Antoine Bovis … while walking around inside the King’s Chamber, found seemingly preserved cats and other small animals, which had apparently wandered into the Pyramid and died of starvation. Bovis thought that perhaps the shape of the Pyramid might have been responsible for the … state of these animals, which showed no signs of decay.
—Max Toth and Greg Nielsen, Pyramid Power
YUCATAN PENINSULA PRE-COLUMBIAN
With Nikki’s support, Carrollee stumbled toward daylight, bursting from the pyramid into bright tropical sunlight. Squinting reflexively, Carrollee caught a glimpse of stone structures and well trod ground. The ruined structures they had explored were whole now, the pyramid-devouring vegetation still at bay. Stone walls enclosed the pyramid, the space inside essentially a meadow. Nikki
helped Carrollee toward an opening in the wall and through it she could see huts and people.
“Stop, Nikki,” Carrollee whispered. “Something’s not right.”
It was too late. A naked, brown girl had seen them and shouted an alarm. Adults pointed and jabbered, and men with spears and swords came running. Carrollee and Nikki held each other. The men wore only breechcloths, some with their bodies painted black. A few wore sleeveless shirts. Surrounding Nikki and Carrollee, they pointed spears, wooden swords, and sharp-edged clubs. Fascinated, not frightened, the warriors looked the women over, murmuring in an unintelligible tongue. Then there was commotion, and the warriors parted, letting others through. These were older men, most wearing breechcloths, but three wearing white cloth skirts. All wore shirts dyed in bright colors, and around their necks hung strings of beads, shiny metallic ornaments, or animal-shaped objects. One of the newcomers was younger and had lighter skin than the others. Nikki suddenly released Carrollee’s arm.
“Kenny?” Nikki said, stepping forward.
The man smiled, spread his arms and they rushed into an embrace.
With that hug the weapons were lowered, but the men continued to stare. Occasionally a man would reach out and touch Carrollee’s or Nikki’s shirt or pants, or point at their boots. Nikki’s blond hair was particularly fascinating and men dared to touch it, smiling, revealing teeth filed to a point or inlaid with dark materials. Carrollee avoided eye contact.
“Kenny Randall?” Carrollee asked.
The young man’s face was deeply tanned, his body lean and firm.
“Yes, of course,” he replied.
“Where are we?” Carrollee asked. “This doesn’t look like the entrance we came through.”
“You are still on the Yucatan peninsula, but many years before your time.”
Carrollee was hot—feverish—her body ached and her mind was foggy. She was so sick she couldn’t be sure she understood what Kenny was saying.
“We traveled back in time?”
“Yes. Quite a bit actually.”
“How far back?”
“I’m not sure,” Kenny said. “I haven’t been able to reliably date this time period, but as far as I can tell the conquistadors have not arrived yet.”
“How is that possible?” Carrollee asked, looking back at the pyramid.
“How long have you been here?” Nikki asked.
She was still pressed against Kenny, but now she was caressing his face.
“Nearly thirty years,” Kenny said.
“But, you disappeared only five years ago?” Nikki said. “And you don’t look that old.”
Terrified shouts surrounded them as the warriors suddenly turned, weapons at the ready. Stepping from the pyramid opening was one of the juvenile tyrannosaurs that had chased them. The warriors backed away. Kenny shouted orders in their language. Nikki and Carrollee retreated toward the opening in the wall. The tyrannosaur followed, slowly, seemingly confused, wary of the numbers it was facing.
They reached the opening and wooden doors were swung closed, a thick wooden beam used to lock the door. The tyrannosaur bellowed when the doors slammed shut, then hammered the door with head and tail. The door held. Eventually, the tyrannosaur gave up, but it would try again. Unless it reentered the pyramid, it would have to get out to eat.
Carrollee and Nikki were led to a large hut at the edge of the village. Inside, the dirt floor was covered with woven mats. There was a small wooden table against one wall, with two stools. Shelves held a variety of clay pots. A shelf under the window held figurines—animals, people, and creatures with features of both. Carrollee was helped to the stool and sat, leaning on the table, exhausted. Women and children
peeked in the window and door, jabbering excitedly, pointing.
