The Dream of Catalina

The Dream of Catalina

A Love Story Across Five Centuries

Werner Stejskal

El amor recuerda lo que el tiempo olvida

(Love remembers what time forgets)

I dream like everybody else, or at least I assume I do. Strange places, strange people, fragments of conversations that seem important while you’re asleep and completely meaningless when you wake up. Dreams are just part of being human.

If somebody had ever told me that one day I would be living two lives at once, one in the supposedly real world and one in a dream world, I would probably have thought they were crazy. I might even have laughed and told them to get some sleep themselves. Yet that is exactly what happened to me.

In both worlds my name is Carlos. I live in Spain.

It all started one night with what I thought was a perfectly normal dream. At the time, there was nothing to suggest that it would be any different from the thousands of dreams I had already forgotten over the years. Yet looking back now, I can see that it was not merely a dream. It was the beginning of an entirely new life.

What I saw was something like a movie trailer. You know the kind. The producer doesn’t show you the whole story. Instead, you get a collection of brief flashes, a glimpse of the most important moments, the dramatic scenes, the emotional confrontations, the faces of the main characters. Just enough to leave you curious and wanting more.

That was exactly how it felt. Images appeared and vanished before I could fully understand them. There was a sense of drama, of conflict, and woven through it all was something that felt unmistakably like a love story.

One face appeared more often than any other. She was a very pretty young woman, dressed in an old-fashioned nightgown that seemed to belong to another century. I never saw the whole scene around her. Everything else was blurred and indistinct, as though the dream wanted me to focus on only one thing. Her.

Slowly she walked toward me. With every step she seemed larger, closer, more real. The background faded away until there was nothing left except her. Then her face filled my entire vision.

She stopped. For a moment she simply looked at me. There was a faint smile on her lips, gentle and inviting, almost teasing. Not a word was spoken between us, yet I felt as if an entire conversation had taken place.

I stared back with an intensity I had never experienced before. It was impossible to look away. The rest of the dream, the rest of the world, seemed to disappear. And in that moment I knew that something had happened. I couldn’t have explained what it was. I couldn’t even have described the feeling. All I knew was that I was no longer the same person who had fallen asleep a few minutes earlier.

Then, without warning, she vanished. The image dissolved into darkness. And the dream was over.

---

She had made such a strong impression on me that the memory of her refused to fade away like so many other dreams. Normally, by breakfast, most dreams had already dissolved into a few scattered fragments. This one was different. I could still see her face clearly the next morning, her eyes, her smile, and the way she had looked at me as if she already knew me.

For the rest of the day, I found myself thinking about her far more often than I cared to admit.

That night, I went to bed hoping I would see her again. I didn’t. Nor did she appear the following night, or the one after that.

As the days passed, I became almost obsessed. Before falling asleep, I would deliberately picture her face and try to recreate every detail I could remember. I convinced myself that if I concentrated hard enough, perhaps I could find my way back to that dream. It never worked.

After more than a week, I was beginning to accept that she had simply been a particularly vivid dream and nothing more.

Then, one afternoon, everything changed.

I am living in Spain, where an afternoon nap is hardly unusual, especially after a large lunch. That particular day I had eaten far too much and was sitting on the couch fighting a losing battle against my own eyelids. My head nodded forward. I jerked awake. A few minutes later it happened again. Then again.

I drifted in and out of that strange state between sleeping and waking where neither world seems completely real.

Suddenly something felt different. I cannot describe it any better than saying that the atmosphere itself seemed to change. The room around me faded into the background, and I became aware of a strange stillness, as if I had stepped through an invisible doorway into another place.

I was no longer in my living room. In front of me stood an old-fashioned wooden bed, the kind one might expect to find centuries ago. The craftsmanship was beautiful but worn with age. And lying upon it was the young woman from my dream.

For a moment I simply stared. She appeared to be asleep. Her breathing was slow and peaceful, her dark hair spread across the pillow. She looked exactly as I remembered her.

As I remained there, observing her, impressions and fragments of knowledge began to appear in my mind. They were not words spoken aloud, nor were they memories of my own. Somehow I simply knew things about her.

Her name was Doña Catalina de Mendoza. And hers was a very sad story. A while ago, she had suffered a terrible trauma when her sister died. The loss had shattered something deep within her. Unable to bear the grief, she had retreated further and further into herself until eventually she fell into a coma.

Her body remained alive. Her spirit did not rest. Bound to the bed that held her sleeping form, her soul wandered endlessly. She was exhausted by her imprisonment, weary of existing without truly living. More than anything, she longed to return to the world, to laugh, to speak, to feel the warmth of another human being again. And so she searched. Across distance and time.

Somehow, in her loneliness and desperation, she had reached beyond the limits that separate one soul from another, seeking someone who might understand her suffering and be willing to help.

That someone, it seemed, was me.

While I was standing beside Catalina’s bed, something extraordinary happened. A faint shimmer appeared above her body. At first it was little more than a silvery mist, wavering in the air like sunlight reflected on water. Gradually it gathered shape and substance until a second Catalina stood beside the bed, looking down at her sleeping form.

She turned toward me.

“Finally, you have come back,” she said softly.

Her voice carried both relief and excitement.

“I have been waiting for you.”

“You know me?” I asked.

“I know your soul,” she replied. “It was your presence that awakened me. Nobody visits me anymore. Nobody believes I shall ever wake up. It is so lonely here.”

Her gaze drifted toward the motionless body lying on the bed.

“My family prays for me, but their hope grows weaker with every passing day.”

There was no bitterness in her voice, only sadness. Then she looked back at me.

“I found you because your soul was also calling into the darkness. You were searching for comfort, just as I was. Perhaps we can help one another.”

The way she said it made it sound like the most natural thing in the world.

“You come from the future,” she continued, her eyes brightening. “I can feel it. I am certain we shall experience many marvellous things together.”

