How Short Their Hair Was (novel) - Summary & Keywords

How short their hair was! Casiopea watched all the fashionable young women with their hair like the American flappers, serving as "ladies in waiting" for the Carnival queen. In Casiopea's town no one dared to sport such a decadent look. Even face powder might be cause for gossip there. In Veracruz,...

How short their hair was! Casiopea watched all the fashionable young women with their hair like the American flappers, serving as "ladies in waiting" for the Carnival queen. In Casiopea's town no one dared to sport such a decadent look. Even face powder might be cause for gossip there. In Veracruz, during Carnival, there were plenty of painted faces and rouged cheeks and unabashed looks to go around. If her mother had been there, she'd have told Casiopea that such shamelessness should be met with scorn, but seeing the girls laughing, Casiopea wondered if her mother was mistaken. The queen, after being crowned, waved at the crowds, and thus began the formal masked balls at the Casino Veracruzano and other select venues. But the revelers were not confined to the insides of buildings, and those who could not afford the masked ball tickets made their own fun in the streets and parks, drinking, dancing, and sometimes engaging in mischief. Lent would arrive soon, the moment to say farewell to the flesh. So now was the time to throw caution to the wind and carouse. No one would sleep that first night of Carnival, and sometimes they wouldn't sleep for days, too preoccupied with floats, parades, and music to bother heading to bed. A thousand remedies would be available the next morning to fix the hangover many locals would suffer from. One local solution was the consumption of shellfish for breakfast, although others contented themselves with aspirins. The buildings down Cinco de Mayo Street were decorated with streamers and flags, and the cars that ventured into the streets sported flowers and colorful banners. Revelers set off firecrackers and shared bottles of booze. Inside restaurants and hotels, folkloric dancers twirled their skirts and musicians played the danzón, a Cuban import that was wildly sensual but also wildly popular. Veracruz had an African legacy. In this port, the slaves had been hauled off the European ships and forced to toil in sugar plantations. Descendants of these slaves clustered in Yanga and Mandinga but had influenced the whole region, leaving a mark on its music and cuisine, and like everyone else they attended Carnival, flooding the streets. There were black-skinned men dressed as skeletons, indigenous women in embroidered blouses, light-skinned brunettes playing the part of mermaids, pale men in Roman garb. Once Carnival was over, the fairer skinned, wealthier inhabitants of the city might look with disdain at the "Indians" and the "blacks," but for that night there was a polite truce in the elaborate game of class division. Casiopea watched all this with amazement and trepidation as they joined the crowds of masked and disguised revelers. Hun-Kamé had rented two costumes for an exorbitant price that morning. He was decked soberly in a black charro suit, with a silver-embroidered short jacket, tight trousers decorated with a long line of buttons on the sides, and a wide hat upon his head. He cut a dramatic, attractive figure and looked as though he were ready to leap upon a stallion and perform the typical tricks of these horsemen, especially apt given that he carried a rope on his right arm. She matched him, attired as a charra, with a jacket and a skirt and a great deal of silver embroidery, except her clothing was white. Unlike him, she lacked a hat. Earlier that day, at the guesthouse, she had pressed the embroidered jacket against her chest and curiously stood in front of a mirror. "Have you never seen your reflection?" he'd asked her. Thus she looked at herself. Not the quick, darting glance Casiopea was allowed in the mornings, but a long look. Vanity, the priest in Uukumil had warned her, was a sin. But Casiopea saw her black eyes and her full mouth, and she thought Hun-Kamé might be right, that she was pretty, and the priest was too far away to nag her about this fact. Then she grabbed a brush and pinned her hair neatly in place. Casiopea and Hun-Kamé walked together down the busy streets, the earthy sound of the marimba spilling out from a nearby building, urging her to dance. "Where are we headed?" she asked. "To the busiest, most crowded part of the city," he replied. A sea of revelers greeted them, thicker than the throng they had passed. It was a chaos of horns and drums, people dressed as devils and angels, the scents of tequila and perfume mingling together. Above them, people in balconies threw confetti and children tossed eggshells filled with glitter, while a few men, either drunk or full of spite, emptied a bottle of rum onto the pedestrians. There, in the midst of this mess of feathers, sequins, and masks, Hun-Kamé stopped. "Walk around here," he told her, handing her the rope, "and remember to tie his hands when you have the chance." When Casiopea's father died, her mother attempted to make a living for them doing odd jobs. For a while she tried her hand at macramé and taught her daughter the trade. Casiopea could tie several knots, but she did not know if they would be fit for supernatural beings, even though Hun-Kamé had assured her any simple knot would do. "Where are you going?" she asked, because he was turning away from her. "He shouldn't see me with you." "But---" "I'll be watching and I will follow you. Whatever he says, do not release him and do not leave his side either." "How will I know what he looks like?" "You'll know." "Wait!" she said as he stepped away. He stopped, his cool hand brushing hers, and her hold on the rope slackened. "I'll be behind you," he said. It wasn't an attempt at reassurance, it was a fact. With that, he was gone. She was scared, abandoned among all these strangers. In Uukumil, the biggest event of the year was the peregrination of the local saint, which was hauled from the church and carried around the town. This, this was so much bigger! There were women in terrifying masks and a boy who kept banging a drum, and Casiopea thought of simply running off. She tightened her grip around the rope and bit her lower lip. She'd said she'd do this and she would. She began walking, pushing her way next to dancers who were paired together and shuffling their feet right in the middle of the street. She slid past two harlequins who tossed confetti at her and evaded three rowdy men who were bumping into people and yelling obscenities. "You wouldn't happen to have matches, would you?" a man with a melodious voice asked her. He was a dark fellow, broad-shouldered, good-looking, and strong. He was dressed like a pirate, with a blue coat, a sash upon his waist, and tall boots. The way his teeth gleamed and the way he stood drew Casiopea in. *This is him, the Mam,*she thought. It is likely that having already met one god, she was able to quickly identify another. Or else it was Hun-Kamé's essence, caught under her skin, that allowed her to see there was an extraordinary element about this stranger. "No," she said, looking down at her shoes, not in modesty, but because she didn't want him to read the recognition in her eyes. "A pity. What are you doing all alone on a night like this?" "I came with my friends, but I seem to have misplaced them," she said, lying again with panache. She had, it seemed, a talent for it. "That is terrible. Maybe I could help you find them?" "Maybe," she agreed. He took out a cigarette and a lighter and placed an arm around her waist, guiding her through the street. "I thought you needed matches," she said. "I needed an excuse to talk to you. Look, you sweet thing, how nicely you blush," he said, his voice honeyed. He said a number of things to her in that cloying tone of his, things of little importance, because a minute or two later she could not recall them. Compliments, enticements. His words were electric, charged like a cloud pregnant with rain. She followed him away from the revelers, down an empty alley. There he pressed her against a wall and ran a hand along her chest, smiling, the touch making her shiver. Was this what women and men did in the dark? The indecencies the priest muttered about? Books were coy on the specifics of seduction. "What would you say, hmm, about giving me a kiss or two?" he asked, tossing away his cigarette. "Now?" "Yes," he told her. Casiopea nodded. The man leaned down to kiss her. She'd never been kissed before and didn't particularly know if she wanted to start with him. She turned her head. Her fingers on the rope relaxed for a moment, then she grasped it tight. She'd been nervous before, but now she grew still and calm. She pushed him away, gently, coyly, so that he smiled. His hands fell on her waist. And she gave him another gentle shove; she raised the rope and attempted to tie his hands but it proved difficult because one of those hands was now roaming down her stomach, pinching at the buttons of her costume. Casiopea let out an irritated sigh and held his wrists together. "What are you doing?" he asked. "You want that kiss, then you'll let me do it," she said, although she intended nothing of the sort. "What a perverse thing you are! What game are we playing?" "You'll see," she said. "Now, if you will. Be still." He laughed as she tied a sturdy knot. When she was done, he tried to kiss her on the lips, and she turned her head and slapped him soundly. Even then he thought she was playing, but when he tried to pull a hand free, he could not. His face changed: it grew stormy. Casiopea slid away from him. His eyes were bright as lightning, and when he spoke it was a hiss, like the wind through the trees. "Who are you?" he asked. "How did you do this? I will give you a thrashing, girl." "You will not," she replied, stepping away from him as he fumbled and tried to undo the knot, even going as far as putting it in his mouth and gnawing, which accomplished nothing. Frustrated, he spat on the floor and began circling her. "You come here and undo this now, girl! You do it quick and I won't drown you in the river and play music on your bloated corpse." He ran toward her, trying to pin her against the wall, and Casiopea moved aside, the god crashing against it, loosening a few bricks in the process. He turned around and opened his mouth as if to let out a scream, but instead out came a warm gust of wind, which shoved her back two, three steps, and got under her clothes. It felt like someone had rubbed a hot stone against her skin. She blinked and considered how ridiculous it was to be standing in an empty alley with an angry god when she ought to have been running in the other direction, far and away, back to the guesthouse, and maybe all the way back to her home. But Hun-Kamé had said not to release the man or leave his side, so she brushed the hair away from her face and crossed her arms. "Well, must I crush your every bone, you idiot?" he asked, looking ready to charge at her like an angry bull. "How disrespectful you are," Hun-Kamé said. He was there all of a sudden, right by her side, like a fallen piece of the velvety sky, like a nocturnal plant that unfurled and greeted her, his hand touching her shoulder, shielding her from any threats with that quick gesture. Juan, the Mam, smiled, his attention jumping from her to him. He laughed, riotous, sounding like a man in his cups. "Hun-Kamé, my cousin. So it is you who has set such a soft trap for me. What a surprise," he said, his toothy smile bright. "Not too big a surprise, I'd think. Hasn't my brother sent his owls to inform you of my escape and to warn you I'd come looking for my property?" Hun-Kamé replied, unsmiling. "Maybe he has. I wouldn't know. I move between the hills and the streams. I am difficult to find." "Not too difficult, treacherous cousin," Hun-Kamé said. "Treacherous? I? For guarding the property of the lord Vucub-Kamé?" "For keeping my ear, you dog. As if you didn't know who it belonged to." Hun-Kamé's face was cold, but a sliver of anger colored his words, red hot, like the embers of a cigarette. "I did know it was yours. Then again, I also know the Supreme Lord of Xibalba is now Vucub-Kamé. Can I be chided for doing the bidding of the ruler of nine shadow regions?" Juan