On my seventh birthday, the feathered serpent gave me my name.

Many snakes lived among the reeds near the pond, most of them full of poison and spite, but this one was different. He was no bigger than the other snakes but was covered in feathers; white ones on his slender body, and long, exquisite emerald ones–like those of the precious quetzal bird–around his neck. I met him as I swam around the pond.

“What a strange creature you are!” I called when I saw him flying above me.

The feathered serpent looked at me with keen yellow-slit eyes. “Ah, Ayomichi,” he declared.

I laughed. “I’m not a turtle!”

“You swim like one.”

“I’m a girl.”

“I can see that. But you’re also Ayomichi. It’s your name.”

“My name? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Certainly your mother calls you something?”

“She calls me cihuatzintli. She calls my sisters the same.”

“But if she calls all of you ‘girl’, how do you know when she’s calling for you?” the serpent asked.

I shrugged. “We all come when she calls.”

“Well, I’ve given you a name, and it shall be yours and not your sisters’, so you’ll know when your mother calls you.”

What a wonderful birthday present! No one in the village had a name, and I felt special that I should be the first to have one. I went back ashore and slipped into my dress. “Have you a name?” I asked him.

“All the gods have names. I am Ehecatl, the wind that rolls across the prairies and wraps around the mountains. Life itself arose from my breath and blood.”

I stared at him in awe. My mother sometimes spoke of the gods and pointed them out in the night sky, but I’d never heard her say their names. Maybe she didn’t know them? What an honor, to be not only the first of my kind to have a name, but to learn a god’s name as well. “Will you give names to my sisters too, My Lord?” I hoped not. I liked being special.

“Well, I have named everything else—the ant, the mountains, and all the waters. It would only be right to give names to your people too.”

I felt crestfallen.

“Do not fret, Ayomichi,” Ehecatl told me. “Come. I wish to show you something.”

I followed him around the pond. He settled in a coil at the roots of a tree and shook his head, dislodging some of his emerald feathers. They touched the ground and dissolved, and a moment later dull brown mushrooms sprung out of the earth. “These are the sacred Teonanacatl. Chew one and I will speak through you. Your people will come to you for the names I give them, and they shall repay you in both kindness and those things necessary to live.”

Pleased, I bent down to load my dress pockets with the mushrooms, but just then my brother leaped from the bushes, brandishing a sharpened stick. With a yell, he flung it at Ehecatl. It missed, and instead grazed my calf. Ehecatl flew away.

I snatched the spear and smacked my brother across the shoulders with it, but he only laughed at me. “Mother’s right about you!” I shouted. “Maybe you should go live with the rest of the brute men in the forest, for you’re as mean and vicious as they are!”

“It’s just a scratch,” he said, ignoring the blood pouring down my leg. “I should ask what you were doing standing so close to that snake. It could have bitten you.”

“Ehecatl wouldn’t bite me.”

“Who?”

“The wind god, Ehecatl.”

He laughed some more. “If we men are brutes, sister, then you women have heads full of rubbish.”

“It isn’t rubbish! He’s very powerful, and he will smite you if you don’t watch your tongue.” Turning my nose to the air, I started back toward the village.

My brother followed close behind, still teasing. “How do you know he’s the wind?”

“He told me.”

“A talking snake?” he cackled.

“He did too, and he’s given me a special task to perform for him. From now on, everyone will have a name, and he will speak it through me.” I glowed with pride. “And he gave me a name first before anyone. He’s named me Ayomichi.”

My brother laughed so hard he clutched his side. “He named you Turtle? Is that because you’re slow and stupid?”

Grinding my teeth, I turned and gave him a swift kick between the legs. He gasped and crumpled to his knees. “You’re just jealous,” I snarled, then ran on ahead, leaving him crying and moaning.

I felt thoroughly pleased with having reduced him to tears, but when my mother threatened to switch his backside raw for leaving me alone, I started feeling bad. I hoped I hadn’t hurt him too badly.

And you dare call him a brute, I scolded myself as I walked back to the edge of the village to wait for him. He trudged down the path a few minutes later, looking pale and moving very slow. “I’m sorry, brother.” I couldn’t meet his eyes.

“I was only worried you might get bit,” he said.

“Let me ask Ehecatl to give you a name. Will that make you feel better?”

He rolled his eyes but sat on a rock on the side of the path. I took a mushroom from my pocket, chewed it carefully, and then waited for something to happen.

And waited some more.

My brother grew impatient and surly, but when he finally spoke, his voice sounded distant and disconnected, as if I heard the words long after he spoke them. The sky turned vibrant pink, and the earth beneath me moved as if breathing. I felt wrapped in soft, warm feathers. I heard Ehecatl’s voice in my head, whispering. I moved my mouth, mimicking his words. “Eehzio,” I said to my brother, my own voice just as distant as his. “That will be your name. This is your destiny.”

The name meant “Very Bloody.” I wanted to cry over this choice of name, for despite how I teased my brother, I’d always hoped he would be different than the men who roamed the forest. Mother constantly warned us girls to be wary of them, and to not become too attached to our brother, for some day he would have to leave us. Boys turned wild and dangerous when they became men. I hadn’t wanted to believe it, and even after learning his name, I still didn’t want to.

Eehzio stared at me. Our older sister came to find us, and when she looked into my eyes, I spoke her name too: “Huentli,” which meant “Gift.”

“What is wrong with her?” Huentli asked Eehzio.

“She speaks the words of a god,” Eehzio said, awed. Or maybe it was envy I saw in his eyes. He turned to Huentli and said, “Hurry! Bring everyone, before the god leaves.” He remained behind with me while Huentli ran off, but he kept at a distance, appraising me in silence.

