Starfields by Carolyn Marsden

valley.
    “See that woman over there?” Rosalba said. “No one likes her because she does folk paintings.”
    “Why?”
    “Only men are supposed to paint.”
    “In Mexico City, lots of women paint.”
    “In our culture, men are supposed to do their things and women theirs.”
    “Is that why she’s sitting alone?”
    “She doesn’t fit in,” Rosalba explained.
    As a light drizzle began, people started to pack up.
    Rosalba stood and brushed off her skirt, saying, “The Earthlord has had enough of the festival. He’s asking everyone to leave his mountain.”
    She noticed that Catarina remained seated, her shawl pulled over her head. She wondered if she felt lonely on this feast day when everyone was celebrating together.
    “Stay here,” Rosalba said to Alicia, then took a square of candied watermelon squash from her plate. With only one dish of the sugary treats, not everyone had gotten some.
    She walked hesitantly down the green slope. When she reached Catarina, she touched her lightly on the shoulder.
    Catarina started, but on looking up, she smiled.
    “Would you like this?” Rosalba held out the candy.
    Catarina gave a quick laugh, then lifted her open palm. “Of course. How thoughtful of you.”

For what feels like many passages of the Long Count, I lie still in our dark cave. My bones cannot hold me. They are ground like fine cornmeal. Sometimes I sink through the blanket, passing through the floor of the cave and into the Underworld.
    Mauruch brings me nourishing liquids, whispering, “I am sorry, Xunko. I didn’t know. . . .”
    My return was not guaranteed. I almost did not come back from the great Underworld of the night sky.
    I want to see nothing. I want to sleep and forget all that I have witnessed. But, as if my eyes were still bandaged, behind them I see the codices. Codex after codex foretelling death, destruction, chaos, annihilation, obliteration. . . .
    My fellow shamans increase their rituals, bleeding themselves, chanting, begging the gods for the lives of all Mayans. For the life of the earth itself. “O Heart of Sky! O Youngest Thunderbolt and Sudden Thunderbolt!”
    The shamans burn offerings. They eat only the fruits of
zapotes, matasanos,
and
jocotes.
They deprive themselves of corn, the food of life. They lift their faces to the sky, pleading before the gods.
    Do they beg for my life, too?
    No one comes to me for blood.
    I meet One Death and Seven Death. I meet them both and sometimes do not know if I survive on this earth or have already drifted to Xibalba. Perhaps I have been sacrificed after all.
    I instruct the ants to bring me flowers from the garden of One Death and Seven Death. These I offer back to them, hoping to appease those who would steal me.
    One night during the chanting, a vision of a young girl appears to me. Her braids are looped close to her ears. She wears the traditional
huipil
of those who live in the jungle after the empire’s fall.
    But around her I see animals that shine with the brilliance of gold. They have round feet that roll, traveling quickly down wide black pathways. I see gleaming animals — or are they temples? — moving through the sky.
    This girl is not of my time. Nor of any I have foreseen.
    She lives close to the end of the Fifth Sun. The calendar year of 13.0.0.0.0 fast approaches.
    Perhaps that is why her face is sad. Why she is worried. She is alone. I am sad with her, worried with her, alone with her. Her flesh is my flesh, her blood my own.
    Keeping this vision a secret from Mauruch, I gather my strength. I must become more than I have ever been.

T hat night a strange dream came to Rosalba. A boy, just a little older than Mateo, appeared before her. His cheeks were painted with blue stripes. A heavy shell necklace encircled his throat. Pointed bones dangled from his earlobes.
    He squinted at her as if the light hurt his eyes. And then he passed a hand over his forehead — the hand shaking — and disappeared.
    All morning