The Second Ring of Power by Carlos Castaneda

moment I had
arrived.
    She watched me for a long time. To avoid looking at her I sat down on
the bedspread again.
    "The Nagual warned me about your weirdness," she said
suddenly, "but I couldn't understand what he meant.
Now I know. He told me to be careful and not to anger you because you're violent.
I'm sorry I was not as careful as I should've been. He also said that as long
as you can write you could go to hell itself and not even feel it. I haven't
bothered you about that. Then he told me that you're suspicious because
words entangle you. I haven't bothered you there, either. I've been talking my
head off, trying not to entangle you."
    There was a silent accusation in her tone. I felt somehow embarrassed
at being annoyed with her.
    "What you're telling me is very hard to believe," I said.
"Either you or don Juan has lied to me terribly."
    "Neither of us has lied. You understand only what you want to. The
Nagual said that that is a condition of your emptiness.
    "The girls are the Nagual's children, just like you and Eligio are
his children. He made six children, four women and two men. Genaro made three
men. There are nine altogether. One of them, Eligio,
already made it, so now it is up to the eight of you to try."
    "Where did Eligio go?"
    "He went to join the Nagual and Genaro."
    "And where did the Nagual and Genaro go?"
    "You know where they went. You're just kidding me, aren't
you?"
    "But that's the point, dona Soledad. I'm not kidding you."
    "Then I will tell you. I can't deny you anything. The Nagual and
Genaro went back to the same place they came from, to the other
world. When their time was up they simply stepped out into the darkness out
there, and since they did not want to come back, the darkness of the night swallowed
them up"
    I felt it was useless to probe her any further. I was ready to change
the subject, but she spoke first.
    "You caught a glimpse of the other world when you jumped," she
went on. "But maybe the jump has confused you. Too bad. There
is nothing that anyone can do about it. It is your fate to be a man. Women are
better than men in that sense. They don't have to jump into an abyss. Women have
their own ways. They have their own abyss. Women menstruate. The Nagual told me
that that was the door for them. During their period they
become something else. I know that that was the time when
he taught my girls. It was too late for me; I'm too old so I really don't know
what that door looks like. But the Nagual insisted that the
girls pay attention to everything that happens to them during
that time. He would take them during those days into the mountains and stay
with them there until they would see the crack between the
worlds.
    "The Nagual, since he had no qualms or fear about doing anything,
pushed them without mercy so they could find out for themselves that
there is a crack in women, a crack that they disguise very
well. During their period, no matter how well-made the disguise is, it falls
away and women are bare. The Nagual pushed my girls until they
were half-dead to open that crack. They did it. He made
them do it, but it took them years."
    "How did they become apprentices?"
    "Lidia
was his first apprentice. He found her one morning when he had stopped at a disheveled hut in the mountains. The Nagual told
me that there was no one in sight and yet there had been omens calling him to that house since early morning. The breeze
had bothered him terribly. He said that he couldn't even open his eyes every
time he tried to walk away from that area.
So when he found the house he knew that something was there. He looked under a
pile of straw and twigs and found a
girl. She was very ill. She could hardly talk, but still she told him that she didn't need anyone to help her. She was
going to keep on sleeping there and if she didn't wake up anymore no one would lose a thing. The
Nagual liked her spirit and talked to her in her language. He told her that he was going to cure her and take care of