Curse of the Ancients

by Matt De La Peña

  “The remote highlands?” Itchik asked.

  “Dak,” Sera said, shooting him a dirty look. “We’ve already discussed this —”

  “Let me put it another way,” Dak said, ignoring her. “You know your fancy calendar?”

  “Ah, one of the great achievements of our ancestors,” Itchik said.

  “Yeah, well, we’ve just about made it to the end of that bad boy.”

  Sera looked to Riq, who let his head fall into his hands.

  Itchik was staring at Dak, a confused look on his face.

  “Where do we come from?” Dak said. “Let’s just say it’s a place where people consider these things a little outdated.” He pointed down at his breechcloth.

  “Seriously, Dak,” Sera tried again. “Drop it. Please.” Dak couldn’t seem to get it through his thick head that not everyone they met was going to be a Hystorian or Time Warden.

  Dak only grinned at Sera and turned back to Itchik. “I’m talking about the future, Itchy. Where people drive cars and fly planes and eat tortillas that are actually symmetrical. Filled with grated cheese. I’m talking about quesadillas, my friend.”

  Sera rolled her eyes. She glanced at Riq, who threw his hands in the air.

  “I don’t understand what your friend is saying,” Itchik said, turning to them.

  “Neither does he,” Sera answered. “Please, just ignore —”

  “Do I really have to spell this thing out for everybody?” Dak interrupted. “You guys are Hy-stor-i-ans. And we’ve traveled here from the fu-ture. Go on, Sera. Show him the Infinity Ring again and explain how it works. Riq, pull the riddle up on the SQuare. I can’t believe I have to broker this whole thing myself.”

  “What’s a Hystorian?” Kisa asked.

  Everyone was staring at Dak, completely baffled, including Sera and Riq.

  Even the smallest Mayan baby was staring at him.

  The grin on Dak’s face slowly fell away and he turned to Sera. “Wait, is it possible that they’re not actually Hystorians?”

  Before Sera could answer there was a second tremendous crashing sound from up above. Sera looked up and saw that the wooden slats were actually being pulled from the roof and carried away in the powerful winds. Rain started streaming down into the hut, scattering everyone. The children screamed, and their parents covered their small heads and hurried them to the far wall, away from the widening hole.

  Sera, Dak, and Riq ran to the opposite corner.

  “The storm is too vicious!” Riq shouted. “The entire roof will come down!”

  Sera looked up. She saw more wood being torn away. Uneven chunks of rock came crashing down into the hut. “We can’t stay here!” she shouted. But when she tried to get up, Riq held her by the wrist.

  “We need to stick together!” he shouted.

  There was so much commotion inside the disintegrating hut, Sera couldn’t think. Rain poured down all around them. The wind howled. Children wailed. A thick tree branch fell from above, slamming into the earth only inches in front of Sera’s face.

  “Watch out!” Dak suddenly shouted.

  Sera thought he was shouting at her, but when she looked up she saw a little Mayan girl standing alone near the front door of the hut, crying, as that part of the wall started caving in. Before Sera could even think to move, Dak sprang to his feet and raced toward the girl. He shoved her out of harm’s way, toward her mom, just as the wall collapsed, cracking him in the back of the head and driving him into the ground.

  “Dak!” Sera screamed.

  She sprinted over to him, slid down to her knees, and lifted his face. He was trapped under the rubble of the stone wall, and his eyes were huge with fear. There was already blood caked in his hair, running in slick lines down his neck and shoulders.

  “Dak!” she shouted again. “Dak, please! Can you hear me?”

  “The observatory,” he mumbled.

  “What?”

  “The people writing inside,” he said, blinking his eyes and swallowing. “See them. It could be part of the riddle.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Sera pleaded.

  Riq was beside them now, too.

  “Stay with me, Dak!” Sera shouted. “Just stay with me!”

  But Dak’s eyes slowly rolled into the back of his head.

  He lost consciousness.

