Jennifer Hill-Flores

The Rising

The women of Dorno had choices.

Sweet fruit or sugared bread in the morning. Blue cotton threads for the skyscape embroidery on their skirts told the legend of the ghost people descending to create their games and mold the people out of clay, rocks, animal sinew, and something like magnetism, but not that. Or the women could choose orange cotton threads to embroider of the tale of how a fiery ball swept the land like a destructive sun. It cleansed all it touched and forced the most vigorous seeds to push through the ash and create a new world. The stories were unclear, adapted, and voiced by the generations through their pains and triumphs.

On a night of the twin full moons, some women served their men large glasses of beer and spirits and piles of meat, bread, and cheese. On those nights, many men in the village ate and drank beyond their typical capacities, orchestrated by this group of twenty or more wives. They'd leave their fat-laden, drunken husbands in beds with sheets freshly washed with lavender to urge them into even deeper sleep. They'd massage their grimy heads, hands, and feet to ensure their husbands dropped into their dreams, relaxed and oblivious.

On this night, the women made their way to rooftops across the village, each with a small unlit lantern. A code indicated which women may need help. Though younger than most of her counterparts, Flora was a leader among the wives. She began the conversation with three short bursts of light, which meant, "Who needs help urgently?" The women knew that needs varied—setting a bone, providing food for a man who overate but did not give enough food allowance for the wife to prepare a satisfying meal, cleaning blood from sheets, carpets, or dresses, sheltering a child who cried too much, and who could be placed in a home of a wife whose husband was away—there were many needs. All a woman needed to do was light her lantern for fifteen seconds. Then, the women knew which houses required help. They would visit the following day to find instructions at the bottom of a basket, and assistance would be issued accordingly, discreetly, and promptly. Flora had learned the system from elders and slowly built up a trusted group. There were risks, and Flora was willing to take them all for the group. 

That night, Flora was the one who needed help. Her husband, Fernán, was changing. Earlier that day, Flora had accidentally spilled coffee on the star-upholstered arm of his favorite reading chair. She flinched, bracing herself for the quick “thwack” she anticipated across her forehead from the small willow switch adorned with a red cardinal’s feather, which Fernán had secured to the cuff of his shirt sleeve with a short, gold rope. Most men in the village had a variation of this accessory. Some were grand, like Fernán’s, and others were simple, just a thin, sturdy branch attached to a bundle of sticks. 

Flora squeezed her eyes shut and bunched her shoulders and fists tightly, dug in her heels, and curled her toes for balance. Flora felt the sting of those switches nearly every day. But this time, Fernán didn’t do a thing. He looked bewildered, handed her his scarf, and calmly left the room. He shouted to a maid from the hallway, “Pomegranate tea!” And then, after a second or two, “Please and thank you!” Flora saw the signs.

On the night of the twin full moons, Flora lit her lantern for fifteen seconds, knowing someone would gather a basket in her front garden with a note. Hopefully, she would receive the response she needed.

Fernán was a tall, impressive man with black hair and a short, trim beard. His temples were graying ever so slightly. A general in the great wars beyond the borders, Fernán was known as a ruthless, tempestuous warrior. He brought back artifacts from his travels—teeth, bullets, and strange items from the pockets of men who, she was told, died brutally and as cowards. While the men of Dorno were violent and cruel, they kept everyone safe from the hoards that wanted to destroy what looked like a pristine world.

Flora and Fernán were a respected, yet childless, couple in their sunken village resting next to a sacred mountain called Cósmico to the west. There was a swamp to the north, a canyon to the south, and a raging river on its easternmost front. These borders came with the promise of death for any woman who crossed them. Not a public death or death by humiliation. Not the death of a dream or the death of spirit and the death of hope. Just gone. Never to be seen again. But this was not the only curse.

For longer than anyone could remember, the men of Dorno suffered a curious condition. They were heart cold, unjust, greedy, malformed of spirit, and unwittingly prisoners of their pain. Violent. But when a man would fall sick, practically dying, a slow return to senses would begin to build inside the man just as his body would break apart. This was the rising—the rising of spirit, the rising of truth, the rising of love. When a man was in his rising, he would stay home, too frail to wreak regular havoc. The women waited patiently for the risings. At least the chaos would lessen and become more bearable. But no one knew when the risings would happen, just as sickness, dying, and death indicate. Women wanted to leave, certainly. But no one knew what happened to them when they disappeared. No women ever came back. Families held funerals without bodies. Men raged. Children wailed. The women who stayed kept the peace.

