Gods of Jade and Shadow(8)

She fetched a hat, shoes, underwear, and a handkerchief to complete the ensemble. She’d performed such tasks before, and the familiarity of handing out clothes won over any misgivings.

The god knew how to dress himself, thankfully. She’d had no idea if he had any experience with such garments. It would have been even more mortifying to have to button up the shirt of a god than it already was to watch him get dressed. She’d seen naked men in mythology books, but even Greek heroes had the sense to wear a scrap of cloth upon their private parts.

I shall now go to hell, she thought, because that was what happened when you looked at a naked man who was not your husband and this one was handsome. She’d probably burn for all eternity. However, she amended her thought when she recalled that she was in the presence of a god who had spoken about yet another god, which would imply that the priest had been wrong about the Almighty One in heaven. There was no one god in heaven, bearded and watching her, but multiple ones. This might mean hell did not exist at all. A sacrilegious notion, which she must no doubt explore later on.

“Indicate to me the quickest way to reach the city,” the god told her as he adjusted his tie.

“The tram. It is almost eleven,” Casiopea said, glancing at the clock by the bed and holding up the suit jacket so that he might put it on. “It stops in town twice a week at eleven. We must catch it.”

He agreed with her, and they rushed across the house’s courtyard and out into the street. To reach the tram station they had to cut through the center of the town, which meant parading in front of everyone. Casiopea knew exactly how bad it looked to be marching next to a stranger, but even though the pharmacist’s son turned his head in her direction and several children who were chasing a stray dog paused to giggle at them, she did not slow down.

When they arrived at the pitiful tram station—there was a single bench where people could sit and wait under the unforgiving sun for their transport—she recalled an important point. “I have no money for the fare,” she said.

Maybe their trip would not be. That might be a relief, since she did not understand what they were supposed to do in the city, and oh dear, she wasn’t ready for any of this.

The god, now dressed in her grandfather’s good clothes and looking very much the part of a gentleman, said nothing. He knelt down and grabbed a couple of stones. Under his touch these became coins. Just in time, as the mule came clopping down the narrow track, pulling the old railcar.

They paid the fare and sat on a bench. The railcar had a roof, somewhat of a luxury, since the vehicles that made the rounds of the rural areas could be very basic. There were three others traveling with them that day, and they were uninterested in Casiopea and her companion. This was a good thing, as she would not have been able to make conversation.

Once the railcar left the station, she realized the townspeople would say she had run off with a man, like her mother did, and speak bad things about her. Not that a god who had jumped out of a chest would care about her reputation.

“You’ll give me your name,” he said as the station and the town and everything she’d ever known grew smaller and smaller.

She adjusted her shawl. “Casiopea Tun.”

“I am Hun-Kamé, Lord of Shadows and rightful ruler of Xibalba,” he told her. “I thank you for liberating me and for the gift of your blood. Serve me well, maiden, and I shall see fit to reward you.”

For a fleeting moment she thought she might escape, that it was entirely possible to jump off the tram and run back into town. Maybe he’d turn her into dust, but that might be better than whatever horrid fate awaited her. A horrid fate awaited her, didn’t it? Hadn’t the Lords of Xibalba delighted in tricking and disposing of mortals? But there was the question of the bone shard and the nagging voice in the back of her head that whispered “adventure.”

For surely she would not get another chance to leave this village, and the sights he would show her must be strange and dazzling. The pull of the familiar was strong, but stronger was curiosity and the blind optimism of youth that demanded go now, go quickly. Every child dreams of running away from home at some point, and now she had this impossible opportunity. Greedily she latched on to it.

“Very well,” she said, and with those two words she accepted her fate, horrid or wonderful as it might be.

He said nothing else during their journey to Mérida, and although she was confused and scared, she was also glad to see the town receding in the distance. Casiopea Tun was off into the world, not in the way she had imagined, but off nevertheless.





Martín Leyva. Twenty and good-looking, in a blunt sort of way, with honeyed eyes and a sharp tongue. The only son of Cirilo Leyva’s only son—although the old man had daughters aplenty—was, due to this accident of birth, heir to the Leyva fortune, his sex allowing him to prance around town like a rooster. With his fine boots and silver belt buckles and his monogrammed cigarette case, he struck such a picture that no one doubted his position in society or his magnificence.

No one, that is, except for his cousin Casiopea. Her skeptical gaze was like a splash of acid in the young man’s face. “Why couldn’t you be a boy?” Grandfather had told Casiopea one time, and Martín had never been able to forget that moment, doubt sewn into his soul.

Martín Leyva, the magnificent and contemptuous Martín Leyva, stomped into the sitting room like a child, and like a child he sulked, sitting in one of the overstuffed chairs. His mother, his aunts, and two of his sisters were there that day, busy with their embroidery.