by M. G. Harris
As casually as I can, I head for the shower. “Then we can eat,” I say. But I don’t rush the shower. It feels way too good to have the day’s dirt and all the dried blood sluiced off by powerful jets of hot water. Under the bright bathroom light I take another look at the wound on my leg, the deepest one. It’s looking much better now, almost completely closed up. Whatever that Mayan medicine woman smeared over my wounds, it did the trick.
With a towel wrapped around my waist, I step back into the bedroom. Ixchel is sitting on her bed reading a paperback – Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie. She looks up and hands me a box of stick-on plasters. “For your cuts.”
I feel like hugging her. “Thanks,” I mumble, staring at the box. The plasters are all one shape and size, but they look nice and sturdy. I stick two over my leg wound.
“You can get dressed in front of me,” she tells me. “I’ll avert my eyes behind this book.”
I grin, trying not to look nervous. It crosses my mind to say something seriously flirty like, “You can watch, I don’t mind,” the kind of dodgy thing Tyler would have said. But my limit falls somewhere short of that. So I dress as swiftly as possible in the khaki shorts and the orange Hawaiian shirt and sandals.
In my whole life I’ve never worn anything so ridiculous-looking. But Ixchel seems to love it. She drops the magazine and looks me over, giving an appreciative whistle.
“Look at you, handsome.”
I smirk to cover up the blush. “Glad you’re happy. Now can we get out of here? I’m starving to death.”
We head for the hotel restaurant, which is in the central courtyard, a two-storey quadrangle bordered by traditional colonnades and pot plants. The crickets are singing so loudly that you can hear them even over the hum of restaurant chatter. We sit at a table next to a potted kumquat tree and order cheeseburgers with fries and Coca-Cola over lots of ice. While we’re waiting for the burgers, Ixchel tells me how she spent the afternoon.
She’d arrived in good time to find the museum director still at her desk. She’d persisted and managed to get to see her: not easy, apparently. When Dr Monica Velasco, the museum director, had seen the booty, she was hooked. It seems that the bracelets have a jewel emblem that is known to represent the Snake Kingdom. Artefacts from Calakmul – the Snake Kingdom – are almost unheard of in this Mexico, because most of them were taken to Spain after the Spanish explorers discovered the Mayan ruins of Palenque.
“In this history,” Ixchel tells me with shining eyes, “the kingdom of Palenque overran Calakmul! They invaded, not long after we were there, in the seventh century. Yuknoom the Great and the Snake Dynasty, they were finished. Relics from that era, from the Snake Kingdom, are unbelievably rare. The director gave me one hundred thousand pesos for the two bracelets I had! She admitted that it’s less than they’re worth, much less. But that’s as much as she could give me without approval from her board of directors. And, well, we needed the money.”
Ixchel took the money and immediately got a hotel room, then stashed most of the money in the room safe. One hundred thousand pesos seems to be worth about two thousand five hundred British pounds, guessing from what we spent at the little shop in Bacalar. Ixchel isn’t too sure about the exact conversion rate. “I asked her how much in US dollars and she just kinda laughed. Like I’d said something sad but also funny. She offered me a rate in Brazilian cruzeiros.”
“Cruzeiros?” I say, interrupting. “Didn’t we use something called reais in Brazil?”
Ixchel shrugs. “In this history it’s cruzeiros. Something else that’s different.”
“Brazilian money, though. . .” I muse. “Why would she mention that?”
“I didn’t ask. I was too busy getting the money and finding us a place to stay.”
After the hotel room and meals, we have money for a couple of weeks here, plus bus money to Becan, where hopefully we’ll find the pyramid entrance to Ek Naab. When we’ve finished the burgers we order slices of frozen lime mousse pie and chocolate milkshakes. It’s not exactly the menu I had in mind but it’s every bit as satisfying, especially sharing the meal with Ixchel. She’s in the best mood I remember seeing her in, like, for ever.