For hours, Ehecatl spoke with my tongue, issuing names to everyone who asked. By dusk, the last of the women left with their children, and I was surrounded by more food than I could ever eat and more cloth for dresses than I could ever wear. It was all left in payment for my gift of bestowing names.

Eehzio helped me carry my things back to our mother’s hut, gazing over the trove of loot I’d earned in my few hours speaking for Ehecatl. It was definitely envy I saw in his eyes.

~

I didn’t see Ehecatl again for many years after that, though I suspected he came around the pond quite often; I found his white, feathery-scales tangled among the reeds. The summer of my fourteenth year, however, I began noticing the other scales. They were obsidian black, and I could see my reflection in them. They were bigger too, and the reeds sometimes smelled of brimstone, making me wary of venturing near them.

One day, I went to the pond with Eehzio and several of our sisters. This time of year the men began venturing out of the forest into the meadows, hunting deer, and my mother said they wouldn’t hesitate to take one of us. “A lone woman is an easy target,” she always said. My sisters played hide-and-seek among the rocks while I washed the laundry and Eehzio kept a lookout for unwanted visitors.

As I knelt on the shore of the pond, a giant snake lunged from the reeds at me, rattling his tail and hissing. Thinking it was a demon, I jumped away and fell sideways into the water.

“Ah, my dearest Ayomichi,” the snake hissed in a sharp, high-pitched voice. “So pleasant to see you again.” When I stared at him, he tutted. “Is this how you greet your most beloved god, with stares rather than reverence?”

“Ehecatl?” He did have some white feathers, but most of his scales were black. And the remaining white ones were scorched around the edges. Wisps of smoke rose from under them. The feathers around his neck had turned black too.

“Do you know the names of any other gods?” Ehecatl snapped.

I climbed out of the water, fumbling for something to say. “You look different than when last we met, My Lord,” I finally managed.

“I’m molting.” My sisters’ laughter drifted over to us, and he sat up tall to gaze at them over the reeds. “The world seems strikingly happy, doesn’t it?”

“Your gift has made life better,” I said.

Ehecatl snorted. “There’s always room for improvement.”

I looked away, dismayed. What had become of the kind-hearted Ehecatl I remembered?

A smile spread over Ehecatl’s face. He nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, improvement.” He then turned to me. “Seven years ago, I gave you the gift of a name, and you gave that gift to everyone else. Today I shall give you a new gift, and you shall share it too with your people.”

He suddenly sprang and pierced me like an arrow. When he came out on the other side of me, I felt as if he’d squeezed my heart with his coils. I inhaled sharply and gripped my chest, my heart thudding.

“Now go forth and spread my gift far and wide,” Ehecatl said with a smile that left me uneasy. He then jumped back into the reeds, leaving behind the faint smell of brimstone.

I finished the laundry quickly, eager to return to the village. Then I gathered my sisters together. Eehzio lingered near the reeds, his nose wrinkled as he looked around, and he only followed us when I told him for a third time that we were ready to leave.

I kept my hand to my chest the whole way home, anxious about the disconcerting tingling growing there.

~

The boy’s name was Cuetzpanqui–“Lizard Hunter”–and I always saw him walking around the village with lizards dangling from his belt by little strings, many of them alive and struggling to get free. He was my age, not yet old enough to leave his mother, but he often spent hours sitting in the trees near the edge of the village, watching the dark woods as if dreaming of the life he’d someday have out there. I’d always found his longing for the wild life distasteful, but today–when I saw him tightening a string around a skink’s abdomen–I wondered why I’d never noticed before how handsome he was. And strong. And agile.

Someday he’ll be a great hunter, I thought. And perhaps he’ll share some of his catches with me. It was a foolish notion, but it made me smile anyway.

That night I laid awake thinking of Cuetzpanqui and his belt of creatures. I replayed that afternoon over and over in my mind, imagining I’d actually talked to him and asked him to teach me to catch the lizards. Maybe he would have given me the beautiful green one, and I could have walked it around the village on its little string, showing it proudly to everyone, and telling them, “Cuetzpanqui gave it to me. Isn’t he wonderful?” I giggled and Eehzio told me to shut up and go to sleep.

Whenever I saw Cuetzpanqui, I hid behind a tree or a hut and watched him from afar. The thought of really speaking to him made me queasy. I left gifts for him on his mother’s doorstep, flowers and bracelets made of twine.

I wasn’t the only one affected by this strange sickness of the heart. Eehzio spent hours out in the meadows, staring at flowers and muttering to himself. Huentli–who’d given birth to a son in the spring–sat daily on the stool out front our mother’s house, crying for the father of her baby. When I asked her why she cried for someone who had ravaged her, she told me, “Don’t believe everything mother tells you about the men. She wants to scare you, so you don’t become a mother before your time.”

When our mother talked about a man she’d seen near the pond early in the summer, I started to wonder. “How nice would it be to have a man living in the house, to protect us and bring us fresh meat for dinner?”

The men had taken to camping just beyond the village, in the open, which terrified the small children and even made me uneasy, especially when bodies began turning up with alarming regularity. Most of the murder victims were men, though a few were women. Rumor abounded that the men were the murderers–“they are vicious brutes, after all,” the suspicious old women whispered amongst themselves. But I’d seen one woman bludgeon another with a stone, screaming, “I won’t let you have him!” I ran all the way home and didn’t speak a word of it to anyone, too afraid of what it might mean.

In recent days I’d seen Cuetzpanqui following another girl around the village just as I followed him, and I wondered if I’d become like that other woman; would this sickness of the heart drive me crazy too?

