The souls of the dead, when they made their way to Xibalba, forgot themselves and were lost if they journeyed beyond the Black Road, and she began to lose herself too. She thought she had been walking for weeks, blisters on her feet, shoes caked with mud, her clothes askew, her hair in disarray.
When she looked over her shoulder, back to the place where she’d come from, she saw nothing but the mud cones and the trickle of water rolling through the land. She blinked, realizing the oddity of water rushing in the open: she’d never walked by a river before, they were all underground, back in northern Yucatán.
It was hard for her to remember Yucatán, though she’d spent her entire life there.
It was equally difficult to remember her bedroom, the books she used to read, the poetry she’d learned, the names of stars, her mother’s face, her father’s stories. Had it been hours in Xibalba? Could it have been years? She looked at her hands, and they were the hands of a young woman, but the more she stared at them, the older they became. Brown spots appeared upon the back of them, and she moved slowly, her spine weighed down by age.
Had she been young? Once upon a time. Stories began like that, but she’d never had the chance to imagine fairy tales, busy on her knees scrubbing the floors. Was that the way she’d lived? Every day, cleaning the house, helping carry fruits and vegetables to the kitchen, shining her grandfather’s shoes.
It had been like this. She’d grown up, grown into a woman. Still the same routine. Still in Uukumil. Fetch this, fetch that. The brush and the soap and her hands cracked from all the housework. Her mother had died, and she’d stayed in Uukumil. Martín married, had children. But Casiopea did not, since she was a poor relation, there by force of charity. Her hair had hints of silver, then it went all white. She’d died an old woman, her breath sour, her eyes cloudy with cataracts.
She never set a foot outside the town. In her youth she’d dreamed of fast dances, the lure of the automobile. But she never saved enough money, never had the courage to move to Mérida. She’d grown resentful, then bitter, until she knew nothing but the taste of spite.
She’d died and somehow she’d ended here. In this place where birds that lacked flesh and feathers followed her journey with their empty eye sockets and she sank into the mud, her skirt crusted with the wet earth.
But then, there had been…
Hadn’t there been something else? The memory scratched against her skull, stubborn. Casiopea scratched her head in turn, felt stray wisps of hair against her fingers, the dryness of the scalp. She squinted and could not focus her eyes well. She was an old woman, after all.
And there had been…
There had been a poem that described exactly what she was feeling. This poem, read long ago, in a musty book, pages missing from it.
And it had said…
“ ‘He indicates life’s essential brevity, unexpected and with suffering, assaulted by death,’ ” Casiopea whispered.
She remembered. She’d told Hun-Kamé about this poem when they were in Tijuana. But that had not been years ago, it had been a few days ago. She was not old. She was a young woman, and when she raised her hand and looked at it she saw the skin she knew, unblemished by the passage of time.
She remembered her quest too.
She was headed to the palace, to find the World Tree.
Casiopea blinked. All around her the land was a blinding white, which made her shield her eyes for a moment. The mud flat and the birds were gone. She stood upon a salt flat instead, dotted with phosphorescent plants that swayed gently to a soft breeze.
Xibalba had attempted its tricks again.
The river had disappeared, and Casiopea began to follow the odd phosphorescent plants. They were placed in a row, each one chained to the next. There were also anemones and plants that looked like curious orchids, but were made of travertine. In the distance she spotted mountains of corals. She looked up, and a school of sightless fish flew above her head, as if they were birds, as if they had forgotten they were supposed to dwell in the deepest of waterholes, beneath the calcareous soil.
Her body ached, but the hand ached worst of all, and she pressed it against her chest. She could almost feel the time running out, like a gigantic beating heart that palpitated quietly across the land.
The salt was cool and inviting. She pressed on, and when her shoes were lodged full with salt, she took them off and continued barefoot. She was headed nowhere, and nowhere she went, hoping to find the Black Road even if she knew, within her, she could not.
She walked past towering pillars of seashells, pressed together like bricks, and reached a lake. It glowed a soft blue, like in her dreams.
* * *
—
The wind had dried Martín’s tears, which hurt more than the bruises on his body, more than his parched throat. He raced down the causeway that led into the Black City, raced past graceful buildings carved from onyx. In the windows of some of those homes stood people with white masks who regarded him curiously, and he encountered and ignored soldiers, priests, and commoners who also walked down the same road, who turned their heads to glance in derision at a mortal man who dared to navigate their knotted city.
* * *
—
Casiopea stood by the lake while the wind tugged at her hair. Forward, beyond the water there was only salt, and going around it might take a long time. She was forced to sit by the lake and catch her breath. Her body did not hurt anymore, but she knew this was a sign that the end was approaching. There would be no more time.
She felt the strength ebbing from her, and around her, like a vibration, she could also feel Martín’s steps upon the Black Road as he walked into the city, as he went past the black houses and black monuments and approached the Jade Palace.
She was dying. The mirage of her old age had been an illusion, but this was real, this death nibbling her fingers.
She was too far from the Black Road to ever reach the World Tree on time.
Casiopea grabbed the knife and sighed, turning it between her hands.
She remembered Loray’s advice. Cut off the hand, serve Vucub-Kamé. And Vucub-Kamé’s offer. Die and offer herself to him. She’d be invited to dwell in the shadow of the World Tree. Hun-Kamé would perish. But he’d perish anyway, and if she performed this one gesture Vucub-Kamé would look at her kindly.
He might be merciful.
Betrayal was in her nature, after all. Her grandfather had been disloyal.
She had dreamed this moment, the slicing of the wrists. It was the arrow of fate. She had been foolish to think she could win this challenge. Unlucky Casiopea, born under a bad star, could not prevail.