you come to be given to the gods?" I asked, trying to catch her attention, to keep her talking.
She held her head proudly and straightened her shoulders like an aged general reminded of past battles.
"The h'menob could not kill me. They feared bad luck. But they said I was one of the chosen messengers to the gods. Twelve were chosen by the gods to visit the well; one would survive. One would return with the prophecy for the coming katun, Katun 10."
She was gazing into the distance as if unaware of my presence. "It was a long journey, seven days on foot to Chichén Itzá. On the day named Cimi, the women prepared me: anointing my skin with blue paint, dressing me in a feather robe, lacing quetzal feathers in my hair.
"I walked from the women's quarters to the mouth of the well. Priests of the ah-nunob walked on either side of me, their hands hot on my arms. The crowd parted before us; smoke from the incense burners followed. The sound of the tunkul led us on.
"Some of the chosen ones were weeping. A slave from Palenque cried with a constant wearying whimper. The daughter of a nobleman who had fallen from power wept with short gasping sobs that rose and fell, almost stopped, then started again. There was a beautiful young boy, I remember, also a slave. He had drunk the balche that the h'menob offered us. He leaned on the priest beside him as he walked and sang a childish song that kept time with the tortoise shell rattles. I walked just behind him, listening to his song, saying nothing. The h'menob led us to the edge of the well and threw us in."
She stopped speaking, as if she were remembering the howling of the crowd. Outside, I could hear the soft voice of the palm leaves, rubbing one against the other.
"I fell for a long time." She was cradling the conch shell in both hands and running her finger along the smooth lip of the shell, stroking the polished edge. The shell's interior was as smooth and pink as the skin of a baby. "The murmur of the crowd became the rush of the wind past me, dragging on my robes, tugging the quetzal feathers free of my hair and scattering them in the sky. Then the cold water slapped me. I remember rising to the surface like a bubble. And I remember that one leg ached with a fierce pain." She shifted her position, as if the remembered pain affected her now. Her voice had taken on a singsong rhythm. "For a time, I floated on the surface among the reflections of the clouds. For a time, I heard someone crying—one of the slaves, I think— but the whimpering grew weaker and weaker, then stopped at last. My leg was numbed by the cold water, and I floated in the sky among the clouds, considering the prophecy for the coming year. I could hear the tunkul and the rattles and the shouting of the crowd, coming to me from the earth far below.
"The h'menob did not expect me to survive. They would have been glad to pull out one of the others—the slave, the noblewoman, the beautiful boy. But the others had not enjoyed floating in the sky. They were done with their crying and only I remained. At noon, when the sun rose over the lip of the well, I lifted my hands and welcomed it. The h'menob pulled me from the water, reluctantly, I thought, and roughly, considering how holy I had become.
"I knew the prophecy for the coming year. I smiled when I told them. 'Give yourselves up, my younger brothers, my older brothers. Submit to the unhappy destiny of the katun that is to come. You must leave the cities and scatter in the forests. You must cast down the monuments and raise no more. That is the word of the katun that is to come.' " Her voice had grown louder and more powerful, like a strong wind driving the rain before it. "I said to them, 'Submit to the unhappy destiny. If you do not submit, you shall be moved from where your feet are rooted. If you do not submit, you shall gnaw the trunks of trees and the leaves of herbs. There shall come such a pestilence that the vultures will enter the houses. There shall be an earthquake over the land. There will be thunder from