~

Just shy of my sixteenth year, I made my weekly trip to the pond to wash laundry, and I found Ehecatl there. He was white again–and his neck feathers green–and he was chasing dragonflies among the reeds. He stopped to greet me and settled on the nearby bank. “You’re a woman now. Has it really been that long since I saw you last?”

“It has.”

“You do not seem happy. Why?”

“My heart longs for Cuetzpanqui, but he pines for another. Yet she does not like him either. My sister cries all the time–for two years now–and Eehzio refuses to go live with the other men in the forest.” I swallowed hard before continuing, in a whisper, “And I saw one woman kill another, over a man who probably likes neither of them. No, we are not happy at all. The world has become crazy, and I fear I will go crazy too.”

“You are too steady and patient for that,” Ehecatl said. “That is why I named you Turtle.”

“You must take your gift back,” I replied.

Ehecatl looked taken aback. “Gift?” He thought for a moment, then his eyes widened. “Oh, that.” He cursed, looking irritated, but then shook his head. “I’m sorry, but gifts cannot be taken back.”

“What is this dreadful thing you’ve cursed us with?”

“Infatuation.”

“And we shall be miserable forever?”

“Please don’t despair. All is not lost. I can fix things, with another gift.”

I shuddered to think what this new gift might be but dared not say so.

He gazed up at the sky. “It’s a risk, but it will fix this mess. Humanity deserves it as much as we do, and besides, what will the others do about it? A gift once given can’t be taken away.” Looking determined, he turned to me again. “Come back here in two days time and bring the whole village with you, men and women both. This new gift is for everyone.”

~

On the second day, I led everyone to the pond where we found a new, tall tree growing along the bank. Two thick branches twisted together to make a single trunk, and snowy white flowers bloomed on its boughs. Everyone gathered under it, looking up in wonder. When the branches twitched and sent blossoms showering down, the women fled, hurrying their children before them, while the men raised their spears. Nothing evil befell any of us, so the women returned to examine the flowers, and the men relaxed.

I gathered some of the blossoms and inhaled their sweet aroma. Feeling strangely elated, I tucked a couple of them in my hair, behind my ears and looked around.

Cuetzpanqui–who’d only grown more handsome with the years–scooped up some of the flowers. When he looked at me, I smiled. But he hurried away and presented his flowers to the girl he’d been following. My heart broket with a finality I was unprepared for.

The exchange of flowers and hearts lasted into the early evening, until the last couple walked back toward the village hand in hand. Only Eehzio and I remained, sitting under the tree. “I’m going to wait for a much better gift,” he muttered, then skulked off down the path. I watched him go, feeling sorry for him–for myself too. I climbed the tree and lay across the largest branch, watching the moon’s reflection in the water. Why would Ehecatl give this gift to everyone but me and Eehzio? Had we done something to offend him?

“Patience, Ayomichi.” Ehecatl’s voice rose from the smooth branch beneath me. “Love is a gift for everyone, even you.”

I ran my fingers over the bark, my skin tingling with the happiness radiating from within. The sensation quickened my heartbeat just as the smell of the flowers had. “Is that what this is?” I whispered. When I moved my hand from one branch to the other, the feeling persisted but now felt as if it were coming from someone else entirely. “Who is this?”

“Her name is Mayahuel,” Ehecatl said. “She is a love goddess.”

“Another god!” I whispered in awe and promptly withdrew my hand from her branch. It seemed presumptuous to touch her without permission. I pressed my ear to Ehecatl’s branch, to better hear his soft voice. “Is she beautiful, My Lord?”

“She has four hundred breasts, and there isn’t a god in Heaven who doesn’t desire her.”

“But she chose you,” I said with a pleased smile. “Why, if I may ask?”

“She was held captive by her grandmother Tzitzimitl, a hideous, greedy earth monster,” Ehecatl replied. “Tzitzimitl refused to marry Mayahuel to anyone she deemed unworthy, but no one will ever be worthy in her eyes. For centuries Mayahuel has remained alone, a prisoner in Heaven.

“Yesterday I stole into their garden and approached Mayahuel while her grandmother slept. I told her ‘My one true desire is to give you the choice to love and marry whom you wish, so let me take you away from here.’ She was so moved by my words that she ran away with me, and we came here to share our gift with mankind.”

Mayahuel’s branch moved as if sighing, and more of the flowers fluttered to the ground.

“You are a truly great god, Ehecatl.” But I still ached with disappointment.

“Patience, little turtle,” Ehecatl repeated.

“Of course.” It was getting late, and I needed to go back to the village before the blanket of night fell completely. “Goodnight, My Lord.”

I slid down the tree but froze when I heard voices—men’s voices. Unsure what to do, I backed up against the tree, cursing myself for not leaving with Eehzio. I felt the tree pulsing against my hands again. Would Ehecatl break his union with Mayahuel to come to my aid?

Two men came up the path, one quite tall and broad in the shoulders, the other shorter and more wiry-built. They both stopped when they saw me, and silence fell over the pond. The smaller one reached for a knife on his belt, but the taller one moved his hand out to stop him.

“We’re looking for the priestess,” he said. “The one who speaks the gods’ words.”

“What business do you have with her?” I tried to sound unafraid despite my very visible trembling.

“We’re seeking names. Some of the younger men coming into our territory told us a woman who speaks for the gods gave them names when they were boys. We’ve traveled very far to ask her for names of our own.” A curious smile came to his face. “Are you that priestess?”

“The priestess does not consult Ehecatl next to a pond in the moonlight,” I said. “She has a hut in the village, and you will find her there at sun-up tomorrow. Her services are not free nor will you bully them from her by force, so be sure to bring appropriate tribute, or Ehecatl will be displeased.”

