Mayan December

by Brenda Cooper

  Peter had come with them. Sort of. He had walked here with his screen in front of him, staring at it so intently Nix had to run interference so he wouldn’t bump into a pole or anything. “What’s going on?” Alice asked him.

  Ian, who had come up beside her, asked, “Are aliens about to land?”

  “Huh?” Peter shook his head absently. “No. Okay, I mean, maybe, but only the weirdest people think so. That doesn’t have anything to do with the data. It must have originated tens of light years ago. We probably go through it at the end of every baktun, but we never had computers to get it before. So maybe no one got it.”

  “So that’s not where the Mayans learned science?”

  “How would I know?” Peter glanced up at her. “Maybe. Okay? We’re just now even learning it exists.”

  Good. She’d been afraid he’d leap to conclusions. She didn’t want to either—she was still a scientist. She glanced at the Mayans. She was. Really.

  Ian said, “We know they didn’t have computers, but what about just people? Could people get some of this? Like if they had taken mind-altering substances?”

  “How would I know?” Peter repeated himself. He grinned. “Hell—you’re the expert on that.”

  Ian cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.

  Peter continued. “There’s talk of building a probe to go sit in the data and read it. It’s a total mystery how it’s such a tight beam. It should be bigger than our solar system, but it’s not even as big as little bitty Earth.” He looked at Alice apologetically.

  She laughed. “That’s okay Peter. I like science mysteries more than supernatural mysteries.”

  Peter nodded at Ah Bahlam and Hun Kan, who sat close together, chattering quickly and quietly. “You seem to have a few of each.”

  “No kidding.” She needed to do something normal, to ground, and think. “We’ll need food.” She supposed she and Ian were still in charge, like the night of the sacbe. And she wanted Ian where he wouldn’t disappear. “I’ll go to the stalls and get us food and water. I’ll take Nix.” She glanced at Ian. “Can you stay here and watch over everyone?”

  “I’m not leaving Hun Kan,” Nix snapped. Then she tempered her words with a pleading smile. “Please?”

  Alice hesitated. She’d trapped herself. She didn’t want to be anyplace different than Nixie, ever. “All right, I’ll go.” She took Ian’s hand. “You’ll keep her safe?”

  Ian nodded. “But take Alan.”

  “I’m not the one you’re trying to guard.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  She blushed.

  CHAPTER 53

  As soon as her mom left, Nixie raced over to Ian. “Come help me. I have to talk Hun Kan into staying here.”

  He pursed his lips and didn’t budge.

  She tugged on his arm. “Come on, Ian.”

  He still didn’t budge.

  Only after she stopped tugging on him did he kneel down a little and look her in the eyes. “I’ll go with you to talk to Hun Kan, but I will not try to convince her to change her mind. I’ll translate questions you have for her, but I won’t translate orders or demands. Do you understand?”

  She glared at him. It couldn’t be right for Hun Kan to die! She knew that was what the priest planned. She’d known it since she dreamed her way into the little hut Hun Kan had been locked away in.

  She couldn’t let that happen. But she couldn’t even talk to Hun Kan without Ian. She dropped her eyes. “All right. Questions it is.”

  Hun Kan and Ah Bahlam both smiled as Nixie and Ian came up and sat close to them. She knew what her first question was going to be, so she spoke it as soon as she sat down. “Do you like it here?”

  Ian spoke in Mayan. Ah Bahlam answered him briefly, then Ian spoke again, looking directly at Hun Kan this time. Hun Kan met Nixie’s eyes, then looked around at Chichén Itzá. From here, they could just see the top of the Temple of K’uk’ulkan washed in the gold of the sun’s last direct rays for the evening. After she answered, Ian said, “She likes to see you. She thanks you for choosing her for a friend. She does not like this empty place. Much of the power has leaked from it.”

  Nixie swallowed. Okay. She could believe that. “Is she safe if she goes home?”

  She watched Hun Kan as the Mayan words went two ways between the girl and Ian. “How can she not be safe in her home, in her path? She asks, is she safe here?”

