“ID please.” I pulled out my damp passport which was all I had. She took it and gave me a suspicious look. I realized she was trying not to stare at my bruise. I’m sure my hair looked like a rat’s nest. At least the blood had all washed off.
The tellers fingers flew on the keyboard. She paused for a long moment reading something on the screen. After squinting back at my passport then up at me she smiled, “Would you wait here for a moment, Ms. Dae? I need to get the manager.”
I swallowed, wondering if I should run. Was this a trap? I looked around. Bored morning people filed in on their way to work. What could they do to me here? I decided to risk it since I really would need the money.
“Okay.” I smiled back.
The teller hurried off through a back door. A few minutes later, a willowy man in a striped grey suit came out around from behind the counter, hand held out to shake mine. He was perfectly put together, emerald green tie and silk handkerchief matching his deep green eyes. He might have even been handsome outside the bank, but there he seemed to absorb the corporate blandness that permeated the place right down to the dull floor.
“Ms. Dae, a pleasure to meet you. Would you come back to my office so we can discuss your account?”
I shook his hand, entirely unfamiliar with the rules of hand-shaking. How hard to squeeze, when to let go. So many little social rules I didn’t know.
I glanced around again and said a little too loudly, “Yes, I’ll come to your office, Mr….?”
“I’m sorry, of course, I’m Mr. Stimpson. At your service.” He bowed his head toward me.
I followed him into a posh office overlooking a small courtyard. Sitting in the modern, grey chair, I looked at him expectantly wondering what the hell they could want from me. Maybe the account was empty and he was going to break it to me gently. Or maybe I couldn’t access it after all. What if I needed my mother to find out my balance or something?
“Ms. Dae, whenever we meet a new client, I like to speak with them personally.”
“You meet with your new clients?”
“Well, not all our new clients, of course. I’ve got a packet of information here, welcoming you to our financial family.” He slid a thick folder across his walnut desk. “Inside you’ll find information about the services we offer. Investment opportunities. So on.”
I flipped it open and glanced at the gibberish inside. Tax rates, interest rates, blah blah blargh. Yet another of the many skills I didn’t have, banking.
“At the top you will find your latest account information. The investment return rate, where your money is currently placed. So on.”
“So on,” I repeated, just to have something to say. I skimmed the little chart at the top of the page until I finally found a line that said “Current Balance.” Sliding my eyes along the line, I got to the end and blinked a few times.
“Uh, Mr. Stimpson? This says the current balance is thirteen million, four hundred and eighty-three thousand? Is that…dollars?”
“Yes, that’s your current balance.”
I stared. “Thirteen million dollars?”
“Is that not what you expected?” Mr. Stimpson looked very concerned. “If you look at the chart, you’ll see that there has been quite a good rate of return on the investments your father set up. I do hope you will be happy with our investment services.”
“Um, okay. No, I’m fine with this. Uh, thank you for your help.” I floundered, too shocked to form a coherent thought. Thirteen. Million. Dollars. “Oh, hey, I’m about to travel internationally. Will this work in Belize?”
“Of course!” He seemed taken aback. “If you meet any trouble, please contact us right away. Before you go, would you like to set up a PIN to use your credit card? I can arrange to have the rest of your introduction package with some starter checks sent to the address we have here. Please feel free to contact me day or night with any concerns you might have.” He handed me a card.
“That would be great.” I went through the motions, entering a number into the keypad he held out to me, answering a few more questions, then stumbled out the front door into the glaring afternoon light.
Why had we been living in squalor when we’d had millions of dollars? Why hadn’t mom said anything to me? What in the ever-loving hell was going on?
I plopped down onto the curb in total disbelief.
The card was still in my hand and I stared down at it, processing what it meant. I was rich? Like, Raf rich. Or almost at least. Thirteen million dollars.
I spent a moment letting my imagination run free, thinking about all the things I could buy. I could buy a mansion in the Caribbean. Or in Paris. Or even in Waterford if I wanted. Not that I wanted to stay there for another second, let alone live there.