“Why are you so happy?” I eventually ask, sucking up the last drops of my milkshake through a straw. “I mean, it’s like . . . you don’t mind that things are so different here. Aren’t you even a bit worried?”
Ixchel pauses, looking suddenly serious. “Of course.” She casts her eyes downwards. “I’m worried. But I’m also kind of happy. We survived Calakmul! I mean, I always believed that you’d come for me, really. But at the end, right at the end, when I was locked in that steam house with those women and the little children. Then, I. . .” She falters, close to tears.
“Don’t think about it,” I say quickly. “No point. It’s over now.”
Ixchel bites her lip and goes quiet for a few seconds. Then she continues, slowly, deliberately. “Then there’s this whole thing – a world without computer networks.”
Suddenly I see what she’s getting at. An incredible idea hits me.
“No computer networks . . . means no worries from the superwave in 2012!”
“It does mean that, doesn’t it? I mean – if the whole world isn’t dependent on a global network of computers to control money and food and medical supplies. . .”
“. . .oil and petrol, all kinds of energy, really. Aeroplanes and trains and hospital machines and just, wow . . . all that stuff . . . then when the superwave comes it’s only going to wipe out a few central computers . . . and they can replace them pretty easily. All they need is some decent backups.” I nod slowly, amazed at the conclusion we’re drawing. “This reality – it’s 2012-proof!”
Ixchel smiles. “I think it might be! Just think – no one has to know about this Mayan jewellery, Josh. We didn’t steal it – it’s ours. We can get a lot of money for them. Enough money that maybe we wouldn’t even have to live in Ek Naab.”
I stare at her in silence for a moment. “You hate Ek Naab that much?”
“Don’t you? Montoyo tricked you, sent you back into the past, to a really dangerous time. You could have died. Without you, I would have died.” She places a hand on mine, staring into my eyes. “No one cares about us there. We’re just chess pieces to them.”
A soldier, a pawn. She’s right – the same thought has already occurred to me.
I turn my hand over and hold hers in my palm. I ask, “Yeah, but . . . what about Benicio?”
Softly she replies, “What about him?”
My skin bursts with a pulse of energy that shoots all the way through me. Every one of my wounds throbs as blood rushes inside my veins. I watch her fingers tighten around mine; I swallow in a throat that’s suddenly dry.
Ixchel is serious about changing our destiny. The question is: am I?
After the waiter collects his money, Ixchel leans forward and lowers her voice. “Dr Velasco is going to call back tomorrow. She’s phoning some of the major dealers of antiquities. She’s certain that we’ll be able to find a buyer.”
“This Dr Velasco is being pretty helpful,” I say. “Can we trust her?”
“We should put the jewellery in a bank safe-deposit box tomorrow. She was actually pretty open with me. She said to me, ‘Because you’re young and you can’t tell me where you got this, I’m going to take advantage of you. Fourteen bracelets like the one you showed me could fetch twenty, thirty million pesos, for the right buyer. But how is a kid like you going to find such a person? So I’ll be straight with you: I’m going to get you a good honest buyer who won’t steal from you or try to kill you. But she’ll pay you much less than they’re worth. Then I’m going to take another twenty-five per cent.’”
I sit up angrily. “What kind of a deal have you got us? Sounds to me like we’re getting ripped off!”
Ixchel just laughs. “I knew you’d react like this. That’s why I went ahead and agreed to the deal. Can you imagine how dangerous it is for us t
o have something so valuable? We need to sell fast. Even if we only get a few million pesos.”
I say nothing. She might be right, I don’t know. But I don’t like to think we’re getting taken for a ride. On the way back to the hotel room, Ixchel falls silent. She says nothing as we climb the stairs. I risk a quick glance at her – she won’t even look at me. There’s a tension inside my chest that is almost paralysing. My heart sinks as I even try to imagine sliding my arms around her. I won’t be able to make the first move, I’m absolutely certain of that now. And unless Ixchel magically transforms on the other side of a locked door, neither will she.