The prospect filled her with excitement. And she was right. What followed was an unbelievable time for both of us. Whenever I managed to return to that strange dream world, Catalina was waiting eagerly for me. Through our conversations I slowly introduced her to the modern world. Cars fascinated her. Aeroplanes seemed almost impossible for her to comprehend.

“You are telling me that hundreds of people sit inside a metal carriage and fly through the sky like birds?” she asked one day.

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

She laughed and shook her head.

“Kevin, either your century is miraculous, or you are making fun of me.”

Everything I showed her felt like a fairy tale to someone born in the fifteenth century. Electric lights, television, telephones, computers, and entire cities glowing at night. She never grew tired of hearing about them. Yet I soon realised that she was changing me as much as I was changing her.

Catalina had been raised according to the strict Christian beliefs of her time. Many of her ideas about life, love, and human behaviour had been shaped by the customs of an age very different from my own.

At first she was cautious and reserved whenever our conversations became personal. Only gradually did she begin to relax.

One day I explained to her that our dream world belonged to neither her century nor mine.

“There is nobody here to judge us,” I told her. “No priests, no neighbours, no gossiping relatives. Just you and me.”

She considered this quietly. Then, for the first time, I saw her smile without restraint. After that, her entire manner changed. The invisible barriers between us slowly disappeared.

A touch on the hand no longer felt forbidden. A hand resting on a shoulder became natural. I would brush a strand of hair from her face and she would close her eyes for a moment, enjoying the simple gesture.

As familiarity grew, so did affection. Eventually, one evening, our lips met for the first time. To me it was a kiss. To Catalina it was far more.

In her world, such a gesture carried enormous significance. A kiss was not something given lightly. It represented commitment, intention, and trust. For days afterward she seemed almost overwhelmed by what had happened.

Dear Reader, you must understand that when our souls met, everything felt completely real. We did not experience one another as shadows or distant memories. We saw, heard, and felt each other’s presence as clearly as any two people standing face to face. The years separating us seemed to lose their meaning.

It was as if the universe had decided that souls were timeless things, capable of crossing distances that bodies never could. Through some mystery beyond my understanding, Catalina and I were allowed to experience a love that ignored centuries.

As our relationship deepened, I became increasingly careful about when I visited her. My afternoon naps were always taken in private.

The last thing I wanted was a family member waking me at an unfortunate moment or witnessing me smiling and talking to someone who existed only in another world.

So I kept the secret to myself. For a very long time, nobody knew about Catalina. Nobody knew that every afternoon I was living a second life.

---

One day I left my room after a particularly vivid session with Catalina. The dream had felt so real that it took me several seconds to adjust to the ordinary world again. As I stepped into the hallway, I almost walked straight into my mother. She was standing outside my door with her arms folded.

That was never a good sign.

“How are you, mum,” I asked cautiously.

She looked at me with an expression somewhere between concern and curiosity.

“Carlos, who is Catalina?”

I stopped. For a moment I wondered whether I had heard correctly.

“What?”

“Catalina.”

My mother’s eyebrows rose.

“You have been talking so loudly in your sleep that I couldn’t help hearing you.”

I groaned.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

I rubbed my face.

“Am I really talking in my sleep?”

“Quite enthusiastically.”

I couldn’t help laughing.

“Well, I had a very vivid dream this time.”

My mother narrowed her eyes.

“I gathered that.”

Then she added dryly,

“You were explicit.”

That nearly made me choke.

“Mum!”

“What? I wasn’t born yesterday.”

I shook my head while trying unsuccessfully not to laugh. The problem was that she was probably right. Some of my conversations with Catalina had become considerably more affectionate in recent months.

My mother continued watching me.

“So?”

“So what?”

“Who… is… Catalina?”

I hesitated. The truthful answer would sound completely insane. The simplified version wasn’t much better. Finally I sighed.

“Mum, I have these continuous dreams.”

“What do you mean, continuous?”

“The same dream world. The same people. The same places. Every time.”

She looked skeptical.

“And Catalina is part of that?”

“She’s the main part.”

My mother stared at me.

“Carlos…”

“No, seriously. I can’t explain it properly without sounding like I belong in a mental asylum.”

Her expression became even more concerned.

“That isn’t reassuring.”

“I know.”

I leaned against the wall.

“So for now, let’s just say that I have a girlfriend in my dreams.”

“A girlfriend.”

“Yes.”

“In your dreams.”

“Correct.”

My mother blinked twice.

“And you see her repeatedly?”

“Whenever I want to.”

Now she looked genuinely worried.

“Carlos.”

“Mum.”

“You’re serious.”

“Completely.”

She opened her mouth and closed it again. Finally she asked,

“And this dream girlfriend…”

I already knew where this was going.

“Yes?”

“Are you in love with her?”

I smiled despite myself.

“Very much.”

My mother stared at me for several seconds. Then she asked the question I had been expecting.

“So this relationship has become physical?”

I looked away. That was apparently all the answer she needed.

“Carlos!”

“What?”

“Physical? With a dream girl?”

I shrugged.

“It’s complicated.”

“No, it’s impossible.”

“That too.”

For a moment neither of us spoke.

Then my mother shook her head.

“Maybe we should have you evaluated.”

I laughed.

“Mum, I’m happy.”

“Happy?”

“Very.”

She studied me carefully. The concern in her eyes softened a little. That was the problem. Whatever she thought of the situation, she could clearly see that I wasn’t distressed.

Quite the opposite. I was probably the happiest she had seen me in years.

“Wouldn’t it be better,” she asked gently, “if you found a real girlfriend?”

I smiled. The question was perfectly reasonable. If I hadn’t experienced everything myself, I would probably have asked exactly the same thing.

“Catalina is all I need at the moment.”

My mother sighed dramatically. She shook her head and started walking toward the kitchen. Halfway there she stopped and looked back.

“If your dream girlfriend ever decides to visit for dinner, I expect proper notice.”

I laughed.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And Carlos?”

“Yes?”

“No more discussing intimate details at full volume while sleeping.”

“I’ll do my best.”

My mother disappeared into the kitchen still muttering to herself.

I smiled. If only she knew how impossible that promise might be.

