The Book of True Desires

by Betina Krahn

  As they reached the beach that divided the water half from the land half of the caldera, their attention shifted to the pearl in the center of this exotic setting, the temple. It was then they noticed: in front of the pyramid sat a large statue of a jaguar. It was astonishingly lifelike, especially its golden eyes. When Goodnight reached it, Cordelia was able to compare it to him and estimate its height at eight feet.

  “It truly is the throne of the Jaguar Spirit,” she said, running her hands over the statue and looking around at the remarkable environment here. She turned to Yazkuz. “Did you know this was here? Have you seen this before?”

  “Only in vision,” the old woman said, looking around with awe.

  “This is the most amazing thing …I’ve ever… seen,” Goodnight said, finding for once that words were inadequate to the task of expression. So he did the one thing that joy and relief had left to him—he picked Yazkuz up and whirled her around, laughing. Then he set her down and went for Cordelia, who threw her arms around him and laughed with him, savoring the hard-won triumph of their arrival and discovery.

  Afterward Cordelia was dizzy and had to sit for a while. Then she realized she hadn’t had food for quite a while and mentioned that fact. Old Yazkuz pointed to the forest around the temple and instructed her to go, eat. Surprised, she collected herself and did just that. Food was everywhere. Bananas, coconuts, pineapples, dates, almonds… she pulled off a banana leaf and filled it with fruit to carry back to the temple to share with Goodnight, who was sprawled on the steps, letting his clothes dry. It was then that she noticed the back of his shirt was almost shredded and the flesh beneath it wasn’t much better. He was scratched and bleeding—the climb had been harder on him than she had realized. That, and her fall against him.

  She wetted her bandana in the lake and washed his scrapes, then asked what she might find to help them. He suggested aloe vera and told her how to locate it. Yazkuz went with her to find it and soon they came back with several big, fleshy spikes to peel and rub onto his cuts. He doctored Cordelia’s scrapes in turn, and they ate and rested in the shadow of the big jaguar while Yazkuz went off to explore.

  Some time later, the old woman appeared at the top of the pyramid and urgently called them to come up and join her. Mounting the steps was something of an ordeal, considering their overworked muscles, but they managed to make it to the top. Yazkuz hurried them inside, beside herself with excitement, and showed them fabulous writing and murals on the walls. It was a marvelous and humbling moment as they stood in that chamber of the ancients, reading secrets from the very dawn of life. Yazkuz bowed reverently to the statue of the jaguar in the temple above, and with the Jaguar’s permission, began to tell them the story recorded on those walls.

  The first tableau was somewhat familiar. It contained many of the same images used on the blocks of the arch: the fire of creation, the Creator’s splendid world, the development of plants and flowers and grains and fruit, then the birth of animals of every kind. Then came the great snake and the birth of humankind. But there, the story diverged. In this version, humans were much loved by the Creator, who walked with them in the guise of the jaguar. Then great trouble came into the world: an illness in the form of a dark cloud laid low humanity and nearly destroyed it.

  The Creator, in his jaguar skin, brought something to humanity that caused healing, something that had to do with a series of strange little scarab-like ovals and what looked like earthworms. Suddenly there were butterflies everywhere on the walls, golden, heralding the healing that took place and would forever change the nature of humankind.

  The Gift of the Jaguar, Yazkuz told them with tears welling, was healing.

  Cordelia sat down on the polished floor of the temple with a soft thud and stared in awe at the magnificent mural spread before them, feeling there were linkages to be made, that something profound was waiting just out of mental reach. Healing was the Gift of the Jaguar. Healing in that specific instance or healing in general? And was it a coincidence that Goodnight—a doctor-cum-chemist seeking real and provable cures—was with her to discover this?

  Humans, from that time on, have had the capacity to heal and to grow beyond their illness and distress, Yazkuz said—at least Cordelia thought it was she who said it. How the old woman found the English words for it, Cordelia had no clue, but the words were there in her head. She was suddenly aware of Goodnight sitting cross-legged on the floor beside her, and glanced over at him to find him as spellbound as she was by the sound of the old girl’s voice.

