‘Over here,’ I shouted. ‘We’re here.’
The cavern echoed my voice, and then was silent. No reply. The lights moved no faster. I flicked on the flashlight and waved it, but the lights continued on their steady course, bobbing toward us slowly.
I waited, watching the lights come closer. Torches, I could see now, dozens of them, each one burning with a yellow-orange flame that flared and wavered with the movement of the person carrying it. The light reflected from the walls, catching on the white seashells.
Shadows marched on the cavern walls. Enormous and distorted, like the shadows of hunchbacks and giants and fantastic animals dancing and swaying with the movement of the torches. The people carrying the torches seemed dwarfed by their own shadows.
Feathered robes caught the light and gave it back in pieces. Feathered headdresses swayed rhythmically. Torchlight gleamed on sharp teeth – a fox head stared open-mouthed at the ceiling from the headdress of a fur-clad man. Beneath the fox face, the man’s eyes gleamed red. A fox tail swayed between his legs as he danced. Other animals danced beside him: a woman wore the soft brown fur of a deer; a man waved the claws of a jaguar.
I could hear them now: the sound of the drums echoed from the walls so that each beat was multiplied many times, each sharp note repeating over and over. The gourd rattles sang in time with the drum, a steady susurration like waves on the beach. The chanting rose above the rattle and drum, human voices rising and falling in words that I could not understand. There was a wildness to the voices, a passion and urgency. Now and again, the chant was punctuated with a great howl, like a wild animal in torment. The howling seemed to spread through the procession as different voices took up the cry, the animals’ heads tipping back to the smoke-darkened roof, and wailing to the gods.
The woman who led them did not walk; she danced, stooping and leaping and spinning in the torchlight, her shadow first a hunchback, then a giant. She wore a blue tunic woven of a thin cloth that let the torchlight pass through, revealing the moving shadow of her body within. She was my age, no older – young and swift. Though her skin glistened with sweat, she danced as if she were fresh, tossing her head so that the feathers laced in her hair bobbed and swayed.
She was coming toward us. I crouched at my mother’s side, switching off the flashlight and moving closer to her, putting one arm around her thin shoulders. I could see the leader clearly now. One of her cheeks was marked with dark spirals, and the delicate skin beneath her eyes was painted with red lines, radiating outward like the rays from a child’s drawing of the sun. Her black hair was tied back with a braided leather thong, and quetzal feathers were woven into the braids. A black object that looked like the head of a monkey dangled from a leather strap around her waist. A jade bead strung on a leather thong dangled from her right ear.
I recognized her then. She was the old woman whose face was on the stone head. Younger now, graceful and filled with life.
In a wide place on the other side of the pool, she danced. The others formed a circle around her, a respectful gathering of dark tattooed faces and glistening bodies. The air was thick with the smell of incense and smoke. The sound of the drums and chanting filled the cavern until the trembling in my hands seemed like a response to the sound. When the dancing woman threw back her head and howled, I clenched my fists and groaned at sudden pain from the cuts and gashes.
She held something high over her head. The torchlight caught on it: an obsidian blade. For the first time I noticed the rock formation around which she danced: a raised platform that made a natural altar. The animal cry began in the back of the crowd and passed like a wave through the sea, gathering strength until the limestone seemed to shake with it. The crowd swayed with the dancing woman, and the torchlight flickered on the bright murals that decorated the walls.
At first, I did not notice the child who stood beside the altar. I was watching the dancing woman as she used the blade to slash at her own wrists, making shallow cuts that bled profusely. With the blood, she anointed the altar, leaving dark smears that shone in the torchlight.
The child was dressed in blue, and her face and hands were smeared with blue as well. The little girl was watching the woman, her eyes wide and fascinated. Her face had been painted bright blue, the color of the sky in the late afternoon. The paint had been brushed on carefully; only her lips and her dark brown eyes were free of it. She held her hands clasped just under her chin, and they too were bright blue. The child moved with the rhythm of the dancing woman, rocking to and fro. Around them, chanting voices were as deep and low as the rumble of the earth.
As I watched, the dancing woman accepted a gourd bowl from a young man and took it to the child. The woman knelt, lifted the child’s hands so that she held the bowl, and guided the bowl to her lips. The child drank and the cavern echoed with another howl. The sound startled the child, and though she was finished drinking, she clung to the bowl, staring around her. The woman in blue tickled her hands with one of the feathers, and the little girl let go of the bowl, distracted. The woman touched the child’s head gently, then picked her up and carried her in her arms as she danced.
The beat of the drum was faster now, and the woman whirled with the child. The girl was laughing now and reaching for the bright fluttering feathers in the woman’s hair. One small hand clutched a feather triumphantly. The woman danced faster, whirling, her eyes gleaming in the torchlight.
The dancer set the laughing child on the stone altar. She lay on her back, her arms stretched to either side like a child lying in the grass on a summer day. She was smeared with blood from the dancer’s wrists and in one hand she clutched a blue feather. The dancer undid the child’s belt and tenderly folded back the blue robe. I saw the child laugh when the woman tickled her chin with another feather, but I could not hear the sound over the chanting. The child’s eyes were half closed, and she looked as if she were falling asleep.
Four men in white loincloths stepped from the waiting circle and each one took hold of an arm or a leg. The little girl smiled up at the dancer, waiting for the next game to begin. The dancer lifted the obsidian blade, hesitated for an instant, then plunged the blade into the child’s chest. The howl of the crowd drowned out any sound she might have made.
I cried out and closed my eyes and I must have squeezed my mother’s hand because she stirred, pulling weakly against my hand. She said something, but I could not hear her over the drums and rattles. I leaned closer and watched her lips. She was struggling for consciousness, but losing the fight. She lay still, her hand once again limp in mine.
The altar was bloody; the four men were spattered with dark spots. The dancer held something dark and small over her head. Though the beat of the drum continued, her dance faltered. There was a new hesitation in her step and the drumbeat slowed, the chanting grew softer.
I saw the runner coming before the crowd surrounding the altar noticed him. A single torch bobbed toward them, growing larger. I saw a shadow taking long strides, then saw the runner in the torchlight: a young boy clad only in a loincloth. He held the torch in his left hand; his right arm bled from a wound in his shoulder. He stumbled as he came toward the crowd, and he must have cried out, for some of the men turned to look, then ran to help him.
The chant faltered. The drumbeat continued, but people crowded around the boy, pressing close to him. The drumbeat stopped. I noticed now, seeing the people gather around the boy, that the men in the crowd were gray-haired, limping, toothless.