---

Eventually, Catalina and I fell deeper and deeper in love. What had begun as curiosity and companionship slowly grew into something neither of us could imagine living without. We were separated by centuries and existed in different realities, yet whenever our souls met, those barriers seemed meaningless. We were not married, and could never be, but we still wished to experience whatever destiny had allowed us to share.

Then something happened that neither of us could have anticipated. Catalina became pregnant.

At first we thought it was impossible. Then we realized that it was not merely happening within the strange reality we shared. It was happening in her own world as well.

The first person to notice was her maid, who attended to her daily needs. She became concerned when Catalina missed several monthly cycles. Her mother initially feared that her daughter’s condition was worsening and that her body was beginning to fail. But as the weeks passed, another explanation became impossible to ignore. Catalina’s belly was growing.

The household was thrown into confusion. The obvious question was asked by everyone. Who was the father? An investigation followed. Servants were questioned. Guards were questioned. Family members were questioned. Every possible explanation was examined. None of them made sense.

Catalina always remained confined to her chambers, constantly attended by women. The wing of the palace in which she lay was heavily protected, and no man could have entered unnoticed. Yet the evidence was impossible to deny.

As word spread beyond the palace walls, rumours began to grow. People searched for explanations in the only way they knew how. Before long, whispers of a miraculous conception began to circulate. Once those stories reached the village, they took on a life of their own. Many people believed Catalina had been touched by divine favour. Others claimed she was destined for sainthood. Pilgrims started arriving at the palace gates.

When I visited Catalina during our meetings, I often saw women gathered around her bedside. Some would kneel in prayer. Others would gently touch her growing belly and ask for blessings for their own families.

Catalina found the attention exhausting.

“It never stops,” she complained one day.

“You’ve become famous.”

“I never wanted to be famous.”

The constant stream of visitors made it increasingly difficult for us to find moments alone together. Yet despite everything, our bond only grew stronger as the months passed.

When the time of the birth finally arrived, I remained beside her. The chamber was crowded with midwives, servants, and anxious relatives, but Catalina’s soul’s attention never left me. Through the pain and fear she kept searching for my face.

“You are here?” she whispered.

“I’m here.”

“Then I am not afraid.”

Hours seemed to pass. At last, the midwife made a final effort, a cry filled the room. Our daughter had arrived.

Tears streamed down Catalina’s dream face as relief and joy overwhelmed her. For a brief moment everything seemed perfect. Then something changed.

The world around me began to fade. The room blurred. Voices became distant.

Catalina looked at me in alarm.

“Carlos!”

She stretched out her hand toward me.

I tried to reach back, but the darkness was already closing in.

“Carlos!”

The last thing I saw was Catalina holding our daughter while reaching desperately toward me. Then the image vanished. Everything went black. And that was the last time I ever saw my two girls.

---

What followed was one of the most miserable periods of my life. At first I convinced myself that the connection had only been interrupted temporarily. After all, there had been occasions when several days passed between our meetings. Surely this separation would be no different.

But days became weeks. Weeks became months. No matter what I tried, I could not find my way back to Catalina.

I took my afternoon naps. I returned to the same couch. I attempted to recreate every condition under which our meetings had occurred. Before sleeping, I would concentrate on her face, her voice, even the scent of lavender that seemed to linger around her. Nothing worked.

The door that had once opened so effortlessly between our worlds appeared to have closed forever.

For a long time I refused to accept it. Eventually, however, another thought began to grow in my mind.

If I could no longer reach Catalina, perhaps I could at least discover whether she had truly existed.

The idea sounded ridiculous. Yet the more I considered it, the more determined I became. I knew her full name. I knew the period in which she had lived. I even knew the date on which our daughter had been born.

The Mendoza family had been one of Spain’s most influential noble families for generations. Their records were unusually well preserved, and modern technology made searching historical archives far easier than it would have been only a few decades earlier.

What began as curiosity soon became an obsession. I searched historical databases. Family genealogies. Private archives.

Then one evening I found something. I sat frozen in front of my computer screen. There it was. Doña Catalina de Mendoza. She had existed. She was recorded in the family history exactly where she should have been.

With trembling hands I continued reading. The further I went, the more astonishing the story became.

According to family accounts, Catalina had indeed fallen into a mysterious coma that lasted almost two years. During that period she had unexpectedly become pregnant despite being constantly attended and isolated from all possible male contact.

The birth of her daughter caused enormous controversy at the time. Some considered it a miracle. Others considered it proof of divine intervention. The official explanation remained unknown.

Then came the detail that made my heart stop. Immediately following the birth, Catalina awoke. After two years of unconsciousness, she simply opened her eyes and began recovering. Within months she had regained her health completely.

She never married. She never accepted any suitors. Instead, she devoted herself to charitable works, prayer, and helping the poor. Over the years she acquired a reputation for wisdom and kindness. By the time of her death, she was regarded almost as a living saint throughout the region.

I stared at the screen for a long time. The Catalina I had known was there between the lines.

And then I found the record of her daughter. She had named her María. I smiled when I read that. Of course she had.

From there I began tracing the family line. Generation after generation. Mother to daughter.

At first it was merely an intellectual exercise. I wanted to know what became of our child and her descendants. But the deeper I went, the stranger it became. The line never completely disappeared.

There was always another daughter. Another generation. Another branch leading forward through time.

Eventually the records entered the modern era. Photographs appeared. Birth certificates. Marriage records. Social media references. Living people.

I followed the line all the way to the present day. Then I reached the final entry. I expected nothing unusual. Instead I found myself staring at the photograph of a young woman.

For several seconds I could not breathe. She looked remarkably familiar. There was something unmistakable in her eyes and smile.

Then I saw her name. Catalina. The last woman in a line that stretched back more than five hundred years. And suddenly I could not shake the feeling that my story with Catalina de Mendoza might not be over after all.

---

Naturally, I wanted to know more about her. At first I told myself it was simply curiosity. After all, this young woman was apparently the last known descendant in a family line that stretched back to Catalina and María. Anyone would have been intrigued. The more I looked, however, the less convincing that explanation became.

