Escaping Fate

by Gladden, DelSheree

  Tanner stepped in a little closer and I suddenly became aware of the raspberry ice cream slowly melting in my hand. Why did my mom have to like ice cream? A bead of water rolled off the ice cream cup and over one of my fingers. I wondered if Tanner’s body heat was making it melt even quicker. Based on how fast my own heart was going, my own heat was enough to turn it into soup if I didn’t get home soon.

  “So, I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Tanner said, still standing what my dad would have thought was a little too close to me. I nodded. It was all I could do at that point. I just wanted him to lean in a little closer, but all too quickly he stepped back.

  “I guess I better let you get home before your mom’s ice cream melts,” he said.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said. Forcing myself to get into the car, I smiled as Tanner pushed the door closed. He lingered for just a second before stepping back and moving onto the sidewalk. I drove away wishing it was already tomorrow afternoon.

  After handing off my mom’s slightly soupy sorbet, I spent the rest of the evening scouring the pages of the genealogy records for the ill-fated souls she knew existed somewhere in my family’s past. That and thinking about Tanner. Even the eerie list of dead girls weren’t enough to throw him completely out of my mind.

  Having looked through my mom’s entire genealogy collection, I found only two more girls before the history ended. Anise Malo died at sixteen years old in 1847, and Linnet, who died in 1817. She was only sixteen years old, too. I added their names to the list I had started, needing no pictures to know that they would also have the telling raven hair and silvery eyes.

  I was physically and emotionally drained by the time I finally made it through the last of the notebooks. I could hardly even feel the despair any more. I couldn’t feel anything, not even the memory of Tanner’s closeness. A sense of inevitability crept over me. My earlier hopes of surviving this frightening chain had quietly slipped away. Name after name, death after death assured me of my fate.

  I could no longer pretend I would somehow live. Whatever my grandpa had been planning, there was no way it could possibly work. If there was a way, wouldn’t somebody have found it by now? No, I knew that I would die in three days. That thought stayed with me as I pushed the binders and papers off my bed and drifted into a troubled sleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  The ornately dressed priest moved from in front of the altar as the terrified girl reached the temple mesa. As he moved, the young girl was afforded a perfect view of her impending future. Her eyes darted from the priest to the stone altar. Her heart nearly stopped as she stared at cold slab. The oblong obsidian blade lying at its center sent a shudder through her body. She knew her fate.

  The horror she felt won out and broke through her defiance. She fell to her knees on the cold stone floor. No one moved to help her up. No one dared touch her. She had been purified for the sacrifice. Anyone who defiled her purity would be sacrificed along with her to pay the gods for an unclean offering.

  The priest and guards waited impatiently for the girl to pick herself up again. Convulsive sobs wracked her body. Her hands shielded her face from the priest’s vicious scowl, but the thunderous crack of his staff on the stone floor silenced her crying instantly. Quickly she uncovered her face and struggled to right herself. As she stood, she was silently instructed to proceed to the altar with harsh gestures by the mute guards waiting beside the fire.

  Standing next to the altar, she saw deep red smears covering the stone. The blood of thousands of sacrifices. The stains were never washed away. To wash the blood away showed the gods that the people were ashamed of what had happened. The stains reminded the people of the city of their obligation to pacify the gods.

  The girl forced away thoughts of past sacrifices she had watched and cheered for in earlier years, and hated herself for her involvement. As a child she had watched, enjoying the festivities and celebrating when the sacrifice was made. It had been like a play, some grand game of pretend. Safe on the ground she had never seen the blood, but she had sometimes heard the cries, the screaming over the cheering of the crowd. The celebrating she had done as a child was before she knew about her own future role. Now she knew that the agonizing cries would be her own.

  Trembling silently next to the altar, she tried to wish away the horror her life had become. The priest removed the obsidian blade from the center of the alter and held it in his steady, practiced hand. Holding the black shard in both hands, he lifted it, presenting it to the sky, to the gods. Drums sounded.

