She laughed again. “Yaotl's, yes. But Xoco's barren. How they thought they could dupe me, begetting a child on me, and thinking to take him as their own.”
I rose, came closer to her, until I could see her eyes. “What were you, when you were alive?” I whispered.
“I was a slave in this house,” she said. She made no move towards me now, but I was not fooled. The inhuman hunger still filled her eyes. “Chimalli's mine.”
“He's not yours, Nenetl,” a voice said.
I turned, and saw Xoco in the doorway. Her face was ice.
“Did you think death would stop me?” the Mother asked.
Xoco's eyes were expressionless. “I'd hoped so. But it seems sluts like you can't have the grace to die.”
“You killed me. Don't you think I knew what the potion was, that you fed me? Don't you think I wouldn't understand that?” she hissed, and lunged, not at Chimalli, but at Xoco. I had guessed this, and had started running; I took her full weight on myself. Her hands carved grooves into the skin of my arms, and a searing pain filled my body.
“You shouldn't be here,” I said, still trying to comprehend what had happened. “You were poisoned. You didn't die in childbirth.”
“Fool,” she said. I could not see anything but her gaze: blue, bloodshot eyes still filled with that intense hunger, the one she had kept her returning to Chimalli, night after night. “Her poison didn't kill me. But it was enough – enough to weaken me during the birth. And so she won.”
“You have no place here,” I repeated.
“Let me pass.”
I held on, grimly, feeling my muscles on the verge of yieldling. Pain sang within me, demanding to be acknowledged, but I did not give in. “He's your child, but that doesn't mean you can take him into death.”
“She killed me,” the Mother hissed.
“I know,” I said, still trying to come to terms with the enormity of what Xoco had done. “But do you truly think Chimalli can go where you are?”
“He's my child,” she whispered. She was folding back on herself, almost sobbing. “They told him lies, that he was the son of a great warrior and of a noble lady. That both his parents were still alive. And he believes them. He'll grow up believing them. He knows nothing of me.”
“Look,” I said, gently. “Look at him, Nenetl.”
Something in my voice could still reach her, wherever the woman Nenetl had retreated. She turned, staring at the hollow-eyed boy by my side, his arms reaching out towards her, beseeching. But there was no love on the face. There was nothing.
“Where you take him,” I said, “he won't grow. He'll dwindle away until he's skin stretched over bones, and then bones, and then nothing. He won't play with his toys. He won't run in the courtyard.”
“No,” she whispered. “I am his mother. I know what is best for him. I won't be forgotten.”
“He'll never be a warrior, never be a priest, never make you proud. He'll never kiss you or tell you how much he loves you. There's no love in the underworld.”
“No,” she said, weeping. “No. Please…”
“He won't grow up,” I whispered. “Do you love him so little, that you'd inflict this on him?”
Nenetl did not answer. “They haven't paid,” she said at last. “They paid nothing. They have their darling child and all's well. They have no remorse.”
“Then it's not about love,” I said. “It's about revenge, and hatred. Is that all you are?”
She turned her face towards me, her death's head with the skull beneath the translucent skin. “No,” she said. “I'm not that. I'm not that. Am I?” And it was the plea of a lost, bewildered girl.
I did not answer. I laid my hand on her shoulder, ignoring the wave of nausea that spread through me as my fingers gripped her flesh. “I'm sorry,” I said. “But this isn't the answer.”
Nenetl gazed back at her son, and then at Xoco, who stood watching her, her face expressionless.
“If you want her to go,” I said to Xoco, “you must make a promise. Tell the child who his mother was.”
“And that I killed her?” Not a muscle of her face moved. They were well suited, she and Yaotl.
“No,” I said. “But let Chimalli honour his true mother.”
Xoco's face moved towards her child, and back to the Haunting Mother. “Yes,” she said, tightly. “I'll tell him the truth when he is older.”
Nenelt did not speak. She moved at last, passing through my decayed wards like a knife through human skin, and knelt beside Chimalli. She took both his hands in hers, gazing into his hollow eyes. Gently, she led her back to his reed mat, and helped him lay down on it. “I'm sorry,” she said.
She was fading now, growing fainter and fainter, taking with her the darkness and the cold.
Soon there was nothing left but Chimalli on his mat, curling back to go to sleep. The aura of the underworld had not left: it still clung to his hands and feet. It would cling to him all his life. I wondered how he would fare, and decided I could not do anything about that.
About Xoco, though…
She watched me, with that same unbending attitude she had shown earlier. “And now what?” she said. “Do
