Chapter Twenty-One
Not Daisy!
Under the light of the nearly full moon, Angélica stared at the two words Quint had written on a piece of paper earlier today. He’d passed her the note after leaving the bat-house before he’d headed off with her father to take pictures of the crumbling temple next door.
He was right. That wasn’t Daisy.
Angélica looked up from the piece of paper to focus on the campfire in front of her.
It snapped and crackled, periodically sending a plume of smoke in her direction along with waves of heat.
She’d rather have sat in front of a fan inside the communications tent, but the fire pit was one of the few places in camp where she could be alone this evening.
As she watched the flames, her thoughts returned to the moment in the bat-house when Daisy had placed her hands on the block wall.
It was then that Angélica had realized exactly who had been playing puppeteer—her mom.
From what she’d witnessed to date, tactile discovery methods were not typical for Daisy, who often zeroed in on buried artifacts like she had some sort of built-in radar.
Marianne had slipped up in other ways, including her use of “posthaste” and “vámonos.” Too many times during her childhood, Angélica had been herded by her mother with those prompts, both of which she’d not heard Daisy say even once before today.
It was a wonder her father hadn’t caught on to the subterfuge. If he had, he’d given a great performance of being oblivious.
Unfortunately, Angélica hadn’t had any time alone with Daisy during the course of the afternoon, so she couldn’t reach out to her mother again—not that she knew how to conjure a ghost. So many questions had bubbled to the surface since Marianne had supposedly come to their rescue at KuTu’s bidding.
For starters, what had really spurred her mother to join them inside the bat-house? Had Marianne seen something … or someone … outside the ruin and rushed in to save them?
And why risk channeling around the man she’d been married to for decades? Had danger truly been part of the equation? Or was it simply an opportunity to interact with her lost love?
Angélica wadded up Quint’s piece of paper and tossed it into the fire, watching the edges curl. Tiny burning bits of paper floated upward, heading for the stars. The same celestial bodies that had enthralled the Maya for hundreds—no, make that thousands—of years.
If only the stars could give her the answers she needed about this damned place. With her desperation doubling by the day, Angélica would take any clues, big or small, that might explain what the hell had happened here long ago.
She sighed, trying to rub away tension holding court on her forehead.
The rest of her afternoon had been productive on one level, but a total bust when it came to giving her the answers she needed in order to pull the plug on this dig and return home a success.
They’d taken more measurements and pictures, scoured the perimeter in search of caches and tells, plotted out some potential areas to grid and dig, and combed through the rubble on and around the temple, hunting for any stones with a stela or glyph carvings.
While she’d worked, she kept thinking about that block wall inside of the bat-house.
Contrary to her father’s opinion, the wall wasn’t the end of the line, of that she was almost certain.
The bits of mortar between the blocks had shown signs of age, but she didn’t think the wall was as old as the original surrounding structure.
If she was right, what was on the other side? And had the wall been built to seal someone in or keep someone out? She wasn’t sure which of those would be the better of the two.
Tomorrow, she planned to return to the bat-house and collect a mortar sample from the wall to take back to the forensic scientists at INAH.
Her fingers were crossed that they could help her come up with the timeframe when the wall had been built.
While radiocarbon dating was typically used for determining the age of organic artifacts, such as bones and charcoal, it could also be used for inorganic materials.
She would also scrape off a small sample of the cinnabar paint from the tunnel walls. Information gained from the paint might help date the bat-house. If she had some idea of a timeline for it, she might be able to narrow down what civilization had been in the area at the time it was constructed.
The conch-shell trumpets with their strange glyphs had her wondering if a group of travelers from the east, or maybe even farther down south, had been forced from their homeland and established a defensive settlement here.
That might explain the wall and weapons caches.
Although some kind of ancient prison was still a possibility.
She sat back and stared up at the moon, searching for answers and coming up short.
Other than blasting their way through the interior block wall, which would get her fired as soon as the dust settled, they’d most likely hit another dead end.
The purpose of Site 5 was going to remain a mystery, same as it had when her mother was still alive.
Leaning forward, Angélica buried her face in her hands. She had failed. Not only that, she’d put her personal life on hold and risked her future with Quint for nothing.
