by David Bowles
“Huh?” Johnny looked up, and towering above them was a gigantic lizard, something like a cross between an alligator and a komodo dragon, its eyes yellow and malevolent, its many rows of teeth sharp, crooked and dripping with poisonous saliva that sent waves of fetid odors pouring over the twins.
“You,” the reptile declared, its voice booming like the raging flames that destroy forests, homes and families, “have slain my brother Chalmecatl! Living intruders prepare to meet your doom in the jaws of Xochitonal!”
As it opened wide its maw, a shape came bounding down the mountain, hurtling at Xochitonal. It was the hellhound, Xolotl. They came together with an earthshaking thud, their forelegs wrapping around each other as they struggled, jaws reaching for each other’s throats.
“Dude,” Johnny muttered reverently, “it’s like Godzilla versus King Kong or something!”
Xolotl flipped the great lizard onto its back, turning briefly toward the twins. “What are the two of you waiting for? I can only hold this creature off for so long! He can’t follow you into the first desert…” the tonal of Quetzalcoatl leapt onto the reptile’s belly “…so get yourselves down this mountain as fast as you can!”
Without waiting to see how the epic battle turned out, the twins began running down the remaining stretch of dark gray granite sand that lined the narrow confines of the Black Road. From behind them came apocalyptic sounds of struggle and destruction, but Johnny focused on the dark fog rising before them from the valley at the foot of the mountain. It seethed and swirled ominously, like virulent smoke from a witch’s cauldron.
Blackness, he mused. That’s okay. I’m not afraid of the dark.
They reached the bottom. Carol grabbed his hand, and together they plunged into the roiling mists.
Chapter Nine
They stepped into the dense fog and were immediately blinded. It was the most absolute darkness Carol had ever experienced, and it surrounded her. She lifted her free hand in front of her face. Nothing. She brought it closer, and closer, till her palm touched her nose. Nothing.
Johnny’s grip on her hand tightened. “Carol.” His whisper was deafening in the absolute silence that surrounded them. “I can’t see a thing.”
“Me neither. Don’t let go. It would be so easy to get separated in this place.”
They walked slowly forward, a few cautious steps at a time. The silence was overwhelming. Carol wanted to talk to her brother, hear his voice, wince at his stupid jokes and awkward laughter. But the darkness was too absolute. And, it seemed to grow, creeping into her mind.
Suddenly the black mist cleared, and she was looking…up the slope of the mountain they had just descended. The snarls and thuds that reached her ears, providing an ironic relief, indicated that Xolotl and the massive reptilian demon were still fighting.
“Ah, que la…” Johnny spat. “We walked in a damn circle! Come on, let’s turn back around.”
Carol quailed at the idea of re-entering that dark stillness. She suspected, not that something horrible awaited her within, but that the pitchy quiet itself would do something to her. How long did Dad say souls took to cross Mictlan? Four years, I think. Xolotl keeps pushing us to hurry, but what if we get stuck wandering in circles in this mist for days? Weeks? Months? Is he going to come guide us out? Probably not.
As Johnny pulled her into the desert again, she decided against sharing too many of her doubts with her twin. Instead, she tugged on his hand till he stopped.
“I think we should shift. Our tonales can probably navigate this place better than our human senses. Mom needs us. We can’t afford to waste time.”
“Okay. You’re probably right. What about our clothes?”
“Take them off, stuff your shirt and underwear into your pants pockets, and tie the legs around your waist or neck. When you shift, the bundle should stay with you like your bracelet does.”
Johnny cleared his throat a little awkwardly. “Yeah, okay. But we really need to get Big Red to teach us how to keep the animal skin after shifting back, like he did. That’d sure make life easier. Okay, I’m letting go of your hand. Don’t wander off or anything. It’s not like I can see you in this mess.”
Carol nodded foolishly. Hello, he just said he can’t see me. “Got it.”
When he let go she felt completely unmoored in the darkness. Not even a single star for company. Utterly alone, filling up with silence.
