It was impossible for me todetermine, at that time, whether the picnic had been a dream or had actuallytaken place.  

I was incapable of remembering,in a sequential order, all the events I had participated in from the moment Ifell asleep on the bed in the healing room.

My next clear recollection wasthat I found myself talking with Delia at the table, in that same room.  

Familiar with such lapses ofmemory, which used to occur in my childhood, I didn't at first make much ofthis discrepancy. As a child, eager to play, I would often get out of my bedhalf asleep and sneak out of my house through the window grill. Many times, Idid indeed wake up in the plaza, playing with other children who weren't put tobed as early as I was.  

There was no doubt in my mindthat the picnic had been real, although I couldn't immediately place it in atime sequence.  

I tried to think, to reconstructthe events, but it frightened me to bring forth the idea of my childhood memorylapses.  

Somehow, I was reluctant to askDelia about her friends, and she didn't volunteer any information either.  

However, I did ask about thehealing session, which I knew had been a dream.

"I had such an elaboratedream about a healer," I began cautiously. "Not only did she tell meher name, but she also assured me that she had made all my nightmaresvanish."  

"It wasn't a dream,"Delia stated, her tone clearly revealing her displeasure.  

She stared at me with anintensity that made me want to fidget, to move away. "The healer did tellyou her name," she went on. "And she certainly did cure you from yoursleep maladies."  

"But it was a dream," Iinsisted. "In my dream, the healer was the size of a child. She couldn'thave been real."  

Delia reached for the glass ofwater on the table, but she didn't drink. She turned it around, on and on,without spilling a drop.  

Then she looked at me withglittering eyes. "The healer gave you the impression of being little,that's all," she said, nodding to herself, as though the words had justoccurred to her, and she had found them satisfactory.  

She sipped her water with slow,slurping noises, and her eyes grew soft and reflective. "She had to belittle in order to cure you."  

"She had to be little? Youmean I only saw her as being little?"

Delia nodded repeatedly then,leaning toward me, whispered, "You see, you were dreaming. Yet it wasn't adream.  

"The healer really came toyou and cured you, but you were not in the place in which you arenow."  

"Come on, Delia," Iobjected. "What are you talking about? I know it was a dream. I am alwaystotally aware that I am dreaming, even though the dreams are completely real tome. That's my malady, remember?"  

"Maybe now that she hascured you, it's no longer your malady but your talent," Delia proposed,smiling. "But going back to your question, the healer had to be small, likea child, because you were quite young when your nightmares firstbegan."  

Her statement was so outlandish,I couldn't even laugh. "And now I am cured?" I askedfacetiously.  

"You are," she assuredme. "In dreaming, cures are accomplished with great ease, almosteffortlessly. What's difficult is to make people dream."  

"Difficult?" I asked,my voice harsher than I had intended. "Everybody has dreams. We all haveto sleep, don't we?"  

Delia rolled her eyes derisivelyto the ceiling then gazed at me and said, "Those are not the dreams I amtalking about.  

"Those are ordinary dreams.Dreaming has purpose: Ordinary dreams don't have any."  

"They certainly do!" Iemphatically disagreed with her, then went into a lengthy diatribe about thepsychological importance of dreams. I cited works on psychology, philosophy,and art.  

Delia wasn't in the leastimpressed with my knowledge.  

She agreed with me that ordinarydreams must indeed help maintain the mental health of individuals, but insistedthat she wasn't concerned with that.  

"Dreaming has a purpose:Ordinary dreams don't," she reiterated.

"What purpose, Delia?"I said condescendingly.  

She turned her head sideways, asif she wanted to hide her face from me.  

An instant later she looked backat me. Something cold and detached showed itself in her eyes, and the change ofexpression was altogether so ruthless that I was frightened.  

"Dreaming always has apractical purpose," she declared. "It serves the dreamer in simple orintricate ways.  

"It has served you to getrid of your sleeping maladies.  

"It served the witches atthe picnic to know your essence.  

"It served me to screenmyself out of the awareness of the immigration guard patrol asking to see yourtourist card."  

"I'm trying to understandwhat you are saying, Delia," I mumbled.

