Jaguar Sun (Jaguar Sun Series Book 1)

by Martha Bourke

CHAPTER THREE

  “What the eff—” Lyssa said, gaping at my mark for, like, the fiftieth time. “That is just insane.”

  “Oh. My. God,” Damian said from the back seat. “Lyssa, I swear if you don’t put her hair down—”

  “Okay, you two, I’m trying to drive here, and we’ve still got another twenty minutes before we get to Grandma’s,” I said. Thank God it was Saturday. I’d been able to sneak out of the house before Dad got up and go see the twins. I had (barely) sat through their intramural soccer game. I always enjoyed watching the twins play on their varsity teams at school, but watching them play together on their intramural team was a whole different experience. When they played together, they were so in sync with one another it was like each one knew what the other would do before it even happened. It was incredible. It had been that way since they were kids. Sadly, today I was so damn stressed I was hardly able to focus on the game.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Damian said. “It’s incredible.”

  “Thanks. Let’s just hope my grandma can tell us something about it,” I answered nervously. Like, I didn’t already feel like a big enough freak? (I mean, the marks were beautiful and all, but a tree? Huh?)

  As always, the moment I walked into Grandma’s house and smelled the sweet scent of copal, I felt myself relax.

  “Mis mellizos!” Grandma greeted the twins affectionately. “Oh, Maya, honey,” she said, reaching out and pulling me into a long hug. “Come on, let’s all go in and sit down and you can tell me everything that’s happened.”

  After I told her about my dreams and showed her my mark, she smiled warmly. I needed to hear her reassuring words.

  “Well, it most certainly seems that you have phased, ts’unu’un. I’m afraid I can’t say why your mark is not of Balam, but I can tell you what it is. It is a ceiba tree. Our tribes consider it to be the Tree of Life. The branches represent the heavens above us, the trunk is our world, and the roots symbolize the Underworld.”

  I shivered when she said “Underworld.” I couldn’t help it. It just sounded so, well, evil.

  Damian noticed. “I don’t think she means Underworld in the malevolent sense,” he said. (What the hell? Ha!)

  “Damian, in English, please,” Lyssa said, losing patience.

  Grandma answered for him. “I think what Damian means is that the Mayan people regard each part of the tree as part of a whole,” she said. “The roots support the trunk, and the trunk supports the branches which hold up the sky. No one part is more important than any other. If you lost any one of them, the whole universe would collapse.”

  “Huh,” I said. I guess that made sense. “But why that instead of Balam?”

  “I honestly don’t know, ts’unu’un, but I’m sure that will be revealed in time. One thing we do know is that the ceiba tree is very important. It is at the heart of the Mayan people. We even plant one in the center of our villages. I think that having that mark means that you too will be very important.”

  “Me? But, Grandma, I don’t even know how to deal with being a shifter! I mean, it’s just a lot to take in. You know, they’re not all that accepted.”

  “I think your friends can help you quite a lot with that part.” She smiled at Damian and Lyssa who were both grinning like Cheshire Cats.

  “Don’t worry, honey, we’ll figure it out,” Damian said.

  “Yeah, we love you no matter what. You’re our girl,” Lyssa said.

  “You know,” Grandma said after a minute, “I know a woman who is both Mayan and a shifter. She’s older than me, and I think it might be helpful to have someone who knows what you are going through. She doesn’t live far from you. I’ll give her a call. In the meantime, I think you will find that if you commune with your nagual and honor it, you will sleep a lot better. I have some extra copal and the candles you’ll need. Let me go and get them.” She stood up and went into her kitchen.

  We sat quietly and waited for her to come back. I kept looking at the twins, wondering why they hadn’t run out of there screaming in terror. I mean, if I was horrified by all this, how could they not be? But then I reminded myself of what they’d both just said, and I felt like kicking myself in the butt for selling them so short. Jeez, I really needed to do something about my crappy self-image. Just then, Grandma interrupted my thoughts.

  “Here, honey.” She handed me a small box of copal resin and four different colored candles. “I also have some reading for you to do about the proper way to do a Mayan prayer. And I’m sending you with an incense stove. You know how smoky it can get with charcoal, and I don’t think that’s a very good idea for your bedroom.”

  “Your dad would love that,” Lyssa snorted.

  “Thanks, Grandma. I love you.” I choked up a little as she hugged me tight. I swallowed hard, but couldn’t seem to get rid of the lump in my throat.

  “I love you too, sweetheart. I really think this will help. Call me if you need anything.”

  I could feel my eyes burn as we walked out to the car. I refused to cry, but it was all I could do not to run back to the house and beg her to let me stay.

  “Are you gonna need help with your ritual?” Lyssa asked, looking up from the papers Grandma had given me.

  “Thanks, Lyss,” I said. “Actually, I kinda feel like I need to do this alone.”

  I also realized that I was going to have to find a handy spot to hide what Grandma had given to me, and I was definitely going to have to do it while Dad was out. I knew that there was no way he was going to be cool with any of this. Well, there went wearing my hair in a ponytail, not to mention tank tops. I mean, it was New Mexico. That was practically all I owned.