  “All healing comes from the Creator… who walks the earth as a jaguar from time to time and speaks to lowly servants who do work in his name. This is why I have brought the tall healer here to this place. The Jaguar Spirit told me of his coming long ago, in the sacred bones. So, when I saw him and learned of his interest in healing, I knew he was the one. But the jaguar himself said to bring the woman also… she must be here… she must learn of the great gift of the Jaguar Spirit, too.

  “Now the tall healer must carry the remembrance of the Jaguar’s gift with him back to the world.”

  There old Yazkuz halted and stood quietly, her hands folded, staring off across the temple and out into the paradise blue sky. They waited for her to continue, but it soon became clear that her revelations were finished.

  “How?” Cordelia managed to ask. “How does he do that? Carry healing back to the people and remind them of who gave them that gift?”

  Yazkuz didn’t answer, or even blink. She was as still as the carved alabaster statue of the jaguar nearby. When Goodnight shook off the spell of those words, he checked the old woman and found her nearly as cold as the alabaster, too. With Cordelia’s help he carried her into the sun and rubbed her hands and shoulders to restore circulation to them. Yazkuz revived but was, unfortunately, back to her monosyllabic English vocabulary, which sent a shiver through Cordelia. How was she speaking so fluently earlier?

  “How? How does he take this gift of healing back to the world?” she asked again. But Yazkuz just shrugged in bewilderment.

  After a few minutes in the warming sun, the old woman raised a finger, then tapped her temple with it. “I ask.” She turned to Goodnight and grabbed his sleeve. “Fire.” She pointed to the pit in front of the jaguar statue.

  “Wood. Bring.”

  It wasn’t long before Yazkuz had her ceremonial fire going and knelt before it, staring into the flames and chanting solemnly. She would keep a vigil there until she received an answer to Cordelia and Goodnight’s question.

  With nothing more to do there, the pair withdrew to look around the temple and explore it further. Because of their experience in the ruins that were hills with doors, they checked the floor for loose stones and found one. Levering it aside, they discovered a set of narrow steps that led down into the pyramid.

  Wishing desperately for the lantern they had left behind, they discovered a few discarded items in a passage, one of which was a dish lamp. Another was a small store of what looked like charcoal. Hart sprinted back up the steps and came back after a time with some banana peels to rub on the pieces of charcoal. One of the few matches he had on his person in a waxed paper packet started the flame that ignited the charcoal. With their meager light, they went exploring.

  The second chamber they discovered, in the heart of the pyramid, was a simple, windowless little room furnished solely with a gilded altar. Strangely, floor and altar were both littered with desiccated butterflies. They stepped carefully around the creatures to look at the figures on the walls. The same mysterious symbols appeared: the worms and scarab-like ovals they had seen in the hills-with-doors ruins, the village, and just now in the temple above.

  Their light was failing when Goodnight spotted a slight variation in the drawings, something from an artist in tune with realism. Just before the charcoal fizzled to a smoking lump, he saw that the worm of the murals had both segments and antennae. Frantically, they put together another light, and sure enough, they discovered the worm
was in fact, no worm at all.

  “It’s a caterpillar,” he said, tracing the clear image on the wall. The knowledge caused a chain of linkages in his mind. “Look. The ovals—they’re eggs. The worms are caterpillars and the scarab things—they’re pupae. That’s the four stages of the metamorphosis! It’s butterflies!” He chortled and tripped like a Morris dancer through the butterfly wings all over the floor, his arms outstretched to embrace the butterflies who had ended their brief lives here. “It’s so obvious now—the Gift of the Jaguar is butterflies!”

  “I thought it was healing,” she said, confused.

  He deflated like a hot air balloon. “Well, butterflies have something to do with it—they have to.” He waved a hand around him. “They’re everywhere.”

