Jungle Crossing (14 page)

Children dressed as fierce bats swarmed the stage as the Hero Twins spent the night in Bat House. "Eeek, eeek, eeek," they squealed.

"Come on, let's go," Balam said. "Let's find my mother and Mol."

"But I love the part when the boys are burned, thrown into the river, and return alive three days later." Muluc stopped walking. "Can't we stay?" She did not want to go anywhere near the warriors. Snake. Could he steal her again? Or worse?

"Let's go. Trust me," Balam said.

Somehow Balam found Macaw, who had secured a spot close to the Temple of the Warriors. Muluc looked up the long flight of stairs at the Chac Mool statue reclining between two great pillars of Vision Serpents whose red mouths gaped open onto the platform on either side of him. Images of jaguars and eagles devouring hearts, as well as other ritual scenes, covered the temple—nothing like the staid depictions of royal families at Cobá. Then Muluc remembered the carving of Cobá's queen standing above a group of prisoners. Did they represent actual people like Quetzal's brother? Like herself? Would Balam be treated like a prisoner in Cobá? A shiver ran through her body.

Heat radiated from the stone buildings as everyone waited for the biggest part of the ceremony. Muluc's head ached, and she longed to rest in the shade, but the ball game went on and on. The intense sunlight hurt her eyes; the sound of squalling babies exploded in her ears; and the smell of sweaty bodies and incense made her queasy. She felt a little better after drinking the sweet coconut milk Balam brought her, and Macaw insisted that she eat a few tortillas as well.

As the sun slid toward the Otherworld, cooling shadows crept across the plaza, yet the ball game continued. The throng grew quiet but restless. Men dressed as monkeys roamed among the crowd, dancing, playing tricks on people, taking their food, mimicking them, making them laugh. One came and put a tortilla on Mol's head, and Balam laughed so hard he tipped over backwards. Muluc tried to help him sit up again, but he pulled her down next to him. A cottony cloud stretched across the sky as Muluc and Balam, lying next to each other, held hands.

At last, as the sun disappeared behind the trees, a final cheer roared from the ball court.

"It's time," Balam whispered to Muluc, brushing his lips against her ear.

Sitting up, Muluc looked behind her and watched a procession part the crowd. People stood, but they did not cheer. Mothers quieted their children, reminding them to be respectful. The warriors came first, battle weary. Muluc saw Snake, but he did not search the crowd. He wore a somber expression and walked with a heavy step; still, Muluc felt like she couldn't take a deep breath, as if heavy stones pressed against her chest. Her heart pulsed in her stomach as the warriors climbed the steep stairway and flanked the platform. From the small doorway, the Lords of Chichén emerged, but the crowd remained quiet.

Balam stared straight ahead.

Resembling extravagant jungle birds, the Lords wore long, fluttering feathered capes, headdresses, and loincloths. Girls came out and spread white cloths at the feet of the Lords while servants carried out trays. Lifting long stingray spines from the tray, the Lords each pulled their loincloths away from their bodies and pierced their privates so that blood dripped onto the white cloths below. The servants collected the cloths, placed them in a large bowl in front of the Chac Mool statue, and dipped a torch to the fabric, lighting it in flame. Just like the Hero Twins' bodies. Muluc watched the smoke drift into the sky to feed the gods.

Next, the royal women appeared, wearing elaborate embroidery, their limbs heavy with jewelry. Servants spread more cloth and carried trays with slender vine ropes. The queens kneeled on the white cloths while more servants appeared with goblets, from which the women drank. Then the queens pulled the vine ropes through their tongues, spilling their blood in sacrifice to the gods. Again the servants burned the cloth.

Warriors emerged from the small room between the snake pillars, leading two men who were naked but painted with thick blue dye, and presented them to the Lords. The Lords sprinkled the captives with the ashes of their blood sacrifice. Then the captives drank from a cup.

People cheered when Snake presented the captives to the crowd.

"Sons from the kingdom of Cobá, you have been defeated on the Great Ball Court of Chichén," Snake called out.

Balam raised his fist and shouted along with everyone else.

As she tried to discern the features of the men through the thick blue paint, fear exploded into Muluc's heart like thunder breaking into a burst of rain. Quetzal's brother was the taller one. Her head pounded in rhythm with her heart. The men stumbled as the drink numbed them, but the warriors held them standing.

