Invisible City

by M. G. Harris

  I notice that the lakeside lights are already burning. Boats too have turned on the rows of white lights around their canopies. Night is drawing in, but there’s no sign that I’ll be able to phone for help anytime soon.

  There’s nothing for it but to try the phone farther away from the hotel. So I go outside again, begin to stroll. On the busy part of the promenade, I notice that some tourists are negotiating with local men dressed in indígena—native—garb. From the sounds of it, they’re discussing medical matters: back pains, frozen shoulders, tumors. I guess these are the brujos I’ve heard about.

  A crowd of tourists has assembled to listen to a trio of musicians. They play guitarlike instruments and strike up the popular tune “La Bamba,” a jarocho song I’ve often heard my dad sing. I watch for a few seconds, check my cell phone for a signal.

  When I don’t detect one, I give up and turn back to the hotel. The sky’s looking really threatening now. At a hot food stall I buy barbequed corn on the cob and munch it all the way back to the hotel.

  By the time I reach my room, the rain has started. Heavy from the outset, within minutes it’s a spectacular downpour. Not the gentle type of rain we get in England—a real soaking. The balcony floor floods with water and overflows. The next floor up does the same, because suddenly there’s a torrent of water coming down from the balcony above. Engulfed in sheets of rain, Catemaco seems even more isolated from the rest of the world.

  In my bedroom, I pull aside the polyester bedcover and slide under the sheets. There doesn’t seem to be any point undressing—it’s already uncomfortably cool. Before long, I’m on the brink of sleep.

  I find myself thinking back to something Camila said about the dream. The dream that she, my dad, and I had all shared. She’d mentioned the Olmecs, how they know techniques to enter other people’s dreams. It all connects, she’d said. But how does it all connect? Is it really possible that my being here is no accident? Is there someone in Catemaco who knows what happened to my grandfather? Can it really be possible to enter the dream of someone you’ve never met, never seen?

  The sound of the rain continues into my dreams. I dream that I’m in my bed, at home in Oxford. My mom is knocking on my door. Have I finished my homework? Have I written my essay? I’m trying to ignore her, but she turns the doorknob. I must have a new kind of lock because she can’t get in. She fiddles with the door. I laugh to myself. She can’t get in. But then the door gives way and she does.

  The next few moments are confused. My eyes open, and after a second or two I remember where I am. It’s dark, but I sense that someone else is in the room with me. I reach out for the bedside lamp when they grab my arms, pin them both behind me. I’m trying to leverage myself up with my legs when another hand grips my jaw, forces my mouth open. A warm, acrid liquid burns its way down my throat; I try to spit it out but the hand closes up my jaw, pinches my nose until I have to swallow. There’s alcohol in the drink, and a strong flavor of herbs. When it hits my stomach, I start to convulse. My entire body tries to reject the fluid, panic surging through me: I’m certain I’m being poisoned. I’m gagging; I taste stomach acid, but nothing quite comes out. When I open my mouth to protest, a hand clamps over my face, cutting off the scream.

  They hold me down as the poison takes effect. Within minutes whatever they’ve given me hits my brain. There’s an explosion of sensation within, as though my head has been lit up from inside. I feel my muscles relax and the hands release me. There’s no need for restraint now—I can barely move. I try to speak but can’t. They pull me to my feet, support me with their shoulders, and walk me out of the room. My vision seems blurry. I could swear that the room, corridor, and the rest of the hotel rotates as we pass through.

  They take me down some stairs and into the parking lot. I’m vaguely aware of being thrown into the backseat of a car and driven. Wherever we go, it is dark, the roads simple dirt tracks. Rain drums hard against the car. We stop among some trees and they carry me out. My legs don’t seem to work anymore. I’m conscious but almost totally out of it.

  I’m pushed through a door. I’m suddenly aware of a familiar smell, a musky perfume of deep notes, so strong that it triggers a memory—another wave of déjà vu. The room is filled with a thin film of smoke, the walls lined with what look like hundreds of bottles filled with colored liquids. Dust-covered objects hang from the ceiling: rag dolls, bones, ribbons. Candles are everywhere, all different sizes. The walls are dotted with postcards showing images of saints. In the center of the room there’s a circle of small candles set in glass tumblers; they look like the tumblers we use at school. In the middle of the circle is an old pine chair. They drag me to the chair, pull off my shirt, bind my legs and arms to the chair. I can’t protest; I can hardly make a sound.