made a mocking gesture, bowing down low before Hun-Kamé and then jumping up to his feet. "You can be chided for changing your allegiances in the blink of an eye," Hun-Kamé said. Juan shook his head. "I follow the direction of the wind, and I cannot be blamed if a new wind begins to blow. Vucub-Kamé gave me your ear, yes, and I bent my knee, not because I have love for your brother, but because one must follow the order of things. The order and the reign now belong to Vucub-Kamé." As he spoke, Juan circled Hun-Kamé and Casiopea, slowly, a smile gracing his lips. The smile grew wider. "These bonds won't hold me for too much longer," he said, rubbing his hands together, testing the rope. "What do you intend to do then?" "As if the bonds mattered. What I wanted was your attention," Hun-Kamé replied. "You have it." "Return to me the item Vucub-Kamé entrusted you." "And disobey the orders of the Supreme Lord of Xibalba? You are not to have it back," Juan said, shaking his head. "Disobey the orders of the false Supreme Lord and please the righteous one." The Mam shrugged. "Those are such confusing terms. False? Righteous? I am not a betting man, cousin. Today Vucub-Kamé has the throne. Tomorrow you may have it, maybe not. I wouldn't want to face your brother when he is angry. Conflict between us is tiresome and unnecessary." Despite his words, the god opened his mouth wide, the corner of his lips distended. He unleashed another gust of wind, stronger than before, which might have indeed broken Casiopea's bones as he'd previously promised, except that in the blink of an eye Hun-Kamé had raised a hand and the shadows on the floor rose like a wave, a cocoon, against which the wind crashed and shattered. The Mam coughed and opened his mouth again, but Hun-Kamé spoke. "Don't try that with me or I'll think you uncivil," he said. The god smiled and shook his head, his voice hoarse. "I thought we were playing! We have a rope to skip, and your friend can be Doña Blanca and we'll dance around her. I wouldn't seriously---" "Be quiet." Hun-Kamé's face had the grimness of the grave. It rubbed the insolence off the other god's smile, sobering him a tad. "If you do not return what belongs to me, you will find yourself in a very unpleasant situation. The bonds, as you say, may not hold long, but they will hold long enough for me to ruin your merry week of feasting. And when I sit on my throne, I will make sure to sour your nights. No drumming down the river, no imbibing of spirits, no laughter for you and your brothers." "And what if you do not regain your throne?" Juan asked, with mock innocence. "Would you like to chance it, cousin? Remember who I am, remember my magic and my might. Remember also that my brother has always been the weaker one," Hun-Kamé said, speaking in a low voice. Juan's smile was eclipsed completely. Although the night had been warm, Casiopea felt a chill go down her spine and rubbed her arms. The coldness seeped up from the earth, as if the ground had frozen beneath their feet. In Xibalba it was said there was a House of Cold where it hailed, and the hail cut your hands as sharply as a blade, and she thought perhaps this was the cold they felt. Whatever its source, it was unnatural and had an immediate effect on the god. "This...this chill. I like the nights warm, cousin," Juan said, and his teeth chattered, a plume of smoke escaping from his lips. "Oh? I feel nothing. Casiopea, do you feel anything?" Hun-Kamé asked smoothly. She shook her head and the Mam chortled, but the tips of his fingers were turning white, a delicate frost lacing itself across them. "I respect you, Hun-Kamé. You know as much," Juan said. "Truly? I was beginning to doubt it." "I would not wish you as my enemy." "Swear to return my property and I will consider you blameless." Although Casiopea had been awed by Hun-Kamé when he appeared before her, and although she had been frightened too, she had not understood the whole extent of him. It was only watching the gods speak that she realized the weather god was intimidated, and she began to wonder about Hun-Kamé's nature and his might. Death, she walked next to Death, and Death wore the face of a man. So she spoke to Death like a man, raised her voice to him, she might even defy him, but of course he was no man. She'd seen drawings of Death in dusty books. It was depicted as a skeleton, its vertebra exposed, black spots on its body symbolizing corruption. That Death and Hun-Kamé seemed entirely different from each other, but now she realized they could be the same. She glimpsed, for the very first time, the naked skull beneath the flesh. And if a god feared Death, should she not fear him too, rather than share oranges and conversation with him? "I swear by air and water, and by the earth and fire too, if need be. Let me go and I'll hand it over," Juan said. The frost now covered his whole chest and had worked itself up to his neck, turning his voice into a whisper, but Hun-Kamé spoke a word and the ice crystals melted off, though a chill infected the air. He loosened the rope around the Mam's hands and the god, in turn, reached into his pocket and took out a wooden box, inlaid with iridescent mother of pearl. Hun-Kamé opened it. In it lay a human ear, perfectly preserved. Hun-Kamé pressed it against his head, cupping it in place, and when he drew away his hand the missing ear was attached to his flesh, as if it had not been cut off. Hun-Kamé inclined his head at the other god, gracious. "I will assume you remain my beloved cousin, then," Juan said, rubbing his hands together, "and that I may be allowed to leave now." "Go. Enjoy the night." The Mam nodded, but now that the frost had melted he quirked a mischievous eyebrow at them. "I might enjoy the night better if I'd had a chance to taste the sweetness of your pretty girl. Would you not let her dance with me?" the god asked, turning his sly eyes toward Casiopea. "How I love mortal women, you know that, and since we are friends again, it would be a nice gesture to grant me this one to warm me up. I think we both agree I could use some warming up after---" "Oh, I'll slap you twice if you even think it," she declared. "I like a good slap now and then. Come here," he said, holding his palm upward and crooking his finger at her. The death god stood stiff as a spear, and his hand fell upon Casiopea's shoulder. "Look elsewhere for diversions," Hun-Kamé said drily. "And apologize to the lady for being crude tonight." "How prickly you are! I was trying to be friendly, but instead I'll be off, then. There is no point in offending Death and his handmaiden any further. My apologies, miss. Be well, cousin." The weather god took out a cigarette and he lit it, chuckling as he walked down the alley and disappeared from sight, heading back toward the music and the raucous crowds. The night grew warmer, again the ordinary tropical night of the port, and Hun-Kamé lifted his hand from her shoulder. "Thank you," she told him. "You should not thank me for such small things," he replied. Casiopea supposed he was correct, since he needed her and if he had stood up for her, it was because she was valuable to him. Nevertheless she considered it a nice gesture. No one had ever defended her when Martín bothered her, and she could not help but to feel grateful and to look kindly at him. Thus, minutes after she thought she might want to fear him, be wary of him, she was again forgetting his true nature and seeing a man. "Lady Tun, if you'll come with me, we have work to do," Hun-Kamé said, heading in the opposite direction from the one the Mam had taken. "What kind of work?" "Now that I have my ear back I can listen to the voices of the psychopomp and the dead. Let us find a proper crossroad." "I don't know what you mean." "You shall see," he said. They walked away from the downtown area, the crowds growing thinner until there were only a few people around them, then none. They walked for a long time. The white houses on each side of the street were silent as tombs. The silver in their costumes caught a ray of light here and there, like a stray spark. They reached a crossroad. There were no more houses, not a single lonely shack on the side of the road, only the narrow path they'd been following. Casiopea glanced up at the stars, looking for Xaman Ek, which the Europeans called Polaris. This star was the symbol of the god with the monkey head, to whom the resin of the copal tree is offered at the side of the road. She wondered if he was as real as Hun-Kamé, and whether he truly had the head of an animal. A moth flew by, and Hun-Kamé stretched out his hand, as if calling for it. The moth obeyed him, gently settling upon his palm, and he closed his fingers, crushing it. Had Hun-Kamé been mortal, he would have needed a more substantial sacrifice---a dog would have been suitable---to engage in this sorcery of the night. But since he was a god, and a god who had regained his lost ear and with it a smidgen of his magic, the moth sufficed. Hun-Kamé opened his hand, sprinkling gray-and-black dust upon the ground. He said several words that Casiopea could not understand. It was a strange tongue, very old. Where the dust had fallen, smoke began to rise, as if a charcoal brazier had been lit. The smoke had a shape, that of a dog, but then it shifted and it was a man, and then a bird, until one could not precisely define the nature of the apparition. The more she tried to pin it down, the more jumbled it became, threatening to give her a headache. "I greet you and thank you for obeying my call," Hun-Kamé said. "Do you know me?" "Prince of the Starless Night, Firstborn Son of Xibalba. You are a god without a throne. I know you," the smoke said. Its voice was low; it resembled a smoldering fire. "Then you realize you must obey my command," Hun-Kamé said with the hauteur of a king, a hand pressed against his chest. "I wish to know where my essence is hidden." "To you I owe three answers, and three I will give." The smoke rose, the dog, the bird, the shape, towering above them. It had two black eyes, two black pinpoints, which shone despite its blackness. Casiopea, standing next to Hun-Kamé, felt it looking at her. It was a fabulous thing, this creature, which brought with it the scent of incense and dead flowers. It made her wonder what other impossible beasts the Lords of Xibalba commanded. The smoke opened its jaws and spoke. "The city on the lake, the impossible city, Tenochtitlán. Deep in the arid wastelands, El Paso," it said. Then the apparition shook its head and stared at the ground, evasive. It was clear it did not wish to say any more. "Where else?" Hun-Kamé demanded. The apparition curled out its tongue. "In Baja California, by the sea, find Tierra Blanca. Find your destiny, Lord of Xibalba, but find your doom, for your brother is more cunning and more powerful than you ever imagined," the smoke-creature said, and its voice was now the crackling of burning wood. "Do not lecture me, messenger," the god replied. "I speak the truth." "Who has what belongs to me? Where do they reside?" "You must ask the ghosts, or sorcerers, or some other who can aid you, oh Lord, for I have given you three answers and a warning, which is the most even a god such as you may command of me." "Then I dismiss you and will take your answers with me." The smoke creature grew larger, then it bowed, its body folding upon itself, its forehead touching the ground. The smoke seeped into the earth, like the rain sinks into the soil, and was gone. Around them the night trembled, bidding the apparition goodbye. "You have heard where we will journey," Hun-Kamé told her. "Tomorrow we depart for Mexico City." He could have said they'd depart for Antarctica and it wouldn't have mattered much; she couldn't muster the energy for a reply and her forehead ached. They walked back to the guesthouse. It was very late and the front door was closed, but Hun-Kamé opened the door with ease. They went to their rooms and Casiopea, exhausted by the excursion, fell upon the bed without bothering to change out of her clothes, dressed in silver and white. The wonders of the night did not keep her up, and she slept soundly. --- The next day, they caught the evening train to Mexico City. Had they taken an earlier train, Casiopea might have been able to gaze out the window and observe the landscape, the marshes and the scrub growth