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xp_logsProtesting a disastrous railway under construction, young Julio Richter schemes a perilous way to stop it.
The organized resistance effort against Mexico’s national railway expansion had been active for years, ever since the project was first announced. While the government claimed to have thoroughly studied the environmental and economic impacts of a rail loop that would connect the states of the Yucatán peninsula, opponents protested that the government was more interested in the potential tourism dollars than destruction of ecosystems and displacement of the local population.
A population that included the grandparents of university student and self-proclaimed curandero-in-training Julio Richter. The young man had joined his grandparents and their neighbors in the protests as the construction approached their village. It seemed a pointless effort, though, as construction continued and legal avenues to halt it all came to dead ends. Public opinion was not shifting in their favor, either.
Another fruitless day of protest ended with Julio collapsing onto a seat at his grandparents’ outdoor kitchen table. They had planned to spend another night camping at the site, but they were bone tired and their fellow organizers, concerned for their health, ordered them home. Of course, Gloria immediately set to make a meal and while she initially denied any offer of help from her grandson, he got up and started slicing tomatoes and onions for a salsa.
She was kneading the dough for the tortillas when he finally broke the silence. “You should curse them.” She stopped mid-knead and looked over to him, alarmed. “They’re going to destroy your home! Surely they’ve earned the misfortune.”
“Oh, Julito, we don’t . . . that’s not our way. You know this.” She returned to the meal, pinching a ball of the dough off from the larger mass and pressing it by hand to flatten into a disc. “We taught you that using your gift to harm other people, no matter how cruel they are, will come back to you and hurt you more. It’s not done.”
He sighed and gently placed the sliced vegetables on the comal. “Then what, Chiichi? You’re not winning by their rules, either. They’re intent on coming through here. You know, the way they’ve been talking on the news, it’s almost like they’re out to get you specifically.”
Before she could reply to tell him how ridiculous that is, his grandfather came out with a pot of water and eggs, and placed that on the comal, too. “Juan Meróz has had us in our sights for years, Juli,” he stated matter-of-factly, as if he were just describing the weather. “He wants our . . .”
“¡Omar!” Gloria glared daggers at her husband, but he just shook his head.
“Gloria, Juli is an adult, we can tell him.”
“Tell me what?” Julio asked, giddy at the prospect of being let in on a secret. “What does Juan Meróz want with you? He’s just the rich bastard who’s building this train.”
“Omar, he’s not ready,” Gloria protested, the tortillas suddenly forgotten.
“Nonsense. Look, Juli.” Omar grunted as he sat down by the stove, and Julio joined him. “You know we take care of our community. It’s what our fathers and mothers did, and their fathers and mothers, and so on. Your Chiichi delivered you when your Mamá went into labor. Which, without exaggeration, is the most magical thing she has ever done, because it brought you to us.” The sentiment made Julio blush, but his grandfather just smiled and continued. “But another responsibility is to keep watch over a book from our forefathers.”
“A book? That’s what this is all about?” That seemed mundane and not worth the trouble. “I read up on Juan Meróz before I came here, and I know he’s a wealthy eccentric who’s obsessed with Mexican history. But why does he care about an old book?”
“We don’t know. He’s a collector. He wants it and convinced the government to plan this train through this route so he could take it.”
“Is there something special about it?” Julio asked, still not understanding the situation. “Besides it being really old and probably worth a lot of money. Is it magic?”
Omar nodded and Gloria sighed. “From the gods. Probably.” Julio’s eyebrows rose so high they were hidden by his disheveled brown hair, but Omar continued. “We don’t know where it came from or even much of what it says. The script is old. My grandfather translated one spell, but that’s as far as anyone has gotten.”
“And this book has a purpose.” That was Gloria, now resigned to the fact that this was no longer a secret. “It will serve a chosen person. We hold it for safekeeping until that person arrives.”
“And I . . . would be next in line to look over it?” Julio asked eagerly, his eyes bright. He was vibrating with excitement at the idea of such a grand destiny. Literally shaking.
Omar put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. “Perhaps. I know you have a lot of questions, Juli, but it’s enough for now to say we are being hounded by a madman who sees our sacred duty as another hobby for him. And I don’t know if we can stop him.”
That was a lot for the young man to digest, true, but he still had to ask: “What’s the one spell you know? The one that’s been translated I mean.”
The elder curanderos did not answer immediately. They turned towards each other, and he could swear they were communicating psychically, even though, as far as he knew, that was not part of their heritage. Maybe it was just a learned ability from decades of marriage. Julio felt a pang in his chest, wishing he could find someone like that for himself. Maybe someday he would be so blessed to find a companion to share his life with.
