“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.