Starfields (10 page)

As with all the other times, Mauruch removes the bandage as if he is going to merely wash my face. “Don’t open your eyes yet, Xunko.” His voice is firm.

He washes my face, my eyes, with a fragrant hot towel.

“And now,” he commands.

I open my eyes for the first time. Colors swirl before me. Instead of being flat, the world surrounds me. I can make no sense of it. Someone grips the back of my head.

“Focus here. Only here,” orders Mauruch.

My gaze falls on a sacred text, a codex linked to the heavens. My fingers close around the cover of jaguar skin.

As Mauruch fans open the codex, my eyes marvel at the thick red frames of the pages, at the red, black, and blue glyphs — pictures that tell the story of the world.

At last Mauruch stops unfolding. He points to one section. A symbol like an eye and the bars and circles of the Long Count march across the page. Having seen these symbols behind my eyes, with ease I now read the numbers they represent. These symbols indicate the number 13.0.0.0.0. The date is the end of the final Big Cycle. The day the world will end.

I shiver in horror.

“This you must know, Xunko,” says Mauruch. “Now you may gaze upon all that has been hidden.”

Instead of being confined to the small space of my head, the world blooms around me. I see Mauruch’s lined face and the others with their painted faces, their jewelry. The oil lamps, the fires, the cave, the turquoise waters of the
dzonot.

When I reach to touch what I see, often my fingers meet with nothingness. The world extends in every direction, larger than I expected.

To my astonishment, people and objects grow larger and smaller, then larger again. As though by sorcery.

I want to study this place forever, home for my small lifetime.

But Mauruch says, “Prepare to leave.”

A
s the thunder rolled on down the valley and the downpour let up, Rosalba made her way home, her shawl wrapped tightly around her head. Her thoughts turned to her papa, who would have come down from the cornfield long ago. This time, Mama might not be able to stop him from punishing her. Rosalba could almost feel the sting of the branch across her bare legs.

As she ran, a new thought came to her: the bulldozer man had said that perhaps the road would go all the way into the mountains. She glanced toward the Earthlord’s cave, shrouded in mist. If the men built a road up there, they might kill the singing toad. Then the Earthlord wouldn’t want to live there anymore. And without him, everything would change.

She couldn’t afford to be afraid of Papa or of anyone else. Rosalba strode over to the men’s hut, where the firelight seeped through the cracks. She called through the blanket: “Papa!”

She heard footsteps, and Papa drew back the blanket. He stood in the doorway, lit from behind by the fire. He held a sandal in one hand and a large needle and thread in the other.

On the other side of the fire, Mateo and Anselmo whittled sticks with pocketknives, the shavings drifting into the flames.

Papa squinted at her. “Where —?”

Rosalba held up a hand, saying, “Wait, Papa! A terrible thing is happening!” She held his eyes, refusing to look away.

Papa hesitated, then gestured for her to step into the hut. The air smelled of sweet pine smoke.

As Rosalba moved into the light of the fire, she said, “The
ladinos
are making a road from the highway to San Martín.”

At those words, the boys looked up.

Papa plunged the needle into the strap of his sandal. “How do you know this?”

“I saw it. I saw the bulldozer working. I heard the men say so.” The rain picked up, drumming on the thatched roof. “The road is killing frogs.”

Papa gave a sharp tug to the thread. “Those
ladinos
are trying to take our land again. The road will help them do that.”

Rosalba hadn’t thought of that possibility. She glanced at the photograph of Papa and Mama with the black
pasamontañas
worn across their faces, and at Papa’s gun from the Zapatista days tucked under the blankets.

“Ouch!” Anselmo cried out. He’d nicked his finger with the pocketknife.

Was Papa right? Would the
ladino
soldiers and their green helicopters really come again? She had no idea, but if Papa believed such a thing, he might make a good ally. “We have to stop them, Papa!”

“But wouldn’t a road be good?” asked Mateo. “We could buy a truck and ride back and forth to town. . . .”

