Gods of Jade and Shadow(35)

“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.”