He shook himself out of his reverie when Omar turned to him while Gloria resumed dinner. “It’s complicated,” the old man said, “but it seems to be a way to instill power from many brujos into one. We think it serves as the first step to other rituals that require a lot of focused power, though what those rituals would be, we do not know.”
Monetary value of such an artifact aside, Julio could see why Meróz would covet the book so much that he would use every resource at his disposal to dispossess its protectors of their land so he could take it. If he were a true occultist and not just a collector, there was no telling what he could accomplish with that kind of power. He had to be stopped.
“Then I have a suggestion.” Julio stood up and kicked at the dirt with his bare foot. His own inborn magic flowed through his body and down his leg and foot into the earth. The ground shook ever so slightly, a gentle rumble to presage his great plan. “Before you say no, listen to me. Maybe cursing all the people involved in this plan is too much and will bring God’s wrath back to you. But we can save your home and keep your legacy out of a colonizer’s hands without hurting anyone. Use the spell to lend me your magic, and I can open the earth to destroy the railway. There must be a reason my gift is so specific, right? I can’t do what you can, but I can do this.”
This time, his grandparents were united in their disapproval. They spoke so quickly and so adamantly that he could not even follow what they said. “Please, please, in Spanish!” he implored them, like a parent scolding an unruly and incoherent child, hoping some levity would calm them.
It did not.
The Yucatec castigations continued apace, so Julio sat back down, despondent but not defeated. After a minute, he tapped his foot on the ground again, and the small tremor shut them up.
“Please, let me help you. I’m not a child you have to protect anymore. I am a man, and a man uses everything he has to look after his family. This is what I’m here for. It’s why I have this gift. Please give me the chance to use it for the right thing.”
“Julito.” Gloria, all 150 centimeters of her, enveloped her grandson in her arms. “We’re not talking about blessing a home or treating an illness. This is old. Primal. Magic no one has touched in hundreds of years.”
He held her in return and kissed the top of her head. “I understand. I do. I’m not taking this lightly. But please believe in me. I know I can do it with you.”
“It will take more than just us,” Omar mused. Julio looked up at his grandfather. Was he finally getting through to them? “The spell is for twelve into one. We would need ten more.”
“Do you know ten brujos who would help?”
Omar hesitated before he nodded. “We can find them.”
Julio grinned. “Then let’s do it.”
The earth trembled again, a deceptively delicate sign of things to come.
The organized resistance effort against Mexico’s national railway expansion had been active for years, ever since the project was first announced. While the government claimed to have thoroughly studied the environmental and economic impacts of a rail loop that would connect the states of the Yucatán peninsula, opponents protested that the government was more interested in the potential tourism dollars than destruction of ecosystems and displacement of the local population.
A population that included the grandparents of university student and self-proclaimed curandero-in-training Julio Richter. The young man had joined his grandparents and their neighbors in the protests as the construction approached their village. It seemed a pointless effort, though, as construction continued and legal avenues to halt it all came to dead ends. Public opinion was not shifting in their favor, either.
Another fruitless day of protest ended with Julio collapsing onto a seat at his grandparents’ outdoor kitchen table. They had planned to spend another night camping at the site, but they were bone tired and their fellow organizers, concerned for their health, ordered them home. Of course, Gloria immediately set to make a meal and while she initially denied any offer of help from her grandson, he got up and started slicing tomatoes and onions for a salsa.
She was kneading the dough for the tortillas when he finally broke the silence. “You should curse them.” She stopped mid-knead and looked over to him, alarmed. “They’re going to destroy your home! Surely they’ve earned the misfortune.”
“Oh, Julito, we don’t . . . that’s not our way. You know this.” She returned to the meal, pinching a ball of the dough off from the larger mass and pressing it by hand to flatten into a disc. “We taught you that using your gift to harm other people, no matter how cruel they are, will come back to you and hurt you more. It’s not done.”
He sighed and gently placed the sliced vegetables on the comal. “Then what, Chiichi? You’re not winning by their rules, either. They’re intent on coming through here. You know, the way they’ve been talking on the news, it’s almost like they’re out to get you specifically.”
Before she could reply to tell him how ridiculous that is, his grandfather came out with a pot of water and eggs, and placed that on the comal, too. “Juan Meróz has had us in our sights for years, Juli,” he stated matter-of-factly, as if he were just describing the weather. “He wants our . . .”
“¡Omar!” Gloria glared daggers at her husband, but he just shook his head.
“Gloria, Juli is an adult, we can tell him.”
“Tell me what?” Julio asked, giddy at the prospect of being let in on a secret. “What does Juan Meróz want with you? He’s just the rich bastard who’s building this train.”