  RIQ STRAINED to keep a tight grip under both of Dak’s arms as he helped carry him through the surging storm. Itchik and another man had his feet. He watched Sera hurrying alongside them, holding a blanket over Dak’s face so he wouldn’t drown in the falling rain. “Dak!” she kept shouting. “Can you hear me, Dak? It’s Sera! Please look at me, Dak!”

  But Dak wasn’t looking at anyone.

  He was out cold.

  Riq had never seen anyone take such a nasty blow in his life.

  As they moved past the temple, a sudden gust of wind knocked them all over into the mud. Riq and the two Mayan men scrambled to their feet, quickly lifting Dak back up and continuing away from the village, toward the hills on the outskirts of town. The women, children, and elders from the hut were several paces ahead already, holding on to one another, leaning into the teeth of the storm.

  Riq winced as he slowly moved through the mud with Dak. His leg was killing him. He’d been struck in the knee by a falling board when the roof of the hut had collapsed. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on. But every time he thought of asking for a rest, he would picture Dak pushing that little girl out of the way, taking the brunt of the wall’s impact on his own head and back.

  He’d saved her life.

  Remembering this fact always gave Riq the shot of adrenaline he needed to fight through the pain and fatigue.

  They carried Dak uphill over fallen trees, through knee-high puddles of rain, and across long stretches of quicksand-like mud. Eventually they approached the mouth of a large cave, where several Mayan warriors were perched on large boulders watching the storm.

  Itchik shouted at the men, “Get Jasaw immediately! We must help this boy!”

  Two of the warriors darted inside the cave. The rest leaped down from the boulders, into the rain, and helped carry Dak’s limp body up to the cave’s broad opening.

  Riq was relieved of his grip on Dak once they got inside. He watched Itchik and the others carry Dak across the dimly lit cave, Sera trailing closely behind. It took Riq’s eyes a few seconds to adjust to the dull candlelight, but once he could see, he was taken aback. Several hundred Mayas were spread out on blankets across the uneven floor of the cave. Some were sleeping. Others were sitting together in small groups, chanting. A few turned to look him over.

  A man wearing a headdress pointed the men carrying Dak toward a large hanging blanket, set up like a screen for privacy. Riq knew this must be the man Itchik had referred to as Jasaw, and he hurried to catch up. When he ducked behind the blanket, he saw the men lowering Dak onto a cot. There were other patients on cots nearby. Riq was relieved they’d made it out of the storm, to a place where Dak might get help, and only now did he reach down to massage his aching knee. When he brought his fingers back up to his face, he saw blood. The board had cut him.

  Riq moved toward Dak’s cot, nodding to the men who had helped carry Dak as they left.

  “Who are you anyway?” Sera was asking the man looking over Dak’s wounds.

  “I am Jasaw,” he said without looking up. “The ahmen, medicine man, of our village. Your friend is very hurt.”

  “And how do you know how hurt he is?” Sera said. “It’s not like you’re a real doctor.”

  “What is ‘doctor’?” Jasaw said, looking up at her.

  Riq placed his hand on Sera’s arm to try to calm her down. “How bad are his injuries?” he asked Jasaw.

  The man turned his focus back to Dak and shook his head. He ran his h
ands lightly over Dak’s face and neck, and then left them hovering over his eyes, as if he was trying to read something through his palms. Then he leaned an ear against Dak’s chest. “Something has struck your friend on the head, yes?”

  Riq and Sera both nodded.

  “He is breathing normally, but I fear his brain may swell, which would be very bad.” Riq watched the man grind up several different kinds of herbs, stir them into a liquid that looked like wine, and drip some of the concoction onto Dak’s tongue. Then he rubbed his hands together and touched Dak’s head and back. “No broken bones,” he said.

  “How do you know?” Sera said. “You don’t have an X-ray machine. You don’t have anything!”

  “Sera,” Riq said. “He’s doing the best he can.”

  “I have what I need,” Jasaw said.

  Sera turned to Riq. “We have to get him to a hospital. Now.” Riq could see the fear flickering in Sera’s eyes.

