by M. G. Harris
I’m finally getting to know this country. And still, I feel completely lost.
36
Thirty minutes out of Tlacotalpan we stop at the outskirts of a coastal town, Alvarado, where we drink glasses of fresh pineapple juice and eat the most elaborate omelettes I’ve ever seen. There’s an Internet café, so I post a quick update to my blog.
When I’m done blogging, I rejoin Ixchel and Susannah at the restaurant. I take Arcadio’s envelope out of my pocket and place it on the table in front of us. Susannah kisses her fingers and then lightly touches the envelope.
Ixchel and I watch her. We can’t hide our curiosity. Bluntly, Ixchel asks, “You loved him, didn’t you?”
“Yes, dear, I did” is Susannah’s soft-spoken reply. “Which is why it’s such an honor to be of assistance to his grandson.”
But am I? She keeps insisting that Arcadio’s my grandfather, but secretly I wonder if it’s the other way around.
My future grandson, traveling backward in time …
I open the envelope. There’s a single sheet of paper inside. The message:
Dear Josh,
By now you must suspect that your fate is intertwined with the Mayan prophecy of 2012.
As the poet once said, our destiny is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and ironclad.
The truth you seek awaits you on the slopes of Mount Orizaba.
A terrible storm is brewing. Yet you will never find peace until you confront your truth.
Forever in your debt,
J. Arcadio Garcia
I don’t know how to react. I gaze into Ixchel’s face and then Susannah’s. They stare back at me with an expectant air.
Finally, I crack. “What the heck is he talking about?”
“Mount Orizaba?” Susannah says. “It’s there.” She jabs a finger into the air, pointing at the distant snow-capped cone of a volcano that’s just visible on the horizon.
“But what about the rest of it?” I say. “The stuff about destiny being ‘irreversible and ironclad.’ What’s that supposed to be?”
“I think it’s a warning,” says Susannah. “Arcadio sees your fate—whatever that may be—as inescapable. But this is very strange. What’s this mention of the Mayan prophecy? What fate of yours could he have known about all those years ago?”
“Maybe he consulted a brujo?” Ixchel offers.
Susannah surprises me by nodding at this, apparently serious.
I’m incredulous. “You believe in all that?”
“Of course,” she nods. “I’ve seen remarkable things in Mexico.”
“I guess,” I say, remembering my own encounter with the brujos. “But there’s another way Arcadio could know about things that are going to happen to me.”
Susannah and Ixchel bristle with instant intrigue.
“Go on …”
“It’s just an idea … ,” I say.
“Yes?”
“Time travel.” I ignore their skeptical looks, continuing, “Arcadio could be from the future. My son, or grandson, or something. And that’s how he knows what’s in my future. In my future—he knows me.”
I don’t mention that he could be Itzamna himself, the very guy who founded Ek Naab. That would be a step too far—and it would break my promise to Montoyo.
“You’re so sure of yourself, aren’t you?” says Ixchel with a touch of scorn. “Typical macho man—so confident that some woman will give you a son. And a blue-eyed blond too!”
For the first time ever, I feel actual anger toward Ixchel. “All right, he could be a nephew, then—not that I have any brothers and sisters. Does that make you happy? Sheesh … I can’t say anything around you!”
Susannah looks mildly amused. “For best friends, you two squabble a good deal.”
“We’re not best friends,” we say, simultaneously.
“Arcadio must be from a future where he knows me,” I repeat. “How else could he know my address, or that I’d understand the Caesar cipher?”
Susannah smiles behind her hand. “You really think time travel is more likely than a shamanistic vision? Well, maybe we’re tal para qual, as they say in Spanish—two of a kind—each as misguided as the other.”
I want to say more, but I don’t. I promised Montoyo I wouldn’t leak information from the Ix Codex—but it’s getting difficult. I can’t tell them about the Erinsi, the instructions to make the Key, the Bracelet of Itzamna, or Montoyo’s theory about a time-travel device.
