Jungle Crossing (18 page)

***

T
HE
D
AY
8 C
ABAN

Moon Goddess, Crescent Phase

Sun filtered through the small opening of the cenote, and water shadows danced on the walls of the cavern. Thick roots from a ceiba tree above drank from the cenote; Muluc followed the roots with her eyes—they led to the top of the cavern, but not to the opening. Of course there wouldn't be an escape from the Otherworld. As her legs grew tired, Muluc held on to a slimy root to stay afloat. Maybe the Lords of Xibalba waited for people to die before taking them.

Hurting with hunger and shaking with cold, Muluc lost her hold on the root. Water lapped against her chin, but she lacked the strength to keep herself afloat. Her eyes closed briefly, then longer. Snatches of dreams filled her thoughts. Sleep would feel so good. She allowed the water to cover her mouth. But then, just as she was about to succumb to the dark water, the sun shone directly over the cenote, lighting the cavern like a kitchen fire.

Shadows frolicked across the far wall, making shapes. Muluc remembered the child's game she used to play with friends, naming things in clouds, shadows, dust sprinkled across stone steps. With her laughter echoing throughout the cavern, she named things. Butterfly. Bird. Lizard. Crocodile. Cooking pot. What was that dark spot near the water's surface? Muluc blinked her eyes and stared hard at the spot that the sunlight never touched. Could it be a tunnel? The entrance to Xibalba? A surge of lightning raced through her body, and she gripped the vine with new strength.

"I won't let the gods take me," she whispered.

All night she clung to the wet root, shivering in the dark water.

***

C
ENOTE
, Q
UINTANA
R
OO
, M
EXICO

Hi! Spent the night in Nando's Village. Big party for his sister's 15th birthday.

Like a slumber party, except the whole Village stays awake all night, eating, dancing & telling stories and stuff. In the a.m. we rappelled down into a cenote and swam in a cave.

Nando brought a flashlight and showed us all the formations.

Amazing!!! The Yucatán is connected by a whole series of underground rivers.

Ooops. I'm sounding like my dad.

Love Ya, Kat

P.S. See you soon.

***

I sat in a lounge chair by the pool, writing one last postcard to Fiona, but I wasn't sure that I'd send it. I kind of wanted to keep the photograph of the cenote in my travel journal. The ones I'd sketched didn't capture the magic of Nando's cool, quiet cenote. Maybe I
would
take that drawing class for my art elective next year, even if Fiona's Five all signed up for dance again. I reached for my sunscreen so I could put on a little extra, just to make sure. But then I didn't bother. Even if I had missed a spot, everyone needs a little vitamin D, right?

I tucked the postcard into my journal next to a rough sketch of Nando's sister dancing with her friends; they'd been so happy twirling around in their simple cotton dresses and bare feet. No one ranked anyone's Fashion Sensibility a 2.3 like my friends did. Mini-camp had already ended, but the private jokes would continue for months. Dumb stuff, really. Nothing as good as Muluc's story. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my face.

Poor Muluc—stuck in that cold, dark cenote. She ran away to escape Snake, but she also protected Balam by making him stay behind. Fiona would beg me to escort her through the jungle and wouldn't even care if they sacrificed me once we got there—like she didn't care about making my short self go to basketball tryouts with her. Talk about oh-so humiliating! Spending time with Nando had made me think about what I wanted from friendship. He
did
like me, even though we came from different backgrounds and disagreed about so many things. And as much as I hated it at first, now I kind of liked the way he challenged me to think for myself, improve myself. He wanted me to be the best I could be, and maybe all friendships should be like that.

Barb swam to the edge of the pool and splashed me.

"Stop that, you pest!"

Barb pouted. "I can't believe Nando is making us wait for the end of the story. That's so mean."

"I told you he was mean," I said. "Think of poor Muluc. Hungry. Tired. Freezing cold. Nando is cruel."

"He is not."

"I know." I closed my eyes again. I can't believe I'm actually going to miss the guy! I opened one eye when Barb shouted out to Tanya.

"I brought us some drinks." Tanya handed Barb a frothy strawberry drink. "Two umbrellas."

"Yummy!" Barb sucked down practically half the drink. "And now I have exactly twenty-two umbrellas in my collection."

Tanya held up a virgin piña colada. "I brought one for you too."

"Uh, thanks."

I sipped the drink, worrying about poison for only a nanosecond. Old habit.

"So, Kat. About—" Tanya wrapped her blue-blond hair around her hand. "Can I?" She motioned to the empty lounge chair next to mine.

"Sure." I stopped myself from saying something snotty like "it's a free country." After some of Nando's stories about guerrilla uprisings, I wasn't sure it
was
such a free country.

"So ... I'm sorry for—" Tanya blushed as pink as Barb's daiquiri.

