The zone of silence

Chihuahuan Desert, Mexico

Hope, fragile as a desert flower, had sprung up in the hearts of Seraphina and Rafael at the words of the old shaman, Don Elías. That he knew Eleonora, that he spoke of Aria with such certainty, was more than they had dared hope for.

Don Elías looked at them with his black eyes, deep and fathomless like the desert night sky. "The answers you seek," he said finally, his voice deep and resonant, an echo of the earth itself, "are not found in the hurried words of an old shaman under the midday sun, nor in the confused echoes of the world you have left behind, the one now twisting in the grip of ancient fears."

He stood with an agility that belied his countless years, his simple wool blanket moving with him as if it were part of his being. The younger female shaman, who had remained silently weaving, also sat up, her movements fluid and silent.

"To find what has been lost and understand what lies ahead," Don Elías continued, "we must go to the Zone of Silence. It is a special place, sacred to our lineage since before time was measured in suns and moons. A fold in the desert skin where the breath of the world stops, where time does not dance to the same rhythm as in your hurried world. There, time itself seems to suspend, or flow in ways the ordinary mind cannot comprehend, and the answers... the answers come, but not always as questions asked and answered, but as direct understandings, like flashes of clarity, like whispers from the world spirit that imprint themselves on the soul."

Without waiting for a reply, Don Elías began walking, not along a marked path, but directly toward a section of the desert that seemed particularly arid and desolate, a maze of eroded rocks and windswept sand. Seraphina and Rafael exchanged a look filled with apprehension and desperate determination, and followed, the young shaman bringing up the rear of the small group.

The path, at first, was only the desert in its starkness. The sun beat down mercilessly, the air was dry and hot, and the only sound was the crunch of their footsteps on the gravel and sand, and the occasional whistle of the wind through the rocks.

Where is he taking us? Seraphina thought, a chill running through her despite the scorching heat. The fatigue of the journey, the anxiety for Aria, the strain of constantly being on the run, were beginning to weigh on her. This desert is endless, a furnace. Can this old man truly guide us toward any answers, or are we just delving deeper into a trap of mirages and despair? But then she remembered Don Elías's gaze, the certainty in his voice. Trust the path, my own White Brotherhood teacher once told me, when I was consumed by doubt. Sometimes the strangest path, the one that defies all logic, is the one that leads to the deepest truth. She clenched her fists and kept going.

As they moved forward, the landscape began to transform in subtle but deeply unsettling ways. The quality of the light took on a strange hue, both sharper and more unreal, as if viewing the world through an ancient, slightly distorted glass. Shadows lengthened and shortened erratically, unrelated to the apparent movement of the sun. Distances became deceptive: a distant mountain suddenly seemed within reach, only to recede again to an unreachable horizon. The rock formations, once simple eroded stones, now seemed to take on grotesque faces or the silhouettes of unknown animals that silently watched them pass by.

Rafael, always the most pragmatic, the anchor of reason for Seraphina's more intuitive magic, struggled with a growing sense of unreality. This place... doesn't obey the laws I know, he thought, his protective instinct on high alert. This shaman's magic is wild, unpredictable, like the desert itself. So different from the orderly discipline and serene light of the Sisterhood. Is he leading us toward genuine answers, or toward the madness that sometimes lurks in the heart of untamed places of power? He looked at Seraphina, saw the mixture of hope and fear in her eyes. For her, for Aria's memory, I must be strong. I must face whatever comes. If this 'place where time stands still' has the slightest chance of returning our daughter to us, or giving us a way to help her, then I will walk toward it, even though every fiber of my being screams danger and senselessness.

The silence deepened. It was no longer the absence of sound, but a palpable quality, a presence pressing against their eardrums and their minds. Even the wind seemed to have stopped, or whispered in frequencies they couldn't consciously hear, but felt like a vibration in their bones. The colors of

The desert—the ochres, the reds, the violets of the shadows—vibrated with an unnatural intensity, almost painful to look at.

Don Elías finally stopped at the edge of a narrow, deep canyon, whose walls seemed carved with an impossible geometry. The air emanating from the canyon was noticeably cooler, and vibrated with an energy that made the hair on the back of the neck stand up.

"We are close," the old shaman announced, his voice barely a murmur that nevertheless cut through the oppressive silence. "The Zone of Silence is not a place you 'arrive' at in the ordinary sense of your world. It is a state of being you 'enter,' a threshold of perception." He pointed toward the canyon entrance, which seemed to pulse with a darkness that was both inviting and terrifying. "Prepare your spirits. Empty your minds of preconceived expectations and fears. Open your hearts to what Is, not to what you wish it to be. And do not fear the silence you will find within... fear only the answers you may not be ready to hear, or the echoes of your own soul that the silence will return to you."

Seraphina and Rafael exchanged one last glance, a mixture of feverish hope, ancestral terror, and an unwavering determination born of love for their lost daughter. They were about to cross a threshold into the unknown, into a place where the rules of their reality no longer applied. And in the silence that awaited them, they prayed to find not only answers, but also the strength to face them.