by M. G. Harris
. . . for a BIG surprise, Josh. Montoyo has a plan. I’m sworn to secrecy. Just to annoy you, I’m gonna join in with his little game.
So, do nothing till you hear from me.
“Meninha”
J-Mariposa says. . .
Woo, mysterious. . .
“Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me” . . . that’s a song, did you know? By Duke Ellington. Another of my dad’s favourites. I guess I’m never forgetting stuff like that.
Meninha says. . .
Why would you want to forget things your father showed you? Like it or not, he’s part of who you are.
I don’t hear from Ixchel over the next few days . . . which stretch to a week, then eat into the following week. Maybe I’m taking it too literally – do nothing till you hear from me.
Well, whatever. Can’t have the girl thinking I’ve got a thing for her, which she might if I emailed for no reason. . .
The time arrives to pack for Brazil. Me, Tyler, my mum, Benicio; we’re all flying to the beach resort of Natal for the World Capoeira Championships. Sun, sand, sea and the land where capoeira was invented. Mum’s been getting right into it; she’s been showing me YouTube videos and everything.
“Children practise capoeira right there on the beach!” Mum tells me in a tone of discovery.
I just sigh. Mum, I know. . . Haven’t I been going on about capoeira for two years now? Nice that she finally takes an interest.
The afternoon before we leave, Mum drives us all up to Shotover Country Park. For some reason we haven’t taken Benicio there yet. I’m pretty sure Benicio must be fed up with my mum insisting he spend every weekend learning something new about life in Oxford. I told her he’d be happier hanging out with some Oxford Uni students. But does she listen. . .?
The car park is almost full when we arrive – it’s a typical family weekend type of outing. Most people disappear straight into the woods, following one of the walking trails. Tyler and I walk along in silence a little ahead of Benicio, who, as usual, is talking to my mum. The bluebells are out, dotted around the woodland undergrowth. That means a trip to the bluebell woods at the arboretum is next on Mum’s list. Dad or no Dad, every year is just like the last.
Now I think about it, that’s OK by me.
Every trail leads to the sandpit clearing, and that’s where we end up. We stop for a while and sit on the log, looking out over the woods.
“Strange to think that there was sea here once . . . so far inland,” Benicio says to no one in particular.
“And dinosaurs,” I add. “The first one was found not far from here.”
“Nothing lasts. . .” my mum says softly. “Not even the ‘terrible lizards’.”
“Overgrown chickens,” Tyler says, sniffing. “Nothing to miss. . .”
“No one to miss them, Tyler,” she murmurs. “It’s different with people.”
I look away, instinctively hiding my eyes from the others. It must show, what I’m thinking. How could it not? I feel it so strongly, it’s as though it were seeping from my pores.
If I could fix the Bracelet of Itzamna, I wouldn’t have to miss anything or anybody.
The past, the present, the future; they’d all open up before me.
When is Ixchel going to get back to me? I don’t like having my hopes built up and then . . . silence.
“So . . . how is it you like to be called,” Benicio says with a wicked grin, “Mariposa and Eddy G?”
“It’s serious, man,” Tyler says with a straight face. “The apelidos help us get into the zone. When I’m fighting, I’m not Tyler . . . I’m Eddy Gordo, capoeira titan.”
Benicio smirks. “And what’s Josh? A butterfly?”
Tyler winks. “He’s a guy who still can’t do the mariposa move.”
For that, I shove Tyler hard enough that he lands on the ground, cracking up with laughter.
As evening draws in, we end with a final practice of our capoeira routine, up there on the sandy hill. Walkers and their children stop to watch as Tyler and I fling ourselves around, flying through the air, spinning kicks that miss each other by closely timed fractions of a second. Until my leg links with Tyler’s, wraps around his knee and he stops in midcrouch, flashes me a quick grin, then pulls away.
My problem is, I don’t really want to miss. Next time someone goes for me, I have to be ready.
Night falls. Before locking my laptop away in the cupboard, I log into the 3D chat room. Still no word from Ixchel.
I’m quiet all the way to Brazil. I think about Benicio getting into his Muwan, throwing a rucksack into the belly of the craft, putting his headset on over his scruffy student hair, starting up the anti-gravity engines, docking his iPod to listen to his favourite new rock tunes from England. Heading out alone, all the way to Brazil.
Yet it occurs to me how different everything would have been for us both if Benicio’s grandmother had been a bloke.
He’d have been the son of a Bakab’s son. Then Benicio would be the Bakab Ix. They’d never have needed me. My grandfather wouldn’t have been the one to search for the Ix Codex. My dad would still be alive, and I would be living a quiet, ordinary life in Oxford. Never even dreaming that a place like Ek Naab could exist.
Whichever way you look at it, Fate dealt us all a pretty random hand.
I’ve always been kind of envious of Benicio. It’s hard not to be – he’s obviously a genius, gets to fly a futuristic spacecraft; he’s the hand-picked secret lieutenant of Carlos Montoyo. And for some reason girls really like him.
