by A. T. Grant
For an instant David was drawn to the pool. His insides felt strange, as though he was being wrenched in two or a part of himself replaced. He grew dizzy and he wanted to be sick. He realised he could barely see. Head in both hands, he gave it a vigorous shake and forced himself to focus. He started to walk. Not the way Laura and he had come, but further on, around the rim of the volcano. It was the wrong way, he knew, but something was guiding him on, something stronger than his concern for all he was leaving behind.
The section of the ridge David now traversed was much clearer and he made rapid progress. As he stopped to get his bearings and stared out beyond the hollow, green island he could make out a group of far off canoes. They looked old-fashioned to the point of antiquity. The paddlers were bare-chested and seemed to sport feathered head-dresses. Someone, perhaps, was waving. But at that distance, David couldn’t be sure.
Alfredo looked up at Laura. Adrenaline and her all-consuming physical presence made him so happy he could barely feel his injuries. It was as if he’d woken from the nightmare world of his birth. He reached out and stroked the tears from her cheeks. His broad grin revealed another mouthful of blood.
Laura’s head had cleared in a way it hadn’t since her mother had died. A thick fog of anger and confusion had parted. Her wounds were forgotten. Everything would be alright now. The two of them could be together. She felt the force of his erect penis brushing against her thigh: a death throw suddenly granted new life. Her hand moved instinctively upon it. She cast the gore-sodden rag in her other hand aside. Alfredo was not going away. Each grasped instinctively for the other, and at the fresh start offered to them both.
David had reached the tallest and steepest part of the crater wall. He had to climb hard up loose and dangerous pumice ridges to gain the summit. Nobody had walked here for a long time - it felt like never. Rocks tumbled as he dislodged them, but nothing seemed to disturb the chalice waters below. The new sun touched the highest peak. David was upon it and absorbing the radiant glow. He could feel the strength of this different day coursing through his veins. He started to run the downward slope, leaping over obstacles like an athlete, totally sure of his footing.
Alfredo grasped the open collar of Laura’s deeply stained shirt, ripped it open and plunged his hands down her cleavage and onto the soft cool wall of her belly. Laura sighed and moved closer upon him, trapping his arms just where she wanted them. Pleasure and pain were one and the same. Slowly she began to move her body up and down over his. Little by little she made her way upward, pecking at his neck, nibbling at his ear then spreading kisses across his forehead. His fingers had found the fragile rim of her knickers and moved within. She could feel their gentle probing motion from her womb, from the core of her being, but she needed him to move still lower.
David’s progress had slowed. At the bottom of the slope he had plunged below the reach of the sun, and into thick jungle. The view beyond the island disappeared in a layer of mist. Phantoms of fog loitered around the trees. He clambered over wet roots and dead branches covered in fungi, parting the thick tresses of moss which hung, like intricate green cobwebs, from every horizontal branch. He came to a halt, aware that he was in danger of getting lost. The ridge had flattened out, there was no horizon, and it was less clear which way to go. He caught a glimpse of rapid movement from left to right. It could have been a bird - perhaps just its shadow - or a soul that maybe he was meant to follow.
Alfredo’s fingers were inside her. They seemed to dissolve into the profoundest parts of her being. Laura closed her eyes. She bit her lower lip. Reaching blindly for the wall, she pushed herself upright then thrust deeply down. She screamed, but no sound issued from her mouth. Alfredo finally withdrew and his hands reached up and felt for the small of her back. Her bra slipped along her arms and tumbled to the mud and blood-stained floor. Her hands were cradling his neck, pulling him forward. He could not help but grimace as his wounds tried to consume him, but he kept coming, burying his battered face between her breasts, feeling with his lips and tongue for the taught peaks of her nipples.
It was raining heavily. There were dense rumbles of thunder and crashes of lightning. David kept falling over. He was cold and he wanted to stop. Paths headed off the ridge in all directions: a confusion of animal trails trying to lead him astray. In his mind he saw carvings in the trees, totems and dream-catchers hanging from the branches. He felt a bolt of fire course though him. Instantly, all were new - freshly carved, decorated and painted - probably recently blessed. People whispered: or was it just the ringing in his ears. Their voices hung behind tree trunks and bushes, critical voices trying to destroy his resolve. A confusion of ritual and incense weaved between the leaves. David put his head down and staggered determinedly on.
