Empire of Shadows (Raiders of the Arcana #1)

Twenty-Two

Ellie woke to the sound of giggles. She rolled over in her hammock to see Lupe and Itza’s dark heads bent together beside her as the two girls whispered conspiratorially. As the pair noticed that Ellie’s eyes were open, they brightened and chattered to her cheerfully in Mopan.

Lupe and Itza were two of Feliciana’s several granddaughters. The girls lived with their mother and father in the smaller of the two houses on Feliciana’s plot. Ellie guessed that Lupe was around fourteen, with Itza perhaps two years younger.

She had slept very comfortably in their house, and upon waking, was feeling more refreshed than she had in quite a while. Perhaps that was simply due to the good food and lack of mosquitoes—but it was also true that Ellie didn’t recall having any dreams the night before.

The absence of any nighttime visitations was a surprise. Ellie’s dreams had come so regularly since she had arrived in the colony that she had grown to expect them.

As she sat up, Ellie’s gaze fell on the painting of a saint, which was mounted on the wall across from her hammock. The figure was clothed in robes like those of the Holy Virgin—but instead of the Virgin’s placid face, the layers of fabric framed an elegant white skull.

The small, framed card tugged at Ellie strangely. By all rights, the image should have seemed a bit gruesome, but instead, it felt oddly benevolent—as though an old friend had been watching over her as she slept.

A little shelf in front of the icon held a offerings of flowers and cigarettes. Ellie put her limited Spanish to use to try to ask about it.

“?Quién es ella?” she asked.

Lupe and Itza offered her a quick explanation in Mopan, and then remembered that Ellie couldn’t understand it. After a glance at each other, they attempted a bit of Spanish.

“Santa Muerte,” Lupe said.

Ellie managed to translate the words—Saint Death.

“Santa Muerte,” she echoed.

The girls smiled with approval.

As she washed up at the basin that the two young women had brought her, Ellie thought back to the rest of her evening in the village. After being separated from Adam, she had been shuttled into the kitchen, where Feliciana’s daughter Cruzita and the girls had been busy pressing out tortillas.

Feliciana had deposited Ellie there, pointing her to a stool in the corner, and then left. Ellie had managed to sit quietly and watch the other women work for about five minutes before—with a great deal of hand waving and pointing—she convinced them to give her a try at patting out the little circles of maize.

Her abject failures had resulted in a general hilarity.

After the men had been fed, the women took over the table for a leisurely and social meal. Feliciana had rejoined them. She had towed along the skinny ten-year-old Ellie had seen yesterday by the milpa. He turned out to be Héctor, another of Feliciana’s grandsons. Feliciana plopped him down on the ground beside Ellie’s stool and charged with translating.

Héctor had been learning both English and Spanish from the priest, Kuyoc. Though his skills were still a bit rough, they were sufficient to allow the women of the household to mercilessly interrogate Ellie.

They had been very curious to know the nature of her relationship with Adam. Was he her husband? Her brother? Her lover? (The latter query had been delivered only after a great deal of protesting by Héctor and another outburst of laughter from the women.)

“We are colleagues,” Ellie had asserted neatly.

The women had made a smattering response to that in Mopan.

“They say that is too bad for you,” Héctor had automatically translated, and then immediately turned pink with a blush.

After dinner, Feliciana had rolled herself narrow cigarettes while she reclined in a low slung hammock. The other women took out their spinning and weaving. The projects were simply a way to keep their hands busy as they continued gossiping.

Impertinent questions aside, it had been a lovely evening. Ellie had even been treated to the local version of a hot chocolate—a piping hot, bitter concoction generously spiced with chili.

It was possible she had consumed three cups of it.

Lupe and Itza waved at Ellie from their doorway as she crossed the garden. Back at Feliciana’s house, she found Adam waiting outside beside Padre Kuyoc. Her traveling companion already had his rucksack and the Wincester slung over his shoulders.

Feliciana stood regally in the doorway.

Ellie mustered up a bit of Spanish as she approached the older woman.

“Adios, na’chiin,” she said. She tried to infuse the awkward words with as much significance as she could. “Gracias por todos.”

“De nada, mija.” Feliciana’s voice was warm with a hint of genuine affection.

Apparently, Ellie’s failed attempts at making tortillas and her indulgence of the women’s gossip the night before had earned her a little approval from the matriarch.

“And did you enjoy your stay with us?” Kuyoc prompted.

“Very much so,” Ellie returned. “The village is beautiful, and you have a wonderful community here. I’m very grateful to you for sharing it with us.”

“Did it live up to what you read in your books?” the priest pressed as his eyes twinkled mischievously.

Ellie’s cheeks flushed a little.

“I should say that the books were rather incomplete,” she carefully returned.

“That is not surprising,” Kuyoc replied. “I am sure they were written by self-important Englishmen.”

“American men, actually,” Ellie blurted in response—not that it sounded much better.

“Americans, English… Do not feel too bad about it,” the priest easily assured her. “They write all of the books.”

Ellie narrowed her eyes.

“That is something I hope to change, Padre Kuyoc,” she asserted sharply.

The priest cocked an eyebrow.

“You think it will all be better if Englishwomen also write books?” he challenged.

“Oh boy…” Adam muttered from beside her.

Ellie ignored him, meeting the priest’s eyes.

“I think it will be better when the purview of academic knowledge is open to the entire globe instead of just a single class and gender in a tiny corner of it,” she declared firmly.

“Probably,” Kuyoc agreed with a playful shrug. “And who knows? Maybe we will even see it.”

“I certainly mean to, Padre,” Ellie returned forcefully.