Then I asked forcefully, "Doyou mean that you people can hypnotize others against their wills?"  

"Call it that if youwish," she said.  

On her face was a look of calmindifference that bore little sympathy. "What you can't see yet is thatyou, yourself, can enter quite effortlessly into what you would call a hypnoticstate.  

"We call it dreaming; adream that's not a dream; a dream where we can do nearly anything our heartsdesire."  

Delia almost made sense to me,but I had no words with which to express my thoughts, my feelings.  

I stared at her, baffled.  

Suddenly, I remembered an eventfrom my adolescence.  

When I was finally alloweddriving lessons in my father's jeep, I surprised my family by showing them thatI already knew how to shift: I had been doing it for years in my dreams.  

With an assurance that was evenbaffling to me, on my first venture I took the jeep on the old road fromCaracas to La Guayra, the port by the sea.  

I deliberated whether I shouldtell Delia about this episode, but instead asked her about the healer'ssize.  

"She is not a tall woman,but neither is she as small as you saw her.

"In her healing dream, sheprojected her smallness for your benefit, and in doing so, she was small.  

"That's the nature of magic.You have to be what you want to give the impression of."  

"Is she a magician?" Iasked expectantly.  

The thought that they all workedin a circus; that they were part of some magic show had passed my mind atvarious times. It would explain so many things about them, I believed.  

"No. She's not amagician," Delia said. "She's a sorceress."  

Delia gazed at me so scornfully Iwas ashamed of my question. "Magicians are in a show," she explained,gazing at me pointedly:  

"Sorcerers are in the worldwithout being part of the world."  

She was silent for a long time,then a sigh escaped her lips. "Would you like to see Esperanza now?"she asked.  

"Yes," I said eagerly."I would like that very much."

The possibility that the healerhad been real and not a dream made my head spin.  

I didn't quite believe Delia, andyet I wanted to believe her in the worst way. My thoughts ran wild.  

Suddenly I realized that I hadn'tmentioned to Delia that the healer of my dream had told me her name wasEsperanza.  

I was so absorbed in my thoughtsI failed to notice that Delia as speaking.

"I'm sorry, what did yousay?"  

"The only way you can makesense of all this is to call back dreaming," she maintained.  

Laughing softly, she waved herhand as she were signaling someone to come.

Her words were of no importanceto me. I was already pondering another train of thought.  

Esperanza was real, and I wascertain she was going to clarify everything for me.  

Besides, she had not been thepicnic: She had not treated me as abominably as all the other women had.  

I harbored the vague hope thatEsperanza had liked me, and this thought somehow restored my confidence.  

To disguise my feelings fromDelia, I told her that I was anxious to see the healer. "I would like tothank her, and of course, pay her for all she did for me."  

"It's already paid,"Delia stated. The mocking glint in her eyes early revealed that she was privyto my thoughts.  

"What do you mean it's alreadypaid?" I asked in an involuntarily high-pitched voice. "Who paid forit?"  

"It's hard to explain,"Delia began with a distant kindness that put me momentarily at ease:  

"It all began at yourfriend's party in Nogales. I noticed you instantly."  

"You did?" I askedexpectantly, eager to hear some compliment on my tasteful and carefully chosenwardrobe.  

There was an uncomfortablesilence. I couldn't see Delia's eyes, veiled under her halfclosed lids.  

There was something quiet yetoddly disturbing about her voice as she said that what she had noticed about mewas that every time I had to talk to my friend's grandmother, I seemed to beabsentminded as if I were asleep.  

"Absentminded is putting itmildly," I said. "You have no idea what I went through; what I had todo to convince that old lady that I wasn't the devil incarnate."  

Delia seemed not to have heardme. "I knew in a flash that you had great facility to dream," shewent on:  

"So I followed you aroundthrough the house and saw you in action.

"You were not fully aware ofwhat you were doing or saying. And yet you were doing fine; talking andlaughing, and lying your head off to be liked."  

"Are you calling me aliar?" I asked in jest but betraying my hurt.  

I felt an impulse to get angry.  

I stared at the pitcher of wateron the table until the threatening feeling had passed.  