  My limbs may be frozen, I may have lost the power of speech, but all my other senses are heightened beyond anything I’ve ever known. Sounds echo loudly, reverberate inside my head. I hear whispers from people I can’t see, a low thrum of music. I’m begging them to release me but I can’t form the words.

  When they’ve tied me and stripped me to the waist, they begin to smear my back and shoulders with some kind of foul-smelling ointment. I flinch from their hands at first. For a second, they stop.

  “No pasa nada,” a voice says, almost soothing. “It’s nothing bad.”

  It’s thick and greasy, like lard. Then, very gently, a hand lifts my head up by the chin and paints two stripes of something on my face. All the while, the whispers and low beat of a drum fill me with dread.

  I don’t even know what I’m afraid of. Torture? Violence? They haven’t hurt me so far, but they’ve drugged me, forced me to come to this place, to be part of this ceremony. The fear feels more primitive. As if I am close to something malevolent, something that intends to use me for its own ends.

  The whispers become a slow chant. From the shadows beyond, an old man emerges, dressed in a white robe. A brujo. I know instinctively that this is not one of those street charlatans. This is the real thing.

  His eyes are wide, seeming to roll around in his head. He sips from a glass of blue liquid, which he gargles, then spits into my face. The chanting gets louder. I gasp. My eyes sting from the burning juice. Now I really can’t see. But I sense him approach. He begins to shout at me, moving all around the circle, yelling and barking out strange words in a language I don’t understand. The sounds mingle with the incessant drone of the rain on the roof.

  For the first time I have some inkling of what may be taking place. This is a purification ceremony—a casting out of evil spirits. I don’t believe in evil spirits—never have—and yet between the candles and the chanting and the ointment, I feel wretched, dizzy, and scared. There’s something evil in this room, that’s for sure.

  Could there be something evil inside me?

  Chapter 39

  The white-robed brujo finishes his shouting. He stands in front of me, speaks very loudly and clearly.

  “Close your eyes, boy. See me with your inner eye.”

  For some reason, I obey without hesitation. It’s like I’m programmed. I screw my eyes closed. I see nothing.

  “Concentrate,” he tells me. “Search deep within. It will come.”

  Then, amazingly, an image starts to form behind my eyes. It’s the white-robed brujo. I see him clearly—clearer than if I were to open my eyes. In my mind, he’s standing in a room with a thatched roof. If I concentrate hard, I can almost screen out the sounds of rain, chanting, and drums. It’s the room from my dream, but the vision has none of the qualities of a dream. It’s harsh, stark, and violent in its accuracy.

  Amazed, I blurt out, “This is my dream!”

  “Empty your mind of everything,” the brujo tells me. “Let the image within consume you. Enter it. Become one with it.”

  I concentrate on the sound of the waves, feeling a sensation of disconnection. It’s as though my consciousness slowly separates from my body, leaves it, and hovers somewhere above. I
’m slowly materializing in the hut. There’s water all around us. We’re surrounded by a wide range of bottles, candles, and images of saints.

  I watch as the brujo sits in his chair, meditating. The door swings open. A man dressed in a tattered navy jumpsuit tumbles inside. He falls to the floor. His backpack slides around, falling next to him. I see enough of his face to recognize my grandfather. In the dream I’d never noticed his clothes. But now it’s clear. For the first time I see that he’s dressed in the same flying uniform I’ve seen Benicio wear.

  “Help me.”

  The brujo leaps to his feet. The next thing I’m aware of is the brujo feeding my grandfather a potion. There’s a bout of appalling coughing, and then my grandfather seems to regain control.

  “It is asthma, damn you, asthma. Haven’t you got something for that?”