Kuyoc gave her a quietly considering gaze.

“I wish you well in that endeavor,” he finally said. “God be with you both.”

With much waving and a great deal of shouted Mopan from Feliciana’s horde of grandchildren, Ellie and Adam made their way back down the road through the village.

“The padre said if we’re heading to the river, we should follow this trail for the next two miles—then cut west and make our way overland,” Adam explained as they left the cheerful clusters of houses behind and followed a pale track into the dense green of the forest. “And Cruzita packed this full of tamales before she sent us off.”

He patted his rucksack, obviously pleased by the idea.

“Won’t that mean extra weight?” Ellie pointed out.

“Worth it,” Adam declared.

The day was still early. The air wasn’t yet as thick and humid as it would become by midday. Well-fed and rested, Ellie found the pace comfortable as Adam wove them through the bush, occasionally consulting his compass.

“Were you able to learn anything about our city?” Ellie asked.

“Just that the padre thinks it’s a cursed realm full of the hungry spirits of the damned,” Adam replied as he shouldered though a stand of wild plantains.

Ellie stopped short.

“Sorry—what?”

Adam flashed her a grin.

“Didn’t take you for the type to get spooked by a few ghost stories,” he challenged.

Ellie frowned at him.

“I am hardly one to indulge in gross superstition,” she countered. “But there are times when local folklore can reveal clues about lost portions of the oral historical record.”

“He said there are monsters that bite people’s skulls,” Adam cheerfully elaborated.

“Wonderful,” Ellie grumbled crossly. “What did you think of the old fellow, anyway?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s a revolutionary,” Adam replied with a swing of his machete.

“He did seem to be a tad iconoclastic,” Ellie acknowledged.

“No—I mean a literal revolutionary,” Adam corrected her. “The kind that revolts against things.”

Ellie felt a distinct burst of alarm.

“Is that why he has dynamite?” she demanded nervously.

“You mean the stuff in that shack on the hill?” Adam replied. “Naw, he said that was for stumps.”

“And you believe him?” Ellie pressed.

“Have you ever tried to pull a stump out by hand?” Adam countered. “Ain’t gonna happen. Dynamite makes way more sense.”

“I didn’t realize it was in regular circulation,” Ellie noted.

“It’s not,” Adam returned. “They probably stole it from somewhere, or else it’s old stuff the loggers won’t use anymore. Honestly, I kinda hope they did steal it. Dynamite gets damned tricky if you leave it lying around for too long.”

“If by ‘tricky’ you mean ‘highly unstable and prone to spontaneous combustion,’” Ellie returned uneasily.

“Well, now you know why they built a special shed for it,” Adam concluded.

She followed him under a veil of low hanging vines.

“Is he still at it, do you think?” she asked.

“Who?”

“The priest,” she clarified.

“Blowing up stumps?”

“Revolutionizing,” Ellie retorted a little impatiently.

“Pretty sure he’s retired.” Adam held a thick veil of brush back for her. “But I think he got tangled up in something dangerous in his old village. The alcalde there was trying to make peace with the British, but I’m wondering if maybe Kuyoc had other ideas. It’d explain why he never went back.”

“How very interesting,” Ellie mused, her mind already whirring. “I wonder how he ended up in Santa Dolores, of all places?”

She paused as a less comfortable thought occurred to her.

“It wasn’t on your map, was it?” she asked.

Adam came to a halt in the path ahead of her.

“What wasn’t?” he said.

“Santa Dolores,” Ellie replied.

Adam leaned his arm against a tree. His shoulders slumped a little tiredly.

“No. It wasn’t,” he confirmed.

“Are you going to add it?” Ellie quietly demanded.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Do you think I should?”

Ellie was surprised by the genuineness of the question.

“I… Well,” She struggled to find the right response. “If the village was on your map, I imagine it would mean more trade. Better communication with the other settlements. It might make it easier for the people there to resupply when things run short.”

“None of that’s wrong,” Adam carefully allowed.

“But…” Ellie continued hesitantly. “I can’t help but feel…”

Her words trailed off.

“Feel what?” Adam prompted gently.

“It just reminds me of the cave,” she burst out. “And how you said that you stopped putting the new Mayan sites you found on the map because everything always ended up being looted. I think… I think I’m afraid if you share Santa Dolores with the world, there is a very good chance that the world won’t appreciate what it has to offer.”

“Or that they’ll appreciate it too much,” Adam added grimly.

Silence lingered for a moment as they considered each other across the close, green space of the forest.

“What will you do?” Ellie finally pressed.

“I didn’t come out here to draw any maps,” Adam concluded bluntly.

He pushed back from the tree he’d been leaning against. His tanned face cracked into a grin.

“Besides, you’ve got the only pencil,” he pointed out.

“I do not!” Ellie protested. “It’s in your rucksack.”

“Yeah, but it’s yours,” Adam easily countered.

“I took it off your desk,” Ellie reminded him.

“Stolen fair and square,” Adam agreed.

He tossed up the machete. Ellie watched the blade spin, glinting, through the air until the grip landed neatly back in his palm.

“What if I lent the pencil to you?” she offered.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure you need it for stuff,” Adam lightly returned.

He hopped up onto an enormous fallen tree that blocked their way forward. Pausing at the top, he turned back to offer her his machete-free hand.

“It’s slippery,” he warned.

His shirt was stained with dirt and his face was rough with four days’ worth of stubble. The gesture still made Ellie think of stories of knights errant rescuing maidens.

Slaying dragons, she thought distantly.

She wondered what sort of dragons a man like Adam Bates might be called to slay.

His hand was still extended. Ellie grasped it and let him lead her into what came next.