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.
This knowledge was forbidden and was never to be spoken of.
“As I said, she is something else, alive and not, a creature of flesh who may also be unfleshed,” he replied. “A seductress who consumes men.”
Of course, once he said “flesh” and “seductress,” her mind, instead of drifting toward less profane matters, immediately focused on the amorous pursuits of supernatural beings. If spirits could lie with men, she wondered what that meant when it came to demons. Or…gods, since the Mamlab clearly had no problem chasing after women. The legends were of no assistance in this matter—the Hero Twins were the product of a virgin birth, and not denizens of the shadows—but Casiopea had read enough Roman and Greek mythology to recall that Hades had indulged in these pursuits, snatching Persephone and seducing her with bits of pomegranate. Zeus enjoyed the company of nymphs and goddesses alike. And then there were all those mortal women, not goddesses. Leda, supine, with the swan against her breast, an illustration that she’d found rather absorbing.
She considered this in an abstract way. Gods and goddesses. Gods and mortals. However, with a god standing in front of Casiopea it was impossible that her mind not make another leap and connect Hun-Kamé to the matter of these pairings.
It was immoral to even think it, to stare at him and wonder…well. Did he ever seduce a woman, tempt her with pomegranate seeds? Ridiculous question! As if there were any pomegranates nearby. Although that was not the point, the point was—
The point was her cheeks were burning, and Casiopea had the good sense to bite her tongue back and not voice such an impudent train of thought.
“You seem upset,” he said.
Casiopea shook her head, evasively, unwilling to commit to words. This had the unexpected effect of making him move closer to her, as if to get a better look at her, like a physician who must examine the patient. Casiopea wanted nothing more than to shrink against the wallpaper and disappear. She couldn’t look him in the eye for fear he’d guess what she’d been wondering about.
And what would she say if he guessed? Pardon me, but you are handsome, and if you are handsome, then I assume you must have chased spirits of your own near the waterholes.
She did not want to know the answer, did not want to know a single thing right now, and this was precisely why the priest admonished them to keep their thoughts on the works of Christ and the saints who judge everyone from the heavens. If she’d done that, she wouldn’t be dying of mortification, but she knew more names of stars than names of saints.
“What is the matter with you?” he asked, frowning.
The words were green once more. He was young for the span of a moment. Fortunately, this deepened his confusion, made it a different sort of puzzlement, and it threw him off.
Casiopea regained her composure. She decided she was being ridiculous. Enough was enough.