12.21

“Much as one can at my age,” Initia said. She motioned for them to sit around a small wooden table. “It has been so long since you have come, and here you are, of all times. How is this possible?”

Initia listened in disbelief as Chel described the events in L.A., from Volcy’s arrival on.

“You’ve been in the causeways, you’ve seen the village center, so surely you understand what the evil winds have brought to us too,” Initia said when Chel finished.

“Ask her who was the first person here to get sick,” Stanton said.

“Malcin Hanoma,” Initia said after Chel translated.

“Who is that?” Chel asked.

“Volcy had no blood brothers, so Malcin Hanoma, son of Malam and Chela’a, was his planting partner. They went off in search of these treasures from the lost city together. Volcy never returned, but Malcin did. He was injured, and with him he brought the curse upon us, the wrath of the ancestors.”

“How quickly did it spread?”

“Malcin’s family was the first to be taken. Their children became sleepless, as did the entire family who shared a home with him. Punishment came from the gods, and within only days the winds spread faster and faster.”

Chel closed her eyes, envisioning the destruction that followed. How quickly had her people turned on one another? How long had it taken for the people of Kiaqix to devolve? To tear down the church, burn the school, and loot the hospital?

“So many terrible things have happened here, Aunt.”

Initia pushed herself up and motioned for them to follow her out a back entrance. “But not only terrible things. Come.”

* * *

THEY TRAILED HER to a dwelling directly behind the house, the door of which was covered with stacks of palm leaves. Together they pulled away the fronds and created an opening.

“Do not let the winds in,” Initia called behind her.

Chel stared in disbelief as they stepped inside. Swaddled in colored hammocks draped from the ceiling, were at least a dozen babies. Some were crying softly. Others lay still with their eyes open, silent. Some slept, their tiny chests rising and falling.

Yanala attended to several at a time; Initia joined her, coddling a little girl who wouldn’t stop crying while spooning liquid corn into another’s mouth. Initia placed a baby boy in Stanton’s arms, then handed a little girl to Chel. The girl was small, with patches of hair across the crown of her head, a wide nose, and dark-brown eyes that darted around the room, never quite catching Chel in her sights.

“A baby must be shown closeness with its mother, sleep in the hammock with her, and take from her breast when it’s hungry,” Initia said. “They have grown disconnected because they have been denied their mothers.”

“Where did you find them, Aunt?”

“I knew which houses recently had births, for everyone comes together to celebrate a new life. Yanala and I went in search of survivors. Some were hidden beneath palm fronds, and others were left in the open.”

Chel glanced at Stanton. “How long will they be immune?”

“Six months or so,” he said, cradling the boy. “Until their optic nerves mature.”

“That is Sama,” Yanala said as Chel rocked her little girl back and forth.

The name was somehow familiar. “Sama?”

“Daughter of Volcy and Janotha.”

“She’s their daughter? Volcy’s daughter?”

“The only one of the family to survive.”

Astonished, Chel looked at the child. Her eyes were open and wet. This was the daughter Volcy had desperately longed to see as he lay dying in a strange land.

“Do you see what this is, child?” Initia asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The end of the Long Count cycle is but one rise and fall of the sun from now,” Initia said. “And when it comes, we will witness the end of all we’ve known. Perhaps we already have. But our youngest survived by the grace of Itzamnaaj, most merciful, and they will be our future. It is said in the Popol Vuh that, with each cycle’s end, a new breed of men in-herits the earth. These children are the fifth race.”

12.19.19.17.19 DECEMBER 20, 2012

THIRTY-THREE

JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, CHEL CRADLED SAMA IN HER ARMS AND watching as Initia pressed dough onto the hearthstone in the main house. In the other dwelling, Stanton checked the babies one by one to make sure none showed early symptoms. When Yanala came to get Sama for her exam, Chel found herself surrendering the baby reluctantly.

When they were alone again, Chel told Initia about their arrival. “A ladino attacked me, and I think he was infected. My mother warned me that they could be here, and I didn’t believe her. But she was right.”

“No, that man came here to help, Chel.”

“What?”

“A ladino church group got word that people here were sick, and they came to bring food and supplies,” Initia explained. “Even a doctor. These ladinos wanted to help us. There is no one to blame. Not the ladinos or the indigenas who were cursed. When a man can’t commune with the gods in sleep, he loses himself, no matter who he once was. It would happen to any of us. I am sorry this man was driven to attack you by the curse. But I know his intentions for coming here were good.”

Chel thought of Rolando, and she was struck by another wave of sadness.

“I do not blame you or your mother for feeling this way about the ladinos,” said Initia. “She suffered so much at their hands, and it is impossible to forget these things.”

Chel pictured her mother’s disapproving face. “She’s been trying to forget everything else about Kiaqix for a long time,” she told Initia. “She didn’t want me to come back. And she certainly doesn’t believe we’ll ever find the lost city. She’s convinced my father’s cousin Chiam never found it, and she doesn’t believe it exists.”

Initia sighed. “I have not thought of Chiam in many years now.”

Chel wondered what, of her childhood, Initia did remember. “Did you hear Chiam read my father’s letters to the village?”

“Your father’s letters?”

“The letters he wrote when he was in prison,” Chel reminded her.

“Of course,” Initia said. “Yes. I listened to them being read.”

Chel heard a hesitation in her aunt’s voice. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Initia said. “I am old and I do not remember so well.”

“You remember fine,” Chel said, putting a hand on her arm. “What is it?”

“I’m sure there is a reason,” Initia said, almost to herself.

“A reason for what?”

“It has sustained you,” Initia said. “The story of your father’s letters sustained you. This is what she wanted.”

“The letters aren’t just a story,” Chel said. “There are records of them. I’ve spoken to others who heard them, who said they stirred the people to action and inspired them to fight.”