The old woman lived at the edge of the cemetery, where the grass grew wild and the wind whispered secrets no one dared to hear.
They called her the Keeper of Shadows, but I only knew her as the woman who called me daughter of the echo.
Her house was small, made of stone and wood, with windows blackened by years of smoke and silence.
She didn't ask why I came.
Instead, she led me inside and showed me a mirror made of obsidian.
The surface was as black as the night, and when I looked into it, I didn't see my face.
I saw hers.
A face without features, smooth and pale like a mask.
She said, "This is the face of the first nahualli. The one who crossed without dying."
She told me stories.
How the dead without names were not dead, but forgotten.
Forgotten by her.
By the one who should have remembered.
I reached out and touched the mirror.
The surface rippled like water.
And I heard my own voice.
A whisper, a sob.
From inside the tomb.
I knew then the truth was not just in stories or shadows.
It was in me.