“Only a fool would disrespect the priestess of Ehecatl, cihuatzintli—”

“My name is Ayomichi.”

He bowed his head. “My apologies, Ayomichi. Your land and ways are very strange to us.” He looked up at the tree. Pollen floated heavy on the breeze and wrapped around him. “We do not have these wonders in the north.”

I was ensnared by his gaze. Realizing I was staring, I looked toward the village. “I must go. My father is waiting for me. He might even be looking for me now,” I lied, moving away from the tree and edging toward the path. “Men do that here–stay with their children to protect them from harm.”

The man said nothing but moved his companion aside so I could reach the head of the path. Standing closer to him now, I saw the rather wicked scar on the left side of his face. His eyes were shrewd but lacked malice. He didn’t follow me as I went down the path toward the village, but I walked backward anyway, unwilling to put my back to his companion, who watched me like a hungry jaguar. When I started down the hill, I ran, not stopping until I reached my mud hut.

I took a knife to my bed with me, but dreams soothed my fear. I danced under the tree, blossoms showering down around me while Ehecatl played a flute. The strange man was there too, watching. When I danced closer, he smiled, looking so very handsome with that scar. I could dance circles around him forever.

~

The stranger came to my hut the next morning, but at my brother’s insistence, he waited outside. I’d made Eehzio my assistant years ago, when more and more men began venturing out of the woods to seek my services. It seemed wise to have him around as a deterrent. He hadn’t grown into a bulky, muscular hunter, but the other men watched him with unease, especially when they heard his name. In exchange for being my body guard, I granted him a percentage of the tribute I earned.

The man sat on a log stool while Eehzio stood nearby, still surly as last night. The man rose when I came out. In the daylight I saw he wore more than just the one scar; his bare chest was a map of old wounds, slashes, bite-marks, even a few burns. He looked as if he’d been attacked more times than I had years in my life. I imagined he wasn’t be the least bit afraid of Eehzio.

Eehzio handed me a ratty deerskin bag and inside I found necklaces made of teeth, bones and claws. Some were accented with turquoise and obsidian. “You made these?” I asked the man.

“From the jaguars, bears, and wolves I hunted in my youths,” he said. “They’re the sum of all my bravery and skill, and it’s only right to give it to the gods…and she who serves them.” The smile from my dreams came to his face, and his eyes were intense and mesmerizing.

Eehzio–who spoke of hunting with disdain–eyed a necklace made of bear claws and teeth, so I gave it to him before returning the rest to the bag. I chewed a couple pieces of my dried mushrooms, then sat down to ask the man some questions, to help pass the time before Ehecatl would speak. “Your friend isn’t with you.”

“He wasn’t worthy of a name,” he said. “He couldn’t respect the gods.”

“What do you mean?”

“The man found a stranger’s body out near the fields this morning,” Eehzio answered for him.

“You killed him?” I asked the man, dismayed.

“Only a fool would dare disrespect the gods. Unfortunately he was bent on being a fool.”

Remembering how the other man had looked at me made the hair on my neck stand up. “Do I owe you a debt of gratitude then?”

“You owe me nothing.”

Eehzio glanced at us, but neither of us elaborated. I’d rather he didn’t know that I’d foolishly stayed at the pond after dark.

I didn’t say anything more not until my body felt light and Ehecatl took control of my tongue. “Yolocelotl,” I spoke dreamily. It meant “Heart of a Jaguar”, and I smiled at how much it pleased the stranger.

For the rest of the morning I gave out names as usual, but at noon I trekked up the path to the pond. The flower pollen hung thick in the air, swirling through the sky on brisk winds and spreading over the land. The tree was in full bloom. So many flowers lay scattered upon the ground, and I gathered up some in a basket, to decorate my hut.

Yolocelotl suddenly knelt next to me and helped fill my basket. Everything my mother had told me about men warned me to get as far away from him as possible, yet I remained unmoved, just staring at him. I didn’t even flinch when he placed a flower in my hair above my ear. He was surprisingly gentle with his rough hands.

“Now the flowers are truly beautiful,” he said.

My cheeks burned. “Surely you have a long trip ahead, to return home? I thought you would have left by now.”

“I’ve decided not to go back.”

“Why not?”

He chuckled. “It would seem I’ve been enchanted. My heart no longer yearns for the north. Instead, a certain priestess haunts my dreams. I see no means of escape, so I willingly give myself over to this strange new magic.”

His words broke the spell holding my will hostage and I hurried to my feet, clutching the basket. “Thank you for helping me gather flowers, but I must go.”

“Are you always in such of a hurry, Ayomichi?” He smiled.

I ran back to the village but glanced over my shoulder occasionally, to see if he was following me. He was, though at a leisurely pace, unconcerned about catching me.

I avoided him as the days passed, but this didn’t daunt him. In fact, I’d dare say he thought of it was a game. He brought fresh meat to my hut every afternoon, and he left gifts of knives or arrowheads, perhaps to show off his talent with breaking obsidian. I feigned indifference about his gifts, but in reality I horded them, and when I was alone, I took them out to look at and wore the jewelry. Occasionally he brought the flowers, but those I was very careful not to touch. I feared too much accepting that most powerful gift.

Still, I admired his unwillingness to give up. The more he tried, the more my heart softened. He wasn’t like Cuetzpanqui; he was neither young nor conventionally handsome, but he was confident and infinitely patient. He taught the boys how to tie their arrowheads and sharpen their obsidian blades, and the men listened intently whenever he spoke. When he asked them to help him build a house, every man offered his services. He had the grandest home in the whole village, made of stone and thatch, and it had so many rooms I wondered what he intended to do with them all.