“Drink this,” Kenny said, handing Carrollee a cup.
Carrollee sipped the warm liquid. It was cocoa.
“Hot chocolate?” she asked, surprised.
“They invented it,” Kenny said.
Kenny knelt beside her and felt her forehead.
“You have a fever,” he said. “Nikki, help me take her into the next room.”
A woven curtain separated the two rooms. In the second room was a hammock and they helped Carrollee into it. The hammock stretched, taking her weight, then conformed to her body as she gently rocked. Kenny brought a pillow stuffed with dried grasses, gently placing it under Carrollee’s head. Her head aching, her body hot, and her head filled with worries about Emmett, Carrollee fell asleep.
She woke in the dark, confused. Trying to sit up in the hammock, a comforting hand on her forehead pushed her back. She woke again during daylight. A middle-aged woman sat on a stool next to her. The woman had long black hair, braided and tied with strips of red cloth. She wore a skirt cinched at the waist with a belt, and a necklace of fat brown beads hung from her neck. When she saw Carrollee’s eyes open, she left. Carrollee was hot, but not from fever now. Pulling her legs up one at a time, she unzipped the lower half of her nylon pants’ legs, then worked them off over her boots. Now wearing shorts, she felt more comfortable.
A few minutes later the woman came back with Kenny and Nikki, who were holding hands like teenage lovers. Carrollee pushed herself up, dangling her legs over the side of the hammock, careful not to rock it.
“Feeling better?” Nikki asked.
“Yes, some,” Carrollee said. “I think the fever is gone.”
Kenny was staring at her legs, worried. Now he took her arm and unbuttoned the sleeve of her shirt, pushing it up. Carrollee looked to see spots on her arm. They were on her legs, too.
“Measles,” Carrollee realized. “My son came down with it just as we were leaving.”
Cursing now, Kenny shouted orders at the woman who had nursed Carrollee. Quickly, she left.
“What’s wrong?” Nikki asked.
“They have no immunity to measles,” Kenny said.
Carrollee understood. It wasn’t the Indian wars that killed off much of the Native American populations, it was disease, many of which were considered childhood nuisances among Europeans, but were deadly plagues to indigenous peoples from the Americas.
Carrollee and Nikki stayed inside after that, Kenny bringing food and drink. The food was surprisingly familiar. Vegetables included squash, beans, and chili peppers. There was also amaranth and manioc, which Carrollee had never tasted but found palatable. Venison and turkey were on the diet, as well as peccaries and rabbits. Carrollee sampled whatever meat was provided, except for the peca, which was essentially a large rat. The staple of the diet, however, was corn, usually in the form of tortillas. She drank copious amounts of hot chocolate, avoiding water. One night, Kenny brought a drink made of fermented honey—balche—and they got silly, forgetting where they were.
The hut had two rooms and Kenny and Nikki slept together in the hammock where they had first put Carrollee, a curtain the only privacy. Another hammock was hung in the main room for Carrollee who politely pretended not to hear the frequent lovemaking in the next room.
One day Nikki remembered the calculator and retrieved it from Carrollee’s pack. Kenny was puzzled, but pleased.
“There are programs on here I don’t remember,” he said, exploring the files.
Kenny’s explanation for how they found themselves several hundred years in the past was little more than a guess.
“What we passed through is a stable version of what created the time quilts that devastated the planet. Somehow, the pyramid shape focuses energy associated with time-space disruptions, creating a permanent time-space link.”
“A stone pyramid does that?”
“No, not alone. Since at least the time of the Egyptians, there have been experiments with pyramids. Some of this was based on the computations of Zorastrus, but like da Vinci who was ahead of his time, they did not have the technology to produce an efficient collector.”
“But the Maya do?” Carrollee asked.
“No, although I’ve been able to improve the efficiency of this one.”
“Why?” Carrollee asked.
“To use it to disrupt the effect of the one on the moon.”