Well, anyhow. In a way, I suppose I should be relieved. I’m dog tired; in no state to impress a girl with my “moves”, not that I know any.
Where’s Tyler when I need a bit of man-to-man advice?
Inside the room I can see immediately that I guessed right. While I’m adjusting the air conditioning, Ixchel goes straight to the bathroom, where I hear her brushing her teeth. She emerges dressed in a baggy green T-shirt which almost reaches her knees. Picking up the Agatha Christie book, she leans over to where I’m sitting on the bed, taking off my shoes. “Night, Josh,” she says with a yawn. “You really need to get some sleep.”
What did I do?
To hide my disappointment I get under the covers and roll away. That’s when I notice that she’s helpfully placed a slim paperback on my own bedside table – Death on the Nile, also by Agatha Christie. I start reading, conscious of the quiet rustle of Ixchel’s book. But after a couple of pages I can’t concentrate.
What’s going on in this reality? Things certainly seem to have turned out differently for ancient Calakmul. Martineau kept going on about what a great leader Yuknoom the Great was, how he reigned for fifty years. Well, not now! It has to be connected with Martineau taking the Ix Codex away. Maybe in our reality the Snake Kingdom had some strange power because of the book. Maybe other Mayan tribes had heard stories about the curse of the codex and stayed away from the Snake Kingdom, out of fear?
Yet modern-day Chetumal doesn’t seem drastically different, just as though certain buildings went up in different places and with slightly different designs. It’s not much richer or poorer than what I remember. There’s still such things as Coca-Cola, Sanborns, Agatha Christie, Time magazine. Brazil seems to be an important trading partner with Mexico. But maybe it was before; I wouldn’t know. Cars seem kind of old-fashioned, and from what I can tell, either Mexican-built VW Beetles or Japanese. Hardly any American cars, now I think about it; I haven’t seen a single one of those SUVs.
Still not a peep from Ek Naab. I gaze at my phone on the bedside table, willing it to ring. That’s when I realize that I’m not so sure about going along with Ixchel’s escape plan. We have to try to get back to Ek Naab. Even if it’s just to avoid the Sect of Huracan. You’d think, after she was kidnapped in Brazil by the Sect, that Ixchel would understand. Anyway, what kind of escape plan does she have in mind? In the restaurant she was all lovey-dovey, holding hands with me and talking about forgetting Benicio. Now she’s gone all cool and sisterly when she knows perfectly well that I want to be her boyfriend. Is this what she has in mind, her and me running off together to live like brother and sister? If that’s it then she can forget it. I’d rather be in Ek Naab.
Ixchel holds a page thoughtfully between her fingers. I listen intently to her flick it back and forth. Then she closes the book and switches off her night light. “Sleep well, Josh,” she murmurs. I mutter something in reply and turn off my own light, listening to her turn over in bed.
I can’t take much more of this.
After what seems like ages, I finally relax. My eyes close, relieved by a wave of sleep that obliterates me. Just before I fall asleep an image flashes before my eyes: the embroidered writing that hangs over Ixchel’s bedside table. It spells out, “God Spared Mexico”. I can’t remember where, but I’ve heard that phrase before. Recently, too.
In the morning I wake to find Ixchel already dressed. She gives me a little grin from where she’s sitting on her bed applying make-up.
“Hi, Josh. You slept in your clothes!”
I stretch both arms behind my neck and yawn. “Yeah. So what?” Ixchel looks bemused as she applies some face cream. I can’t help feeling that it’s a shame I didn’t wake up ten minutes earlier.
“There’s a message from Dr Velasco. She’s going to meet us here at five in the afternoon tomorrow, and take us to meet a buyer for the rest of the golden bracelets. That leaves us free for today and most of tomorrow.” She stands up. “I’ve got another surprise for you, one more thing I bought.”
“No more flowery shirts, I hope.”
She smirks. “Ha, ha, no. You’ll like this.”