The women whispered about him, some doing their best to look their prettiest when he walked by their houses. They sewed clothing for him; cloaks of jaguar fur, buckskin mantels, and fine cotton loincloths. He wore them, but his attention remained focused on me.

At the beginning of winter, he commissioned a new building, not far from his own house, but surrounded by a tall stone wall. When it was finished, he came to ask me to come see it.

“Why should I be interested in your new house?” I asked him, but I really was quite curious about it. I wanted to see this thing he’d commandeered most of the village to construct.

“It isn’t for me.” He then insisted I come to see it immediately.

I followed him into the walled precinct to find a rather simple stone building sitting in the middle. It was four times the size of my own hut and shaped like a mountain. Inside were two rooms, “One for you, the other for the gods,” Yolocelotl explained as he showed me around. “Out here you can serve the gods, and you can live back there, in the room with the hearth. Or–” He paused and folded his hands behind his back. “Your brother can live here instead.”

“While I stay in my mud hut?”

“You can come live in my house, with me.”

I cracked a smile. “With you?”

He sighed. “I’ve given you everything I have, Ayomichi, except for one last thing–my heart. I’m offering that to you now. I have nothing else left to offer, and I shall whither away and die should you not want it.” He took one of the sacred flowers from his leather pouch and held it out to me. It was ragged and battered, as if he’d carried it with him a long time.

I wanted to take the flower and accept his heart, but still hesitated. But why? Hadn’t Ehecatl said that love was a gift for everyone, even me?

When I finally took the flower from Yolocelotl, I felt happier than I ever had before.

~

While the tree bloomed, peace and calm ruled the land. In the summer, I bore Yolocelotl a daughter, and we dedicated her to Ehecatl. A few springs later, I gave birth to a son, and Yolocelotl spoke endlessly of how he was going to teach our boy everything he knew.

Though I’d trained Eehzio to speak for Ehecatl when I was unable to do it myself, I tried to go to the temple daily, to perform my duties to the gods, but my motherly duties were many. One particular morning I arrived to find Eehzio painting a picture on the walls.

“What is this?”

“Nanauatzin, the leper god. He is the sun,” Eehzio answered. “Ehecatl told me about him. There are hundreds, you know? He’s been telling me about a lot of the gods.”

Ehecatl had only ever spoken to me of Mayahuel and Tzitzimitl, and only when I’d asked the right question. I gazed at the painting, with its monster-like quality, its bloodied, frowning face. It gave me shivers.

I opened the box where I kept the mushrooms but found it empty. There had been a handful left in there last night. I glanced at Eehzio. No doubt he was taking some for his own personal use, but what could I do? He needed access to them when I wasn’t here. I slung my gathering pouch over my shoulder and headed out to get more.

When I reached the pond, I set an appreciative hand on the sacred tree’s trunk, as I always did, but today I noticed the smooth bark was scorched in places. The flowers on Ehecatl’s branches, though they shimmered in the sun, had blackened and were stiff and cold and sharp along the edges, like blades. Mayahuel’s half remained in splendid bloom, her flowers as white and precious as ever.

The wind picked up, stripping flowers off in bunches, flinging their petals about. A mountain of black clouds gathered on the horizon, and the sky turned gray and lightning roiled. I stepped out from under the tree, debating whether to go back to the village.

But then the clouds parted and a giant bat-winged crocodile dove out of the heavens, towards the pond. I fled down the path and ducked into the bushes when its roar rumbled the ground. It swept over the pond, circling the tree, then took hold of the left side with its claws. It ripped the tree in half, straight down the middle. The other half fell into the pond and disappeared. The monster tore at the wood in its claws, reducing it to rubble. It then swooped down to hover above the pond on giant, leathery wings.

“Come out and face me, wind god!” the monster bellowed. “You dare spoil my granddaughter’s virginity and then hide from me, you coward!”

Ehecatl didn’t show himself. Tzitzimitl searched the trees and meadows, then returned again to stomp on the tree fragments lying scattered about. She snorted onto them then took to the sky, her great wings turning up a flood of flower petals and pollen. It settled over the valley like volcanic ash as she disappeared into the distance, taking the storm clouds with her.

Once the sun returned, I ventured out of my hiding place and hurried back to the pond. All the trees were stripped of their leaves and branches, and the sacred tree was gone. The few remaining fragments wouldn’t make even decent firewood. I knelt down and picked up a piece of wood. All the magic I’d felt in the wood before was gone.

Eehzio arrived first, followed by Yolocelotl, with our children. The rest of the villagers came soon after. Yolocelotl rushed to me, to make sure I was unhurt. “I’m fine,” I told him, though I trembled. What had happened to Ehecatl? What about Mayahuel? Had her own grandmother really killed her?

Ehecatl emerged from the pond, his long black feathers dripping water and his obsidian scales glistening in the sunlight. “You missed me, you old witch!” he shouted to the sky. He laughed then shook like a dog, soaking everyone. Noticing the wood splinters littering the ground, he tsked. “Well, what a mess.”

“What has become of her, My Lord?” I asked.

His gaze lingered a moment on my daughter–who clutched my leg–before he flicked it up at me. “It was a sacrifice she was willing to make, priestess, so don’t worry yourself about Mayahuel. She did her part, made the world ‘better’.” He rolled his eyes, then slithered past me.

The people backed away from him, and he rattled his tail. I didn’t like the black Ehecatl at all. Nothing good ever came of his presence.

