8

The horse backed away, ears pointed forward at the child. Horse seemed as amazed as Teresa, and his hooves danced on the grass and dirt, ready to lash out if necessary. Teresa sat down, the ashes of the campfire blowing around her.

After a while, she realized she should do something for the boy, who had been gasping and crying for some time now. Standing and coming closer in the gray light of dawn, she saw that the child’s eyes were closed and he seemed half-conscious. His face scrunched in anguished weeping. His fists knotted at his chest as he lay curled on the ground, no danger to anyone, helpless as a baby. His dark hair was fine, cut short at the ears. He was, Teresa guessed, four or five years old.

She touched him cautiously. The boy moaned. She shook his shoulders, trying to wake him, ready to spring back if he should turn into a jaguar again. But he only curled more tightly into a ball, moving his head against his thighs. Now Teresa tried to lift the child, hoping to break through his dazed sleep. He was heavier than she thought, and he still did not wake although he struggled, thrashing and flailing his arms and legs. She dragged him onto her bed of grass and then moved away to a safe distance.

From that place, she watched and waited as the sky brightened into shades of blue with a low wispy fog over the maize fields, a color like the inside of certain shells, luminous and pearl-white. Eventually the boy stopped making crying noises and slept more deeply, his long lashes dark against his cheek.

What is he? Teresa asked the horse, who watched with her.

I don’t know. I have heard . . . Horse hesitated and then continued in a defensive tone as if afraid she would not believe him: I have heard of tribes in the south who have medicine men who can turn into animals. I have heard of shape-shifters, always from the south, jaguar-men. But I never believed those stories.

You never saw anything like this before? You never met anyone?

Not me, the horse nickered. My master did, someone who saw a Mayan slave . . . The animal bent his head, hungry, unsettled, torn between talking and grazing.

Go on, Teresa prompted.

My master had a friend who said he speared a Mayan slave just as she was turning into an animal. She died and became human again. But my master didn’t believe him either. How can an animal also be a human? How can a human also be an animal?

The horse tore at the grass and refused to speak again. Teresa watched the little boy as the birds began their morning chorus, all together in a burst of chatter and call and musical sound, and as the sun rose higher, burning away the fog. She retrieved the rabbit from the ground, skinned and skewered the body, and built up a fire to roast her breakfast. Briefly she left the child to get water from the nearby stream, where she drank and filled a gourd. When she let some of its contents dribble into the boy’s mouth, he sputtered and swallowed, sputtered and swallowed, and still did not wake. Not even the smell of cooking meat roused him.

Teresa studied the boy—the clear brown skin, flat nose, full lips, and dark lashes on a rounded cheek. He did not look sick or starved. But he did look uncomfortable, his face twitching and his hands clenched into fists. Occasionally he sighed or grimaced. He did not seem happy to be in his human skin. He did not even look fully human.

Or maybe it was only that Teresa had never spent much time with children. She had never played with other girls and boys, not since leaving her baby sister. She had spent her childhood traveling with her father and three other men, and then she had begun her work in the Governor’s kitchen under the eye of the cook and assistant cook and assistants to the assistant cook. No one had thought of her as a child there or treated her like one. No one brought babies or children into the kitchen, for the housekeeper would not allow it.

Teresa picked at the meat on the rabbit bones. She felt nervous. It was mid-morning, past time to go. Today she was going to ride the horse. Today they would travel many leagues. The need to hurry built like a pressure in her chest. She needed to find the wise woman. The wise woman wanted her, waited for her.

Perhaps she and the horse should simply leave the boy here. She would give him the rest of the rabbit. There was water nearby. He could always hunt his own food. Perhaps that was for the best.

The horse came and nudged her from behind. Leave him here, the gelding advised. That’s for the best.

He’s too young, Teresa heard herself argue back. He can’t take care of himself.

He was doing fine last night, Horse said.

But something is wrong now, Teresa worried. He’s not waking up.

I don’t like his smell, the horse complained. I don’t like jaguars.

They waited all that day. Sometimes the boy roused enough to drink a little water or the soup Teresa made and kept warm. Even then, he never opened his eyes and only muttered gibberish she could not understand. Sometimes she caught Spanish-sounding words. Sometimes he rambled in another language, perhaps Mayan, a tongue from the south. That night, she and the horse took turns resting and keeping guard. This time, she did not fall asleep.

The next morning, when the boy opened his eyes and spoke, it was only to scream loudly for his mother. “Mamá, Mamá, Mamá!”

“Be quiet,” Teresa tried to shush him. Her voice came out rusty and strange, hardly intelligible. Drawing back, she realized this was the first time she had spoken out loud in eight years, since her father had left her in the courtyard of the Governor’s house, since the turtle had kept moving across the sky and the world did not end.

The boy shrieked more vehemently. He wanted his Mamá! He wanted to go home!

“Where is your home?” Teresa tried asking. She wanted to slap him. She wondered if that would help or make things worse.

“Mamá! Mamá!” the boy yelled, a stream of tears welling up in his eyes and running down his cheeks. His nose streamed with a flow of mucus. “Mamá!” He drummed his hands on the ground and kicked his feet. “Mamá!” His back arched in a tantrum he seemed unable to control, as if a Bad Spirit were shaking him from the inside.

Teresa watched, appalled. The horse grazed.

The boy began weeping all over again. How could such a small body hold so much water? He cried, awake now, until he couldn’t cry anymore, until he and Teresa were both exhausted. At some point, she had taken him onto her lap. She was stroking his hair, saying “Shush, shush” over and over. His dark head burrowed into her breasts, and he fitted himself against her stomach. “It’s all right,” Teresa promised, not knowing why but believing it herself at the moment. “It’s all right. You’re all right now.”

“Ma . . . a . . . ma,” the boy whispered and began to hiccup. Hic, hic, hic. The jerky movement of his body looked painful. Hic, hic, hic.

“Make it stop,” he said plaintively in Spanish.

The horse had come close again, breathing down Teresa’s neck.

Teresa was at a loss. How did anyone stop the hiccups? She jiggled the boy tentatively. “Giddy-up,” she said. “Giddy-up, giddy-up.” She bounced the child up and down on her lap. He coughed, whimpered, and sighed, the saddest sound Teresa had ever heard. His fingers gripped her breasts too tightly.

You did not groom me today, the horse said.

The sun shone pleasantly in the blue sky. Soon, Teresa thought, it would get too hot and they would need to move into the shade. “Giddy-up,” she whispered with her new rough voice into the boy’s ear. “Imagine you are riding a bay mare. You are on your way to a wonderful fiesta.”

“A fiesta?” the child repeated. Hic, hic, hic. His chest heaved.

“A fiesta with wonderful food,” Teresa promised.

“I’m hungry,” the boy said. “I want some, hic, food!”