Page 30 (2/2)

Aw, co What have you done with your clothes?

Luce shrugged It's hot

He sighed lengthily, with a put-upon world-weariness Now ask ment out of your voice

Hersketchy about Bill's occasional disappearances But he was standing there noith his little claws tucked neatly behind his back, giving her an innocent s! Bill gleefully extended both his wings, revealing a light-broraparound skirt hanging off one wing tip and a short r?ce! he said, withdrawing from behind his back a chunky white necklace Bone

She took the tunic and the skirt but waved off the necklace She'd seen enough bone No, thanks

Do you want to blend in? Then you've got to wear the goods

Sing her disgust, she slipped it over her head The polished bone pieces had been strung along so and heavy and, Luce had to adave her a painted et all this stuff? she asked

It's yours I er coss to the you that is part of this lifetime--Ix Cuat

Ix who?

Ix Cuat Your name in this life e It was a term of endearetting your head impaled on a stick was an honor?

Bill rolled his stone eyes Stop being so ethnocentric Thatyour own culture is superior to other cultures

I knohat itthe band into her dirty hair But I' reat There was a faint thru in the air, like faraway dru Ix Cuat would say! You alere a little bit backward!

What do youthe Wayeb', which are these five odd days at the end of the Mayan year that everyone gets real superstitious about because they don't fit into the calendar Kind of like leap-year days It's not exactly lucky to be born during Wayeb' So no one was shocked when you grew up to be an old ht I never live past seventeenmore or less

Seventeen here in Chich?n Itz? is ancient, Bill said, floating fro as they fluttered But it's true, you never used to live much past seventeen or thereabouts It's been kind of a mystery as to why in the lifeti

Daniel said it was because I wasn't baptized Now Luce was sure she heard dru closer But how can that matter? I mean, I bet Ix Ca-whatever was baptized--

Bill flapped his hand dismissively Baptism is just one word for a kind of sacrament or covenant, in which your soul issiion that is about to go , which was now so loud that Luce wondered if they should hide--they all feature sacraments of sood

So I'm alive in my current life in Thunderbolt because my parents didn't have me baptized?

No, Bill said, you're able to be killed in your current life in Thunderbolt because your parents didn't have you baptized You're alive in your current life because, wellno one really knohy

There must have been a reason Maybe it was the loophole Daniel had spoken about in the hospital in Milan But even he didn't seeh the Announcers With every life she visited, Luce could feel herself getting closer to fitting the pieces of her past togetherbut she wasn't there yet

Where's the village? she asked Where are the people? Where's Daniel? The drurew so loud that she had to raise her voice

Oh, Bill said, they're on the other side of the tzompantlis

The what?

This wall of heads Coh the open spaces in the racks of skulls, flashes of color danced Bill herded Luce to the edge of the skull wall and gestured for her to look

Beyond the wall, a whole civilization paraded past A long line of people danced and beat their feet against a broad packed-dirt road that wound through the bone-yard They had silky black hair and skin the color of chestnuts They ranged in age fro All of thee Their clothes were sparse, weathered ani off tattoos and painted faces It was the most rehtly feathered birds, suns, and geons splayed across their backs and arms and chests

In the distance, there were buildings--an orderly grid of bleached-stone structures and a cluster of ss with flat thatched roofs Beyond that, there was jungle, but the leaves of its trees looked withered and brittle

The crowd ht up in the frenzy of their dance Come on! Bill said, and shoved her out into the flow of people

What? she shouted Go in there? With the ahead You kno to dance, don't you?

Cautiously at first, she and the little gargoyle joined the parade as they passed through what looked like a , narrow strip of land packed ooden casks and bowls full of goods for sale: dimply black avocados, deep red stalks of s Luce didn't recognize She turned her head this way and that to see as much as possible as she passed, but there was no way to stop The surge of the crowd pushed her inexorably forward

The Mayans followed the road as it curved down onto a wide, shallow plain The roar of their dance faded, and they gathered quietly,to one another They numbered in the hundreds At the repeated pressure of Bill's sharp claws on her shoulders, Luce lowered herself to her knees like the rest of theaze upward