“There’s a pyramid on the moon?” Carrollee asked. “How could you know that?”
As she said it, Carrollee thought of Emmett’s mission to Flamsteed Crater.
“I extrapolated from the data that something was disrupting the time-space continuum and pinpointed two locations. One on the moon, and one in the Yucatan. That led me to this pyramid and eventually to here.”
“Then we can go back the same way,” Carrollee said.
“It’s not that simple,” Kenny said, frowning. “The interior of the two pyramids are linked and changes to the interior of either can affect where and when you come out. That tyrannosaur that followed you through probably did significant damage to the interior. The pyramid will repair itself to a degree, but I can’t guarantee you will return to where or when you left. You could emerge from the other pyramid.”
“On the moon?” Carrollee asked, incredulous.
“Yes.”
Now Kenny took Nikki’s hand.
“If you decide to go back through, I can’t go with you.”
Nikki didn’t say anything. Carrollee realized they had already talked about this.
“I have to understand what is happening,” Kenny explained. “Here, in this time, I have years to theorize, and experiment. If I go back, it is a matter of days.”
“Days? Another time quilt?”
“Something much worse. What happened to us was a collision between the Cretaceous period and the twenty-first century. What is coming will shred history as we know it, jumbling past and future so thoroughly that everyone in every time will be affected. Worst of all, as the past is disrupted, the future will change. Pulling a few hundred dinosaurs from our past wasn’t enough to alter the evolutionary history of our planet, but what is coming will make it impossible for the present as we know it to exist.”
Carrollee wanted to dismiss what he was saying, to call him crazy, but she lived in a world that had seen cities disappear and extinct animals return.
“Carrollee, I’m staying with Kenny,” Nikki said.
Carrollee had expected Nikki to stay, but it left her with little hope of getting home. She would have to find her way through the pyramid not knowing what she would find at the other end.
They left Carrollee alone after that, and she thought about her options. Quickly, she realized there really wasn’t any choice. She had a family somewhere on the other side of the pyramid, and she was going to find them.
Carrollee’s spots faded and a few days later she had fully recovered. Kenny suggested she wait a few more days before trying to return through the pyramid, letting it repair itself. He also asked that she not leave the hut, although by now she would not be contagious. Nikki stayed with her most of the time. Kenny had to shoo the curious villagers away from the windows and doors several times a day. Once, when she was standing by the window trying to catch a breeze, Carrollee spotted Kenny coming out of the compound surrounding the pyramid, guards quickly closing and latching the gate behind him. Briefly she wondered about where the tyrannosaur had gone, but also about what Kenny was up to?
Carrollee observed as much of the village life as she could from her window. The hut Kenny lived in was wood framed and plastered with stucco and roofed with palm thatch. Other buildings were stone. Just a few huts down was a pole structure with no walls, just a thatched roof. Meals
were cooked there, the cooking facilities shared, but meals taken back to individual homes. Food preparation was communal time, women gathering, laughing, gossiping, and scolding misbehaving children who ran naked in the streets.
Once Carrollee was steady on her feet again, Kenny took her and Nikki to a smaller building behind his hut. Inside was a large wooden tub filled with steaming water.
“You invented the bathtub?” Carrollee asked in surprise.
“No, the Maya bathe, although not like this. They are very clean. I built this after I had been here five years. I just wanted a good soak.”
“Any soap?” Nikki asked.
“Next to the tub,” Kenny said. “You’ll have to share, or take turns,” Kenny said, apologetically. “I made it too big and it takes a lot of work to fill the tub.”
“Maybe you and Nikki should use it,” Carrollee suggested.
Nikki and Kenny both blushed.
“No, this is a treat for you two,” Kenny said, backing away.
Then he slipped out the door, closing it behind him.
There were large windows on either side of the building, the shutters open, a breeze coming through. There would be no privacy.
“You can go first,” Carrollee said, feeling it was the most magnanimous gesture of her life.
“No, together. I’ll scrub your back if you’ll scrub mine?”
