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But what the lords wished was that they should not discover their names. —Popol Vuh, translated into English by Delia Goetz and Sylvanus Griswold Morley from the work by Adrian Recino
Some people are born under a lucky star, while others have their misfortune telegraphed by the position of the planets.
“Your mother was the old man’s favorite, but then she had to run off with your father and ruin her life. Yet you walk around the house as if you were a princess. Why? Because he told you a story about how you secretly are Mayan royalty, descended from kings? Because he named you after a stupid star?”
Everyone owed her. Casiopea inserted the key, turned the lock, and flipped the lid open. She sat there, confused at the sight of what lay inside the chest. Not gold but bones. Very white bones.
In the blink of an eye all the bones clicked into place, like pieces in a puzzle. In another instant the bones became muscle, grew sinews. In a third blink of the eye they were covered in smooth skin. Faster than Casiopea could take a breath or a step back, there stood a tall, naked man before her.
“It was my treacherous brother, Vucub-Kamé, who tricked and imprisoned me,” he said, and she was grateful for his voice, since she’d lost her own. “From me he took my left eye, ear, and index finger, as well as my jade necklace.”
“Here lodges a shard of bone, a tiny part of me. Your blood awoke and reconstituted me. Even now it provides nourishment. Every moment that passes, that nourishment, that life, flows out of you and into me. You will be drained entirely, it shall kill you, unless I pull the bone out.”
“I am Hun-Kamé, Lord of Shadows and rightful ruler of Xibalba,” he told her. “I thank you for liberating me and for the gift of your blood. Serve me well, maiden, and I shall see fit to reward you.”
Mortals have always been frightened of the night’s velvet embrace and the creatures that walk in it, and yet they find themselves mesmerized by it. Since all gods are born from the kernel of mortal hearts, it is no wonder Xibalba reflected this duality.
Fate is a force more powerful than gods, a fact they resent, since mortals are often given more leeway and may be able to navigate its current.
Folktales are full of such coincidences that are never coincidences at all, but the brittle games of powerful forces.
“You did not rescue me,” Casiopea replied. “I opened that chest. Besides, I wasn’t a princess in a tower. I knew I’d get away one way or another, and I was not waiting for a god to liberate me. That would have been both silly and unlikely.”
The imagination of mortals shaped the gods, carving their faces and their myriad forms, just as the water molds the stones in its path, wearing them down through the centuries. Imagination had also fashioned the dwellings of the gods.
People called all of this Xibalba, rather than refer only to the single city by that name. The city proper became the Black City and the lord’s palace in turn was called the Jade Palace.
Ghosts that devour people and monsters of smoke were much easier for her to consider than her family and the fears knotted under her skin.
“I forget everything. My brother, my palace, my name,” he said hastily. “Everything.” That wasn’t exactly the answer she was expecting, and the weight of it was tremendous, this single word, like a stone.
“Words are seeds, Casiopea. With words you embroider narratives, and the narratives breed myths, and there’s power in the myth. Yes, the things you name have power,” he said.
The things you name do grow in power, but others that are not ever whispered claw at one’s heart anyway, rip it to shreds even if a syllable does not escape the lips. The silence was hopeless in any case, since something escaped the god, anyway: a sigh to match the girl’s own.
But what mattered was not the veracity of the story, but its power. The symbol. The hidden meaning. A woman and rebirth and the restoration of something lost. A vessel, a conduit through which everything is made anew.
“In ancient times we might have had two mortals face with shield and bladed weapons. Or perhaps play the ball game, the loser to be sacrificed upon the sacred court. Alas, I don’t think it would be quite fair, seeing as neither of you are ball players, nor are you warriors.”
“I told you we all have different names. You are Lady Tun, you are Casiopea, you are the Stone Maiden, and deep inside your heart you have a secret name. Grant me a name and it will be yours and mine alone.”
“I could be a different person. If you gave me a name, who is to say it is not mine? If I had an ordinary name, I could have an ordinary story,” he said. “I could swear I first saw you in Mérida, standing in the middle of the street.”
“It’s all symbols, the stories we tell; if you give me a name I could die and I could open my eyes again, and I’d remember that name.”
Then she remembered the long road she’d traveled, the obstacles she’d overcome, and what Hun-Kamé had told her when they stood by the sea. It rang in her ears so clearly: And yet you are. She also recalled the ways his eyes had deepened, the velvet blackness, that third kiss he did not share. He didn’t need to. He loved her, she knew it. She loved him back. She could not betray him. She could not betray herself. She could not betray the story.
“I pledge myself to the Supreme Lord of Xibalba, the Lord Hun-Kamé,” she said, this time with aplomb. Casiopea slid the knife against her throat.
Instead, she remembered what she’d told Hun-Kamé at the hotel: that she wanted everything to live. And her lips, they repeated this request, not life for herself but for all others.
The nature of hate is mysterious. It can gnaw at the heart for an eon, then depart when one expected it to remain as immobile as a mountain. But even mountains erode.
“You’ve asked for nothing, but I wish to place before you these gifts. Let me grant you the power to speak all tongues of the earth, since death knows all languages,” he said. “And let me give you also the gift of conversing with the ghosts that roam Middleworld. Such necromancy may be of value.”
