Mayan Lover

by Wendy S. Hales

  “I will be there by seven. If you need anything, call me. And don’t you dare tell that woman where you are going. Martha went to great lengths to keep that information sealed.” Maggie stood, her chair scrapping loudly across the worn linoleum floor of the University of Mississippi Museum’s break room.

  Gwen paused at each exhibit case on her way to the door. The sophomore boy sitting at the information desk quickly closed a magazine and stuffed it under the desk before giving her a goofy crush smile. “Hi, Gwen.”

  She was leaving tonight, might as well give her biggest … okay, second biggest and at least semi-normal pursuer a moment of her time. At least this one was harmless, theoretically. “Hey, Matt. Boring day?” She let her eyes fall to the partially obstructed flesh visible from the crumpled magazine next to his chair.

  He glanced down with a blush and kicked it further under the desk. “I saw you at graduation.”

  That freak-out feeling caught her for an instant, Gwen shrugged it off … mostly. “Why would you be at graduation? Did you have friends graduating?”

  “Just you.” He gave her a meaningful grin full of invitation. As if someone Gwen knew only from work and a few tutoring sessions showing up to watch her from afar was a compliment. Before she married it might have seemed endearing; now it creeped her out … big time.

  Only ten steps to the brass bar on the oak door that lead outside; it was a heavy door that would slow her down … might be faster to run back toward Maggie. She glanced up at the clock. The night security wouldn’t arrive for an hour, and day security was nowhere in sight.

  Matt chuckled and added, “Plus you know my dad … he makes me go every year so he can look good for the alumni.”

  Adrenalin rushed like a ruptured dam out of her system. She giggled with relief even though what he’d said wasn’t particularly funny. Her therapist told her to not question or hold back emotion. Don’t worry about propriety if you feel something; let yourself feel it. You need to learn to trust yourself, trust your instincts. That was easier said than done. Her instinct a moment ago had been to run screaming bloody murder through the hallowed halls of the museum over a kid who at a scrawny five foot six stood maybe an inch taller than her and was ruled by his parents.

  “So I heard you had a boat-load of internship offers.” He lifted his brows with curiosity.

  Gwen started taking the ten steps. How many times would she have to deflect the same question? Finding out the location of Gwen’s internship had become a challenge to the entire science department. Maggie outright lied when people asked her. Greece, Honduras, Egypt … she gave everyone a different country, which probably stirred the pot of curiosity.

  “Come on Gwen.” He stood and followed as she backed to the door. “I got ten bucks in the pool.”

  The brass rod touched her center back. One push and she’d be free. “What did you bet on?” she asked with a grin she hoped remained friendly on her face.

  “Tasmania.”

  Gwen caught her breath. That had been her choice, but at the last minute she’d changed her mind. Matt’s smile widened as he watched her reaction. No reason to burst his bubble, right? “You win.” She used her chin to indicate the desk. “Your paper dolls are waiting.”

  “Really? I knew it!” He air punched and she almost felt guilty. She ducked out the door without saying more for fear of saying the truth.

  After her day in court and before the call from her mother, Gwen had been wandering the campus that practically defined her life, for what might possibly be the last time. She was only six when her father had moved them to the quiet college town of Oxford, Mississippi, to be a professor of archaeology. Gwen had sat in on her father’s classes her entire life, accompanied him on dig sites. She adored him … away from their home. When she’d graduated high school, her academic career was already set. Then she’d met John and everything changed.

  Knowing he was in Oxford this very minute instead of seventy-five miles away in Memphis gave her goose bumps. She walked quickly to the bus stop, the sound of her sandals on the concrete heightened the feeling of being watched.

  The bus pulled up and she climbed in. “Hi, Henry.” Without a vehicle, she relied on public transport as her mode of transportation between school and the apartment she and Maggie shared nearby.

  “I’m surprised to see you, Miss Kramer … or should I say Dr. Kramer, now. Congratulations on your graduation. I thought you were leaving today.” Henry pulled the door of the bus closed and smiled to reveal the deep wrinkles that came from a lifetime of smiling often.

