Starfields (14 page)

But she can prevent that end from being oblivion. Instead of succumbing to One Death and Seven Death, she can bring forth a dominion of holy corn, fragrant and heavy on multitudes of stalks.

I crawl deep into the cave. Alone I must heal myself. I summon the strength of the ancestors, of all shamans who have come before me, of those whose flesh is my flesh.

I crawl inward, descending to the four crossroads of Xibalba: the Black Road, the White Road, the Red Road, and the Blue-Green Road.

I enter my familiar House of Darkness. I am accustomed to its black passages. There, like the Hero Twins, I plant an ear of unripe corn. The corn may die. Or it may sprout, indicating true life.

From there I pass into the Shivering House, where a howling wind clatters. With my very body, I warm that cold, emanating the heat of the sun itself.

In the Jaguar House, the cats gnash and snap their teeth. I manifest bones to feed them. I breathe the strength of the jaguars into my heart.

At the Bat House, multitudes await me. They fly at my head, shrieking, their snouts like knives. I transmute the din of their flapping wings into the great stillness that I am.

This I do to save her.

T
hat night the shaman came to Rosalba again with his painted face, his heavy jewelry, the eyes that looked as if sunlight hurt them.

He stared at her, as if to make sure he had her full attention.

Then he lifted his hands. When he drew them apart, an image of a cornfield appeared. But it wasn’t a healthy cornfield, flourishing with green life. Instead it lay dried and brown.

Rosalba didn’t want to look at that cornfield. Dead, it represented all that everyone worked to avoid. Everyone guarded against such bad luck through ritual and prayer, by weaving, by planting according to the sun and stars.

The boy showed her another cornfield and then another. He showed her a mountainside covered with dead cornfields. And then many more mountains, brown and desiccated, crackling with death.

Rosalba wished she could close her eyes against these visions.

“Show your people,” the boy commanded, his voice flat and stern. “Warn them.”

He pressed his palms together, waited a moment, and spread them wide again. A
huipil
appeared, stretched flat as if it had just come off a loom.

With a start, Rosalba recognized this
huipil
as her own. The designs were those she’d already woven.

But when she looked at the back panel, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Instead of the careful designs, the
huipil
was brocaded with crosshatchings of ugly black and brown.

Like a dying cornfield.

The boy stood silently before her. His eyes no longer blinked against the light, but commanded her.

And then the boy swayed. He grew white, then translucent. He was gone. Rosalba reached out for him. What had happened? Had he died?

When the dream faded, Rosalba woke up, her blood pounding.

It took her a few moments to realize she’d been dreaming. Everything in the hut was normal: Adelina lay curled beside her. Mama and Nana slept on the other side of the hut, Nana gently snoring.

The embers released puffs of sweet smoke, and a light rain drizzled softly on the thatched roof.

Rosalba lay recalling the dream. Dead cornfields were a sign of global warming. Yet how could the boy request that she brocade such a design — no design at all? How could he ask her to create such a picture of destruction? There could be nothing worse than dead cornfields. For corn was life.

To brocade a
huipil
picturing death, destruction, and ill health would be taboo.

Rosalba pulled the blanket over her head and closed her eyes tight. It had been only a dream, after all. Not a real thing.

Not a real thing like the way Alicia had left. What could a mere dream matter compared to that? As a tear slipped down her cheek, Rosalba wondered if Alicia was still riding in the truck with her
papi.
Perhaps she’d arrived home at a place Rosalba couldn’t imagine, perhaps in one of the sky-touching buildings. Would she ever see her friend again?

Dawn broke with the cries of the roosters. Water dripped from the eaves. Rosalba listened to the soft
pat-pat-pat
as Mama and Nana slapped masa into tortillas.

This would be her first day without Alicia.

In my apprenticeship I have transformed myself into an eagle soaring among the clouds, into a serpent slithering in oneness with the earth, and into the jaguar who rules all. In my enchantments, I have become even a lowly pool of blood lying warm and sticky under the blinding gaze of the sun.