Anselmo sucked his finger.

“They’re building a road right to the Earthlord’s cave!”

Mateo shrugged. “Easier to get to the festivals.”

“Your sister’s right,” muttered Papa. “A road wouldn’t be good.”

“If you want stupid roads,” said Rosalba, glaring at her brother, “you should go live in town.” With that, she slipped out into the rain, letting the blanket drop behind her.

We shamans walk out of the cave into the night.

The visible world, even in the darkness of a moon-dark night, is too much to bear. As I walk, objects loom larger. When I look behind me, they have grown small again. This shape-shifting unsettles me. I shut my eyes and walk blind, as I have done my whole life.

The night surrounds us with the husky croaks of frogs, with the long, slippery hoots of the owls. Each of us carries his own silence.

Hearing the slap of water against a shore, I open my eyes to the bottomless lake that has manifested in my dreams. Our group draws closer.

At one with our ritual silence, others greet us by starlight. By their painted faces, I know them to be fellow shamans. From a hiding place in the tree roots, two bring a canoe.

Mauruch climbs into the canoe, and beckons me until I join him. He dips the oars into the water, propelling us forward into the lake. All on the shore grows tiny.

When we arrive in the middle, Mauruch stops rowing and sits motionless. The boat stills.

I look up into the blazing starfields. They are hotter, sharper, whiter than what I have seen behind my eyes. Each tiny point streams through my eyes, filling my body with light.

Some say the wide band of stars is the road along which souls walk to the Underworld. Others call it the World Tree — roots in the Underworld, branches in the heavens — or the White-Boned Serpent.

For the first time, I look upon the three stars that form the Hearth of the Heavens: the Jaguar Throne, the Snake Throne, and the Water Throne.

From his bag, Mauruch pulls a young coconut, cupping it in both hands. A small hole is drilled in the firm green husk. He hands this husk to me.

I shake my head. With eyes to see the world, I don’t need the drink.

“You need to witness more than this world, Xunko,” Mauruch says softly, uttering the night’s first words. “Much more.”

I take his drink to honor his wish. I find it sweet and cool, pleasant on my tongue. I feel no need to retch, and the potion moves into me quickly, powerfully. I lose contact with the wooden canoe, the water around us. Above me the starfields swirl, forming a great whirlpool in the sky.

The whirlpool darkens, a funnel of black in the black night. The tunnel stretches down to the earth, down to the lake, the base hovering over our canoe.

The head of a serpent, eyes glittering, emerges from the tunnel. It stretches its head down to the lake, as if to drink, unfurling its black tongue.

When the tongue comes looking for me, I cringe backward in the canoe.

“Sit up, Xunko,” Mauruch commands. “Not sacrifice, but this serpent is your destiny.”

I think of the ancestors astride the tongues of the smoke serpents. Am I to become an ancestor tonight?

“Go into him, Xunko,” says Mauruch.

And those are the last words I hear.

T
he next night after supper, Papi invited his brothers to join him around the fire. Tío Miguel, with his fat little stomach, and Tío Josue, his hair cut in a straight line across his forehead, had both been Zapatistas along with Papa.

Sitting at the edge of the firelight, Rosalba tried to imagine the three men in black ski masks, marching down the pine-needled trails, shouldering rifles. Surely, these three could defeat the new enemy of the bulldozer.

They passed a gourd of sugarcane beer among them.

“We have to stop those men!” said Papa, lighting a cigarette.

“But how?” asked Tío Miguel. “They have all the power.”

“Not
all
the power. I have an idea.” Smiling, Papa lifted the gourd.

Rosalba cupped her hands around her ears. What clever plan had Papa devised?

“I’ll pour sugar in the gas tank of their bulldozer,” he declared. “That’ll ruin the engine.”

The fire crackled in response, sending up a spray of orange sparks. Rosalba felt her own heart spark as well. What a great idea! So simple! There would be no more arguing with those men. A little bit of sugar and the piece of government paper would be useless.