“Omar, he’s not ready,” Gloria protested, the tortillas suddenly forgotten.
“Nonsense. Look, Juli.” Omar grunted as he sat down by the stove, and Julio joined him. “You know we take care of our community. It’s what our fathers and mothers did, and their fathers and mothers, and so on. Your Chiichi delivered you when your Mamá went into labor. Which, without exaggeration, is the most magical thing she has ever done, because it brought you to us.” The sentiment made Julio blush, but his grandfather just smiled and continued. “But another responsibility is to keep watch over a book from our forefathers.”
“A book? That’s what this is all about?” That seemed mundane and not worth the trouble. “I read up on Juan Meróz before I came here, and I know he’s a wealthy eccentric who’s obsessed with Mexican history. But why does he care about an old book?”
“We don’t know. He’s a collector. He wants it and convinced the government to plan this train through this route so he could take it.”
“Is there something special about it?” Julio asked, still not understanding the situation. “Besides it being really old and probably worth a lot of money. Is it magic?”
Omar nodded and Gloria sighed. “From the gods. Probably.” Julio’s eyebrows rose so high they were hidden by his disheveled brown hair, but Omar continued. “We don’t know where it came from or even much of what it says. The script is old. My grandfather translated one spell, but that’s as far as anyone has gotten.”
“And this book has a purpose.” That was Gloria, now resigned to the fact that this was no longer a secret. “It will serve a chosen person. We hold it for safekeeping until that person arrives.”
“And I . . . would be next in line to look over it?” Julio asked eagerly, his eyes bright. He was vibrating with excitement at the idea of such a grand destiny. Literally shaking.
Omar put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. “Perhaps. I know you have a lot of questions, Juli, but it’s enough for now to say we are being hounded by a madman who sees our sacred duty as another hobby for him. And I don’t know if we can stop him.”
That was a lot for the young man to digest, true, but he still had to ask: “What’s the one spell you know? The one that’s been translated I mean.”
The elder curanderos did not answer immediately. They turned towards each other, and he could swear they were communicating psychically, even though, as far as he knew, that was not part of their heritage. Maybe it was just a learned ability from decades of marriage. Julio felt a pang in his chest, wishing he could find someone like that for himself. Maybe someday he would be so blessed to find a companion to share his life with.
He shook himself out of his reverie when Omar turned to him while Gloria resumed dinner. “It’s complicated,” the old man said, “but it seems to be a way to instill power from many brujos into one. We think it serves as the first step to other rituals that require a lot of focused power, though what those rituals would be, we do not know.”
Monetary value of such an artifact aside, Julio could see why Meróz would covet the book so much that he would use every resource at his disposal to dispossess its protectors of their land so he could take it. If he were a true occultist and not just a collector, there was no telling what he could accomplish with that kind of power. He had to be stopped.
“Then I have a suggestion.” Julio stood up and kicked at the dirt with his bare foot. His own inborn magic flowed through his body and down his leg and foot into the earth. The ground shook ever so slightly, a gentle rumble to presage his great plan. “Before you say no, listen to me. Maybe cursing all the people involved in this plan is too much and will bring God’s wrath back to you. But we can save your home and keep your legacy out of a colonizer’s hands without hurting anyone. Use the spell to lend me your magic, and I can open the earth to destroy the railway. There must be a reason my gift is so specific, right? I can’t do what you can, but I can do this.”
This time, his grandparents were united in their disapproval. They spoke so quickly and so adamantly that he could not even follow what they said. “Please, please, in Spanish!” he implored them, like a parent scolding an unruly and incoherent child, hoping some levity would calm them.
It did not.
The Yucatec castigations continued apace, so Julio sat back down, despondent but not defeated. After a minute, he tapped his foot on the ground again, and the small tremor shut them up.
“Please, let me help you. I’m not a child you have to protect anymore. I am a man, and a man uses everything he has to look after his family. This is what I’m here for. It’s why I have this gift. Please give me the chance to use it for the right thing.”
“Julito.” Gloria, all 150 centimeters of her, enveloped her grandson in her arms. “We’re not talking about blessing a home or treating an illness. This is old. Primal. Magic no one has touched in hundreds of years.”
He held her in return and kissed the top of her head. “I understand. I do. I’m not taking this lightly. But please believe in me. I know I can do it with you.”
“It will take more than just us,” Omar mused. Julio looked up at his grandfather. Was he finally getting through to them? “The spell is for twelve into one. We would need ten more.”
“Do you know ten brujos who would help?”
Omar hesitated before he nodded. “We can find them.”
Julio grinned. “Then let’s do it.”
The earth trembled again, a deceptively delicate sign of things to come.
