Panacea (26 page)

Small bottles lined the walls, interspersed with tied bunches of dried flowers and herbs: Mulac's pharmacopoeia.

“Can we talk?” she said in Mayan.

Ix'chel looked up. In daylight Laura could now see how hollow-eyed and haggard she looked.

She shook her head. “I will not talk to anyone who is not of this village.”

“I'm
almost
of this village. My mother brought me to Maya country many times to visit my grandmother before she died.”

“Tlalli said you also came here looking for cures to steal.”

That stung. “She said that?”

“No. But I know how it works.” She gestured around at her murdered brother's quarters. “You find something that heals and you take it back home where you call it your own and make millions but give none of it back.”

“That's true for others. But that's not me. And when I found out that was happening I quit.”

“You came and talked to Mulac.”

“Years ago, yes. But I never hurt him. I'm not one of them.”

“Oh, I know that. The bad ones, the ones called 536, they are always men. But that doesn't matter. You too are here to use us.”

She sensed how tightly Ix'chel had shut down. No surprise. She was hurt and grieving and probably frightened half to death—with good reason. Laura had to find a way past the wall she'd erected, get her to open up. But how?

Well, when nothing else works, try the truth.

“I'm a doctor too, you know.” Ix'chel looked up. Was that a spark of interest in her eyes? “But I work only with dead people.”

“You can't cure the dead.”

“I try to understand
why
they died.”

“Ah,
médico forense,
” she said in Spanish, nodding.

“Right. I examined Chaim … Chet, but I couldn't find out how he died.”

She frowned. “He wasn't burned?”

“Someone tried to burn him but the firemen arrived too soon and pulled his body free.”

“And you couldn't find a cause of death?”

Laura shook her head. “He was one of the healthiest corpses I've ever examined. It was as if his heart simply stopped beating.”

Ix'chel stared at her for a few seconds, then said, “This is exactly what happened.”

That took Laura aback. “What? How can you know?”

“Because we are taught how to do it.”

“By whom? Who teaches you?”

Ix'chel waved the questions away. She wasn't going to answer. “We are taught. That is all. When the Brotherhood finds us, we know we are going to die. They—”

“The Brotherhood? What Brotherhood?”

“The 536 Brotherhood. They call us witches and warlocks and their holy book says they must kill us.”

“What holy book is that?”

“The Bible. It says, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.'”

Laura gasped. In the old days they hung or burned witches, didn't they? Hanrahan had been burned, and very nearly Brody. And Mulac … poor Mulac had suffered both.

“We know they will torture and burn us,” Ix'chel said, “so we spare ourselves the pain and deny them that satisfaction by stopping our hearts.”

Laura didn't see how it was possible to stop your own heart, but everything Ix'chel was saying jibed perfectly with Hanrahan's and Brody's autopsy results, and with what Stahlman had told her.

He'd said he thought 536 might have their roots in Christianity. Seemed like he was right.

Ix'chel's expression was suspicious. “You are telling me that you knew nothing of this?”

“Almost nothing.”

“You came here to steal a secret—the secret of the greatest cure the world has ever known—to make yourself rich and powerful. You are worse than the Brotherhood. They are sick and twisted murderers, but at least their motives are pure and beyond greed!”

Ix'chel began to turn away so Laura blurted, “I don't want your secrets! I was sent here to find one dose—
one dose
of your medicine for a very sick man. That is all.” Her voice rose of its own accord. “I don't care about your damn secrets, because I don't believe in your ‘greatest cure.' I think you're all crazy. I think the man who sent me is crazy, and I think the men who killed Mulac are the craziest of all.”

Ix'chel was slowly turning back to her, so Laura lowered her voice and continued.

“I had two mysteriously connected deaths. Two men—Chaim was one of them.”

Ix'chel was staring at her. “You cut Chaim open?”

“Yes. I examined all his organs. As I said, I could find no cause of death.”

“You held his heart in your hands?”

Laura nodded. “Yes.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “He had a good heart.”

“He had a perfect heart. He and the other man were growing some sort of plant indoors, and both had similar tattoos—wait. Mulac also had the tattoo, but you said he wasn't—”

“Mulac's was fake.” She turned and lifted her blouse. She was braless so no strap obscured any part of the tattoo.

“This is real.”

Laura slumped against the doorframe. “I don't understand any of this.”

As Ix'chel stared at her, their eyes met and Laura sensed a moment of connection.

“You really don't believe?”

Laura shook her head. “The whole idea is ridiculous.”

“You do not believe … you truly don't.” That seemed to flip a switch in Ix'chel. Her features softened. “You are a doctor who wishes to understand?” she said, brushing past Laura and stepping outside. “I cannot promise you understanding, but come with me and you will learn.”

 

4

“This is where I grow the plants,” Ix'chel said.

She'd led Laura through one of the village's cornfields—long ago cleared from the jungle—to a bare plot at its southern corner.

“Where are they?”

“Gone. I used them all.”

Laura crossed her fingers. “And the medicine?”

“I've given it all away.”

“Nothing left?”

“Not a drop.”

Damn. She'd have to return to Stahlman without the bogus potion. Laura's face must have given away her dismay.

