Dustin Thomason - 12.21

She nestled her head in the crook of his arm. Stanton felt the weight of her on him and the touch of her skin on his.

“Maybe Victor was right,” she said. “Maybe all we can do now is run.”

STANTON WOKE WITH A START and pulled out the gun. Something was trampling wet leaves just on the other side of the wall. Chel was already crouched by the back wall, listening. There was a high-pitched noise, something squeaking in the rain.

Chel made out a voice speaking in Qu’iche. “Let the evil winds out, Hunab Ku.”

“What’s going on?” Stanton asked.

“My name is Chel Manu,” she called back in Qu’iche. “I am from Kiaqix. My father was Alvar. I have a doctor here. He can help if you are sick.”

A tiny old woman with hair to her waist appeared in the doorway.

She wore thick eyeglasses over her wide nose.

Stanton lowered the gun. Thunder groaned in the distance, and the woman stepped toward them, looking like she might tip over.

“Are evil winds in this house?” she called out in Qu’iche.

“We are not sick. We are here to find where the sickness has come from. I’m Chel Manu, daughter of Alvar. Are you sick?”

“You came by the sky?” the woman asked.

“Yes. Are your people sick?” Chel repeated.

“I am not cursed.”

Chel glanced at Stanton, who pointed at his own eyes. Her glasses must have saved her. The same thing that might have saved both of their lives back in L.A. a week ago.

“When did you come here?” the woman asked.

Chel told her they’d arrived in Kiaqix about five hours ago.

“Ask her if there’s anyone else alive in the village,” said Stanton.

“Fifteen or twenty are in the houses still standing,” the woman replied. “Mostly on the outskirts. There are more hiding in the jungle, waiting for the evil winds to blow away.”,

“When did this begin?” Chel asked the old woman.

“Twenty suns ago. You are really Chel Manu?”

“Yes.”

“What was your mother’s name?”

“My mother is Ha’ana,” Chel said. “You know her?”

“Of course,” she said. “I am Yanala. You and I met many years ago.”

“Yanala Nenam?” Chel said. “Daughter of Muram the great weaver.”

“Yes.”

“Is there anyone from my family who is alive?”

“One of your aunts is among the few survivors,” Yanala said. “Initia the elder. She might have come and found you herself, but she does not walk easily. Come.”

THEY TRAILED THE old woman down a series of side roads and across milpas. When they turned in to a clearing toward a set of houses nestled on a hillock, Chel was struck by her one and only childhood memory of this place. For a moment, she was a little girl again, bouncing on her father’s shoulders as he carried her down the causeway.

But now there was no one trading cornmeal, no music coming from the houses. There was only silence.

They approached the entrance to a small log-built house with a strong thatch roof, still intact. The woman led them into a room stuffed with aging wooden furniture, hammocks, and an indoor clothesline. A stack of tortillas was baking on top of a hearth with large stones, filling the room with the smell of corn.

Yanala disappeared into a back area of the house. A minute later a door swung open, and an even older woman emerged. She had long silver hair braided into a crown above her head, and she wore a purple and green huipil draped with a dozen strands of colored beads. Chel recognized Initia immediately.

Without a word, the woman walked slowly toward them, leaning on the furniture. “Chel?”

“Yes, Aunt,” she said in Qu’iche. “And I’ve brought a doctor from America.”

Initia stepped into the light, and her eyes became visible. Both her irises were covered in a milky white film. Cataracts, Chel realized. They’d probably saved her from VFI.

“I can’t believe you are here, child.”

“You’re not sick, Aunt?” Chel asked as they embraced. “You can sleep?”

“Much as one can at my age,” Initia said. She motioned for them to sit around a small wooden table. “It has been so long since you have come, and here you are, of all times. How is this possible?”

Initia listened in disbelief as Chel described the events in L.A., from Volcy’s arrival on.

“You’ve been in the causeways, you’ve seen the village center, so surely you understand what the evil winds have brought to us too,” Initia said when Chel finished.

“Ask her who was the first person here to get sick,” Stanton said.

“Malcin Hanoma,” Initia said after Chel translated.

“Who is that?” Chel asked.

“Volcy had no blood brothers, so Malcin Hanoma, son of Malam and Chela’a, was his planting partner. They went off in search of these treasures from the lost city together. Volcy never returned, but Malcin did. He was injured, and with him he brought the curse upon us, the wrath of the ancestors.”

“How quickly did it spread?”

“Malcin’s family was the first to be taken. Their children became sleepless, as did the entire family who shared a home with him. Punishment came from the gods, and within only days the winds spread faster and faster.”

Chel closed her eyes, envisioning the destruction that followed. How quickly had her people turned on one another? How long had it taken for the people of Kiaqix to devolve? To tear down the church, burn the school, and loot the hospital?

“So many terrible things have happened here, Aunt.”

Initia pushed herself up and motioned for them to follow her out a back entrance. “But not only terrible things. Come.”

THEY TRAILED HER to a dwelling directly behind the house, the door of which was covered with stacks of palm leaves. Together they pulled away the fronds and created an opening.

“Do not let the winds in,” Initia called behind her.

Chel stared in disbelief as they stepped inside. Swaddled in colored hammocks draped from the ceiling, were at least a dozen babies. Some were crying softly. Others lay still with their eyes open, silent. Some slept, their tiny chests rising and falling.

Yanala attended to several at a time; Initia joined her, coddling a little girl who wouldn’t stop crying while spooning liquid corn into another’s mouth. Initia placed a baby boy in Stanton’s arms, then handed a little girl to Chel. The girl was small, with patches of hair across the crown of her head, a wide nose, and dark-brown eyes that darted around the room, never quite catching Chel in her sights.

“A baby must be shown closeness with its mother, sleep in the hammock with her, and take from her breast when it’s hungry,” Initia said. “They have grown disconnected because they have been denied their mothers.”

“Where did you find them, Aunt?”

“I knew which houses recently had births, for everyone comes together to celebrate a new life. Yanala and I went in search of survivors. Some were hidden beneath palm fronds, and others were left in the open.”

Chel glanced at Stanton. “How long will they be immune?”

“Six months or so,” he said, cradling the boy. “Until their optic nerves mature.”

“That is Sama,” Yanala said as Chel rocked her little girl back and forth.

The name was somehow familiar. “Sama?”

“Daughter of Volcy and Janotha.”

“She’s their daughter? Volcy’s daughter?”

“The only one of the family to survive.”

Astonished, Chel looked at the child. Her eyes were open and wet. This was the daughter Volcy had desperately longed to see as he lay dying in a strange land.

“Do you see what this is, child?” Initia asked.