Mayan December (32 page)

As they navigated the cliff, he reveled in the curve of Hun Kan’s waist, the way her wet clothing clung to her hips. She looked like a goddess of fertility. “Will you have my children?” he asked.

She was a little above him. She looked over her shoulder and smiled down at him, the look in her eyes all the answer he needed.

There was no more time to talk because they were near the top and Alice and Nixie reached their hands down toward them. At first he thought Nixie would take Hun Kan’s hand, but at the last moment she grinned and said something to her mom, then reached for him.

He understood.

When they met he had pulled her from a cenote.

CHAPTER 59

Cauac smiled as Nixie pulled Ah Bahlam, dripping and somewhat undignified, from the cenote. The boy had done well.

A great weight had lifted from his own shoulders. After all, would Ah Bahlam have been here to change the order if Cauac himself had not been in Zama to teach him?

Or was that an old man’s fancy?

He shrugged and checked on the people-of-the-future who had chosen to witness. The leaders talked among themselves. Their guards had managed to separate them from both the warriors and the lip of the cenote. Cauac had been so focused on Ah Bahlam and the high priest during the fight that he had missed their reactions.

The red warriors still stood by the body of the high priest. The situation in Chichén must have been even worse than they had thought in Zama for most of the high priest’s own elite bodyguards to shriek joy at his death.

But now they stood looking confused. Ah Bahlam had thrown the heart into the water, but this cenote had not seen human sacrifice since the dedication of the Ball Court a generation ago.

As he walked over to the small knot of seven or eight warriors, he recognized two as past students of his. “K’inti! P’oh! Good to see you!”

“Good to see you, too!” K’inti smiled at him. “You taught Ah Bahlam.”

It wasn’t a question, but he nodded anyway. “He was always on the path of the warrior priest.” He knelt down, staring at the yellow band on the high priest’s arm. What had Nixie shown Hun Kan? He twisted. Nothing. It took three tries, but he finally placed the watch in the pouch around his waist. It told time, and he wanted to learn how it did that.

“Will he lead us well?” P’oh asked. “Will Chaac smile upon us?”

After seeing Chichén dead and gray, Cauac knew it didn’t really matter. Enough time changed all things. If the Mayans were to live on, it wasn’t going to be as themselves, not exactly. He glanced at Don Thomas, who stood chattering with Ian and watching the foreign leaders. Perhaps the Mayans had lived on in a way. A Way. He looked up at the sky. “See, the stars are already a little obscured. Perhaps rain clouds will come in to honor the passing of the High Priest of K’uk’ulkan.”

One of the other warriors grunted. “Or the rise of the new one.”

“Either way, Chaac may be paying homage to Feathered Serpent and Jaguar. You will know what happens tomorrow. For now, perhaps it would be best to burn this body so the animals do not eat it and the water does not foul with it.”

K’inti asked, “Will you stay with us?”

Cauac looked over at Ah Bahlam, who was headed toward them, his head high and Hun Kan on one arm. He looked up at the sky, which was indeed clouding over a bit.

The doorway between the two times was still open, like a wind in his face. “You do not need me.”

CHAPTER 60

Alice watched as Ah Bahlam and Hun Kan left her and Nixie, two small people with dripping wet hair and well-made but scratched and scarred bodies. They walked close together, hips almost but not quite touching, heads high. They each had a lightness in their step.

Power had just changed hands in Chichén Itzá.

Twenty minutes ago, Ah Bahlam had ripped the heart from an old man’s chest. Five minutes ago, he and Hun Kan had laughed like two teenagers in love as they climbed up over the lip of the cliff.

She shook her head and reached for her daughter’s hand. “I wonder if we’ll see them again after tonight?”

“I don’t think so.” Nixie’s smile looked sad.

Alice didn’t have any idea how to make her feel better. “We’d best go see if everyone else is all right.”

Marie, Aditi, Huo Jiang, Peter, Oriana, the Secret Service, and the dogs stood in a knot a few steps back from the edge of the cenote. An unusual silence gave away the depth to which the violent passing of power had affected them.

Three stoic red warriors watched them quietly, their eyes flicking to the dogs more often than the people.

Every pair of eyes looked at Alice and Nixie as they walked up.

What was she supposed to say? At least they were all safe. “It’s . . . it’s not a dream.” She paused. “It’s magic, except . . . ” she glanced at Marie, “except there’s messages coming down in our time that are following the rules of science. Maybe we are, too.”

Aditi smiled. “Let it be, Alice. Maybe science and magic are one and the same.”

Marie laughed. “I guess I asked to come here. It . . . I . . . ”

She’d never heard Marie run out of words. Aditi picked up the silence. “How often can any of us see history? It’s very beautiful here. Raw. Like we can never be. Smell the air.”

A short silence fell, and everyone looked around, as if suddenly reprieved and allowed to do so. Stars blazed overhead and somewhere far off, a monkey screeched. The air smelled of flowers and leaves and limestone. Bats made tiny dark arrows through the sky. Alice savored the moment, wishing she knew how it had come to her. Magic in her bones. She sucked it into her like air, so she expanded and for just a heartbeat, a breath, she felt like she was the entire jungle and the ancient night sky.

