by M. G. Harris
It’s the only thing he can say. After that his voice cracks and dries up.
I pause. “You think they’d actually . . .”
“. . . kill one of them?” He nods, then breathes, “Yeah.”
Tyler’s hand goes to his wound. His face creases up. I can tell that the pain is creeping back.
I touch the Bracelet in my pocket, feeling the familiar rustle of energy when my fingertips connect. Tyler’s eyes follow my hand. “What’ve you got there?”
I look at him for a few seconds, wondering whether to tell.
“Can I trust you?”
He nods. “Course.”
I lower my voice so that Benicio won’t hear. “It’s a relic – from the ancient civilization that founded Ek Naab. My dad had it with him when we met on Mount Orizaba. He gave it to me before he died.”
“Huh? I thought Ek Naab was Mayan?”
“Not exactly. Itzamna was a time traveller. He copied the writings of an ancient civilization called the Erinsi. What he wrote became the four Books of Itzamna. One of them was the Ix Codex, the one we were searching for.”
Tyler takes a moment to consider this. “You never told me that. About the time travelling.”
“I don’t tell you everything,” I tell him. “Not sure if it’s safe.”
“You can’t do everything by yourself, Josh.”
I don’t respond to that.
“What . . . does the bracelet do?”
I rub my eyes briefly. “It travels in time. At least it would. Only, it’s broken.”
“Whoa. Does Montoyo know you have it?”
“Not a clue.” I hesitate. “Well, maybe just a bit of a clue.”
“Yeah, well, he wants it, I bet.”
“He’s been after it from the beginning, since the day I met him. Ever since my dad took it from Ek Naab. Actually, a strange old guy gave it to him.”
“Blanco Vigores? Ain’t he the blind bloke?”
“That’s him. I told you about him – the one who lives in some weird, creepy, deeper-underground bit of Ek Naab.”
“The place with all the hibiscus flowers that grow in the dark? Yeah, you did. Reckon we’ll see him in Ek Naab?”
For some reason, at the thought of meeting Vigores again, a tiny shiver of excitement runs through me.
“No idea.”
The truth is, I’m dying to see Vigores again. There’s something I’ve been wondering about, something I need to ask him. Vigores knows more than he’s telling – that’s how I see it. Dad used the Bracelet to get from wherever he was being imprisoned to the slopes of the volcano. Which means that before Dad lost his memory, the Bracelet was working and Dad knew how to use it.
Someone told my father how to use the Bracelet of Itzamna. That someone is Vigores.
Somewhere in the jungle of Campeche, a vault in the ground opens up and swallows the Muwan whole. I’m back in Ek Naab.
The medical team is waiting with a stretcher. They take Tyler straight to the military hospital that’s attached to the aircraft hangar. While they operate, I’m told that he’ll be kept lying down for at least a day. “But it doesn’t look complicated,” a white-coated medic tells me. “No major organ damage. He’s young. He’ll be OK in two, maybe three days.”
They let me stay in a room in the compound so that I can be close to Tyler. Benicio shows me to Tyler’s room and stands in the doorway for a second, preparing to leave.
He seems to struggle for words, which is rare for him. “I’m sorry,” he begins, speaking stiffly. “For what I said about you . . . being the cause of the kidnappings.”
I point out, “In a way, I was.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s ours. We should have protected you better.”
The look we exchange says it all. He’s trying to apologize for blaming me about Ixchel. But the words just won’t flow.
“The Sect is everywhere,” I say eventually, “with members all over the world. I guess we finally get that now.”
Benicio nods, stiffly. “Yeah. I think we do.”
When he leaves, I sleep. Just like the other night in Natal, I’m woken by the vibration of my UK mobile phone. This time I’m really annoyed, because I made a point of turning it off. Or thought I had. I miss the call but when I try to see who phoned, no number comes up. It’s weird: the phone doesn’t register any missed calls.
In the morning, I check on Tyler. He’s still out – they tell me he’ll sleep for hours. As ever, Benicio has been appointed to escort me around Ek Naab. Today, he doesn’t even pretend to be pleased about the assignment.
“Babysitting duty again?” I say as we stroll down the corridors towards the chair lift.
“You got it,” he agrees.
“So. Montoyo still doesn’t trust me to get around Ek Naab by myself. . .”
“It’s not you,” Benicio says with a touch of irritation. “Like I told you last time you were here, it’s other people. You might be surprised at how many people in Ek Naab would like a quiet five words with you.”
I stop walking and look at him. “All right,” I say loudly. “Enough with the mystery. What would they say? What’s Montoyo trying to hide?”
Benicio takes my arm. He steers me back down the corridor. “Keep walking. Don’t make a scene. Keep your voice down.” We carry on and he continues. “You said it yourself last night. The Sect is everywhere. Even here, Josh.”