"I wouldn't dare call you aliar," Delia pronounced rather pompously. "I'd call you adreamer."  

There was a heavy solemnity inher voice, but her eyes sparkled with mirth, with genial malice, as she said,"The sorcerers who reared me told me that it doesn't matter what one maysay as long as one has the power to say it."  

Her voice conveyed suchenthusiasm and approval, that I was sure someone was behind one of the doorslistening to us.  

"And the way to get thatpower," she said, "is from dreaming.

"You don't know this becauseyou do it naturally, but when you are in a pinch, your mind goes instantly intodreaming."  

In order to change the subject, Iasked, "Were you reared by sorcerers, Delia?"  

"Of course I was," shedeclared, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.  

"Were your parentssorcerers?"  

"Oh, no," she said andchuckled:  

"The sorcerers found me oneday and reared me from then on."  

"How old were you? Were youa child?"  

Delia laughed, as if with myquestion I had reached the height of humor.

"No, I wasn't a child,"she said. "I was perhaps your age when they found me, and began to rearme."  

"What do you mean they beganto rear you?"  

Delia gazed at me but withoutfocusing her eyes on me. For a moment I thought she hadn't heard me or, if shehad, she wasn't going to answer me.  

I repeated my question.  

She shrugged and smiled."They reared me as one rears a child," she finally said. "Itdoesn't matter how old you are: In their world, you are a child."  

Suddenly afraid we might beoverheard, I glanced over my shoulder, and whispered, "Who are thesesorcerers, Delia?"  

"That's a very toughquestion," she mused. "At the moment, I can't even begin to answerit.  

"All I can tell you aboutthem is that they are the ones who said to me that one should never lie to bebelieved."  

"Why should one liethen?" I asked.  

"For the sheer pleasure ofit," Delia promptly retorted.  

She then rose from the chair, andwalked toward the door that led to the yard.

Before stepping outside, sheturned and with a grin on her face asked, "Do you know the saying, 'If youare not lying to be believed, you can say anything you want, regardless of whatanybody thinks of you.'"  

"I've never heard such asaying."  

I suspected she had made it up:It had her stamp.  

"Besides, I don't understandwhat you're trying to say," I added primly.  

"I'm sure you do," shesaid, looking sidelong at me through the strands of her black hair.  

Gesturing with her chin, shemotioned me to follow her. "Let's go and see Esperanza now."  

I jumped up and dashed after her,only to come to an abrupt halt by the door.

Momentarily blinded by thebrightness outside, I stood there, wondering what had happened.  

It seemed that no time hadelapsed since I had run after Mr. Flores across the field. The sun, as it hadbeen then, was still at the zenith.  

I caught a glimpse of Delia's redskirt as she turned a corner.  

I rushed after her across a stonearchway that led to a most enchanting patio.

At first I saw nothing; so strongwas the contrast between the dazzling sunlight and the intense shadows of thepatio.  

Breathlessly, I simply stoodthere, perfectly still, inhaling the humid air: It was fragrant with the scentof orange blossoms, honeysuckle, and sweet peas.  

Climbing up strings that seemedto be suspended from the sky, the sweet peas hung like a brightly coloredtapestry amidst the foliage of trees, shrubs, and ferns.  

The healer I had seen before inmy dream was sitting on a rocking chair in the middle of the patio.  

She was much older than Delia andthe women at the picnic; though how I knew this, I couldn't say.  

She was rocking to and fro withan air of dreamy abandon.  

I felt an anguishing pain thatgripped my whole being, for I had the irrational certainty that her rockingmovement was taking her farther and farther away from me.  

A wave of agony, an indescribableloneliness engulfed me as I kept staring at her.  

I wanted to cross the patio andhold her, but something about the patio's dark tiles, laid out in a mostintricate pattern, held my feet in place.

"Esperanza," I finallymanaged to whisper in a voice so feeble it was barely audible even tomyself.  

She opened her eyes and smiledquite without surprise; as if she had been expecting me.  

She rose and walked towardme.  

She was not the size of a child,but about my height; five feet and two inches.

She was thin and fragile-looking,yet exuded a vitality that made me feel puny and shrunken.  