  They rushed up the steps to the temple to consult with Yazkuz, but found her deep in meditation and, after discussing their discovery, agreed not to disturb her. Instead, they headed down the pyramid and out into the magnificent gardens surrounding the temple to look for specimens like those in the altar chamber.

  The gardens were a wonderland of botanical marvels. Every vine, bush, herb, and small tree seemed to be in flower. Orchids climbed the trunks of trees and nestled in the forks of branches, in colors that existed only in the yearning minds of artists and creators. And everywhere they looked and stepped, there were butterflies—remarkably tame ones, at that. They counted at least a dozen different kinds, but the most prevalent were the great golden butterflies with the black borders.

  “Monarchs.” Goodnight identified them. “The ones shown in the murals.”

  They explored the lush gardens, watching the butterflies feeding on the flowers and then soaring in groups, shimmering and dancing on the air before swooping back to earth.

  “But what does this mean?” she asked as they picked flowers and held them up, watching in wonder as the butterflies came to land on the petals and show off their exquisite wings. “I mean, do butterflies make a medicine?”

  “It doesn’t seem likely. Surely we would have heard about it by this time in human history. Have a headache? Take two monarchs and have a lie down.”

  She laughed and looked up at him in the warm, dappled light coming through the high canopy. His hair was tousled and his tanned face was relaxed and—oh, dammit, just say it—it was noble. And beautiful. And it tugged at her chest and made her knees go weak, because she knew, in her heart of hearts, that what you saw on the outside of Hartford Goodnight was exactly what you got on the inside. He was noble. And smart and handsome. Capable and reliable. Idealistic and proud. And strong—so very strong.

  But most important, he made her feel alive and full of possibility and warm and feminine—like the only woman on the planet.

  And she knew in that moment that he was the man she would love and carry in her heart for the rest of her life. It was a moment of sublime pleasure and deferred pain, inextricably linked.

  They explored what they could reach of that craterbound island, smelling, tasting, luxuriating in the garden’s glorious echoes of Eden.

  The sun was hanging on the rim of the caldera when they returned to the pyramid to check on Yazkuz. They took her some wood, tended her fire, and set a banana leaf piled with fruit beside her. Withdrawing, they stood on the top steps of the pyramid to survey the area and absorb the sight into their hearts. Cordelia focused on the lake and began to descend the long flight of steps, feeling drawn to an awareness, an insight that she couldn’t yet put into words. Something about the lake puzzled her. By the time she reached the statue of the great jaguar, she had figured it out.

  “What does that look like to you?” she asked Goodnight when he reached the bottom. She pointed to a wide stone platform that had been built out ten feet into the lake, directly in front of the jaguar. “Does that look like a dock?” She studied it, even as he did, tilting her head. “Why would they have a dock when there are no boats here? I can’t imagine they hauled boats in for ceremonial purposes, then carried them out again. Why is it here?”

  He agreed it was a good question and together they walked out onto the dock-like platform, staring down into the exceptionally clear water. Illuminated by the lowering sun, something on the bottom glinted, drawing Goodnight’s attention.

  “There’s something—there—reflecting light. Do you see it?” He pointed and she looked and nodded. It only took a moment for him to decide to investigate and begin stripping off his shirt.

  “What are you doing? You can’t go in there,” she said. “You hate water.”

  “I don’t hate water, I hate boats. More accurately, seasickness. You’ll recall, I can swim when I have to.”

  “You’ve got a snakebite sore on your arm and a back that looks like raw tenderloin. Let me do it,” she said unbuttoning her shirt. “I’m a great swimmer.”

  “Really, O’Keefe.” He watched her sit down and pull off her boots, and his eyes popped when she stood up and unbuttoned her goatskin pants. “Honest to God—do you have a single drop of modesty in your body?”

  “Don’t be such an old woman, Goodnight,” she chided. “Turn your back if you can’t bear to see a few inches of naked skin.”

  Her shirt joined her breeches and boots on the quay. She poised at the edge, in her knickers and camisole, noting that he hadn’t turned away. “Bet it’s beastly cold.” She took a deep breath, raised her arms, and sprang for the water, just as he complained.