The day before the twin moons appeared and the women gathered on the rooftops, Izan, Fernán's father, demanded his son go to the mighty mountain, Cósmico, with him. It was a frigid morning, but Fernán never refused his father nor asked "why" when summoned. Though Fernán was an intrepid warrior—an accomplished, married man but not yet a father himself—he often felt melancholy and skittish in his father’s presence.

Years earlier, Izan had killed Fernán's mother, Lara, after catching her climbing down from the roof back into their bedroom one summer night. Fernán had been only a boy. Izan hadn't even asked his wife why she had been on the roof. All he knew was that he was angry and restless after throwing up the night's dinner and needed his wife to make a sleeping tea. But when she emerged through the window and set her foot quietly on the rough floor, Izan attacked. One blow to the head and Lara stumbled and cracked her skull against the cedar chest her mother had given her on her wedding day. No one ever cried.  

Fernán knew he couldn't push Izan without repercussions. Like all fathers, Izan beat his children mercilessly. Every bruise, cut, and fracture, was a prayer to a way of life and redemption that had evolved over thirteen generations. There was no history of the people of Dorno before then. The children and women remained obedient throughout the ages. To fight back would break a generational code that permeated the people’s entire way of life.

Izan could also cut Fernán out of his will, leaving him nothing to support Flora and the child he desperately wanted. Izan could berate Fernán until his soul withered up like a dead clam on the shores of a dead sea, and Fernán wouldn’t do a thing.

When Fernán arrived at the base of Cósmico, he found his father waiting next to an ancient pine tree that leaned and pointed toward the summit of the great rock. Izan was tall and square, like the stone of a pyramid. He wore a waxed mustache, and his beard hid a face badly scarred from one of the foreign wars. He dressed in thick brown canvas dungarees, and a shooting frock lined with fur wrapped around his torso with fringe hanging from his arms.

"I was told in a dream that an immaculate mineral is in that mountain cave near the summit," Izan explained. He pulled off his three-cornered neck scarf embroidered with a map of the mountain. Fernan recognized his mother’s fine stitching, remembering it had been a birthday gift to his father many years back. Izan pointed to one a spot of the mountain face that he had never visited.

"See that spot there? We're going to get it." Izan looked distracted. Afraid, even. He used the map to wipe the oily sweat from his face and looked up at the mountain, squinting.

"I haven’t been inside the mountain in years," Fernán said.

“Stop rambling. You just listen,” Izan said. “I need you to be dependable for once. This is

no small feat. And keep your mouth shut about this.”

Fernán was confused. He had questions. But he dared not question the urgency of this seemingly futile endeavor. His father had made many foolish mistakes in the past, but no one spoke of misdeeds. There was a social contract in Dorno. The men did no wrong.

"Yes, father.” Izan looked at Fernán skeptically and detected a hint of worry in his son’s face. It was so slight, like the brushing of a moth against the back of your head. A flutter. Izan transformed the curious observation into a moment of power.

"Like I said, the word of God came to me last night in a dream. And, of course, dreams are rare for us. I was told about the mineral, but not about its purpose,” Izan said. “Not yet. God instructed me to take it before the women find it."

"The women? They're not permitted to climb Cósmico.” Fernán was struck by the rareness of the dream experience, and the mystery of the mountain. For a moment, he thought his father was going mad.

Izan, exasperated by his son's questions, quickly gathered their supplies. 

"Do not question me, boy. It's time to climb." Izan threw thick leather gloves at his son's head. "We have to do this before the sun sets. That's the only way. That's why we left at dawn. We start at dawn. We stop at sunset. That's all the time we have. If you don't help me, it's fruitless."

The two walked the steep path up the south side of the mountain face—a course stamped into the ground centuries before. It was rugged and piled with stones that looked like they were making the trek, too, but in slow motion over centuries, not hours. Girls were not permitted to go to school, but the teachers— all men— would take boys to the caves to study them as a key part of their history curriculum. They learned that the caves had been used as a place of worship by ancestors who drew pictures of the sky people and balls of fire on a smooth section of the lower ceiling. There were many mysterious pictures on the cave walls, but the stories of their meanings had been lost through internal skirmishes and questions about how to interpret them. There were rumors about two factions of men vying to transcribe the stories, and lives were lost. But it was so long ago. Yet, the official stories seemed unbelievable and incomplete to some, including Fernán.

Teachers and students would drink from the dripping stalagmites at the deepest part of the cave they could reach. Many of the visitors felt such an emotional wave flow through them simply being in the caves that a medic was always on standby ready to administer tonics to encourage forgetfulness. No one could stay in the caves for too long.

