Starfields (12 page)

Rosalba turned to see Sylvia slipping into the crowd.

“You’ll have to change their minds, Rosalba.”

“I don’t know how. Can’t your father do something?”

“He went to town and called Mexico City. He ended up on hold for two hours. He’ll try again in person when we go back. . . .”

At that, a little shadow passed over Rosalba. How could she fight the road with her friend gone?

A group of musicians settled close to the spring, tuning up a violin, guitar, and harp. When the ceremonial music filled the air, the crowd hushed.

“The musicians keep the water happy,” Rosalba said into Alicia’s ear. “If the water isn’t happy, the spring might dry up.”

Yet not everyone hushed. Rosalba noticed the town boys talking on their cell phones. Some had on earphones, listening to other music. They didn’t care if a road was built to San Martín.

When the music ended, Señor Tulán stood over the spring. Lifting his bamboo staff, he recited the usual Mayan prayer in his singsong voice:
Yea, pleasing is the day, you, Huracan, and you, Heart of Sky and Earth, you who give abundance and new life, and you who give daughters and sons . . .

The crowd listened with bowed heads.

“What’s he saying?” Alicia asked.

“He prays that the water will be preserved for the health and prosperity of all.” She wished that the shaman had added something about the dying frogs. About the road. About the end of the world itself. But perhaps he was saving those messages for the Earthlord himself.

The shaman turned away from the spring, leading the procession upward, higher onto the cone-shaped peak of the Earthlord. Tall pines swayed and fragrant needles covered the forest floor.

Usually, Rosalba felt happy on this festival day that celebrated the rain and the new crops. But today she felt twisted, at odds with Sylvia and her aunties.

As the procession moved up the mountain, the air grew cooler and small clouds drifted across the sun. Just before the peak, a meadow spread in front of the Earthlord’s cave. A collection of wooden crosses stood propped up by piles of stones. Sheltered from the breeze, candles burned in small pits.

Christians said that the crosses stood for the cross where Jesus died. But in San Martín people believed they stood for the sacred tree of life.

As Tía Mirsa and other women knelt to tie three branches of geranium flowers to the crosses, Rosalba whispered to Alicia, “They’re opening the gate to the sacred world.”

Men were busy lighting numerous fire altars, throwing gourdfuls of grainy copal incense into the flames, releasing clouds of sweetness.

At an altar in front of the cave, people laid offerings of cigarettes and corn seed, bowing slightly with palms pressed together. The women added offerings of calla lilies and sweet-smelling tuberoses. The men offered gourds of sugarcane liquor, then passed the gourds among themselves.

Alicia looked on, wide-eyed.

The boys from town tapped away on their cell phones.

A woman handed Rosalba a box of matches, saying, “Please light those candles over there.”

Rosalba and Sylvia took turns lowering the lighted matches into the tall glasses, touching the flame to the wicks.

When they’d finished, the same woman gave them a basket filled with herbs.

Alicia fingered the leaves and seeds.

“Sprinkle them like this,” Rosalba said, casting a handful onto the ground. “The Earthlord likes the sweet smell.”

As the men lit the ends of pieces of sugarcane, rockets took off into the air, leaving behind a smell of gunpowder. The musicians once again set up — this time joined by a slit drum player — their music punctuated by the explosions of these fireworks.

Holding a sharp knife in one hand, the shaman lifted a black chicken toward the sky. It flapped its wings briefly, then cried out.

Alicia turned her head away and covered her ears.

“It’s no problem,” Rosalba reassured her. “There’s plenty of chickens. They’re not dying of fungus.”

As Señor Tulán began his prayer, Rosalba moved close, listening carefully. Maybe instead of speaking to the villagers about the road, he’d talk directly to the Earthlord. He’d talk about the dying frogs, the bulldozer at the bottom of the mountain. He’d even talk about 2012. The Earthlord would do something about those things.

At the prayer’s end, Alicia looked at Rosalba, her eyebrows raised in question.

“He only said the usual things. You know — asking the gods for rain and good crops.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all,” answered Rosalba. For once, she understood more than Alicia did.

Alicia scuffed at the grass with the toe of her sandal.

Now that the ceremony was over, the women set out the feast, balancing the dishes on large rocks at the edge of the meadow.

Rosalba and Alicia carried their plates to a spot overlooking the forest below.

“It looks so small from up here,” Alicia said, pointing to the scar cut by the bulldozer.

“But it’s going to my village. . . . And it might come all the way here,” said Rosalba, looking around, trying to picture cars and trucks parked here in the lovely green meadow. Suddenly, she didn’t feel hungry for the bean-paste tamales.

Alicia sighed. “Then it’s really going to be up to us. Have you thought of what you’ll do?”

Rosalba shook her head.
Her own big thing.

“Well, before I go, I’m going to make posters and put them all over. Even in town.”

“What will they say?”