I searched every public source I could find. Social media profiles. Photographs. Family references. Anything that might help me understand who she was.

What I found was reassuring in a way I had not expected. There was no indication that she was married. Nor could I find any evidence of a boyfriend or long-term partner. Most of the photographs showed her with family members or groups of friends. She appeared happy, intelligent, and surprisingly down-to-earth for someone whose family history was so remarkable. One photograph from a birthday celebration provided another important detail. She was twenty years old.

I remember staring at the image for several minutes. Twenty. Almost exactly the age Catalina would have been when I knew her. The coincidence unsettled me. Or perhaps it was more than a coincidence.

Eventually I decided there was only one thing left to do. I had to contact her.

The message took me nearly an hour to write. I wanted to sound serious without appearing insane. That was more difficult than it sounds.

In the end I explained that I had been researching her family history and had uncovered some information that might be of interest to her. I asked whether she would be willing to meet and discuss it in person.

To support my claim, I attached copies of two paintings depicting Doña Catalina de Mendoza.

The resemblance was unmistakable. Not identical, but close enough that anyone would notice it immediately.

After sending the message, I spent the rest of the day wondering whether I had made a terrible mistake. Perhaps she would think I was some sort of eccentric amateur historian.

Instead, a reply arrived before the day was over. She thanked me for the message and admitted that the paintings had caught her attention immediately. She was curious to hear what I had discovered. We agreed to meet the following afternoon.

The location was a small café in Madrid called Toma Café. Once the meeting was arranged, I suddenly found myself becoming nervous. This was no longer an academic exercise. Now I was going to sit across from a living person whose existence seemed connected to the most extraordinary experience of my life.

That evening I carefully assembled everything I thought I might need. Every piece of evidence that supported my research. I knew I would need all of it. The story I was about to tell sounded unbelievable even to me. Without proof, no rational person would accept a word of it.

As I finished organizing the documents, I placed them neatly into a folder and looked at the clock. Less than twenty-four hours remained before I would meet Catalina. For the first time in years, I found myself unable to sleep.

---

I entered the café a few minutes early, but I recognized her immediately. She was sitting near the window, occasionally glancing toward the entrance. For a moment I simply stood there.

The resemblance was astonishing. She did not look exactly like the Catalina I had known, yet she could easily have been her sister. The same dark eyes. The same smile. Even some of her expressions seemed strangely familiar.

I walked over to her table.

“Catalina de Rebollo, verdad?”

She looked up and smiled.

“Sí.”

Following local custom, we exchanged the two besos before I sat down across from her.

“I am glad you came,” I said. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“After seeing those paintings, I had to.”

Since it was late morning, we both ordered café con leche. While we waited, the conversation remained polite and cautious. She was clearly curious, but also trying to work out whether I was a serious researcher or a harmless eccentric.

Once the coffee arrived, I opened my folder and carefully spread the documents across the table.

Catalina raised an eyebrow.

“You certainly came prepared.”

“I knew you might be skeptical.”

“That depends on what you’re about to tell me.”

I smiled.

“Fair enough.”

Rather than jumping straight into the unbelievable part of the story, I decided to begin with the facts.

“I’ve spent quite a while researching one of your ancestors. A woman named Doña Catalina de Mendoza who lived during the fifteenth century.”

She nodded immediately.

“The woman from the paintings.”

“Exactly.”

I handed her the reproductions.

She studied them carefully.

“It’s still strange,” she said after a moment. “The resemblance is remarkable.”

“It is.”

“And the same name.”

“That too.”

She laughed softly.

“My grandmother always used to say that our family recycled names far too often.”

I leaned back in my chair.

“Perhaps.”

The answer seemed to amuse her.

“Perhaps?”

“I have a feeling there may be more involved than simple coincidence.”

She gave me a questioning look.

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll understand later.”

That answer earned me another raised eyebrow.

“I hope so.”

Next I unfolded the family tree. The chart stretched across much of the table.

Catalina leaned forward immediately.

“Oh wow.”

I pointed toward the top.

“This is Doña Catalina de Mendoza.”

My finger followed the line downward.

“Then her daughter. Then her daughter. Then hers.”

Catalina followed along carefully.

Several moments passed before she noticed the pattern herself.

“Wait.”

She looked up at me.

“They’re all women.”

“Exactly.”

I nodded.

“Twenty-six generations. Every firstborn child in this direct line was female.”

She examined the chart again.

“That’s extraordinary.”

“It certainly caught my attention.”

Her eyes moved slowly down the generations until they reached the final entry.

Her own name. For a few seconds she stared at it silently. Then she looked at me.

“You traced all of this yourself?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head in disbelief.

“I still don’t understand why.”

“I know.”

She folded her arms and settled back into her chair.

“That’s the part I’m waiting for.”

For a moment I studied her face. Part of me wondered whether I should stop there. Everything I had shown her so far was supported by documents and historical records. The next part would be very different.

“You see,” I said carefully, “my interest in Doña Catalina de Mendoza wasn’t originally historical.”

Catalina frowned.

“What do you mean?”

I took a slow sip of coffee. Then I placed the paintings back on the table between us.

“The truth is that I knew who she was long before I discovered any of these records.”

Her expression changed immediately.

“How?”

There was no easy way to answer. I looked directly into her eyes.

“Because many years ago, before I ever found her name in a historical archive, I met her.”

Catalina stared at me.

The noise of the café seemed to fade into the background.

After several seconds she smiled uncertainly.

“You met a woman who died five hundred years ago?”

“Yes.”

The smile disappeared. And for the first time since our conversation had begun, I had her complete attention. Before continuing, I closed the folder and looked directly at Catalina.

“There are two ways we can do this.”

She waited silently.

“I believe that I am related to you.”

That statement alone was enough to make her blink in surprise.

I continued before she could interrupt.

“The simplest way to prove it would be through a DNA test. Modern science can answer that question much better than I can.”

