Starfields (5 page)

“The gods have sacrificed parts of their precious bodies,” Mauruch has said. “Therefore, blood and life must be given back.”

Every crevice of the cave fills with the sweet smoke of copal incense and with the ancient words of our chanting: O
Hunahpu Possum and Hunahpu Coyote, Great White Peccary and Coati, Sovereign and Quetzal Serpent, Heart of Lake and Heart of Sea, Creator of the Green Earth and Creator of the Blue Sky . . .

I hear a screech or groan or cry as an animal is sacrificed.

In the silence each shaman draws his own blood.

Mauruch comes to me and pierces my earlobes. I flinch at the sharp barb of a stingray spine, then breathe in time to the rhythmic dripping as Mauruch collects my blood.

The bloody leaves are mixed with resin and burned. The smell appeases the gods.

As the flames grow, through my bandages I see visions.

Mauruch senses this. “Tell me, Xunko,” he commands.

“The smoke is rising. It’s becoming a . . . a great serpent. And now . . .”

“Speak.” He grips my arm.

“The serpent has a tongue,” I say slowly. “On that tongue stands an ancestor.”

“And what does the ancestor tell us?”

“He sends his messengers. He sends Arrow Owl, One-Leg Owl, Macaw Owl, and Skull Owl with their burden.”

“And what is this burden, Xunko?”

“We are to beware. We are to step carefully. Perhaps even the Framer and Shaper of the Universe cannot prevent what lies ahead.”

R
osalba wove until shadows crept across the patio. After weeks of work, she had almost completed the front of the
huipil.
Soon she’d begin on the back, weaving and brocading everything in reverse, upside down.

Every now and then Nana checked the work, running her rough fingers over the threads. She pointed out areas where the work was fine and even, and places where the threads were bunched up.

When Adelina teased, darting back and forth, dancing underneath the loom where it was tied to the tree, Rosalba hardly looked up. Once the stiff, squarish figures of the Earthlord and his toad seemed to dance across the fabric. Rosalba put her hand over the threads, stilling the creatures. It was as though her weaving had brought them to life.

Close to her, Mama was brocading a new
huipil.
Like women throughout the hills, she was creating the story of the Flood. It wasn’t the floodwaters themselves that Mama wove, but rather the image of the Father-Mother, the two ancestors who’d lived through the disaster. Afterward, those two beings had planted corn, making possible the survival of humans.

Rosalba squinted at the designs in Mama’s
huipil.
Suddenly, she understood. The Flood was just like the disaster Alicia foretold. The Flood had destroyed the world.

“Mama! The Flood is the same as that 2012 prophesy!”

Mama smiled. “The Flood was a very long time ago, Rosalba. It has nothing to do with us today.”

“But if the world was destroyed before, couldn’t it happen again?”

Mama shook her head. “Don’t be troubled by such things, Rosalba.”

Mama was right. But still Rosalba wanted to tell Alicia about the connection. Maybe the writer of the book knew about the Flood.

She waited until Mama and Nana went to the tiny corn patch near the orchard, preparing it for planting. Adelina tagged along, dragging a digging stick.

Rosalba rolled up the loom, untied it from the tree, and bundled it into the house.

With the sun dangling low in the sky, Rosalba ran down the path toward Frog Heaven. Her heart tumbled in her chest. Her sandals slapped the soft dirt in time to her chant, “Be there! Be there! Alicia, be there!”

She passed girls herding sheep, muzzled so they wouldn’t eat holy corn on their way to pasture, their bells tinkling softly. She leaped over a small creek and continued on.

Finally, she reached the pool, where all was quiet. The water whispered soft secrets. Birds flitted in the branches of the tall pines, slowing down, getting ready to nest. Frogs sang their evening songs.

But Rosalba dashed about, peering down into the hollows, into the shadowy places where the ferns grew. “Aliciaaa!” she called. She cupped her hands around her mouth: “Aliciaaa!”

The tiny house still stood. The nubby little pyramid pointed skyward. But her new friend wasn’t there. With darkness falling, there was no sense in staying.

As Rosalba ran back along the path, bats swooped over the cornfields. On a turn, she lost her sandal. She had to search on hands and knees — feeling the icy breath of a spook on the back of her neck — until she found the shoe flung into the high grass.

After running, slowing to catch her breath, then running again, she saw the huts of the village, glowing with the light of cooking fires. When she turned onto the tiny path that led to her hut, Papa suddenly blocked the way, standing with his hands on his hips.

“Rosalba! Where have you been!”

