Gods of Jade and Shadow(44)

“Well, I’m…I’m scared of your brother, of course. He’s found us.”

“I do not think it is what frightens you. Is it your cousin that has you in such a state?”

Casiopea stopped moving for a second, her hands clasped under her breast. Although she wished to tell him that no, Martín had nothing to do with this, the truth was he had everything to do with her current agitation. But it wasn’t him. When she reached deep into herself, she found a slightly different answer.

“I don’t want to go back to Uukumil,” she whispered.

She missed her mother, she felt unsure of herself outside of the safety of her town, and she had no idea where their adventure would eventually lead them, but she did not wish to turn back, for turning away from a quest felt to her akin to sacrilege.

“When I saw him…for a moment, I thought he’d make me go back. He always gets his way and I have to do as he says. And I keep thinking…” She trailed off. She did not understand herself.

“What if you are shackled to the loser in this contest?” Hun-Kamé said, his voice dry. “What if your cousin is the smarter one, sitting in the victor’s corner.”

“What if I’m only free for a few days?” she replied, the disquiet of a butterfly fearing it will be trampled.

Hun-Kamé had been looking around the room, distracted. Now he gazed at her. The god’s age was unknowable; it eluded a specific bracket. He was not old, yet he did not give the appearance of youth. One may count the rings of trees to know the time of their birth, but there were no lines on his face to offer such clues. There was a sense of permanence in him that rendered such inquiries null.

When he looked at her, however, Casiopea noticed he was boyish, which she’d never realized before. Of course, this was because he had never been young before. But in that moment he reflected her, sympathy and the same apprehension masking him. Somehow this capacity to understand her also brought forth the strange change in his countenance. No longer ageless, he was a young man. Twenty-one, twenty, a passerby would have guessed.

“I ask myself the same question,” he told her, and his voice was equally young, jade-green, the color of the ceiba tree before it reaches maturity.

As soon as he’d spoken, the youth dissipated, as if he’d remembered his full nature and the extent of his roots. Hun-Kamé’s face grew still, whatever ripple that had stirred it fading. He was again ageless, polished like a dark mirror. The change was so startling and so quick, Casiopea was not certain it had taken place.

Hun-Kamé turned his head again, looking in the direction of the window. The wind was stirring the curtains.

“We need to speak to Xtabay,” he said, smoothing his hair and standing up. He reached for the box with the necklace, which he’d left atop a coffee table.

“I’ve heard she is a demoness,” Casiopea said, glad to change the topic. Ghosts that devour people and monsters of smoke were much easier for her to consider than her family and the fears knotted under her skin.

“Not a demoness. Who said that to you? Your town’s priest?” he asked.

The stories had not come from the priest, but from the gossip of the servants. The priest would not have abided such talk, complaining as he did about the Yucatec propensity for superstition, magic, and legends, the peasants whispering about the aluxo’ob while they learned their catechism.

Xtabay was a figure she had discovered with the assistance of the cooks and pot scrubbers, intently listening to their tales. Like all legends, the stories contradicted themselves, and it was hard to know who was wrong and who was right. Some said Xtabay was a mortal woman who, due to her cruelty and indifference, returned to the land of the living to steal men’s souls. Others claimed she was a demoness. She lived near the ceiba tree, no, in the cenotes. She would appear in the middle of the jungle, and run away when a man approached her, luring him until he was forever lost. But other stories said she tossed them into cenotes, where they drowned. And yet others insisted she strangled the men or ate their hearts. They said she used her beautiful singing voice to ensnare them, while the cook had told Casiopea it was her sheer beauty that served as the lure, and there were those who said it was her hair, which she combed with a magical comb, that attracted her victims. The Xtabay seduced, she lied, she tempted, peeking through the leaves of the trees and smiling her red smile.

Since she was no man and thus immune to her spell, Casiopea did not fear the tales.

“I don’t remember,” Casiopea said, shrugging.

“She is a spirit. You’ve met a demon already. They are not the same.”

“What is the difference?”

“She was human and was altered. A hungry ghost who grew more powerful and became something new. Spirits, unlike ghosts, may travel the roads instead of being nailed to a single spot.”

“Then she is a type of ghost. But I thought men could sleep with her, how—” Casiopea blurted out and was instantly mortified by her frank comment.

It was wrong, outright wrong, to discuss whatever went on between men and women in bed. The priest had drummed into the young girls of Uukumil the importance of chastity. Despite this, Casiopea had witnessed secret kisses between the servants. On one occasion, a traveling troupe had come to town with a film projector. Against a white sheet, Casiopea had had the chance to gaze at Ramón Novarro, the “Latin lover” who had Hollywood agog, and watched him embrace a gorgeous woman, promising her his undying affection. And there were books too, which her grandfather never cared much to read, but which she had perused. Poetry speaking of love and fleeting desire.