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Bacal met them at the door, all smiles when Nachancán gave her the deer’s liver and stomach. Nic’s heart sank at the thought of what his next few meals might include. Nachancán motioned for him to follow him to the back of the hut. Standing by the cistern, his host stripped off his loincloth without ceremony and began to pour gourd-fulls of water over himself, scrubbing his body vigorously with a loofah. Nic looked around self-consciously—the area was deserted—then took off his own clothes, filthy and caked with mud, and abandoned himself to the pleasure of cool water running over his skin. When he was clean, he looked for his clothes, but found that Bacal had picked them up and was standing behind him, holding out a long strip of cloth embroidered on both ends with turquoise quetzales and yellow and white frangipani flowers. Blushing to the roots of his hair, he tried to cover his nakedness, but neither of his hosts seemed bothered, so he took the cloth and clumsily wrapped it around himself. His embarrassment increased with each unsuccessful attempt. Nachancán laughed, took the loincloth and expertly wrapped it around Nic’s waist, leaving the two ends hanging down, one in front and one in back.

Bacal was holding Nic’s filthy cargo shorts up, feeling the weave of the cotton and fingering the brass rivets and snaps admiringly. When she saw the zipper, her eyes widened.

“Look!” she said to Nachancán, who was putting on his own loincloth. He took the shorts and pulled the tab of the zipper up and down, looked at his wife in amazement and then at Nic.

“What is this?” he asked.

Nic said, “It’s to make them easier to put on and take off.” In a moment of inspiration, he asked Nachancán, “Do you want to try them on?”

Nachancán’s face lost its usual remote expression and registered the eagerness of a ten-year-old on Christmas morning. He took off his loincloth and pulled on the dirty shorts while Bacal watched, his face breaking into a smile as he zipped and unzipped the fly. Nic took the T-shirt from Bacal and handed it to Nachancán.

“Here, you can have them. We’ll trade.” He pointed to the loincloth he now wore. Nachancán nodded, smiling. I’ve made an ally, Nic thought with satisfaction.

Nachancán was exploring the pockets of the shorts. Too late, Nic remembered his mini i-Pod in the side pocket. Nachancán pulled it out and he and his wife examined the white plastic case, touching and smelling it before turning to Nic with perplexed expressions. Nic took it, put one of the ear pieces against Nachancán’s ear and the other against Bacal’s, and dialed up a Mayan folk song.

The effect was comical. Nachancán jumped back as if stung, tripping over a clay pot behind him and falling hard on the packed earth. Bacal gasped, dropped the earpiece and stared at Nic, her eyes wide. Nachancán stood up and brushed himself off, but kept his distance from Nic and his eyes on the ground.

“Are you a high priest?” he asked.

“I’m not a priest.”

“Where did you get this magic box?”

“I don’t remember,” Nic couldn’t recall if he had bought it at Target or Best Buy.

Nachancán looked at him closely. “What is it for?”

“It’s to listen to music,” Nic began, then stopped at the incomprehension on their faces. The concept of listening to music for personal pleasure might be harder for them to grasp than the nuts and bolts of electronics. He held the iPod out to Nachancán.

Without touching it, his host regarded the device.

“We will take this magic to the High Priest for use in the ceremonies.”

Nic assented. He didn’t think he could refuse, and maybe it would gain  him some points with the high priest.

“Tomorrow, at the baptism.”

Chapter 12

The next morning Bacal woke Nic later than the previous day. She and Nachancán were already dressed, he in a more ornately embroidered loincloth than before, with a large mantle thrown over his shoulders, and his wife in a beautifully worked tunic which reached to her knees. Both wore buckskin sandals. Nic rolled up his bedroll and put it in the corner next to the others, then adjusted his own loincloth. Bacal, who had left the room, returned with a pair of sandals and an embroidered mantle for him. Nic put them on, thinking it was a good thing he and Nachancán were the same size. He accepted a gourd of atole from Bacal and drank it quickly when he saw that both his hosts had already breakfasted.

They left the house. The sun had cleared the horizon and Nic calculated it must be at least eight o’clock. He felt rested and alert as he walked behind Nachancán and Bacal, who were laughing and talking in low voices.