Catalina folded her arms.

“And if you’re right?”

“Then we would have evidence that there is a biological connection between us.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Then you’ll have wasted an afternoon listening to a very strange man.”

That finally made her laugh.

“Fair enough.”

I smiled.

“The point is that you have a choice. If you’re the sort of person who requires proof before hearing something extraordinary, we can stop here. We arrange the DNA test tomorrow, wait for the results, and only then do I tell you the story.”

“And the other option?”

“You listen now.”

She studied me for several moments.

The noise of the café continued around us, cups clinking, conversations rising and falling, but neither of us paid much attention.

Finally she leaned forward.

“You certainly know how to create suspense.”

Then her expression became serious.

“You have my attention now.”

I remained silent.

“I can’t promise I’ll believe everything,” she continued, “but I can promise that I’ll try. We can still do the DNA test tomorrow if necessary.”

For the first time since entering the café, I felt genuinely relieved. That answer felt right. In fact, it was exactly the answer I had hoped for. I found myself smiling.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me.”

I hesitated.

“That sounds very much like something the other Catalina would have said.”

For a moment she looked uncomfortable, as if she wasn’t quite sure how to respond to being compared to a woman who had died five centuries earlier. Then curiosity won the battle.

“So,” she said, wrapping both hands around her coffee cup, “where does this story begin?”

I took a deep breath.

“With loss.”

The amusement disappeared from her face.

“Doña Catalina de Mendoza had an older sister whom she adored. According to the family records, the two were inseparable. They spent nearly all their time together.”

Catalina nodded.

“I remember reading references to a sister in some of the documents you sent.”

“Then you already know the important part.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died.”

The words hung between us.

“After that, everything changed.”

I paused for a moment before continuing.

“The Catalina I came to know never truly recovered from that loss. Her family watched her withdraw from the world. She stopped laughing. She stopped taking interest in the things she once loved. Day by day she seemed to retreat further into herself.”

“And then?”

“Eventually she fell into a coma.”

Catalina frowned.

“The historical records mention that.”

“I know.”

I looked at her carefully.

“When I met her, she had already been unconscious for eight months.”

A puzzled expression appeared on her face.

There it was again. The question she had been holding back ever since I claimed to have met a woman from the fifteenth century.

“When you met her?”

I nodded slowly.

“Yes.”

The café suddenly felt very quiet.

“Because that is where the impossible part of the story begins.”

I leaned back in my chair.

“One night I had a dream that somehow introduced Catalina to me. At the time it seemed little more than a strange but memorable dream. I saw a young woman walking towards me from far away. With every step she grew larger until her face filled my entire field of vision. Her eyes never left mine.”

“Come to me,” she whispered.

Then again.

“Come to me.”

And suddenly she was gone.

I spent the following nights trying to return to that dream, but no matter how hard I tried, it never happened. Eventually I stopped expecting it.

Then one afternoon, after lunch, I was dozing on a couch. I was drifting in and out of sleep when everything around me seemed to change. I found myself standing in a room beside an old wooden bed.

There she was. The same young woman from the dream.

At the time I thought she was simply sleeping. Only much later did I discover that she had actually been lying in a coma.

What happened next changed both our lives. My presence somehow awakened her awareness. Not her body, which remained motionless, but something deeper. Her soul had become restless during those long months of unconsciousness. It was a soul that desperately wanted to live. A soul trapped between worlds.

As Catalina later explained to me, she had been searching. Searching for someone who could hear her. Someone who felt as lonely as she did. Somehow she found me.

Perhaps I was receptive because there was an emptiness inside me as well. Whatever the reason, a connection formed between us that neither of us understood. From that day onward I lived two lives. One in the ordinary world. One with Catalina.

Whenever we met, the centuries between us simply ceased to matter. I told her stories about my world and showed her things that seemed impossible to someone living in the fifteenth century. She listened with endless fascination.

As time passed, our friendship deepened. Then it became something else. Something neither of us had planned. We fell in love.

Not the idealized love of poems and songs, but the kind that grows from truly knowing another person. We shared our hopes, our fears, our regrets, and our dreams. We became part of each other’s lives.

The strangest part was that our connection felt completely real. We were not merely spirits exchanging thoughts. Somehow the universe allowed us to experience one another as living people despite the centuries that separated us. Eventually that love changed both our destinies.

The historical records you have already seen confirm what happened next. Catalina became pregnant.

At the birth of her daughter, she awoke from the coma that had imprisoned her for so long. And at that exact moment, our connection ended forever. I never saw her again.

Later, when I began researching the Mendoza archives, I discovered what became of her. Since nobody could explain the child’s existence and no man had ever been found who could possibly have fathered her, rumours spread rapidly. People began speaking of a miracle. An immaculate conception.

In fifteenth-century Spain, many found that explanation easier to accept than any alternative.

Catalina became known as a holy woman. Pilgrims sought her blessing. She devoted herself to charity and prayer and never married.

For a long time I wondered why I could never reconnect with her. Then I finally understood. The restless soul who had reached across time looking for help was reunited with her body.

Catalina had her life back. She no longer needed me.

I looked across the table at Catalina and allowed the silence to settle between us.

Finally I smiled.

“So,” I said, “how are you doing?”

She stared at me. I could almost see her trying to decide whether she had just listened to the greatest love story ever told or the most elaborate piece of madness.

Then I shrugged.

“Can you believe the unbelievable?”

For several seconds Catalina simply stared at me. Then she shook her head slowly and laughed.

“I know one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I definitely want to do that DNA test now.”

I grinned.

“I thought you might.”

She pointed a finger at me.

“If this test proves you’re wrong, I’m going to spend the rest of my life telling people about the strange historian who tried to convince me that he met one of my ancestors in a dream.”

“Fair enough.”

“And if you’re right?”

I leaned back in my chair.

“Then things become considerably more interesting.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“How interesting?”

“You do realize that I am probably your twenty-six-times-removed grandfather?”

For a moment she looked completely speechless. Then she burst out laughing.