  “Thank you. My flight leaves tonight.” Gwen sat behind his seat and looked out the windows for the source of the “being-watched” feeling. Nothing seemed ominous, but the feeling persisted when she stepped off a few blocks from her childhood home. She almost asked Henry to wait in case she needed a witness. You’re a grown woman, Gwen. Because of her school load, finding the time to take self-defense had been impossible. Right now, she wished she had lifted it higher on her list of to-dos.

  Henry waved goodbye as the bus accelerated from the curb, billowing black smoke. After weeks in the hospital, Gwen had hidden from John in a battered women’s shelter for a few months. Then one day Martha had come to speak about legal protection, etc. Gwen’s heart had raced in her chest as fear coursed through her body, yet somehow she’d broached Martha afterward. Martha had listened to Gwen’s brief, downplayed version of her marriage and immediately taken Gwen’s case pro-bono.

  She pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her shorts and dialed.

  “You’ve reached the voicemail of M. Lacrosse. Please leave a message—” Gwen shut the phone and gripped it in her hand. Most people had the single-digit speed dials programmed for friends and family … all of hers went to 911. You can’t spend the rest of your life clutching the phone like a security blanket. Gwen forced herself to put it back in her pocket.

  With Martha as the buffer between Gwen and the monster her husband morphed into, she’d eventually gained the courage to return to Oxford and complete her degree at an accelerated pace. At first she’d moved back home with her mother, only to learn her mother was reporting everything she did and said to John. That was when Maggie had offered Gwen the couch in her tiny one-bedroom apartment.

  Her relationship with her mother had never been particularly good, yet her mother siding with John had broken Gwen’s trust beyond repair. They lived less than a mile from each other, but Gwen had only seen her mother a half-dozen times since then, and most were the result of small town life—accidental bumps in a grocery store, diner, or hair salon.

  Only once had Gwen reached out to her mother for anything—her father’s dig tools. She needed them for a course. “You have a husband to supply the things you need, Gwennie. He’s apologized so many times. I raised you to show forgiveness,” her mother scolded. Gwen had borrowed, traded, and begged to get the tools elsewhere, even though brand-new tools showed up on her doorstep. Those she donated to the archaeology department.

  Since she had been legally married to a successful man, Gwen didn’t qualify for grants. Maggie had gotten her a part-time job at the museum to supplement the meager student loans and the money she earned tutoring in her spare time. With the divorce finalized, Gwen had finally qualified for an intern grant coupled with the scholarship she’d been awarded and the five hundred dollars she’d managed to save, and at least some of her financial difficulties had eased. Even her therapist had waved the balance Gwen owed, saying, “call it a graduation present”; Gwen had blubbered the rest of the session with gratitude.

  So why did she feel obligated to come to her mother’s dinner? Hope her mother might miss her? That her mother might finally understand why she’d had to leave her marriage? Not likely. Her father had given all of his love to Gwen while constantly verbally and physically abusing her mother until the day he dropped dead of a heart attack. Gwen had been a freshman at UM. Carol had justified and taken responsibility for the abuse. Somehow
it was always Carol’s fault, never her father’s. “Marriage is a forever commitment, Gwennie.” “I was watching my programs and overcooked the roast, Gwennie.” “My laziness in ironing his shirts made your father rightfully angry.”

  The perfectly manicured lawn and freshly swept porch loomed in front of her. The up-kept older home looked so warm and welcoming from the outside. Inside it held the good and bad memories of her father and the twisted perspectives of her mother; both had ruined Gwen’s view of what a healthy relationship was for all time. Paranoid fear returned, threatening to overwhelm her. Panic gripped her chest, making it difficult to breathe. RUN, her mind screamed. Before she could take the first step, the screen door opened with a creak.