“Hey, I’m right here.” Johnny’s voice was tinged with concern.
“Huh?”
“Your breathing got shallow and fast, like you were panicking. I haven’t forgotten your fear of the dark, Dude. Don’t worry. We’re going to be alright.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Slipping out of her sneakers, Carol pulled off her t-shirt and jeans, shoving the thin white cotton into a pocket. Her sports bra and panties were next, leaving her feeling somewhat silly but mostly vulnerable, standing naked in the dark. Shoving her socks into her shoes, she strung them from belt loops beside the small clay water bottle, and she tied her jeans around her waist.
“Okay, I’m going to shift now. Don’t go anywhere yet. We don’t know how our senses are going to react to this mist.”
“Got it.” Johnny’s voice cracked. He’s probably trying to shift already. As she released control of herself to the hungry energy within her, her body writhed and was remade, bringing a whole new set of senses online. She could feel the faint thudding from the mountain behind her, a slight vibration beneath her paws. She could smell the jaguar not three feet away and hear his easy breathing clearly. And though she still could not see, a strange magnetic pull tingled in her mind. North. I can sense which way is north when I’m shifted. But if this place is circular…North must mean toward the center. Good. We won’t get turned around this time.
With a short bark of warning, she began to lope in that direction. Beside her, Johnny’s heavy paws padded soft on the granite sand. His breath moved nearly imperceptibly in and out of powerful feline lungs. And all around them, thick and unyielding, was the silent dark. The jaguar’s faint noises faded gradually, the hypnotic rhythm of his gait becoming part of the stillness, the absence in which a sound rumbled.
No. I know there is no sound in the silence. I was just a silly, sick little girl back then. There was no gurgling, creaky voice.
But there it was, all the same. A droning, low and constant. She tried to focus on something else, the texture of the sand, the tapping of her shoes and water jug against her ribs, the feel of her lupine teeth as her tongue draped across them. The silence crowded against her senses all the same, oozing its way inside, filling her mind with nothingness. Every fear was amplified. Every bit of self-doubt a reality.
It was the same as that summer five years ago. She and her brother were seven years old, and it was the first time they’d been apart for more than a day. Uncle Nando had taken Johnny on a fishing trip with him and his two sons. Carol had felt a little under the weather, and even if she’d been perfectly healthy, she probably wouldn’t have wanted to spend the weekend in a tent in that south Texas heat.
The first night she had been unable to sleep. She was drawn to the night, like her mother, enjoying late hours. But this was different. It was genuine insomnia, made worse by the fever that was sinking its claws into her bones. She had slipped into the living room to watch TV quietly, but at 2am the parental controls had kicked in and turned their cable off. Carol had sat quivering in the dark, of which she was deathly afraid, and then she had begun to hear in the vast silence of their rural home the thrumming whisper of despair.
She hadn’t slept at all that night.
Her mom had taken her across the border the next day, to their doctor in Progreso. The long wait, heat, and medicine had kept her from taking a nap. She’d managed to sleep a couple of hours in the evening, but by midnight her eyes had been wide open. And that sound, that impossible sound, had grown audible again as she sat there in the dark, its oscillations getting sharper and sharper till they had felt
like hammer blows. Leaping to her feet, wild with fear, she had run down the hallway to her parents’ bedroom and thrown herself on their bed.
“What is it, Sweetie?” her father had groggily asked as she’d snuggled trembling into his shoulder.
“It’s…it’s the silence, papi.”
“The silence? What do you mean?”
She had swallowed hard, understanding even at the age of seven how crazy she was going to sound. “There’s a sound. In the silence. It…it wants to eat me up, I think.”
Her father had sat up and placed his palms against her cheeks. “Oh, God, you’re burning up with fever, Carolina. Stay here. Let me get some medicine.” He’d brought her liquid analgesic and electrolyte water and placed a cool rag across her forehead. As he’d lain beside her, cradling her shaking body in his left arm, she’d felt safer, but still menaced. Her whimpering voice must have stirred something in Dr. Garza, because he had begun to hum a melody which had gradually become a strange, soft hymn:
A song I sing to Tonantzin
Asking her for guidance.