  “But Itchik says he’s the best,” Riq told her.

  “The best what?” Sera said. “The best mystic?”

  “Healer.”

  “Dak needs a real doctor,” Sera said. “You saw that wall fall on him.”

  Riq rubbed Sera’s shoulder. “We can’t chance warping out of here with Dak unconscious. You said it yourself: It’s getting harder and harder on our bodies. We have to wait until he’s stronger.”

  Jasaw was now pushing his hands up Dak’s chest, toward his face.

  “What are you doing?” Sera asked him.

  “Ridding the body of evil spirits,” Jasaw said without looking up.

  Sera shot Riq a desperate look. “I’m staying right here,” she said. “All night. I’m making sure he takes care of Dak.”

  Jasaw burned a plant-based incense over Dak’s body. The smell was strong. Riq knew Sera didn’t believe in anything spiritual like this. She believed in hard science. But this was Dak’s only hope.

  He pictured what happened again. Dak rushing into the middle of the hut, pushing the girl to safety, the wall coming down on the back of his head. Riq leaned in close to Dak’s ear and said in a quiet voice that even Sera wouldn’t be able to hear, “You saved that girl’s life, Dak. You know that? You’re a hero.”

  He kept waiting for Dak to open his eyes and say something sarcastic.

  But he never did.

  He just lay there, completely still, as Jasaw rubbed dark ash onto his forehead.

  Riq tried sleeping on the blanket Itchik set out for him, but he was unable to shut off his mind. He kept picturing the stone wall coming down on Dak and the cryptic riddle they’d pulled up on the SQuare. He also thought about his time on the run in 1850. He’d been able to keep a young boy, James, out of the hands of slave traders. Why was he so helpless now?

  Eventually, he gave up on sleep. He walked quietly over to the cave opening and sat on a boulder to watch the powerful storm. The rain still poured down on the beautiful green Mayan landscape. The wind still whipped through the trees. But the thunder and lightning seemed more distant now, which told Riq the worst of it had passed.

  Riq had always been intrigued by natural disasters. In an odd way, sometimes he even found himself rooting for storms and earthquakes and tornados. It’s not that he wanted to see anyone get hurt, and he knew the increased frequency of these disasters was a direct result of the SQ creating Breaks in history — the Breaks he, Dak, and Sera were busy trying to correct. But he always thought that maybe the right disaster would come along and hit the SQ where it hurt, compromising their political power. Maybe it would be like hitting the RESET button on the world.

  But there was a non-SQ-related reason he was so fascinated by disasters, too. A reason nobody who knew him would ever suspect. Secretly, Riq sometimes wanted to hit the RESET button on his own life.

  For as long as he could remember, he’d worked tirelessly to be the best at everything he did. School, soccer, language acquisition, The Art of Memory . . . At first it was fun, and the praise he received made him feel special. But somewhere along the line, things shifted. The fun faded. The pressure to stay on top started weighing down on his shoulders. He put in all those extra hours not because he was enjoying himself, but because he was afraid to fail. Lately, he had been having an awful recurring nightmare where Brint and Mari followed him around, shaking their heads in disappointment. His classmates spoke in hushed voices about him getting only an A minus.

  Riq was watching the pouring rain, dreaming about living a normal life where he’d sleep in on weekends and hang out at the mall, when he heard footsteps creeping up behind him.

  He spun around quickly, instinctively popping to his feet.

  It was Kisa.

  “Hey,” she said, grinning at his military move.

  “Hey,” Riq said back, slowly unclenching his fists.

  “I can’t sleep either.” She was holding a small wooden box in her right hand. “I keep thinking about what happened to your friend. I’m really sorry.”

  Riq nodded.

  “Jasaw is a gifted healer, though. He’ll make sure your friend has the best care.”

  “Thanks,” Riq said. He searched his mind for something else to say. But he didn’t have any experience talking to girls like Kisa so he sort of just stood there awkwardly, looking at her.

  “What about you?” she said. “How’s your knee?”