Other families joined them as they made their way through the group of huts. All seemed to be in a festive mood and called out to each other as they walked. Children shouted and darted among the adults. After a few minutes, they reached a house where all halted, talking among themselves. Nic edged his way to the front of the group. He saw a large cleared area which had been swept and scattered with sweet-smelling leaves. After a while, a man came from behind the house, shepherding four boys ranging in age from three or four to ten or so onto the cleared patio and stood them in a line. From the other direction, four girls of approximately the same ages were led onto the patio. All the boys had small white discs tied into their hair at the crown, while the girls wore thin cords fastened low around their waists with shells which hung from them and covered their pubic area. Nic was fascinated. He had read about baptism among the early Mayas and now he was witnessing it.

The children remained in two lines in the center of the cleared area, as four older men with gray braids wrapped around their heads emerged from the house, each carrying a rough-hewn wooden bench which they placed in the four corners of the patio. One took a long cord and strung it from bench to bench, enclosing the area.

“Who are those men?” Nic asked Bacal, who had come to stand beside him.

“They are the chacs. They assist the high priest in the purification.”

Two of the men now sat down on their benches, while the other two went into the house. One emerged a moment later with a fifth bench, which he placed in the middle of the patio. The fourth man brought a brazier and placed it next to the bench. He returned to the house and came out again with a clay dish containing a ground substance. Nic caught a whiff of incense as the man walked by him. He placed the dish at one end of the bench and squatted next to the brazier, fanning the coals it contained with a paddle of woven straw. When the fire flared up, both men took their seats on the benches in the corners.

Six couples came forward from the crowd and stepped over the cords the chacs had strung between the wooden benches. They stood by the children and Nic realized they must be their parents by the way the smaller ones began to cry and lifted up their arms to their mothers, who shushed them.

The crowd fell silent. Into the stillness stepped a man with a hawklike countenance whom Nic recognized as the High Priest from when he had arrived. Determined not to make the same mistake he had the first day, Nic glanced around the crowd. The men were all looking respectfully at the priest, while the women kept their eyes down.

Assuming what he hoped was a deferential expression, Nic studied the High Priest. He appeared to be about thirty-five years old. His elongated forehead sloped sharply back, ending in a patch of black hair cut short at the top. Like the other men, the rest of his hair was in a long braid which he wore wound around his head. He wore several sets of earrings made from gold, bone and feathers. His cheeks and most of his upper body were tattooed like Nachancán’s and today, in honor of the occasion, Nic supposed, dyed a deep red. His clothing consisted of an elaborately embroidered mantle and loincloth, with tiny, brightly-colored feathers woven into the design.

The priest raised his arm and looked around the crowd. For a brief moment his gaze rested on Nic, who lowered his eyes. Even seen through twenty-first century secular eyes, the priest commanded respect, with his haughty, impenetrable gaze and regal carriage. The Mayans seemed to revere him as a god.

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Nic sat down a few feet from the two men. Nachancán brought him a few rolled-up tortillas stuffed with turkey and his gourd of atole, then retreated to where Ixchel’s father was sitting. Nic looked up at Ixchel and patted the ground next to him. She blushed and looked at her father, who nodded, indicating she should sit. Trying to put her at ease, Nic offered her a taco, but she looked even more flustered and shook her head. She sat down, keeping her distance from him.

“Hi,” Nic said. She didn’t reply. “I know a girl who looks like you.” He smiled and she acknowledged him with a shy smile of her own.

Now what do I say, thought Nic. Aloud, he said, “Why can’t you marry?”

She blushed redder than before, looked down and whispered something. He leaned closer, under the watchful eye of her father.

“Excuse me?”

“I will not marry because I will be honored at the full moon,” she said.

“That’s wonderful! How—” he began, then realized what she meant. The words died in his throat and he looked at her in horror. Ixchel lifted her eyes to meet his and her lower lip trembled. She looked so much like a young Itzel that his eyes filled with tears.

“I won’t let that happen to you,” he blurted out before he could stop himself.

She looked at him, confused. “It is a great honor,” she repeated.

Ixchel’s father came over to them and said, “It is enough.” The other women and girls had gathered up their gourds and clay pots and were standing at the edge of the jungle. Without another word, Ixchel stood and went to join them. They disappeared into the greenery. Nic got to his feet as well and said to Nachancán,

“Are we going to continue sowing?”

His host smiled, revealing pointed teeth studded with jade.

“No, now we hunt.”

