Jungle Crossing by Sydney Salter

into the Otherworld?
    Like an answer to her question, Snake emerged from a crude hut and tossed a few cold tortillas at the girls. Nearby, his men sat around a small fire, drinking from gourds and laughing. Snake ordered one of his men to guard the trade goods while the other men disappeared inside the hut. Muluc pillowed her head against a bolt of fabric, wishing that she had the strength to attempt an escape. Maybe after a bit of rest. The other girl slept with her head on Muluc's shoulder. In her state of half sleep, Muluc could hear the men bragging about their trades, while others played a game of chance. She fell asleep to the rhythm of the stones hitting the dirt.
    ***
T HE D AY 4 I X
    Night and Sacrifice
    Birds called to each other as the sky brightened to blue. For a brief moment Muluc felt as if she were back at Cobá. But when she opened her eyes, she found herself surrounded by baskets and bundles. The girl next to her started crying again.
    Muluc whispered, "Be strong."
    "I want my mother," the girl sobbed.
    "She will find you," Muluc said.
    "She died trying to save me." The girl wailed like a howler monkey.
    Muluc gulped down her own sob.
    The guard came and kicked the girl. "Quiet!"
    Snake passed a gourd of thin corn gruel around, first to the men, then the girls. Muluc drank until a man snatched the gourd from her lips; she needed strength to escape. The other girl refused to eat. Did she want to die, like her mother? Small and frail, she looked as if the spirits had stopped protecting her. Muluc hadn't seen anyone killed at Cobá while she was being carried away by her captors, but she had heard the screams. Was that crying infant her brother? The shrieking woman her mother? Muluc shook the memory away, like a dog shakes off water.
    All day, in spite of stifling heat, Muluc and the traders trudged through villages and thirsty fields. When the sun began to tilt in the sky so that it shined into their eyes, Muluc saw large stone buildings through the spaces where the jungle had been cleared for planting. The temples burned the color of blood in the descending sun.
    Muluc stopped, alert, as if she were standing in front of a mother jaguar. One of Snake's men shoved her, so she stumbled forward, but her heart beat faster with each step she took toward the red city. Surely someone in the city would help her return to Cobá!
    Panic tightened Muluc's chest like vines strangling a garden—she dropped her bundle and ran, feet pounding the road so hard that her whole body vibrated. Her breath came in gasps. But she ran and ran. She heard shouts and laughter behind her, but she didn't dare turn around to look. The city still seemed so far away. After several more steps, a sharp pain pinched her waist. She paused, gulping air. A bit of vomit burned in her throat. Then the gruel came pouring out of her mouth, sloshing around her feet.
    Snake clasped her wrist, like an eagle snatching a fish from the lake, digging his nails into her flesh. His men laughed and jeered.
    "I should smash your skull," Snake hissed, crushing her wrist in his rough hand until she whimpered with pain. "Foolish girl. No one there is going to help you."
    Muluc simply stared into his dark, cold eyes.

    As they neared the city, the pat-pat-pat of tortilla making filled the air and the smells from cooking fires wafted across the road. Muluc's stomach tightened, pain pinched her temples, and thirst scratched her throat. One foot, then the other—she did not want to faint again.
    Just as the sun dropped below the trees in the distance and the Great Star began to shine in the sky, the caravan reached the vast plaza of Chichén. Muluc stared at the four-sided temple with steps going up each side. Though shorter than some of the temples at Cobá, it squatted solidly in the center of everything. Massive red and yellow stone snakes slithered down one stairway to rest their heads on the plaza.
    Snake, the warrior, kneeled and pierced his lip,