"How happy I am to see youagain." Her voice sounded sincere.  

She motioned me to grab one ofthe rush chairs and sit beside her.  

As I looked about me, Idiscovered the other women, including Delia.

They were sitting on rush chairs,half hidden by shrubs and trees: They, too, were watching me curiously.  

Some of them smiled, while theothers kept on eating tamales from the plates on their laps.  

In the shady, green light of thepatio- in spite of the mundane task of eating- the women appearedinsubstantial; imaginary.  

Each one of them was unnaturallyvivid without being distinct.  

They seemed to have absorbed thepatio's greenish light, which had settled all around us like a transparentfog.  

The fleeting but awesome ideathat I was in a house populated by ghosts crossed my mind.  

"Would you like to eatsomething?" Esperanza asked me. "Delia has made the most deliciousfood you can imagine."  

"No, thank you," Imurmured in a voice that didn't sound like my own.  

Seeing her questioningexpression, I added feebly, "I'm not hungry."  

I was so nervous and agitatedthat even if I had been starving I wouldn't have been able to swallow abite.  

Esperanza must have sensed myfear. She leaned toward me and patted my arm reassuringly. "What is itthat you want to know?"  

"I thought I had seen you ina dream," I blurted out, then, noticing the laughter in her eyes, added,"Am I dreaming now?"  

"You are, but you are notasleep," she replied, enunciating her words slowly and precisely.  

"How can I be dreaming andnot be asleep?"  

"Some women can do that withgreat ease," she maintained. "They can be dreaming and not beasleep.  

"You are one of thosewomen.  

"Others have to work alifetime to accomplish that."  

I sensed a tinge of admiration inher voice, yet I wasn't in the least flattered.

On the contrary: I was moreworried than ever. "But how is it possible to dream withoutsleeping?" I insisted.  

"If I explain to you how itis possible, you won't understand it," she pronounced. "Take my wordfor this: It's much better to postpone the explanations for the timebeing."  

Again she patted my arm and agentle smile lit up her face. "For the moment it's enough for you to knowthat, for you, I am the one who brings dreams."  

I didn't think it was enough, butI didn't dare to tell her so.  

Instead, I asked her, "Was Iawake when you cured me of my nightmares? And was I dreaming when I sat outsidein the field with Delia and all the others?"  

Esperanza regarded me for a longmoment then nodded sagely, as if she had decided to reveal some monumentaltruth. "You're too dumb to see the mystery of what we do."  

She said this somatter-of-factly; so nonjudgmentally that it didn't occur to me to takeoffense, or to attempt any kind of rebuttal.

"But you could make me seeit, couldn't you?" I pleaded eagerly.

The other women giggled: Itwasn't a mocking sound but a murmuring that echoed all around me like a muffledchorus.  

The sound didn't seem to comefrom the women but from the shadows of the patio.  

Rather than a giggle, it was awhisper; a delicate warning that not only made me lose my thrust, but erased mytroubling doubts; my desire to know.  

And then I knew, without a shadowof doubt, that I had been awake and dreaming both times.  

It was a knowledge that Icouldn't explain, however.  

It was something beyondwords.  

Yet, after a few moments, I feltcompelled to dissect my realization, to put it all into some kind of logicalframework.  

Esperanza regarded me withapparent pleasure.  

Then she said, "I'm going toexplain to you who we are and what we do."

She prefaced her elucidation withan admonition: She warned me that whatever she had to tell me wasn't easy tobelieve. Therefore, I had to suspend judgment and hear her out withoutinterruptions; without questions:  

"Can you do that?"  

"Naturally," I shotback.  

She was silent for a moment, hereyes appraising me thoughtfully.  

She must have sensed myuncertainty and the question that was about to burst from my lips.  

"It isn't that I don't wantto answer your questions," she maintained. "It's rather that at thistime it will be impossible for you to understand the answers."  

I nodded, not in agreement, butafraid that if so much as a peep came out of me she would stop talkingaltogether.  

In a voice that was but a softmurmur, she told me something that was both incredible and fascinating.  

She said that she was thespiritual descendant of sorcerers who lived in the valley of Oaxaca millenniabefore the Spanish conquest.  