  The choking begins once again. He collapses, coughing. The brujo rushes to his bottles, mixes another potion. My grandfather can barely raise his head. The brujo tips the bottle to my grandfather’s mouth. He tastes it, protesting between splutters, “Not alcohol, you imbecile. What kind of doctor are you?”

  “A medic of the spirits,” says the brujo. “I fear your demons are too powerful.”

  The rest of it is all too familiar. The brujo stands watching as my grandfather slowly chokes to death. He turns purple, his eyes bug out, flecks of spit and vomit appear at the edges of his mouth. His final words are virtually ripped out of him: “Summon the Bakab Ix.”

  The brujo places a finger on my grandfather’s neck, feeling for a pulse. Then he calls out, “Roberto.” A darkly tanned boy in his late teens appears at the door. Sunlight momentarily floods the gloomy surroundings. “He’s dead. Fetch your brother to carry the body. We’ll make an announcement in the town. He looks like a stranger, but maybe someone knows who he is.”

  Roberto looks down at the body, says, “What’s in the backpack? Can I take it?”

  He doesn’t wait for the brujo’s reply. The boy picks up the sisal-weave backpack and opens it. I catch sight of a large volume. It looks like a book. The vision explodes with pain and confusion. I watch the boy gasp, begin to scream in agony. His mouth fills with blood, he retches, blood streams from his nose, even his eyeballs begin to bleed. He staggers around the hut, backing away from the volume in the backpack. The boy collapses facedown; his whole body convulses for a few minutes, then stops. The brujo finally moves slowly, touches the body of his son and rolls the body over. When he sees the boy’s face, he lets out a howl of pain and distress. “My son, my son,” he cries, again and again.

  The images of bloody death in the hut fade. I open my eyes, pull myself up, and look directly into the eyes of the old brujo.

  Deep within me something shifts; it’s as though I sense cogs that move, rotate, adjust. On the horizon of my mind there’s an explosion of nuclear proportions as, finally, I recognize the truth.

  My grandfather had the codex with him when he died. The Ix Codex is here.

  The old man speaks. “You are the ‘Bakab Ix’?”

  I nod. “His grandson.”

  “But you’re just a child,” he says in wonder. “And a foreigner. How can this be?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Yet it is truth. The dream cannot lie. You will take the Cursed Book far from here,” he says in a flat voice. “It is possessed of tremendous evil. All who touch it die.”

  “I’ll take it.” I swallow hard, think of that poor kid Roberto. What if there’s been a mistake and I’m not really the Bakab Ix?

  Perhaps the brujo detects my fear, because he places a hand on my shoulder, saying, “Consider yourself already dead and there is nothing to lose. Take heart, son. You’ve shown bravery here. We shall take you to the book.”

  In the backseat of the car, I use my shirt to wipe away most of the ointment. We drive to a jungle clearing. The trees are so thick overhead that the canopy blocks out most of the rain. A snake slithers across our path. The brujo leans over, grabs it in one deft movement, and snaps the neck as if it were no tougher than a twig.

  I become aware that this is no ordinary clearing—it’s some kind of shrine. There’s an inner ring of fat bamboo canes, and at one end, a small collection of stone statues on the ground, at the wide base of a tree. The statues are of the same Buddha-like figure I remember from my dream: a cross-looking, chubby, childlike creature.

  The men light two torches and place them inside two hollowed-out bamboo shoots that have been sliced open at the right height.

  “Chaneques,” murmurs the brujo, noticing me stare at the stone statues. “A changeling spirit of these forests. These live off the evil that lurks within the Cursed Book. If the Curse of the Book doesn’t destroy you, the chaneques may terrify the very soul from your body.” He takes a few steps back. “We cannot remain. You must complete this task alone.”

  One of the two men who brought me steps forward. I recognize him for the first time—it’s the bus driver. He just nods. “I’m sorry. But it had to be this way.” He hands me a shovel. “Dig. At the base of the ceiba, beneath the statues of the chaneques. If the curse can’t harm you, neither shall the chaneques. Find the Cursed Book, take it away with you.”

  They all back away, watch as I begin my work. Once they see I’ve started to dig, I notice they’re leaving.

  “How do I get back?” I yell.

