“Like the earth realm and space realm? Aliens?” I said, suddenly interested. “I’d love to subvert the clichés of aliens as long-armed, big-headed pixies. What about swarms of nanorobots that can cluster together to mimic any other life-form? I could tie that into your shapeshifter mythology.”

Don Pedro held up his weathered hand. “I was speaking of the realms of life and afterlife and most especially the Middle World. Life after life and before deathly death. I traveled to an island in the azure Caribbean, and a tribe gathered to make a feast for me and …”

I dazed off at this point, because all of Don Pedro’s stories followed the same plot: he was treated as a wise elder by indigenous people who had a feast in his honor. They invited him to a ceremony, injested magical potions, had visions, shapeshifted, et cetera. However, the word “undead” caught my attention.

“Don Pedro, what exactly do you mean by undead?”

“The tribe,” he said, and then whistled. “That is how they say their name, the whistle of a bird, because they are as birds, neither of earth nor heaven. Their name means the Caretakers. They showed me how they raise up the dead with their astonishing juju.”

“If it isn’t astonishing, it isn’t juju,” I commented.

“I sat with one of these living-dead creatures, and we smoked a bowl of an herb that only grows there in the volcanic soil. He told me of returning to life from the misty swamp of eternity.” Don Pedro stared at me and said solemnly, “This being was an oracle, and he asked me to give you this gift.”

“That’s really not necessary …” I began, worried that he’d pull a mummified foot or, worse, a dried man-handle from his satchel.

Instead, Don Pedro brought out a large clear plastic bag with a folded cloth inside. “The oracle said that you would know how to use it to help those who wish to come back and to guide them to the island.”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” I took the bag and saw that the material was handwoven of fine yarn. It was white with an intricate border of suns, moons, mountains, and waves. “It’s beautiful.” I would have to show this to my friends in the Stitching & Bitching group. “The colors are so pretty.”

“It is imbued with magical powders that will preserve and revive the dead and was woven by a blind bruja whose third-eye guides her. The color is taken from the spring flowers that grow in the soil by a spring of freshwater.”

“Organic dyes, then. I thought so.”