Dustin Thomason - 12.21

Dr. Stanton appeared to be studying her. She noticed that the doctor’s glasses were crooked and felt an unaccountable urge to fix them. He was at least a foot taller than she was, and she had to crane her neck to gaze at him.

“I need you to get him to dig as deep as he can,” Stanton said.

“I’ll do my best.”

“Did he say what he’s doing here? Did he come looking for work?”

“No,” she lied. “He didn’t say. He was fading in and out by the end and not really answering my questions.”

“People with this kind of insomnia can wax and wane by the minute. Let’s try it another way.”

Inside the room, Volcy now lay with his eyes closed, his breathing hard and labored. Chel was afraid of how he would react when he saw her, and for a split second she considered telling Stanton the truth—coming clean about the codex and Volcy’s connection to it.

But she didn’t. She was too worried about ICE or the Getty finding out. She was too afraid of losing everything she’d worked for and the codex at the same time.

“We’ve learned from Alzheimer’s that patients with this kind of brain damage sometimes respond better to questions if there are triggers,” Stanton said. “The key is to go one step at a time and lead them from question to question.”

Volcy opened his eyes and looked at Stanton before turning his gaze to Chel. When they locked stares, she waited for his hostility to surface.

Nothing.

“Start with his name,” Stanton said.

“We know his name.”

“Exactly. Tell him: Your name is Volcy.”

Chel turned to the patient. “At, Volcy ri’ ab’i’.”

When Volcy said nothing, she repeated it again. “At, Volcy ri’ ab’i’.”

“In, Volcy ri nub’i’,” he said finally. My name is Volcy. There was no hostility in his voice. It was as if he’d forgotten about their Fraternidad exchange.

“He understood,” Chel whispered.

“Now ask him: Did your parents call you Volcy?”

“ My parents called me Daring One.”

“Keep going,” Stanton said. “Ask him why.”

So she went on, and with each back-and-forth, Chel was amazed at how Volcy’s eyes became clearer, more focused.

“Why did they call you Daring One?”

“Because I always dared to do what no boy would.”

“What was it no other boy would dare to do?”

“Go into the jungle as fearlessly as I did.”

“When you fearlessly went into the jungle as a boy, how did you survive?”

“I survived by the will of the gods.”

“The gods protected you in the jungle when you were a boy?”

“Until I offended them as a man, they protected me.”

“What happened when they stopped protecting you as a man?”

“In the jungle they would not let me pass to the other side.”

“The other side, into the dream state?”

“They would not let my soul rest or gather strength in the spirit world.”

Chel stopped the back-and-forth. She wanted to make sure she’d heard right, and she leaned in closer. “Volcy. You were unable to pass into the dream state since you were in the jungle? Since you got the ancient book?”

He nodded.

“What’s going on?” Stanton asked.

Chel ignored him. She had to know the answer. “Where was the temple in the jungle?” she asked Volcy.

But he had gone silent again.

Stanton sounded impatient. “Why’d he stop talking? What’d you say?”

“He said he first got sick in the jungle,” Chel said.

“Why was he in the jungle? Is that where he’s from?”

“No.” Chel paused only a beat. “He was there to do a kind of meditation. He says that during this ritual was when he first had insomnia.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“I’m sure.”

What did it matter if she lied about why he was in the jungle? Whether he was there to get the book or to meditate, either way he’d gotten sick.

“Then he left the jungle and came north?” Stanton asked.

“That’s what it sounds like.”

“Why did he come across the border?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Would there be cattle ranches near the jungle where he was… meditating?”

“I don’t know what part of the Petén we’re talking about,” Chel said truthfully. “But there are cattle ranches everywhere in the highlands.”

“What would he have been eating during this jungle ritual?” Stanton asked.

“Whatever he could trap or find.”

“So he’s camping, living in the jungle or on the outskirts of one of these cattle ranches. He’s there for weeks, and he has to eat something. So maybe he decides to kill one of the cows.”

“I guess that’s possible.”

Stanton told her to keep pursuing this line of inquiry, continuing with his word-linking technique. Which she did, steering clear of any discussion of why Volcy was in the jungle in the first place.

“Did you eat the meat of a cow in the jungle?”

“There was no cow meat to eat.”

“Did you eat the meat of a chicken in the jungle?”

“What chickens are found in the wild?”

“Wild deer are found in the jungle. Did you eat the meat of a deer?”

“I have never cooked the meat of a deer on my hearth.”

“When you were in the wild, did you bring a stone hearth to cook on?”

“We cooked only tortillas on the hearth.”

“Was this hearth used to prepare meat back in your village?”

“ Chuyum-thul would not allow meat on the hearth. I am Chuyum-thul, who presides over the jungle from the sky, who has guided my human form since birth.”

Chuyum-thul was a hawk and must be Volcy’s spirit animal, which Chel knew he would have been assigned by the village shaman. A man’s wayob was a symbol of who he was: The brave man, like a king, was a jaguar; the funny man, a howler monkey; the slow man, a turtle. For both their ancerstors and the modern Maya, a man’s name and his wayob could be used interchangeably, exactly as Volcy was now doing.

“I am Pape, the tiger-stripe butterfl y,” Chel said. “My human form honors my wayob form daily. Chuyum-thul knows you have shown him reverence, if you have followed his guidance about what to prepare on your hearth.”

“I have followed his guidance for twelve moons,” Volcy said, his eyes softening again when he saw she understood. “He has shown me the souls of the animals of the jungle and how he watches over them. He told me how no human shall destroy them.”

Stanton cut in. “What is he saying?”

Again Chel ignored him. She had earned back Volcy’s trust, and she needed answers of her own before he faded away again.

“Was it the hawk who led you to the great temple, to the place where you could provide for your family?” she asked. “For Janotha and Sama?”

Slowly he nodded.

“How far from the village was this temple Chuyum-thul led you to?”

“Three days’ walk.”

“In which direction?”

He didn’t answer.

“Please, you must tell me in which direction you went three days’ walk.”

But Volcy had shut down again.

Frustrated, Chel shifted gears. “You followed the guidance of Chuyum-thul for twelve moons? What was his guidance?”

“He commanded I subsist for twelve moons, that he would give me guidance to bring splendor to the village,” Volcy said. “Then he led me to the temple.”

When she heard the words, Chel was confused. Subsist for twelve moons?

How could that be?

Subsistence was a practice that went back to the ancients, in which shamans would retreat to their caves to commune with the gods and survive on only water and a few fruits for months at a time.