  Nixie swallowed. “She will not be sacrificed here.”

  Cauac came over and he and Hun Kan and Ah Bahlam spoke together in Mayan, leaving Nixie out of the conversation. She settled for watching the quetzal sit on Ah Bahlam’s shoulder, hoping they’d finish soon so she could ask Hun Kan more questions.

  When they started chattering with Hun Kan, Nixie coaxed Julu onto her shoulder, wincing as his feet dug into her. But she could take it. She’s given blood for sacrifice.

  Eventually Ian turned to Nixie.

  “Will you answer a question from Hun Kan?”

  Nixie nodded.

  “How do you please the gods?”

  She didn’t. No one did, not really. Well, maybe some. But she wasn’t sure she believed in any gods. “Tell her . . . tell her some people pray and go to church, but they do not kill each other for the sake of the gods.”

  Ian raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking me to lie?”

  She pursed her lips. Wars. Terrorism. Demonstrations. “Well, we don’t perform human sacrifices.”

  He still looked at her.

  He knew what she meant! “We don’t. Not like the Mayans. We don’t cut the hearts from people!”

  His jaw relaxed and he smiled at her. “Sorry, Nix. Maybe I’m over-sensitive.”

  Ah Bahlam looked at Nixie as Ian spoke, and stopped him to ask questions.

  Hun Kan watched the exchange between the two men silently before speaking her piece to Ian.

  Hun Kan’s answer, from Ian’s lips was, “We all die.” He had another question for Nixie. “Why did you come to me?”

  Nixie and Hun Kan looked at each other. A tiny spark of distrust seemed to fester in Hun Kan’s eyes, something Nixie had never seen there before. She scooted over closer and took Hun Kan’s hand, rubbing it gently, trying to erase the distrust. Her hands turned bluer, Hun Kan’s cleaner. If only she could talk to her friend directly! “Tell her I don’t know. I just . . . heard her cry on the beach in Tulum all the way from my time and I knew I had to see who was crying. And it was her. And then I dreamed about her and I had to find her. Ask her if she’ll stay here with me. She could go to school, learn English. I’m sure mom would let her stay. She could help mom with her studies.”

  Ian shook his head softly. “I’ll ask, but don’t expect to hear the answer you want.”

  As Ian talked, Hun Kan’s hand tightened on Nix’s hand. She looked at Nixie as she spoke the Mayan words to Ian. When he translated he said, “She is glad you came to her. She will follow her own path because she has to. Perhaps when you are as old as she is—seventeen summers—you will understand. In the meantime, she has a last question for you, but she doesn’t want you to answer it. She wants to know what you can learn from her.”

  Being treated like a goddess had been easier than being treated like a kid sister. Nix swallowed, feeling hot tears behind her eyes. For Hun Kan, who might die? Or for herself, who might lose a friend? Her eyes slid away from Hun Kan and down to the grass between them. “Tell her thank you and good luck. I will think about her question. I hope she stays here and I can see her again for many more days.” She squeezed Hun Kan’s hand, and then stood, managing to turn away from all of them before the first tears splashed down her cheeks.

  Maybe she was just tired. Maybe too much was going on.

  She went and sat by Peter, staring at the pictures on his computer screen until they finally sharpened as her eyes dried.

  CHAPTER 54

  Alice stared at the food in the cafeteria-style line. Sandwiches and cheese sticks wrapped tightly in plastic. Apples, which
were surely grown in some other country. To make it worse, the place was picked over and expensive. What did Mayans eat nine hundred years ago? She didn’t see any fish or peccary jerky or wild birds hanging.

  A Mexican market in town would have better choices.

  Alan stood beside her, stoic in the crowd, more watchful than a guard dog. She didn’t feel as much protected as kept. At one point she tried to hand him a few bottles of water to carry and he stepped back, looking slightly regretful.

  Probably needed to keep his hands free in case terrorists tried to attack her, the half-crazy scientist.