and the rows of palm trees. Huts with walls of bamboo, old men sitting in worn chairs, children chasing stray dogs. She might have been able to see the train climb up from the low hills of Veracruz and approach the mountains, their tops dusted with snow. But the night was like spilled ink upon the page, blotting out all vegetation and natural features. Casiopea did feel the train, though. It lumbered onward, away from the humid heat of the coast. She had never been on such a contraption. She felt as if she rested in the belly of a metal beast, like Jonah who was swallowed by the whale. This image in her family's Bible had often disconcerted her, the man sitting inside a fish, his face surprised. Now she sympathized with him. She could not see where they were headed, nor the place where they'd come from, and thus felt as though time and the world around her transmogrified, became unknowable; it was as if she were traveling in a dream. She listened to the metallic click of the wheels along the steel rails while Hun-Kamé leaned back in his chair. They were sharing a sleeping car and it was small, so when he sat like that, his legs stretched out, he seemed to take up all the space. She did not mind, though, curled up against the window, the stars and the sky absorbing her thoughts. She associated her father with the smell of musty books or ink, the rustle of paper---he'd been a clerk, those had been the tools of his trade. But most of all she associated him with the stars, which he loved. "You can speak with ghosts?" she asked, breaking the silence in their compartment. "And other things that roam the night, as you may have noticed," Hun-Kamé replied. "Would you be able to speak with my father? He passed away when I was small." He turned his head, looked at her with disinterest. "Ghosts generally attach themselves to the stones, to a single place; rarely they may be shackled to a single person. I could not, from here, summon your father. Besides, he may not be a ghost. Not everyone who dies binds himself to the land. If your father perished quietly, then quietly he will have left this mortal realm." "Would he be in Xibalba?" she asked. "Most mortals stopped worshipping the gods of Xibalba long ago, and since their belief calcified, they do not venture down our roads anymore. Your father is not my subject." For a moment she had thought she might be able to see her dear old father's face, to listen to his voice. Disappointed, she turned toward the window. "I suppose it's for the best," she said with a sigh. "What do you mean?" "Xibalba is a terrible place. There is a river of blood, and the House of Bats and the House of Gloom. I would not want my father to be in such a frightful land." But here she paused and tapped a finger against the glass, frowning. "But then, the Hero Twins kill you in the story I heard, yet here you are. I wonder if all of it is true. Perhaps it is not as bad as that." "Mortals like to speak their stories and do not always tell the true tale," Hun-Kamé said disdainfully. He had taken his straw hat off and was inspecting it, his fingers carefully touching the fibers. "What is Xibalba like? What is the true tale?" The straw hat interested him more than her question, and since he did not always provide an answer, she had almost given up on an explanation when he spoke with that cool, collected voice, which was drained of emotion. "The Black Road leads to Xibalba, and at its heart there sits my palace, like a jewel upon the crown of your kings. It is very large, and decorated with colorful murals. It has almost as many rooms as the year has days. It is surrounded by other fine buildings, so elegant no human construction may approximate them. Picture a jewel, yes, but one without a single imperfection, balanced upon your palm." He leaned forward, the hat dangling from his fingers. His face had become more animated. "My palace can be found by a series of ponds of blue-green waters, and in the ponds swim the strangest, most curious fish from the coldest depths, blind, but beautiful. They all glow with an interior light, like the firefly glows. There are trees around these ponds. Trees like the ceiba tree, but their bark is silver and their fruits are silvery, and they shine in the dark." "Do you miss it?" she asked, because there was longing in his words, and his kingdom sounded quite astonishing, not like the shadowy place of sorrow she'd been told about. "I belong there," he said. She thought it might be a good thing to possess such certainty. She had never known quite where she belonged, a Leyva but not really a member of the family. And Uukumil had been stifling. It worried her; he knew exactly where he'd be headed, and she realized she could not return to her hometown. What would she do when Hun-Kamé regained his missing organs? This line of thought in turn made her consider his health. "How does it feel?" she asked. "The ear." Casiopea touched her own ear as she spoke. The process of reintegrating it had appeared effortless, but it might not truly be so. "What?" he asked. "Does it pain you?" she said. "No." "My hand hurts sometimes," she admitted. "Let me see." "It doesn't hurt now," she clarified. "But yesterday, it did. Like grit in your eye, you know? But not in my eye, of course." Hun-Kamé stood up and went to her side, lifting her hand and holding it up, as if to get a better look at it, even though there was nothing to look at. Maybe he could see the bone shard, hidden inside her skin. "If it hurts again, let me know," he told her. She raised her head and stared up at him. He was still wearing the black eye patch. "Is the opposite true? Does it hurt where your eye is missing?" "The absence disturbs me," he said, and the words were heavy, stones sinking into a river. "I'm sorry," she said. Since he was still holding her hand she gave it a light squeeze. She did not expect him to say thank you, since such trivialities were not very godly, but she did not think he'd frown like he did, staring down at her fingers. "Why are you touching me?" he asked. "Oh. Well...*you* were the one who touched me," she said. "No. Just now." "Sorry." He'd set his hand on her shoulder before. It had not seemed an issue. She had not considered that reaching out for him might be offensive, a mortal coming in contact with the divine rather than the divine coming in contact with the mortal. She attempted to draw her hand back, but he did not let go of her, and Casiopea wondered if they were going to play tug-of-war. "You can let go," she said. "I didn't realize---" "Such insolence." "Keep squeezing my hand then and complaining at the same time, you'll see some real insolence," she sputtered. It didn't seem fair for him to start acting like she'd insulted him when all she'd attempted was to be kind. Hun-Kamé laughed and released his grip on her. It was a full laugh: it bounced around the compartment like a startled bird. She smiled, responding to the display of mirth. "Why do you laugh?" she asked. He had not done this before. "You are a funny thing," he told her. "It's like having a playful monkey." It was not quite an insult. It *sounded* like an endearment, but she frowned all the same. Her annoyance, however, did not last. She could forgive quickly when it suited her. Besides, he'd gone back to his seat and was again resting there quietly, so there really wasn't much to be angry about. She'd almost forgotten he was with her when he finally spoke. "What do you keep looking at?" he asked. "The stars," she replied. "There's a thousand of them out tonight." "There are a thousand every night." "Maybe," she whispered, leaning her head against her arm and naming them in her head, as she'd done since she was a child, one of the games she played before going to bed. Eventually, Casiopea stretched on the upper berth and closed her eyes, falling into a deep sleep. The train kept moving slowly forward, its wheels clacking. On the lower berth a lord of Xibalba did not sleep, but instead listened to the rhythm of the train. The laughter that had escaped from his lips was unusual, and he allowed himself to consider what it meant for a couple of minutes. Since he was a proud god, this matter did not occupy more than those two minutes, and then he dismissed it. But rest assured that in the underground kingdom of Xibalba, another lord had heard Hun-Kamé's laughter and could discern its meaning. The imagination of mortals shaped the gods, carving their faces and their myriad forms, just as the water molds the stones in its path, wearing them down through the centuries. Imagination had also fashioned the dwellings of the gods. Xibalba, splendid and frightful, was a land of stifling gloom, lit by a cheerless night-sun and lacking a moon. The hour of twilight did not cease here. In Xibalba's rivers there lurked jade caimans, alabaster fish swam in ink-black ponds, and glass insects buzzed about, creating a peculiar melody with the tinkling of their transparent wings. There were bizarre plants and lush trees, though no flowers bloomed in the soils of the Underworld---perhaps some had, at one point, but they'd long withered. These were all bits of dreams that had taken physical shape, but the nightmares of mortals also abounded in the fabulous landscape of Xibalba. There were vast tracts of land where the terrain was barren and gray, and men walked through this desert in despair, crying out for mercy. There were also swamps where a thin fog clung to the ground, noxious vapors rising from the waters, skeleton birds resting on dead trees shrieking loudly. There was a limestone outcropping, with many caves, like a honeycomb, and here lived the souls of confused mortals, who raised their hands in the air and tore their hair from their skulls, for they had lost the memory of themselves and did not remember the purpose of their journey. Beasts and fabulous creatures born of delirious ravings roamed the jungles, scaring the fools who ventured there. It was safest to stay close to the Black Road of Xibalba, that long ribbon that cut through the city where the gods resided. Stray from the path and it was easy to descend into chaos and terror. In the beginning there had only been the city, Xibalba, but around it had sprung the swamps, the jungles, the caves, and the rest of the curious topography of the Underworld, so that now the borders of Xibalba were much vaster than at the time of its origin. People called all of this Xibalba, rather than refer only to the single city by that name. The city proper became the Black City and the lord's palace in turn was called the Jade Palace. Hun-Kamé had reigned over this kingdom, and spent many moments in the gardens of his palace, but Vucub-Kamé preferred to dwell in his vast, windowless chambers, the walls painted yellow and red, multicolored cushions strewn upon the floor. He was resting upon these cushions when one of the four owls from the Underworld swooped into his room. He had sent it off into the world, to spy on the roads and spy on his brother. The owl had found Hun-Kamé. The bond of kinship, which renders the blood of one mortal man similar to that of another member of his family, held true between the great lords of Xibalba. It was truest for Hun-Kamé and Vucub-Kamé. They were twins, very much alike. Same of height and build, differentiated by the color of their hair and eyes. Hun-Kamé had come into the world first, his black eyes like the depths of the waterhole. Seven heartbeats later Vucub-Kamé had opened his pale eyes, the color of ash, though they sometimes turned silver when he was in deep thought, and sometimes they became almost translucent, like the sastun, the divining stone. The owl, well acquainted with the psychic essence of Vucub-Kamé, flew through Middleworld, searching for a similar essence. It was inevitable he would find Hun-Kamé. When the owl returned to Xibalba, it bore a gift in its beak. The gift was Hun-Kamé's laughter, which the owl had heard and captured in a white seashell it now dropped on its lord's open palm. Vucub-Kamé pressed the seashell against his ear and listened to the laughter. It was unpleasant to be aware of his brother's voice after such a long absence, and he crushed the shell between his fingers as soon as the echo of the laughter died off. Then he rose from the cushions, retrieved a ceremonial obsidian knife, and ventured outside the palace. Ordinarily, when