  As I dropped the twins off, they sweetly repeated their offer to help. I was really touched by it, but at the same time something inside me was telling me that this ritual needed to be private. I spent the rest of the ride home formulating a dinner plan.

  I went into the house and started dinner while Dad sat at the kitchen table catching up on his paperwork. He taught natural sciences at Western New Mexico University. That was yet another reason why I knew he wouldn’t understand about me. Scientists had been trying for years to find some kind of mutant gene or something to explain shape-shifting, and so far they hadn’t come up with anything. I mean nothing. I didn’t blame him in the least. His brain needed proof and there just wasn’t any. End of story.

  “That smells amazing,” Dad said, putting a pile of papers on the counter. “What’s for dinner?”

  “We’re having stuffed shells with sauce and garlic bread.”

  “Mmm, sounds great. I don’t know how you do it,” he said, as he smiled at me.

  “I don’t know either,” I muttered. “I like to cook. It relaxes me.” This was actually true. But I dunno. It was something about working with my hands. And even though Dad thought I was some kind of culinary genius, a lot of the recipes I used were ones that my loser-mom had left behind. (Guess they don’t eat in Las Vegas.) Grandma had given me quite a few over the years as well and—voilà! Instant teenage chef.

  “You headed out pretty early this morning,” Dad said. “Where were you off to?”

  “The twins had an intramural game this morning, and then I brought them up with me to see Grandma. They hadn’t seen her in months,” I added, “so they really wanted to go.”

  “Listen, honey, you don’t need to make excuses or give a reason for wanting to see Rosa. She’s an important part of your life. I don’t have a problem with it, you know that. Just make sure you stick to the weekend-only rule.”

  Yikes.

  “I know. I just...I feel bad about it sometimes, I don’t know, like I’m reminding you of things from the past that you’d rather forget.”

  “I know you do. You know, sometimes I worry about you. You have a tendency to want to take care of everyone around you except yourself.” He cleared this throat. “But I’m the adult around here. Let me worry about you for a change, okay?”

  “’Kay,”
I said. I knew he was right. And he really was a great dad. I mean, he basically had been both parents to me for most of my life. But I also knew it didn’t mean he would understand about me being a shifter. I just knew he wouldn’t. It would scare him. Hell, it scared me!

  It was also Saturday night, which meant he would be in the lab working on research. Which also meant tonight would be the perfect chance to work my first ritual. After dinner, I sat on my bed looking over Grandma’s instructions. It didn’t look particularly difficult. I don’t know why I was nervous. I’m not sure exactly what I thought was going to happen. I mean, we’re Catholic, and we went to mass, and mass is a ritual. It’s not like if you prayed to a saint he would just show up and introduce himself.

  Never having seen one before, I was kind of unsure about using the little incense burner. It was just a small tea candle with a little tray for the copal suspended above it. I set it on my desk (not having an altar), took three pieces of the resin out of the baggie, and placed them in the tray. Then I lit the candle. A minute or two later, I noticed that the copal had melted into a liquid. I began to smell its sweet scent.

  I went over to my window and opened it to be sure that any negative energy would have a way to leave my room. Then I stood next to the incense and placed my hands above the copal to let the incense purify them. I cupped my hands and wafted the incense toward the rest of my body as best I could. Then I began to recite the blessing that I had first heard my Grandma use when I was a little girl. I noticed that she had written in a few changes to the beginning on the sheet, so that it could be used for my specific purpose.

  “Balam,” I began, “you follow me in and out of shadows, a spirit that manifests in form. Knowing that your spirit is within me, guide me, great One.”

  I fidgeted for a moment as I tried to get my bearings and remember where north was so I could continue. Once I found it, I put the candles on my desk then placed each colored candle at its correct cardinal point. Then I turned toward the east. Lighting the red candle, I said, “Fire, you represent warmth and knowledge. May you bring me the gift of wisdom.” From there, turning north, I lit the white candle. “Air, you give us life. May we learn to live in harmony.” Next I faced west and lit the black candle, saying, “Earth, you give us stability. Lend me your strength so that I may do what must be done.” Then I turned to the south. I lit the yellow candle and said, “Water, you cleanse and purify. Give me the clarity to see through my emotions so that I may unite with my Nagual.”

  But I knew I wasn’t finished yet. Grandma had taught me that we had two souls: our human one and that of our nagual. My spirit was already soaring, as I concluded the invocations. “And may I be one with my Jaguar soul!”

  As the last words came out of my mouth, Balam’s face flashed before me several times. At first, this made me feel slightly dizzy, but after a moment, figuring I had just imagined it, I walked to my desk and blew out the candle to let the resin cool off and harden again. I felt lighter than I had in weeks. I walked into the bathroom and looked at the back of my neck in the mirror. It was strange. I was in such shock the first time I saw my mark, and I was so confused about why it wasn’t of my nagual. But now as I looked at it, it seemed more as though it was part of me. Like it belonged there. I was still curious about why it was different, but I didn’t feel stressed about it now. And, almost instinctively, I knew that Balam was sending me the strength to accept it as it was.