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Tribute to the Sacred Waters
Chapter One
“WHAT HAPPENED IN Cancun?”
It was all Mila had been asked since she and Tomas returned from the city, only now it came from her mother. The answer, though, still hadn’t gotten any easier. What happened indeed? Mila thought. She had tried, for the hundredth time, to explain. Again, her mind failed her.
“We keep hearing about something crazy-the snakes...”
What took place on that day could not be explained simply. Words eluded her. Even a week after they got back-or fled Cancun, depending on one’s perspective-Mila could not bring herself to describe what had happened when they were there.
The day had begun innocently enough. She and Tomas got into the Jeep and drove the forty miles to the city. Tomas apologized, she accepted and by the time they arrived in Cancun, the icy silence had melted into lukewarm awkwardness. Things still weren’t quite back to how they had been but it had been just a matter of time.
At first, things had gone well. Mila bought the things her mother and father had put on the list, ordered what she had to from the suppliers and bought mangoes with chili and salt for herself and Tomas to snack on while they went to the beach.
In all the time Tomas had lived with the Alvarezes, he had never tried to go swimming and he didn’t think he knew how to swim. Still, under Mila’s gentle prodding, he agreed to let her buy him a cheap swimsuit-a scandalously scanty and electric-blue Speedo knock-off-and try to at least float on the water. Mila got changed into her bikini and they entered the blue waters, giggling nervously and holding hands, like any other teenage couple.
Mila eased Tomas into a floating position when they reached waist-high water. And then the riptide came. A powerful current suddenly rose and swept them out to sea.
It seemed to have come from nowhere-one minute they were floating in the calm blue waters, the next they were clinging to each other as the water churned around them and dragged them away from the shore. It was all Mila could do to keep Tomas’s head above water-Tomas had gone catatonic (from the shock, Mila supposed, in retrospect) as soon as they were in deep water. Mila wasn’t worried about herself-she knew what to do against a riptide. But swimming while pulling more than her own body in dead weight was almost impossible.
They were drifting fast, faster than she had thought was possible from a riptide. That just meant she had to get swimming. She shook Tomas, trying to get him to snap out of it, so that he could at least help her by floating.
He responded by getting yanked under the waves.
Mila panicked. She couldn’t see him. She was a good swimmer but diving was a different story, never mind diving in the open ocean. The whining buzz of the lifeguard’s Jet Ski approached and she waved frantically. He tossed her the buoy and told her to hang on.
“We can’t leave now!” she screamed. “My boyfriend is-” She gestured in the water.
“What?” he asked.
“He’s down there!” she sputtered. “I don’t know what happened. I was trying to get him to snap out of his shock, and he... he just sank!”
The lifeguard spoke into his radio. “She says her boyfriend sank,” he said. “I don’t know. I can’t see-” He broke off suddenly, staring into the distance.
Mila started to snap at him, “What are you doing?” until she followed his gaze.
Tomas was being borne on a raft of snakes back to the coast. He was unconscious-his body made no movement to resist or aid the movement of the huge serpents bearing him through the waters.
Mila did the only thing she could think of-she flung herself back into the water and swam after him. Behind her, she could hear the lifeguard sputtering indignantly, unable to decide whether to go after someone who was-by lifeguarding standards-clearly suicidal.
Oddly, there was no riptide now, something that disturbed her only slightly as she knifed through the waves. It would disturb her more when she attempted to tell the story again. She was going with the current now, gliding through the waters so fast it felt like flying. Her arms grew tired and her legs grew stiff but she was still going strong when she touched the bottom.
The snakes had brought Tomas to the beach, the part that was still wild and empty, but they hadn’t left him. They were writhing over him, under him and around him. Mila felt her breath catch when she saw one of the serpents coil around his chest and squeeze. She staggered onto the shore, her legs numb and weak, screaming and shouting, “Get away from him!”
A mouthful of water gushed from Tomas’s mouth. Only then did the snakes slithered away.
Mila ran up to him and collapsed by his side. “Are you all right?” The words fell out of her mouth, even as she realized he was still unconscious and that his eyes had turned up in his head, giving him a ghastly look.
She pinched his nose shut and bent over to seal his lips with hers, but then he gasped for air and bolted upright again. Mila could have died with relief right there. “I thought you were dead,” she said, happily.
He looked at her, his expression stony with rage and the chill of fear quelled the wave of indignation that rose to meet his lack of gratitude. “Tomas?” she ventured.
And that was when she realized his eyes were still rolled back in his head, so that only the whites were showing. She gasped and startled backwards, falling onto the sand.
There was shouting further up the beach. She saw two lifeguards running down the shore towards them and the one on the Jet Ski zipped to a stop at the water’s edge and got off. Mila wanted to wave them off. There was something weird going on with Tomas and she wanted to figure out what it was before she had to talk to the authorities.
But then, she turned back to Tomas and he smiled back at her, his eyes green again.
“Thank you,” he said. “Again.”
The lifeguards scolded her for swimming after him and they called out the sand buggy and gave Mila and Tomas a lift back to the resort part of the beach, where Mila bought lemonade for all of them (the lifeguards were on call for another two hours and couldn’t drink). The official report ended up saying that Tomas had been washed ashore and attacked by a snake, and that Mila scared off the snake. But even though they all agreed that this was what happened, nobody could look each other in the eye when they talked about it.