But all that was folly. What I really wanted, what I really needed, was my mom. In all of those fantasies, she was there with me. Without her, none of those things could ever make me happy. So what I would really use my new fortune for would be to take on the assholes that took her.
Now, I had resources. I could buy guns. Hell, I could buy an army.
Home to Belize
I rode the bus to the airport and, half way there, realized I could probably afford to take a cab.
After I bought a ticket to Belize and cleared security, I retreated to the bathroom to think. Looking at my hands, I wondered if there really was dark Anima running through my veins. What if Selene was right and I somehow had moon blood? Did that mean I was somehow evil? Did I get a choice?
As I headed to my gate, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and marveled that they let me though security. The bruise along my cheek was starting to yellow giving me a sickly pallor. The non-yellowish-blue parts of my face looked dusky and dry, blue bags under my eyes aging me well beyond seventeen. Black curls looked like I’d stuck a finger in an electrical outlet, wild and untamed.
The only thing saving me from looking like a demented homeless person was my fancy new riding outfit.
We boarded and I ended up stuck next to a newlywed couple on the way to their honeymoon. Their intense focus on each other, barely noticing the world around them, made me feel even more alone.
Head against the window, I stared out at the cheerful cotton-candy clouds below. I’d never really been on my own before. Life in San Pedro had been cloyingly close. A few families isolated from the world. Even when I’d gone out into the jungle on my own, I never felt alone, as though there was no one I could fall back on. No one to turn to if things went wrong.
Now, it was all down to me. If I failed no one would come along behind me and fix it.
I thought about Raf. The pain and sorrow on his face. How could Selene do that to her own son? Such cruelty was beyond my imagination. How horrible it must have been growing up in that household. I’d been unfair to Raf. He had stuck by me while crazy stuff was happening and I hadn’t been very understanding when he lost it.
When I got back, if I got back, I would make it up to him.
***
We disembarked down the rolling staircase directly onto the tarmac of the Belize airport. Heat washed over me in waves and sweat sprang from my flesh. I’d forgotten about the pervasive heat. How could I have forgotten so quickly?
I found the bus to San Ignacio and settled in. Like most public buses in Belize, it was an old yellow school bus. Men, women, babies, and a few small animals piled on in a chaotic swirl of humanity. Plastic bags filled to the brim teetered in stacks threatening to bury us all in the random stuff of everyday life.
The familiar rise and fall of people speaking Spanish and Mayan, the smooth lilting sound of Garifuna pidgin, comforted me. Even the staccato German from the Mennonite teenagers in the back made me feel at home. A piebald chicken flapped it’s wings in fear and a little girl soothed it by singing a traditional Maya song.
I thought about the first time we came to San Pedro when I was just a little girl. Rainy season was just ending. At that time of year, butterflies emerge from rotting tr
ee hollows and deep muddy crevices. The ancient Maya believed butterflies were tiny gods of rebirth. There were so many that they created whirlwinds gathering around beams of sunlight deep in the jungle. That first summer, I would seek them out and stand at the center of the swirling rainbow while they gave me thousands of soft winged kisses.
By the time I stepped off the bus in San Ignacio, I felt embraced by the comforts of home, and yet unable to become part of it. Just a few months away and my home was no longer mine.
As the closest city to San Pedro, I had spent many afternoons in San Ignacio, an urban center in the middle of nowhere. Built on a massive hill rising above the convergence of the Mopan and Macal rivers, San Ignacio feels somehow both run down and vibrant.
With a heavy heart, I stopped at a local shop to buy a few supplies. A simple cloth bag filled with a two bottles of water, a box of cheap granola bars, a bandana, and a flashlight with extra batteries. I tossed a machete and hand sewn leather sheath on the pile. There are some basic rules of jungle survival, the most important being that you never go anywhere without a machete, water, and a source of light.
Checking the glass case at the front of the store, I drooled over the pocket knives — something I had always longed to own but we’d never had enough money. With a strange sense of pride, I asked for the most expensive knife. My total was a whooping thirty-three dollars. Had we really been so poor we couldn’t spend thirty dollars? No way Mom knew how much money sat in Dad’s account.