Still, Fernán was curious that thousands had traversed the cave without finding a mineral that required protection. When he and his father arrived, Izan went precisely to a corner of the main hall in the cave. He produced a pickaxe and began to chip away at the beginning of the story of the pictographs, which started at shoulder level to the towering, gray-haired man. 

"No! Father! The ancient story.” Fernán doubled over as though to vomit. Instead, he fell to his knees and grabbed his head, which pounded with pain.

"How dare you oppose me. Stand back, take that other axe, and meet me in the middle. Start hacking the rocks and never mind about the debris. The minerals are under the story."

Fernán could not reconcile this baseless request, and his ability to keep a thought in his head rapidly declined. Was his father getting old and imagining the promise of a new power? Was he paranoid about the women? If so, why, in heaven's name, would that be? They were docile and compliant and impervious to intellect. They were the machine of the village. He had heard no rumblings of discontent. They mainly kept quiet and observant. They were like children. Fernán wished his father dead that day at Cósmico. 

Flora saw Fernán smile for the first time in two weeks—mouth open, teeth showing, eyes crinkled at the edges like fine wet paper. She did not expect this. She relaxed into an emerald-green velvet chair, now realizing the depth of her tiredness after having prepared for Fernán's celebration for two days. This was tradition. Before death, friends would come to celebrate a man's power, glory, and strength. Most men say they do not want to participate in this tradition. They say this when they are filled with muscle and menace. They've felt sorry for dying men. But the drink and food, the merriment and the memories and—most importantly—their boyhood vows to God always seemed to persuade the men to come at the end.

Flora wrote to Fernán's friends and told them he was in pain every time he coughed or tried to mount a horse or even cross the gardens to take the air. This was more information Fernán wanted his young wife to share. But he was out of sorts and weak and had lost his previously drowning urge to fight. His steps seemed forlorn and confused. His back curved like a gray-headed vulture, sensing bits of meat on the gravel paths that connected their wild gardens. 

Fernán had stopped trying to complete any substantial activities for weeks. He hadn't been able to ride, sleep, or do much since the trees dropped their leaves. Fernán told Flora and the gardener to let the lands around their home grow wild. He wanted to see things flourish, not clipped or shaped or pulled. He wanted to watch the forest in the beyond creep toward his lair. He tried to count the creatures that darted in and out of the thicket, furry four-legged beasts that scurried and darted in and out of the dense ferns at the base of the tilting oaks. He muttered over and over, if she was near him, over and over, "What are those?" and sometimes Flora would say, "Those are just mice," and Fernán would respond, "If those are mice, we would kill them or capture them. How can those be mice when they have such command of their surroundings? They are deft and curious. They are playful and full of glee." Another unusual array of queries peppered nearly every conversation between Fernán and Flora. Fernán was slowly becoming an alien in his world, ravaged by an unknown condition that smothered the man he had once been.

Fernán started to sleep deeply, though sometimes he would wake at night to tell Flora about the most extraordinary flights of his soul—through the cosmos, scrambling the constellations and then putting them back together again before anyone would be alarmed. He told Flora about his skin losing shape and changing to the colors of something he called dahlias, sage, and marigolds. Then, they would turn to scales, like the skin of a moonfish. What magnificent dreams, Flora would tell him. What wondrous adventures. Flora was grateful for them because these would be the only real adventures Fernán would have left in his life. Flora wanted him to return to new health—better and different than before. But Fernán could no longer get on his horse to scour the lands for enemies. He couldn't even strike a match or lean into a fire with a switch to light an oil lamp at night. Any amount of jostling might dislodge the black, tar-like disease that infested his lungs, and it would spring into every joint and vessel of his body.

After his father’s sudden death, Fernán’s rising accelerated. Flora knew that wishing someone dead was like slitting your own throat. It was not allowed. She had never heard anyone wish another person dead because doing so was the highest form of pernicious self-harm. Everyone knew that. So, when Fernán had wished the bleak fate on his father, Flora prepared for the aftermath. 

That was all Fernán would tell Flora of the story other than he had said he wished his father dead out loud. In the cave. To his face. Fernán descended Cósmico without Izan, and a section of the ceiling broke apart and crushed him. 

No one in the village had ever seen anything like Fernán's sickness, which set in a few days after his father's death. Having performed final liturgies for a thousand or more, even the priest left Flora and Fernán's home dumbfounded at his joyful and easy visage. "This is not God's will," the priest said as he tripped over his golden robes, crushing the rusty red crimasfern as he stumbled toward his carriage and two horsemen.