At least she had a few decent artifacts to take back for additional analysis, as well as a good amount of ancient weapons from the caches. Were those pieces enough to please the powers that be at INAH? She’d have to see.
“What’s a hottie like you doing out here alone in the moonlight?”
Angélica looked up in time to see Quint grab a nearby lawn chair and set it next to her. His hair was wet and glistened in the firelight, and he smelled soapy fresh. He’d opted for pants this evening instead of only briefs. That was too bad. Her mother would be disappointed.
“You’re a ‘hottie,’ get it?” He pointed at the fire. “Because of that.” When she continued to silently stare at him, he shrugged and fell into the chair. “What can I say? I’m too distracted by all of the weird shit happening at this place to be funny tonight.”
“Don’t worry.” She reached over and patted his arm. “You’re still funny looking.”
He made a face at her, which spurred her smile.
“In ancient Maya times,” she said, “you’d have made a handsome, cross-eyed hunk with women lining up at your door, eager to make bunches of good-demon babies.”
“Is there any bloodletting involved in the making of these babies?”
She shrugged. “You may need to offer a blood sacrifice with the help of a stingray spine, so just a poke or two would do.”
“We’re talking about two different kinds of ‘pokes’ here, woman, and I’m not keen on one of them.”
“Sorry, but the maize god has to be pleased.”
“Why the maize god? To feed my numerous offspring?”
“For reincarnation purposes, of course.”
“Yeah,” Quint said, shaking his head. “That makes no sense.”
“It has to do with another myth about wild and crazy times in the Underworld with the hero twins. This particular story includes the great maize deity, who was believed to have created maize people long ago.”
“Corn people?”
“Correct. The Maya are descendants of theirs.”
He rubbed his jaw, his brow lined. “So, the maize god is a creator deity?”
She nodded. “Listen, I’m not doing the best job of telling this story. The gist is that some Maya populations believe the Earth is a living being, and since mankind came from maize, eating corn and having sex allows them to be more in touch with the earth.”
“Like corn on the cob? That’s messy. Lots of butter dripping, making things … slippery.” He grinned. “On second thought—”
“This is why,” she continued with her explanation, “the maize god goes with procreation, which is followed by death, and then reincarnation.”
His grin widened. “What I’m gleaning from this corny story of yours is that eating popcorn during sex is on the table for you and me.”
She shrugged. “Or we’re on the table for the sex part, and we save the popcorn for after.”
“Hmm. When does the butter come into play?”
“Whenever you want it to.”
“Oh, I’m liking this idea more and more.” He rubbed his hands together. “Is there a fan on us?”
“Two. Plus an air conditioner in the room.”
He sucked air between his teeth. “Now you’re really getting my corn popping.”
She laughed loud enough to set off the howler monkeys hanging out nearby.
“That’s more like it,” he said, catching her hand.
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t been laughing enough lately.”
She smiled. “I didn’t used to laugh much at all until you came around.”
“We’ve already established how funny looking I am.”
She held his gaze as well as his hand, her heart pounding out love notes for him. “Honestly, Quint,” she said, her voice quivering slightly from a sudden case of nerves. She gulped and plowed forth anyway. “I’m beginning to lose track of where I end and where you begin.”
He stroked the inside of her palm with his thumb. “Is that a bad thing?”
She considered his question for a few crackles and snaps and then answered from the depths of her soul. “I think it might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“I don’t ‘think,’ sweetheart. I know it.” He reached out and tweaked her chin. “I’d drag you back to our tent to show you why, but your dad is in there sleeping and your mom would probably be watching.”
She cringed. “When we get home, we’ll circle back to this moment and do our best to please the maize god in private.”
“No stingray spines, though.”
“Fine. I’ll let you do the poking this time.”
He leaned back, grimacing. “What do you mean ‘this time’?”
Instead of answering, she laughed evilly.
“You’re warped, woman.”
“Yeah, but you like me that way, Prince Charming.” She glanced behind him toward the tents. “So, where are the others?”
“Daisy, Fernando, and Esteban retired for the night, same as your dad. Teodoro and María did, too.”
“Did you see Dr. Fernel at all?”