The airport was bright and loud in the way Lyra's life had never been. The fluorescent lights made everything look slightly unreal, as if the world was a photograph someone had over-lit and overexposed.
She moved through the terminal with a sense of disconnection. She had done this before—traveling, leaving, returning. But this time, the trip felt like something else entirely.
Like a line she was crossing.
She had not told anyone where she was going. She hadn't even told her mother she was leaving. She didn't want questions. She didn't want the pity or the concern or the kind of small talk that pretended it mattered.
She just wanted to go.
She checked in, walked through security, and sat near her gate. She watched people move around her, all of them contained in their own lives. Mothers with children, some getting a rap on the ass. Business travelers so preoccupied that didn't realize they spent their entire lives going nowhere. A couple holding hands too tightly, clearly a new couple or even a secret couple. A man reading a newspaper like it was a shield.
Lyra felt like she was sitting on a cattle prod. She felt like she could scream, kill someone on implode. At the moment, none would have surprised her.
The flight was long and exhausting, but Lyra slept in fits and wakes, the way you do when your body wants to rest but your mind is too awake to allow it.
When she arrived in Brazil, the heat hit her like a wave.
The airport was chaotic. The Portuguese language was unfamiliar even though she understood enough to get by. She moved through crowds, her skin sticky, her hair damp already, her breath shallow, trying her best to keep it as high as she could.
She found a taxi and gave the driver the address the retreat center had sent her. He nodded, said something she didn't understand, and drove off.
The city passed in a blur of color and noise. Street vendors shouted. Young men cat called and even tried to buy her for a night. Motorcycles zipped between cars. Children ran in the shadows of buildings.
Lyra felt like she had stepped into a different planet.
The driver took her out of the city and into the green.
The road narrowed. The buildings thinned. The air grew heavier, thicker with moisture. The trees grew taller and taller, until the sky was mostly hidden behind a canopy of leaves.
The jungle was not quiet.
It was loud in a way that didn't feel like noise.
It felt like presence.
She worried for a bit that maybe this was not the way at all but she had been kidnapped, ready to he held for random. They would not get very much she thought.
Bird calls echoed. Insects buzzed. Water dripped. Leaves shifted. The sound was layered, complex, and constant.
Lyra realized she was holding her breath. She had learned this was a thing to be avoided.
She let it out slowly.
The driver finally stopped at a small clearing. A path led into the trees. A sign hung on a post:
Centro de Cura — Maloca
The driver waited, watching her with the expression of someone who had seen too many people come here looking for something they couldn't name.
"You safe?" he asked, in accented English.
Lyra nodded. "I think so."
He hesitated, then said, "You are doing this alone?"
"Yes," Lyra replied.
He nodded, as if her answer confirmed something he already suspected. He handed her a small plastic bag with a bottle of water and a snack.
"Good," he said. "Better to go alone. You hear yourself."
Then he drove away.
Lyra stood in the clearing for a moment, listening.
It wasn't as strong as it had been at home, but it was there, under the sound of the jungle. Like a second heartbeat.
She followed the path that seemed to be laid out intentionally difficult.
The retreat center was simple. Not a resort. Not a luxury escape. Just a cluster of buildings made of wood and thatch, arranged around a central maloca. A few people stood near the entrance, barefoot, wearing light clothing, their faces calm in the way of people who had already accepted that life could be strange and still go on.
One woman approached Lyra with a smile that was warm but not overly friendly.
"You must be Lyra," she said.
Lyra nodded.
"I'm Ana," the woman said. "Welcome. You're safe here."
Lyra tried to smile back. "Thank you."
Ana's gaze lingered on Lyra's face for a moment, like she was measuring something.
"You are tired," Ana said.
Lyra shrugged. "Long trip."
Ana shook her head gently. "You are more than tired. You are… carrying something."
Lyra's mouth went dry.
"I don't know what you mean," she said.
Ana's smile softened. "You will soon."
She led Lyra to a small cabin, where a mosquito net was draped over a simple bed. The air inside was cooler. The wood smelled faintly of something she couldn't place. Spiritual baggage that had been left behind maybe.
Ana set a pitcher of water on the small table by the window.
"Rest," she said. "The ceremony begins at sunset. You'll want to be clear."
Lyra nodded, but didn't move toward the bed.
"What should I expect?" she asked.
Ana paused in the doorway. For the first time, her calm expression shifted—just slightly. Something passed behind her eyes that might have been concern. Or warning.
"Most people see their pain," Ana said. "Their fear. The things they've been running from." She tilted her head. "But you... you're not running from something. You're running toward it."
"Toward what?"
"I don't know." Ana's voice was quieter now. "But I've done this work for eleven years. I've sat with hundreds of people. And when I look at you, I see someone who's about to remember something they never learned."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
"That doesn't make sense," Lyra said.
"No," Ana agreed. "It doesn't." She stepped back toward the door. "There's a curandero here tonight. A man from the old families. He asked about you specifically."
Lyra's stomach tightened. "Why? He doesn't know me."
"He said he had a dream three nights ago. A woman with your face, standing in a place that no longer exists." Ana's expression was unreadable. "He said the ancestors were calling you home."
"That's—"
"Crazy?" Ana smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Yes. Maybe. But he's never been wrong before."
She turned to leave, then stopped.
"One more thing. If you see a man tonight—in the vision—someone who feels like he knows you..." She hesitated. "Don't be afraid. Sometimes the medicine introduces us to people we haven't met yet. Or people we knew a very long time ago."
Before Lyra could respond, Ana was gone.
The cabin felt smaller suddenly. The air heavier.
Lyra moved to the window and looked out at the jungle. The light was dying fast now, the sky turning deep purple. She could see people gathering near the maloca—maybe a dozen of them, moving slowly, reverently.
And standing apart from the others, watching her cabin, was a man.
Old. Weathered. His eyes fixed on her window like he'd been waiting for her specifically.
When their eyes met, he didn't look away.
He smiled.
Not a friendly smile. A knowing one.
Like he recognized her.
Lyra stepped back from the window, her heart pounding.
Outside, the drums began.