Laura pushed Alfredo to the floor again, sensing his growing weakness, supporting his head so it didn’t smash against the tiles. She pinned him there with her thighs and unfastened his belt. She savoured the steady pull of his zip, parted the material and released the fullness of his manhood. She rubbed her crotch along his leg, sighed as she crossed his knee, licked at the instrument of pleasure and kissed gently around the tip. As it slipped between her lips she felt Alfredo’s instinctive upward motion. She wanted to bite, just a little, but listened instead to his soothing voice as he garbled to himself in an ecstasy of Spanish.
There was the rock. David recognised it straight away. And there was the downward path that led to the ruined harbour. He had completed the circuit. The pathway looked cleaner than he remembered it, the vegetation freshly cut. He reached down for the machete which Laura had rested there, but it was gone. Perhaps he was wrong. He looked around, but there were no other stones in view. He checked behind the nearest trees - still nothing. David sat, exhausted, on the boulder. A pool of dampness spread across his buttocks. Standing, he examined the mossy surface then ripped away a thick, sodden layer. Something small and cylindrical found his fingers. He held it up and began to pick it clean. Short sections of gold shone between cloying lumps of soil. Blinking, he rubbed it again then held the ring to the light to be sure. As his fingers closed around it he could feel its weight and purpose. Wrapping it carefully in a handkerchief, he secured the tiny bundle in a trouser pocket then walked instinctively on.
Laura could wait no longer. She was upon him, surrounding him, burying him deep within her. Alfredo was calling her name, over and over, but the appeals were becoming weaker, fading to nothing, leading her away. She wanted so much to follow, to leave behind the pain, but she must hurry. David might find help, might lead Marcus to the chamber and return her to a world she had already relinquished. They mustn’t hear her, mustn’t reach her before she was gone. She drifted back to Alfredo, gave in to the moment and floated away on the outgoing tide.
Alfredo and she were dead. Laura sensed the coming crescendo, the rolling wave that would never retreat. Then there was the face of a woman - one that had emerged through the bubbles of her hot tub - and had smoked at the entrance to Muyil. Ix-Chel cast her ancient, welcoming, motherly smile. It grew to encompass the world. There were no voices anymore, no people, no petty dramas, no time - only the fusion of she and he - another secret consciousness of the lake, staring up at David, unseen, from deep below.
David could hear Marcus calling his name. The voice was so familiar that for a moment he forgot that everything had changed. He was almost back at the platform. As he emerged from the trees into the midday sun, others looked up from their sandwiches and squinted in his direction. Marcus was clearly not happy. He berated David for wandering off without warning - it was lucky they had realised he must be walking around the rim. Anything could have happened to him. He may have put other people in danger.
David shrugged his shoulders. He no longer cared. He had done what needed to be done and now all was well. He wondered where Luis and Alfredo might be - if they even still existed.
Carlos struggled to his feet, l
evering himself upright using his son’s shoulder, and tossed David a spare packed lunch. Cesar squealed at his father in mock discomfort then hailed a greeting in Spanish, to which David responded with newfound fluency. There was a girl amongst the familiar group whom David didn’t know - a tall and leggy blond, who was pouring drinks from a thermos flask for some of the other tourists. David grew weary and suddenly sad. He sank onto a convenient patch of bare volcanic soil. Laura he would really miss.
Hannah and Lloyd were laughing over a game of cards with Dana. Dana - David couldn’t help but smile as he noticed her. Newly aware of his presence, she looked up and returned the smile. Then her expression gently unfolded. Her eyes were drawn away from him. She stared in growing wonder towards the lake, and she knew. She just knew. She reached for her belly and sensed the new life within her. A jaguar roared. Some looked up in panic and surprise, but the circle was complete.
David felt again the reassuring weight of the ring in his pocket. Instinctively, he knew full well to whom it had belonged. He drew it out, intent on sharing his discovery with the children. For the first time he noticed the ornamentation along its length. One section stood proud: the head of a snake, consuming its own tail. David’s eyes were drawn from the ring to the serpentine rim of the crater - then to the distant peak that marked the farthest side. He followed the curves of the hillside. He checked for the details of eye and mouth, perhaps eroded a little by time, but still unmistakeably hewn into the opposite slope. He smiled a knowing smile: the ring and volcano were in unison. He cast his eyes downward once more. The Ouroboros had changed. A gap now separated Quetzalcoatl’s head and tail. A new cycle had begun. The snake had grown restless and opened up a different trail. Tonight, David mused, the stars might light a different path for the jaguar and he to follow.
Soon he could return to Phoebe. The ring would find a new home.
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