  She finally settled for some too-brown bananas, a plastic container of ceviche, ten Mexican pastries, plus seven lukewarm hamburgers for the rest of them. As she rang out, she frowned at the idea that nothing—nothing—in the deli at the market at Chichén Itzá had anything she was sure anyone who lived here when the city was alive would even recognize as food.

  What if she made them sick? What if whatever they did turned to a modern-day version of smallpox? God. Ian wasn’t here to ask what he’d been feeding Cauac. At least she could still hear the announcer’s voice faintly, even this far from the Ball Court. The game was still going, in spite of the way the light had fallen to half.

  Maybe that was why Alan had played strong and silent the whole trip. “Sorry you had to miss the end of the ball game.”

  He shrugged, his face stoic. He was tall and dark, young enough to be one of her students. After they left the larger part of the crowd behind them, he finally took one of Alice’s bags. “Who are those people? The old men? The blue woman and her boyfriend? The couple with the funny heads?”

  That’s right. The Secret Service hated secrets. “They’re . . . indigenous. From Mayan colonies deep in the jungle, come in for the end of the calendar. I met them on a dig.”

  “We can’t find any information about them.”

  “They probably don’t have any ID.”

  “It’s a law. They have to.”

  He sounded so earnest she had to laugh. “Tell them that. They probably won’t understand you.”

  He lapsed into silence. They’d had to ID her and everyone she knew. People like Oriana and even Nixie probably would never have gotten close to Marie if they hadn’t come up as tangents in the interviews she’d had with the security goons.

  “Look,” she said, “They’re safe enough. I’ll vouch for them.”

  He didn’t bother to answer her.

  It would be full dark soon. Alice wandered through the small camp they’d become, picking up leftover scraps of the meal. After all her worry, the Mayans had refused food, and entertained themselves with a water bottle each.

  Peter hunched over his computer, looking up from time to time. Oriana, who had just joined them, knelt beside Peter. Nixie sat beside them, watching Ah Bahlam and Hun Kan more than she watched the screen. The quetzal sat on Nixie’s shoulder, its tail nearly touching the ground.

  Why wasn’t Nixie with Hun Kan? The look on her face didn’t imply any desire for motherly intervention, so Alice let it go.

  Cauac and Don Thomas watched the sky from prone positions, chattering so softly in Mayan she wouldn’t have been able to tell what they were saying even if she understood the Mayan of everyday things. As she came near them, she noticed both men were smiling Ian-smiles, as if all was right with the world. They might have been two best friends who’d known each other all their lives.

  Ah Bahlam and Hun Kan sat close together, Ah Bahlam’s arm extended down behind Hun Kan’s back. She leaned against him, the set of their bodies a touch awkward. They whispered together from time to time.

  Alan and David paced circles around them all, border collies unhappy with the vulnerability of their flock.

  Ian whispered at her. “Sit down.”

  He patted the ground beside him. She made another whole circuit, just as bad as Alan and David, and probably driving them crazy.

  When she did sit down, Ian said “You remind me of a nervous cat. Back on the white road, when we stayed the night, you said you wanted to remember magic.”

  That wasn’t exactly what she’d said, but it was close. “I’m not doubting it tonight.” She glanced at Ah Bahlam and Hun Kan again. “But I’m no longer sure tomorrow will just be another day.”

  “Of course it will. It just might not be the day you expected.”

  How come everyone here, even Nixie, seemed to just accept that everything they knew had turned to dust and copal smoke? “Doesn’t that scare you?”

  He nodded toward the two shamans giggling together in the grass. “Live in the now. This moment, this night. It won’t ever come again. And we have a piece of destiny here. You know that.”

  “Me? Or Nix? Or the Mayans?”

  “Maybe everyone. Whatever it is, accept it.”

  She closed her eyes, feeling a bit dizzy. She couldn’t deny that she was scared, deeply scared, scared in every nerve and cold with fear, but she was also excited. And awed. Like the day she first climbed the Temple of K’uk’ul’kan and sat on the bleached white step at the top of the narrow stairs, looking down on the huge Temple of the Warriors. This was that feeling.

