I see the yellow pupils of a dog. They open wider and wider, until they swallow me..." His voice trailed off.

Gasping for breath, he looked around the room. He no longer seemed to know where he was.

Mercedes Peralta dropped the cigar stub on the floor. Grabbing his chair from behind, she swiftly turned him around, so that he was now facing the altar.

With slow, mesmerizing movements, she massaged him around his eyes.

I must have dozed off, for I found myself alone in the room.

I quickly looked around. The candle on the altar was almost burned down.

Right above me in the corner close to the ceiling sat a moth the size of a small bird. It had enormous black circles on its wings; they stared at me like curious eyes.

A sudden rustle made me turn around.

Mercedes Peralta was sitting in her chair by the altar. I muffled a scream. I could have sworn she had not been there a moment before.

I said, "I did not know you were there. Look at that big moth above my head."

I searched for the insect, but it was gone.

There was something about the way she looked at me that made me shudder.

I explained, saying, "I got too tired and fell asleep. I did not even find out what was wrong with Octavio Cantu."

She said, "He comes to see me from time to time. He needs me as a spiritualist and a healer. I lighten the burden that weighs on his soul."

She turned to the altar, and lit three candles.

In the flickering light her eyes were the color of the moth's wings.

Dona Mercedes suggested, "You had better go to sleep. Remember, we are going to go for a walk at dawn."

The Witch's Dream. ©1985 By Florinda Donner-Grau.

Part 1: Chapter 06.

Certain that I had overslept again, I dressed quickly and headed down the dark corridor. Mindful of the creaking hinges, I carefully opened the door to Mercedes Peralta's room and tiptoed toward the hammock.

"Are you awake?" I whispered, pushing aside the gauzy material of the mosquito netting. "Do you still want to go for a walk?"

Her eyes opened instantly, but she was not really awake yet. She continued to stare quietly ahead.

She finally said hoarsely, "I do."

She brushed the netting aside completely, cleared her throat, spat in the bucket on the floor, and then moved over a little to make room for me in the hammock.

As she crossed herself, she mumbled, "I am glad you remembered our walk."

Closing her eyes, she folded her hands and prayed to the Virgin, and to a number of saints in heaven. She thanked them individually for their guidance in helping her with the people she treated, and then asked for their forgiveness.

"Why their forgiveness?" I inquired as soon as she finished her long prayer.

"Look at the lines on my palms," she said, placing her upturned hands in my lap.

With my index finger I traced the clearly delineated V and M lines that seemed to have been branded; the V on her left palm, and the M on her right.

She explained, enunciating the words with deliberate precision as she said, "V stands for vida, life. M stands for muerte, death. I was born with the power to heal and harm."

She lifted her hands from my lap, and brushed the air as though she intended to erase the words she had spoken.

She stared around the room, then deliberately maneuvered her thin, fleshless legs out of the hammock and slipped into a pair of cutout shoes through which her toes protruded.

Her eyes twinkled with amusement as she straightened the black blouse and skirt, which she had slept in.

Holding on to my arm, she led me outside. "Let me show you something before we go for our walk," she said, heading toward the working room.

She turned directly to the massive altar, which was made entirely out of melted wax. It had been started with a single candle, she said, by her great-great-grandmother, who had also been a healer.

Lovingly, she ran her hand over the glossy, almost transparent surface.

"Search for the black wax amid the multi-colored streaks," she urged me. "That is the evidence that witches light a black candle when they use their power to harm."

Countless strands of black wax ran into the colored bands.

"The ones closer to the top are mine," she said. Her eyes shone with an odd fierceness as she added, "A true healer is also a witch."

A glimmer of a smile lingered on her lips for a moment. Then she went on to say that not only was she well known throughout the area, but that people came for her treatments from as far as Caracas, Maracaibo, Merida, and Cumana.

People knew about her abroad, as well, in Trinidad, Cuba, Colombia, Brazil, and Haiti. There were pictures somewhere in the house attesting that among those persons had been ministers of state, ambassadors, and even a bishop.

She regarded me enigmatically, then shrugged her shoulders.