“I haven’t decided yet whether you’re a genius or completely insane.”

“Those two possibilities are not mutually exclusive.”

That earned another laugh.

---

The following day we arranged the test. Given the unusual nature of what I was claiming, I wanted the strongest evidence possible. Since the family line I had traced consisted of an uninterrupted succession of mothers and daughters, mitochondrial DNA was the obvious choice. Passed from mother to child through countless generations, it provided the best opportunity to verify the connection.

The waiting itself was surprisingly difficult. I had spent a long time researching. Yet when it came to the actual scientific proof, I found myself more nervous than I expected.

Catalina, meanwhile, seemed to enjoy teasing me.

“If the result is negative,” she messaged me, “I’m framing your family tree and hanging it on my wall as modern art.”

Two days later we met again. This time neither of us spent much time on small talk. The envelope sat on the table between us.

Catalina looked at it. Then at me. Then back at the envelope.

“You open it.”

“No, you open it.”

“You brought it.”

“And you’re the one whose life is about to become complicated.”

She laughed nervously.

In the end, we opened it together.

As my eyes moved across the report, a wave of relief washed through me. Not surprise. Relief.

The mitochondrial DNA results confirmed that we were related through the maternal line. After more than five centuries and countless generations, the connection was still there. Without doubt.

Catalina sat silently for a long moment as she read the report herself. Finally she lowered the papers and looked at me. Neither of us spoke. There was really nothing to say. The science had confirmed what history had suggested. I had never seriously doubted it. Yet seeing it in black and white was something else entirely.

Now I had proof. It confirmed that somehow, against all odds, Catalina and I were part of the same family story.

“Alright, Grandfather, what now?”

Catalina had been staring at the test results for several minutes. Even now she occasionally glanced down at the papers as if expecting the words to rearrange themselves into something more sensible.

I smiled.

“You’re taking this surprisingly well.”

“No, I’m not,” she replied. “I’m simply too shocked to know how I should be taking it.”

That made me laugh.

She folded the report and pushed it aside.

“Seriously. What happens now?”

I studied her for a moment.

“You are a very intelligent woman.”

“Thank you.”

“And I’m wondering whether you’re thinking the same thing I’m thinking.”

Her eyes narrowed immediately.

“Oh no.”

“What?”

“I know that look.”

“What look?”

“The look people get when they’re about to say something completely crazy.”

I laughed.

“Perhaps.”

For a few seconds she remained silent. Then she surprised me.

“You mean that I might be the reincarnation of the original Catalina.”

It was not a question.

I stared at her.

“That was exactly what I was thinking.”

“And are you hoping that’s true?”

The question caught me off guard. For a moment I did not answer. I simply looked at her. Those eyes. Those beautiful, questioning eyes. Eyes I had once looked into countless times in another life, another century, another impossible reality.

Without thinking, I reached out and gently brushed a loose strand of hair away from her face.

“Are you going to spoil it for me?” I asked quietly.

She did not pull away. Instead, she continued looking at me with an intensity that reminded me so much of the other Catalina. Finally she smiled.

“Carlos, I’m not an unbeliever.”

“No?”

She shook her head.

“There is a reason my life has never followed the path everyone expected.”

I remained silent.

“All my friends had boyfriends. Most of them found partners years ago. Some are already married. A few even have children.”

“And you?”

She shrugged lightly.

“I always felt as though I was waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“I never knew.”

The smile faded from her face.

“Maybe I was waiting for you.”

The words hung between us. Neither of us spoke for several moments. Then she continued.

“Maybe the soul of Catalina de Mendoza travelled through time and eventually became me.”

She laughed softly.

“Or maybe that’s just a romantic fantasy.”

“Those aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.”

“Perhaps not.”

Her fingers traced the rim of her coffee cup.

“You know what is strange?”

“What?”

“The moment I saw those paintings, I felt something.”

I felt my pulse quicken.

“What kind of something?”

“I don’t know.”

She smiled apologetically.

“I wish I could explain it better.”

“Try.”

“It felt familiar.”

I said nothing.

“Not like seeing a stranger who resembles you. More like looking at a photograph you somehow remember being present for.”

She looked out the café window for a moment before turning back to me.

“And now you’re sitting here telling me a story that should be impossible, yet every instinct I have tells me not to dismiss it.”

I leaned forward.

“So what are you saying?”

Catalina smiled.

“I am saying that I am a believer, Carlos.”

The warmth in her voice instantly transported me back centuries. For one brief moment I could almost hear another Catalina speaking through her.

She reached across the table and took my hand.

“Why don’t we keep meeting?”

I squeezed her fingers gently.

“To investigate the mystery?”

She laughed.

“No.”

“Then why?”

Her eyes sparkled mischievously.

“To see whether the old Catalina and the new Catalina are really the same person.”

“And if they are?”

She held my gaze.

“Then perhaps we have a very long conversation ahead of us.”

For the first time in many years, the future felt every bit as mysterious and exciting as the past.

“Alright,” I said softly. “For you, getting to know me is a new experience. I understand that.”

Catalina listened quietly.

“But you need to understand something as well. I already know who you are.”

A faint smile appeared on her lips.

“You do?”

“I do.”

I reached across the table and gently took her hand.

“For you, there may still be questions. There may still be doubts. You may need time to decide what all of this means. Whether it is destiny, coincidence, reincarnation, or simply the strangest story two people have ever shared.”

She squeezed my fingers.

“And for you?”

“For me, the decision was made a long time ago.”

Her eyes never left mine.

“I already know that you are very much the woman I loved. Not because of the paintings. Not because of the family tree. Not because of the DNA test.”

“Then why?”

“Because when I look into your eyes, I feel at home.”

For a moment neither of us spoke. The sounds of the café faded into the background.

“You don’t need to prove anything to me, Guapa.” (Pretty!)

A slight blush touched her cheeks.

“I don’t?”

I shook my head.

“No. I am already convinced that I want to be with you.”

The words seemed to settle gently between us.

“No conditions?”