  “Gwennie.” Her mother sounded so happy to see her. “Please, come in and set the table. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

  ****

  Arka sat up, still clutching the skull. Twelve men and women with stunned, gaping jaws stood in the exact spots where the shamans had stood only seconds ago. They each held crystal skulls that were far different than those he’d left behind. These were small, fist-sized, and the skeletal faces lacked the nuance of power and wisdom.

  “Wow.” A man pushed through the circle. Arka didn’t know the word he spoke, but he understood the look of awe on his face enough to gather its meaning.

  “Ci’.” Arka grinned. He’d made it, alive, to the future. The question was … where in the future? The man was dressed in dirt-colored fabric made of a material that Arka was unfamiliar with. “You are shaman?”

  He shrugged. “That’s what I’m told. My father was a shaman, and his father before him. We all are descendants of shamans. My name is Enrique. And if the stories are true, you are Arka, many times my great uncle.”

  Arka’s sister Gia was fifteen years younger than him two minutes ago. He adored her, doted on her, taught her to fight, and lavished every minute of his spare time on her. He wished he could have seen her reach womanhood. Held the children she obviously brought to life. To look upon her descendant filled him with his love of her. He could see his sister’s smile on Enrique’s face. “How far have I traveled?”

  Enrique held out his hand; Arka took it and stood. “By current account, it’s the twenty-first century. By ancient Mayan calendar, it is two years before the end of time.”

  He swallowed hard to dislodge the lump in his throat. That meant Arka only had a short time to meet the Goddess of Moonlight, gain her trust, and unite her with the amethyst skull of her Moon Goddess mother. The weight of the future bore down on his shoulders. Remain near the skull. When the time is right, she will come to you. He reminded himself of the simple knowledge gifted to him by the crystal skull in his hands upon his final communion. He looked out over the land that once supported his people. Except for the sacred temple beneath his feet, everything was gone, replaced by strange lights, sounds, smells, and unfamiliar structures.

  Most of the structures were made of wood and cloth. A few were some type of metal set above black round things. Laughter floated up from the structures, as did the odd hum. They encircled deep-pitted holes with wooden ladders dropped into them where his village had once sat. The edge of the forest had reclaimed much of the fields. Those that remained were littered and untended. Arka wondered how this new tribe grew enough food to sustain the people. And what was the gods’ awful noise?

  “It’s called a generator.” Enrique answered his unasked question. Was his nephew able to read minds? Did Enrique have a connection to the Goddess? “You had a confused look on your face. I was told growing up that if … err … when you came, it would be my duty to teach you of the modern world. Those people are archaeologists. They dig up the remnants of ancient times and study them.” Enrique’s language skills were crude, but Arka could understand him.

  “Ancient times” … he means my time. Have they discovered the amethyst skull? His gaze fell to the spot he’d buried it, and he was relieved to see the ground undisturbed in the distance. As Enrique loaded the items he’d traveled with into strange bags, Arka tried to speak with the shaman. He touched his skull to each of the small ones belonging to the shaman who had aided his arrival. Only a few used words he understood. Using those words as a reference in relation to those the others said, he learned the words for greetings, welcome and hello. Body language and facial expressions gave him more new words and phrases to describe something incredulous. Words like “oh my god,” “un-fucking-believable,” “you got to be shitting me,” and “amazing.” He added them to the “wow” Enrique had said.

  When he’d given the shamans a personal thank you, he bid them each farewell. He noted that none entered the strange village; instead they scattered into the forest. Odd. Enrique handed him a thin, square rug. Arka had no idea what was expected of him. Enrique snatched the rug back and tied it around his waist in demonstration, then offered it to him again with a grin.

  With the rug tied on, Enrique handed him one of the strange bags that carried Arka’s wealth and lifted the other to his shoulder. Arka mirrored him and followed his many-times-grandnephew down the crumbling, nicked, and weather-ruined steps. Twenty-first century. Never in his wildest imagination had he thought his Journey would bring him 2,600 years into the future. The moon, full and bright, bathed his back; it felt as if she were smiling down on him in welcome.