Esperanza was silent for a longtime.  

Her eyes, fixed on the bright,multicolored, sweet peas, seemed to reach nostalgically into the past.  

Esperanza continued, "As itis for me, the part of those sorcerers' activities pertinent to you is calleddreaming."  

"Those sorcerers were menand women who possessed extraordinary dreaming powers, and performed acts thatdefied the imagination."  

Hugging my knees, I listened toher.  

Esperanza was a brilliantraconteuse and a most gifted mimic: Her face changed with each turn of herexplanation.  

It was at times the face of ayoung woman, at other times an old woman's; or it was the face of a man, orthat of an innocent and impish child.  

She said that millennia ago, menand women were the possessors of a knowledge that allowed them to slip in andout of our normal world.  

And thus they divided their livesinto two areas: the day and the night.  

During the day they conductedtheir activities like everyone else: They engaged in normal, expected, everydaybehavior.  

During the night, however, theybecame dreamers.  

They systematically dreameddreams that broke the boundaries of what we consider to be reality.  

Again she paused, as thoughgiving me time to let her words sink in.

"Using the darkness as acloak," she went on, "they accomplished an inconceivable thing: Theywere able to dream while they were awake."

Anticipating the question I wasabout to voice, Esperanza explained that to be dreaming while they were awakemeant that they could immerse themselves in a dream that gave them the energynecessary to perform feats that stagger the mind while they were perfectlyconscious and awake.  

Because of the aggressive mode ofinteraction at home, I never developed the ability to listen for very long. IfI couldn't meddle with direct, belligerent questions, any verbal exchange, nomatter how interesting, was meaningless to me.

Now, unable to argue, I becamerestless. I was dying to interrupt Esperanza.

I had questions, but to getanswers; to have things explained to me was not the thrust of my urge tointerrupt.  

What I wanted to do was to givein to my compulsion to have a shouting match with her in order to feel normalagain.  

As if privy to my turmoil,Esperanza stared at me for an instant and then signaled me to speak. Or Ithought she had given me such a command.

I opened my mouth to say- asusual- anything that came to my mind even if it wasn't related to the subject.But I couldn't say a word.  

I struggled to speak and madegargling sounds to the delight of the women in the background.  

Esperanza resumed talking, as ifshe hadn't noticed my futile efforts.  

It surprised me to no end thatshe had my undivided attention.  

She said that the origins of thesorcerers' knowledge could be understood only in terms of a legend:  

A superior being commiseratingwith the terrible plight of man- to be driven as an animal by food andreproduction- gave man the power to dream and taught him how to use hisdreams.  

"Legends, of course, tellthe truth in a concealed fashion," she elucidated:  

"The legends' success inconcealing the truth rests on man's conviction that they are simplystories.  

"Legends of men changinginto birds or angels are accounts of a concealed truth, which appears to be thefantasizing, or simply the delusions of primitive or deranged minds.  

"So it's been the task ofsorcerers for thousands of years to make new legends, and to discover theconcealed truth of old ones.  

"This is where dreamers comeinto the picture.  

Women are best at dreaming. Theyhave the facility to abandon themselves; the facility to let go.  

"The woman who taught me todream could maintain two hundred dreams."

Esperanza regarded me intently asif she were appraising my reaction which was complete stupefaction for I had noidea what she meant.  

She explained that to maintain adream meant that one could dream something specific about oneself and couldenter into that dream at will. Her teacher, she said, could enter at will intotwo hundred specific dreams about herself.

"Women are peerlessdreamers," Esperanza assured me:  

"Women are extremelypractical. In order to sustain a dream, one must be practical, because thedream must pertain to practical aspects of oneself.  

"My teacher's favorite dreamwas to dream of herself as a hawk. Another was to dream of herself as anowl.  

"So depending on the time ofthe day, she could dream about being either one, and since she was dreamingwhile she was awake, she was really and absolutely a hawk or an owl."

There was such sincerity andconviction in her tone and in her eyes, I was entirely under her spell.  

Not for a moment did I doubther.  

Nothing she could have said wouldhave seemed outlandish to me at that moment.