Now that he’s said it aloud, I realize that deep down, I’ve suspected for ages. Ever since Ixchel and Benicio told me about the secret gatherings and people who are afraid of talking to Montoyo, I’ve wondered. I thought maybe I was being paranoid, seeing the Sect everywhere, but maybe not.
“And you know who they are?”
“Me?” Benicio sounds shocked. “Of course I don’t. There are enough people in Ek Naab who don’t like Montoyo. It wouldn’t be impossible for the Sect to find someone willing to betray him.”
“But what would be in it for them? Won’t the Sect destroy everything that Ek Naab stands for?”
“Well. . .” He pauses. “We don’t exactly know what the Sect want.”
“Huh? We do know! They want to get hold of all that ancient Erinsi knowledge that’s in the Books of Itzamna. They want our technology, they want to know how to use that chamber me and Ixchel found. The one that’s written about in the Ix Codex – the Revival Chamber. And when they have all that – they’ll be able to work out how to stop the galactic superwave in 2012. Except – they won’t stop it. They’ll make sure that it happens. And all over the world, civilization will collapse.”
Benicio gives me a curious look. “That’s what you believe?”
“That’s what Ollie told me, when she was trying to persuade me that I’d be better off with the Sect.”
Slowly considering, he says, “But . . . it doesn’t make sense.”
“I know! They’re insane! You should hear how they talk about the human population harming the planet and needing to be wiped out and all . . . they’re psychos!”
“I don’t know what you heard, Josh, but people don’t behave like that. Soldiers, maybe – obeying orders, getting indoctrinated to believe they’re doing the right thing.”
“That’s what I said – they’re crazy.”
Benicio shrugs. “I don’t know. . .”
I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something funny about his voice. He actually seems pretty uncomfortable talking to me about this. “The people at the top of the Sect, they will have their reasons. You can be sure of this: their reasons are things that even you and I can understand. In the end it always comes down to wanting the same thing – power, money, influence.”
We reach the chair-lift station from where suspended seats whisk travellers through the underground tunnels to Ek Naab. We ride through more slowly than I remember doing in the past. I guess that like me, Benicio is in no mood for fun.
When we arrive in Ek Naab, sunlight floods the underground city through the wire-mesh ceiling. I follow Benici
o as he strolls to the plaza, crosses it and reaches the outdoor café. But he doesn’t take a table, or order anything. Instead he grabs the waiter, who whispers something into his ear. Then he’s back with me, now leading me towards the building with a fancy marble lobby and an elevator. We ride to the top of the building, to the jewel of Ek Naab’s camouflage – the surface-level eco-resort.
Then we’re strolling through the tables of the restaurant under a giant palm-thatched roof. Citizens of Ek Naab are enjoying a typical Mexican buffet breakfast. My mouth waters at the sight of plates of sizzling-hot spicy dishes, stacks of pancakes and heaps of fresh tropical fruit. When Benicio actually stops at a table, my stomach starts to rumble. I sigh with relief.
“Let’s take a quick breakfast,” he says, turning over a coffee cup. A waiter approaches and fills up the cup. Benicio and I approach the buffet and pile our plates high with scrambled eggs, black beans, chorizo sausage with fried potatoes, shredded tortillas and chicken in green tomato sauce. I fill another plate with warm, crusty muffins topped with crushed pecans.
“I’m so starved,” I murmur. We don’t talk for several minutes as we pack away the food. It’s delicious, but I can’t let myself think too much about how great it is. I have to steer my thoughts away from any of the horrible things going on with my mother and Ixchel, or I start to lose my appetite.
Which would be a bad idea. You never know when you’ll need energy.
“So, Benicio, where are we going?”
“To see the Bakab Kan, Blanco Vigores. Remember his instructions – every time you visit Ek Naab, he wants to be the first to see you.”
“Yeah,” I say. “You mentioned that last time I was here. But my dad’s funeral – Vigores wasn’t there, even though everyone else was – all the others from the Executive.”
Benicio just looks at me, his irritation obvious. “Well, Josh, the members of the Executive don’t tell me everything. I’m just trying to help out here.”
The ruling Executive. One day not far from now, I’ll replace Montoyo on the Executive. When I reach sixteen I’ll have that right – as the Bakab Ix.
“Things will be different when I’m on the Executive,” I tell Benicio. “It’s not right, all this secrecy. It makes people uncomfortable.”
But even as the words are coming out of my mouth, I’m aware of the Bracelet, covered up, high on my arm under a sleeve.
I’m as bad as any of them. With me it’s secret after secret after secret.
Vigores doesn’t know I’m here, Benicio tells me. That’s why Benicio had to ask the waiter at the café – his brother works for Vigores in his apartments in the “Garden”. Vigores doesn’t often emerge from the hibiscus-lined labyrinth in which he lives. But when Benicio put in a call this morning, it turned out that Vigores was on a rare visit to the surface.
Not to sunbathe or swim in the shimmering blue pools of the eco-resort; he was actually at the church near the cemetery.