The only two didn’t back away: Yolocelotl and Eehzio, though my brother fell to his knees before Ehecatl. Ehecatl swayed back and forth, examining each man in turn and only stopped once Eehzio spoke.

“You honor us with your visit, My Lord. Whatever you desire, just name it, and it’s yours,” Eehzio said.

Ehecatl looked back at me with narrowed eyes but a sharp sour smile. “Your sister has never made such offers. Shameful it should be someone other than my priestess who thinks of my needs rather than what I can do for mankind.” He turned back to Eehzio. “You know how to address the gods with the reverence they deserve. You’re a wise and honorable man, Eehzio.”

“Thank you, My Lord,” he whispered, ecstatic.

Turning to Yolocelotl, Ehecatl demanded, “And where were you when the earth monster attacked? Cowering in your palace? Has being king turned you fat and afraid?”

Yolocelotl stiffened. “I heard the beast’s commotion and came as quick as I could.”

“Then you saw her wrath? All of you did?”

The crowd murmured.

“Then you’ve seen the power of a displeased god. Be thankful it wasn’t directed at you this time.”

This statement created a tide of urgent whispering.

“Don’t fear though. I have another gift to give you.” Ehecatl slithered back to the wreckage of the tree and breathed smoke over the wood. “Plant these scraps, and in a fortnight a plant shall grow from the ground,” he told Eehzio. “Tonight, meditate with the divine mushrooms, and I will tell you the secret to unleashing the divine elixir inside the plant.”

Eehzio bowed low. “Yes, My Lord.”

Ehecatl gave me a disdainful sniff. He then whirled on the crowd, standing tall on his coils, his long black neck feathers fanned. Everyone shrank back from him; even Yolocelotl took a step backwards. “You’d do well to heed the wishes of your gods. It’s only by their good grace that they don’t destroy this world and you with it.” He then took to the sky and disappeared into the clouds.

~

With Ehecatl’s grim tidings hanging over the village, everyone hid away in their homes, coming out only to watch the sky with anxiety, so nearly a week passed before I discovered that he had abandoned me. I chewed my mushrooms and waited for the god to speak while the child’s mother stood by anxiously. But Ehecatl never came. Even when I prayed, imploring him to hear me, he remained silent. Flustered, I asked Eehzio to do the naming for me and watched with despair as Ehecatl came to him immediately.

“I’ve offended him,” I told Yolocelotl when I returned home.

“You haven’t offended him,” Yolocelotl said as he strung bear claws onto a necklace he was making. “Perhaps he thinks you have more important duties now and so wishes your brother to take over for you.”

“Eehzio has always envied my relationship with Ehecatl.” How often had I caught him eyeing the tribute? “I’ve always loved and honored Ehecatl with all my heart, so why does he turn his back on me now?”

Yolocelotl looked up from his work, his face sad. “Then you do not love me, or our children?”

“Of course I love you,” I said, taken aback.

“Perhaps the problem is that you’ve given pieces of yourself over to others and so can no longer love him with all of your heart.”

His words hit me like a stone in the chest. Had I ensured I’d be replaced by embracing Ehecatl’s gift–the one he’d claimed was the greatest the gods could give? The same one he’d said was meant for me just as much as anyone else?

~

I went to the temple daily to pray, imploring Ehecatl to speak with me, so I could tell him I understood his reasons for ignoring me–even though I didn’t understand. But he remained silent to me.

But Ehecatl wasn’t ignoring Eehzio. There wasn’t an undecorated space on the walls, and the pictures he drew grew more disturbingly graphic with each day. He painted people bleeding from numerous wounds, some with their heads or other body parts missing, and the various monstrous gods brandishing the missing limbs as weapons or, in the case of heads, as balls they played games with. Eehzio sang hymns under his breath as he worked.

He’d allowed me to help him harvest the juice of the spear-like maguey plant that had grown where Eehzio and I had planted Mayahuel’s remains, but he’d forbidden me from entering his quarters, where he brewed Ehecatl’s divine elixir. I suspected he was having difficulty making it; he’d been working on it a very long time, weeks it seemed.

But at the end of summer, he called the whole village into the precinct where he’d stacked jars of a pungent-smelling liquid around the base of the temple. “Come try the sacred octli, sire,” he told Yolocelotl, handing him a bulging waterskin. “Fill your belly, and commune with the gods.”

Yolocelotl took a long drink and nodded approvingly. The rest of the villagers pressed forward, asking for some as well. Eehzio passed skins around, filling each with milky-white liquid. “And of course one for you, dear sister.” The sharpness of his smile made me uneasy. “Perhaps Ehecatl will speak to you again tonight.” I certainly hoped so.

Yolocelotl ordered a bonfire lit, and everyone sat around it, drinking their octli. I drank mine slowly, waiting to feel the familiar haze of the divine settle over me, but it didn’t seem to work. The octli tasted bitter and hit my throat like a hot blade. Still I drank more, hoping and praying Ehecatl would return to me once more.

While everyone imbibed, Eehzio stood before the bonfire, telling us a story of the creation of the world as told to him by Ehecatl. Four different worlds had lived and passed before now, and each was destroyed in a disaster and rebuilt by the gods.

“At the beginning of this world, the sun refused to rise, so the gods gathered at their birthplace, and they argued about who would make a sacrifice to make the sun rise. Two gods volunteered–the very handsome Tecuciztecatl and the leper god Nanauatzin. But when the time came to cast themselves into the fire, Tecuciztecatl hesitated, for he was a coward in his heart. Nanauatzin stepped into the flames without fear, and he burned up and became the Sun. Ashamed of himself, Tecuciztecatl jumped in the flames as well, but the other gods were disgusted with his cowardice, so when he rose on the horizon, Ehecatl threw a rabbit at him and dimmed his light so that it couldn’t drive away the darkness. He became the moon.”