“There's so many who need it here,” Ix'chel said.

Laura was ready to turn away and head home, but the image of Tommy Cochran's perfect knee joint flashed through her head. She had questions … so many questions …

“How do you give it out?”

Ix'chel gave her a long stare. “I cannot say. I will end like Mulac.”

“I don't want your secrets but I will keep them. I'm only trying to understand.”

The stare continued, then, finally, a nod. “I will tell the woman who held Chaim's heart in her hands.”

Laura experienced a queasy epiphany: a heart in her hands … enormous significance for Mayans—no doubt imprinted on their DNA.

Still looking conflicted, Ix'chel said, “I volunteer in many of Chetumal's free clinics. The All-Mother leads me to the neediest and—”

“The All-Mother?”

“Yes, of course. The Goddess of the Earth and all that live upon it.”

Stahlman had mentioned a pagan religion. This sounded like some sort of Gaia cult. Someone like Ix'chel, being Mayan, could step into that sort of belief system like slipping on a comfortable old shoe.

“She reveals the worthy to me, and I sneak them a dose of the
ikhar
.”

“Your medicine?”

“Yes. The All-Mother's name for it. An ancient word.”

“Why do you sneak it?”

“Because our lives are in danger if we're caught. That is why I move from clinic to clinic so that not too many cures are in the same place.”

“But if your
ikhar
cures everything—?”

“Oh, it does.”

“—then why don't you reveal it to the world?”

“The All-Mother forbids. It goes only to those chosen by Her.”

“She tells you?”

Ix'chel smiled. “She has Her ways … She lets me know.”

Self-delusion … making her own choices and attributing them to her goddess.

“And it never fails to cure?”

Her smile broadened. “Never.”

Impossible. But True Believers can convince themselves of just about anything. Few things are more powerful than the will to believe.

“But without plants, how will you make more …
ikhar
?”

“More seeds will be delivered.”

“By whom?”

She smiled. “By mail. I have a post office box in Chetumal.”

Laura had to stifle a laugh. How mundane!

“Where are they postmarked from?”

“Everywhere. Usually different places in Europe. The
urschell
moves around because the Brotherhood wants her most of all.”

“Urschell?”

“You would say priestess.”

“So this is not just a local Maya thing.”

“Oh, no. The All-Mother is everywhere.”

“Okay. So walk me through this. The seeds arrive and you plant them here.”

“Yes. We must sprinkle them directly from the packet onto the ground and cover them with earth.”

“Is there anything else in the packet?”

“A little dirt and dust.”

Fairy dust? Pixie dust?

Shut up, Laura.

“And then they germinate.”

“When they sprout I separate them to give them space to grow. When they have flowered and begin to form seeds, it is time for harvesting. Before they drop their seeds, I pull them up by the roots and put them in an iron pot.”

“Roots and all?”

She nodded. “Even some of the root ball.”

“Dirt too?”

“Oh, yes. Grubs and worms are removed, of course, but the earth is the source of all life and part of the healing is around the roots. I then add water and boil the plants until nine-tenths of the water is gone. Then I strain what is left through three cloths. The liquid that comes through is the
ikhar
.”

Laura shook her head. Stahlman's panacea was a filtrate of plant-and-dirt soup. Yuck.

“You do not believe,” Ix'chel said, her tone reproachful.

“I told you that. Don't be angry. It's hard for the scientist part of me to accept something that cures everything. And beyond that, there must be something you're not telling me.”

“What I told you is true. I leave nothing out.”

She remembered what Stahlman had told her.

“I know a man who has grown the plants and tried to prepare them every possible way but never wound up with anything that works.”

She shrugged. “Of course not. He needs the blessing of the All-Mother. Without that he cannot hope to succeed.”

She could just see herself presenting that to Stahlman:
You've got everything right except the blessing of the All-Mother.
Yeah, that would fly.

Ix'chel said, “What does the scientist in you say about Chaim? He was sick in many ways when he came to Mulac for healing. And yet he walked away cured.”

“Mulac? But you said—”

“Mulac was very proud of being the
ah-men,
the
curandero
. He could not accept that his sister knew more. At times, when the All-Mother told me that I should cure one of his patients, I would sneak in and mix some of my
ikhar
into one of the potions he was using. I think he knew this, and believed my tattoo carried healing power. He traveled to Mexico City one day and got himself one just like mine.”

Laura nodded. And in so doing, signed his own death warrant.

She imagined the sequence of events: Ix'chel's cures enhance Mulac's reputation, which attracts the hopelessly sick, Chaim Brody among them, which eventually alerts the 536 fanatics and—

Wait-wait-wait! That was all predicated on Ix'chel's
ikhar
working as a panacea, and there was no such thing as a panacea.

Remember that. Remember that.

And then Brody … wait …

“How did Chaim become a healer? Where did he get his tattoo?”

“The All-Mother called him and he answered.”

“But how—?”

“She called. He answered. That is all you can know.”

Her expression said that she felt she'd told too much already and this was as far as she was going to go.

“He returned with the tattoo?”

“Of course.”

“Can I … can I see yours again?”

This time she whipped off her shirt entirely, exposing her small, dark-nippled breasts, and turned her back.