Susannah cuts into my thoughts. “Let’s get back to the letter, kids. What is this truth you seek, Josh?”
I sigh deeply. “I don’t know what really happened to my father. I think he was murdered by some U.S. secret agents, but I can’t prove it. And I don’t know why.”
“And you need to know the truth. Why?”
“I’ve tried forgetting about it. And I can’t. It’s gotten into my dreams. In the dreams, Dad tells me that they made it all up, the idea that he died. He and my mom!”
Susannah says, “Sounds as though deep down, you’re looking for someone to blame. Blaming him, anyone, even your mother.”
“I don’t know. But whoever is responsible—they have to pay.”
Susannah shakes her head. “If it really was the secret services, you’ll never find out. Never prove it, never hold them responsible. You know that, don’t you?”
“That’s not true! Read this letter. Arcadio knows that I will find out. That’s the ‘truth’ that ‘awaits’ me. That’s what he means when he writes, ‘You will never find peace until you confront your truth.’”
“Okay.” Susannah seems to be collecting her thoughts on the matter. “And you’re certain that you want to do this?”
Ixchel interrupts, “Even more than getting the Adapter back to Ek Naab?”
I throw her a bleak look. “I’m the one with a hole in my leg that I got from looking after that thing! This is important to me. Ek Naab can wait. Anyway, I thought you were the one who wanted to tell Montoyo to get lost.”
Susannah looks at both of us in confusion. “Adapter? Ek Naab? What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”
Ixchel and I are instantly silent; something that Susannah notices, logging the fact with another quiet smile.
“I see,” she says after a moment’s pause. “Not going to talk about that, are you? On that matter you’re quite unified.”
“We can’t … ,” Ixchel begins.
“You wouldn’t believe us anyway …”
“We’re really not supposed to.”
Susannah says again, “I see. Well, look: out of respect for Arcadio, I’ll drive you to the mountain. There’s a small town called Tlachichuca—it’s where all the climbers start. You’ll have to find a guide—it’s a tough hike. And you don’t even know what you’re looking for. Do you?”
I shake my head. She’s right. I have no idea.
“But I’m not coming with you. I’m an old lady; my hiking days are over. I’ll wait for you until you come back down. And then—what?”
Ixchel says, “Could you take us to Veracruz? We have transportation from there.”
Susannah nods. “Okay. I’ll do it. Now, you, young man, you’d better get some rest if you plan on walking up a glacier with that leg.”
I turn away, staring at the distant volcano. The snowcone catches the sunlight for a second, blazing white like a star. It seems I’m long overdue an appointment with one of Mexico’s volcanoes. Mount Orizaba looms like a gigantic pyramid, a colossus, dominating the lives of everyone in its shadow.
Including mine.
37
Night has fallen by the time we arrive in Tlachichuca. It’s cold. There are even isolated patches of snow. Susannah buys us secondhand ski jackets, backpacks, and thermal long johns. She puts us all up in the climbers’ hostel. The building is a hundred-year-old soap factory, rebuilt as an Alpine mountain lodge. In the dormitories, bunk beds are stacked across a rough wooden floor. Huge staine
d pine beams hold up the roof. In the corner, there’s an antique oak vat for boiling up lye and lard.
The dining room is crammed with mostly white men and women in their twenties and thirties, Americans and Canadians, fit and healthy-looking. Compared to the local Mexicans—and to Ixchel and me—they all seem impossibly tall.
El Pico de Orizaba is the third-highest peak in the continent of North America. Susannah explained it all on the drive over from Tlacotalpan. It’s the highest mountain in Mexico, an extinct volcano—so far as the past few hundred years go. There are occasional rumbles, but no one’s worried. It’s not actively smoking and letting off fireworks, like the nearby volcano Popocatepetl.