Vucub-Kamé left his palace, he was carried on a golden litter, hoisted upon the shoulders of his most exquisite courtiers. Singers walked ahead of him, proclaiming the beauty and wisdom of their lord, while behind followed his brothers and the rest of his retinue, burning incense or holding up cups filled with zaca. He was vain, Vucub-Kamé, as gods always are, and loved to be exalted. That day, however, he exited the palace in silence, without alerting any of his servants. He did not wear a headdress, nor fine robes, but was attired in a simple white cloak. Alone he walked the streets of his city until its buildings were behind him, until the black ribbon of a road was nowhere in sight, and he reached a swamp. Caimans, like the ones found in generous numbers in the swamps of Yucatán, swam there, snapping their jaws in the air. But these caimans were like the ghosts of caimans: their scales were alabaster and gold. He called forth one of these, which was greater in size than all the caimans who float in Middleworld, like a man might call to his dog, and sat on the creature's back. He rode in this manner across the swamp. The mangrove trees knitted their roots tightly below the water, glistening eerily. Skeletal birds perched on meager branches and stared at the death lord with their empty eye sockets, while he reached the edge of the swamp and ascended the steps to the House of Jaguars. Sometimes Vucub-Kamé sent men to the house to be torn to shreds by the fierce animals, a punishment and an amusement, since, being dead already, they could not truly die and would be reconstituted in time. The jaguars were far from tame. But when Vucub-Kamé walked in, the cruel beasts bent their heads and licked his hands as tenderly as kittens. Vucub-Kamé petted one of the jaguars, his fingers running upon its fur. He admired its yellow eyes. Then, having made his choice, he cut off the great cat's head. He opened its chest and retrieved its heart. It fell to the ground, the heart, and the jaguar's blood traced an odd pattern, which the god read, like men may read letters upon paper. This was Vucub-Kamé's gift: prophecy. With the bright red seeds of the Coral Tree he could keep track of days and divine what might be, or scry into an obsidian mirror for answers. With such sorcery Vucub-Kamé had foreseen his brother's escape from his prison, though he had not known when or who would save him. He had known, too, that when he escaped, Hun-Kamé would have necessity of a mortal's assistance. Like a parasite, he would feed on the life of the mortal until he could recoup his absolute essence, and, since he would be tied to the mortal, he would be able to walk Middleworld with the freedom the Lords of Death were not ordinarily granted. Yet a toll must be paid. The mortal vitality that gave him strength, that allowed him to roam the lands of men, would slowly pollute him. It would turn Hun-Kamé more and more mortal each day, until, if he could not restore his powers, Hun-Kamé would snatch the last heartbeat from the human heart and, with it, the whole of the mortal's essence. And he would become almost completely a man, no longer a god. Vucub-Kamé counted on this process to take place. He had built the hotel in Tierra Blanca knowing it would happen, assuring himself victory. Hun-Kamé's laughter proved that he was indeed turning human. It is not as if the gods do not express anger, envy, and desire. But these are like compartments that may be opened and closed with iron keys, and often the gods exist in a state of placid indifference. Their laughter, when it surfaces, is not born in the heart, but the head. Hun-Kamé's laughter, however, had been cooked in the furnace of his heart. It was bright and vigorous. This puzzled Vucub-Kamé. He did not expect his brother to become human quite so quickly. Indeed, he was not prepared for this to happen yet. Hun-Kamé needed to reach Tierra Blanca when he was close to his final descent into mortality, at which point he would be weak, a shell of his former self. Yet this laughter did not hint at weakness, its joy indicated unknown strength. What was happening? What had changed? Vucub-Kamé, concerned, had therefore decided he needed to read the blood of the jaguar---for all the sacred truths are rendered in blood---in order to discern the future, to ensure his plan was secure. But what Vucub-Kamé read in the blood did not reassure. It made him frown. The jaguars, sensing his irritation, twitched their tails. Vucub-Kamé pressed his nail against the blood and drew a symbol there, then another. Three times his nail scratched the blood until he straightened up. His gray eyes caught a flicker of light in the jaguars' chamber, and for a moment they were burnished. He walked out of the House of Jaguars, climbed down its white steps, and reaching the caiman that had borne him there, he cut off its head with his wicked knife. The caiman's blood colored the water, and Vucub-Kamé read the crimson signs. Again he was disappointed. Finally, the god took the knife and sliced his palm with icy determination, letting his blood fall upon the water. The blood was black as ink, and when it fell, it caused the water to bubble and swirl for a few seconds. Vucub-Kamé peered down at its surface. "What is this trickery?" he whispered, his voice a hiss. He could not read the signs properly. Before, he had foreseen Hun-Kamé's escape, and prepared to meet him in Tierra Blanca. Now he could see this future, but other paths branched off and were hidden to him. When he tried to peer into these rivulets he was confronted by the face of a woman he'd never met, but whom he assumed was Casiopea Tun. Her human essence tainted Hun-Kamé's own immortal substance, making it difficult to differentiate the future, to extricate her from him. It was as if Vucub-Kamé had been blinded. No longer could he observe his moment of triumph. This troubled him because, if Hun-Kamé's escape was ordained by fate, Vucub-Kamé's dominion of Xibalba had never been sealed in such a way. The death god stood by the shore of the swamp, his mind festering with the darkest of thoughts, and in the trees the skeletal birds, sensing his anger, hid their heads under their wings. The god closed his palm into a fist, and when he opened it his hand was healed, as if no knife had cut it. He could not be harmed this way. The burn marks he carried were unusual, just as the beheading of his brother had been an outrageous anomaly born of iron and spiteful magic. Vucub-Kamé called for two of his owl messengers. He had four and they were all terrifying creatures, feasting on the troubled dreams of men when they were free to roam Middleworld. Chabi-Tucur was the fastest and smallest of the four, and the one who had followed the trail of Hun-Kamé. Huracán-Tucur was the largest, so massive a man might ride atop its back, but too great to hide its magic from Hun-Kamé. Even though his brother was missing an eye and could not see the winged creatures, he might sense Huracán-Tucur's flapping wings. Vucub-Kamé could not risk this. Therefore, he gave instructions to the small owl that he should return to Middleworld and spy on Hun-Kamé. Then he spoke to the larger owl. He instructed it to fly to Middleworld and find the mortal man, Martín. The owl would transport the man to Mexico City, where Martín could await the arrival of his cousin. There was no doubt this was the trajectory Hun-Kamé was following, attempting to reconstruct himself as quickly as possible. If Martín succeeded in intercepting Casiopea, Vucub-Kamé would be able to enjoy an undeniable victory. Should she evade him or, worse, refuse to meet with Vucub-Kamé...well, the death god had left little to chance. Even if chance had somehow infiltrated his plans, even if the future concealed itself from the god's gaze, he would achieve his goal. Seven heartbeats had separated the brothers. Hun-Kamé, the firstborn, claimed the crown, the throne, the realm of Xibalba, because of the span of those heartbeats. Afterward there emerged Vucub-Kamé, trailing after his siblings, holding the long black cloak that covered Hun-Kamé's shoulders. For a while their kingdom had expanded, growing in beauty and power, their other brothers appearing to complete their court, siblings born from charred bones and nightmares. Then there had come the phantasmagoric buildings of the Black City, the monsters in the plains made of ashes, the ever-increasing sighs and prayers and thoughts of mortals giving their world its colors. And then, silence, decay. The prayers dwindled. Hun-Kamé, as if to match the indifferent times in Middleworld, had become an indifferent master, both selfish and spoiled. Vucub-Kamé had urged his brother to travel with him to Middleworld, not because he cherished mortals and their cities, but because he worried about the changes occurring on the peninsula. He worried about Xibalba. Hun-Kamé ventured up through the centuries, but even as sorcerers from across the sea disembarked near T'hó, bringing with them demons and spell books and even a ghost or two pressed against their backs, the Lord of Xibalba shrugged. Vucub-Kamé had taken the kingdom because he must. He, as the superior brother, had been constantly cast as the inferior, and yet he would be the savior of Xibalba. He was the son Xibalba required, its future and its one chance. Hun-Kamé had been given the mastery of illusions, but wasn't Vucub-Kamé a great sorcerer in his own right? Was he not more cunning than his brother? Was he not worthier of the black throne? *Yes,*the god assured himself. All of this was true. All of this was known. One day mortals would make songs about his victory, narrating how death killed death and carved himself a magnificent new kingdom. An impossible task. A thousand years they'd sing and a thousand more. Vucub-Kamé let a smile graze his lips. It was a terrible smile, and his very white teeth threatened to grind bones to dust. But then, one must not expect tenderness of death. The god summoned another caiman and rode it back toward his palace, while the body of the creature he had decapitated sank slowly into the muck. Long after the god had abandoned the swamp did the birds in the trees dare to lift their heads and emitted their shrill cries, but haltingly, afraid of their lord's anger. Mexico City has never inspired much love. "At least it's not Mexico City!" spills from the lips of anyone who resides outside the capital, a shake of the head accompanying the phrase. Everyone agrees that Mexico City is a vile cesspool, filled with tenements, criminals, and the most indecent lowbrow entertainment available. Paradoxically, everyone also agrees Mexico City exudes a peculiar allure, due to its wide avenues and shiny cars, its department stores filled to the brim with fine goods, its movie theaters showing the latest talkies. Heaven and hell both manifest in Mexico City, coexisting side by side. Until 1925 Mexico City had been relatively free of the foreign influence of the flapper. Then, all of a sudden, the streets were inundated with bataclanesco imagery, courtesy of a troupe of dancers who'd come to perform at the most expensive clubs in the city. The slender, languid, androgynous female dominated the capital's billboards. Though some capitalinos, attached to their delicate morals, shook their head at these "painted women," many embraced the new ideal eagerly, glancing with distrust at the lowly "Indians" who came from other parts of the country and did not make any effort to hide their tanned skins under face powder, nor don the stylish dresses of the Jazz Age. If the Porfiriato had been all about imitating French customs, Mexico City in the 1920s was all about the United States, reproducing its women, its dances, its fast pace. Charleston! The bob cut! Ford cars! English was sprinkled on posters, on ads, it slipped from the lips of the young just as French phrases had once been poorly repeated by the city folk. A bad imitation of Rudolph Valentino, hair slicked back, remained in vogue, and the women were trying to emulate that Mexican wildcat, Lupe Vélez, who was starring in Hollywood films. As Casiopea and Hun-Kamé left the train station, hailed a cab, and journeyed downtown, she observed this prismatic, contrasting city. If she'd thought in Mérida people moved quickly, the pace was absolutely insane in Mexico City. Everyone rushed to and fro, savage