“No conditions.”

“No tests?”

“Well, perhaps one.”

She laughed.

“And what test is that?”

“Whether you enjoy spending time with me.”

“That seems manageable.”

I smiled.

“Good.”

She looked down at our joined hands.

“And if I need time?”

“Then I will give you time.”

“And if I have doubts?”

“I will be there.”

“And if I never remember being Catalina?”

I thought about that question carefully.

Then I shook my head.

“Maybe that’s not important.”

She looked surprised.

“It isn’t?”

“No.”

I gently brushed my thumb across her hand.

“The woman I loved lived five hundred years ago. Nothing can change that.”

I paused.

“But the woman sitting across from me is alive today.”

A tear appeared in the corner of her eye.

“And which one do you love?”

“The same soul,” I answered. “Just a different chapter.”

For several moments she said nothing. Then she stood up from her chair and walked around the table. Before I could react, she wrapped her arms around me.

I held her close. Not because I had found someone from the past. I held her because, after searching, losing, grieving, and wondering, I had finally found hope again.

When she finally pulled back, she was smiling through her tears.

“So what happens now, Carlos?”

I stood and offered her my arm.

“Now we stop living in the past.”

She slipped her arm through mine.

“And start living in the present?”

“Exactly.”

Together we walked out of the café and into the bright Madrid afternoon.

The story of Doña Catalina de Mendoza had ended five centuries earlier.

But another story, perhaps the final chapter of the same soul’s journey, was only just beginning.

And this time, neither of us had to wait for a dream.

---

The first time Catalina came to our house for Sunday lunch, I had barely stepped through the front door with her when my mother appeared from the kitchen.

She looked at Catalina. Then at me. Then back at Catalina. A mischievous smile spread across her face.

“Well,” she announced, “Carlos’s dream girl has finally come alive!”

I nearly choked.

“Mum!”

Catalina, however, burst out laughing.

“Not quite,” she said. “But who knows?”

My mother immediately liked her. The two of them were chatting comfortably within minutes while I wondered whether bringing them together had been a brilliant idea or a terrible mistake.

Lunch passed pleasantly. My mother seemed determined to learn everything she could about Catalina without actually interrogating her. Catalina handled the attention with good humour and charm.

As we finished dessert, Catalina suddenly turned to me.

“Carlos, I think your mother deserves the full story now.”

I stared at her.

“The full story?”

“Yes.”

She smiled.

“Considering that she no longer needs to worry about having you committed to a mental institution.”

My mother laughed hard.

“At least not immediately.”

After lunch, the two women cleared the table together and disappeared into the kitchen to prepare coffee. I could hear them talking and laughing while I sat in the lounge wondering how exactly one explained a five-hundred-year-old love story to one’s mother.

A few minutes later they joined me carrying cups and a plate of biscuits.

My mother settled into her favourite armchair.

Catalina sat beside me on the sofa.

The tribunal was assembled.

“Alright,” my mother said. “Let’s hear it.”

So I began at the beginning. I told her about the dream. About the young woman who had walked towards me and filled my entire vision.

As the story progressed, my mother’s expression changed repeatedly between fascination, disbelief, confusion, concern, and amazement.

Several times she opened her mouth to interrupt, only to decide she wanted to hear what came next.

By the time I reached the part about the child, the historical records, the family tree, and the DNA results, she was simply staring at me.

When I finally finished, silence filled the room.

My mother looked at me for several long seconds. Then she looked at Catalina. Then back at me.

“You do realize,” she said carefully, “that this is the most unbelievable story I have ever heard in my entire life.”

“I know.””

My mother slowly turned toward Catalina.

“And what about you?”

Catalina placed her coffee cup on the table.

“What about me?”

“Do you believe all this?”

Catalina thought for a moment before answering.

When she finally spoke, her voice was calm and sincere.

“Mrs. Herrera, I consider myself a spiritual person.”

My mother nodded.

“I accept that there are many things in this world that we cannot explain. Things that science may eventually explain and perhaps some things that it never will.”

She glanced at me and smiled.

“That is why I did not reject Carlos’s ideas immediately.”

“And?”

Catalina folded her hands in her lap.

“To tell the truth, there was an immediate attraction when I met your son.”

I felt her hand gently touch mine.

“It wasn’t simply physical attraction. It felt different.”

My mother listened attentively.

“The best way I can describe it is familiarity.”

“Familiarity?”

Catalina nodded.

“As though I already knew him.”

She looked at me for a moment.

“It made no logical sense.”

Then she returned her attention to my mother.

“Most people spend months becoming comfortable with another person. With Carlos, much of that comfort already existed from the beginning.”

“And you think that’s because of this… previous life?”

Catalina smiled softly.

“I don’t claim to know the answer.”

My mother waited.

“But yes,” she finally said. “I believe it is a reasonable explanation.”

The room fell quiet again. My mother studied both of us. I could almost see her weighing possibilities.

At last she sighed.

“I still don’t know whether this story is impossible, miraculous, or completely insane.”

Catalina smiled.

“Perhaps it is a little of each.”

My mother looked at her and laughed.

“That’s probably the most sensible answer I’ve heard all afternoon.”

Then she reached across and squeezed Catalina’s hand.

“Whatever the explanation, I can see that you make him happy.”

Catalina squeezed back.

“And he makes me happy.”

My mother looked from one of us to the other. Finally she smiled.

“Then perhaps that is the only part of the story that really matters.”

And from that day onward, while she never stopped questioning parts of our extraordinary tale, my mother accepted that somehow, against all logic and probability, Catalina and I had found each other.

And in the end, that was enough for her.

---

The folded letter carried a warning written prominently across the front in elegant handwriting:

For Carlos Herrera, in the year 2026. May anybody else opening this letter be cursed for all eternity.

I stared at the words for a long time. The letter had survived for five hundred years. Even more astonishing was the fact that it had apparently reached its intended recipient. Me.