  Chapter Three

  John watched Gwen get on the bus and then backtracked to the truck where she’d put her luggage earlier. That fucking attorney had made Gwen’s destination sealed from any record he or his private investigators could find. He riffled through her things, looking for something that wouldn’t leave her side. The canvas-insulated canteen was perfect. With a quick slash of the material, he inserted the tiny GPS tracker into the thin strip of foam insulation and super glued the cloth back in place.

  The order to remove the restraining order had been denied, but it had been easy to have the document forged to show a different verdict. A quick phone call to the courts, and he found out Gwen’s attorney Martha was in a trial that would take several more hours. That meant Gwen wouldn’t know the truth of the verdict. She would believe his forged documents to be real.

  He only needed a few minutes of face-to-face time with her to convince her to come back to him. The GPS was his backup plan. He knew he’d gone too far but Gwen had pushed him to hurt her. She had no right to leave him. Divorce him. He tried to calm the rage her actions created in him. She drove his dark side on purpose over and over, and then she behaved like a victim. His vision turned red with two equally powerful urges. The desire to pound into her body until she cried out her love, and the desire to end her torture of him by squeezing her neck until she stopped breathing.

  He sat behind the wheel of his car to calm down for nearly a half hour. When he felt composed enough, he fired up the engine and weaved through the streets to her mother’s house, whistling the song she played over and over when she thought she was alone.

  ****

  The aroma of fresh-baked bread reminded her of happy childhood memories with her mother. Gwen had helped her mother knead dough every Sunday growing up. The living room had not changed. Hand-made, intricate doilies protected couches and chairs in a floral fabric. The wall dividing the kitchen from the living room still held a 10x13 framed photograph of her and John on their wedding day. Even in print, his seemingly warm smile made her ill. At least the question of her mother’s loyalty had been answered.

  “I was so surprised to hear you were leaving from the ladies in the salon. Is it too much for a mother to expect that news to come from her child directly?” Let the guilt-fest begin. She steeled against the guilt by reminding herself that no one at the hair salon could possibly know about her internship.

  Gwen gathered two table setting from the cupboards. “I didn’t think my internship would interest you, Carol, especially since you didn’t come to my graduation.” Two could play at this game.

  “Gwennie, you knew that was my bridge
night.” Talk about priorities. Gwen didn’t harness her snort of disbelief. “Well, your father would have been so proud of you.” Gwen didn’t miss her mother’s failure to express her pride. At least she hadn’t mentioned John … yet. “I wish he had lived to walk you down the aisle. Your wedding day was so wonderf—”

  “You bring up marriage and I will leave right now.” Gwen snapped, cutting off her mother’s speech. Carol’s eyes widened with a flash of fear. Gwen had no idea what her mother saw reflected in her eyes, but Carol swallowed and nodded, then pasted a false smile as she carried the casserole to the table. Life with her father had made Carol understandably skittish, and Gwen felt badly for bringing that expression to her mother’s face.

  Taking one of the chairs, Gwen tried to lighten the mood. “So did you win the bridge game?”

  Her mother smiled. “Of course. This casserole dish was first prize.” That brought a true chuckle to Gwen. Leave it to the historical society to figure out a way to gamble at bridge. Like those cutthroat, gossiping old biddies didn’t compete enough.

  The wife of a professor opened doors to Carol in the town’s social circles. Gwen often wondered if her mother’s friends knew of the abuse in their home and turned a blind eye. Maggie had been her best friend growing up. When they were in high school, Maggie had spent the night only once. Gwen’s father had come home drunk from his men’s club and pushed her mother around. Maggie had wanted to call the police, but Gwen had begged her not to. The guilt of doing nothing to protect her mother, now that she had first-hand knowledge of what her mother suffered, ate at Gwen’s conscience.

  Small talk carried them through dinner. Then Carol dropped the question Gwen had been dreading as she served desert. “So where are you going?”

  “On a dig.” Gwen tried to deflect. She wasn’t the greatest liar.

  Carol lifted a brow and set the cherry pie on the table. “I know that. I was married to an archaeologist for years. Where is the dig?”