But I’m the Bakab. One of the four sons of the god Itzamna, according to Mayan mythology. Only it turns out that Itzamna was real – he was the founder of Ek Naab. I don’t know if the original Bakabs really were his sons, but they were definitely special. All male descendants of Bakabs inherit a genetic immunity against a poison – the ancient bio-defence toxin that protects each of the four Books of Itzamna. Those four books contain the inscriptions that Itzamna found in a super-ancient ruin near the Mayan city of Izapa. The inscriptions aren’t Mayan – they’re much older. The Books of Itzamna are the writings of the Erinsi – a civilization that’s been lost from the record. Something destroyed the Erinsi civilization – the galactic superwave, a massive burst of energy from the centre of the galaxy. And it’s coming our way again . . . at the end of 2012.
For hundreds of years, one of the Books of Itzamna had been missing – the Ix Codex. Only a Bakab Ix could find it. It should have been my grandfather, but he died in the search. Then my own dad disappeared after using the Bracelet of Itzamna to zap himself to another time and place. So it came down to me, the only Bakab Ix left. At least, as far as the people in Ek Naab knew.
The Bakabs are pretty important to Ek Naab – in fact, four of them sit on a ruling Executive of just six people.
As the Bakab Ix, I’ll join the ruling Executive of Ek Naab once I turn sixteen.
From the window of our aeroplane, my eyes search the endless horizon of clouds, hunting for even the tiniest sign of Benicio’s Muwan. I wonder; could it be that Benicio envies me?
It’s evening when we land at Natal’s airport. The sun is just going down. As we step out of the airport, a blast of warm air hits us. Within minutes the thick weave of my T-shirt sticks to my back. Tyler grins in delight. “Proper heat! Hey, Mariposa – this is the life.”
The guest house – Pousada Florianopolis – is right next to the promenade of Natal’s wide beach. After dumping the luggage and changing into flashy board shorts, Tyler and I hit the beach.
It’s flooded with yellow light from tall lamps all along the promenade. The sea disappears into dark shadows. White caps of surf lines glisten in the artificial light. We race into the sea, frothy warm water spreading around our legs. Wading along in the line of the first wave, we follow my mother. She’s showered, changed into her evening beachwear, and strolls along the pavement above the sand, peering out towards us.
Mum was right about the capoeira on the beach. About fif
ty metres up the beach, two tanned, lean boys around twelve years old practise slow handstands followed by measured sweeping and turning kicks – queixada and armada. Tyler and I pause briefly to watch them. From the moves they’re doing, I’d guess they’re beginners, but still . . . their technique has a fluidity that mine has only just begun to capture.
We slosh along in the surf, keeping one eye out for Mum, who’s taking her pick of the beachside bars. Finally she stops and waves us over. We cross the beach as white sand-crabs shimmy around our feet across the powder. In this light the sand looks like snow.
Tyler bounces along, gives me an experimental shove. With a low chuckle, he tries harder to unbalance me. In a second we’re both cartwheeling across the beach, going into the final part of our routine. Our feet are a blur in the air.
Warm currents brush my skin as I whip through the air. The sand is cool to the touch under my hands and feet. I push back all memories of Tyler and me in the pool at Hotel Delfin, showing off in front of Ollie, seconds before Camila arrived. . .
Ollie, the gorgeous girl who betrayed me. I thought she was a little out of my league, OK, beautiful and a couple of years older than me. Never suspected that she was actually a spy, and even worse, agent of the Sect of Huracan and Simon Madison’s girlfriend!
My sister, Camila – another painful memory. She was a fantastic girl – well, a woman, really. A husband who was crazy about her, and most of her life ahead. The memory of Camila drowning in that swamp is one of the most horrible things I have in my head. . . I try pretty hard to keep from remembering that.
At the beach bar, Mum orders drinks. Goblet-shaped glasses appear filled with foam-topped fresh juices, bright purple and orange; grape for me, passion fruit for Tyler.
We sip our drinks in contented silence. Mum drinks from a frosty glass of cold beer. Her eyes are still on the beach, continually sweeping back and forth. She seems distracted, but I’m too wrapped up in my own thoughts to notice right away.
Two tables down from us a couple of slender girls are sitting eating ice cream from sundae glasses. They both wear green-and-yellow-trimmed white abada trousers and short, sleeveless green tops. Capoeiristas. Here, they’re everywhere.
So I don’t notice my mum staring in the opposite direction until Tyler prods me, hard.
“Look.”
When I do, I see something that, for just an instant, makes my heart bounce straight into my mouth.
Carlos Montoyo. But not just him . . . Ixchel, strolling towards us along the promenade, grins all over both their faces. Yep, Carlos’s too. For once, even he looks happy.
I shuffle to my feet. Tyler follows.
“So this is your girlfriend,” he murmurs under his breath. I hiss back, “She is not!”
I told Tyler everything when I got back from Mexico. I was fed up with keeping Ek Naab a secret from my mum and friends, with them thinking I was a crazy who invented stories about alien abduction. Looking back on it, obviously Ollie never thought I was making anything up. No; she knew everything, right from the beginning, right from when she set out to spy on me.