Eehzio raised his arms and declared, “Who here doesn’t wish to repay the gods’ grace? Who doesn’t feel grateful for their sacrifice for us?” He knelt next to our sister Huentli and took her hand in his. “Certainly you wouldn’t deny the sun what it needs to rise from the underworld every morning, am I right, sister?”

“Of course not, brother,” she replied. “I would do whatever was necessary to keep the gods happy and content.”

I finished my skin of octli then tried to stand, to get more, but the ground seemed to float away from under me, as if I were walking on air. Yolocelotl helped me, but we didn’t make it to the jars for a refill. He coxed me into dancing when several men started pounding on their drums, and we spun in circles and laughed. Soon everyone was dancing. The music lasted for hours, and I twirled and giggled like a child. “Come home to bed,” Yolocelotl whispered to me when the music finally ended.

“You look sick, nantli,” my daughter told me as we walked home. “Are you well?”

I felt hot and dizzy and nauseous. But I told her I was fine. I didn’t want her worrying. I wanted to get home and sleep off the sickness.

“You’re always sick,” Yolocelotl told me once we were alone. I’d put the children to bed but rebuked his advances, telling him I wished to lie down instead. He stormed around our room, pacing around like a blind jaguar, for he kept stumbling over our bed of skins and reed mats, nearly falling over and cursing it for being in his way. “It’s amazing we have any children of our own.”

“I think you should lie down too,” I told him. “You don’t look well either.”

“I feel fine,” he snarled. “It’s you who always has an excuse to shun me. All I ask from you is a little respect. I gave you a home and two children, but it’s too much to ask of you to…you who would rather pine away for that feathered snake who’s abandoned you. If it were him asking you to share his bed, you wouldn’t brush him off complaining of sickness.”

“You’re not a god, Yolocelotl.” His pointless comparisons were spiteful and unfair.

“No, but I am your husband, and for that you should honor me!” He lurched towards me like a bear and smacked me hard across the face.

I fell backward, my cheek stinging as if he’d cut me with a blade. I stared at him, outraged and crying. He didn’t say anything, avoiding my gaze as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just done. He then flopped down on our bed, his anger turning to tears. “Why don’t you love me?  Will nothing I ever do make you love me?”

“I did love you, Yolocelotl.” I then left the room to sleep with the children.

~

The bright morning sun woke me, though my pounding head would have done so soon enough. My stomach still ached, so I skipped breakfast. Yolocelotl was gone already, to the temple, my daughter told me, so I went to the precinct too. I needed to tell him I was going to move out and stay with Huentli.

My sister wasn’t home when I stopped by to talk to her. “She stayed out last night, to help Eehzio with a ritual,” her husband told me.

Most of the village was at the precinct, some bearing gifts of maize and flowers–the usual tribute people left at the temple to honor the gods. When I found Yolocelotl, he tried to kiss my cheek, but I drew away from him.

He averted his gaze, crushed. “I’m sorry about last night. I don’t know what happened. That is not me.”

“Is it not?” But was I being too hard on him? Thinking about it made my cheek sting all over again and I knew it was a pain that would never really go away. It crushed me to realize I could never trust Yolocelotl again.

The crowd turned when Eehzio to come out to accept the offerings on the gods’ behalf, and everyone gasped.

Blood covered his body and he wore a skin–a human skin–like a cloak. I stared, disbelieving and sickened.

“Throw away your pathetic offerings,” Eehzio shouted at us. “The gods balk at them. What did they give to make life possible? Their blood, of course! And anything less than our own is an insult to their sacrifice.” He looked at each man and woman in the crowd. “Who here is truly grateful for their sacrifice?”

A murmur rose through the crowd, but I stepped forward, appalled. “This isn’t what the gods want, Eehzio.”

“What would you know about the gods’ desires, Ayomichi? How long has it been since Ehecatl last whispered in your ear?” He gave me that same wicked smile he’d given me when he’d stabbed me in the leg so many years ago.

My face burned. How dare he speak my secret in front of everyone?

Eehzio repeated his question to the crowd, but when no one answered, he said, “Very well then, bring the prisoner forward and he will make the sacrifice for all of us.”

Several men dragged Cuetzpanqui forward, struggling and weeping.

“What is the meaning of this?” I demanded.

“Feel lucky he didn’t choose you for his wife when the tree bloomed, sister,” Eehzio whispered. “He drank too much octli and the primal animal within burst loose. He beat his wife to death when she spurned his attention.”

I instantly thought of last night, of that wild, uncomprehending look in Yolocelotl’s eyes. How long had he harbored that resentment and jealousy for a god who thought I’d chosen Yolocelotl over him? I covered my lightly bruised cheek with my hand, hoping Eehzio hadn’t seen it. Despite everything, I didn’t want Yolocelotl dragged away like Cuetzpanqui.

Eehzio scrutinized me then said, “There’s no place for that kind of behavior in our new world.”

But I hardly noticed his face for the grisly spectacle he’d become, covered in blood from the curling, frayed skin draped around him. Someone else’s long, black hair hung in wet locks around his face, the skin tied together at his own throat with leather string. It was there I saw the mark–the red flower birthmark that belonged to my sister.

“Huentli!” I gasped and stepped back from Eehzio, dizzy, sick, unable—unwilling–to believe what I saw. What had possessed him to commit this atrocity? And in the name of the gods, of all blasphemies! “You’re not my brother,” I whispered. “You’re an evil demon!”