  “Relax,” Ian said, his voice soothing. “Breathe with me.”

  She breathed in. He held his breath for a moment, and she held hers, a little off-time to him. Again. Again. And then they were breathing together and watching the stars and being silent. They leaned toward each other, palms on the ground, their thumbs touching. They probably looked as awkward as the young Mayans. She didn’t care. It felt good to have him near, even though she didn’t want to talk about it. Not yet. Maybe after whatever was going to happen did happen.

  But maybe she’d never see him again after tonight.

  Maybe it was okay not to know.

  The announcer’s voice began to sound from every PA system in the place. “The game is over and has resulted in a draw. As the ancient Mayans would have said, the ball of the sun did not travel through the hoop of the sky this night.”

  Ian laughed. “It didn’t look to me like any of the players were good enough to get the ball through. They shouldn’t have been so authentic. A lighter ball might have worked.”

  Alice smiled wryly. “Games didn’t often play to a draw, but there was a paper by a grad student, Lisa something or other, last year. She suggested a draw outcome means the balance between Earth and Sky is off and large changes are needed in the spiritual life of the community.”

  “Ah. Appropriate for an age of climate disaster and terrorism.” He glanced at his watch. “The schedule’s screwed. There was supposed to be an hour between the game and dark for people to shop in.”

  She shrugged. “Mayan time. I bet they wanted a win for the news networks and played until it was too dark to see.”

  The announcer continued, “Please take a seat. Please extinguish all lights, and become silent. You are about to witness the true end of the Mayan calendar as we know it.” The voice switched to Spanish.

  The announcements had been pre-recorded, modulated to be calming, voices from before data fell from the sky or people traveled between times. They were all together now, everyone in one place and time, unless you counted the three old Mayans as out of place.

  She wondered what they thought.

  The announcer switched to a new message. “This is the time the ancient texts of the Mayan people foretold. The beginning of a new world. A world of healing and magic. A world without war. These are the things the ancient Mayans promised for the start of this baktun. Some say they even prophesied the very chaos that has come before this day. Some say the Mayans predicted climate change and world wars.”

  Claptrap. The Mayans were as muddy about this transformation as the Christians were about the Book of Revelations. The timing was universally clear in Mayan science, but the outcomes and signs had been portrayed differently at different sites.

  Alice squeezed Ian’s hand as the disembodied voice flipped to Spanish. She put her head on
his shoulder and he turned a little and lifted her chin. In a soft, thick voice he said, “Kiss me.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because I’m a good kisser and this might be the end of the world.”

  He didn’t mean the part about the end of the world, but he was right about the rest. She was still kissing him as the announcer said, “The lights will go out in two minutes.”

  She didn’t stop until the artificial lights did go out, setting the sky ablaze with starlight.

  CHAPTER 55

  Ah Bahlam gasped as the cross of the world hung above him. The astronomers had spoken of the ending of the age and Cauac had told him and Hun Kan they were in that time. He had believed his teacher, but the blazing sky symbol shocked him anyway. The dark center was black as the void.

  “We’re here,” Hun Kan’s voice was the wind of beauty, thick with awe.

  He smiled, shaking the strangeness of this fast talking place from his head. “What does it mean that we two are here?”

  She held his hand. “It must be a gift, a reminder to us to do our duty at home, to follow our path and create harmony.”

  He bristled. Her blue skin reminded him of her idea of duty. “Maybe we are brought to this strange and dead Chichén to see the result of the path we follow now. My Way has been urging change. The jaguar challenged the high priest! Surely this is more of that message.”

  She turned to look at him, her eyes dark pools in the darkness, the reflected stars of the great cross scattered across them. She had never looked so like a goddess. “I prayed last night. After you left. I prayed to Ixtab.”

  The suicide goddess, the one goddess he didn’t want her to think about, or follow. He held his tongue, though, and let her go on.

  “I prayed to Chaac also, asking for his help. I prayed to K’uk’ulkan. I asked them all for help.”

  “And what did they tell you?”