  “You just had to say the word ‘naked’ didn’t you?”

  Thirty

  Down she sank, pulling herself steadily deeper in the cool water, surprised by the depth…a dozen feet…fifteen…at least twenty before she reached the silty bottom. She caught the fading glint and reached for the object, not really surprised to feel cool metal in her hand as she headed for the surface. She deposited the thing on the quay. It looked like a bracelet or cuff of some kind—made of gold.

  She gasped, wiping water from her eyes.

  “Is this what I think it is?”

  “Ye gods.” He sank to his knees and reached for the bracelet, turning it over in his hands, then giving it a test with his teeth. “It is gold.” He looked past her toward the lake. “Is there more down there?”

  A second later, she took a huge breath, executed a surface dive, and headed for the bottom again. This time she felt around and came up with three things that felt metallic before swimming back to the surface. She plopped them on the stone pier, then dipped her head back to clear her hair from her face and wiped her eyes before looking to see what she’d retrieved.

  Goodnight was holding a cup and what seemed to be a circlet meant to be worn on the head or around the neck. Beside him on the quay was a flat disk decorated with a rendering of the sun.

  “O’Keefe.” He sounded a little strained. “I’m developing a theory.”

  “They’re gold, too?” But she could see they were, despite some crusting and a bit of tarnish.

  “I think this may be where they made their gifts to the Jaguar Spirit.”

  “Wait,” she said, taking a breath and diving down to the bottom for a third time. Her two previous trips had stirred up silt that hadn’t yet settled, and it wasn’t as easy to find the bottom through that murkiness. Collecting what she could by touch, she shot to the surface with an armful of artifacts.

  “These are—they’re magnificent!” He laughed and held them up to the light. “Do you have any idea how long these must have lain there? Centuries at least—maybe millennia.” Then he looked at her and realized she was pale and starting to shiver. “Okay, O’Keefe. Out of the water.”

  He reached her a hand and the moment she cleared the water and boosted herself onto the dock, he wished he’d left well enough alone. Her thin cotton was plastered to her body in ways that made her seem more naked than if she were naked. He reddened and shot to his feet.

  “Gold!” she said, grinning broadly and glancing out over the lake. “There must be a ton of it down there, jewelry and gold plate, ornaments of all
kinds.” She scrambled to her feet beside him, trying on the cuff and reaching up to plop the coronet on his head. The startled look on his face caused her to laugh.

  “A treasure! We found a real treasure!” Laughing, she threw both arms around him and bounced up and down.

  He groaned the way he had when she and Yazkuz put aloe on his back.

  “Ohhh!” Appalled by the pain her enthusiasm inflicted, she pulled back. “I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  She took a step back, felt the air on her wet body, and shivered. Massively. Gooseflesh appeared on her arms, and her nipples drew taut and tingled, reminding her they were exposed and very, very sensitive.

  Every nerve in her body suddenly came alive. Every desire in her body and mind and heart rushed to seize the moment.

  She looked up into his gaze, knowing he wasn’t immune to the sight of her, remembering the heat of his kiss and needing that warmth just now.

  She took back the step she had put between.

  “I’m freezing.” Her voice was husky with need and promise. “Warm me.”

  There it was. As simple and eloquent a plea as had ever been spoken. Warmth. What she had wanted and needed all her life.

  With a sound that was part groan and part laughter, he wrapped his arms around her cool, damp body and pulled her hard against him. She rocked up onto her toes to meet his kiss and felt as if she were soaring.

  An explosion of warmth sent sparks all through her, igniting fires.

  When he paused to cup her face between his hands and kiss her eyelids, nose, and mouth, she took his arms and wrapped them back around her.

  “Here,” she said against his lips.

  “Here?”

  “Now.”

  “Now? B–but—”

  “Don’t make me have to think, Goodbody,” she said with a moan.

  He seemed to get it.