  He furrowed his brow, confused. “How’d you know I hurt my knee?”

  She switched the wooden box from her right hand to her left. “I saw you limping while you were carrying your friend. And then in the cave you were rubbing it. You should really tell Jasaw what happened.”

  “I’ll be okay,” Riq said. “It’s just a cut.” He looked at her for a few long seconds trying to think of something else to say, something that would keep her out here with him, but his mind felt sluggish and his stomach had that weird feeling again.

  “Mind if I sit out here for a bit?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, a little too excitedly. “I mean, no, I don’t mind — yes, you can sit.” He felt heat rising into his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

  Kisa sat on the boulder next to his and set down her wooden box.

  “What’s in there?” Riq asked.

  “Jewelry,” she said. “I figured if I was going to have a sleepless night, I might as well get some work done.”

  Riq watched her remove a small block of wood and a knife and start whittling.

  “My mother says it’s a man’s job to make artistic things,” she said. “But I know my jewelry’s as good as any man’s, if not better.” She looked up at Riq. “I hate that there are things girls aren’t supposed to be good at. Who says?”

  Kisa pulled a metal piece out of her box and held it up for Riq to see.

  He took the bracelet and turned it over in his hands. “Wow,” he said. It was shaped like a thin, coiled snake. Each scale was meticulously crafted, as were the eyes and tongue. It was as well constructed as any piece of jewelry he’d seen in the modern world. “I’m impressed,” he told her, handing back the snake.

  Kisa smiled and put it away. “Can I ask you something, Riq? I’ve been wondering about it all night.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “What’s a Hystorian?”

  He studied her dark brown eyes. During training back home, his supervisors drilled into him the importance of guarding Hystorian intel. Even the daily cafeteria menu was password protected. But Riq was weary from all the time travel. And the storm. And what had happened to Dak. He needed to talk to someone.

  So he did.

  He told Kisa about the SQ and Aristotle’s theory about the Great Breaks. He explained how the world was thrown off balance every time history had been altered by the SQ, causing strange occurrences all over, far worse than this storm. He told her Hystorians were people stationed throughout
time, trained to look out for the time travelers Aristotle predicted would one day show up from the future to try to fix history and save the world.

  When he finished, Kisa looked at him for a long time before saying, “So you three really are from the future? Like your friend said?”

  Riq knew he’d said too much already. He expected this to make him feel tremendously guilty, but it didn’t. For whatever reason, he trusted Kisa.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to answer that.” She went back to whittling away at her piece of wood.

  Riq could now see what she was carving. A snake rising up out of a basket. “Can I ask you a question now, Kisa?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you live in the hut that was destroyed?”

  “No,” she said. “But I spent a lot of time there. My uncle Itchik lived there with his family.”

  “How will he fix it? And where will everyone live in the meantime?”

  “Someone will take them in,” she said. “We all look out for one another in my village.”

  They talked for a while longer, mostly about Kisa’s family and her village. Riq was moved by how much they cared for one another. And how much they respected the land. They seemed far different from the way they were presented in history classes. And he was surprised to find out that Itchik was no ordinary man. He was the king of Izamal. Had been for years.

  Then they sat together in silence, Kisa whittling and Riq watching the rain soften and the dark slowly lose its grip on the sky. It felt nice sitting beside her without talking. He didn’t feel awkward anymore.

  Eventually, Kisa packed up her things and stood and wished Riq a good night. But she didn’t leave right away. She just stood there, watching the quiet rainfall for a few moments. “One day,” she finally said, turning to Riq, “I want to do something special, too.”

  “I bet you will,” he said.

  She smiled, then turned and walked back into the cave.

  It wasn’t until Kisa was long gone that Riq noticed she’d left the snake bracelet on the boulder where she’d been sitting. He was about to scoop it up and hurry after her, but then he saw the message she’d carved into the rock. He stared at the glyphs for several seconds. He was one of the few Hystorians who could decipher Mayan writing, but it wasn’t easy. Eventually, he was able to read: For my new friend, Riq.