“Don’t burn trees. Pick up trash. Don’t make roads and kill frogs.”

Rosalba set aside her plate of food. She didn’t want to think about Alicia leaving. And she couldn’t write words to make posters.

“You have to decide on something, Rosalba. I’m leaving in a few days.”

“You
can’t
!” Rosalba scooted closer to her friend.

“Papi has his job at the university. And I have school.”

“But what will I do without you?”

Alicia put an arm around Rosalba’s shoulder. “You’ll be all right. You were fine before I came.”

As clouds began to cover the blue sky, blotting out the sunshine, Rosalba shivered.

Just then she saw Catarina Sanate, sitting alone, overlooking the valley.

“See that woman over there?” Rosalba said. “No one likes her because she does folk paintings.”

“Why?”

“Only men are supposed to paint.”

“In Mexico City, lots of women paint.”

“In our culture, men are supposed to do their things and women theirs.”

“Is that why she’s sitting alone?”

“She doesn’t fit in,” Rosalba explained.

As a light drizzle began, people started to pack up.

Rosalba stood and brushed off her skirt, saying, “The Earthlord has had enough of the festival. He’s asking everyone to leave his mountain.”

She noticed that Catarina remained seated, her shawl pulled over her head. She wondered if she felt lonely on this feast day when everyone was celebrating together.

“Stay here,” Rosalba said to Alicia, then took a square of candied watermelon squash from her plate. With only one dish of the sugary treats, not everyone had gotten some.

She walked hesitantly down the green slope. When she reached Catarina, she touched her lightly on the shoulder.

Catarina started, but on looking up, she smiled.

“Would you like this?” Rosalba held out the candy.

Catarina gave a quick laugh, then lifted her open palm. “Of course. How thoughtful of you.”

For what feels like many passages of the Long Count, I lie still in our dark cave. My bones cannot hold me. They are ground like fine cornmeal. Sometimes I sink through the blanket, passing through the floor of the cave and into the Underworld.

Mauruch brings me nourishing liquids, whispering, “I am sorry, Xunko. I didn’t know. . . .”

My return was not guaranteed. I almost did not come back from the great Underworld of the night sky.

I want to see nothing. I want to sleep and forget all that I have witnessed. But, as if my eyes were still bandaged, behind them I see the codices. Codex after codex foretelling death, destruction, chaos, annihilation, obliteration. . . .

My fellow shamans increase their rituals, bleeding themselves, chanting, begging the gods for the lives of all Mayans. For the life of the earth itself. “O Heart of Sky! O Youngest Thunderbolt and Sudden Thunderbolt!”

The shamans burn offerings. They eat only the fruits of
zapotes, matasanos,
and
jocotes.
They deprive themselves of corn, the food of life. They lift their faces to the sky, pleading before the gods.

Do they beg for my life, too?

No one comes to me for blood.

I meet One Death and Seven Death. I meet them both and sometimes do not know if I survive on this earth or have already drifted to Xibalba. Perhaps I have been sacrificed after all.

I instruct the ants to bring me flowers from the garden of One Death and Seven Death. These I offer back to them, hoping to appease those who would steal me.

One night during the chanting, a vision of a young girl appears to me. Her braids are looped close to her ears. She wears the traditional
huipil
of those who live in the jungle after the empire’s fall.

But around her I see animals that shine with the brilliance of gold. They have round feet that roll, traveling quickly down wide black pathways. I see gleaming animals — or are they temples? — moving through the sky.

This girl is not of my time. Nor of any I have foreseen.

She lives close to the end of the Fifth Sun. The calendar year of 13.0.0.0.0 fast approaches.

Perhaps that is why her face is sad. Why she is worried. She is alone. I am sad with her, worried with her, alone with her. Her flesh is my flesh, her blood my own.

Keeping this vision a secret from Mauruch, I gather my strength. I must become more than I have ever been.

T
hat night a strange dream came to Rosalba. A boy, just a little older than Mateo, appeared before her. His cheeks were painted with blue stripes. A heavy shell necklace encircled his throat. Pointed bones dangled from his earlobes.

He squinted at her as if the light hurt his eyes. And then he passed a hand over his forehead — the hand shaking — and disappeared.

All morning Rosalba had relived the dream. Who was this boy? What did his coming to her mean?

Hearing the fluttering and squawking of chickens, Rosalba turned to see Alicia entering the patio. She stood with her light hair shining, wearing a pale-blue dress.

“Alicia! How did you find the way here?”

“I followed the trail. I asked people.”

Rosalba glanced toward the path that led from the cornfields. But it was too early for Papa to come down and find Alicia here. Mama and Nana were again tending the small cornfield near the orchard.

Adelina peeked around the door of the hut, then darted back inside.

“Look what I’ve made.” Alicia unrolled a big piece of paper. The poster had a picture of a frog lying on its back. “This says,” Alicia said, pointing to each word, “don’t build roads.”