Nic could sense the men’s excitement as they gathered round. Some carried short lances tipped with sharpened flint arrows, while others had quivers of arrows slung across their backs and bows which they now strung. Nachancán handed Nic a blowpipe with a long dart inside it. As Nic took it gingerly the men closest to him laughed. Great, he thought. Now they’ll  think I’m a wimp as well as crazy. He had always been opposed to hunting and cruelty to animals, and he steeled himself for what the next few hours would bring. He reminded himself that this was not hunting for sport, that wild animals formed a staple part of the Mayans’ diet. Even so, the excited anticipation he saw in the faces of the men around him made him queasy.

They entered the jungle. In silence, the men fanned out. Nic stayed close behind Nachancán. Despite his tension, he soon became absorbed in the colors and textures that surrounded him. The jungle was teeming with life. Snakes as green as emeralds wreathed around branches while columns of large black ants marched up tree trunks and jewel-like frogs peered out from the crooks of trees. The air was heavy with the scent of flowering trees, and multi-hued birds of all sizes flitted through the low green canopy. Nic glimpsed a wild turkey in one tree, and two quetzales in another, their long blue tail-feathers hanging down. The men apparently had bigger game in mind, though, because they ignored the birds and advanced silently through the trees, ducking their heads to avoid low-hanging vines. Nic tried to be as quiet as they were, but the twigs breaking under his feet earned him looks of exasperation from the men closest to him.

Suddenly, at a signal imperceptible to Nic, Nachancán stiffened. With the same stealth that had impressed Nic the day before, he reached over his shoulder and drew an arrow from his quiver. Through the trees Nic could see the other men crouched in similar positions, readying their weapons. He peered through the jungle twilight, but couldn’t tell what they were watching. There was a moment of absolute silence, even the birds and insects stilled, then a blur of brown through the green of the trees. Arrows flashed through the air and the deer fell. Yelling in triumph, the Mayans ran forward. Nic lagged behind, using the back of his hand to wipe the tears from his eyes. That’s all I need, he thought, for these macho men to see me crying like a girl.

By the time he reached the deer, the men had used the sharp flint knives strapped to their waists to slit it open and cut off its head. As Nic watched, they hung the deer’s head, stomach and liver from the branch of the nearest tree, then sat in a circle around the carcass and began to sing a prayer. Nic sat too, but couldn’t follow the words. His mind felt slow and clumsy, unable to process the sensory overload, the smells, the blood and the chanting. He tried to summon up a memory from his own life, something comforting and familiar to balance the foreignness of this culture, but the knowledge that he might never be able to return to that life blotted out all other thought.

The other men paid no attention to him as they continued with their prayers. Flies gathered on the hanging entrails and the disemboweled deer. Nic felt sick, but tried to clear his head and focus. He had to find the amulet before the next full moon, if he was to have any chance of going home.

His thoughts returned to Itzel, as always, and then to the girl he had just met, Ixchel. The two had to be related—the resemblance was too strong. Was it a coincidence that she was to be sacrificed at the full moon? He remembered the day José had come to him in despair and told him his theory about Itzel’s hereditary illness. A female ancestor was supposed to be sacrificed, and that sacrifice was never carried out, so the gods were angry. . . he refused to believe it. It was one thing to believe in magic and psychic connections and another to believe that a group of wrathful gods was bent on wreaking vengeance on one family down through time. He shook his head. There had to be another explanation.

He must find a way to talk further to Ixchel. Maybe she would know something about the amulet. Maybe she even had it, if she was to be. . . sacrificed. Even the word made him flinch. He had to save her somehow—he couldn’t allow an innocent young girl to go to her death, cultural differences or no cultural differences.

The chanting continued. Some of the men stood up and begun to dance around the bloody carcass. No one took any notice of Nic, seated quietly beside Nachancán. Maybe he could slip away and look for Ixchel? He decided against it. Better not to draw attention to himself.

Another thought occurred to him. If Itzel and Malinali still had the amulet, wouldn’t that mean that the sacrifice hadn’t taken place? Nic had to admit that part of José’s theory made sense, even if he didn’t believe the angry gods explanation. If Ixchel was Itzel’s ancestor, he wouldn’t have to do anything to keep her from being sacrificed—something else would happen to thwart it. On the other hand, maybe Ixchel had nothing to do with Malinali’s family. He felt paralyzed with indecision.

The men had finished their prayers and were getting ready to leave. Nachancán took the entrails from the tree while others knelt and with their flint knives carved up the carcass into large chunks which they put into mesh bags. Nic stood around feeling uncomfortable. Finally they all set out for home.

