"Wow!" said Margarita, who was standing next to them. "It's the first time I've seen such a clear rainbow! Look, mom! Look how vivid the colors are!"
"That's why I'm telling you, grandma! Let's go see it up close, let's see where it begins and where it ends!" her granddaughter pleaded excitedly, pulling her by the hand to lead her outside the house.
Vaya gently stroked her head with her tightly braided hair. "My dear, no one has ever found the beginning or the end of a rainbow. Its secret is well hidden..."
A few minutes later, however, they were walking side by side toward the root of the rainbow, which was becoming more intense every minute. Its colors looked like they were taken from a painter's palette. Even she herself did not use such vivid colors when embroidering her woven fabrics.
"What is a rainbow, grandma?" Irene asked softly. Vaya first sat on a small rock and took her on her lap before answering. "My mother used to say, when I was little, that this colorful path is a ladder for souls..."
"Which souls, grandma?"
"The souls that wander the earth and when the time comes to go up, they climb from there to meet their Creator. You see, when someone dies, the soul does not immediately begin its journey to heaven. For forty days, it wanders among the living it loved in life. But when the forty days pass, when it has had enough of the sweet wheat bread we make here for those left behind, it is ready to go to its place, to Heaven. And then, the rainbow comes to show it the way."
"And if a soul wants to come down, grandma? Does it come down again from the rainbow?"
"No, my child, the way down is always closed. The last dwelling is also the eternal one."
"And do the dead see us from up there, grandma?"
"Yes... they see us, my little Rina. And they rejoice in our joy and grieve with our sorrow."