motorists banged the Klaxon looking for a fight, the streetcars drifted down the avenues packed with sweaty commuters, newspaper vendors cried out the headlines of the day at street corners, and billboards declared that you should smoke El Buen Tono cigarettes. Kodak film and toothpaste were available for sale in the stores, and, near an intersection, a poor woman with a baby begged for coins, untouched by the reign of progress and modernity. There were many places where someone with money could stay. Hun-Kamé decided on the Hotel Mancera, with rooms starting at five pesos a night, a price that Casiopea found terribly high. It had been the baroque home of aristocrats before it was vastly remodeled and turned into a venue that now boasted about its beds with box springs and Simmons steel furniture. High ceilings, chandeliers, wood paneling, and a handsome bar completed the ensemble. It was, in one word, luxurious, and had been purchased by the leader of a union, the Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana. They said he'd paid for it in gold, that he organized numerous orgies, and that he'd gone through a million pesos meant for disaster relief. This was all likely true. So far, their trip had been scarce on grand accommodations, and Casiopea felt intimidated as they walked into the lobby, having no idea even how she was supposed to greet the person behind the front desk. Hun-Kamé, however, knew what he was doing, or at the very least had no problem commanding attention. He secured for them two rooms, though they did not have a chance to unpack, because Hun-Kamé immediately set out to conduct errands with her. Or so he told the hotel staff as he instructed them to take their bags to the rooms without them. They did indeed go outside, and it was not hard to find the things Hun-Kamé wanted: matches and scissors. Curious, Casiopea inquired about this purchase, and Hun-Kamé said he would explain back at the hotel. Since she was hungry and wanted to get a bite, she let it go. "I must summon a ghost," Hun-Kamé told her when they were back in her room, as he closed the heavy curtains. "You need scissors for that?" she asked. "Yes. To cut your hair. A good chunk of it will have to go," he said and touched her hair, indicating how much of her long mane he needed: he meant to cut it below her chin. She thought she hadn't heard him right. "My hair," she said carefully. "Yes." She did not even know what to tell him. All she wanted to do was yell a loud, emphatic no, and yet she was not even able to open her mouth, too outraged to phrase her objections. "Let me explain," he offered, his voice very calm. "I am in need of information regarding the whereabouts of my missing elements, and I will employ ghosts for this purpose. The summoning of ghosts can be done using human hair, bones, or teeth." "But...but you called that other thing in Veracruz and you didn't need my hair," she protested. "That was a psychopomp, a creature of Xibalba over which I have some power, by virtue of my birth. If we were in my realm I would indeed be able to summon the dead without offerings. But, since I am in your world and since I am not...quite myself at this moment, I must find another solution." He was being serious. She had hoped it was a jest, even if she didn't think him capable of jesting. "You cannot use me as...as...a stupid puppet," Casiopea said. "You can't take whatever you want and---" "If you calm down, you will realize this is the most rational way to proceed." "Can't we...what if we pay a barber for some hair? They sweep it away into the garbage, anyway," she insisted. "Symbolism is important. It should be offered willingly," he said, speaking low. She had not been one for tantrums as a child, but when she did pitch a fit, it was a sight to behold, and right then she felt that if she didn't sit down, calm herself, and close her eyes, she was going to smack the god of the dead across the face. She'd hit Martín one time when she'd been like this. "Devil's got into her," her mother said when her temper flared. "You and your symbolism! I do not know why I even came with you to this city!" she yelled, because he was being so damn calm and measured, and his voice was but a whisper. There was a table by a window and on it a glass ashtray, rather heavy. She clutched it between her hands and wished to pelt him with it, but then, thinking better of it, she sat on the floor and tossed it aside. "You came with me because we are linked together, unfortunately, and you need me to remove the shackles that bind us," he said. "And maybe because it's greater than you or I, this whole tale." Casiopea stubbornly stared at her shoes. "I don't care," she said in a low voice. He leaned down, as if to get a better look at her. "We could try to do this another way, which would involve having to get a shovel and see if we can find a suitable corpse at the cemetery, but when it comes to necromancy, I am guessing you prefer to keep it simple, especially since time is ticking." He spoke so serenely, so nicely. It made her feel petulant and silly, and it made her want to wail. So she bit her lip hard, because if she didn't she was going to really, truly, smack him across the face. "Why not you? Why is it always *me* that has to make an offering?" Casiopea asked. "Because, my dear, you are mortal and I am a god. Gods make no offerings of this sort," he said with a tone that was not condescending but had a delicate flatness to it. She grew angrier, not exactly at him anymore, but at the whole universe, which, as usual, demanded that she be the lowest rung of the ladder. She had thought her position had changed when she'd left Uukumil, but it had not. She was Casiopea Tun, the stars aligned against her. "Give me the scissors," she said, the cold fury of this thought granting her the strength to go through with the task. She planted herself in the bathroom, glaring at the mirror, and at him, since he stood behind her. She made quick work of it. Although Casiopea attempted to maintain a steady hand, she butchered her hair. The dark strands fell to the floor, her long mane savaged by her own hand. For a moment she was fine. Another moment and she had tossed the scissors away and was crying, sitting on the edge of the bathtub. She couldn't help it. The tears rolled down her cheeks even as she tried to blot them out. "It was the one thing...the only thing anyone ever told me was 'you have pretty hair,' " she whispered. He looked at her with cool detachment and she felt embarrassed, sitting there with her eyes red, sniffling. She'd learned to keep her tears at bay; Martín teased her so much she had to. It was uncomfortable to behave like a child when she prided herself on her mettle and common sense. Hun-Kamé reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, handing it to the girl. She wiped her eyes roughly. "You should start your summoning," she said, handing him back the handkerchief. There was no point in mourning her lost mane. He gathered the hair, and they headed back to the bedroom. Hun-Kamé retrieved a metal wastebasket sitting by the desk, deposited the hair in it, then placed the wastebasket in the middle of the bedroom. He struck a match, setting the hair on fire, the sharp smell of it making her eyes watery again. All this occurred in perfect silence. "Hold my hand," he told her. "Do not let go, even if you are frightened. And do not look into their eyes, do you understand?" "Why?" "Ghosts are hungry," he said simply. "Repeat with me: I shall hold on to your hand and I will not look into their eyes." Casiopea thought she had no business holding any man's hand for an extended length of time, but then, she didn't like the word "hungry" paired with "ghosts." "I'll hold on to your hand and I will not look into their eyes," she muttered, and she laced her fingers with his, feeling a little bold, but he did not complain. Hun-Kamé spoke a few words. It was the same unknown language he'd spoken at the crossroads, only now she wasn't even sure it was a language. Just a sound, a hum. The temperature plummeted and she felt goose bumps on her arms. It was not the same cold that they'd experienced in Veracruz. That had been like touching hail, while this was the cold of things that are long dead and rot in the sour earth. Nothing else happened at first. Then she noticed that the shadows in the room had grown somewhat...darker. Light was streaming in from outside, beneath the curtains, and yet everything was grayer, the shadows like pools of ink. Then they shivered, the shadows, they stretched down the floor, growing larger, changing their shape. And they rose. They became solid. Yet they were not solid: it was as if someone had punched holes in the room and where something should have been there was darkness. The shadows resembled people. They had arms, a torso, a head. They moved, darting across the room, ruffling the curtains, whispering among themselves. In the middle of the room, the hair burned very bright, too bright, its glow the remaining source of illumination now because the shadows dominated everything, not a single stray ray of light creeping in from the outside. An endless darkness and the shadow people standing in front of them, very close, the dim fire revealing that they had no features, their faces were smooth as pebbles. Hun-Kamé had told her to hold his hand, but instead she squeezed it tight. The room's expensive furniture, the massive bed, the oil paintings on the walls, they all had faded. What was left was merely darkness. She was not even sure if there was a floor beneath their feet. Hun-Kamé alone anchored her in place. "You called for us," one of the shadow persons said, though none of them had a mouth. "I thank you for attending me. I am Hun-Kamé, Lord of Xibalba, who searches for his stolen essence. Somewhere in this city a piece of myself has been hidden. Do you know where it might be?" "Answers have a price." "Rest assured, it shall be paid," Hun-Kamé said and tossed strands of her long hair, which he held in his free hand, at them. The shadows gurgled and scrabbled, snatching bits of hair and eating them. They did have mouths, after all, and long, gray tongues, which rolled out onto the floor, and they had eyes that glowed blue-green, slits of color floating in the dark. Casiopea felt her body turn into iron, and now she didn't only hold the death god's hand, she shifted very close to him. "This is nothing, these are scraps," one of the shadows said. "Careful," Hun-Kamé said, "mind your words. I am kind now, but I could be harsher and wring the truth from you." "Refuse and filth, bits and pieces and nothing whole," the shadow said. "Give us fresh meat and bones instead. Give us *her*." All the blue-green eyes turned toward Casiopea in unison, and they were fearsome, and one of them held her gaze. Had she been able to distinguish their faces, even if they looked like rotten corpses, she might not have been so scared. But in the dark the shadows had the outlines of childhood monsters and they held her in their thrall, their blue-green glow making her think of evil dreams. They smelled bad, too, sickly-sweet; the aroma of wilted flowers. She raised her hands to cover her mouth, fearing she'd scream, and when her fingers touched her lips she realized she had let go of Hun-Kamé. She looked around, trying to hold on to him, but he was gone. The room was gone. The fire was dying away. There were only the dark pillars that shuffled closer and closer to her, their glowing eyes growing more vivid, their tongues brushing the floor. "Oh, her heart, we'll chew it twice and then spit it and chew it again," one of the shadows said. "And the marrow, the marrow too. We'll drink from her veins," replied another. A tongue snaked in Casiopea's direction, brushing her foot, and she gasped and stepped away from it, but the circle of shadows grew tighter, they closed in around her like a noose. North and south and east and west. They were everywhere. She pressed her hands against her mouth again, panicked, and for one moment she suspected the god had intended to leave her with these things all along. That it had been a ruse and she was to be their meal. But there was the bone shard in her finger. He wouldn't. The shadows were so close, and their putrescence made her want to gag. They opened their mouths, and their breath curled out, cold and