The archivist of the Mendoza family had contacted me only a few days earlier. During the years of my research into Catalina and the family history, we had become good friends. What had started as a professional relationship had gradually evolved into frequent conversations about genealogy, history, and the strange mysteries hidden inside old archives.

One afternoon he had called me with unusual excitement in his voice.

“Carlos, I think I have found something you need to see.”

“What is it?”

“A letter.”

A few days later I was sitting in his office, staring at the letter itself. The paper was yellowed with age but remarkably well preserved. The wax seal had never been broken.

“Nobody opened it?” I asked.

The archivist shook his head.

“Apparently not.”

“Because of the curse?

He smiled.

“In the fifteenth century people took such things seriously.”

“And later?”

“It was catalogued among thousands of family documents and forgotten. Nobody paid attention to it for centuries.”

He leaned back in his chair.

“Until I did.”

I carefully picked up the letter.

The handwriting on the front looked familiar even before I consciously recognized it. My heart began to race.

“You understand,” the archivist said, “that according to the instructions, you are the rightful owner.”

For several moments I simply held the letter. It felt unreal. For a long time I had searched for traces of Catalina. Now, for the first time, I was holding something she had personally written. Something intended specifically for me. The room suddenly felt very quiet.

“You aren’t worried about the curse?” the archivist asked.

I laughed softly.

“It is addressed to me.”

“Right.”

With slightly trembling fingers, I broke the ancient wax seal. The crack sounded surprisingly loud. Slowly I unfolded the paper. The scent of old parchment escaped into the air. Then I saw the handwriting.

I knew it instantly. Five hundred years had passed, yet there was no doubt in my mind. It was Catalina’s.

For a moment my vision blurred. All the wondering whether any of it had truly happened. And now I was holding a message she had written with her own hand. I took a deep breath, looked at Catalina who had come with me, and we began to read.

Mi amado Carlos,

If this letter has reached your hands, then God has been kinder to me than I ever dared hope. I do not know if this is possible. Yet I write it anyway. You always taught me that impossible things sometimes happen.

The day you disappeared was the saddest day of my life. One moment you were beside me, holding my hand as our daughter was being born. The next moment you were gone. I called your name. Again and again.

For many weeks after my recovery I searched for you in my dreams. Every night I prayed for your return. Every morning I awoke disappointed.

At first I believed I had somehow failed you. Then I feared that perhaps you had never existed at all. Yet my heart knew otherwise. Nobody can invent so many conversations, so much laughter, so many tears, and so much love. You were real.

Yes, Carlos. We have a daughter. She is healthy and beautiful. She has your eyes. Whenever she looks at me, I see you.

I named her María. You already know this, of course. Somehow I feel that you must.

Perhaps by the time you read this, she will have been dead for centuries. Perhaps her children and their children will have become countless generations.

That thought amazes me. It means that a part of you remains in this world. A part of us.

There is something else I must tell you. The people have called my daughter a miracle. Some called her blessed. Some call me holy.

If only they knew the truth. The truth is much simpler. I was loved. That is all.

Not by a messenger from heaven. I was loved by a man. A kind and patient man who came from a future I could barely comprehend.

The greatest miracle in my life was never María’s birth. It was meeting you.

You gave me back my desire to live. You rescued me from a prison that had no walls. When everyone else had given up on me, you spoke to me. And because of that, I returned.

I often wonder whether you eventually found happiness. I pray that you did. If you truly come from the future, then perhaps your life continued while mine grew old.

Perhaps you married. Perhaps you had children. Perhaps you forgot me. I hope not that last one.

I should be jealous of any woman who came after me, but strangely I am not. If she loved you, then I thank her. For nobody should live without the happiness you brought into my life.

As for me, I never married. Not because I lacked opportunities. God knows there were enough persistent men. But I remained faithful to your memory. Some thought me foolish. Others thought me virtuous. The truth was neither. I was simply in love.

Even now, many years later, I still speak to you sometimes. Old habits are difficult to abandon. Occasionally I imagine you listening. Perhaps you are.

You once told me that the universe was larger and stranger than people imagined. I believe that now. And if souls truly travel through time, perhaps we shall meet again. Not in dreams. But somewhere beyond the reach of clocks and calendars.

Until that day, know this: You were the great love of my life. You always will be. And if destiny grants us another meeting, whether in this world or the next, I shall recognise you immediately.

Your Catalina

Forever.

The letter ended there. A small stain marked the bottom corner of the page. Whether it had been caused by water, age, or a tear shed five hundred years earlier, I could not tell.

But as I sat holding the letter, unable to speak, Catalina de Rebollo quietly took my hand. Neither of us needed to say a word. We both knew that, somehow, the past had just spoken to us.

---

Years later, people would occasionally ask us whether we had ever discovered the truth. Was Catalina de Rebollo truly the reincarnation of Doña Catalina de Mendoza? Had a soul really crossed five centuries to find its way back to me? Had our daughter María somehow begun a chain of generations that eventually led the woman I loved back into my life?

The honest answer is that I do not know. No scientist could prove it. No priest could confirm it.

What I do know is this. Five hundred years ago, a lonely young woman trapped between life and death reached out into the darkness and found me.

We loved each other. We changed each other’s destinies. And when fate separated us, neither of us forgot.

Five centuries later, another young woman carrying the same eyes, the same smile, the same kindness, and perhaps the same soul, walked into a café in Madrid and sat down opposite me.

Whether she was the old Catalina reborn or simply the last and most beautiful consequence of our impossible love no longer mattered.

The dream Catalina had given me a lifetime of memories.

The living Catalina gave me a future.

And perhaps that was the universe’s final gift to us.

The first Catalina taught me that love can transcend time.

The second Catalina taught me that love can also begin again.

Sometimes, late at night, when Catalina is asleep beside me, I watch her for a few moments and remember another room, another century, and another Catalina sleeping on an old wooden bed.

Then she opens her eyes, smiles, and asks why I am staring at her. And for an instant the past and present become one.

I smile back and tell her the truth.

“I was just thinking how long I have loved you.”

And perhaps that is the only answer I will ever need.

The End