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Chapter 11

Nic’s hopes of finding out more about the amulet were disappointed when Nachancán unfurled his bedroll right after dinner. He watched as his uncommunicative host lay down next to the fire, covering himself with a light blanket. Then he picked up the two bowls and spoons and took them to the kitchen where Bacal was eating her own bowl of beans. She looked surprised as he entered the kitchen. Nic sighed. It was hard learning how to behave in new cultures.

Feeling suddenly weary, he went back into the other room and sat down. Thoughts about Itzel he had been avoiding hit him like a flash flood. Again he wondered what she was thinking and feeling. She must be angry, and disappointed. He shook his head. He was here now, and there was nothing to do but go forward and try to make the most of it.

Though it was still early, Nachancán was fast asleep next to the dying fire. Nic stood and stretched, then tiptoed to the kitchen and peeked in. Bacal was asleep also, lying on a mat wrapped in a blanket. The plucked turkey had been cleaned as well and the carcass was hanging from a hook on the wall. Nic opened the front door and slipped outside.

The night was clear and warm. Moonlight spilled across the ground and tipped the leaves of the trees surrounding the clearing with silver. Nic pulled the wooden door to behind him and walked to the edge of the jungle. He hesitated, wondering what wild animals were on the prowl, then found a path into the trees. It was so dark inside the jungle he had to feel his way, and it was with a feeling of intense relief that he finally emerged into the Ceremonial Center. There he was transfixed again by the sight of the perfect structures he had known only as ruins. He gazed at them in the bright moonlight, trying to impress each one on his memory, wishing he had brought a camera, in case he ever got back.

With luck he would have other nights to explore the Ceremonial Center, but tonight he had a specific destination. Looking around him, Nic crossed quickly to the Great Pyramid, then walked around it, looking for the door in the base. He might find an amulet in the secret room.

After a few minutes, he realized he had reached his starting point. He circled the pyramid again, more slowly this time, scrutinizing the base. There was no door. The secret room must have been built at a later time. There seemed to be nothing more for him to do there, so with a last, lingering look at the magnificent structures bathed in silvery moonlight, he took the path back through the jungle.

**

Nic felt his shoulder being shaken, wrenching him from a dream in which he was wandering the aisles of a supermarket wondering what to buy for dinner. He rolled over and peered up through darkness to see Nachancán standing over him.

“We must go to the fields.”

Nic was going to ask what time it was, then realized the answer would probably be something like “time to go to work.” He dragged himself to his feet, his body protesting. How much later than Nachancán and Bacal had he gone to sleep last night?

He followed Nachancán into the kitchen, lit only by the glow of a small fire. Bacal, fully dressed, her glossy black hair combed back in a long braid, smiled at him. He sat down next to Nachancán and waited to be served breakfast. Bacal heated up what looked like thick tortillas on a large flat clay comal over the fire, ladled salsa onto them and rolled them up. She also served them each a hollow gourd full of a thicker version of the atole they had drunk in the fields the day before. While they ate and drank, she ripped strips of turkey off the carcass she had apparently roasted that morning, enfolded them in more tortillas, and wrapped them in an embroidered cloth. Nic’s mouth watered at the savory smells.

When they had finished eating, Bacal refilled their gourds with atole and added water. Then she wrapped them in a cloth as well. Nachancán and Nic stood and Bacal handed them the gourds and the bundle of food.

“Could I have some water?” Nic asked, feeling he couldn’t face another day in the fields with only atole to quench his thirst. Nachancán looked at him with a frown, but Bacal went through a door in the kitchen to a small lean-to attached to the back of the house where Nic could see a cistern. She dipped another hollow gourd into it and brought it back to him. He drank deeply, then handed it back to her. She refilled it and gave it to him again. Nachancán shook his head and said something Nic didn’t catch. He guessed, though, that his host wanted to get going.

“Can I take this with me?” he asked, raising the gourd with the water in it. Bacal nodded, her brown cheeks dimpling, then picked up a broom made of twigs tied together and started to sweep the kitchen. Nic noticed she had already sprinkled water on the dirt so as not to raise dust.

They stepped outside into darkness. Nic noticed the stars were still out. What time was it? He felt lost without a watch. He patted the pockets of his cargo shorts and felt something hard. Falling behind Nachancán on the path through the jungle, he unbuttoned the pocket and slipped his hand in. It was his mini iPod. Nic almost laughed out loud. What would Nachancán, or for that matter, the High Priest, think of an iPod? He sneaked a look at the backlit LCD display. 5:30 AM. Did people go to work at this hour every day? He felt even more tired.

