And she was right, it wasn’t. A short time later, they came around a bend in the trail and there stood the crumbling ruins of the temple. Just beyond it was the single-story structure from where the bats had blasted in fire-hose fashion.
Upon arriving, Angélica suggested they pause to drink some water and unpack the tools they’d each brought along to record the details about the ancient structures and explore the area more thoroughly. Thankfully, the insects were behaving themselves for the time being.
Bronko and Raul didn’t wait long before leaving to check the perimeter for venomous snakes or any other potentially dangerous animals. With all of the fruit decaying on the ground, Raul was concerned about this place being almost as big of a draw for local wildlife as theaguada. Bronko just didn’t want any snakes sneaking up on them while they worked.
Quint started to work on clearing away the ferns and vines and branches hiding the carvings around the entryway of what he was now calling the “bat-cave,” while Esteban watched and waited with his charcoal and rice paper in hand. His job today was to make more detailed rubbings of each section of the entrance so that they could lay the papers out on the table back in the mess tent later to try to make sense of the carvings.
Meanwhile, Angélica’s dad and Daisy would circle the collapsing, larger temple, tasked with looking for a possible entrance that might have caved in sometime during the last few centuries—or been walled in by looters for later plundering. Daisy asked to borrow Quint’s camera, and after some basic instructions on how to point and shoot, they’d gone to work.
Angélica wanted to wait for everyone to return before exploring inside the single-story structure. She’d head in with her dad and Quint first, and if all was fine and there was space for more bodies, she’d have Daisy join them. If they needed to clear out any rubble or debris, Bronko and Raul—and hopefully KuTu if he arrived—would be called in, too.
Normally, an initial search and inspection mission would be done by only her and her father, plus maybe one other, like Fernando. But with this site’s unknown history and her mother’s warnings the other night, Angélica was using more caution and crewat each step in the reveal process.
While she waited, she hacked away some of the vegetation around the side of the single-story ruin, wanting an idea of the outer dimensions. The underbrush grew more dense with every step, along with the population of ticks. Several strangler figs with their arm-like roots trailing down were slowly trying to wrap the structure in their wooden web. Anywhere there was a crack in the stone walls where a windblown spore could settle and sprout, tufts of ferns poked out.
Angélica stopped slashing through the vegetation and paused to stare up at the structure. She tried to picture it long ago, back before the jungle began devouring it, removing any evidence of man’s touch from the landscape.
“Dr. García!” Esteban called out. Something in his tone made her breath catch.
She headed back, brushing off ticks along the way. When Angélica rounded the front of the ruin, she came upon Esteban and Quint frowning up at the longer stone that bridged the top of the entrance. Without the ferns and brambles covering it, the carving there was visible through the layer of greenish black lichens.
Was that … She climbed the steps to take a closer look. The dank smell of stale dirt wafted out from inside the ruin’s entrance.
“Is that what I think it is?” she asked, staring up at the carving of an anthropomorphic sun with a skeleton-like face in the center. Sunken eye sockets surrounded the protruding eyeballs. An upside-down heart indicated the nose cavity, and rectangular teeth lined the upper and lower jaws. Curled designs surrounded the top of the skull with thorny points sticking out in place of the sun’s rays.
“I believe so,” Quint said, not sounding any happier than she was to have come across this symbol.
“Esthe missing college girl’s tattoo, no?” Esteban’s brow was scrunched. “Kinich Ahau.The sun god.”
“A version of him, maybe,” Angélica said, reaching up to touch the stone. It felt cool under her palm, the buildup of lichens making it scratchy.
“Was she ever found?” Esteban asked.
“I don’t think so.” Angélica exchanged a somber look with Quint.
Nor would she ever be.
The “girl” in question, Gertrude, had been working with them as a grad student intern at the last site. Only they’d come to find out she was not really a student, but more a guard, watching for trouble of the supernatural sort. Gertrude had glommed onto Quint during a ceremony to rid the place of a growing menace and then tried to use him as bait to save the crew from what she’d believed was certain death. In the end, she’d been the one who’d fallen. As far as everyone other than Quint and Angélica knew, including the authorities, the grad student had gone missing. She was simply another non-local who’d either stolen Maya treasure and ran off with the goods, or she’d become lost and possibly killed. It was well accepted that death happened in the jungle now and then, especially to tourists who roamed off the beaten path.
“That is sad.” Esteban shook his head. “She was kind.” He pointed his piece of charcoal at the skeletal sun. “But why wouldKinich Ahaube here? You think she visited this place before she came to work at the last dig?”
“Maybe,” Angélica said. It was certainly a possibility. Other than Gertrude’s tattoo, this was the first time she’d seen that image at a Maya site.
Quint sighed sharply and left, heading over to the path.
Angélica thought about following him, but decided to take a closer look at the rubbing Esteban had been working on of the carving next to the opening that had been hidden before. She held up the paper, focusing on the negative space in addition to the actual raised portion of the carving.
No way.
She lowered the paper and stared at the actual stone.
But maybe so.
“You have a flashlight handy?” she asked Esteban.
He shuffled around in his pack and then pulled one out.
She clicked it on and angled the beam over the surface, trying to gain a clearer picture by studying the contours of the carving with the use of shadows. Unfortunately, it was too bright out for her flashlight trick. She needed to try it in the dark.