The Lords began uttering a prayer to the gods, hushing the crowd again. Priests entered the stairway from the hallway below, chanting a song to the gods of rain and maize as small boys scattered corn kernels on the steps of the temple.

A servant appeared, carrying a long knife across his open palms. The warriors took the shorter captive and lay him across the Chac Mool. Then a priest dressed in a cape of blue feathers raised the knife and plunged it deep into the captive's flesh. Red blood ran in purple rivulets as it mixed with the blue paint. The priest worked quickly, lifting the man's heart to the sky.

Fear roared through her body, but Muluc could not look away. Warriors lifted the man's lifeless form and tossed him down the stairs, as if into the Otherworld. As the priest placed the heart in the dish held by the Chac Mool statue, Muluc focused on Quetzal's brother. His eyes had closed, and two warriors supported the weight of his body as they led him to be sacrificed.

Muluc tugged Balam's hand. Briefly their eyes met. Muluc tried to speak. Couldn't. Balam wrinkled his forehead.

"What?" he asked.

Muluc's mouth felt tight and small.

"Come on," Balam whispered.

Muluc allowed him to lead her away—she did not want to see more here. She wanted to return to the jungle and cry until her sleeping mat looked like it had been left in the rain. If only she could wrap herself in her mother's arms and weep like a child with a skinned knee.

With the crowd crushing against them, Balam led Muluc to the white road running from the Great Plaza past gardens wilted from lack of water. Why weren't they heading back into the jungle? The road reminded Muluc of the great white roads radiating from Cobá, and she began to cry, filling her mouth with the taste of her salty tears. Balam didn't notice as he pushed Muluc through the people clogging the road until they reached the edge of a deep cenote. Sheer rock walls surrounded a huge pool of water shimmering dark green in the dusky light—the portal to Xibalba. More priests and warriors led a group of men, women, and children, all painted blue, toward the cenote.

"From Cobá?" Muluc asked with a squeaky voice.

"Most from Chichén," Balam said. "It's a great honor to be wanted by the gods and a good way for the poor to win the gods' favor."

Muluc looked down at the deep green pool. What would the cool water feel like? How would it feel to be embraced by the gods? She stepped closer. Closer. Balam pulled her back. The priests chanted prayers and gave the sacrificial victims long drinks from a painted vessel. The potion acted quickly. One small girl fell to the ground, and the priest lifted her in his arms, like a father picking up an injured child, but then he tossed her into the cenote, where she landed with a soft splash.

"We will see you in three days," he called.

Like the Hero Twins. One by one the others fell into the cenote.

"Do they really emerge again?" Muluc asked as the bodies began to sink.

"Sometimes, but usually as newborn souls," Balam said. "In rich royal families."

People came forward to make their own offerings: clay figures, corn, incense, pottery, wooden statues—all the things that feed the gods. Balam threw in one of Muluc's best figures of Chac.

"Sure to bring rain," he told Muluc.

Muluc took a stone out of her earlobe and tossed it into the cenote to ensure that Quetzal's brother would return to life. A good life.

As night fell dark, the plaza drained of people. In the sky, the Great Vision Serpent loomed over the ball court. Muluc held Balam's hand tight as they walked the long dark road home. A single cloud obscured the moon.

***

E
L
C
ASTILLO
, C
HICHÉN
ITZÁ

Hi! I climbed this pyramid today (even though I kind of wasn't supposed to—guess I'm turning into a rebel. LOL). All the guys nicknamed me Mountain Goat.

Swam in a gorgeous cenote (75 feet down). Long jungly Vines hung into the water. So exotic! the guys are all definite tens! Must be a requirement to get in the country.

Barb is driving me crazy with her treasure hunting!

Love, Kat

***

I wiped the steam off the bathroom mirror and squeezed a blackhead on my chin.

"Kat, get out of there." Barb pounded on the door. "I have to get ready too!"

"Go use Mom and Dad's."

"I'm not going in there."

"It's been cleaned," I said.

"You said it wasn't clean enough for you," Barb said. "So it's not clean enough for me either."

Fine. I opened the door. Barb ran in and turned on the shower.