Fernán chuckled and asked for mint candies and a nap. Like most men during the rising, he was not melancholy or possessing a simple mind. He did not dictate his last wishes or notes on his legacy to anyone. He did not simply stop terrorizing his household. This is what most of the village men did as they died.

 Fernán and Flora had entwined themselves in a routine of caring. She changed his bedclothes daily, mindful of his withering state. And Fernán would ply Flora with comical faces to lighten her mood or after she had suddenly awakened from drifting off next to his bedside. Fernán would place his hand on Flora's arm, though he could not squeeze her hand to hold it. He was too weak. They did not have much time.

As Fernán's weakness spread, Flora set the time for his brothers-in-arms to see their general. They had all held each other up during the explorations and the wars that almost destroyed the borders. Now they could drink tequini and eat flatbreads with meat and remember.

Flora's sister, Marget, and her maid, Lina, came to help with the party, as she knew any revelry would result in two or more days of severe and forced rest and confinement for Fernán. She wondered, in the preparations, why memories were important now. Could he take them with him or at least be comforted that he had been regarded so highly? Or was it for his friends— a chance to say things men don't say? Just looking at Fernán may unlock a box of surprising sentiments from these men. Or they may drown each other in drinks and jabs, laughter and songs. Like all the women, Flora never understood how men's minds worked. 

The disease had cleaned Fernán's mind. He was no longer abrupt or severe. He did not make Flora flinch anymore. Now, he would sweep hair from her face as she gave him a drink and say, “mi amor,” again and again. Hearing this, Flora thought, was like a jewel sewn into her dress for good luck. 

Before his friends came to see him, Flora made Fernán, an herbal mixture of Manzanilla, cinnamon, black honey, and a lung-shaped mushroom that an old monk had peddled to her after mass one Sunday. No one knew when Fernán would expire, but Flora considered that no man would touch her, at least not immediately, if she were to become pregnant with Fernán’s child. During the rising, Flora could give in to the pleasures of his body, weak as it was. She could climb on top of him and exchange deep, smooth kisses as though they had loved each other for a lifetime instead of just a few weeks. If she could mother his child, she might be safe. The mushroom, the strange man said, would help him produce the most potent seed that could take root in her womb. 

He wore long, tattered robes with a large hood that covered his brow and cast a deep shadow over his face. She had never seen him before, which startled her. Perhaps he had been a hermit or a rare visiting man from beyond the borders. And it was uncommon for a man to be helpful. That was magical to her. Practically unprecedented. Flora took risks sometimes—wading too deeply in the river currents after a big rain, placing a dried-up nettle bug into Fernán’s stew, hoarding palm-sized rocks in piles beyond the edge of their property, or drawing maps and tracking weather patterns. Reading.

The older man ate one of his mushrooms, chewed it slowly and thoughtfully, and then broke into a sly, toothy smile under his hood to show Flora it was not poisonous. After a few minutes, the older man had become no less sharp or able to talk to Flora about remedies and the turn in the weather. "It will be sufficient for your husband," he said.

As the first guests made their way up the path to the house, Flora gave Fernán the mushroom tea, hoping he would not choke or spit it out. Fernán sniffed the tea curiously as Flora touched his bony shoulder. "All is well," Flora said. Like a soldier, he did what she commanded and gulped it vigorously. He did not make a face. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

Color immediately returned to Fernán's face, and he stood up. "Get me my fine coat upstairs and a comb. And my boots." Flora tried to protest and begged him to return to his chair. "No," he said sternly. "Now. Do it now!"

The abruptness of his tone shook Flora. She stood still, unable to move. She felt dusty and fragile from within.

"What are you waiting for?" Fernán barked. He was strong and upright. 

Seven soldiers arrived at the front door, and Flora wondered what they’d think of Fernán, who had just experienced a miraculous recovery. They fluidly entered the living room, spilling in like oil coating the bottom of a pan—hot and dangerous. They barely acknowledged Flora, Marget, and Lina. The women stood by like planters filled with dry soil. The men demanded plates and glasses. They knocked over a small table with feather-thin glass orbs and feigned sarcastic apologies. They groped Lina as she filled their mugs. Flora hoped the drunken revelry would dull Fernán's senses enough that he wouldn't notice her departure.