I sing for hope, I sing for joy
And drown out the silence.
She’d been lulled into a deep sleep by his gentle crooning, and when she’d awakened nearly twenty-four hours later, her fever had disappeared. As had the thrum of the silence. Her doctor had explained about vibrations in the skull caused by this and that, but she had been sure that there was something…supernatural about her experience.
Now, surrounded by interminable swaths of dark stillness, she was under attack again. An attack. That’s just what it is. This is the first trial. Whoever has Mom knows my weaknesses. He’s trying to break me…isn’t he?
All about her, the silence seemed to swell, blotting out even the muted, rhythmic padding and breathing of her brother. She slipped further and further down into herself, trying to escape. Her tonal, unbridled and exulted, began to run as the silence chased her into the depths of her being, relentlessly drowning all contact with anything other than her own fears and inadequacies.
Alone in the existential dark, she was like a flame, guttering in a quiet gale.
And in that absolute loneliness, that darkness and that drowning, she realized she was not alone.
A voice, full of love and tenderness, whispered one word:
Sing .
From within her, past all her foibles and fears, the words came flowing like a crystal stream, noisy and joyous and pure.
A song I sing to Tonantzin
Asking her for guidance.
I sing for hope, I sing for joy
And drown out the silence.
The Little People in a ring,
The sky begins to brighten:
They dance and chant before the dawn
And drown out the silence.
With mighty guards the sun comes up
And shines on the horizon:
The warriors loose a victory cry
And drown out the silence.
The quetzal and the mockingbird,
The dog and mountain lion,
Their voices join in raucous praise
And drown out the silence.
With every verse, she pushed back against the suffocating stillness until she had thrust it completely out of her. She reined in her tonal and slowed her pace, broadcasting her song into the dark, fighting back against her unseen enemy. Soon her perception was clear, but there was no one to perceive.
Johnny was gone.
It’s my tonal. Without ties to my human soul, it became a pure wolf. Wolves and jaguars…yeah, no. Not normally allies. The wolf ran away from Johnny. As far away as it could.
Lifting her head, she scented the cold, still air. She couldn’t sense him nearby. She opened her muzzle and howled loudly, but the mist muted and distorted her call. Johnny wouldn’t be able to find her. He might even get turned around and wander, lost, searching for her.
I’m not giving up, do you hear me? She sent her thought like her song into the dark. You’re not going to win that easy, whatever the hell you are.
The silence around her seemed to thicken in response. Then it curdled. She pictured some horrible creature smiling at her mockingly.
Wait. If I was able to use my song to defend myself…
Tensing herself inwardly, she tapped the inner well of music and bent the melody into a name.
Johnny!
Johnny! Come find your sister!
Johnny! Johnny! She’s waiting in the dark!
Pouring every ounce of her love for the annoying boy into the words, she called again and again. Like a faint echo in her mind, she finally heard a response.
Carol? Are you singing?
Come on, Johnny! Come and find your sister!
Dude, what the heck? Either I’m going nuts, or you’re talking into my brain!
Allowing the song to slide into the background, Carol tried just projecting her thoughts. More like into your soul. I think I found my xoxal, Johnny. The savage magic. Can you track my thoughts?
Yeah, they’re getting louder, like I’m getting closer or something. Where did you go? Why did you just run off like that? I thought for sure I’d lost you. I was pretty mad.
That was just my tonal, acting on its own.
And where were you, then?
Something was attacking the conscious side of me, my human soul or whatever.
What? What do you mean?
Okay. You remember when I was sick? Five years ago?
Oh, yeah. You freaked out about the dark and how quiet it was. Mom thought you might be schizophrenic or something.