  “Follow the road,” answers the bus driver. “It goes all the way to the lagoon.”

  I take the shovel and dig. Above me I can hear the canopy of the ceiba tree rattling its leaves as the storm picks up. The rain, already falling at a fierce rate, seems to redouble its effort, as if to say: Now let’s really drop some water. And me, I’m shaking from a mixture of excitement and terror. This is it: the Ix Codex is just a few inches of dirt away.

  Chapter 40

  I dig like a maniac, toss shovelfuls of leaves and soil over my shoulder. My skin crawls at the thought of being left alone in this place; my ears roar with the sounds of the living jungle. The stone chaneques stare at me, their angry little eyes brimming with accusation. I think I imagine them moving. I can hardly bear to stay. I have visions of them coming to life, swarming over me, scratching at my face, stone fingers digging mercilessly into my flesh. It doesn’t matter how much I tell myself that the ceremonial drug is still in my system. I’m hallucinating, but it seems pretty darn real.

  Sometime after I start digging, I find myself gazing into a pit about two feet deep. I have no sense of how much time has passed. I can’t lean over far enough anymore. I jump in, begin digging some more. From nearby I hear the sound of a car, tires crunching along a gravel track. The headlights have been switched off to allow a stealthy approach. But there’s no hiding such a mechanical sound in the jungle.

  I pause in my digging, look up, and listen. Doors open and slam shut.

  “Mr. Garcia. Nice to finally catch up with you.”

  It’s the two NRO agents—the ones who arrested Tyler and Ollie.

  “So, that’s gotta be the lost codex under there, right? Hey, buddy, don’t let me stop you.”

  “That’s right,” says the other. “Dig.”

  It doesn’t take much longer, just long enough for me to wonder how I’ve managed to screw up so badly. Where did I go wrong?

  “How? How did you find me?”

  “A cop called in your description from a bus station in Tabasco. Someone reported a kid who looked like he’d run away from his family. People can be neighborly that way.”

  I return to my digging, numb with shock and disappointment. I try not to think about what’s going to happen to me now.

  I reach the buried package a few minutes later. It is still wrapped in what are now rotting threads of sisal fiber. I pick them off, hold the dense volume in my hands. It’s a solid box—not exactly a book, more a case. The box is covered with a soft, dry yet spongy material that yields to the slightest touch. Incredibly, it is perfectly clean; dust won’t even stick to it. I’m abou
t to give it a few more prods when one agent shouts, “Cut that out. We’ll take it from here.” He reaches down, snatching the box.

  I try to warn him. “I don’t think you should—”

  He ignores me, of course.

  Pandemonium.

  At first I can’t tear my eyes away as one, then the other, agent falls to his knees, clutching first his throat, then his chest, stomach, all the while screaming, a sound so terrible I want to cover my ears to stop listening to the sheer agony. The bleeding starts seconds after. Their screams become muffled as blood bubbles up inside their throats, choking them. They try spitting it out, but more spews up. Into the warm, peaty smell of the forest mingles the rusty odor of fresh blood.

  They’re dying, just as I’d seen the brujo’s son die, in the most agonizing way I can imagine, their insides liquefying, organs rupturing, screaming to the bitter end.

  I feel my legs weaken. I turn away. There’s nothing I can do to help them. I have a feeling those terrible cries of anguish will haunt me for a long time yet.

  Trembling from the horror of what I’ve seen, I climb out of the ditch. I grab the codex. I haven’t even made it out of the jungle clearing when another car pulls up behind the first. Another door slams. And into view comes the backup plan: Simon Madison.

  “Okay, Josh, nice job. Now drop the codex, nice and slow.”

  I hesitate. “I would, but … you really want to end up like your friends?”

  Madison glances at the two guys who lie squirming on the floor, still retching and groaning as blood spurts from their mouths, noses, and eyes. He seems genuinely shocked.

  “What in hell did you do to them?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing. The codex. It’s cursed.”

  To my surprise, he doesn’t laugh or show any sign of disdain. He just waves his pistol at me. “How come you’re not like them?”

  “Immunity?”

  “So you really are one of them …,” is all he says, with bitterness.