It arrived in a dream. A premonition wrapped in salt. My grandmother ‘s voice was the anchor on the ship that sailed. She whispered between the winds to warn me, “La mayoría de los sueños son solo eso… sueños; pero los tuyos son advertencias de lo que está por venir.” A whispered warning in weeping winds. I am a child, floating in a lake, surrounded by a halo of petals, a mothers umbilical cord wrapped around my neck like a noose. With a tether like this I’ll die before I am old enough to speak. I have this recurring dream of being trapped beneath a glass lake, a mirror, a window to the other side. My breath hitches, a gust of wind carries away my breath; If I die before I wake, I’ll end up like the woman under the current. She looks just like me, only older, she has my eyes and restless hands, but her skin is the color of the lakebed. She watches me from beyond the glass pane; her eyes weep with salt and she reaches her hand out for me. I don’t reach back. I already carry this lake in my marrow. Embedded into my skin is the family line that gave me this life; on the other side is a crystalline vision of a woman I can’t return to. I grieve all the versions of me I’ve buried, drowned and submerged underwater. Whose breath I pressed deep into the silt of the lake and refused to become. I am the daughter of the impending—girls who were marked by knowing and carrying a storm within their soul. Survival has altered the trajectory of my life. I am tethered to this lake and all the versions of me who have died here. Yet, I no longer dream of drowning. I am grit and stone. Those advertencias she whispered about weren’t just warnings, they were the stones I used to break the glass. A reminder of the life I gave up. 

Katherine Pagan is a Puerto Rican storyteller who believes in the transformative power of a well-crafted narrative. A graduate in Creative Writing and a 2025 Kathy Potter Award honoree, she weaves themes of culture and community into every page. When she isn’t helping students find their voices as a university tutor, Katherine is busy building vivid worlds of her own.