Margarita woke up in a strange place.
Unfamiliar scents flooded her senses, and a pulsing, intermittent pain pounded against her thoughts like machine-gun fire.
"Am I dead?"
"No. No, señora. But perhaps you are not alive, either—not completely," the master replied.
"What are you talking about?"
But before he could answer, life itself seemed to speak for him.
A marble bust of an angel with folded wings loomed above her, watching with an expression of quiet distrust.
From the depths of the cemetery, footsteps echoed—
Drawing closer.
Fading away.
Margarita searched for their source, but saw no one.
They were footsteps without feet to make them.
She turned back to the stone figures, but they remained still—motionless—just as they had always been.
The master helped her up.
She was completely dry.
He wrapped her arm around his neck, supporting her weight as they walked—two survivors of some unspeakable accident, clinging to life, stepping together out of the cemetery's grasp.
A vehicle was waiting.
From inside, a woman stepped out, her body shrouded in thick robes.
A nun?
No—not a nun.
Only her eyes were visible—two burning embers, glowing from beneath a deep violet hood and veil.
"Master...?" she asked, scrutinizing him.
"She is one of us. Take us to Calle de las Ratas."
The woman seemed unsatisfied with her mentor's command.
But she obeyed.
She helped Margarita inside, then the master, and drove them back to the center of the city.
By the time they arrived, the streetlamps cast an eerie, ghostly glow across the deserted road.
The doors of Mystic Theater swung open.
The old woman stepped out, her frail figure even more withered than it had been the night before.
The three of them entered.
The master placed Margarita's hand on the driver's shoulder.
"Wait for me," he ordered.
Then, he stepped back outside, saying goodbye—almost tenderly—to the old woman.
"Thank you for everything, Lucrecia."
"Thank you, Master. For so much. For everything..."
Margarita, still in a daze, watched their farewell.
And just as they finished their parting words—
Lucrecia turned toward the street, threw herself into traffic—
And was crushed beneath a speeding car.
The impact was thunderous.
A horrific, phantasmal sound that shattered the night.
Margarita recoiled in horror.
And then—footsteps.
All around her.
But no figures.
No bodies.
Nothing but sound.
She turned to the master and his enigmatic assistant.
As if sensing her confusion—as if he owed her an explanation—he said:
"There can only ever be three of us."
She did not understand.
But her strength was fading.
Between the two of them, they led her into the study.
In the same room where she had first spoken to the master, a wooden placemat lay on the table.
Upon it—
A bowl of chicken soup with spinach.
A glass of hibiscus water.
With the woman's help, she took a seat.
The master sat across from her.
With a motion of his hand, he gestured for her to eat.
Like a shipwreck survivor, Margarita devoured the water first, guzzling it down like a madwoman.
As she set the glass down—clumsily, spilling some—the woman refilled it, even as Margarita tore into the chicken, shoveling it into her mouth with her bare hands.
She lifted the entire bowl to her lips, gulping down the broth, letting the wilted spinach leaves slide down her throat without even chewing them.
When she finished, she reached for more water.
The master watched her gravely.
Then, at last, he spoke:
"Margarita, I had to awaken something inside you.
Your Intuition.
The force that would allow you to perceive the Universal Weave."
She stared at him—bewildered.
"I had to activate the part of your consciousness that has always been there.
The part that warned you—through instincts, through premonitions—of what was about to happen.
And to do that, you had to die.
There was no other way."
Margarita froze.
Her skin prickled.
An icy wave spread through her body.
And then—
A sound.
Slow.
Uneven.
Footsteps.
Right behind her.
She spun around—
But there was nothing.
No one.
"What...? Who...?"
"The past is remembered slowly," the master continued.
"As if time itself moved at a pace that allowed us to understand what had happened.
But that is not the truth."
She struggled to grasp his words.
And then—a flurry of movement.
Quick footsteps.
Darting across the room.
Dashing.
She turned, searching—
Could it be Luisito?
A sensation—a whisper against her ear.
Laughter.
A child's laughter.
Her skin crawled.
"The present," the master continued, unfazed.
"Is a wild child.
Fast.
Fleeting.
Chaotic.
It never stops.
Not until the last breath is drawn, not until exhaustion drags it to rest.
No one has time to think about their present.
One must simply act—and let the moment pass."
More footsteps.
Soft, but urgent.
Coming from nowhere.
Disappearing into nothing.
"The future arrives like an avalanche.
Crushing.
Relentless.
And these three forces—past, present, and future—weave the thing we call life.
But life... is not life itself.
It is only the stage where life unfolds.
Some of us were born with the ability to see through the cracks in that stage.
To glimpse the pattern in its entirety.
Without the weight of the past.
Without the blindness of the present.
Without the fear of the future.
We see the Whole.
Sometimes clearly.
Sometimes only in shadows.
But to do this, you had to die.
You had to be shattered, so your mind could absorb the Cosmic Energy through your open skull.
You had to close your eyes—
To open your Nahual Sight."
"...Am I dead?" she whispered.
"No."
"My son... I want to find him."
"You will, Margarita.
You will."
From a black leather bag, the master pulled out a cat.
Red-furred.
Yellow-eyed.
Miau.
Margarita stared.
The master placed the cat on the desk.
Still.
Waiting.
Waiting for her.
She picked it up—
And noticed.
The dirt beneath her fingernails.
Miau.
"Take this cat home."
"In time, it will disappear."
"When that happens, return to me—"
"And I will tell you what must be done."
"I just want to find my son."
"You will, Margarita. But as I told you before— Your son is already dead. There is no rush."