Apparently, young climbers love to conquer “El Pico.” There’s a hut on the lower slopes, where people stay for a day or so to get acclimatized. The climb takes you through a field of scree and lava boulders known as the “Labyrinth,” because there’s only one decent route through. Then comes the Jamapa glacier, which leads all the way to the snow-covered summit. At this time of year, the glacier is usually coated with fresh snow. It’s an alpine-style climb, needing ice-climbing gear: ropes, crampons, and the right clothes. You need to be fit and strong to reach the summit, but there shouldn’t be too much clambering up rocks. Mainly it’s a very, very steep hike, into altitudes where the oxygen is so thin that it can give you weird hallucinations.
Susannah doubts we’ll even find anyone to take us up there. We’re so young, and I’m limping. I keep expecting Ixchel to drop out. I’d happily go alone, except for my leg. But there’s no question of her not coming with me. She even seems excited about the idea.
At first, I’m relieved to be able to climb into a bed for the first time in three days. But I toss and turn—can’t get comfortable, with the bruises on my ribcage and the deep, dull ache inside my leg. When I finally fall asleep, I dream the dream about my dad.
I wake up dry-eyed, impatient, and angry. I’ve had enough. This isn’t how I want to remember my dad, but the dream is beginning to consume my memories. Now, when I think of him, he’s always in our kitchen, with that distant air, the one that says, Hey, Josh, get off my back, okay?
I put on my ski jacket and go downstairs to the dining room. I buy a can of Fresca from the drink machine and take it outside, under the inky black of a star-speckled sky. There’s a couple sitting close together on folding chairs, sipping from steaming mugs. I wander around to the back of the hostel, find a patch of unspoiled snow and spend a few minutes scrunching over it in my sneakers. Then I stand, just gazing out over the lights of the town, across the countryside and to the brooding shadow of the volcano.
What am I going to find?
I expected the postcards to lead to an informer; someone who was willing to leak me the information I so badly need. Since that didn’t happen, I don’t know what to think.
What could there possibly be on the slopes of a mountain that would explain to me the truth behind my father’s death?
I hear footsteps in the snow. “Hey,” a voice whispers, right behind me. It’s Ixchel. She gives me a wry grin.
“You couldn’t sleep either, huh?”
I shake my head slowly, staring at her.
“It’s the altitude,” she says. “Does strange things to you. We should take a walk tomorrow, get used to it.”
Then she gives me a little shove. “So, Josh. How did we end up here?”
“I was just wondering that.” My mind goes back to the afternoon that Tyler and I set off to Saffron Walden. Since then I’ve been disguised as Batman, escaped from a cellar where I was going to be tortured, crossed the ocean in a Muwan, got lost in caves, almost drowned in an underground river, got shot in the leg … all in search of the most elusive truth in my life.
What really happened to my dad?
Ixchel’s voice breaks across my distant thoughts. “I’ve been thinking about your theory. The one about time travel.”
“Oh yeah?”
Ixchel nods. “Mm-hmm. It’s not the first time I’ve heard time travel mentioned in Ek Naab.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. There’s a rumor—I don’t know who started it—that the Bracelet of Itzamna is a time-travel device. Or part of one.”
I struggle to keep my features steady. “Really?”
“Don’t get me wrong—there are lots of crazy theories about how Ek Naab got started. Some say we’re founded by survivors from Atlantis. Some say we’re all that’s left of a colony of extraterrestrial visitors. And some say that Itzamna is from an alternate future—one that exists only because Itzamna intervened to save civilization in 2012.”
I notice that Ixchel says nothing about Itzamna copying down the writings of the mysterious ancients, the Erinsi— People of Memory.
Is that a secret too?
Ixchel licks her lips in a deliberate way, as if wondering how to say the next sentence. “Josh. You may have the first piece of proof I’ve ever seen that the time-travel theory is right.”
“I thought you believed that Arcadio consulted a brujo.”
“Well, maybe he did. Some of the brujos know about 2012. They know a lot more than you imagine.”
“So … ?”
“It’s the letter itself. And the instructions from Arcadio. Remember how he told you not to open the envelope, to put it in your pocket? Why? It’s as if he knew that Madison would be coming. His advice made it easy to get out of there fast.”