  Lowering the weapon, he now held it firmly in only one hand. The point nearly brushed her skin as he held it next to her heart. The smooth surface shone in the sunlight, shattering her wishes of reprieve and signaling the beginning of the impending violence.

  Unsure of what she was expected to do next, she stood staring at the rough surface of the altar, too terrified to move. Compelled to face reality, she reached out her hand and touched the bloody stains on the face of the altar. The slight touch seemed to awaken the stone’s past victims. The pain and anguish of thousands seemed to reach out to her in that brief second. Terrified, she pulled her hand away quickly. The guard’s eyes glimmered from behind his painted face. He reveled in her terror.

  The strange sensation assaulted her again, but she stiffened and refused to acknowledge it. The guard only smiled. The priest raised the blade again, presenting it now to the crowd. Overwhelmed with fear the raven haired beauty fell to her knees. Her head in her hands, she fell on top of the altar and cried with more true emotion than she had ever felt before.

  Leaning closer to her head, the guard’s hissing voice whispered in her ear. “They come to welcome you.”

  ***

  Way beyond bolting up in bed because of the awful dreams, my eyes opened slowly, already filled with tears. I could still hear the echoes of the girl sobbing with her head cradled in her arms. I felt the tears run down my own cheeks but did not brush them away. In the dark of my room I felt as alone as the doomed girl. The shadows in the corners of my room seemed to creep closer, silently stalking like the ancient guards. Every sliver of moonlight became the terrible shining blade from the altar.

  My shadow guards seemed to be keeping a silent watch until it was their time to collect their newest sacrifice. I closed my eyes to the shadows, but found no comfort. Pulling the thin blanket over my head in a childish effort to put the shadows out of my mind, I sobbed into my pillow. I quietly fell asleep amid free flowing tears, free of dreams for the rest of the night, but not free of fear.

  Chapter Twelve

  I tried to sleep late into the morning. I tried to focus on the warm sun that settled over me. It should have been comforting, but it reminded me instead of the hot Aztecan sun. Pushing the image away, I tried to reassure myself that I was momentarily safe in my own time, not high atop a temple mesa. It worked a little. Although, however comforting that realization was it could do nothing to hold all that I had learned at bay.

  Fears slowly seeped into my mind, leaving little room for anything else. Climbing off my mattress, I made my way to the bathroom. I did my best to push the disturbing thoughts out of my mind as I stood under the hot shower. The heat and water only reminded me of the dream girl sitting in a steaming tub of water being scrubbed by attendants in preparation for the sacrifice. I finished my shower quickly.

  Dressing with much less care than usual, I considered the things my grandpa had told me the day before. He had surprised me with what he had revealed, but I felt that he had kept back even more. It was scary to admit that, because if he had kept anything back it was because it must have been even more horrifying than what he had already told me.

  He had warned me that the mystery went deeper than I realized, and he was right. I had found out about the other girls, dead and forgotten. Perhaps if I showed my grandpa how serious I was about finding the truth, he would tell me the rest of what he knew. Remembering how his body had crumpled and sagged at the mention of his beloved sist
er and daughter, I did not relish the idea of asking him to relive those memories again.

  Bringing that much pain to my grandpa again scared me more than I wanted to admit, but turning away from the truth was not an option anymore. Despite my despair the night before, I woke up still holding onto a tenuous belief that there might be a chance to change my fate if only I could find the truth. That slim hope took hold of me and refused to let go. I was on my way to my grandpa’s house with my new information before either of my parents had woken up. This time I did remembered to leave a note.

  When my grandpa opened the door, I was not greeted with the same enthusiasm as I had been the day before. Studying my demeanor carefully, he welcomed me into his home. He knew exactly why I had come back.

  “Come in Arrabella,” he said. “I thought you might be back today. Come in and tell me what you’ve found.”

