Every full moon, my grandmother would spread a handful of salty seeds across her wooden table, arranging them in cryptic patterns only she could decipher. “These seeds,” she’d say, her wrinkled hands trembling slightly, “they remember everything.”
I was twelve when I first noticed the peculiar way the seeds would dance under her fingertips, spinning like tiny compass needles seeking true north. Sometimes, in the thick summer air, they’d hover momentarily before settling into their destined positions.
“Marisol,” she called to me one evening, her voice carrying the weight of secrets. “Come, child. The seeds have something to show you.”
The room smelled of sea salt and memories as I approached her table. The seeds had arranged themselves into what looked like a face - my grandfather’s face, who had passed away three years before I was born.
“How is this possible, Abuela?” I whispered, watching the seeds shift slightly, as if breathing.
She smiled, the wrinkles around her eyes deepening. “Some say these seeds were blessed by a wandering spirit during the great drought of 1902. They absorb memories, mijita. All the moments we try to forget, all the stories we’re afraid to tell - they keep them safe.”
That night, the seeds revealed more than just faces. They danced across the table, forming scenes from a past I’d never witnessed: my mother as a young girl, running through fields of sugarcane; my grandfather playing his violin in the town square; moments lost to time but preserved in these tiny, salty vessels.
As years passed, I noticed Abuela becoming increasingly dependent on the seeds. She’d consult them before making any decision, sometimes spending entire nights watching them rearrange themselves into mysterious patterns.
“The seeds know, Marisol,” she’d insist. “They always know.”
The night before she died, she called me to her bedside. Her hands were empty of seeds for the first time I could remember, but her pillowcase rustled strangely.
“Promise me,” she whispered, pressing a small cloth bag into my palm. “Promise me you’ll keep them safe. They carry our family’s memories now.”
I nodded, feeling the weight of generations in that simple bag.
After the funeral, I sat alone at her table, spreading the seeds just as she had taught me. They felt warm to the touch, almost alive. As moonlight filtered through the window, they began to move, forming words I’d never seen them create before:
“Some memories are better left forgotten.”
The seeds trembled, and for a moment, I saw something in their pattern that made my blood run cold. I reached to gather them up, but they scattered themselves, skittering across the table like frightened insects, leaving behind a single seed in the center.
It pulsed with a faint light, and I swear I could hear whispers emanating from it - voices I recognized and voices I didn’t, all calling out names of people I’d never known.
I still have that seed. Sometimes, late at night, I hear it speaking. But I’m not sure I want to know what memories it holds anymore.