So they didn’t. Tomas claimed not to remember anything anyway, but Mila felt sure that he was lying.
That word of what happened would filter back to the village was inevitable. She had already expected that the stories would be exaggerated-that Tomas had summoned the snakes and was rescued by a mermaid, and later versions included a storm and a whirlpool. But what Mila had not anticipated was how difficult it would be to tell the truth.
Even now, she could not find the right words.
“We went swimming,” she said to her mother. “And we got swept out. Tomas got washed ashore where he was attacked by a snake. That’s all.”
Gloria, for once, was not enraged. “Oh, Mila,” she sighed.
They were making the beds for the research team who would be arriving later that day. Mila’s mind was focused on making sure the sheets were smooth and the blankets were properly tucked in, because it was only later that she was puzzled by the fact that her mother wasn’t more annoyed.
MILA ONLY HAD a passing knowledge of who Professor Faraday Williams was. He was the guy who wrote the books that Gloria bought and read. He was some expert in Mayan history or something-Mila didn’t know and after they moved to the Yucatan, she cared eve
n less. Just because he was an expert about the things that made her miserable didn’t mean she was obligated to know who he was.
On the jacket covers of the books in Gloria’s bookshelf, Professor Faraday Williams was eternally young, dressed in khakis with a surfer’s shag and a tanned, sun-wrinkled smile. A pencil was tucked behind his ear and a pair of binoculars dangled from his chest. It never occurred to Mila that this picture would be staged, hence her surprise at the small, sixty-something man wearing a tailor-made button down shirt and oxfords, who descended from the monstrous truck that roared into their driveway.
“Faraday,” he said, smiling brightly as he shook hands with everybody. He flitted, here, there, everywhere, directing his students Tim and Meredith with a quiet voice that somehow managed to convey great haste. He completely ignored Tomas, who usually took care of the unloading and luggage. “Take this to the missus of the house,” he said to Meredith, handing the student a fruit basket full of mangoes, Mila saw. As if we didn’t have enough of those, she thought. “And Tim, stay with the scuba gear until I figure out where to put it. And, oh! Before I forget,” to himself as he scrambled back into the truck. He pulled out something wrapped in a rag. “Where is Gloria?” he asked nobody and everybody. He repeated himself in Spanish and Yucatec.
That was rather impertinent, Mila thought as she smoothed her skirt and stepped into his line of view.
“Gloria?” Faraday asked, holding out the rag-wrapped bundle. “You haven’t changed a bit-”
“I’m Mila,” she said, fumbling between Spanish and English before she settled on English. “Her daughter.”
Fararday’s smile became a self-deprecating one. “Oh, silly me. Of course. Lovely to meet you. Is your mother around? I used to be her advisor as an undergraduate student- Oh, Gloria! There you are! You really haven’t changed a bit. I recognized you right away. You have a lovely daughter.”
Gloria smiled and they exchanged kisses on the cheek. He thrust the bundle at her, saying, “I bought you a little guest present,” he said, “to thank you for allowing us to stay.”
“Thank you for choosing to stay with us,” Gloria said formally as she unwrapped the gift. It was a pair of geodes, or rather one geode, cut so that they could be used as a pair of bookends. They were dark, warm amber with light and dark rings rippling around a crystalline and clear center. “Oh, they’re beautiful,” Gloria said, and to Mila’s surprise, her mother held them to her heart and smiled. But only for a moment. “Tomas,” she said. Tomas slid back into view. “Take the equipment to the shed,” she told him. “Make sure to lock it when you’ve finished.”
Tomas made a quick bow and went to the back of the truck. “Lemme help,” said Tim. “It’s heavy,” he said as Tomas grunted. Tomas ignored him. Tim scowled, until Mila said, “He doesn’t speak English, only Spanish.”
Eventually, everything was unloaded and the guests were installed in their rooms. The guests took the rooms between the servant quarters and Mila’s parents. There was no view of the ocean from there but the breeze that came off the sea was such that a pleasant current of air swirled through all the rooms, nonetheless. Mila led them on a tour of the house-the courtyard, the bathrooms and the chicken coop. Faraday complimented everything with a long rambling story-the bathtub became a history of porcelain, the towels an explanation on how cotton was ginned, the sheets a rambling muse about how thread counts became important in determining luxury.
He was extremely knowledgeable in almost everything, from mosaics to gardening, and as they accompanied Mila on a tour of the house and all of its amenities, he spoke more than she did.
“I imagine you must be tired,” Mila said, as they walked back to their room.
“Not at all,” Faraday said.
“Well, we’re beat,” Tim said before Faraday could continue. “Six hours of flying, with two three-hour stopovers and customs gave us hell in Mexico City.” He was short for a guy, five-feet six inches, stocky, with a buzzed head and a demeanor that reminded Mila of the ROTCs in her graduating class. Even now, he stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, hands clasped behind his back. “I’d like to take a nap, sir, if that’s okay with you.”
Yep, definitely ROTC, Mila thought.