She further explained that inorder to accomplish a dream of that nature, women need to have an irondiscipline.  

She leaned toward me and in aconfidential whisper, as though she didn't want the others to overhear her,said, "By iron discipline I don't mean any kind of strenuous routine, butrather that women have to break the routine of what is expected of them.  

"And they have to do it intheir youth," she stressed, "And most important, with their strengthintact.  

"Often, when women are oldenough to be done with the business of being women, they decide it's time toconcern themselves with nonworldly or other-worldly thoughts andactivities.  

"Little do they know or wantto believe that hardly ever do such women succeed." She gently slapped mystomach, as if she were playing on a drum. "The secret of a woman'sstrength is her womb."  

Esperanza nodded emphatically, asif she had actually heard the silly question that popped into my mind:"Her womb?"  

"Women," she continued,"must begin by burning their matrix.

"They cannot be the fertileground that has to be seeded by men following the command of Godhimself."  

Still watching me closely, shesmiled and asked, "Are you religious by any chance?"  

I shook my head.  

I couldn't speak. My throat wasso constricted I could scarcely breathe.

I was dumbstruck with fear andamazement, not so much by what she was saying, but by her change: If asked, Iwouldn't have been able to tell when she changed, but all of a sudden her facewas young and radiant: Inner life seemed to have been fired up in her.  

"That's good!"Esperanza exclaimed. "This way you don't have to struggle againstbeliefs," she pointed out. "They are very hard to overcome.  

"I was reared a devoutCatholic. I nearly died when I had to examine my attitude towardreligion." She sighed.  

Her voice, turning wistful,became soft as she added, "But that was nothing compared to the battle Ihad to wage before I became a bona fide dreamer."  

I waited expectantly, hardlybreathing, while a quite pleasurable sensation spread like a mild electricalcurrent through my entire body.  

I anticipated a tale of agruesome battle between herself and terrifying creatures.  

I could barely disguise mydisappointment when she revealed that she had to battle herself.  

"In order to be a dreamer, Ihad to vanquish the self," Esperanza explained. "Nothing, butnothing, is as hard as that.  

"We women are the mostwretched prisoners of the self. The self is our cage.  

"Our cage is made out ofcommands and expectations poured on us from the moment we are born.  

"You know how it is. If thefirst born child is a boy, there is a celebration. If it's a girl, there is ashrug of the shoulders and the statement, 'It's all right. I still will loveher and do anything for her.'"  

Out of respect for the old woman,I didn't laugh out loud.  

Never in my life had I heardstatements of that sort. I considered myself an independent woman, butobviously, in light of what Esperanza was saying, I was no better off than anyother woman.  

And contrary to the manner inwhich I would have normally reacted to such an idea, I agreed with her.  

I had always been made aware thatthe precondition of my being a woman was to be dependent. I was taught that awoman was indeed fortunate if she could be desirable so men would do things forher. I was told that it was demeaning to my womanhood to endeavor to doanything myself if that thing could be given to me. It was drilled into me thata woman's place is in the home with her husband and her children.  

"Like you, I was reared byan authoritarian yet lenient father," Esperanza went on:  

"I thought, like yourself,that I was free. For me to understand the sorcerers' way- that freedom didn'tmean to be myself- nearly killed me. To be myself was to assert my womanhood.And to do that took all my time, effort, and energy.  

"The sorcerers, on thecontrary, understand freedom as the capacity to do the impossible, theunexpected- to dream a dream that has no basis, no reality in everydaylife."  

Her voice again became but awhisper as she added, "The knowledge of sorcerers is what is exciting andnew.  

"Imagination is what a womanneeds to change the self and become a dreamer."  

Esperanza said that if she hadnot succeeded in vanquishing the self, she would have only led a woman's normallife; the life her parents had designed for her; a life of defeat andhumiliation; a life devoid of all mystery; a life that had been programmed bycustom and tradition.  

Esperanza pinched my arm.  

I cried put in pain.  

"You'd better payattention," she reprimanded me.  

"I am," I mumbleddefensively, rubbing my arm: I had been certain that no one would notice mywaning interest.  

