In the beautiful city of Maracaibo located in Venezuela — where the solar paints the amazing streets in gold by day and the Lake Maracaibo flashes with eerie lightning at the beautiful night — people actually do make a whisper about a lady who is named Morgana.
Morgana lived on the edge of the city, a place that could be referred to as a weathered residence shrouded in ceiba trees and smoke. Most swore she was over a hundred years old, even though her pores and skin seemed as easy as river stone and her hair flowed like black silk. Her eyes were sharp, green, and appeared to see more than the world in the front of them.
Morgana didn’t stroll through the city like a ordinary person. She glided. She didn’t talk often, but when she did, her voice carried like wind via sugarcane — soft, however not possible to ignore. And though many feared her, they came to her when they had been desperate.
When a child wouldn’t wake from a fever, they called Morgana.
When plants wilted below too plenty sun, they left choices at her gate.
When fanatics betrayed one another, or secrets burned in hearts too long, her identify used to be whispered like a spell.
But no one understood the place she came from.
Some said she was once the daughter of a forgotten indigenous spirit and a Spanish colonizer. Others believed she made a pact with the lightning of Relámpago del Catatumbo — the eternal storm that dances above Lake Maracaibo — and that’s why she never aged.
The reality was stranger.
Morgana had as soon as been a healer, a quiet herbalist who studied the earth and honored the old ways. But after losing her only son to a civil raid many years ago, something inner her cracked. She went into the woodland for seven days and seven nights. When she returned, she no longer cured with herbs — she healed with shadows.
Her powers grew. She should see futures in fire. She should name rain in dry months, and silence a heart with a single touch.
But power comes with a price.
The government tried to arrest her once. They said she used to be manipulating people, working towards forbidden magic. The officers despatched to her domestic never made it to the gate. Their motors stalled, their radios screamed static, and the ceiba trees shook violently besides wind.
After that, they left her alone.
Still, no longer all memories about Morgana have been dark. It was once said she as soon as saved the complete city.
One dry season, when the lake receded and disease threatened to sweep via Maracaibo, Morgana climbed the highest hill at dusk. People watched from rooftops as she lit a fire, her silhouette swaying like a dancer in smoke. Lightning cracked the sky — no longer once, but seven times.
By morning, the rains came. The lake returned. The ailment vanished.
But even heroes are feared when they don’t look like everyone else.
One night, Morgana disappeared. Her domestic collapsed into itself, as if swallowed by means of the earth. All that remained was her cloak, putting from the branch of a ceiba tree.
To this day, when lightning storms strike Maracaibo, the old human beings nod and say:
“Morgana walks again. The witch who grew to be the storm.”
And the young people — each afraid and enchanted — collect at windows to watch the skies…
Just in case she returns.
