rules and there was no one to tell me. It was like chasing a spot of light. Or like trying to catch soap bubbles as they drifted on the breeze. You end up with handfuls of nothing.
I did not see the curandera approach. She sat beside me on the bench and took my hand, holding it tightly in her warm dry hands. She said something to me in a low urgent voice and I shook my head. I didn't understand. I tried to free my hand, but she would not let go. She called out to a passing hammock vendor and he came near. Still holding my hand, she spoke quickly to him. He glanced at me curiously, amused by the situation.
"Do you speak English?" I asked him. "Can you tell her to let me go?"
"A little," he said. He spoke to the woman and she shook her head and said something else.
"She wants me to tell you ..." He hesitated, as if searching for the right words. "You got to go away," he said at last. "Don't go back to your mother."
"What are you talking about? Why shouldn't I go back?"
He shrugged. "She says that your luck is bad." He shrugged again. "That is what she says."
"Tell her that I understand," I said. I looked at the old woman and she stared back. "Yo comprendo."
Her grip on my hand loosened and I freed myself. I stood then, backing away from her.
"Hey," the hammock vendor called after me. "You want to buy a hammock?"
I was stumbling away, almost running across the zocalo. Thunder rolled across the sky, bumping from cloud to cloud. I went back to the hotel to get my bag and found Barbara and Emilio at the usual table. I told Barbara that I was going to catch a cab back to camp. When she protested, I just shrugged. I knew that I had to go back. I did not know why the old woman wanted to chase me away from my mother, but I knew I had to go back.
The first fat drops of rain began falling as I ran from the hotel across the square to the taxi stand. The bronze man on the pillar glistened in a flash of lightning. He stared out over my head, ignoring my hurried negotiations with the cabby.
The road to the ruins seemed longer in the rain. The taxi driver tried to talk to me. I think he was complaining about driving in the storm, but I just shrugged, understanding only a few of the words. I watched the shapes in the moving rain, never clear but always present. Once, I almost called to the driver to tell him to stop—I saw an old woman crossing the road. But she vanished into the rain, a shadow, nothing more. Thunder rolled overhead like the crash of falling monuments.
Chapter Twenty-one: Elizabeth
I woke on Saturday, the day Kan, as stiff and sore as if I had been hiking through the monte in my sleep.
The sky was overcast and the morning was half over. I stopped by the kitchen and Maria gave me—reluctantly, I thought—a breakfast of atole. Barbara and Diane had left for Mérida; Tony was nowhere to be seen.
This day is governed by the smooth-faced young god who makes the maize grow. It is a good day, by most accounts, favorable for beginning new projects and continuing old ones. I considered this as I sat in the plaza and ate my atole. Then I gathered my equipment and went to the tomb.
I was halfway there when Zuhuy-kak fell into step beside me. She limped slightly and I remembered seeing the knotted thighbone that caused her pain. I looked at her broad face and knew the smooth white surfaces beneath it. I glanced at her, but did not speak.
"Are you happy with the secrets you have found?" she asked. When she spoke, I remembered the skull's gaping mouth.
We had reached the mouth of the tomb. I did not acknowledge Zuhuy-kak's presence. I pulled aside the tarpaulin that covered the excavation, and descended the steps into the tomb. In the passageway, I lit the Coleman lantern, reached through the opening to set it on the floor of the tomb, and squirmed in after it.
In the tomb, it was still night, governed by the jaguar, the dark aspect of the sun. The lantern cast a circle of light that faded before it reached the ceiling. In the silent darkness, I could hear my heart beating