"That's okay." No. Stop. "I mean. Thanks for apologizing."

"I'm not usually ... It's just that things have really sucked with my parents, and moving, and trying to make new friends. And then I saw you, with a little sister who adores you and heaps of friends back home, and you seem so popular, and you're so cute."

I nearly choked on my piña colada. "What?"

"Come on. Josh totally has a crush on you. And Nando treats you like some kind of Mayan goddess or something."

"We're just friends." I pressed the icy cup against my cheeks. "And I'm
so
not popular."

"But you have so many friends." Tanya leaned close, gathering her hair over her shoulder, and whispered, "You didn't dye your hair blue to try to look ultra-fashionable."

"No." I tucked my hair behind my ear. "I cut it short because Fiona said we should all have 'oh-so' the same hairstyle. And I bought this shirt because Fiona said I should. And—" I explained the whole mini-camp situation and how Fiona chose her five best friends.

Tanya's eyes grew wide. "That's so not like you—all independent, kayaking by yourself, climbing pyramids illegally, jumping into cenotes, being all artistic with your sketchbook all the time."

I smiled at those memories. "Um, I kind of did all that stuff because I was afraid."

Tanya wrinkled her forehead, then laughed and kept laughing. At first I felt kind of insulted, but then it did seem funny, and I started laughing too.

"That doesn't make any sense." Tanya gasped for breath.

"I know!" I kept laughing, thinking that I hadn't laughed like this with Fiona in such a long time. Maybe never.

Over a second round of drinks, Tanya and I exchanged stories of stupid things we'd done for so-called "friends."

Barb swam over. "Are you guys ready now? Tanya, I've got to tell you what happens next."

"Guess I better—" Tanya sucked down the rest of her colada. "Thanks for the talk."

"You too," I said. "And thanks for putting up with Barb."

"Oh, you're so lucky. She's adorable!" Tanya slid into the water next to Barb. "Okay, so what happens next? She's at that Snake guy's house."

"Ooh! Ooh! The next part is so good—" They swam to the middle of the pool.

As I sipped my coconut drink, I thought about how Muluc had to travel far from home to realize what she wanted. What did I want now? I opened my journal to make a new list: "What I Want. Number 1: real friends who care about me as much as I care about them. Number 2: to be liked just for being me." I wasn't going to compete in Fiona's ongoing popularity contest anymore.

I guess my jungle crossing had changed me too.

The next morning, Tanya and I had to snag Barb by the back of her T-shirt to keep her from jumping off the bus to meet Nando by the side of the road. Nando climbed the steps extra slowly, fighting a smile.

"I think we should wait to finish the story. Maybe next time you visit Mexico."

The look of utter terror on Barb's face made us all laugh.

Nando sat next to me while Tanya and Barb leaned over the back of their seat. "So where did I leave Muluc?"

"In a cold, cold cenote!" Barb shrieked. "She might die."

"Come on, we've all watched enough American television to know that she's going live," I said, glancing at Nando, who smiled back at me and continued the story.

***

T
HE
D
AY
9 E
TZNAB

War God, Obsidian Sacrificial Blade

The next morning, butterflies played in the ferns growing at the opening of the cenote.

Muluc watched the colorful wings flapping: tiny, fluttering souls. Were they here to help her? Give her courage? She looked toward the tunnel, loosened her grip on the vine, and let herself sink into the water. Moving her stiff limbs, stretching, she swam to the tunnel. Uttering a short prayer, she decided to brave Xibalba rather than die waiting.

The water changed as she swam into its blackness. Colder. Smooth. The water smelled almost like rain falling on hot stone steps, and the memory of standing in the rain with her mother, thanking the gods for their gift, propelled her forward. Soon she lost her sense of direction. Up? Down? She swam with the ripple of current that ran through the water.

Rock formations tangled the cave as vines had tangled the jungle. Jagged spears of rock scraped her legs from below while thick ribbons of stone reached down into the water from above. At times, when her legs and arms tired, Muluc clung to these stony vines, losing track of time.

Her body shivered with teeth-chattering cold as she ran her hands along the walls of the deep tunnel to find her way. Sometimes the cave narrowed, and she had to swim underwater, feeling her way for long periods, longer than she had ever before held her breath. Finally she found a ledge and slept while the water flowed past.

***

T
HE
D
AY
10 C
AUAC

Rain or Storm

Muluc startled awake after a restless dream about a quetzal devouring a snake. She saw light ahead! As she tried to rub warmth back into her arms and legs, the tunnel brightened around her with morning. Gathering all her strength, she swam toward the light ... and found herself in another cenote. Not as far underground as the first, but still impossible to exit. Muluc tried to shimmy up a wet root, but she slid back down into the water again and again.

