woods unharmed I felt that I had accomplished something noteworthy.
I was never sure what the danger was. Nothing concrete: I did not fear mad killers or wild animals. I never thought it out completely, but I think I felt that if I stepped off the path I might vanish, blend with the darkness and be gone. The darkness drew me and repelled me, and I walked the thin line, never straying from the path.
My footsteps seemed loud. I could hear an owl hooting in the trees. I walked with my hands in my pockets, knowing that I was walking along a thin line once again.
The old woman stepped from the shadow of the monte. For a moment, I thought it was the same old woman who had touched my arm. No, not the same. She was dressed in blue and she grinned at me, displaying crooked teeth. Her head seemed misshapen, though perhaps it was just the way her hair was arranged. I recognized her face: the face I had seen on the stone head, the face of the Madonna in the Mérida cathedral. I backed away.
Her grin grew wider and she held out her hand as if to welcome me. I took another step away from her, back toward camp.
She said something in a language that I did not understand, and she laughed. The sound was like dry leaves rustling against one another. My hands, still in my pockets, were trembling. I took them from my pockets and made fists to stop them from shaking. Then I turned and hurried back toward camp, pursued by the sound of her laughter.
What was it that my mother had said in one of our morning walks? At twilight and dawn, the shadows show you secrets. I don't know why I ran. She was probably just a woman from the hacienda or maybe a companion to Maria's visitor. She would probably tell Maria that she had met this gringa wandering in the bush and scared her to death. I must have imagined that her face was familiar. The dim light played tricks.
I had reached Salvador's hut when I saw a flashlight beam bobbing down the path to the cenote. "Hello,"
I called out, my voice a little shaky.
"Hey," Barbara called back. "I wondered what happened to you." She came up beside me and shone her light on me. She laid a hand on my shoulder and said, "What's up? You don't look good."
"Nothing. Just went for a walk and got caught in the dark, that's all." I shrugged. "It gets creepy alone at night. That's all." I didn't mention the old woman. I didn't want to feel any more foolish. "Let's go back to camp."
Chapter Fifteen: Elizabeth
The Fates guide those who will; those who won't they drag.
—Joseph Campbell,
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Thursday night, after another burned dinner, I sat in my hut, checking my notes on the Mayan calendar.
I had caught a chill on the way back from our attempt to raise the stela. Though the evening was warm, occasionally I would be taken by a violent spell of shivering and chills. I considered asking Maria to prepare me a pot of hot tea. Boiling-hot tea laced with rum might head off a cold, but in the end I decided against asking anything of Maria. I had heard Salvador's truck roaring back to camp, returning from the village of Chicxulub with the curandera, and I did not want to blunder into a touchy situation.
I checked my calculations, and rechecked them. Today was Men, a day governed by the old goddess of the moon. It should have been a favorable day, yet the stela had fallen, an outcome I would not consider favorable. I had not seen Zuhuy-kak since that afternoon.
The camp was quiet; the students were either writing up field notes or swimming in the cenote. Camp had been quiet ever since Philippe's accident. The sun had set and the moon was just rising when I saw Salvador walking toward my hut.
The old woman who walked beside him took two small steps for every one of his. Tucked under one arm, she carried an orange-and-red plastic shopping bag, the kind that Yucatecán housewives use to carry groceries. She walked slowly, leaning on a cane.
Salvador stopped in the doorway to my hut and removed his broad-brimmed straw hat. "Señora," he said in Spanish. "I am sorry to interrupt you. This is Doña Lucinda Calderón, the curandera from Chicxulub. She wanted to meet you."