Gods of Jade and Shadow(7)

In the blink of an eye all the bones clicked into place, like pieces in a puzzle. In another instant the bones became muscle, grew sinews. In a third blink of the eye they were covered in smooth skin. Faster than Casiopea could take a breath or a step back, there stood a tall, naked man before her. His hair was the blue-black of a sleek bird, reaching his shoulders, his skin bronzed, the nose prominent, the face proud. He seemed a warrior-king, the sort of man who could exist only in myth.

Unnaturally beautiful the stranger was—this was beauty sketched from smoke and dreams, translated into fallible flesh—but his dark gaze was made of flint. It sliced her to the core, sliced with such force she pressed a hand against her chest, fearing he’d cut through bone and marrow, to the very center of her heart. There was a song the girls of her town sometimes sang; it went “Now there, mother, I’ve found a man, now there, mother, I’ll dance along the road with him, now there I’ll kiss his lips.” Casiopea did not sing it because, unlike the girls who smiled knowingly, who smiled thinking of a specific young man they’d like to kiss or whom they’d kissed already, Casiopea knew few names of boys. She thought of that song then, like a pious person might have thought of a prayer when caught in a moment of turmoil.

Casiopea stared at the man.

“You stand before the Supreme Lord of Xibalba,” the stranger said. His voice had the chill of the night. “Long have I been kept a prisoner, and you are responsible for my freedom.”

Casiopea could not string words together. He had said he was a Lord of Xibalba. A god of death in the room. Impossible and yet, undeniably, true. She did not pause to question her sanity, to think she might be hallucinating. She accepted him as real and solid. She could see him, and she knew she was not mad or prone to flights of fancy, so she trusted her eyes. Her preoccupation was, then, very simple. She had no idea how to address a divine creature and bowed her head clumsily. Should she speak a greeting? But how to make her tongue produce the right sounds, to pull a breath of air into her lungs?

“It was my treacherous brother, Vucub-Kamé, who tricked and imprisoned me,” he said, and she was grateful for his voice, since she’d lost her own. “From me he took my left eye, ear, and index finger, as well as my jade necklace.”

As he spoke and raised his hand, she realized he was indeed missing the body parts he had mentioned. His appearance was so striking one could not notice the absence at first. Only when it was highlighted did it become obvious.

“The owner of this abode assisted my brother, enabling his plan,” he said.

“My grandfather? I doubt—”

He stared at her. Casiopea did not utter another word. It appeared she was meant to listen. So much for thinking of proper greetings or feeling poorly about her clumsy silence. Her teeth clacked together as she closed her mouth.

“I find it fitting that you have opened the chest, then. A proper circle. Fetch me clothes; we will journey to the White City,” he said. It was a tone she was accustomed to, the tone of a man directing his servant. The familiarity of such a command managed to rouse her from her confusion, and this time she delivered a whole sentence, however stilted.

“Mérida? We, meaning the two of us…you want both of us to go to Mérida.”

“I dislike repeating myself.”

“Pardon me, I do not see why I should go,” she said.

The retort came unbidden. This was how she got in trouble with Martín or her grandfather. A scowl here, an angry gesture there. She could control herself most of the time, but after a while dissatisfaction would boil in her belly and escape, like steam from a kettle. It never failed. However, she had not talked back to a god. She wondered if she might be struck by lightning, devoured by maggots, turned to dust.

The god approached her and caught her wrist with his hand, raising it and making her hold her palm up, outstretched.

“I shall explain something to you,” he said as he touched her thumb. She winced when he did, a nerve plucked. “Here lodges a shard of bone, a tiny part of me. Your blood awoke and reconstituted me. Even now it provides nourishment. Every moment that passes, that nourishment, that life, flows out of you and into me. You will be drained entirely, it shall kill you, unless I pull the bone out.”

“Then you should remove it,” she said, immediately alarmed, and forgot to add a proper “please” to the sentence. This was probably the minimum expected of a mortal.

The god shook his head majestically. You’d have thought he was decked in malachite and gold, not naked in the middle of the room. “I cannot, for I am not whole. My left eye, ear, and index finger, and the jade necklace. These I must have in order to be myself again. Until then, this shard remains in you, and you must remain at my side, or perish.”

He released her hand. Casiopea looked at the hand, rubbing the thumb, then back up at him.

“Fetch me clothes,” he said. “Be swift about it.”

She could have complained, wailed, resisted, but this would have merely been a waste of time. Besides, there was the bone shard in her hand, and who knew if her fear of death by maggots might have some truth to it. Assist him she must. Casiopea tightened her jaw. She threw the doors of her grandfather’s armoire open and scooped out trousers, a jacket, a striped shirt. Not the latest fashion, though the shirt’s detachable white collar was brand new. Death, thin and lanky, went the refrain, and the god was indeed slim and tall, meaning the clothes would not fit him properly, but it was not as if she could ask a tailor to stop by the house.