“Ghosts are hungry,” he said simply. “Repeat with me: I shall hold on to your hand and I will not look into their eyes.”
Casiopea thought she had no business holding any man’s hand for an extended length of time, but then, she didn’t like the word “hungry” paired with “ghosts.”
“I’ll hold on to your hand and I will not look into their eyes,” she muttered, and she laced her fingers with his, feeling a little bold, but he did not complain.
Hun-Kamé spoke a few words. It was the same unknown language he’d spoken at the crossroads, only now she wasn’t even sure it was a language. Just a sound, a hum.
The temperature plummeted and she felt goose bumps on her arms. It was not the same cold that they’d experienced in Veracruz. That had been like touching hail, while this was the cold of things that are long dead and rot in the sour earth.
Nothing else happened at first. Then she noticed that the shadows in the room had grown somewhat…darker. Light was streaming in from outside, beneath the curtains, and yet everything was grayer, the shadows like pools of ink. Then they shivered, the shadows, they stretched down the floor, growing larger, changing their shape. And they rose. They became solid. Yet they were not solid: it was as if someone had punched holes in the room and where something should have been there was darkness.
The shadows resembled people. They had arms, a torso, a head. They moved, darting across the room, ruffling the curtains, whispering among themselves.
In the middle of the room, the hair burned very bright, too bright, its glow the remaining source of illumination now because the shadows dominated everything, not a single stray ray of light creeping in from the outside. An endless darkness and the shadow people standing in front of them, very close, the dim fire revealing that they had no features, their faces were smooth as pebbles.
Hun-Kamé had told her to hold his hand, but instead she squeezed it tight. The room’s expensive furniture, the massive bed, the oil paintings on the walls, they all had faded. What was left was merely darkness. She was not even sure if there was a floor beneath their feet. Hun-Kamé alone anchored her in place.
“You called for us,” one of the shadow persons said, though none of them had a mouth.
“I thank you for attending me. I am Hun-Kamé, Lord of Xibalba, who searches for his stolen essence. Somewhere in this city a piece of myself has been hidden. Do you know where it might be?”
“Answers have a price.”
“Rest assured, it shall be paid,” Hun-Kamé said and tossed strands of her long hair, which he held in his free hand, at them.
The shadows gurgled and scrabbled, snatching bits of hair and eating them. They did have mouths, after all, and long, gray tongues, which rolled out onto the floor, and they had eyes that glowed blue-green, slits of color floating in the dark. Casiopea felt her body turn into iron, and now she didn’t only hold the death god’s hand, she shifted very close to him.
“This is nothing, these are scraps,” one of the shadows said.
“Careful,” Hun-Kamé said, “mind your words. I am kind now, but I could be harsher and wring the truth from you.”
“Refuse and filth, bits and pieces and nothing whole,” the shadow said. “Give us fresh meat and bones instead. Give usher.”
All the blue-green eyes turned toward Casiopea in unison, and they were fearsome, and one of them held her gaze.
Had she been able to distinguish their faces, even if they looked like rotten corpses, she might not have been so scared. But in the dark the shadows had the outlines of childhood monsters and they held her in their thrall, their blue-green glow making her think of evil dreams. They smelled bad, too, sickly-sweet; the aroma of wilted flowers.
She raised her hands to cover her mouth, fearing she’d scream, and when her fingers touched her lips she realized she had let go of Hun-Kamé. She looked around, trying to hold on to him, but he was gone. The room was gone. The fire was dying away. There were only the dark pillars that shuffled closer and closer to her, their glowing eyes growing more vivid, their tongues brushing the floor.
“Oh, her heart, we’ll chew it twice and then spit it and chew it again,” one of the shadows said.
“And the marrow, the marrow too. We’ll drink from her veins,” replied another.
A tongue snaked in Casiopea’s direction, brushing her foot, and she gasped and stepped away from it, but the circle of shadows grew tighter, they closed in around her like a noose. North and south and east and west. They were everywhere.
She pressed her hands against her mouth again, panicked, and for one moment she suspected the god had intended to leave her with these things all along. That it had been a ruse and she was to be their meal. But there was the bone shard in her finger. He wouldn’t.
The shadows were so close, and their putrescence made her want to gag. They opened their mouths, and their breath curled out, cold and humid and blue-green, making her wince.
If only she’d held on to his hand!
“And…and not looked into their eyes,” she whispered.
But she was looking! She realized then that she had not stopped looking at that one shadow that had caught her gaze. She drew a deep breath and closed her eyes, and felt her body sway, and there was the grip of hands on her shoulders.
“Casiopea, look at me,” a voice said.
“No,” she replied, her eyes closed tight.