Fully geared, I headed up the winding, barely paved street to the top of the hill. Punta music thumped from Angel’s All-Day-Night-Club. An internet cafe teemed with tourists and local kids all absorbed in their computer screens. As a jumping off spot for people touring Maya ruins, San Ignacio had a small but growing number of fancy restaurants and boutique hotels. One such restaurant was owned by Sadie Jane, mom’s best friend.
“Harper!” The massive Caribbean woman sat behind the bright turquoise podium, glasses perched on the end of her freckled nose, book open before her. Seeing my disheveled appearance, she hefted herself up and rushed to me. Wrapping arms around me, she pulled me against her starched yellow dress so tightly my bruised ribs screamed in protest. I didn’t pull away, breathing in the smell of hibiscus flower and rain.
Looking me up and down she tisked, “What have you gone and done to yourself, Harper Dae?” She glanced past me, “Is your mom with you?”
I shook my head. Sadie Jane didn’t ask any more questions, just lead me back to a table. Bustling off to the kitchen, she came back with a glass of iced limeade and a steaming pile of fresh tortillas dusted with cinnamon sugar. Belizean comfort food.
“You want to tell me what happened?”
“Not really. I need to get out to San Pedro quickly and wasn’t sure where else to go.”
She nodded sagely. How much had my mom told her? “You can always call on me! You eat while I call Jonny. He’ll give you a ride to the turn off.”
I teared up. What was wrong with me? Keep it together, Harper.
I cleaned my plate and, with a quick hug from Sadie Jane, jumped into the truck with her sullen son, Jonny. He gave me a put upon sigh and floored it.
Without a word, we drove the twenty miles out into nowhere, turning off the Western Highway onto an old logging road. The path out to my village was another three miles up. He skidded to a stop at the entrance, kicking up a cloud of white marl from the lose gravel road.
“Thanks for the ride,” I hopped out.
He grumbled something about being dragged out of bed, and swung a u-turn back toward town. Being so close to home, my heart leapt in my chest, longing and excitement almost overcoming the anger and fear I felt.
I paused at the threshold of the jungle. Though the western half of Belize was criss-crossed by roads and dotted with villages, it still belonged to the jungle. Standing with my toes hanging off the road, I breathed in the jungle air.
Under the jungle canopy was a world pulsing with the chaos of too much damned life slammed together in one place. A churning world of droning mosquitoes accompanied by the swelling rise and fall of cicada song. The endless sound of vines, rubbery palms, and hard wooden branches shifting and grinding against each other. The accusatory roar of howler monkeys. The places of dark stillness. Silent black caves exhaling cool, musty air. Shadowy, confusing tangles of foliage where the world seems to sway and tilt.
And oh, the smells. Rotting plant matter clots in every crevice of the earth trapping a thick layer of sulfurous air that coats your tongue. Sickly sweet flowers mingling with the dull, powdery scent of limestone.
The jungle felt alive, ancient, dangerous. The power of the place filled me with renewed strength.
I took off at a fast pace toward home. I had walked that path so many times I could do it with my eyes closed despite the occasional roots and fallen trees in the way.
As I traipsed along, I wondered why we hadn’t just built a road out to the village. It would only take a few days to bulldoze a drivable road along the old trail. It occurred to me for the first time that perhaps San Pedro had remained purposefully isolated.
Clearly my dad had known Mr. Ek. Why else would he have told me to give him the jade disk for safekeeping. Maybe Mr. Ek was a Solaris? Though, thinking about it, one of the reasons I had liked Mr. Silver so much was that he reminded me of Mr. Ek. Plus, Mr. Ek had talked about libraries as though they were Disneyland. He had to be a knowledge keeper, a Gnomon!
I was so distracted by my musings, I didn’t notice that the chatter of jungle birds was muted. A troop of red, ring-tailed coati moved swiftly past me, fleeing. A spider monkey chittered an alarm call in the distance. Something was terribly wrong.