  I walked through the door and listened to my footsteps gently tap along the old wood floors. Glancing at the wall that enclosed the hallway I saw the rows of hanging pictures. Katie and Maera dominated the faces. At least he hadn’t forgotten, I though. Stepping into the kitchen with my photos and records, I was ready to find out the rest of what my grandpa knew. We sat down at the little round table and I told him everything I had discovered.

  He patiently listened to me with a frown that deepened as the conversation continued. When I finished my explanation I looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to tell what he knew as well. Staring down at the table, the silence grew thicker.

  “Well,” I asked, “what do you think?”

  “Arra, I told you that you would find out all of this,” he said. I just stared at him. Surely he did not expect me to accept that as an answer. I opened my mouth to argue, but he continued first. “Are you sure you want to go forward with this? There won’t be any going back if you do. The knowledge will change things too much for that.” His gaze met my eyes, studying me intently.

  “I need to know, Grandpa. I can’t live with this fear and not try to understand it,” I said, hoping I sounded brave enough.

  He nodded. He must have expected that to be my answer. “I do know what is happening, Arra. I had truly hoped that it would never come to this, but it has. No matter what ideas I have, they could never be tested, until now.”

  Pausing, he took a deep breath before moving on. “Well, now you know that Katie’s and Maera’s deaths weren’t just coincidence. You can’t change any of it, unfortunately. I told you to find the other names just so you would realize how old this is, how deep the trouble goes. No one else has ever been able to stop it, but I refuse to accept that no one ever will. Knowing doesn’t help the fear, but maybe it can help in other ways.”

  “We can’t know for sure that nothing will stop it. I have to try, Grandpa. If this thing is going to come after me too, I won’t sit around and just wait for it to claim me. I will not give up that easily,” I said.

  “Good, Arra. You will need to be strong for this,” he said, almost to himself.

  I rubbed her arms absently, trying to get rid of the prickling feeling spreading over my skin. I could not rid myself of the bizarre sensation, though. Looking back at my grandpa, I wondered how long he had been preparing for this. “I want you to tell me what else you know, Grandpa. I can tell that you’re keeping something from me. I have to know everything. Please tell me.”

  “I know that when you hear this, you’ll think I’ve lost what little sanity I have left, but please just listen,” he said, patting my knee. “I will tell you everything. You deserve to hear the truth. You need to hear it if you want to succeed.” Leaning forward in his chair, he brought his face closer to mine.

  “Katie didn’t actually die instantly like I made it sound yesterday. Your father was able to reach her while she was still alive. Her head was bleeding from the fall, but not badly enough that your father thought she was going to die.

  “She was coherent at first, but the longer he was with her the more unreasonable she became. Your father tried to ask her what had happened, but she wasn’t sure herself. She told him that someone was after her, but there was nobody else around. She was hysterical, begging your father not to let them take her. He asked her who was coming, but she couldn’t give him a clear answer.

  “The more he tried to talk to her the more frantic she became. By the end she was screaming at him to save her. He tried everything he could think of to calm her down, but nothing worked. Your father stood up and starting yelling, hoping somebody would hear him. He was only a few steps away from her.

  “He told me later that the most terrifying part of the whole thing was that she had been screaming for help and suddenly just stopped, for no apparent reason. At first he thought she had lost consciousness. But when he checked for her pulse, he realized that she was already dead.

  “He couldn’t understand what had happened. No one could, really. The fall wasn’t bad enough to have killed her. Like I said, the coroner couldn’t actually tell us what had happened to her. He told us that she must have died from shock, but the look in his eyes said he didn’t believe it either.”

  “Do you know what really happened to her, Grandpa?” I asked quietly. I knew there was more to tell and I found I was willing to push him into unpleasant places to get it. “Do you know who ‘they’ were? Do you know who was chasing Katie? Do you know who will come after me?”

  “Yes, Arra, I know. At least, some of it I know,” he said. He turned to me and said, “It was the same thing that killed Maera. I was sure of that after Katie died.”

  “Tell me what happened to her, Grandpa. Please,” I said, my fingernails digging into my palms.