"What do you think Muluc will do next? I can't believe we have to wait two more days."

"I really don't care," I said.

"You do too," Barb said. "I saw you listening, and then I totally saw you drawing. So there!" She stepped into the marble shower. "Do you think Nando is still mad at you? What if he doesn't want us to come to his sister's party now? You should have never, ever—"

"Shut up," I said. "What you should have never, ever done was show him my journal. And I don't even care about the stupid party. Nando obviously hates me."

"He does not. I think he likes you. Not
like,
like, you know, because of that pretty girl at lunch, but—"

"Whatever." I left the bathroom, turning off the lights just long enough to make Barb scream, before flicking them back on again. "I totally don't care."

I flopped on the bed. Truth? I couldn't stop thinking of Nando and the girl at lunch. After swimming, we'd gone to this restaurant a few miles away. Barb stalked Nando all the way to a table near the back, hoping to hear another installment in "Days of Muluc's Life." Max and Josh invited me to sit with them, but then Talia brushed past me, dragging Luc along, and stole my seat, so I sat next to Barb and Nando. While Barb unsuccessfully nagged Nando, I pulled out my journal and added reason number 50: Talia, Talia, Talia!

Nando leaned over to look at my notebook. "Are you drawing?"

"Not exactly."

"I liked the drawing of Snake," Nando said. "He looked just like I imagined him in my mind too."

Before I could think of anything to say or even process the fact that Nando was being nice to me, even after my pyramid climb, he completely turned his back to me.

Great,
I thought.
I've blown it yet again.
But then I followed his gaze across the room to the gorgeous Mayan girl taking orders and laughing at Josh's jokes. Nando's shoulders tensed, and he wouldn't take his eyes off the girl, even when I spilled my ice water and stole his napkin to wipe it up. When the girl came to our table and smiled her perfect white teeth smile and said something in Mayan, Nando acted goofy. And I felt, well—I felt jealous, I guess. And then I felt stupid. After all, he was Mayan, I was American, and my friends wouldn't even give him a good score—just points for breathing. Plus, he hates Americans. And he didn't exactly think much of me anyway, except he apparently liked my sketches. Whatever. The guy would still toss me into that creepy cenote without a second thought.

While we ate tortillas and chicken, all the waitresses did a Mayan dance. Nando's girl danced right in front of us, doing complicated footwork with an open, full bottle of Coke on her head, and she didn't spill one drop. Pretty impressive, even though it was a little wacky. Nando stared at her as if it were the best thing he'd ever seen. Barb nudged me and smiled her all-knowing nine-year-old smile. Such a child! But the girl was completely pretty: great figure, smooth brown skin (not a single blackhead), silky black hair with a red flower tucked behind one ear. I wondered if she'd be at the stupid birthday party too, along with Alfredo's great love—if we were still invited after I practically ruined Chichén Itzá and everything.

To take my mind off Nando, I sat on the bed and opened my journal and sketched the cenote, writing a few notes about how the cold water felt, how Josh's hand felt. But I kept seeing Nando laughing with the cheerleaders, Nando staring googly-eyed at the beautiful waitress, so I sketched her too.

"What are you daydreaming about?" Barb asked now, combing her wet hair. "Hurry, so we can go get dinner. I'm starving."

Mom knocked on the door. "Come on, girls; we're ready." She walked in wearing a short red sundress that showed off her new tan. Mom was having my ideal vacation!

"Just a minute." I hopped up, still wearing my towel, and searched through my suitcase.

"You've been back for an hour," Mom said. "What's taking so long?"

"Maybe I'm tired," I said. "We drove like a million miles into the jungle today."

What time
was
it? Looking out the window at the darkening sky, I realized that I hadn't thought of Fiona at four p.m. Oh well. I'm sure she wasn't thinking of me either.

"Wear a dress." Mom sighed and shook her head. "We're going to the seafood restaurant."

"Barb threw her stupid wet swimsuit into my suitcase." I held up a babyish watermelon sundress Mom had bought during one of her many shopping excursions in the hotel gift shop (reason number 49). "And this is all I have left," I said. "I'm
not
about to wear it."

"Then you can skip dinner," Mom said.

I grimaced at the silly dress. "Fine. But no little happy family memory photos."