I smelled smoke just seconds before I saw it billowing, thick and black. The sight slammed a wave of terror through my chest and I lost all sense of caution, stumbling down a hill into the village.
At the end of the trail, flames engulf our small church. The green wooden cross above the door was draped with a brightly colored sudario. The death shroud making the cross an embodiment of both death and life. Fresh flowers arched over the cross, a symbolic representation of the sun ascending the thirteen layers of the heavens. Perfect mix of ancient Maya belief with modern Christianity. World tree and crucifix as one, all aflame, crumbling to ash.
San Pedro was burning.
With a cry of terror, I ran into the central dirt plaza bounded by the church, a small store, community building, and two massive trees along the fourth edge. Normally the village would be bustling, men on picnic benches in the shade of the trees, drinking Belekin beer and playing dominoes. Boisterous children playing. The old folks chatting on the porch of the community house. All burning now.
The village was deserted. Uncertain what was going on, I turned wildly in a circle. Where was everyone?
Mr. Ek, always holding a book and asking questions. The grizzled Mutal twins that ran the store and fix-it shop. Old lady Kahlay, blinded by cataracts but tottering around the village complaining about the weather. Baby Rosita and her mother, Rosa, giggling together in the community house. The other kids in the village, Tino, Sam, and Maria. No one.
Frantic, I sprinted from house to house, pulling aside curtains and shouting people’s names. Finding no one, I cautiously returned to the plaza, realizing that whoever set the fire couldn’t be too long gone.
I sat down hard under one of the Ceiba trees and watched my childhood memories burn to the ground. I thought about mom and I living in San Pedro, part of the daily routine. What a simple, full life we’d had. I wished we had never left.
I drank some water and was formulating a plan when I heard the cries. Exactly like those from the library. Jumping up, I spun in a circle, trying to find the source. Silence.
But then there it was again. A young voice, “Please, no. Please.” I felt suddenly flush, and a vision flashed before me. Selene, kneeling over Olivia, blood pouring from Olivia’s palms which were pierced with a stingray spine. A
vision? A hallucination?
I sobbed and sprinted wildly, throwing open doors, screaming guttural sounds of terror. Nothing was there. The voice went silent. I knelt in the plaza and let it out. My rage. My fear. My uncertainty. I cried to the trees and screamed at the universe. Nothing was fair. Nothing made sense.
Just like my emotions, eventually the fire burned itself out, nothing but ash remained. “Get off your ass, Harper,” I said to myself. The stone disk wouldn’t burn, so it could still be there. I at least had to try.
The path out to Mr. Ek’s house was narrow, overgrown. When I got there, his house stood untouched by fire. It was small, just a single square hut with a hammock inside and a cooking hearth sheltered by a massive palm. Unlike most homes, there was no small garden patch, no animals.
“Mr. Ek?” I called tentatively peeking inside his house. It had been ransacked.
Behind his house was the small school room I had spent so many hours in. An old chalk board still hung on the wall, on it someone had scrawled “remember clever rabbit.”
I let out a little laugh. What a silly memory. The morality lessons taught through the adventures of an impetuous little rabbit..
I had loved Mayor Rabbit stories. I thought about rains from a rabbit sky. Though I hadn’t understood as a child, the moral was clear to me now. Maybe because it applied to my own life.
Don’t be selfish, do the right thing, no matter how difficult. No way I could give Selene the disk. What was I even doing here?
I pictured Mr. Ek telling the story. Wait a minute! I played the story back in my head. Mayor Rabbit climbs Sacred Tree where Falcon sat. Then followed the Green River, skirted the bottom of Struggle Rock, climbed Witz Mountain, ending up at Rainbow Falls.
It wasn’t a fable, it was a map!
The sacred tree was the ceiba in San Pedro. Struggle rock, La Lucha escarpment, the limestone cliffs that jutted from the jungle floor. I took off running. I would not fail. I would not be useless like rains from a rabbit sky.
Jade Moon (Celestial War Book 1) Page 14