The Toltec Art of Life and Death. Barbara Emrys

      Look at him. Do you see what he’s doing?” asked Sarita, who was sitting on one of the high-backed chairs in the home she’d shared with her husband and children long ago. It was interesting to find her elderly self there, in her usual seat at the head of the table, staring at bowls of salsa and platters of chicken. Sipping a cup of herbal tea, she felt she might recover her strength again.

      This kind of scene, where dozens of relatives filled the house and spilled onto the porch and into the street, was as familiar as old shoes. She still loved nothing better than to hold family gatherings at her home—to cook, to eat, and to exchange stories. She could hear José Luis laughing out on the porch, and she felt deeply comforted. These had been wonderful years for the two of them, when the older girls were married and raising their own families, and when the first grandchildren were born. Life in this tiny place had seemed perfect, at least before the accident. After that, it had seemed less safe and less certain.

      “I do see what the boy is doing,” said don Leonardo, “but I can’t see why he’s doing it.” He went back to picking galletas off the dessert tray.

      “Of course you can,” she said, pointing at the boy, who was still sitting on the living room carpet. “You and I do it all the time. He’s watching life flow around the room in ribbons and streams.”

      “He’s not normal; that I can say. Maybe before, but not now.”

      “It was far from a normal day.”

      Sarita looked around, moved at the sight of so many dear family members. There were nieces and nephews, children and grandchildren—most of them old now, many of them departed. She was one of only a few left of her generation, those who remembered the old times, and yet she had to admit it was hard to recognize many of the people in this room. Had she changed as much as they?

      There was an old man sitting on the divan at the far end of the room, a plate balanced on his lap. He was dressed elaborately in a traditional Mexican outfit of flared black pants and a cropped jacket, both studded in silver conchas. Beneath the jacket he wore a ruffled blouse, once white perhaps, but now faded to a musty yellow. A large sombrero lay next to him on the couch, grimy with age, its tassels knotted and stained. The old man’s skin looked like sun-baked buffalo hide, but his eyes were bright and full of mischief.

      “Is that—?” she began, and then stopped herself. “Could that be don Eziquio?”

      Don Leonardo gave her a look made of fresh innocence and headed toward the tub of cold beer that awaited him on the porch. Muttering to herself, Sarita rose from the table and moved across the room with slow deliberation, still unsure of her balance. She approached the leathered old man and stood over him as he wolfed down his food and hummed quietly to himself with pleasure.

      “Grandfather,” she said abruptly. “Why are you here?”

      The rugged face looked up at her in surprise, beaming a smile of recognition. “Sara! How very old you’ve become!” he exclaimed, swallowing a mouthful of beans. “I’m honored to be answering the call of my much-bewildered son. He is in need of my advice and expertise, as it happens.”

      “My father called you? Do you know why?”

      “A matter of death and life, I was told,” he explained cheerily, ripping the last meaty morsel from a chicken bone. “And he promised there would be women.”

      “It is a matter of death . . . and life,” Sarita said softly. “We find ourselves at the funeral, so long ago, of my sweet boy, Memín. But our purpose here is to save my youngest son, whom you may not remember.”

      “Of course I remember!” he said, patting his lips with a stained napkin. “Miguel Angel! It is for that reason I feel confident there will be women.” He peered through the crowd of people. “Which one is he?”

      “He is there, on the floor. At this time, he would have just turned eleven.”

      “Eleven? Is that all? Ah,” he said with dismay, hardly looking at the boy. “Then we will have to wait a year or so for willing girls and rhapsodic pleasures. Well, that’s no problem; I’ve got time.” He went back to his plate of chicken and beans, looking up briefly when a woman walked by—a gorgeous woman with red hair and eyes as deep and blue as the cenotes of his homeland. He looked at her once, then twice, wondering where he had seen her before. No, he had never seen her—and yet somehow they had met. Yes, they had met.

      Sarita left him where he was, unsure how his presence would improve the journey. Well, an ancestor was an ancestor, so she wouldn’t complain. She’d had enough of this particular memory, in any case. She wanted to be done with it. This sad day, which had been a horrible experience for her then, was somehow made more horrible by its recapitulation. She began working her way to the kitchen, in search of the redheaded woman. They needed to talk. They had a small amount of time available to them, and an even smaller shopping bag.

      In her haste, Sarita failed to see Lala milling through the crowd, considering her next move and circling the child who sat on the floor by himself. The redhead had already noticed the old woman, and although she was relieved to see her in good health again, she was tired of Sarita’s bothersome questions, so she made herself invisible among the relatives and neighbors who jammed the front room. She liked it here. She liked it when people came together to smoke and talk and spread the virus. Any virus was transformational. Any virus could change the way an organism worked, but this kind of virus changed the human dream. It was a word-borne virus, a virus that inflamed thought and started a fever in the human body. It was knowledge, something that her world would not exist without. She smiled, comforted to know that she lived in that world—a world built out of syllables, sounds, and the strong mortar of belief.

      Her world looked the same, felt the same as the physical universe, although some called it a reflection. Her symbol was also a tree, like the Tree of Life—great and lovely and deeply rooted. The roots of life stretched into the infinite and its branches breathed eternal light; but her roots drank from the spring of human storytelling, and her branches bore its fruit. There was no thought, no reality without her, she mused. Without her, there were only beasts in the field.

      She could sense the living Miguel in the room, although she could not see him. He wasn’t here, where the little boy sat, teaching himself to trace the forces of human feeling. Miguel was near, however, watching and waiting for the right moment to show himself. If he was here, he would be watching this boy, she thought. He would be remembering, and helpfully packing that memory into his mother’s shopping bag. He didn’t wish to return to the world he’d left, she knew, but he would. He would, because Sarita insisted. He would, because a wise apprentice will honor the teacher, if not the mother.

      Lala lay down beside the