“Huentli was thankful for all the gods gave her,” Eehzio replied with a faint smile. “She understood the importance of making sacrifices.” He took Cuetzpanqui by the hair and dragged him stumbling up the stepped side of the temple, headed for the top.

I fled the precinct, tears blurring my vision. Never again would I return here.

~

At home, I told the children to each pack a bag. Yolocelotl returned as we donned our packs, and I handed him the one I’d packed for him. “We’re leaving.”

He shook his head. “Take the children if you must, but I can’t come with you.”

“Why not?”

“My place is here, taking care of our people. I have duties to our village.” This time there was acceptance in his voice. And understanding. “I’m sorry for everything I said to you in anger.”

I threw my arms around his neck and held him tight. “Please know I’ve always loved you,” I whispered, then turned and herded the children out the front door.

They asked where we were going, but I didn’t know where we could escape this new frightening world. From the village, we walked to the pond to fill our waterskins for the journey. White flowers lay strewn about the ground, wilted and shriveled. My son stood next to the maguey plant, poking the spiny leaves with his fingers.

Ehecatl suddenly sprang up from the plant’s bowl-shaped base and shouted, “Don’t touch the sacred Maguey, boy, or I will eat you!” He laughed when my son shrieked and hid behind me. He was molting again; obsidian scales dropped from his body, and smoke billowed off him like a swelling wildfire. Burning orange orbs had replaced his snake-eyes. The smell of him choked me. “And where are you going, priestess?” His growl sounded like a jaguar’s rumble.

I stood tall, refusing to cower in fear before him. “I’m leaving.”

“But things are just starting to get interesting.” He climbed out of the maguey, his clouds of smoke working under him like legs. “I’m about to plunge the whole world into darkness. You certainly don’t want to miss that.”

“What has happened to you, My Lord? How can you bring us love then delight in causing us pain and fear? Where is the Ehecatl I loved and served with unerring faith my whole life?”

“I destroyed him, ate him up like a jaguar devours his dinner. I am your master now. We gods hunger for blood, and if you don’t feed us, we will punish you. Bow before me, priestess, and embrace the darkness in your heart.” He rose upright, his smoke forming a giant black jungle cat that loomed over me.

I still did not back away. “No.”

His molten eyes flared. “You dare defy the gods? Defy me?”

“I won’t bow before the darkness,” I answered, my heart surprisingly calm. Even when he swiped me across the face with his blade-like claws, I did not tremble. “I won’t give you what you want,” I said, blood running down my face. “I will not give you my heart or my soul, and I will not quake before your anger. Kill me if you wish, but with my dying breath I will whisper prayers to the better Ehecatl, to the one who named me his priestess and brought love and happiness to earth for all to enjoy.” And to further defy him, I began muttering prayers while I waited for him to dispatch me.

When I looked up at him again, he stared back at me, befuddled. His smoke had lessened, and I saw his face again, twisted in frustration as if he wished to tear me limb from limb but couldn’t move.

“No!” he growled, his body shaking. “This world is mine! You have no place here anymore!”

When I muttered a prayer, he cursed me and thrashed harder, so I spoke louder. The children screamed when he leaped at me, but when his smoke hit me, it felt only like a strong wind. The flowers on the ground unshriveled and new ones broke up through the soil, blooming all around us. I raised my voice still louder, my heart swelling as I sang the praises and glories of the old Ehecatl.

Suddenly, Ehecatl’s smoke split in two. The stormy, black cat still remained, but now there appeared a spectral white serpent, exuding rays of light that cut through the smoke like blades through flesh. The serpent advanced on the cat, a deep, disembodied voice booming, Be gone, Smoking Mirror! Today faith serves you defeat!

The smoky cat hissed, his eyes glowing hot, but he couldn’t stand against the rising wind. He howled as it carried him away, bit by bit, until nothing remained of him.

The serpent turned to me, and I fell to my knees before him. “It’s really you, My Lord!” Tears of joy drizzled down my face.

He smiled at me. “Your faith in the light–in that part that’s not the darkness–kept me from disappearing completely. I very nearly was lost, but now neither of us can destroy the other. We’re now as we should be: brothers, each of us with his own special gifts, his own name, and his own place in this world. You have brought balance, Ayomichi, and with it, the most precious gift of all.”

The children poked their heads out from behind me and stared up at the serpent with awe. “Who is that, mother?” my daughter asked.

“Quetzalcoatl,” I said immediately, as if I’d always known it in my heart. “It means Feathered Serpent, but also Precious Twin.”

My son stared up at him, then with a gleeful laugh, he exclaimed, “Pretty snake!” He held his hands out.

Quetzalcoatl shook his head, releasing wisps of emerald vapor that changed into feathers, raining down on us. The children scrambled around, laughing as they gathering them up. I picked up one and held it close.

“These are so you will remember that though there will always be darkness, there too will always be light. And with it hope,” Quetzalcoatl said.

The feather turned to water and soaked into my hands. The pain in my heart–for losing Huentli, for losing Yolocelotl–remained, but the world felt a little brighter, a little better. I touched my cheek to find my wounds healing under my fingers. “Thank you, My Lord,” I whispered.

“No, thank you,” he said softly. “I will always hear your prayers, and those of everyone who come after you. Like love, hope is a gift for everyone, so share it far and wide.” He then disappeared like fog in the hot morning sun.

I looked back toward the village, toward the place I’d vowed never to return to, the place that needed this new gift more than ever. Would the priestess of Quetzalcoatl turn her back on those in need? “Come, children, let’s go back home. We have gifts to deliver.”

~ ~ ~

First published in Paradox: The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction, 2007