After several quick drinks, it was clear that no one seemed to notice Fernán’s state. Flora slipped outside and into the rain. I have to find the old man. I must. Now. She told Marget and Lina to slip away and fortify themselves deep in the forest beyond. She’d be back soon. She had a plan. Flora covered herself with a hooded dark red coat, the color of coagulated blood, and ran toward the forested greenbelt that would take her to the middle of town. She slipped through the mud as though it were purposely pushing her toward the center of the church. The branches of the trees reached out to her to prevent any falls and bounced Flora from one clearing to the next. The rodents, serpents, and other small creatures of the forest flooded into her path. Instead of obstructing her, they carefully and quickly poured themselves, like perfect patches in a road, into the ditches, crevices, or holes that were otherwise in her way so she would not falter. The journey took only a few minutes before the woods delivered her to the church steps. 

Someone stood waiting. It wasn't the older man. 

A lady. She was no taller than one and a half meters. Her body was shrouded in layers of mahogany linen with a girlish white collar around her neck and a brocaded dark blue wrap around her shoulders. She wore sturdy leather boots that looked pristine even in the mud and rain. Her feet were tiny, and her hands were gloved with oatmeal-colored lace. Her black hair was marbled perfectly by white strands swirled in succinct lines from crown to end. Her hair was long and wild, topped by a band of dark dried roses emanating a potent essence. 

"You expected another," she said. "I knew to move quickly when I sensed the forest come to your aid. That rarely happens. We have to act fast."

“I’m sorry, but, who are you?”

“I’m the monk from the other day, don’t you see?”

“No, that’s impossible. You’re not a…”

“That’s funny—you telling me what’s not possible, instead of what’s possible. That doesn’t seem at all like what I expected.”

“What are talking about? Why are you talking in riddles? Something very important is obviously happening. The forest. The animals. My husband is… I don’t know. And now a stranger standing before me laughing. You’re laughing at me and I need help, so if you don’t mind…”

“I am the help. Just stop talking. Listen.”

“That’s all I ever do is listen,” Flora felt a fire spit through her veins in rapid succession. “You can’t tell me to listen. I don’t know you. Get out my way so I can…”
“There you are.” The old woman winked at Flora and tapped her head like a light switch had just flipped.

“Don’t touch me.” Flora felt the oxygen leaving her body. Her heart pounded. She felt weak like a dandelion in a storm, about snap into a hundred particles on a violent wind. Her breathing became labored and thin.

“Calm yourself,” the woman said. “I know you women rarely look people in the eye, but I felt sure I would be found out. I know women aren’t allowed to enter the borders, so I disguised myself. It’s an old trick but very easy. In Dorno, men only see other men when they’re strong or have something worth taking. I had nothing. I was old. Invisible.” 

"But that mushroom. The one you gave me last week… "

"Did it do the job?” The lady searched Flora’s face.

“No! He’s back to the way he used to be. All I wanted was fertility so he could die, and I could live and have time to make a plan for myself… for a child. I left a note in a basket.”

The night of the twin full moons, Flora left a note at the bottom of her basket next to a freemaiden bush covered with indigo flowers that bloomed only in moonlight. It read: It’s time to go. We must make a plan before the next twin full moons. Who is with me? But Fernán’s rising had stopped. 

"That’s a fine note. That’s why I’m here,” the lady explained.

"Did you make Fernán well again? Why would you do that? You’re a foreigner, so I shouldn’t trust anything you say. You’re a spy."

"Nonsense. He was never well, Flora. To be fair, the idea of well is relative. His body, yes, is well again. His soul? That's another matter. But you know this, don’t you?"

"Yes. The men, in general, are not well. It's been sixteen generations…"

"Eighteen," the lady corrected.

"Yes. Eighteen generations since the curses and the risings. They only get more power-hungry. More nervous. More determined to keep the outside world away. They are quick to anger,” Flora stressed. “The women meet secretly, speak our own language, use signals, stay down, keep quiet. This is all we know."

"And yet…"

"And yet, Fernán returned to himself in sickness. His true self. A heavenly way of being. And your lung-shaped mushroom brought him back to the tyranny of his mind and the strength of his body. I won't have that. I can't go back." Flora surprised herself with her forcefulness. The lady smirked and uncrossed her arms. 

"You have three choices."

Flora breathed deeply and unconsciously twisted the ends of her damp and dirty skirt, squeezing brown water from the edges. She was tired and wanted to sit down, but the lady's gaze kept her body alert, standing almost against her will. 

"First choice. Let him live. Co-exist. Get old together. Die. It doesn't matter who goes first."

Flora looked surprised, then annoyed.