When they arrived at the fields, the sky was lightening. After they left their lunch at the edge of the field, Nachancán handed him a stick and directed him to continue sowing corn. The work was easier today, maybe because he had water. At mid-morning they halted and drank some of their atole, then continued to work. The sun crept higher in the sky and Nic began to feel his lack of sleep. He labored on until Nachancán signalled that it was time to break for lunch.

As Nic followed his host toward the edge of the field, several women and girls emerged from the jungle, carrying food wrapped in embroidered towels. Nic squinted at them through the midday haze and one caught his eye. Itzel! His stomach lurched. It couldn’t be and yet it was. Heart pounding, he quickened his footsteps, passing Nachancán as they stepped over the furrows. When he reached the edge of the field, he saw the girl was much younger than Itzel- she couldn’t be more than twelve. He was unprepared for his acute disappointment.

He looked at her again, awed by her resemblance to Itzel. She gave him a timid smile as she passed him. He raised his hand.

“Wait!”

She looked confused. Nic was trying to figure out how to say something else when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. He turned and found himself looking into the black eyes of one of his fellow sowers, a man about ten years older than himself.

“Why do you speak to my daughter?” the man demanded. He was taller and heavier than Nachancán and had a scar under one eye.

Nic was tongue-tied. Nachancán stood next to the man, his arms folded across his chest, his expression inscrutable.

“She looks like a girl I know,” he managed, wondering what he had gotten himself into. Nachancán and the man looked at each other, then at him. Nic plunged on. “What is her name?”

The man’s expression softened and he answered, “Ixchel. What do you want with her? She cannot marry.” The girl shot a quick look in Nic’s direction from under her lowered lids. By this time the others had gathered round, the men as well as the women and girls who had brought their lunches.

“I just wanted to talk to her.”

Nachancán and the other man conferred in low voices. Then Ixchel’s father nodded at Nic.

“You talk to her, here.” With his finger he indicated a ten-foot radius around where he was standing.

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Nachancán touched him on the shoulder. Looking around, Nic saw that the other men had stopped work and were resting in the shade of the trees bordering the fields. Most of them were drinking from hollowed-out gourds painted in bright colors. When they had reached the relative coolness of the overhanging trees, Nachancán offered Nic his gourd. Nic tasted it cautiously. It was a gruel, like the atole that Nic had drunk many times with Malinali, but thinner. It didn’t have much taste, but it pacified the growling beast in his stomach.

After a short break, they returned to work. Nic was exhausted, and the cornmeal drink hadn’t quenched his thirst. The afternoon seemed to wear on forever. Finally, by some unspoken agreement, the men gathered together at the edge of the fields. They again looked Nic over with curiosity. Several asked him where he had come from, and he said he couldn’t remember. They shook their heads.

“I just woke up and found myself in the Ceremonial Center,” Nic managed. “I don’t remember anything else.”

Some of the men were talking to Nachancán. Turning to Nic, he asked if he wanted to bathe.

Did he want to bathe? Like a man lost in the desert who has glimpsed an oasis, he followed them through the jungle until they reached a clearing with a cenote that he had never seen or heard of. He wondered if it still existed in the twenty-first century. The men, who ranged in age from younger than Nic to middle-aged, stripped off their scanty clothing and leaped naked into the pool. Nic did the same. The cool water closing over his head was pure joy. He bobbed up again and saw that the others were as happy as he was- they laughed and splashed one another, roughhousing like children. Nachancán’s stern expression had been replaced by a wide smile which made him look like a young teenager. Nic scanned the vertical walls of the well until he found what he was looking for- a rivulet which seeped from a crack in the stone. He swam to the wall, pressed his mouth to the small stream and drank. Then he amused himself by diving as deep as he could and peering through the clear water, looking for the opening in the stone wall where the underground river emptied into the sinkhole. Nic had studied the structure of the cenotes in a geology class the semester before and had learned that most of them were interconnected by a vast system of underground rivers and their tributaries. The teacher had taken them on a field trip to a large cenote near Mérida where the more adventurous among them had swum into one of these underground rivers, ending up several terrifying, lung-bursting moments later in a subterranean cave where they were able to sit upright on a stone ledge above the surface of the water. The teacher had turned his powerful underwater flashlight on the walls and shown them rudimentary Mayan paintings, their brilliant colors preserved by centuries of darkness.