  His eyes closed tightly and he drew a deep breath. Seeing his pausing as a refusal to answer, I stood up to leave. “I can’t believe this,” I said angrily. “I did what you said. I found the others, and still you won’t talk to me?” He grabbed my arm and pulled me back to my chair. He took a deep breath, rubbed his wrinkled forehead, and looked me straight in the eye.

  “Wait, Arra. I will tell you everything. I just needed a minute to prepare myself. I hoped that I would never have to do this, but I know that I must. I’m sorry. This isn’t easy for me. Sit down, please,” he said gently. “Katie didn’t die because of the fall or from shock. At first I thought that she had, or I wanted to believe she had, to be perfectly honest. I wanted to believe that it had nothing to do with Maera. But when the coroner couldn’t explain her death to us, and your father told me what Katie had said, I knew her death had everything to do with Maera’s.

  “There has always been a story passed down in our family about a woman named Kivera. She was an Aztec woman who lived many generations ago when Aztec society still flourished. She was chosen to be a sacrifice when she was a young woman. She was so terrified that she pleaded with the priest to let her go. Nobody knew exactly what happened, but some kind of deal was struck over the sacrificial altar. Kivera walked away, but obviously that wasn’t the end of it,” he said.

  Aztec sacrifice and deals made over an altar? I scoffed, pretty sure my grandpa was trying to feed me a bedtime story instead of telling me the truth. I guess I had come here expecting some fantastic reason for mystery of the dead girls, but still. My lips parted to object, to demand he stop treating me like a child, but he waved my words away and continued.

  “I know that you don’t believe in stories like that, Arra,” he said, “and I didn’t either at first. I had heard the story before Maera died and wondered if the fabled curse had been what claimed her. Eventually I forgot about it. When Katie died I considered the curse again because of the strange circumstances. That’s when I found out everything you’ve found out. I know that the curse is real, Arra. I know it sounds crazy, but you believe it too, don’t you?”

  I sat quietly wondering at my grandpa. I didn’t know what I had been expecting to hear, but an ancient Aztec curse sounded insane. I was sure he must be joking, but the devastated looked on his face stopped me cold. He looked as th
ough he had just signed my death warrant himself, as if sharing his secret finally made it all too real.

  His revelation was so far away from anything I had been expecting that I could not say anything in response. Wanting to laugh and cry at the same time, I bit the inside of my cheek hard to stave off doing either. I sat very still and considered everything I knew. There was no such thing as curses, that was certainly true, right? This was all crazy, wasn’t it? But all those girls had been taken by something. No coincidence could possibly reach that far. In the end I could not deny the possibility that it was not just a silly story.

  If all I had to go on were the pictures and genealogy, I might have been able to convince herself that none of this was true if I tried hard enough, but my dreams rushed to the front of my mind in a crashing wave. The cleansing and painting, the slow march up the tower, the oily black blade assaulted me. The dreams were so powerful that I woke each night dreading falling asleep again. It was all too much for me to pass off as fantasy. My grandpa disturbed my dizzying thoughts by putting his rough hand on my arm. It was only the slightest pressure but the physical contact brought me back to the present.

  “Arra, why don’t you tell me what else you know? You haven’t told me everything either, have you?” he asked me.

  Without looking up at my grandpa’s face I shared my secret as well. “I’ve dreamed of her. At least I think it’s her, Kivera. For nearly a week I have dreamed about her, about what happened to her. I saw her taken from her home, dressed in ceremonial clothes and paint, and paraded up to an altar. She was terrified. She was crying the whole way.”

  The remembered terror of the dreams made me pause as I tried to push away the all too familiar tears. I looked up at my grandpa’s patient face and tried to continue. “She looked just like me. I thought it was me at first, but I know now it must be her. The fear is so real that they can’t be just dreams,” I said. “It’s her. She’s trying to warn me, to tell me what happened to her and what is going to happen to me.”