“Of course. And Meredith?”
Meredith was quiet. She had reddish hair that she kept pulled back into a ponytail and her eyes looked as if they were only half-open behind her round glasses. “I could lie down for a while,” she admitted. Her voice was a whispery sigh. Mila wondered how she survived having Faraday for a professor.
“All right,” Faraday sighed. The students disappeared into their respective rooms, leaving him alone with Mila. “So tell me, my dear, are you going to go to school in Mexico?”
For a man who was as talkative as he was, the professor was a good listener and he followed Mila as she gathered together the tableware for dinner and set the table, nodding understandingly as she told him about how difficult it was to attend school and that she missed the US and wanted to attend college.
“But where do I start?” she asked.
There were no guidance counselors here. The only people who could give her recommendations were illiterate (or only wrote Yucatec, which amounted to the same thing for all the good it did her). And even if she were to miraculously get accepted and find the money to attend college, there was still the matter of getting out of the Yucatan. Faraday was sympathetic but much to her surprise, he didn’t make any stupid suggestions like “Why don’t you just get a job?” so she found him good company. No wonder her mother acted like she was still in love with him.
Mila finished setting the table. Faraday followed her out to the chicken coop and praised the birds. “Gloria always did have a good eye for good chickens,” he said.
“You knew my mother,” Mila said, and they both knew what she meant, like he knew her. It was a statement but the questions were obvious enough: How did you know her like that? Where? How long? What happened?
Faraday nodded. “I was her professor during her undergraduate days,” he said. “I...well, we...” He trailed off, lapsing into silence. It didn’t take Mila long to figure out what he couldn’t say. “Anyway,” he said crisply, “I’m glad that she has made a good life for herself here and now.”
“She never said anything about you,” Mila said. “She just has all of your books.”
Faraday smiled secretively. Mila fed the chickens. She wasn’t sure what the smile meant but she was certain she wouldn’t like it if she ever found out.
Faraday returned to his room.
Mila went back to hers, wishing it was nightfall so that she could talk to Tomas about all this.
Chapter Two
DINNER THAT NIGHT was an elaborate spread of slow-roasted pork, tomato-and-salsa salad, melons dressed with mint and a touch of rum, guacamole, tortillas to wrap around everything and cold pale beers to wash it all down. In the kitchen, Tomas fried up the churros-not strictly Mexican, of course, but nobody could refuse a fresh churro rolled in cinnamon and sugar and dipped in melted chocolate. He cleared the table and set down the twists of fried dough and little cups of chocolate and then disappeared back into the kitchen.
Mila desperately wanted to join him but Gloria warned her not to.
“Professor Williams can help you,” she had told Mila earlier.
Like he helped you? Mila had wanted to ask. She kept her mouth shut, though. Not because she was afraid of antagonizing her mother but because she didn’t know what had happened exactly. It could be everything, it could be nothing.
And did her father know?
“We’ll be heading out to the cenotes the day after tomorrow,” Faraday said, with a chuckle. “Tim and Meredith will need a day to rest, since they’ll be doing the hard work. A few days of diving, taking samples, photographs and measurements at each cenote and that’ll finish off September and the grant money pretty nicely.”
“What will you be doing?” Mila asked. She tried to
sound curious but from Gloria’s look, she must have sounded accusatory.
“Minding the camp, I suppose,” Faraday said. Tim snorted and Meredith smirked. “Well, I suppose the actual name for what I’ll be doing is ‘trying not to get my feet wet’ or something along those lines.”
“It’s his first time in the field,” Tim said.
“It’s my first time in the jungle,” Faraday corrected, sounding only mildly annoyed. “I’ve done lots of anthropological studies before.”
“So what’s with the cenotes?” Mila asked. This time she was genuinely curious. She had visited one with her parents way back, when they weren’t sure if they were going to stay in Mexico forever. It looked like a giant sinkhole and the water in it was filthy.
“Professor Williams has a theory,” Meredith said, “that they’re all connected to each other by this giant underground river and that this river goes to the ocean. All of them,” she added. “And that this could mean that there will be seafaring life in some of them. That’s what I’m here for-to catalog the life forms that Tim will be bringing up and to see if I can determine the direction of the flow, if there is any. My own research project will be to see if we can determine signs of evolutionary splitting between the species found in the various cenotes, but that assumes that there is no connection between the cenotes and that the professor is wrong.”
“So, you don’t agree with the professor?” Gloria asked.
Meredith shrugged. “I do my work and pass on my conclusions to him. I suppose it’s possible that many of them are connected, but all of them? That’s a bit much. Of course, I could be wrong,” she added. “But there’s only one way to know for sure.”
“What do you think, Tim?” George asked. “Right or wrong?”
Tim laughed. “No thanks, sir. I learned long ago not to question the divine wisdom of professors.”
“Oh, come on,” Faraday said. “I’m not that kind of professor.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Tim said. “It’s those kinds of profs that get the grant money, after all.”
“Maybe the ones you’ve worked with,” Faraday retorted. “When you write as many books as I have, you don’t need the big grants to fund your adventures.”
“Why don’t you let Tomas help you, then?” George cut in.