I See Fire | Wattys 2021/22 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Jem and I came back to the gods' tent together as sunset painted the camp gradually into shadow. We found Quet and Tlaloc talking quietly not far from where Quet had sat before.

"Ready?" said the wind god when he saw us with our backpacks.

We both nodded. Quet called Tochtli, who gave him a reproachful look as she left the tent. She perked up a little when she saw Grifo beside me, and came to touch noses with him when Quet sent her our way.

"Take them to Mictlan," he said. "Tochtli?" She turned to look at him. "Mictlan."

She wagged and stretched out in a dog's play-bow, then scratched the ground a few times. She looked at us, waiting.

"Walk forwards," said Quet.

We did, and I blinked as I found myself in darkness. Jem squeezed my hand, and Grifo made an anxious sound. I lit a flame in my palm. A cave tunnel had replaced the village around us. I looked back the way we'd come, but there was nothing but stone. "Tochtli?"

She wasn't with us. With a sigh, I tugged Jem after me down the tunnel.

"You know where you're going?" he said.

"Yeah. I saw it from one of the dogs once."

He didn't question that, and we walked together through the stone. The glow of the obsidian river appeared up ahead much sooner than I was expecting. That wasn't a long walk at all. I still had a headache, but something about the air here eased my stomach at little. I suspected it would improve the longer we spent down here. Resetting the clock for another few days.

Black sand crunched beneath our boots as the tunnel ended at the beach along the river. There were more souls than there had been last time I was here. None of them paid us any mind as Jem took the lead and found a private spot by the wall, in a dip carved into the stone. Boulders diverted the dead that wandered past from time to time. We spread out our bedfurs and sat down side by side. Grifo lay beside me.

"You tired?" said Jem.

"Yeah," I admitted. This would be our first chance to talk alone since I'd broken through the floor of his cell in Coyol's prison, but I didn't feel like talking. The sick feeling compounded the restlessness that had plagued me ever since we'd returned to Grillo Negro, robbing me of sleep. I was exhausted, but it would be a while before that took me. Jem put his arm out, and I leaned against his side. He rested his head on mine.

And then something licked my face, and I blinked awake. Tochtli stood before me, waiting for me to respond. Her tail wagged when I stirred. Morning already? I shook Jem, who startled and opened his eyes. Tochtli waited for us to pack up our bedfurs, then led us to a closer tunnel than the one we'd come down the night before. Or maybe that was an illusion. My head was clear now, and both the headache and nausea were gone.

The tunnel culminated in a dead end. Tochtli stopped and looked at us like she had yesterday. I gripped Jem's hand and stepped forwards. I was going to feel dumb as a rock if this didn't work. Rather than run into the wall, though, we found ourselves back in the village, a short ways from the gods' tent. Quet was waiting for us. He had scarcely welcomed us back when Jem's mother bustled up with mine close behind. They had saved us breakfast, and it was getting cold. I had to smile. Home again.

The days fell into a rhythm after that, familiar yet foreign at the same time. I could last five, pushing six days on the surface when I wasn't drained from fighting a turkey god and Centzon Huītznāuhtin, but Jem couldn't do more than three. We still went to the underworld together. Sometimes we'd talk for hours on the beach, and sometimes he'd be feeling too cruddy to say much. The silence was comfortable too, though.