Song of the Mockingbird: My Journey with Josefina

I tell Josefina that I am up for an expedition. I am trying to be brave. I follow Josefina to the back of the house through the courtyard, and we step into a dim room. Inside the room, everything is cool and shadowy. It’s like the cave where I found the flute but it holds different treasures. I see a wooden structure that I recognize as a loom. White strands of yarn are taut across the top, fanning out as if a spun by a tiny spider. Blue strands are woven halfway up. Bright hanks of wool hang from the pegs on the walls—yellow, blue, gray, and black. It’s a whole room just for weaving.

Something in the corner draws my eye, and I see Teresita is kneeling at what I guess is a loom hung on the wall. Two heavy beams are suspended from the ceiling, and another beam hangs near the floor almost horizontally. A smaller beam is suspended about halfway down the wall. I watched Teresita pass a small ball of gray yarn through white strands and push it down over the other strand she’s already woven. She’s working on a blanket that has zigzag patterns and black and red.

Teresita says that there should be plenty of rabbit-brush flowers in the hills. They make a yellow color. Teresita gestures to some yellow hanging from the wall. Josefina assures her that we will find them.

A short while later, we strive from the house with a basket over my arm, just like Josefina. My flute is tucked into a leather pouch at my waist, just like Josefina’s. Josefina has pulled her shawl over her head in one fluid moment, and she looks at me to do the same. She asks if I should pull my borrowed rebozo up over my head, too, and I say I’m good, but then catch the surprise on my friend’s face. Wrong answer. I pull the silky shawl over my head.

Sombrita has decided to accompany us and bounds ahead on her spring-like legs. Miguel is following behind us with another basket over his arm. I ask Josefina if Miguel will also be collecting rabbit-brush, and she giggles. He’s coming with us as a chaperone and guardian.

I turn this over as we climb into the rising hills behind the house. I guess Josefina and her sisters don’t go out without someone watching them. I guess that makes sense. After all, I was supposed to have been captured. Maybe that’s why Josefina’s house reminds me of a fortress. I shiver. How dangerous is this world?