Ixchel leads me outside and round to a small back-yard parking lot for the hotel. She stops in front of a silver-coloured, slightly battered-looking 125cc Honda motorbike. A helmet hangs from each arm of the bike. I stare at her, then back at the bike.
“It’s not a Harley, of course,” she says. “I just saw it in the street with a ‘For Sale’ sticker.” Our eyes meet. “I thought you might like it.”
She hands me a set of keys. I kneel down, looking the machine over. “Ixchel,” I say wonderingly, “I bloody love it!”
“You can ride it?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Do you think you could ride it to Cancun?”
I shrug with total nonchalance. “Piece of cake.”
“I think it takes something like five or six hours,” Ixchel says, quite nervously. “If you’re OK to ride there, I thought we could go today. You and me. We could go and spend the night in one of those really fancy hotels. Go shopping. Enjoy some luxury, while we can. See what the Cancun of this history is like.”
“I thought you hated fancy hotels and places like that? Cancun and the Riviera Maya. Thought you said it was too touristy.”
Ixchel blushes, lowers her eyes. “But you like those places, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah, I do. When I get the chance to stay in them, which isn’t often.”
“Then let’s go. Think of it as my way of saying thank you. For saving my life.” She gives a nervous chuckle. “Again.”
I stare at Ixchel in disbelief. This is definitely the nicest thing any girl has ever done for me, by a long way. “Wow.” I laugh. “This is amazing.”
She looks shy and for a minute, I remember the first time we met, Ixchel in her jeans and Pumas soccer shirt. “So you like it?”
I can hardly contain the urge to grab Ixchel and spin her around by the waist. “Yeah. Are you kidding? Yeah!”
She nods, then smiles. “Good. Great! Let’s go to breakfast, then to the bank to leave the bracelets somewhere safe. Then we’ll go . . . to Cancun!”
I kneel down, giving the bike a quick check. The tyres look to be in good condition, plenty of tread. There’s hardly any rust, just a few dents on the mudguards, a couple of scratches on the side of the fuel tank, a bit of wear on the leather seat. “We should probably stop by a petrol station too. . .”
The next hour passes quickly. We gobble down waffles with whipped butter, maple syrup and glasses of seven-fruits juice from Sanborns. Then we’re out at the banks, where morning queues have already formed. There don’t seem to be any bank machines anywhere close, I notice.
“No computer networks, therefore no bank machines,” Ixchel observes. “Another thing that won’t go wrong when the superwave hits.” She’s right. This reality is looking better and better.
When it’s our turn we’re given the key to a deposit box in exchange for ten thousand pesos. We pick a small one and discreetly place the Mayan gold bracelets and most of our cash in the locker.
“You should leave the Bracelet of Itzamna too,” Ixchel says. “We just can’t risk that someone might rob us on the way to Cancun, or even here in Chetumal.”
I take off the Bracelet and add it to the pile in the box. Just at this moment I can’t imagin
e why I’d want to use the Bracelet of Itzamna ever again. But you never know.
We divide the rest of the money – about the equivalent of five hundred pounds – between us. It’s easily enough cash for a night in Cancun’s swankiest hotel. I spread the notes between the pockets in my khaki shorts; Ixchel places hers inside a small canvas backpack that she wears over a denim skirt and a white top. We’re so eager to get going to Cancun that we don’t even bother to buy food or water for the trip, agreeing instead to stop for drinks and snacks at petrol stations on the way. We fill up at the Pemex petrol station on the exit road from Chetumal and then hit the main motorway, 307. I’m a bit surprised that the road signs aren’t already signing for Cancun, but I know that the town Felipe Carillo Puerto is about a third of the way, so I head for that.
The motorway cuts endlessly through the tropical rainforest, past the dazzling blue length of Lake Bacalar, past the mangrove swamps of the Sian Ka’an bio-reserve, past coconut and banana plantations. A haze hovers over the road, silvery shimmering heat mirages on every long stretch. Every ten minutes or so, we zip past a small cloud of yellow butterflies bobbing around at the edge of the road.