"My luck and my strength were peerless at one time," she said. "I ran out of both, and now I can only heal."

Her grin widened, and her eyes took on a teasing gleam. "And how is your work progressing?" she asked with the innocent curiosity of a child.

Before I had a chance to take in the sudden change of topic, she added, "Regardless of how many healers and patients you interview, you will never learn that way. A real healer must be first a medium and a spiritualist, and then a witch."

A dazzling smile lit up her face. "Do not be too upset when one of these days I burn your writing pads," she said casually. "You are wasting your time with all that nonsense."

I became utterly alarmed. I did not take kindly to the prospect of seeing my work go up in flames.

"Do you know what is of real interest?" she asked, and then answered her own question. "The issues that go beyond the superficial aspects of healing.

"Things that can not be explained, but may be experienced.

"There have been plenty of people who have studied healers. They believe that by watching and asking questions they may understand what mediums, witches, and healers do.

"Since there is no point in arguing with them, it is a lot easier to leave them alone to do whatever they want.

"It cannot be the same in your case," she went on. "I cannot let you go to waste.

"So, instead of acting like you are studying healers, you are going to practice calling the spirit of my ancestor every night in the patio of this house.

"You can not take notes on that because the spirits count time in a different way.

"You will see. To deal with the spirits is like entering inside the earth."

The memory of the woman I had seen in that patio perturbed me terribly. I wanted to abandon right then all my quest and forget Florinda's plans and run away.

Suddenly dona Mercedes laughed, a clear burst that dispelled my fears.

"Musiua, you should see your face," she said. "You are about to faint. Among other things, you are a coward."

Despite her wry mocking tone, there was sympathy and affection in her smile. "I should not push you. So I am going to give you something you will like- something that has more value than your study plans; A glimpse into the life of some personages of my choice.

"I will make them weave tales for you. Tales about fate. Tales about luck. Tales about love."

She brought her face close to mine and in a soft whisper added, "Tales about strength and tales about weakness. That will be my gift to you to keep you appeased."

She took my arm and led me outside. "Let us go for our walk."

Our steps rang lonely through the silent street bordered by high concrete sidewalks.

In a faint murmur, obviously wary of waking the people sleeping inside the houses we passed, Mercedes Peralta remarked that during her days as a young healer, her house- the biggest one on the street- had stood isolated at what was then considered the outskirts of town.

"But now," she said- the sweeping gesture of her arm encompassing everything around us- "it seems I live in the center of town."

We turned onto the main street, and walked all the way to the plaza where we rested on a bench facing the statue of Bolivar on a horse.

The town hall stood at one side of the plaza, the church with its bell tower at the other. Many of the original buildings had been pulled down and replaced by boxlike structures.

Yet, the old houses that still stood, with their wrought-iron grills, their red-tile roofs gray with age, and their wide eaves that permitted the rain water to splash clear of the brightly painted walls, gave the center of town its distinct colonial atmosphere.

"This town has not been the same since the day the clock in the tower of the city hall was fixed," she mused.

She explained that a long time ago, as if resenting the advent of progress, the clock had stopped at twelve o'clock.

The local pharmacist had seen to it that it was fixed, and immediately afterward, as though conjured up by an act of magic, lampposts were put on the streets, and sprinklers were installed in the plaza so that the grass would stay green all year-round. And before anyone knew what was happening, industrial centers mushroomed everywhere.

She paused for an instant to catch her breath, then pointed to the shack-covered hills surrounding the city. "And so did the squatters' shanty towns," she added.

She rose and we walked to the end of the main street to where the hills began.

Huts made of corrugated metal sheets, crates, and cardboard hung precariously on the steep slopes.

The owners of the shacks close to the city streets had boldly tapped electricity from the lampposts. The insulated wires were crudely camouflaged with colored ribbons.

We turned onto a side street, then into an alley, and finally we followed a narrow path winding up the only hill that had not yet been claimed by squatters.

The air, still damp from the night dew, smelled of wild rosemary. We climbed almost to the top of the hill, where a solitary saman tree grew. We sat down on the damp ground carpeted with tiny yellow daisies.