"But we're young, still. He's only 36. What is the second choice?"

"The second choice is…"

The lady produced a small burlap bag from one of her many pockets. It was tied with what looked like human hair. Gray hair.

"Put all of this in strong coffee. Put a lot of sugar in it to reduce the taste. Tell him it's from Palantkia. He won't know the difference."

"What does it do exactly?" 

"Four to five days after drinking it, your husband will go into a coma for about a week. He will be frail and sickly but kind again when he wakes up. Like yesterday."

"But how long would he live?"

"Until you kill him. He will be immortal and sick until you are ready for him to go. Keep him a week, a month, a decade, or more. It's up to you. He would be your ward and your companion. He would tell you he loves you and how beautiful you are. He would be grateful. His military pension will be more than sufficient for your household. Marget and Lina could move in with no extra burden. They would like that."

Flora considered this much longer than the first choice. 

"What's the third choice?"

"Leave."

"What? Leave, how? Where? I've never been beyond the borders. None of the women have."

"That's absurd. Yes, you have." She paused.

"When?"

"Well, not you. Your kind. It’s been a very long time. How do you think you women got here?"

"Yes. That's a fair point, to be sure. Who are you?"

Flora searched the lady's face for more information. Did she have lying eyes, a crinkled mouth, eyebrows that arched slyly? No. The lady's face was earnest and unchanged. 

"You women. Terrible creatures."

"What are you talking about? You're a woman. A foreign woman reigning down crushing thoughts and wicked plans."

"I know your fate. It’s to get out of this game. This place. This setup. You'll be able to set the people free once you're out. All of them. But the women leave first. You are all woefully behind. Now, go to the Cósmico cave. Go now."

"The men's cave?"

"It’s not the men’s cave. It’s your cave.”

The old woman explained that the cave was created to set the women free. It's where Izan' fate was sealed, where Fernán's life was circumvented by fate, where the boys and men go. The cave was where the land and the borders have no power. Where the minerals of the universe, those that dictate time and space, show themselves. She told Flora to leave now, alone. Don't look back. Don't be afraid. Or she could get all the women to rally and go to the mountain to go with her. Either way, their lives would change. 

"I've finally known love, old woman,” Flora said. She was crying freely now, not wiping her face. “I've known Fernán as a gentleman. He’s been guided by his heart and free to love and witness and comply with nature's superior demands. I've seen him. I see a baby, a child, a boy, a young man without the poison of this world. A friend."

"That's not who he is at the moment. That Fernán has been sickened again."

"YOU did that. It was you who fooled me into giving that tincture to him. Why?"

"You can save him now if you want to. He has been a menace all his life. They all have.”

"I don’t know. I don’t know what I want or what to do. I don’t even know who I am. Do you know who you are? You can’t know about what it’s like here. It’s a game that destroys what little bit of will we have. Have you ever lived like that? Many women accept this. They die, never knowing themselves. That’s unholy murder."

“Trust me. I know all about this game. I’ve been here longer than you think.” The lady softened her gaze a little.

"What are you talking about? Have you come to spy on us for enemies across the border? How can I trust you?”

Flora finally crumpled to the damp ground, released from the lady's gaze. Flora's joints ached, her head pounded, and her hands were weak. Her breaths were short and sharp. Tears flooded her eyes. She looked up at the lady and leaned to her right to glimpse Cósmico in the distance. The sun began to rise and spread pink and orange ribbons of light across the rooftops until it reached Flora's wet eyes. She squinted toward Cósmico and shaded her face with her hands. The shadowy outline of the lady hovered over her like a cloud filled with life-saving rain. The lady reminded Flora of the women in the stories of her ancestors—mysterious and helpful. 

The grandmothers and great-grandmothers of Dorno stitched images like arrows and breaking hearts into garments, curtains, and blankets— messages of hope and details about men's terrible obsessions and flaws and how they could not last forever. Even forbidden words were sewn into petticoats under the baptismal gowns of babies who were passed around like bouquets. Maybe the angry curse of men was finally ending, and those secrets could die. Perhaps this woman was not a spy set to destroy the world. Maybe she was the new message.

Yes, the women of Dorno had choices. Hair up threaded with pink, gold, and Fuchsia ribbons that dangled down their backs and got dusty and frayed in the afternoon sun. Or long, warrior-like braids that snapped like whips in the wind as they ran after children or escaped a man's blow. Flora had choices. Staying with a mighty man with multiple misdeeds. Or going to the rooftops once more and screaming, “Come with me. Come with me now.”