Detach 3

There's a woman that lives in the woods. She's always been there. For thousands of years, she has stayed hidden. Her age is always different. She could be a young girl or in her last decade, but you'll know when you see her. Her face and posture are instantly recognized, as unlike anybody else. If she sees you seeing her, you've got a new enemy. She doesn't want the masses to know her. Sam was frightened by the stories her classmates told. "Mom, is the woman of the woods real?" "Don't worry about that. You've got as much reason to be afraid of her as to be afraid of your grandmother. Are you all packed for you week over there?" They drive out to grandma's house and to find her tending her garden. She welcomes them as she gets out of the car, "Hey Sam!" "I'll see you in a week," as mom waves goodbye. Sam was used to spending time at her grandmother's house. She brought her bag inside and made herself comfortable. Looking through the bookcase, she picks an old book that she had never noticed before, "Journeys in the Sierra Madre, Mexico, 1846" by R. M. Shapely. One of the early chapters had a dog-earred page pulling her into its underlined passages. \~~~ We should have known all along. I could tell something was different when I reached the group of huts in the small clearing. All of the other groups downriver I had already passed strongly feared the power of this shaman. I had been told that she was immortal, that she's a shapeshifter, that she was watching every moment, everywhere. I didn't believe it, but it's true. I saw the magic. Upon arrival, there was but a single woman inhabiting the entire village. She ignored me completely except by her strong, although somewhat relenting, gaze. I set up camp and we seemed to be getting used to each other. /~~~ Sam's reading is interrupted when her grandma calls out from the kitchen, "You hungry, child?" When Sam gets there, it's not just her grandma. "This is my neighbor, Jesse. We've been friends for a long time." "Hello Sam, I'm told you're quite the reader. Have you picked up any good books lately?" "I just found one about an expedition into Mexico two hundred years ago." "I'm glad you found it. I just loaned it to your grandmother. Be careful with that book. It's very special to me." \~~~ That evening, one by one, the rest of the group returned. They were all women and they all looked like twins, although at varying ages. None of them spoke outloud except for entertainment. It was like they each knew what the other was thinking. I asked them how they came to be a group of all women and was directed on a short walk through the forest to a small plant with unremarkable features that they call Ometeo. This means duality, like plant/animal, rise/fall, or self/other. She said that they drink this plant in a ceremony of rebirth. Back in the village, it was explained that they each drank the tea when the plant was available. There was no male influence in reproduction. Somehow, the plant induces a woman to self-fertilize and produce a child that is her own clone. Crustaceans, sharks, and reptiles have been observed performing parthenogenesis like this but never humans. This whole tribe is one single person. They all hunted together as a coordinated group spread out across a dense forest, watching for prey from many angles. Talking to one was to talk with all. It was one person with many bodies. The plant cannot be cultivated and bears no seeds. The plant's spontaneous appearances have produced many myths among the group as to its origins. They simply wait for the plant to grow in their path and take it when encountered. They consider this to occur as part of a communication process between the soil and their bodies. In an unlikely event for an outsider, the plant appeared to me and I was able to participate in the ceremony of rebirth. I tried to take a sample of the plant back to the city to study but it withered away immediately upon transport. /~~~ Sam goes to sleep after that and in the morning asks her grandma, "Is it real?" To which she answers, "Everybody I've talked to thinks it's a load of rubbish." At that moment, Jesse knocks on the front door and proclaims, "Would anybody like tea?" She comes in and starts to pour each cup, "Relax, it's just mint." Grandma asks Sam, "Would you drink the Ometeo tea?" "I think I would try it." "Then you would be like your grandmother and your mother. Your great-great-great-great-great-grandmother wrote that book about the journey." "We still don't know how to cultivate it but we keep a garden ready because it grows when the time is right." --- She wouldn't tell anybody at school about this crazy story from her family. In time though, the plant would appear for Sam, just as it had for her parents and theirs, sprouting in the garden from seemingly nothing. She made and consumed the tea then waited. * Sam eventually figures out that R.M. Shapely gained access to the plant because she was actually part of the original group that was sent out to the world to learn about civilization * Sam's mother has gone away for the week to go on secret agent mission for the secret organization