Chapter 22. Dance of a thousand wings

Where an old Maya invocation reverse-pollinates the Sacred Tree

Note: Author commentary at the end of the chapter. This commentary is exclusive to the Cacao Muse; you won’t see it on Amazon, my author site, or printed inside the wrappers of my favorite chocolate bars.

Up at the Cacao Tree, Itzel and Max waited for Luna to return. It seemed Luna had been gone an awfully long time. The luminous cacao dust would not last forever: the silvery purple still held strong, having been released more recently, but the white-gold swirls of the first pod had already disintegrated into thin lines.

“This is not good,” Itzel whispered to herself. She closed her eyes and dove deep into her memory, going through the different invocations she’d ever heard the Elders say, whether during ceremony or solo. There had to be one to pull the cacao pollen back into the pods. In her mind she called on her nagual to guide her. Unbeknownst to her—and Max—the great cat had not left the Cacao Tree, and he was awake. He sensed her thought lines.

Return breath of life to Cacao Tree, he responded.

Itzel blinked her eyes open, surprised the Jaguar was still with them. She could feel his thought lines but couldn’t see him. She looked up into the branches. Gracias, Señor I'x.

But that’s what Luna had said. Not much help.

Move sacred breath of life, the Jaguar thought-lined, insisting.

What does he mean, “move”? Itzel wondered. She studied the cracked golden pod she was holding. If only it were just one pod she’d cracked open, things would be so much simpler. Then it hit her. Four pods had fallen. There were always four Elders at the Cacao Tree ceremonies, and each spoke. She had always thought it was a single invocation they recited in four parts, but now it struck her that perhaps there were four. Four Elders, four invocations. Maybe the Jaguar really had meant to send four pods falling... and if there were four invocations, there had to be a sacred order. The invocation she’d recited had to be the first one, since it had opened both the golden and the purple pods. Whatever the second invocation was, would return the cacao pollen to the pods, or maybe at least keep it viable until…

But therein lay Itzel’s problem. She was never quite close enough to the Cacao Tree to hear the words the Elders spoke. Yet, the invocation for the preservation of life Don Rigoberto was teaching her—

“Hey, Itzel?” interrupted Max. Itzel put her finger on her lips, motioning Max to be still just a little longer. He fell silent.

The invocation her grandfather was teaching her had, to her own great surprise, worked. There was a second one Itzel had recently started to learn, and it did talk about the movement of breath as it goes in and out. Could that be it? Was Don Rigoberto teaching her the sacred Cacao Tree ceremony invocations without her realizing?

She had to try.

She shot another glance toward the edge of the rainforest. Still no Luna.

Up in the Tree, the Black Jaguar yawned.

Itzel popped open her bottle of sacred water and lifted the golden cacao pod up to the moonlight.

Max ticked up an eyebrow.

“I think I know now, what to do.”

Itzel closed her eyes and haltingly recited the first part of the second invocation. Droplets of blessed water fell straight into the crack in the cacao pod. She wasn’t going to miss this time.