I freeze a little when I hear that. The cemetery is where my father is buried.
“So is he very religious?” I ask Benicio. We’re striding down a shady avenue lined with tall palms, their thick trunks painted white.
Benicio shakes his head. “I don’t really know much about Vigores, Josh. I keep telling you that. I’ve seen him just a few times in my life and hardly ever spoken to him.”
“Why not? Does he spook you?”
“Not even a bit. If anything, he’s the one who avoids me.”
“Huh? Why?”
Benicio shrugs. “You’re asking the wrong person.”
We emerge from the palm-lined avenue and into the outlying orange groves near the cemetery. The path slopes gently upwards towards the hill, on which sits the small, perfectly white Spanish-style church. But before we even reach the gravestones, I notice a white-enamelled bench under a tree dripping with oranges. On it sits the figure of an old man hunched over in his cream-coloured linen suit and panama hat. The hat casts a light shadow across his features, but I’m struck by how pale he is: a sharp contrast with Benicio’s tanned, olive-coloured skin. Vigores is all milky-white, the flesh on his face stretched thin over his cheekbones, like paper.
Benicio clicks his tongue. “There he is.”
We approach from the front so that the blind Vigores will have plenty of chances to hear us.
“Señor Vigores – it’s Benicio. I’ve a surprise for you . . . Josh Garcia is with me.”
The old man looks up, reaches for his white stick and then rises unsteadily to his feet. Blue veins stand out on the hand that grips the stick.
Benicio shakes his hand and then I stand in front of him, reach for his hand. His bony fingers grab one of my arms and then the other. I notice that his hand hesitates slightly as he touches the Bracelet of Itzamna under my sleeve. I freeze, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t react in any other way. He moves his hands up my arms to my shoulders and then my neck. Through his fingers he constructs an image of me. It brings a smile to his face.
“You’ve grown so much! Hah – much stronger now! Are you a ‘monitor’ yet, Josh? Or still a ‘student’?”
I gasp and glance at Benicio to see his reaction. He gives an appreciative wink. Like me, Benicio is impressed that Vigores knows about the capoeira grading system. Someone must have told him about my interest in capoeira – I don’t remember telling him myself.
“I’m still a student, sir.”
“Your apelido?”
“They call me Mariposa.”
He grins broadly. “Mariposa! That’s a wonderful move. You’ve mastered it?”
I nod silently, then, reminding myself that he’s blind, I add, “Yes, sir.”
“That’s marvellous. I wish I could see you do it.”
I just stand there, not knowing what to do or say. Vigores sits back down, carefully, pushing away a low-hanging branch heavy with oranges.
“Sit down, Josh. Benicio, please leave us.”
Benicio backs away slowly. He shrugs at me as if to say You see? Vigores doesn’t move or change his expression. We sit in silence for perhaps two whole minutes. Finally he says, “Is he gone?”
“Yeah . . . ages ago.”
“I want you to feel that you can talk freely, Josh. This time above all.”
“OK. . .” I hesitate. It’s hard to know what I could have to say to this strange old guy, but anyway. . .
“Do you remember what we talked about last time we met?”
“Umm. . .” I cast my mind back. The answer actually surprises me. “I think we talked about . . . girls!”
Very gently, he corrects me. “We talked about love.”
“Right.” I’m already uncomfortable.
“I asked if you’d ever been in love.”
“Uh huh.”
“And. . .?”
“I dunno. . . I’m too young for all that.”
He chuckles. “Now I know you’re hiding something. No fourteen-year-old thinks he’s ‘too young’ for anything.”
A flush of heat rises inside me. Even hearing the word “love” disturbs me. It’s like being poked with a stick in an old, deep, and still-tender wound.
“The girl . . . in question . . . is in danger, isn’t she?”
I gape. How does he know?
“Montoyo told me,” Vigores says, almost as if he’d read my mind. “He’s noticed what’s happening with you two. Now she’s been abducted. And your mother too. This is very painful for you.” He lifts his face as if to look at me, but of course his eyes look straight past mine. There’s a sadness to his expression. Real sympathy.
My lips tremble slightly – and for a moment I’m grateful that he’s blind and can’t see. It’s always hardest to stay calm when people show me sympathy.
“I’m going to give you some advice now, young Josh, which may surprise you.”
“Uh . . . OK. . .”
“In the matter of this kidnap, you must trust your instincts.”
“What?”
“You’ve begun to doubt them, no? Hardly surprising, given the way your father died. But instinct consists not of magic or ‘the Force’. It’s simple intuition based on lightning-fast data processing. With you, young Josh – the power of intuition is strong.”
He faces me again with those watery blue eyes, and actually winks.
“Data comes in through all your senses. Much more than you’re aware of. It is processed by your conscious as well as your subconscious mind. Intuition ignores nothing. Everything is given the appropriate weight of importance. Some things are just so.”