talisman

The lie to his family burned in his throat. He got into his truck, his trembling hands barely finding the ignition switch. He didn't head for town. He drove on, past the church and the market, turning onto a dirt road that the jungle claimed as its own. He drove like an automaton until the undergrowth blocked his path.

The silence of the forest was not peace, it was pressure on his eardrums. He walked. His feet, not his mind, remembered the route. It was a muscle memory of guilt, a scar on the earth that only he could see.

And then he saw it. Don Mateo's cabin, not only blending into the landscape, but as if the landscape itself were digesting it.

Upon entering, the dim light smelled of copal, old tobacco, and damp earth. An elderly man, with skin like tree bark and veiled eyes that seemed to see beyond the physical, jumped out of his hammock with incredible agility.

Julián entered, feeling the weight of those words. Don Mateo did not wait for him to speak. He began to dance slowly around the fire, throwing herbs and a dark powder that smelled of sulfur and dried tears. The flames crackled, sputtering in an ominous emerald green.

" You're hurting my family. " Julian pleaded, his voice breaking. " My wife... my children... They have nothing to do with this. "

"To her, they are an obstacle. You are her only target."

The fire rose, and in its dancing heart, the forbidden story took shape. They were no longer abstract silhouettes. They were memories.

Julian was forced to revisit his past.

He saw a beach at sunset. The sun was like a gold coin on the water. And there was Elena. She wasn't a ghost, she was a young woman of flesh and blood, with a laugh that sounded like bells and dark eyes full of life. He saw her running toward him, her white dress waving like a flag of purity. They loved each other in secret, they were two halves of the same world, a world that Julián, ambitious and afraid of his own passion, knew he would have to leave.

The scene changed. It was the same beach, but now bathed in the cold light of the moon. Elena, her face pale and streaked with tears, held his hand.

" I'm pregnant, Julian. "

" Are you sure? This can't be happening!, I'm going to lose my scholarship! I'm going to Japan soon! You're going to ruin everything! "

"What about our son? What about me? What are we supposed to do if you leave?" she pleaded, her voice a thread of pain.

It wasn't a violent shove, but a cowardly one to get her out of his way. But it was his worst mistake.

She stumbled. A clumsy turn. The dull, wet crunch of her skull hitting the hidden edge of a rock covered in seaweed was a sound that, now, Julian heard for the first time in his entire horrific life.

He saw her collapse. The dark, thick stain of her blood spreading across the white sand, like ink on parchment. He saw her tremble, and then lie still.

And worst of all, what he had always suppressed came out of the fire with the force of a dagger: he didn't run away immediately. He stood there, paralyzed, staring at his handiwork. Then his survival instinct, stronger than love or guilt, took hold of him. He turned on his heels and ran. He ran toward his future, leaving behind the only woman who had ever loved him and the child who would never be born, bleeding to death in the solitude of the night.

The fire went out suddenly, as if smothered by the weight of truth. The silence in the cabin was absolute.

" Destiny is a circle, Julian. " said Don Mateo, exhausted. " It wasn't just the rock that killed her. Your abandonment killed her. Her spirit fed on your guilt, and when she returned, you fed her. Now she is a strong soul. "

Julián lay on the dirt floor, sobbing like the child he never was. The pain was an animal devouring him from within.

"I'll do anything! Anything!" he shouted, his voice breaking.

" Her body was found by the tide. They buried her here. Go to her grave. Purify the earth you defiled with your secret. Break the talisman on the gravestone. It's the only way to cut the thread that binds you to her. "

Julián ran to the cemetery. He found the simple, worn gravestone: " Elena Gómez. 1980-2000. She left in the prime of life. " The irony twisted his stomach.

With feverish hands, he covered the obsidian face with salt, grain by grain, like a wicked offering. Then he scattered the rest on the ground, a white blanket to cleanse his sin.

" Forgive me, Elena! " he cried, and for the first time, the words were not an empty plea, but a lament that came from the depths of his being. " I beg you, rest! Let us go! "

He raised the talisman and, with a cry that contained twenty-five years of escape, smashed it against the granite of the tombstone. The obsidian shattered into a thousand black fragments.

And then, it happened.

A supernatural, immediate, and absolute peace flooded him. The monstrous weight he had carried on his shoulders, the tightness in his chest that he believed was part of his being, vanished. He took a deep breath, and the air tasted like freedom. He felt clean. Redeemed.

A smile, the first real one in decades, appeared on his lips. He would buy the best food in town. He would return to his family, tell them a white lie about work stress, and tomorrow, they would leave this place forever. Finally, he could start over.

The relief was so sweet, so intoxicating, that he didn't notice a tiny detail: on the edge of his shoe, stuck to the mud of the grave, a thin strand of black, damp seaweed was tangled, like a last, tenacious embrace from the afterlife.