Starfields (15 page)

“That’s no design, Rosalba. It’s . . . it’s the opposite of a design. It wasn’t an ancestor but a demon who sent you that dream,” said Sylvia. “If you keep going, bad things will happen.”

Rosalba didn’t answer, but wondered if Sylvia was right. By her rash actions, was she hastening the end of the world?

Coming back, I find one arm still a glittering black wing. It takes me until Icoquih rises to transform it, to find myself completely human again.

Traveling out of the cave, back to the place where we shamans live, I pause in the House of Darkness. I check on the ear of corn planted. It is not yet dead.

Mauruch did not notice my absence. For in truth, I have not been gone for any earthly time. I sit against the wall of the cave, listening to the stalactites form.

Sometimes I am strong enough to glimpse that girl at her loom. She is a wise girl. One who listens.

I sink into rest. Or am I falling into the Underworld? Am I to be trapped forever in Xibalba?

T
he next day, thunderheads formed, heavy with moisture. Surely it would rain. Yet as Rosalba set up her weaving inside the hut, the clouds drifted away. When the sky should have been washed with rain, bright yellow sunshine streaked across the patio.

That night the wide band of stars seen only in winter paraded across the black sky.

No rain fell the next day, or the next. By the end of the week, the sky remained a clear azure from one horizon to the other. Hot winds parched the air.

Papa complained that the new corn shoots were shriveling. For a few days, he and the boys carried jars of water on their heads to the plants. But that did little good. Soon it was no use at all going to the cornfield.

“There’s no corn to eat. No corn to trade. No seeds to plant next year,” Papa declared to Mama one day.

Rosalba looked down at her dusty sandals, at her dusty brown toes. She thought of Sylvia’s warning. Had her ugly weaving brought on the drought?

“Maybe I should go to the
fincas
to find work,” Papa went on.

The
fincas
were the coffee plantations in the Lowlands. Only men without cornfields went down there to work for the
ladinos.
Men without cornfields were men without true connection to life.

Throughout San Martín, the men swung in hammocks, sleeping, smoking, talking of the
fincas.

Rosalba continued her weaving. Instead of tying the loom across the open space of the patio, she retreated to the side of the hut where she couldn’t be easily seen.

The drought
wasn’t
her fault, she kept telling herself. The Earthlord’s toads were dying of fungus. They’d died because of the road. She knew this, yet with every new line she wove, she trembled.

“You can’t keep this up, Rosalba,” said Mama. “You’ll bring a bad name to our family.”

“That’s such an ugly
huipil
!” Adelina declared.

Nana remained silent.

Rosalba heard the voices of Sylvia and Tía Yolanda in the patio. They were asking Nana if they could borrow some salt. She heard Sylvia and Tía Yolanda moving behind her. She sensed their gaze on her
huipil.

The next day, as she was doing laundry at the river, Rosalba noticed glances, heard whispers. She heard the dreaded word
bruja.

Mauruch speaks to the shamans: “In his weakened state, hovering perilously between life and the Underworld, Xunko engages in a battle I know nothing of.”

He begins a slow chant:
“You, Bundled Glory, and you as well, Tohil, Auilix, and Hacavitz, Womb of Sky and Womb of Earth, the Four Sides and the Four Corners . . .”

I breathe in the incense of copal.

Later Mauruch comes to me. “Open your eyes, Xunko. You are young yet. You are to live in this world.”

But I cannot. Fate urges itself upon me.

If I fail, if the girl fails, the world will veer toward the Black End.

A
t the market, Rosalba helped Mama lay out the calla lilies, the eggs, and Nana’s woven cloths. K’in, instead of hiding behind a gray blanket of moisture, showed his bright face. Instead of being a friend, the sun was now an enemy. When the hot breeze stirred the dust, women covered their faces with their shawls, grumbling.

“The rains should never have begun if they were going to stop like this.”

“It must be evildoing.”

Some of the women flashed looks in Rosalba’s direction. It seemed the gossip of her weaving had spread beyond San Martín.

When Mama had sold some of the lilies and a basket of eggs, she gave Rosalba a few pesos.

For once Rosalba didn’t look forward to going out into the market. She wished she could sit quietly, pretending to study the woven lines of her skirt.

“Go on, Rosalba,” said Mama.

“But they’ll look at me. They’ll talk about me.”

“They’re doing that anyway. Plus most of that is your imagination.”

Reluctantly, Rosalba stood up. With the coins heavy in her hand, she entered the crowd of sellers and shoppers. She held her head high in spite of the looks, the conversations that stopped when she drew close.

She bought the things Mama had asked for — matches, a handful of limes, coffee, chili flakes, more kerosene — loading up the nylon bag. Then she made her way to Catarina’s stall, where the usual tourists clustered.

Rosalba studied a painting of men working a cornfield. Bean vines climbed the corn stalks, sprouting new leaves and red flowers. Squash vines stretched their wide, flat leaves, shading the ground so that herbs and wild greens grew underneath.

But there was something at odds with this fertile scene. Around the border, Rosalba noticed the tiny monkeys and vultures who represented the chaotic world. Sometimes women wove them to remind people of the destruction that would come if they acted badly. Then she peered more closely — in the background, high on the mountain, Catarina had painted a small brown square. It was a dead cornfield.

She shivered.

Rosalba felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Catarina.

“I’ve heard about what you’re doing,” Catarina whispered in Mayan. “Don’t worry about what others say. Do what
you
need to do.”

“Even that . . . ?” Rosalba nodded toward the tiny dead cornfield.

“Yes, even that.”

“It’s so hard,” said Rosalba.

“Very.” For a moment, Catarina locked Rosalba’s eyes with her own large, dark ones, then said, “Such work makes us sisters.”

Rosalba smiled, but shivered nonetheless. She had now joined herself with Catarina, the outsider. But at least she wouldn’t be alone, as Catarina had always been. “Did a shaman come to you in a vision?” Rosalba asked in a whisper.

Catarina’s eyes darted over the crowd, and she put a finger to her lips. “Shhh. Later.” She patted Rosalba’s shoulder. “Come see me anytime.” Then she turned back to her customers.

The girl and I stand at the crossroads, in need of the holy power of the gods.

May there be only light within your mouths and before your faces, O gods.

I send precious gems and glittering stones. I send cotinga feathers, oriole feathers, and the feathers of red birds. I bring tribute to the enchanted lords Cucumatz and Co Tuha and also before the faces of Quicab and Cauizimah, the Ah Pop of the Reception House, Magistrate and Herald.