"You won't be tricked orenticed into the sorcerer's world," she warned me. "You have tochoose, knowing what awaits you."  

The fluctuations of my mood wereastonishing to me because they were quite irrational. I should have beenafraid. Yet I was calm, as if my being there were the most natural thing in theworld.  

"The secret of a woman'sstrength is her womb," Esperanza said and slapped my stomach oncemore.  

She said that women dream withtheir wombs, or rather, from their wombs. The fact that they have wombs makesthem perfect dreamers.  

Before I had even finished thethought 'why is the womb so important?' Esperanza answered me.  

"The womb is the center ofour creative energy," she explained, "to the point that, if therewould be no more males in the world, women could continue to reproduce.  

"And the world would then bepopulated by the female of the human species only."  

She added that women reproducingunilaterally could only reproduce clones of themselves.  

I was genuinely surprised at thisspecific piece of knowledge.  

I couldn't help interruptingEsperanza to tell her that I had read about parthenogenetic and asexualreproduction in a biology class.  

She shrugged her shoulders andwent on with her explanation. "Women, having then the ability and theorgans for reproducing life, have also the ability to produce dreams with thosesame organs," she said.  

Seeing the doubt in my eyes, shewarned me, "Don't trouble yourself wondering how it is done. Theexplanation is very simple, and because it's simple, it's the most difficultthing to understand. I still have trouble myself.  

"So in a true woman'sfashion, I act: I dream and leave the explanations to men."  

Esperanza claimed that originallythe sorcerers she had told me about used to pass their knowledge on to theirbiological descendants or to people of their private choice, but the resultshad been catastrophic.  

Instead of enhancing thisknowledge, these new sorcerers, who had been selected by arbitrary favoritism,confabulated to enhance themselves.  

They were finally destroyed, andtheir destruction nearly obliterated their knowledge.  

The few sorcerers who were leftthen decided that their knowledge should never again be passed on to theirdescendants or to people of their choice but to those selected by an impersonalpower, which they called the spirit.  

"And now, all this brings usto you," Esperanza pronounced.  

"The sorcerers of ancienttimes decided that only the ones who were pinpointed would qualify. You werepointed out to us. And here you are!  

"You are a natural dreamer.It's up to the forces that rule us where you go from here.  

"It's not up to you. Nor tous, of course.

"You can only acquiesce orrefuse."  

From the urgency in her voice,and the compelling light in her eyes, it was obvious that she had given thisexplanation in complete seriousness.  

It was this earnestness thatstopped me from laughing out loud. Also, I was too exhausted.  

The mental concentration I hadneeded to follow her was too intense. I wanted to sleep.  

She insisted I stretch my legs,lie down, and relax.  

I did it so thoroughly that Idozed off.  

When I opened my eyes, I had noidea how long I had slept.  

I sought the reassuring presenceof Esperanza or the other women.  

There was no one with me on thepatio. But I didn't feel alone: Somehow their presence lingered amidst thegreen all around me, and I felt protected.

A breeze rustled the leaves. Ifelt it on my eyelids, warm and soft. It blew around me, then passed over methe same way it was passing over the desert, quickly and soundlessly.  

With my gaze fixed on the tiles,I walked around the patio trying to figure out its intricate design. To mydelight, the lines led me from one rush chair to the other. I tried to recallwho had sat in which chair, but hard as I tried, I couldn't remember.  

I was distracted by a deliciousscent of food, spiced with onions and garlic.

Guided by that smell, I found myway to the kitchen, a large rectangular room.

It was as deserted as the patio.And the bright tile designs adorning the walls reminded me of the patterns inthe patio.  

I didn't pursue the similarities,for I had discovered the food left on the sturdy wooden table standing in themiddle of the room.  

Assuming that it was for me, Isat down and ate it all. It was the same spicy stew I had eaten at the picnic:Warmed over, it was even tastier.  

As I gathered the dishes to takethem to the sink, I discovered a note and a drawn map under my place mat.  

It was from Delia. She suggestedI return to Los Angeles by way of Tucson, where she would meet me at a certaincoffee shop specified on the map.  

Only there, she wrote, would shetell me more about herself and her friends.