The Lifeline

 The encounter was casual, as often happens in small towns. The witch's daughter was leaving the bakery when she saw her cousin Garbancito crossing the square.
"Cousin!" she called out, approaching him. "I haven't seen you in days."
"And you, cousin," he replied, stopping with the air of someone guarding a secret. "I wanted to talk to you. Have you heard about Berrocán?"
"The one from the farm down there? No, what's happened to him?"
Garbancito lowered his voice, even though the street was almost empty.
"They found him last night at the bottom of the Ravine of Lamentations. He was in his car. A terrible accident."
"Good Lord!" she exclaimed, bringing a hand to her mouth. "But he was young and very careful..."
"That's what we all thought," nodded the cousin, frowning. "But the strange part doesn't end there. You see, just a few days ago, I saw him leaving your house. Your mother's house."
"Really?" asked the girl, surprised. "He doesn't usually come around there."
"Well, he did. And I asked him, out of curiosity, what brought him to the witch's house. You know he always used to make fun of that a bit."
"Yes, I remember."
"Well," Garbancito continued, "he told me, half-serious, half-joking: 'I came to have my palm read. To see if she'd finally tell me something good about my future.' And he laughed."
The witch's daughter felt a chill. She knew the tone her mother used for important matters.
"And… what did my mother tell him? Do you know?"
"He told me himself afterward, still with that mocking smile," said Garbancito, and making an effort to imitate the witch's deep, solemn voice, he added: "'Berrocán, you have one of the longest, clearest life lines I've ever seen. I foresee a very long life for you; you will die old and in your bed.'"
A heavy silence fell between the two cousins. The morning air seemed to grow colder.
"A long life…" she murmured finally, looking toward the road leading out of town.
"Yes. And a week later, the ravine," concluded Garbancito, shaking his head. "It makes no sense. Either your mother was wrong for the first time, or…"
"Or fate laughed at her prediction," she cut in, finishing the sentence her cousin didn't dare say.
They said goodbye with a gesture, each lost in their own thoughts. But it was at that moment, watching Garbancito's back as he walked away, that the witch's daughter began to think that perhaps something had violently interrupted the future her mother had seen. She decided she had to go to the police to ask them to investigate the accident thoroughly.

The next day, after dropping her son off at school, she went to visit her mother.

The witch's house smelled of dried herbs and earth, as always. The clutter, a familiar chaos that was like another layer in the air, today seemed to the daughter especially dense, almost an extension of the confusion she sought to clarify. As she moved cups to make room on the kitchen table, Cenizo, the black cat, appeared rubbing against her legs.
"Mother, you haven't asked Cenizo to read my mind, have you?" she said with a half-smile.
"No, dear. He's just saying hello. Or maybe he's asking you to fill his bowl," replied the witch, turning from the pantry with the sugar bowl in her hand.
The conversation drifted to her grandson. The witch asked about him longingly, but her daughter dodged the question with a practical offer.
"I'm going to send someone to help you with the cleaning."
"I don't want anyone snooping around and moving my things!" retorted the old woman, and her voice, harsher than usual, scared Cenizo out of the kitchen. "If you send someone, I'll kick them out."
As the witch approached the table with the coffee pot, her daughter watched her. She noticed a hesitation in her steps, a slight extension of her hand to feel for the edge of the table before setting down the coffee pot. A cold intuition began to knot in her stomach.
The crucial moment arrived with devastating simplicity. Her mother reached for the blue ceramic sugar bowl, took it confidently, and with a routine gesture, sprinkled a generous amount of its white contents into the two cups.
"Mother," asked the daughter, fixing her gaze on her, "did Berrocán come here recently?"
"Yes, a couple of weeks ago," answered the witch, distracted, pouring the coffee. "He wanted to buy one of those carros sin carnet. He came to have his palm read, to see if it was a good idea."
"And what did you tell him?"
"That he had a very long life line. Very clear. That it was undoubtedly a good idea."
The daughter took the cup. She brought the rim to her lips and took a small sip. An explosion of salt, intense and unpleasant, flooded her mouth.
Everything clicked with a dry, silent thud in her mind: the long life line, the accident in the ravine, the unsteady steps, the hand feeling for the table, the blue sugar bowl. Then she understood: there had been no dark magic, no failed prophecy. Just an old woman, her eyes clouded by the years, and a blue sugar bowl that, without anyone knowing, was full of salt.
She set the cup down gently on the saucer. The noise made her mother look up.
"Mother," said the daughter, and her voice sounded strangely calm, like the surface of a very deep well. "Did you know that Berrocán killed himself when that car fell down the mill ravine?"
The witch blinked. A shadow of genuine bewilderment crossed her wrinkled face.
"What are you saying? That's… very strange. I thought I saw… I saw that he had a very long life line."
There was no guilt in her voice. Only confusion. The honest confusion of someone who believes they saw something that wasn't there.
The daughter took a deep breath. The suspicion of murder evaporated like smoke. In its place emerged a much simpler, much more fragile, and much sadder reality.
"Mom," she whispered, and this time her voice trembled a little. "You just put salt in the coffee. You confused the salt with the sugar."
The witch went still. For a moment, her fierce pride seemed to want to deny it, but the evidence was salty and incontestable in her own cup. Her fingers, bony and veiny, closed slightly on the edge of the table.
"It's the years, dear. Nonsense. It's nothing."
"It's cataracts, Mother. You have to go to the doctor. To an eye doctor."
"In ninety years, no one has ever had to cure me of anything!" she retorted, straightening her body like an indignant ghost. "And I don't plan to start now."
But the protest no longer had its former strength. It sounded like a ritual, a learned phrase. The daughter saw, for the first time, not the town's feared witch, but an elderly woman, terribly stubborn, who was losing her sight and was too afraid—or too proud—to admit it.
"We have to go to the health center," insisted the daughter with a new firmness. "It's just a check-up."
"In this family," replied the witch, though her voice lowered a tone, "ailments are resolved at home."
They talked about other things, about how expensive everything was, about her grandson at school. The witch poured another coffee, and this time, with deliberately slow and careful movements, she took the bag of sugar. This time the coffee was sweet.

mvf.