There is nothing of me that cannot become other than myself.

I will become a crow for her. A lowly crow that only she shall notice. For a dream is only a dream. A manifestation bears more power.

In my transformation, I first become nothing but my head. The rest of my body vanishes. I wink until my head shrinks to the size of a crow’s body. From my chin grow wobbly crow legs. I hop back and forth until I lose my stiffness.

The tail extends from my neck like a fan, sweeping the floor of the cave. Long and beautiful wings unfold from my cheeks. In growing the beak, my breath diminishes.

Finally, I must see as a crow sees. I look out of one eye, shake my head down, and look through the other.

I am ready for sacred flight.

R
osalba tied the loom carefully to the tree, the other end around her waist. She straightened her skirt and placed herself in front of her half-finished
huipil.

In spite of herself, Rosalba couldn’t forget the dream. The shaman’s instructions had been so clear. Yet she’d be called a
bruja
if she did as he requested. She’d be shunned like Catarina Sanate.

Rosalba decided to weave the back side of the
huipil
exactly like the front, just as she’d planned. She wouldn’t think of anything but the work ahead.

Just when she started to insert the red yarn into the tight threads, a large black bird swooped down onto the loom. Staring at Rosalba with bright eyes, the crow tugged at the weaving with its sharp beak.

“Go away!” Rosalba shouted.

But the bird refused to leave. It kept tugging until it flew off, a red thread dangling from its beak.

Rosalba stared at the spot in the blue sky where the bird had disappeared. And then she began to shake: loose ends of red yarn poked out of her beautiful
huipil.
It was ruined! She wiped at tears with the back of her hand.

A lizard darted onto the patio, stopped to study Rosalba with its black eyes, then slipped into the bushes. A dog roamed close to the house, sniffing for scraps.

Just as Rosalba began to relax, a new thought quickened her breath. Had the attacker been a bird at all? Shamans were known to take animal shapes. Like the mysterious boy in her dreams, the bird had given her an unmistakable sign.

Rosalba sighed. There was only one thing to do.

She looked down into her basket of bright yarns, pulled out the ball of black, then shoved the basket to the side. She’d have no use for the rest of the colors. Yet she still needed brown, and didn’t have any.

She retrieved the skein of white yarn, then cut long strands of white. She dipped the strands into cold coffee, letting the yarn absorb varying amounts of color, then hung the lengths over a tree branch.

When the brown yarn was dry, Rosalba brocaded it, along with a little black, onto her white background.

By weaving the traditional patterns, Rosalba had always assisted the Earthlord. By manifesting these designs, she made sure that the world moved properly. With her help, the sun traveled across the sky, down to the Underworld, and back up to shine all day.

Now every time she inserted her pointed stick, she created disorder. She went against all she’d been taught, against all good sense. How could it be right to weave the colors of a dead cornfield?

She sensed the Earthlord looking down on her. Was he filled with displeasure or merely puzzled?

Some said the Earthlord took those who angered him to labor in the Underworld.

Because Rosalba created no pattern, the work went quickly. With trembling fingers, she worked until her neck ached and her shoulders were sore.

When the shadows stretched long, she heard Nana’s gentle footsteps behind her.

“What are you
doing,
Rosalba?” Nana asked, bending to examine the
huipil.
“Your colors . . .”

“An ancestor told me to weave this,” Rosalba said quietly. “I had a dream.”

“A dream . . .” Nana mused, looking up into the tree. Then she shook her head, as though shaking away a memory. “Hide your work, Rosalba,” she cautioned.

Yet when Sylvia slipped into the patio, Rosalba couldn’t roll up her loom fast enough.

“Oh!” Sylvia exclaimed, then stepped closer, her huge eyes growing even larger.

“I don’t like it, but an ancestor came to me in a dream.” Rosalba raised her face to look straight at Sylvia. “He showed me this design.”