humid and blue-green, making her wince. If only she'd held on to his hand! "And...and not looked into their eyes," she whispered. But she was looking! She realized then that she had not stopped looking at that one shadow that had caught her gaze. She drew a deep breath and closed her eyes, and felt her body sway, and there was the grip of hands on her shoulders. "Casiopea, look at me," a voice said. "No," she replied, her eyes closed tight. She felt warm breath from human lips as he leaned down to speak into her ear. "It is me, Hun-Kamé," he said. She snapped her eyes open and looked up at him, and he looked down at her, slowly taking her left hand between his. The shadows grumbled and sighed around them; a couple of them spat on the floor. She could see the outlines of the room again and the wastebasket with the burning hair. "We are famished!" they said. "We are hungry!" "Oh, she nearly forgot herself," wailed another. "Quiet, you degenerate fiends, and attend me," Hun-Kamé said, his voice cutting through their muttering like a blade. "Your eyes, on the ground, don't you dare raise them again." The shadows hissed, and their blue-green glow grew narrow until they had no eyes. Blind they stood before both of them. "Now, tell me what I need to know." The shadows spoke to one another in animated whispers, bowing their heads, as if conferring among themselves. Their tongues lolled out and in of their mouths. The matter decided, they spoke again. "Head to Xtabay's abode," a shadow said. Perhaps the same one that had caught her eye before, perhaps another. Casiopea could not tell them apart. "Where does she reside?" "Nearby, see here," the shadow said and a spark of fire, from the burning hair, lifted itself into the air and traced a line, a shape. "My thanks," Hun-Kamé said and tossed the last bits of hair to the shadows, which fell onto one another to devour them. And as they fell, blending, becoming one, the cold from the room ebbed, the darkness changed, and they were standing in the middle of a normal room, a tendril of smoke rising from the wastebasket, the bustling city again outside their window. "I told you not to look at them," Hun-Kamé said, letting go of her hand. He sounded grim, and she felt silly for the whole episode. First she'd wept, then she'd lost hold of him. And she'd been so scared, like a girl. "I know," she muttered. The hair he'd tossed on the floor and the burnt hair in the wastebasket had vanished, but a sulfuric stench lingered in the room. He opened the windows to allow light and air in, and Casiopea was grateful for this gesture because the air inside was charged and stale. Casiopea breathed in slowly. She felt supremely tired, her legs threatening to buckle beneath her. Her hand throbbed and she rubbed it, bending down at the same time, as if a heavy stone had been deposited on her shoulders. She straightened herself quickly enough, but he had noticed. "I apologize thoroughly. This was taxing for you," he said, and now he didn't seem grim, just sober and measured. "I...I'm not even sure...what were those things?" she asked. "Ghosts." "I didn't imagine ghosts were like that." Not that she had pictured ghosts as people wearing sheets, with two holes cut out for their eyes, or as wispy, floating apparitions. She hadn't thought they'd be as frightening as they'd been. Nor that they might try to eat her. "Certain ghosts. There are others, like those who haunt the roads and devour children, for one," Hun-Kamé said with a shrug. "You should rest." "I'm not sure I want to nap," she said, suddenly afraid of all the creatures that lurk in the dark and the shadows that might invade the room if she drew the curtains. "And I assure you, you should. I do not say this idly. When I cast magic, I draw from your strength." She stared at him. "Like..." "I feed off you. You know this." "Not like this, not---" "Every minute of every hour, and when I use my magic, even more. Come, lie down," he said, clasping her hand and drawing her toward the bed, then gesturing for her to sit. Casiopea sat at the head of it, clutching a decorative pillow between her hands. She had wanted to see Mexico City, and when she did she had not expected she would be frightened by ghosts. Nor did she think she'd spend her first evening there asleep because a god had used her hair and her energy to conjure said ghosts. She'd imagined a nebulous sort of fun. But there was little fun to be had; even Carnival had not been enjoyed, merely observed from afar. "It's not right," she said, frowning and toying with the pillow's tassels. "It isn't fair. I'm food for them or...or for you." "And who ever told you life was fair?" "Maybe I thought it would be fairer with a god at my side." "That is rather naïve," he said. "I'll have to dissuade you about this. Who said this to you?" He seemed so utterly serious---not cruel, just serious and concerned, as if he'd just discovered she didn't know how to count to ten---about this matter that it made her chuckle. "What amuses you?" "Nothing. I suppose I might nap for a bit," she told him, rather than explaining herself. She didn't think he'd understand. "I guess you'll want to sleep too." "I do not sleep." They had shared their quarters on the boat and the train, but she had not checked to see if he slept. He certainly lay on his berth. She had assumed he must rest too. "But you said you slept in the chest, and Loray, he told me some gods sleep," she said, remembering that detail. "I also said it was not like your sleep, and as you can imagine, it was under extraordinary circumstances that I engaged in this activity." She considered this, nodding and placing the pillow back on the bed, behind her. "That means you don't dream," she said. "Dreams are for mortals." "Why?" "Because they must die." Somehow this made a perfect sort of sense. The volume of Aztec poetry she had read was full of lines about dreams and flowers, the futility of existence. "That's sad," she said, finally. "Death? It is unavoidable, not sad." "No, not death," she said, shaking her head. "That you don't dream." "Why would I need to dream? It means nothing. Those are but the tapestries of mortals, woven and unwoven each night on a rickety loom." "They can be beautiful." "As if there's no other beauty to be had," he said dismissively. "There's little of it, for some," she replied. She thought of the daily drudgery at Uukumil. Rise, get grandfather's breakfast to his room, take the dishes back to the kitchen, sweep a floor or scrub it clean. Each evening a meal with her mother, each night a prayer to her guardian angel. Sundays at church, the clothes clinging to her skin, the day too hot. The secret time to peruse the pages of her father's book. Her mother, brushing her hair and smoothing her worries. And again, this cycle. "Is that why you stare at the stars?" he asked. "Are you searching for beauty or dreaming with your eyes wide open?" "My father was an astronomy enthusiast. He knew the names of the stars and he'd point them out. I try not to forget them." She also tried to retain the sound of his voice when he told her legends before bedtime, but truth be told she'd forgotten. This made her sad, but she attempted to clutch the other remains of his memory even more tightly, holding with special reverence a book of poems by Francisco de Quevedo with pages falling out, like a withered daisy, which had rested by her father's bedside when he passed away. "My grandfather was so angry when he heard they'd called me Casiopea. Grandfather wanted a good Christian name, not some Mayan nonsense, and threatened to cut off contact with my mother if they went with that. Then they named me Casiopea. 'It's Greek nonsense, now,' my father said." She remembered the priest's face when he'd heard she had no proper Christian name. He insisted on calling her María, and when that didn't work, "the Leyva girl," eliminating Tun. Now that she thought about it, that's what most people called her, even though she had girl cousins, and any of them might have been "the Leyva girl." There had been talk that some of those cousins ought to go to a boarding school, but Grandfather was old-fashioned and believed a woman's place was at home, where she could focus on learning to be a proper wife. Martín had gone to a school when he'd been younger, but fed up with the rules and lessons there, he'd got himself expelled. Grandfather did not bother sending him back again. "My grandfather didn't appreciate the wittiness of the statement. He cut her off anyway. Then my father died and we had to go live in Uukumil," she said. "Had I known you were trapped in that chest, I would have released you years ago, to spite him." "I would have been very grateful," he replied. "As for those stars of yours and your dreams, I suppose they've kept you company, and there is no folly in them." She pressed a cheek against the bed's padded headboard and glanced up at him. Her eyelids felt heavy but she didn't want him to go yet, she wanted him to stay by the bed, looking down at her, his hands in his pockets, an eyebrow quirked. "It's odd to imagine the stars keeping someone company, as if they were ladies in waiting," she said, unable to suppress a yawn despite her best effort. "I certainly wouldn't pick stars as my attendants, but then I am not mortal." "What attendants do you have?" she asked. "What kind of attendants do you picture?" Casiopea imagined skeletons and bats and owls---all manner of creatures that haunt the night, since those were the elements that embroidered the tales of the realm of Xibalba. "Frightful ones," she said tentatively. "Am I wrong?" "Dead ladies, noblemen, and priests who bought passage into my kingdom centuries ago, attired in their finery." He smiled, as if recalling his throne room and his courtiers, and although she truly did not wish to gaze upon this world of his, she smiled too, because the memory of Xibalba brought him joy. He looked at her, then, and noticing her exhaustion---or another detail that gave him pause---he set a hand against his chest and dipped his head politely. "I'll let you sleep," he said. She nodded, placed her head against the very white pillows, not even bothering to get under the covers. She heard his footsteps as he moved away, and then they stopped. "Rest assured, your vanity can remain safe," he told her. Casiopea lifted her head and frowned. He was by the connecting door, looking down at the floor, as if in deep thought. She wasn't sure she hadn't imagined the words, since he wasn't looking at her. "I'm sorry?" "You were worried about the hair. You said it was the only becoming feature you possess," Hun-Kamé said. "It doesn't matter. A hat---" "It's not the only one," he said. It was a simple utterance, which she might have accepted graciously had his gaze not fixed on her with an austere sincerity that made her panic and gape at him like a damn fool. "Thank you?" she mumbled at last. He closed the adjoining door and Casiopea stared at it for a long time, the sleep that had been courting her having vanished. She wondered what those becoming traits were. He'd said once before that she was pretty, but she hadn't quite believed him. He was merely being kind, she told herself. But even if he was, it was both nice and odd to experience such chivalry. They ordered room service, which Casiopea had never done before, but the hotel clerk had mentioned it when they checked in, so she'd gone downstairs to inquire how this service might be obtained. They probably thought her a country bumpkin, asking such a thing, but Casiopea had never been reluctant to learn. There were a myriad of food options, but she opted for bread rolls and marmalade, knowing little of what one was supposed to purchase in such a place, plus hot coffee. Shortly thereafter a hotel employee knocked at her door, wheeling in a cart and depositing two dishes on the table. Hun-Kamé and Casiopea discussed their schedule for the day, eating by the open window. Hun-Kamé wanted to go to a jewelry store, which Casiopea thought odd. "What would you need from there?" she asked, dipping the bolillo in her coffee. "A necklace, very likely. If we are to see Xtabay tonight we cannot head there empty-handed." "I thought gods did not make any offerings." "It's not an offering, it's a gesture of goodwill. Besides, I won't be carrying it, you will," he said airily. Casiopea pointed at him