“Did your mom draw a picture of this glyph?”
“No.” She reached over and brushed a leafcutter ant off Quint’s sleeve. “There were also a few published papers she found that had local shaman anecdotes about a mystical place hidden deep in the jungle. A hallowed site where only kings and shamans were allowed.The stories end with a warning that anyone else who trespassed would be at the mercy of gods of the Underworld.”
“Meaning they’d be sacrificed?”
“More like terrorized by supernatural beings for the rest of their lives. One account told of a man from a village a couple of days’ walk south of Calakmul who went into the forest to hunt deer and didn’t come home that night or the next. His wife and family went looking for him, but due to heavy downpours, they had to turn back. When he finally stumbled into the village two weeks later, his hair was completely white and he spoke mostly gibberish mixed with cries and shrieks.”
Quint cringed. “Was he able to tell what had happened?”
“A little. He talked of a beautiful woman who’d promised to lead him to a herd of well-fattened deer. But she’d been anXtabay.”
“Ahhh. So, he fell for the hot female demon with the come-hither-big-boy curves and heart-stopping hugs, who shakes her money maker in the fields and forest at night while waiting for some lonely, sorry sucker to tease to death.”
She chortled at his take on the myth of the Maya femme fatale. “I do love the way you can paint a picture with words, Mr. Big-time Photojournalist.”
“Oh, yeah?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “You want me to throw together a few sonnets about your leaf-filled hair, sweaty skin, and big sexy brain? I could serenade you later from inside my bugless tent.”
“As much as I love a good, romantic crooning, the lack of a cold beer is a mood-killer.”
“Shucks. I’ll have to save my romancing for when we get back home.” He swatted at a fly circling them, trying to find a landing place. “So, did theXtabayturn the hunter’s hair white with her killer embrace?”
“No, but she drugged him with magical flower pollen and dragged him deep into the jungle.”
“Damn. She must have been a strong demon.”
“Have you ever met a wimpy one?”
“Not yet, but this trip isn’t over.”
She continued the story from her mother’s notes. “TheXtabayleft him lying inside a tall wall in what he described as an old, emptyvillage.”
“A walled village? Sounds sort of European in the Middle Ages. Did the Maya believe in time traveling?”
“No. The hunter called it a hole to the Underworld.”
“A hole to Hell. Creepy.”
“He described altars made of human skulls and walls of human bones. He told of a dwarf trickster known asaluxcalling up Underworld demons to come take him, of gruesome creatures with long claws and spiked tails climbing their way out from a sunken temple, of growls and snarls that terrified him to tears. Somehow, he managed to scale one of the walls and flee back into the jungle. From there, he backtracked via the trail left by theXtabaydragging his body and eventually found his way home. While he escaped the demons, he suffered for the rest of his life from grisly visions filled with nightmarish gods that haunted him every time he closed his eyes.”
“Shit. Do you think that story holds any truth?” At her shrug, he cringed. “I have some nightmare visions of my own after the last site you dragged me to, Dr.Xtabay.”
“Dragged?” She backhanded his shoulder. “You flew in on your own and refused to leave even after I strongly suggested you go back home.”
“As if you could get rid of me so easily, boss lady.” He caught her hand and squeezed it lightly before dropping it. “That tale about the lost hunter reminds me of a curse. You know, a ‘stay away from this treacherous place or die’ kind of dealio.”
“The hunter lives at the end of the story, and now you’re starting to sound like my father.”
“Great minds think alike.”
“Yeah yeah yeah.” She rolled up her map and stuffed it back in her pack. “Truth be told, though, Teodoro claimed to have heard that several Maya people and many outsiders have gone looking for this place and never returned.”
He scoffed. “And you’re telling me this now? Standing on the threshold of a mythical hole to Hell?”
She waved him off. “It’s hearsay, that’s all.”
“Teodoro heard this scuttlebutt from whom?”
“You’re not going to cite him in your article about this place, are you?”
