11 - GRACE

 

11 - GRACE

Grace walked along the banks of the river that cut the village in half. It was a crystalline river, and the lapping of the waters running through its bed gave a peace of mind that there was no other. She liked to walk that path... even her mother recommended her not to walk that place alone... after all, who could say what dangers could be hidden along that path? For her, there didn't seem to be any danger, but she had already heard of cases of people who simply disappeared in that locality. So out of nowhere. But those were stories she heard told. She's never met anyone who was actually gone. It was always the story of someone who was known to someone who had gone out for a walk with someone in those parts and suddenly didn't come back. She even believed that some of the stories had a grain of truth... but not in the way they told.

According to the current story, in that river, in some stretch that no one knew for sure which one it was, lived the mother of water. Half woman, half fish, her human half had the appearance of a very beautiful woman. She had a swarthy complexion, slanted eyes, black as the moonless night, long black hair, a mouth as red as if she had put on crimson... and a sweet voice, which enchanted everyone who heard it, leaving people at her mercy. They said that, although she was half human and half fish, when she came out of the water, she took on the appearance of a normal person, and hardly anyone would notice not being in the presence of a human being. The only way to identify an Iara outside its natural habitat was a small mark behind its right ear... a small hole that served for that being to breathe out of water...

But why would a being from the depths of the river want to mix with the common people? They say that from time to time she came to the surface to look for some soul that deserved her blessings. She tested the souls she chose and, if these did not pass the test applied by her, as a punishment she would take them to the bottom of the river and imprison them, waiting for the day when someone would pass through her questions and be worthy of freeing not only the souls captives, but also to inherit a treasure that was long lost to the world, since it had been entrusted to her care and only when she found the deserving soul, that fortune would see the light of day again...

Well, it's not that Grace was an exaggeratedly gullible person, but it wouldn't be a bad thing to find the mother of water and be tested by her, get approved and win that treasure. After all, both she and her mother were always counting the coins to be able to close the week's bills... and sometimes they end up unable to honor some debts and had to count on the help of their closest friends. Everyone was in the same pindaíba, but those who could breathe a little more calmly helped those who were on the edge of the precipice. Who used to give a hand to Grace and her mother, Dona Constância, was Zacarias and his family. Whenever the two were suffocated, for one reason or another, there would come Dona Rosário or one of her daughters with a scupper with some products they would need, from rice and beans to cleaning material or anything else they needed... if it weren't for this help, they wouldn't have anywhere to run...

Of course, that wasn't the reason for her long walks along the river... no, she walked there because it really was the only place that could give her peace of mind. That freshness of the river, accompanied by the serenade characteristic of the forest, with its different sounds, where it mixed the song of birds with the chirping of crickets, the flight of various species of butterflies among the flowers that were born close to the bank... yes, all this together made that place a little piece of heaven on earth...

But today her drive motivation was another. She needed to think about her life, about what she was going to do… she had received a dating proposal, which almost amounted to a marriage proposal. The suitor was Juca, one of the helpers of "his" Zacarias. Yes, the boy was a worker. Trailer, cowboy, cowboy... whatever they asked him to do, he did. And he earned a little better than those who worked with the hoe. He had his little ranch well organized, which was crazy, since he had lived alone for a long time, next to an ipê tree. If she accepted the boy's dating proposal and, subsequently, the marriage proposal that was sure to follow, her life would be partially fixed. She would have someone to confide in and life wouldn't be as hard as it had been up until now. But... what if it didn't work out? And his mother, how would she be?... what if he didn't accept his future mother-in-law living under the same roof? Yes, she had to think very carefully about what decision to make... after all, she didn't want to regret the step she decided to take...