La Curandera

Juanita rubbed the linament into her gnarled fingers, grateful for the heating relief. She dug into her patient's shoulders with gusto, all the while, chattering about her latest bingo win and all the latest goings on of her neighbors.

With a swift push of her palm, she cracked the man's neck and he grunted in soothing pain. Juanita had been practicing for nearly sixty years, since her own mother, also a curandera had looked into her fourteen year old daughter's hands and proclaimed, "Mija, you have your job here in your hands. I'll teach you the herbs and how to rub away pain. With your eyes, you'll look into their future and decide how much to tell them."

With that, Juanita's fate had been sealed.