The Night of the Snake Vines
The villagers called her simply "Abuela Isela"—a small, weather-beaten woman whose eyes had seen more twilights than there seemed to be years in a human lifetime. Elina had come from the city, exhausted, overexcited, torn by a job that took everything and gave nothing. She had heard of a ceremony, a potion made from a vine that grew only in this region, bitter as a truth long avoided.
The circle sat in the open maloca while the frogs called outside. The fire burned quietly, and the smoke smelled of dried leaves. Isela handed Elina the cup. "Drink, but listen," she said. "What you will see wants to take nothing away from you. It wants to show you what you have put away."
The taste was earthy, metallic. After a few minutes, the room began to breathe. Patterns crawled out of the shadows, like painted snakes, moving their bodies to a song only Elina could hear. She felt something begin to crumble inside her—a wall behind which lay images: herself as a child, laughing in a dress that smelled of the sun; her mother's hands, young and warm; the face of a man she had loved and then sent away.
Then came darkness. Out of it stepped figures, formed from the colors of her own fears: one who smelled like guilt; one who spoke like her inner critic; one who said nothing, just looked. Elina wanted to run away, but the vine images snaked around her wrists, gently holding her in place. "Look at them," a voice whispered, perhaps her own.
The hours stretched, becoming rivers of memory, pain, and unabashed beauty. At the end, as the sun rose over the trees, Elina sat by the fire, tears and a smile streaming simultaneously on her face. The villagers brought her water, and Isela nodded contentedly. "You have seen her," she said. "Now you are free to love her."