"Can you hear the sea?" Mercedes Peralta asked.

The faint breeze, rustling through the tree's intricately woven crown, scattered a shower of powdery golden blossoms. They alighted on her hair and shoulders like butterflies.

Her face was suffused with an immeasurable calm. Her mouth opened slightly, revealing her few teeth, yellow with tobacco and age.

"Can you hear the sea?" she repeated, turning her dreamy, slightly misted eyes toward me.

I told her that the sea was too far away beyond the mountains.

"I know that the sea is far away," she said softly. "But at this early hour, when the town still sleeps, I always hear the sound of the waves carried by the wind.

"Closing her eyes, she leaned against the tree trunk, as if to sleep.

The morning stillness was shattered by the sound of a truck winding its way through a narrow street below. I wondered whether it was the Portuguese baker delivering his freshly baked rolls, or the police picking up last night's drunks.

"See who it is," she urged me.

I walked a few steps down the path, and watched an old man get out from a green truck parked at the bottom of the hill. His coat hung loosely on his stooped shoulders, and a straw hat covered his head.

Aware of being watched, he looked up, and waved his walking stick by way of greeting.

I waved in return.

I told her, "It is the old man you treated last night."

"How fortunate!" she murmured. "Call him. Tell him to come up here. Tell him I want to see him. My gift to you begins now."

I walked down to where his truck was parked and asked the old man to walk back up the hill with me. He followed me without a word.

"No dogs today," he said to Mercedes Peralta by way of greeting, and sat beside her.

"Let me tell you a secret, Musiua," she said, beckoning me to sit across from her.

"I am a medium, a witch, and a healer. Of the three, I like the second because witches have a particular way of understanding the mysteries of fate.

"Why is it that some people get rich, successful, and happy, while others find only hardship and pain?

"Whatever decides those things is not what you call fate. It is something more mysterious than that. And only witches know about it."

Her features strained for an instant with an expression I could not fathom as she turned to Octavio Cantu.

"Some people say that we are born with our fate. Others claim that we make our fate with our actions.

"Witches say that it is neither and that something else catches us like the dog catcher catches a dog. The secret is to be there if we want to be caught, or not to be there if we do not want to be caught."

Her glance strayed to the eastern sky, where the sun was rising over the distant mountains. After a few moments she faced the old man once more. Her eyes seemed to have absorbed the sun's radiance, for they shone as if smeared with fire.

"Octavio Cantu is coming to the house for his seasonal treatments," she said. "Perhaps little by little he will weave a tale for you. A tale about how chance joins lives together and how that something that only witches know about fastens them into one bundle."

Octavio Cantu nodded his head in agreement. A tentative smile parted his lips. The scant beard on his chin was as white as the hair sticking out from under his straw hat.

Octavio Cantu came to dona Mercedes' house eight times. Apparently she had been treating him periodically since he was a young man.

Besides being old and run down, he was an alcoholic. Dona Mercedes emphasized, however, that all his maladies were of the spirit. He needed incantations, not medicines.

At first, he hardly talked to me, but then he began to open up, feeling more confident perhaps. We spent long hours talking about his life.

At the beginning of each of our sessions, he invariably seemed to succumb to despair, loneliness, suspicion. He demanded to know why I was interested in his life.

But he always checked himself and regained his aplomb, and for the rest of the session- whether an hour or an entire afternoon- he would talk about himself as if he were some other person.

The Witch's Dream. ©1985 By Florinda Donner-Grau.

Part 1: Chapter 07.

Octavio Cantu had had his last treatment of the season. He put on his hat and rose from the chair.

I noticed how the years had caved in his chest, and wasted the muscles of his arms. His faded coat and pants were several sizes too big. Bulging sharply on the right-side pocket was a large bottle of rum.

"It always happens when she finishes my treatments, I put her to sleep," he whispered to me, fixing his sunken and discolored eyes on Mercedes Peralta. "I have talked to you too much today. Anyway, I can not figure out why you are interested in me."