“Yeah,” I say, spreading my hands on the table. “That’s what I’ve been saying. Arcadio knows me. Or he will know me.”
“Which means that whatever we find on the volcano, you’ll live to tell the tale.”
“It means one of us will live to tell the tale,” I say.
“I guess … ,” she agrees. “Hadn’t really thought of that.”
I grin. “You’re my witness.” Shyly, she grins back, then lowers her eyes.
We sit in awkward silence for a few moments. I sip my Fresca and offer Ixchel a swig. My thoughts swirl with the words of Arcadio’s letter.
“A terrible storm is brewing. Yet you will never find peace until you confront your truth.”
BLOG ENTRY: SMOOTH JAZZ AT 14,000 FT
So, we decided to do a bit of climbing. I managed to charge up Dad’s iPod and used it on a hike earlier today. We didn’t go very far, just trailed after one of the guided groups for a bit, to get used to the altitude. My leg held up pretty well, considering. Mind you, I was fuzzy from the painkillers. And we only walked for two hours.
We bought cold-weather gear and boots for the climb. Susannah spent all morning asking around for a guide to take us up the mountain. None of the registered mountaineering guides will have anything to do with us, because they can’t get parental permission. But Susannah found a local Indian from a nearby village. He agreed to take us to the second hut and no further. That’s still a long way short of the summit, but he figures that everyone who goes to the summit has to stop at the second hut.
If there’s something or someone to be encountered on the slope, hanging around the second hut is the way to find out.
Comment (1) from Eleanor
Josh. You must tell me where you are. I’m going out of my mind with worry. You have no idea what you’ve put me through, none whatsoever.
I searched the house for any clue as to where you’d gone. I asked your friends, Tyler and Emmy—Emmy whom you said you were staying with? Her parents didn’t know anything about it! Tyler admitted he’d talked to you, that he thought you were in Mexico.
But I could hardly believe what Tyler tried to tell me. I finally got your principal to give me permission to look in your locker today.
Until I found your letter and this blog, I was ready to call the police.
I can’t believe you persuaded your friends to lie for you. Are you really in Mexico, and if so, how? If I find you’ve used my credit card again, I don’t know what I’ll do.
Really, Josh. We’re going to need to get some profes
sional help. I can’t cope with you being like this anymore, I really can’t.
Stop making up these stories. You simply cannot expect me to believe this. Tell me where you are NOW. I love you, Josh, but I can’t take this. It will destroy me.
38
Ixchel sits beside me at the Internet café, staring over my shoulder at Mom’s comment on my blog.
“This looks bad.”
“It’s pretty bad,” I agree.
“How come she only just found your blog?”
“I left her a letter with the Web address and a password to read it. To be honest, the blog was just in case.”
“Just in case … ?”
“In case I never came back. I didn’t exactly tell her I was leaving.”
“You left home without telling your mother?”
“Didn’t have much choice. Madison was after me!”
“So, you going to tell her now?”
“I can’t. Not until I know what’s on that mountain.”
“Well …” Ixchel pulls out her Ek Naab phone and gives me a rueful grin. “I hate to tell you this, but …”
I groan. “Don’t.”
“Montoyo’s not happy either. Read this text from Benicio.”
Ixchel, if you are still with Josh, BRING HIM BACK. Montoyo has ordered us back. If I’m not in Ek Naab with Josh AND you by tomorrow afternoon, we’re all in BIG TROUBLE, me most of all, and I will NEVER forgive you.
I close my eyes and sigh. “Just one more day. That’s all I need. I’ve given them so much—what have they ever done for me?”
“Benicio saved your life,” Ixchel suggests. “Twice.”
“I guess. But to be fair—I was on an errand for them.”
Abruptly, Ixchel changes the subject. “Why doesn’t your mother believe you?”
“I don’t know. It probably all sounds pretty unbelievable. I thought it would be best to be open, but I can’t tell anymore.”