Marie broke the silence by leaning over to Nixie. “I know why the turtles came to you. You’re the only one who tried to go to your friend’s side.”

Nixie’s sounded amazingly poised as she said, “Well, I wasn’t being guarded by the Secret Service. And I knew they wanted to kill her. You didn’t.”

Alice blinked back a tear. When had her daughter grown so much?

Huo Jiang had been silent. He shifted on his feet, quietly drawing attention to himself. When he had it, he looked at Alice, Aditi, and Nixie. “I am sorry I doubted you.” He looked straight ahead, toward the cenote. “But you could come here, and I could not have. You have the respect of these people from the past. I could not have done that. And you were no more afraid than I.”

Alice looked to Marie to answer, but Aditi spoke next. “If we are so lucky that an equal miracle takes us back, I will not question the Brahmin’s insistence in belief in the supernatural anymore.”

A fleeting smile crossed Huo Jiang’s face before his mask of inscrutability returned.

Alice recognized herself in Aditi’s words. How differently might she study the stars now?

Peter was still staring at his computer screen. Marie asked, “Is the same kind of data landing in this time, too?”

“No.” He looked up at Marie, his eyes pleading. “But I’m running some decoding algorithms. Can we go back before I run out of battery, too?”

Alice wanted to burst out laughing. Such a modern and unspiritual request. So Peter. She looked around. Cauac had joined Ian and Don Thomas, and otherwise they were all close by.

Marie spoke. “We need to make history in our own time. We’ve got to meet the press.” She didn’t look indifferent. She looked like she wanted to stay here more than anything.

“Ian,” Alice called. “Can you ask Don Thomas to take us back?”

He came over and took her in his arms, pulling her in close. He kissed her so hard it nearly bruised her face, and she didn’t want to let him go. Ever. Her hand curled around the back of his neck and kept him close to her.

When he pushed her gently away, he said, “Nix can take you. I’ll be along.”

“But you will?” she asked.

He smiled. “There’s still tomorrow to see, right?”

She initiated the kiss this time, smiling as he turned back toward Don Thomas.

Nixie said, “Wait. Ian? Can you tell Hun Kan something for me?”

He nodded.

“Tell her what I learned from her is to be brave and do what I know I have to do, even if it scares me. Tell her I also learned about friendship.”

After Ian was done speaking in Mayan, Hun Kan separated from Ah Bahlam and gave Nixie a long look, her eyes wet and shining. She stepped forward and kissed Nixie on the cheek, a regal kiss, but equal to equal. The Mayan girl was not much older than Nix, and now she would help shape a whole culture. There was much glory left before the Mayan culture would die.

Alice struggled not to cry.

“Everyone hold hands,” Nixie said, and everyone did except Ian, Don Thomas, and Cauac, who stepped back. Alice had the strange sense she was in the middle of a nursery rhyme or a kids television show, or that maybe the whole group of them holding hands should just break out and sing
Kum-bay-ah, My Lord, Kum-bay-ah
, but they simply ended up with the great tree and the cross of the ecliptic burning above them like a beacon and a welcome.

The cenote was still there, of course.

One of the dogs bayed and was shushed. They began to sniff at the air and the ground.

The guards flashed their lights across the group, counting.

Huo Jiang looked greatly relieved to be back in the time with the wrongly-restored sacbe and the historical sign in front of the cenote. He reached into his pocket and took something out, and then quite loudly said, “For peace and clean air . . . and this time I mean it with the greatest of sincerity.” His arm drew back and swung forward, a dark silhouette against a dark gray background. Something small flew from his hand. A short sharp splash announced its contact with the water of the cenote of sacrifice.

A feeling of the sacred settled over Alice.

Then the dogs barked and two of the three Secret Service men started chattering at the empty air. Peter already had his laptop out and happily exclaimed as his screen lit so brightly it threw blue and orange bars on their faces.

Marie stepped over by Alice. “Thank you.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Would you and Nixie come to DC? I don’t know how to work it yet, but I’m sure we need an archeoastronomer on the project to decode all of this data falling from the sky.”

“Will I see you?” Alice asked.

Marie looked away. “Sometimes. Not too much. But you’d make a difference, and there are good schools there for Nixie.”

She took in a long breath, and it seemed like the sweetness of the Mayan past came into her for a last time. Even though she wasn’t Nixie or Don Thomas, she knew the door would close tonight, and they’d be done. “Can I be based here?” she asked.

Marie bit her lip, then smiled. “You’ll have to come to DC sometimes. Maybe as much as once a month.”

She’d be crazy not to take it. “Of course. Will the phone number I have work for you tomorrow?”

Marie nodded. “I’ll make sure that number gets extended another day.” She leaned in and hugged Alice. “I will take you with me to DC in a few days.”

Alice nodded.

“Enjoy a few days on the beach.”

Alice glanced at Nix. “I will. Good to see you.” She felt awkward.

Marie folded her in a warm hug, and then whispered in her ear. “Ian’s quite cute.”