Well, it wasn’t my imagination, Johnny. Whatever has Mom, that’s the thing that tried to eat up my mind when I was little. And it came after me, again. Its power is like…formed out of darkness and silence. It uses it to draw on your deepest fears and to make you feel so alone that you…give up.
A feeling of understanding entered Carol, flowing from her brother. Apparently emotions as well as words could be shared through the xoxal link. Dude, Johnny thought at her, that means…that means they’ve been after us for a while. Whoa. We must be really valuable. I thought Big Red was just yanking our chain. Heh. That’s funny. Get it? Chain? Dog?
Carol sent a wave of love and joy at her goofy brother. Even his stupid jokes were a delight when compared to that dark, still, emptiness.
Wow. What was that? It felt like the nicest hug in the universe. Thanks, sis.
His voice was clear and loud and bright in her mind, the utter opposite of their enemy’s quiet black magic. With great happiness she distinguished the vaguely unpleasant feline odor his animal form gave off and heard his labored breathing as he rushed to nuzzle her.
I think we’re about through this first desert, he thought. Can you see the glimmerings of light ahead?
Carol’s keen nocturnal eyes pierced the darkness and made out the contours of the mist, swirling against gray light just ahead. Yeah, I see them. Race you out of this freaking place?
You’re on!
They sped out of the darkness, together.
Chapter Ten
They emerged onto a vast expanse of rolling dunes. Johnny slowed and stopped, his pupils dilating painfully even at the muted light from the gray sky above. The dunes were dotted with brown, stunted, thorny shrubs and dead trees. And spread everywhere, in glaring contrast with the dark granite sand, were millions and millions of bones.
Yikes. He looked over at his sister. Okay, I’m going behind that big dead tree over there to shift and get dressed.
Good idea. She loped toward another.
A few minutes later, they stood side by side, staring out at the enormous bone-strewn wilderness. Johnny scratched his head and squinted, trying to make out what lay beyond the horizon.
“So, let’s see,” Carol said. “What was next? Bats and jaguars. Gah.”
Johnny shrugged. “Can’t be all that bad. I mean, we can just bite the bats’ heads off. As for jaguars…I can probably communicate w
ith them or something. Worst case scenario, we just run like mad to the next desert.”
“I don’t know. Let’s hope so.” His sister stretched, her joints popping. The transition to human form tended to leave them a little sore. “I just think that the trials are going to keep getting harder. Dad said that they were meant to strip all earthly connections away from the souls of the deceased. I’m pretty sure that means they are crazy hard to get past.”
Carol’s negativity could be a little frustrating. “Yeah, but we’re not dead. Plus, we’re naguales. Different skill set, don’t you think?”
“Sure, you’re probably right.”
Slapping his hands together like their mom always did before beginning a particularly difficult project, Johnny nodded. “Okay, then, let’s get going.”
They drudged up and down several dunes, sometimes stepping on a femur or a skull despite all efforts to avoid them sometimes slipping from crest to trough in the treacherous sand. They’d been at this for about an hour when a strange whirring and screeching caused them to spin about. The sky behind them had gone black with a mass of flying creatures. As the horde approached, Johnny realized it was made up of gigantic bats, perhaps six feet long in the body and with a wingspan of ten to twelve feet. Their black wings and feet were tipped with nasty, obsidian-like talons. Covered with brown fur, the bats sported a sort of golden ruff around the neck, and their ears were tufted with the same color. Red eyes scanned the ground hungrily, and stiletto-sharp teeth gnashed as vulpine heads twisted back and forth.
“Okay, not your normal bat. But I think we can outrun them.” He started pulling off his t-shirt, but a gasp from Carol made him freeze. Cresting the dunes in front of them were hundreds of snarling jaguars and pumas. A jamboree of that size was pretty much impossible in the real world, Johnny knew. It was probably held together by the enormous black puma that stood alone at the top of the nearest dune. Its size rivaled that of Xolotl, perhaps even dwarfing the hellhound. It tilted its sleek, massive head back and roared. The sound was unbearably beautiful to Johnny. His tonal surged within him.
