“And you won’t tell your godly mom or dad about the laughing fit, right?” He giggled anxiously.
So he hadn’t heard about the missing gods yet. I stepped onto the path, promising I wouldn’t rat him out.
One foot in front of the other. It took all of three seconds for my worries to bubble to the surface.
Enslumbered gods.
Step.
When you least expect it, you’ll pay with your blood for this.
Step.
Are your eyes wide open?
Step.
Those were some pretty gargantuan worries, but the earth spirit was right. With each stride, my fears began to fall farther and farther away. They were still there—I could see them, but I couldn’t really feel them, if that makes sense. Maybe Hondo was onto something with this meditation stuff.
My peripheral vision was reduced to nothing but shifting shadows. Then darkness closed in until all light had vanished. The air was still and cool.
Water drip-drip-dripped in the distance.
Peering through the blackness, I saw that I was in a tunnel with dirt walls and low, craggy ceilings. One by one, tiny torch flames flickered to life along the wall.
Was this some kind of hallucination?
“Hello?” My voice echoed across the chamber as I walked forward. Okay, maybe it squeaked, but yours would, too, if you went from light to underground dark in 0.2 seconds. Was this a trap? What if the earth spirit was some kind of baddie working for Zotz and Blood Moon?
No. No way would Rosie bring me somewhere dangerous.
One step.
“Hello?” My voice echoed across the dark.
Two steps.
Faint images began to appear on the wall. A deep tremble ran through me as I peered closer.
The picture rippled, almost as if it were being reflected off water.
Whoa! This wasn’t an image—it was a memory. A memory of the day I’d met Pacific in the ocean, when she’d given me the jade tooth. She floated on her surfboard, wearing her spotted leopard cape as I shivered nearby in total freak-out mode. It was hard to believe that had happened only nine months ago.
I froze in mid-step, watching the memory play out. Pacific’s voice was like surround sound—it echoed from every torch: I am the keeper of time, she said. No longer the controller of it. Just as I keep but cannot control fate.
The memory vanished. “Pacific?” I called out.
There was no answer. Only her words, which sounded again: I am the keeper of time.
I took another step, and a second memory appeared. I was standing in the Old World with Jazz, Brooks, and Hondo the night I was claimed and took down Ah-Puch. Something heavy surged up in my chest. I don’t know—sadness, longing, some kind of wishing that I could go back. But to what?
Jazz was smiling as he pointed up at the pyramids and said, This is how the marking of time came to be. It was invented in this place. Then someone, no one knows who, created time, and the world began. Or at least the third version of it. Man, I wish I had a camera!
Brooks gazed up. Some say the gods lost the time rope. It used to be wrapped around the earth, but it disappeared, and now they can’t time-travel anymore.
I reached out as if I could touch the memory, but it vanished just as Jazz’s words echoed: It was invented in this place.
Heart pounding, I took another two steps. The next image flared to life. It was from just a few months ago, when I’d stood on that rooftop in Xib’alb’a with Quinn. She looked terrified—that was clear now, but I’m not so sure I saw it then. I peered closer, knowing the details mattered.