Alice blushed.

Marie leaned in and hugged Nixie, too. “Take care of your mom, and remember to carry the turtles with you. I think you’ve only just started on the destiny they hinted at.”

Nixie nodded. “Me, too.”

Marie fidgeted, anxious now. “I’ll leave you Alan.”

Like she wanted a keeper for these last two days on the beach. “No need.”

“Sure?”

Alice nodded. “Go meet the press.”

Marie gestured to Peter, who gave Alice a long, apologetic look but followed Marie, who would have access to power and information far faster and deeper than Alice would. Oriana trailed along behind him, as if Peter needed her for balance. The dogs and keepers made up the last of the entourage, Marie querying Peter as they went.

The quiet behind them felt like heaven. They were alone.

Alice sat down on the stone, pulling Nix down beside her. “We’ll wait here. Ian will be along soon.”

“Okay,” Nix mumbled and scooted close to Alice, putting her head on her shoulder.

Alice stared up at the sky, entranced. Nixie slept, the starlight shining on her face. As always, she looked years younger and more vulnerable in her sleep. But not, perhaps, as young as she’d looked a week ago.

A hint of raw magic seemed to have settled permanently over her.

DECEMBER 22, 2012

CHAPTER 61

A knock on the door woke Nixie. It was clearly morning, maybe past; the brightness of the day intruded even through closed curtains. She shoved aside the covers and padded through the living room to peer through the keyhole like Oriana had taught her those two days when every journalist and blogger in the Yucatan had been chasing her.

It was Oriana, looking ready for the beach. She had on a light shift over her blue one-piece swimsuit, and yellow swim goggles and fins stuck haphazardly out of a white canvas bag she carried. Nixie flung the door open. “Oriana!”

“Good morning, World Turtle Girl.”

“Good morning.” She glanced at the bag full of swim stuff. “World Turtle Girl?”

“Hmmm . . . Marie talked about you last night. Said you and people like you might save the world just by being innocent.”

Nixie laughed. “Did you come to take me snorkeling?”

“Yeah.” Oriana grinned. “I thought we should go one more time. Is your mom up?”

Nixie shook her head. “We can leave her a note. But I’m hungry.”

Oriana patted the canvas bag. “I packed us a lunch.”

The door to Alice’s room swung open. “I’m here,” she mumbled, pushing sleep-mussed hair back from her face. “We’ll go with you.”

We?”

The door opened wider to show Ian’s grin.

He’d spent the night? In her mom’s room? Nixie wasn’t such a baby she didn’t know what that meant. Her cheeks grew hot. “Good morning, Mr. Ian.”

He laughed and said, “Good morning, Turtle Girl.” He glanced at Oriana. “So how is the morning after the end of the world doing so far?”

“Pretty normal. But I’m hungry for the salty sea, so come on.”

He narrowed his eyes, and stuck his tongue out at her. “If it’s normal, we have time for coffee.”

Nixie grinned evilly. “So use a to-go cup.”

They piled into Ian’s jeep, driving through the warm wind of the first day of winter proper in the Yucatan.

Nixie and Oriana left Ian and Alice up on the beach under palms, holding hands and finishing their coffee, while they sat on the wet sand near the high tide mark, watching the water.

“Looking for turtles?” Oriana asked.

Nixie shook her head. “They’ll come when I need them.” She ran her fingers through the sand.

Oriana watched her. “You know that’s not sand.”

Huh? Nixie scooped up a handful and splayed her fingers out so the sun caught on hundreds of tiny shells. Shells so small it would probably take a million to fill a coffee cup, mostly tiny versions of the ones you could hear the sea in. “Wow.”

“You should see them through a magnifying glass or microscope sometime.”

“Things are never what they seem, are they?”

Oriana let out a long, soft sigh. “Not often. Will you miss her?”

“Of course.” It felt like a punch. She really wouldn’t see Hun Kan again. They’d said it last night, when Ian and Cauac and Don Thomas came through to this time, but she’d been half-asleep even walking out of Chichén and getting in line for the bus with the tourists. She didn’t remember the ride. Only now the idea that it was over, that she’d never go back, sank in. “I hope I remember everything about her.”

“You’ve got your pictures,” Oriana said. “Maybe you can take a handful of those little shells. They’re so small they look like fairy shells, so maybe they’ll remind you of magic.”

“They’ll remind me of you, too. What are you going to do?”

“Maybe I’ll go work at the clinic again. And keep diving. I can’t imagine leaving the coast here. Peter asked me to come to DC, but I told him no.”

“Did he ever go to sleep last night?”

“No. The data stopped flowing around dawn, but the whole world is working on understanding it. There appear to be stories and poemsscience facts and pictures, but no one has figured out how it all goes together. Peter thinks it’ll take years.”

“He’ll like that.”

Oriana stared out toward the horizon line where the blue sky and the blue of the sea fuzzed into each other. She stood up. “Are you ready?”

Nix grinned. “You bet.”

They walked out into the ocean, stopping to put on their fins and mask when the water was just below their waists.