with the butter knife. "You consider me your maid." "My ally, dear lady," he replied, sipping his coffee slowly, as if he was still reluctant to taste earthly dishes. She frowned, picking at the center of the bolillo, extracting the soft bread from the harder shell. She didn't have the luxury of eating the soft part of the bolillo back home, having to munch whatever was available under the watchful eye of her mother. Now she could do as she pleased, and she rolled bits of soft bread, tossing them into her mouth. "You could spin a few jewels out of rocks," she said. "I can't do that." "I've seen you turn stones into coins," she reminded him. "I cannot alter the nature of an object. It is merely a play of light and shadow, an illusion." "Will the illusion wear off?" "Illusions always wear off." They asked the concierge about jewelry shops. There were suitable shops all down Madero---stubborn capitalinos still referred to it as Plateros, unwilling to accept the name change that honored a murdered president---but he emphasized La Esmeralda, which had been the darling of the Porfirian aristocracy. La Esmeralda was looted in 1914 by Carranza's troops, but that seemed like a lifetime ago. It had been renovated seven years before, grew more splendorous, and advertised itself as a place for "art objects and timepieces," selling all sorts of wildly expensive baubles. The store was grand, but like many newer buildings in Mexico it was also a mishmash of styles, French rococo mixing with neoclassic, a little vulgar if one looked at it closely. Most capitalinos did not realize that the architectonic pretensions of the building were more *nouveau riche* than Art Nouveau, and, had this been explained to them, they would have denied the building had any deficiencies. The store's name was boldly emblazoned across the front, a clock marking the hour above it. Before its iron skeleton was erected a more modest three-story building had stood there, made of red tezontle, best suited for the soft Mexico City soil that had been, after all, a city of canals before the Spaniards filled up its waterways. But then Hauser and Zivy had that old house smashed and established the Esmeralda in its place, a store in which the distinguished consumer could order Baccarat crystal and elaborate music boxes. Inside, the building was all marble, glass, and dark wood, gleaming crystal and profuse decorations. Hun-Kamé knew what he wanted, focusing on gold necklaces. Casiopea, meanwhile, looked at a heavy silver bracelet with black enamel triangles, of the "Aztec" style, which was much in vogue and meant to attract the eye of tourists with its faux pre-Hispanic motifs. It was a new concoction, of the kind that abound in a Mexico happy to invent traditions for mass consumption, eager to forge an identity after the fires of the revolution---but it was pretty. "You should try it on," said the saleswoman, smelling a commission. "I couldn't," Casiopea said. "I'm sure your husband will think it pretty." "He is not my husband," she replied. The saleswoman gave her a funny look, and Casiopea realized she must think she was Hun-Kamé's mistress. How embarrassing! Casiopea tugged at her hair, self-conscious. She had informed Hun-Kamé she'd have to go to a hairdresser that same day, since her work with the scissors had been poor. She'd look like a flapper now and they'd think her a loose girl. The saleswoman probably judged her a tart already. It was very important not to be a tart. But she was already wearing skirts that showed her legs. What were the other requirements for such a designation? Did it matter if she wasn't one but merely looked the part? "If you like it, you should take a closer look at it," Hun-Kamé said, hovering next to her. "It's expensive." "I already bought an expensive necklace, a bracelet is no concern." She tried it on and then he asked. "Would you like it?" "Truly?" she replied. "If you wish it," he said, signaling to the saleswoman, who took the bracelet and began to place tissue paper in a box. "If I wore it in Uukumil they'd say it's gaudy and the priest would chide me." "You're not in Uukumil." Casiopea smiled at him. The saleswoman placed the lid on the box and she gave Casiopea a curious look. She was probably confused, trying to determine if Casiopea was a mistress already or a would-be one, meant to be seduced with nice jewelry. "Thank you," Casiopea said when they left the store. "I've never owned anything of value and nothing this pretty." In the middle of the street a policeman was directing traffic, looking bored, while she looked nervously at the semaphore and the multitudes around them, trying to determine at which point it was safe to cross the street. She eyed the streetcars fearfully and the automobiles in wonder, and someone behind shoved her aside, eager to get to the other side of the street. She was confused by the city and its incessant activity, but also happy and grateful for Hun-Kamé's company. She thought of him as her friend. It was not the gift that had prompted this, but their daily interactions, his politeness, which were quickly endearing him to her. This was hardly surprising considering how few friends Casiopea had. There was her mother, who with her never-ending optimism helped the young woman face each day. Casiopea's female cousins tended to ignore her. When she was younger she had been able to play with the children of the maids and the other boys and girls in town, but as she matured everyone grew distant. Her grandfather was the cause of this, since he didn't want any grandchild of his, however nominal, in the company of "rabble." Casiopea, caught in this in-between state, focused on her chores instead of socializing. In her spare time, she looked to books or the stars for company. To have someone at her side was alien and yet a delight. There was joy in the quest, now, the joy of her nascent freedom and his company. "It is of no consequence," he replied. "It is to me," she said. "And I want to say...of course I want to say thank you, even if I have no idea why you even bothered with it." She smiled. In return, he gave her a smidgen of a smile, so tiny she felt she might have to cup it in her hands to keep it safe, or the wind might blow it away. The Lord of Xibalba did not smile often, and he did not laugh. This does not mean he did not find amusement in certain things. It was a dry sort of amusement, which was not polluted by mirth. That he smiled now was because he was dislocated, altered and altering, and due to the mortality creeping in his veins. But it was also because, like Casiopea, he had been alone for a very long time and found an amount of comfort in the company of another being. He drew nearer to her, the smile growing, becoming careless. Abruptly he remembered himself. The smile faded. She did not notice, too busy turning her head, looking down the avenue. "I should find a hairdresser," Casiopea told him as they crossed another street. "Would you like me to accompany you?" he asked. "I can manage," she said, not wanting to seem a child who must be guided at every turn. "Then I will see you back at the hotel," he replied, handing her several bills. She looked at the money. "Won't it turn into a puff of smoke when you walk away?" "Don't worry. Loray gave me real money; I have not been casting illusions in order to obtain sufficient legal tender. Though he'll have to wire more if we want to pay people in these delightful bills rather than sticks and stones. A nuisance. Were I in Xibalba, I'd simply command my servants to bring me the jewels and treasures of the earth. Were I in Xibalba I'd show you truly fine jewelry to wear, necklaces of silver moths and the blackest pearls you've ever seen, darker than the darkest ink." "This bracelet is more than fine," she said simply, running her fingers along its surface, for she did not want to begin wishing for impossibilities and great treasures. She set off, then, first to find a post office. Casiopea had thought to write her mother a letter explaining herself, but she considered better of it. She decided a letter would be too problematic. She would not know where to begin or end her narrative. Instead, she opted for a pretty postcard. Casiopea kept her words brief, saying she was in Mexico City and was doing well, that she would write more later and send her address. She guessed that by now everyone in town thought she'd run off with a lover, and she did not bother to mention the presence of her companion. Besides, she could hardly say "and I am with a god at this time." After the post office Casiopea found a hairdresser who looked at her curiously, wondering if she'd tried to bob her hair by herself. Casiopea lied and said that had been the case. "Yes, bobbed hair is all the rage," the hairdresser told her. "My husband doesn't like it much, but it makes for good business. You're not from here, are you? Your accent..." And so on and so forth, the hairdresser trailed on, making small talk. She informed Casiopea that the best place to go dancing, if she was looking for such fun, was the Salón Mexico, though it was important that she pay for the first-class section. "You want to be in the 'butter,' not the 'lard' or the 'tallow,' " the hairdresser explained, because that's what they nicknamed the sections. "The butter is where the decent men in suits and ties go to dance." The lard, the hairdresser told her, was where small-time employees, maids from fancy houses, and secretaries congregated. The tallow was the lowest of the low, and no decent lady should head there. It was full of whores, she was warned. But when Casiopea looked in the mirror and saw her bangs and her short hair grazing her cheek, she thought she looked like the whores they'd warned her about. And yet her hair seemed quite nice. This might mean that the whores were not as bad as they'd said. Or maybe it meant something else entirely. Like most questions that had assaulted her during her journey, Casiopea had an impressive ability to mark them down as topics she should process later, but that she could not be bothered to consider at the time. She exited the hairdresser's shop and for a block or two, she walked very slowly, fearful that people would point at her, even ridicule her new hairstyle. But the pedestrians kept walking, the policemen directed traffic, the motorists banged their palm against the horn. Mexico City was too busy to notice a young, provincial girl with her black hair cut short. She gave a beggar a smile and asked a woman for directions, and neither person seemed shocked by her appearance. Casiopea let out a sigh of relief, realizing no one was going to stop her because she looked different. Just as she was smiling, however, a heavy hand fell on her shoulder. "Casiopea, we have to talk," a voice said. She knew that voice well. It was her cousin Martín. O*ur Father, who art in heaven*, he told himself, repeating the Lord's prayer inside his head. But then he switched from prayer to curses, and back again. The curses were all destined for Casiopea. He kept his eyes closed tight, fearing he might fall and dash his body against the ground, and the owl flapped its wings quickly. It was a gigantic creature, its talons large enough to lift a man in the air, and Martín kept thinking it would either throw him off his back or rend him with its beak and devour him whole. The night wind toyed with the young man's hair and he squeezed his eyes harder, he held tight to the feathers and the flesh of this supernatural creature. When the owl landed on the roof of a building, Martín could hardly contain his joy. He almost burst into tears. "Your cousin will be at the Hotel Mancera," the owl told him. Or at least he thought it was the owl who had spoken, although it might have been Vucub-Kamé making himself heard through the animal, since the bird's voice had a flintlike quality that made Martín bow his head, respect instinctive in the presence of the unnatural. "You will tell the girl the Lord of Xibalba wishes to speak with her," the owl said. "But do not scare her. It is best to make an ally than an enemy." "Of course," Martín said, although he frankly thought it might be better to slap some sense into his cousin. "What if she refuses?" "Then we will determine another way to proceed. Do nothing else without the Supreme Lord's consent," the owl said, before it batted its wings and