Starfields by Carolyn Marsden Page B

the sacrificers, the strife makers, traitors, and tempters to chaos.
    Quetzal Serpent appears before me. Writhing, with his plumes fluttering, he extends his clawed hand. He invites me to journey down the juncture’s other side.
    Instead of a void, I find a dominion of green cornfields, stalks climbing toward the skies. Here the people, children of the light, begotten in light, smile. The very clouds rise from the mountains singing. The sun, moon, and stars truly appear. Everything on the face of the earth has its dawn.
    Like the Hero Twins, these people have defeated the gods of the Underworld. They have done battle with One Death and Seven Death, with Hun Came and Vicub Came. They have gone into Xibalba and they have triumphed.
    To take the way toward abundance and harmony, this, then, the girl must do. She must declare her name before Xibalba.

R osalba waded into the shallows, wetting the hem of her skirt. Today Alicia would go home, flowing away like this river. And she, Rosalba, would be unmoved, like one of these pale-yellow river stones.
    Mama and the other women already squatted by the river, pounding clothes against flat stones, scrubbing them until the white cloth sparkled. Pants and blouses, shawls and woolen tunics, rippled across the grass and shrubs, drying in the warm sun.
    Rosalba returned to the bank and took up a shirt to wash. Just as she plunged it into the cool water, she heard a clatter of rocks on the path above. She looked up to see Antonio and Roberto descending the trail, followed by Alicia. In their khaki clothes, they almost blended with the forest.
    Rosalba stood, the ball of wet cloth in her hands. Alicia had obviously come to say good-bye — she’d promised she’d find a way — but why had the men accompanied her?
    “Greetings!” Antonio called out, lifting a hand.
    The women stared. Mama and Tía Sandra rose to their feet.
    Alicia scrambled down the last bit of trail and crossed the sandy shore. She greeted Rosalba with a kiss on each cheek, then took her hand.
    Rosalba squeezed Alicia’s fingers hard, as if she could hold her here.
    “As you know,” Antonio began, his voice rising over the sound of the rushing water, “a road is being built from the main highway.”
    A few women nodded.
    “If the road is cut all the way to your village, it will change the environment forever. With vehicles coming in, you’ll have pollution. Your children will breathe dirty air. Already the road building has dumped soil downriver, interrupting the flow.”
    The women stopped washing as the
señor
talked. They listened with respect. But Rosalba guessed they were remembering the days of the Zapatistas when they’d been in conflict with
ladinos
like these. Surely, they were concerned. But they didn’t want to hear this news from Antonio and Robert.
    “Your sacred peak will be degraded,” declared Roberto. “You could sign a petition. . . . I can give you some phone numbers of people in Mexico City. . . .”
    No one spoke.
    At the scientists’ camp, the tents had been folded neatly on the backs of donkeys. The donkeys were owned by Martín Xicay, who was busy making sure that the loads were securely fastened. Even the plastic boxes of frogs had been tied on, a thin rope looped through the handles.
    The clearing, once full of activity, was barren.
    When Antonio gave the word, the group followed the donkeys, accompanied by the metallic clattering of pots and pans and the softer sounds of plastic boxes knocking against each other. As if the day were a happy one, white butterflies danced back and forth in grass grown high with the rains.
    At the edges of the sky, clouds formed like the wool of sheep at shearing time.
    When they approached the bulldozer, still growling its way through the brush, Rosalba couldn’t bear to look. She hurried along, ignoring the driver and the other man hacking at the bushes.
    “Your
papi
and Roberto didn’t change the women’s minds,” she said to Alicia when