I didn’t know that, though, and that’s what counts. I’m the one who felt like a secretive freak.
So I wasn’t having that with Tyler, not any longer. Now, he knows it all: Ek Naab, who Benicio is, Ixchel, the codex, almost everything. Of course he can hardly believe it – and he’s not happy about the fact that Benicio refuses to let him see his Muwan. Then again, Tyler has to believe it, doesn’t he? By now my life doesn’t make much sense unless you know the madder bits.
Except – Tyler doesn’t know about the Bracelet of Itzamna. No one but Ixchel and me knows about that.
That’s how it has to stay.
I might have guessed Ty would tease me about Ixchel.
“She’s just a friend,” I mutter as I step forward, pushing one hand through my hair before it hits me that I’m nervous.
I don’t know which of them is making me feel this way – Montoyo or Ixchel. But that’s what’s going on as I wait for them to reach our table.
Ixchel looks nice – better than nice, actually; really cute. She’s got a new haircut, she’s using a little bit of make-up, and she’s dressed in white beach shorts and a cropped, sleeveless top. She’s not dressed up and elegant the way she was at my dad’s funeral. The sassy-girl-waitress look has vanished too. But it’s her smile that gets me.
Jeez. I don’t remember her being this pretty.
I have to drag my eyes away from Ixchel to Montoyo. Probably already too late; I make a mental note to keep my eyes off Ixchel as much as possible for the rest of the evening.
Tyler whispers in my ear, “Mate, be cool. . .”
I manage a nod. Montoyo hugs me first, claps my back twice and looks deeply into my eyes, like he’s searching for a sign of how upset I might still be about my dad. “Josh, look at you! You’re really turning into a man now!”
I redden – can’t help it. I guess he’s talking about the bodybuilding. But of course I’m glad he noticed. This took work – and it didn’t half hurt!
Then it’s Ixchel’s turn. Cool as silk, she gives me the onceover with her eyes. “Good work!” she says, like she’s congratulating someone who just carried heavy suitcases to the door. We kiss hello, a bit awkwardly. Then she moves on to Tyler.
“This is Tyler,” I say with a shrug. “He likes to be called Eddy G. . .”
“All right, Ixchel, mate,” he says calmly, as though they’ve known each other for years. He pecks her cheek, even squeezes in a little shoulder hug. “Heard a lot about you. . .”
So of course, everyone looks straight at me. I blush so hard that I have to stare at the ground. I just about force a laugh. “Right! Yeah. . .”
Montoyo hugs my mum for what seems like a tiny bit too long. He says something to her quietly, staring for just a second right into her eyes. I don’t catch what he says, but I sense it right away.
Things have changed.
In the past three months, while I’ve had my mind on other things, something has changed with my mother. Sitting at the table with her and Montoyo, I can’t escape the sensation; they know something that I don’t.
As we sit down, I try to hide the fact that I’m concentrating hard, trying to work out what the heck is going on. Ixchel and Montoyo order snacks and drinks. It’s obvious right away that Montoyo knows exactly what he’s doing. Is there any place this guy doesn’t look and act completely in his element? I watch for a few seconds as he stretches an arm around Ixchel whilst also patting my shoulder, eyes roving contentedly around our little group.
He walks in, he takes charge.
Montoyo looks almost exactly the same as the first time I saw him. Right down to the silk black shirt and grey-flecked, short ponytail. He carries a small leather briefcase across his left shoulder.
Montoyo orders something called pastel for both him and Ixchel, and a drink called guarana. He starts chatting easily about this part of Brazil; what there is to see, places we should take in after the capoeira championship, excursions we should book. It’s the same sort of thing I’ve heard my mum talk about, but instead of saying “Yes, I know all about that,” like you might expect, she just listens, like she’s fascinated to be hearing this for the first time.
What the heck is going on with those two?
Ixchel starts asking Tyler and me about our capoeira routine, our workout regime, everything I told her about the gym and everything. She shows no sign whatsoever that she and I have been discussing this by email and in the chat room. I sit there saying almost nothing, letting Tyler do the talking.
So Ixchel and I, we’re pretending that we haven’t been talking about anything; I get it. I’m not sure why, but Ixchel seems to have it worked out. So I play along. I catch her eye every so often. No sign at all that this isn’t the first time she’s said this, either.
Ixchel and my mum are good at this play-acting thing.
Tyler enjoys talking. He gestures with his h
ands, demonstrating the theory of capoeira, explaining the rules of the competition.
“Josh and I are competing in the student tournament. I’m a higher belt than him, so we’ll never be against each other in a match. We do have this routine, though, just for show, for our capoeira school in Oxford.”
Meanwhile, Montoyo and my mum talk quietly between themselves. I try to look as though I’m involved in the Tyler– Ixchel conversation, which is louder and punctuated by short laughs. When actually I’m trying to hear what Montoyo is saying to my mum.
What could they have to talk about?
Listening to them, it slowly dawns on me that this isn’t a conversation that began here and now, this evening on a Brazilian beach.