flew off into the night. Martín was left alone on the roof of a building he did not know, in a city he had never visited before. It was the middle of the night, and he was afraid of being robbed by ruffians. He was also dreadfully cold; the trip on the owl's back had left him sniffling and tired. Martín checked himself into a hotel near Casiopea's lodgings and went to sleep because there was little he could do until the morning and he needed a pillow under his head and a hot bath. He hoped for good dreams. Instead, he dreamed of Uukumil, his childhood, and his hateful cousin. --- In dreams, she hit him with the stick and Grandfather laughed. Martín Leyva was indolent, proud, and cruel. His faults were not solely the result of an inherent nature. They had been honed and coaxed by his family, through explicit action and through lapses in judgment. As a man he already saw himself as worthy of praise. As a Leyva, child of the wealthiest family in town, his ego grew inflated. There was little he could not do, from berating the servants to lording over his female cousins and his sisters as if he were the ruler of a principality. His grandfather was a bitter tyrant, and Martín copied his mannerisms, feeling disappointed with his father, who was a much more placid fellow, meek, gray, and subdued by the patriarch. Rather than imitate the father, then, he took after the grandfather. He considered himself the future Man of the House, the undisputed macho of the Leyva clan. Nevertheless, sometimes cracks showed in his narcissistic façade. Martín was sent off to a good school but expelled. He'd had a hard time fitting in at the institution. Not only were the intellectual demands too much for his limited, closed brain, but he could discern scorn in the faces of the other pupils. The Leyvas were kings of Uukumil, but not kings of Mérida. He felt like an outsider, diminished. Unable to be the center of attention, he managed to get himself packed back to his hometown and refused to return to the school. But home did not offer the respite he might have expected, mainly because Casiopea was living with the family. At first, Martín had not quite known how to react to the girl, who was two years his junior. He was aloof, but his cool indifference turned to outright anger the more he observed her. First of all, there was Casiopea's personality, which irritated him. The day he returned from school, the letter narrating his expulsions clasped between his hands, she'd been with Grandfather to observe his humiliation... His sisters and his other girl cousins were mild, quiet creatures who knew better than to defy him. But Casiopea was made of sterner stuff. She did as she was told, but sometimes she'd protest. She'd rebel. And even if she said nothing, he read mutiny in her eyes. Then there was the matter of her intelligence. Martín thought books were for fools. If a man could do long division and read the headlines of the newspapers, that was all that was required. For a while he had read the paper for his grandfather, stumbling over big words, until the man, exasperated, assigned the task to the younger girl. Lo and behold, she could read well, could write in a neat hand, and did her sums with surprising quickness. Her mother had taught the child, and then the child continued to teach herself more. Martín believed this was suspicious, unfeminine. "Why couldn't you be a boy?" Grandfather said, eyes on Casiopea, and Martín almost broke into tears... Hostile, he circled around the girl, issuing orders, seeking to dominate her, finding pleasure in this power. Yet he held back an inch. There was the slim veneer of civility to his actions. He spoke unpleasantries, but in the tone of a gentleman. This changed when she hit him. He had been goading her for a while and did not think she'd break. But then Martín told her that she was almost a bastard: her mother had been pregnant when she married, round with child. Casiopea grabbed a stick and swung it against the boy's head. She almost took out his eye. In pain, hollering, thinking he had been dramatically injured, Martín had wept until his mother and the other members of the family ran out to see what was wrong. Casiopea pretended she hadn't heard the words, ducking her head, but she'd heard and Martín had heard...Why couldn't you be a boy? The beating Casiopea received from Grandfather did not satisfy Martín. Nothing could satisfy him. He quivered in his bed as the doctor examined him and rubbed an ointment on his face. A man, overcome by a girl. Because at fifteen he had considered himself a man already, and suddenly he was reduced back to infancy. He saw the disgust in his grandfather's face, the veiled smiles of the servants, the scorn there, hidden and quiet and real, and he felt such utter shame. He hated her from then on. It was not animosity or the scuffles of youth; he could not stand her. Although, if he admitted it to himself, the trouble had started before, that day when he returned from school. But he did not like to think of it. Somehow the physical beating was a better start to the animosity. It justified it more neatly. She'd started it. In dreams, she hit him with the stick and Grandfather laughed. Martín twisted and turned and muttered in his bed, her name on his lips. --- Martín disliked the city when he saw it at night, and his impression did not improve once the sun was out. He thought it was too large and indifferent to him, that here he was nobody, while in Uukumil he was Young Mister Leyva, people tipping their hats at him when he walked by. Martín's brain was rather dismal in its ability to imagine anything that was not solid and palpable, but he did fantasize about success. These were coarse dreams of money, nebulous power, undisputed respect. In Mexico City Martín felt the metropolis dwarfing him and his desires. He did not enjoy it. Early he rose and went to station himself outside the Hotel Mancera, thinking he might wait to see if Casiopea would come out. She did and walked in the company of a man in a navy jacket, dark-haired. It was Hun-Kamé, no doubt. They went into a store and then separated---which suited Martín's purposes perfectly---at which point she headed to the hairdresser. He caught her when she came out, her hair shockingly short. He disliked her look at once and even more the way her eyes darted up to his face, concerned but not as afraid as she ought to have been. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "I could say the same thing," he told her. "Your mother's been worried sick, you did not even leave a note, and Grandfather will not shut up about you." This much was true, but he said it in order to admonish and mollify her, not because he cared to inform her about the state of affairs in Uukumil. He thought if he could make her feel guilty, he might get her to agree to the meeting. "I'm sorry if I've made anyone uneasy," Casiopea said, and she did look honestly pained, but then she frowned. "How did you know I was here? I've told no one." "You didn't think you could steal---" "Steal? I didn't steal anything," she replied, interrupting him. "You did, you stole some bones that were locked in an old box and now we've got hell to pay for it." They were standing in the middle of the street. Martín maneuvered his cousin aside, so that they were now under the awning of a store, which offered more privacy. "What do you mean?" Casiopea said. "The Lord of Xibalba, Vucub-Kamé, is upset. He's angry at Grandfather, at your mother, at me, at every single Leyva." "You had nothing to do with it." "Try telling that to a god." His words were having the expected effect. Casiopea lowered her eyes, her lips pursed. "I'm sorry. But I don't see why you are here," she muttered. "*He's* sent me." "Vucub-Kamé?" "Yes, of course. Didn't you wonder what would happen to us when he learned what you'd done?" "I...I had no choice," she protested. "But if you must blame someone, you can blame me." "What good do you think that might do? He is upset." "But---" "However, Vucub-Kamé did say he'd be willing to listen to your side of the story." Someone came out of the store and elbowed Martín away. He frowned, and would have barked a nasty word or two at the fool who dared to push him like that, but there was no chance of it. Blasted city with its rude citizens, Martín would swear no one could recognize him as a man of good breeding in this place, not with this smelly stew of unsuitable people. "My side of the story?" Casiopea repeated. "Yes. He wants to speak to you. Casiopea, you must say yes. If you decline, who knows what ruinous future awaits us. Grandfather served Vucub-Kamé, and that is how we came to be so well positioned in Uukumil. He is our protector." "He's certainly never behaved like my protector," Casiopea replied. "Cousin, I realize we've done you a bad turn. But I promise you that if you talk to him, all of that will be in the past, and upon your return home, with me, you'll have a rightful place in Uukumil, as it should have been from the beginning." Although not terribly imaginative, Martín did have a natural talent for pushing people's buttons and understanding their moods. He was a manipulator at heart, and though he had a difficult time establishing true intimacy with others, he could pretend it. Therefore, he had considered what the best way to speak to his cousin might be, and he had decided he must be firm, but also promise a reward that could soften her. The lure of a social position, a place in the family, those were to him the most natural appeals. After all, he was highly aware of the pecking order and he imagined others were as well. "I am sure Vucub-Kamé could be made to understand that we are innocent, that we have not willingly betrayed his trust. Grandfather will be very grateful if you make the Lord of Xibalba see this." "Hun-Kamé is the Lord of Xibalba," she said. "He was. Not anymore. Casiopea, you do not owe him anything, but you owe the family your loyalty. You are a Leyva," he concluded. The girl was stunned by the speech. He saw her shrink, her shoulders falling, her whole frame becoming smaller. Martín smelled success. Years bullying Casiopea had done the trick, made him aware of how to shove the girl around. But then she raised her head, eyes brighter than they should have been. He had not recalled---had not wanted to recall---the rebellious streak that marked his cousin, how once in a while she talked back at him or muttered under her breath. That rebellion was in full bloom now as she straightened up and threw him a cold, determined look. "Hun-Kamé needs my help," she said. "And we don't? You'll treat us as if we were rubbish?" "You are the one who has treated me like rubbish, and now that you need me you are willing to offer me the things I've wanted. I wanted so much to be liked by you and the family, to make Grandfather proud, but nothing I've ever done has been good enough." The brat! Talking to him with a brazen tone, the way no woman should talk to a man. She was imperious, like he was somehow beneath her when she ought to have fallen on her knees and begged for forgiveness. She should have agreed without hesitation to do as he said. He was so shocked he could not even begin to speak. "You will pick him over us?" Martín asked, outraged, when he managed to recover his wits. "He has shown me more respect and kindness in a few days than you ever showed me my entire life," Casiopea said, her words slow and deliberate. "I do not care about your crumbs." Crumbs! What a ridiculous thing to say when he was offering her the greatest honor imaginable. Brat and bitch. Ungrateful bastard. He wanted to hurl insults at her, but the girl had already stepped away, done with him. The gesture was even worse than her speech. He'd always dismissed Casiopea, he said when their conversation was over. She was supposed to do as he said, when he said it. "Where do you think you're going?" Martín demanded, and he clutched her arm. She froze, lips open, and looked so utterly tiny he almost felt sorry for her. Almost. Suddenly she clasped her mouth shut, raised her chin, and gave him a shove. He lost his balance and the wicked creature took off, leaping away like a hare. Martín tried to follow her, pushing people aside, but she was swift and small, and waded between pedestrians with much more ease than he did. "Stop!" he demanded, giving chase. "Stop!" She l