By his voice, she could tell he was still hungry, still exhausted from the cornfield. There was no chance of escaping his notice now, of lying low. “I — I . . .” What could she say?

Mama came to stand behind Papa, and, from far off, Rosalba heard Adelina’s wail.

“Answer me, Rosalba!”

Rosalba stood below him on the steep path, eye level with his feet. She drew herself taller. “I went to find my friend.”

“Who is this friend? Sylvia would never go into the forest at night.”

“She’s a
ladina,
” Rosalba said in a small voice.

“A
ladina
?” echoed Papa.

Mama stirred behind him.

“Yes,” said Rosalba firmly. “She came with the men.”

“And you went off to see this
ladina,
” Papa said the word scornfully, “in the dark, leaving us all worried?” He broke off a small branch.

Rosalba stepped back.

“Don’t, Gerardo,” said Mama, grasping Papa’s arm. “At least let her tell us about it.”

Papa turned abruptly, bumping against Mama.

At the patio, Adelina ran to Rosalba and clung to her, still sniffling. “You went forever!” she cried.

Mateo and Anselmo ate silently, hunched over their plates.

As Papa pulled a chair close to the fire, a log popped, sending sparks into the night.

“Tell us, Rosalba,” Mama said softly.

“My friend’s name is Alicia.” With a sudden feeling of pride, Rosalba undid the butterfly barrette from her hair. “She gave me this.”

Adelina grabbed at the clip, but Rosalba held it out of reach.

Papa took the barrette, and held it so it winked in the firelight. Suddenly, Rosalba was afraid he’d keep it. Oh, why had she called attention to it? But he passed it to Mama, muttering, “Just a cheap thing.”

“Let me see, too,” said Mateo. He turned the barrette this way and that.

“Alicia is the one who told me about the world ending,” Rosalba went on.

Mateo handed the barrette to Anselmo.

Rosalba watched anxiously as Anselmo opened and shut the barrette many times. He mustn’t break it!

Papa crossed his arms over his chest. “That prophesy is
ladino
nonsense. Those
ladinos
are always coming here to spread foolish rumors. I forbid you to see that girl again. You are not to leave the village without your mother.”

Papa’s words hit Rosalba like a shower of cold hailstones. Her world closed in as in a heavy storm.

Mateo brought the battery-powered radio from the hut and set it on the table, next to the kerosene lamp. He turned the dials until the scratchy voice of the news reporter from Guatemala City spoke into the night.

When Anselmo gave back the barrette, Rosalba fastened it onto her waistband, out of sight.

As she helped with the dinner tortillas, her heart was as heavy as a river stone. What would Alicia think when she never came to Frog Heaven again? Now she would never see the camp or the frogs. She wiped her tears with the edge of her shawl.

Papa hated
ladinos
because they’d once tried to seize Mayan land. But Alicia wasn’t to blame for that.

The radio now played the loud
oompah, oompah
of polka music. But even that happy sound with a strong beat couldn’t lift Rosalba’s heavy heart.

One day when Mauruch serves me the bitter drink, strange visions parade behind my eyes.

I see what has not yet happened.

The great cities of Tikal, Palenque, of Uxmal and Chichén Itzá — empires in the four directions — appear before me, swallowed up by the jungle, by great winding vines and roots that muscle their way into the cracks between the stones, rending the temples asunder. Under the stone blades, entire forests are felled. The rain clouds withhold themselves, the cornfields die, and the masses cry out with hunger. Men war under the hot glare of K’in.

To appease the furious gods, thousands of blue- painted men, women, and children are thrown into the morning-glory – blue
dzonot
s. Each is a gift for the gods, descending into the watery Underworld.

Even so the sky remains desiccated: the gods will not be appeased.

The cities of the empire fall silent.

The next time I swallow the bitter brew, I see our people living, not in their magnificent cities, but in simple huts scattered through the jungle.

This cannot be! I squint, but the same scene presents itself time and again.

“Is this all true?” I ask Mauruch. “Will this be true?” For I cannot imagine our great stone civilization falling. “Have others foreseen this calamity?”

Mauruch remains silent.

Before my eyes the codices unfold, the sacred texts of our people. In the blue, black, and red glyphs, the fall of the Great Empire is foretold.

Our rituals grow longer as we pray harder to Chac, the rain god; to Kinich Ahau, the sun god; and to Yum Cimil, the god of death. When Mauruch pierces my tongue, he draws a rope with a barb on it through the hole, releasing a plethora of blood.