“Deal,” Carrollee said.
They stripped off their clothes, Carrollee wearing only the claw necklace that Ripman had given her. Then they eased into the tub, finding the water hot, but bearable. Carrollee immediately dunked her head, massaging her scalp. Even without soap, she felt cleaner. She came up in time to see Nikki surface, too, smiling with relief. There were three chunks of yellow lye soap, and they went to work, scrubbing their bodies, washing their hair, and scouring the grime from their fingernails—and they washed each other’s backs. Then they soaked in the now milky water, letting the water cool. In the intimacy of a shared tub, Carrollee felt comfortable talking to Nikki.
“Nikki, why does Kenny look so young?” Carrollee asked, looking across the tub at her bath partner.
“I guess it’s okay to tell you,” Nikki said reluctantly. “It’s the pyramid. He spends as much time inside as possible. He says there is a certain place you can go and it rejuvenates you.”
“You don’t age?” Carrollee asked, incredulous.
“You do get older, but it’s slowed down. That’s why he doesn’t look as old as he is.”
Finally the water had cooled and they reluctantly got out. Kenny had supplied cotton cloth to dry with. Once dry, they washed their clothes in the tub, and then wrapped themselves in the towels. Kenny was waiting outside. The long overdue scrubbing made them giddy and they teased him, doing the hula in their wraps. Joking and laughing, Kenny led them back to their hut and cups of balche. First, Carrollee ushered Nikki into the bedroom, sending Kenny to get new clothes.
He returned with skirts that the women of the village wore, as well as intricately woven huipils, or blouses. Woven from cotton, they had intricate diamond patterns created by expert weavers. Carrollee dressed Nikki in a huipil, with an intricate blue and yellow pattern and skirt. Then using combs Kenny borrowed from women in the village, Carrollee styled Nikki’s short curls. Using the small box of makeup she carried in her backpack, she highlighted Nikki’s cheekbones, and applied color to her eyelids and lips. Then, dressing herself, they joined Kenny.
Kenny was speechless. As if seeing his Nikki for the first time, he looked her over from head to toe. Embarrassed by his appreciative stare, Nikki began to strut, then twirled, showing off her new clothes.
“I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful,” Kenny said.
Then remembering Carrollee, he gave her a quick glance.
“You’re beautiful too,” he said hastily.
“Emmett thinks so,” Carrollee said, hurting even as she said his name.
They drank balche—honeychol as Kenny called it—
laughing at silly comments, listening to Kenny tell stories of the many ways he had embarrassed himself among the Maya. It was the best time Carrollee could remember since entering the jungle, the warmest feelings, the most like being part of a family. That sobered her. Clean and healthy now, she was ready to chance her trip through the pyramid.
“It’s time for me to go,” Carrollee announced the next evening.
“You should stay,” Nikki said, knowing the dangers.
“At least a little longer,” Kenny said. “Your chances of getting back get better with each day that passes.”
“I have a family, Kenny. I love them and miss them. I’ll take any chance I have to, to get back to them.”
Now there were voices outside, angry voices. Kenny listened, and then hurriedly left, speaking to men who gathered outside. Nikki and Carrollee stood together, listening, understanding nothing. After a minute of strident conversation, Kenny left with them. He came back twenty minutes later, grim-faced.
“The woman who nursed you and two children have fevers.”
“It’s too soon,” Carrollee said. “Measles doesn’t incubate that fast.”
“They have no resistance,” Kenny said. “They blame you and Nikki. They say you brought the demon to their village and now the sickness.”
“They’re right about both,” Carrollee admitted.
“Unfortunately, they’re polytheists and magical thinkers. They believe one of their gods has been angered and needs to be appeased. They want to make a sacrifice to Yum Cimil—the god of death.”
“Sacrifice?” Carrollee said.
“Yes. It’s to be a heart sacrifice,” Kenny said.
“Us?” Nikki asked.
“They want to sacrifice the one who was sick and cheated Yum Cimil by not dying. They want to give Carrollee’s heart to Yum Cimil.”