“We think that many years ago these caves were just under ground level, and the Mayas used them for ceremonial purposes. Some were used as tombs. Archaeologists have found mummified remains accompanied by burial offerings.”

The water was so delicious that Nic was among the last to hoist himself out of the well. The men picked up their long, lethal-looking bows and lances and the clay pots which had held their lunches, and retraced their steps through the jungle until they reached a point where Nachancán turned off onto a side path. Nic followed, lost in his own thoughts, until he almost tripped over Nachancán, who had stopped dead in the middle of the path. As Nic began to apologize, Nachancán stayed his words with a movement of his hand. Nic watched as the other man reached over his shoulder and extracted an arrow from the quiver which hung across his back. Drawing back the bow, he aimed at a tree. Nic strained his eyes, but could see nothing. He heard the zing of the arrow leaving the string, and a second later, a solid thump on the ground under the tree. Nachancán dove into the foliage and emerged a second later holding a small plump turkey by the neck. After he pulled the arrow from its breast they continued along the path in silence, Nic reflecting on life without supermarkets. Around the next bend, several thatched huts came into view, each with a small vegetable garden next to it. Looking over the low jungle beyond, Nic could just make out the top of the Great Pyramid. It was ironic, he thought, that now that he was here in the middle of Mayan history, he would have less freedom to explore the structures of the Ceremonial Center than he had a thousand years later. But he could observe the living culture and that was more important.

They arrived at one of the huts. Nachancán pushed open the wooden door and they entered. At first glance the interior of the house was similar to José’s and Malinali’s: whitewashed walls hung with weavings in Mayan themes, simple wooden furniture. The next instant, though, the differences became evident: instead of rough brick, the floors were of hard-packed earth, swept smooth. The only light came from small square openings cut into the thick mud walls.

Nic followed Nachancán into a smoke-blackened kitchen. Clay pots hung from sticks embedded in the mud walls. Bacal was kneeling on the dirt floor, using a pestle to grind seeds in a rough stone mortar. She looked up and smiled when Nachancán said a few words to her and handed her the turkey. Black beans bubbled in a clay pot sitting over a bed of hot coals in the firepit in the middle of the floor. Nic realized how hungry he was.

Nachancán turned and went into the other room, leaving him in the kitchen. Nic asked Bacal if he could help her. She laughed, showing her pointed teeth, and shook her head. She had finished grinding the seeds in the mortar and was now busy plucking the turkey, her fingers flying. The last rays of sun filtered into the dark kitchen through the small window-hole, gilding the wisps of down which drifted through the air like a warm snowfall.

He wandered into the other room. Nachancán had built a fire in the center of the room and was seated on a woven straw mat close to it, etching designs into something in the flickering light. Nic sat down next to him and asked him where he was to sleep. Nachancán pointed to another straw mat rolled up in a corner of the room. Nic peeked at what his taciturn companion was working on, and his heart thudded when he saw it was a jade amulet.

“That’s beautiful,” Nic said.

Nachancán looked at him blankly and continued carving. Nic realized that his use of the word “beautiful” in this context might not make sense in prehispanic Mayan culture. He tried again. “What do you use that for?”

The other man looked at him in incomprehension. “It is for the High Priest.”

Nic pressed. “What does he use it for?”

“It is for the offering, at the full moon. For the honored one.” Nic’s heart began to beat faster. This was certainly one of the amulets.

“May I see it?”

Now Nachancán was offended as well as unbelieving. “It is not permitted. It is very sacred. Only the high priest and I may touch it.” An expression of pride crossed his face.

Bacal entered the room with two clay bowls of steaming beans. With a smile she held them out to the two men, who took them. She went back into the kitchen and returned with two crudely fashioned wooden spoons and a pile of hot tortillas wrapped in an embroidered cotton cloth. Nic smiled to himself. At least the food was familiar. His stomach growled and he wondered what had happened to the turkey, then realized Bacal wouldn’t have had time to cook it yet.

He waited for Bacal to come back with a plate for herself, then recognized, when he saw Nachancán eating, that she would probably eat after they did, alone in the kitchen. Remembering how Malinali had done the same thing when he had moved in, until he had asked her to join them at the table, Nic marveled at how little the culture had changed in –a thousand years? Or was it more? He wondered briefly how far back in the past he was and then dug into the beans and tortillas.