A wide smile creased his face as he held his walking stick between his thumb and wrist. He moved his arm back and forth so skillfully the cane appeared to be suspended in midair. Without saying another word he walked out of the room.

"Dona Mercedes," I called softly, turning to her. "Are you awake?"

Mercedes Peralta nodded. "I am awake. I am always awake even when I am asleep," she said softly. "That is the way I try to stay a jump ahead of myself."

I told her that since I had begun talking to Octavio Cantu I had been plagued by deep, nagging questions. Could Octavio Cantu have avoided stepping into Victor Julio's shoes? And why did he repeat Victor Julio's life so completely?

"Those are unanswerable questions," dona Mercedes replied. "But let us go to the kitchen and ask Candelaria. She has got more sense than the two of us together. I am too old to have sense, and you are too educated."

With a beaming smile on her face, she took my arm and we walked to the kitchen.

Candelaria, engrossed in scrubbing the copper-plated bottoms of her precious stainless-steel pots and pans, did not hear or see us approach. She let out a piercing, startled scream when dona Mercedes nudged her arm.

Candelaria was tall, with sloping shoulders and wide hips. I could not tell her age. She looked as much thirty as she looked fifty. Her brown face was covered with tiny freckles, so evenly spaced they seemed to have been painted on. She dyed her dark curly hair a carrot red and wore dresses made from bold-colored printed cottons.

"Well? What are you doing in my kitchen?" she asked with feigned annoyance.

"The musiua is obsessed with Octavio Cantu," dona Mercedes explained.

"My God!" Candelaria exclaimed. Her face expressed genuine shock as she looked up at me. "Why him?" she asked.

Baffled by her accusing tone, I voiced the questions I had just asked dona Mercedes.

Candelaria began to laugh. "For a minute I was worried," she said to dona Mercedes. "Musius are weird.

"I remember that musiu from Finland who used to drink a glass of urine after his dinner to keep his weight down.

"And the woman who came all the way from Norway to fish in the Caribbean sea. To my knowledge, she never caught anything. But she had the boat owners fighting among themselves to take her out to sea."

Laughing uproariously, the two women sat down.

Candelaria went on, saying, "One never knows what goes on in the minds of musius." They are capable of anything."

She laughed in spurts, each louder than the preceding one. Then she went back to scrubbing her pots.

Dona Mercedes said, "It looks like Candelaria thinks very little of your questions. I personally think that Octavio Cantu could not avoid stepping into Victor Julio's shoes.

"He had very little strength. That is why he was caught by that mysterious something I talked to you about; that something more mysterious than fate. Witches call it a witch's shadow."

"Octavio Cantu was very young and strong," Candelaria said all of a sudden, "but he sat too long under Victor Julio's shadow."

"What is she talking about?" I asked dona Mercedes.

"When people are fading away, especially at the moment they die, they create with that mysterious something a link with other persons, a sort of continuity," dona Mercedes explained.

"That is why children turn out just like their parents. Or those who take care of old people follow into the steps of their wards."

Candelaria spoke again. "Octavio Cantu sat too long in Victor Julio's shadow. And the shadow sapped him. Victor Julio was weak, but upon dying the way he did, his shadow became very strong."

"Would you call the shadow the soul?" I asked Candelaria.

"No, the shadow is something all human beings have, something stronger than their soul," she replied seemingly annoyed.

"There you are, Musiua," dona Mercedes said. "Octavio Cantu sat too long on a link- a point where fate links lives together.

"He did not have the strength to walk away from it. And, like Candelaria says, Victor Julio's shadow sapped him.

"Because all of us have a shadow, a strong or a weak one, we can give that shadow to someone we love, to someone we hate, or to someone who is simply available.

"If we do not give it to anyone, it floats around for a while after we die before it vanishes away."

I must have stared at her uncomprehendingly. She laughed and said, "I have told you that I like witches. I like the way they explain events, even though it is hard to understand them.

"Octavio needs me to ease his burden. I do that through my incantations. He feels that unless I intervene he will repeat Victor Julio's life detail by detail."

Candelaria blurted out, "It is advisable not to sit too long under anybody's shadow unless you want to follow in his or her footsteps."