Soon raindrops began to fall into the center of the cenote. A waterfall crashed from the opening, echoing against the walls of the cavern like a thousand gods screaming. Was this the end? Muluc breathed in the earthy smell of the muddy water swirling around her. She spotted a small pink flower that had washed down with the rain. Crushing it into her wrinkled palm, she wept for her mother, father, baby brother, Balam, and even Quetzal. Would she ever see any of them again? Muluc had spent so much time thinking about all that she had taken for granted: her wealth, her education, her family ... She'd acted as spoiled as an overripe melon!

The current of the river ran stronger, faster. Muluc felt around the edges for the entrance to the tunnel that would lead out of this cenote. She found a branch that had washed in with the storm, wrapped her arms over it, and floated, wondering if today would bring death.

The branch found the current, and Muluc sailed back into the darkness.

***

T
HE
D
AY
11 A
HAU

Sun, Lord

Waking, Muluc squinted in the bright light and found herself floating in a watery grove of mangrove trees. Between the branches arching overhead, the sky glowed pink against soft white clouds. Had she entered the Otherworld at last? Through the clear water she saw colorful fish swimming in groups, like liquid butterflies. Butterflies were the souls of the dead in the Middleworld; maybe fish were the souls of the dead in the Otherworld. Didn't the Hero Twins turn into fish? A giant fish colored like a parrot scraped against her leg, but Muluc was too exhausted to even flinch.

The river widened, surrounded by high, rocky cliffs as Muluc allowed the slow current to carry her. In the distance, waves crashed toward the river as it emptied into the sea. A sea turtle surfaced in front of her, then disappeared. Muluc peered into the water.

Below her swam a huge gray creature—as long as a small canoe. Muluc gripped the branch with all her strength, certain she would be taken by the gods now. The creature rolled on its back under the water and looked at Muluc with its huge hairy snout and large eyes. Everything went dark, and Muluc felt herself slipping under the water.

***

T
HE
D
AY
12 I
MIX

Crocodile

"You have been with the Lords of Xibalba," a deep voice whispered in Muluc's ear. "Drink this." A firm hand lifted her head, and Muluc drank from the gourd, too tired to resist. The warm corn gruel tasted good, and she fell back and slept.

When the sun burned high in the sky, Muluc opened her eyes and found herself in a small hut. A coconut shell full of chopped fruits lay next to her mat. She gobbled every last bite, wondering how long it had been since she'd eaten. Footsteps. She pretended to sleep.

"Good, you've eaten," the voice said.

Muluc opened one eye. The oldest man she had ever seen leaned over her—his skin wrinkled by time, but his eyes warm like chocolate.

"Am I in the Otherworld?" Muluc whispered.

"You have returned," he said.

"Did the monster take me?"

The man laughed, like leaves rustling in a warm breeze.

"The monster of which you speak rescued you." The man held his hand out to Muluc. "Come see."

Muluc's legs felt shaky as she walked outside onto the sand, but the sunlight felt luxuriously warm after the darkness that had chilled her bones. The man led her over to some rocks near the river. Stopping to pluck a few ripe papayas from a tree, he handed one to Muluc.

"Eat," he said. "Very good."

Quickly peeling the sweet fruit, she bit into the papaya.

As they walked to the edge of the water, the monster's face popped up. Muluc shrieked. The old man laughed and tossed a papaya into the water. The monster swallowed it, then rolled over like a puppy, playing.

"You met my manatee friend," he said, tossing another papaya into the water. "She is a gentle creature. She rescued you when you emerged from Xibalba." The man paused. "At least I think you came from the underground river."

"I—"

"May I read for you?" He put his hand on a small pouch hanging at his waist. "I am a daykeeper," he said.

"Like a priest?"

"Not so fancy. But I see things, know things."

He led Muluc over to a flat rock and spread out a colorful woven cloth. "You have been close to the gods. I can already feel the power."

He tapped his leg.

"Like lightning?" Muluc asked. "In your blood?"

"You feel it too," he said.

"I think so. Sometimes."

He bowed his head. "Do me the honor of asking a question."

"Will I find my home?" Muluc asked.

The daykeeper opened his bundle and spilled seeds, crystals, and small stones onto the cloth. He sorted the seeds and crystals into small groups, speaking the day names out loud. He looked up at her and grinned.

"You will see your family on thirteen Ik," he said.

"How long is that?"

"Today is twelve Imix."

"It is?" Muluc asked, not keeping the tears out of her voice. "I will see my family tomorrow? Tomorrow?"

"You have been on a long journey," he said. "But the gods have been with you."

"Where is the road to Cobá?"

"Rest today. Do not rush the gods." He said a prayer and packed up his bundle. "I will catch us some fish to eat," he said. "You will need strength for tomorrow's walk."