Balam allowed his daughter to drag him toward the stairs.
As the two headed away, Jake remained seated at the table—but his attention shifted to the study door. He remembered the stacks of papers, scrolls, and books inside. What might he learn?
Before he knew it, he was on his feet. He didn’t have much time. Rushing to the door, he tried the latch. It was unlocked and opened with a small squeak that made him wince. Telling himself it wasn’t too loud, he slipped through the crack in the door and entered the library.
The room was pie shaped, stretching wider toward a pair of windows that overlooked the city. A desk stood under the windows. To either side, bookshelves rose to the rafters, crammed with dusty tomes and rolled parchments. One section was stuffed with strange odds and ends: a bony skeleton of some creature held together by bronze wire, a neat row of polished rocks, a collection of small wooden blocks carved with Mayan glyphs. Walking into the library was like stepping inside one of the Cabinets of Curiosity back at his family home in North Hampshire.
But Jake didn’t have time for sightseeing.
He crossed to the desk and searched without touching anything. Books were stacked as high as Jake’s shoulders, and he was afraid of toppling them over. Instead his attention was drawn to an open book in the center of the desk. It had a cover made out of wood and pages that were coarse and thick.
The book was a rare Mayan codex, one of their great books of ancient knowledge. The invading Spanish conquistadors had burned most of them centuries ago. Only a few still existed in the world.
Jake leaned over the open codex. The page showed a map of the valley. A jagged circle marked the volcanic cone, and in its center had been drawn a crude representation of the pyramid. From the tip of the temple a stylized spiral wound outward and brushed the valley rim at four points.
North, south, east, and west.
Jake leaned closer.
The western point had an arch drawn over it. Despite the sketchiness of it, Jake recognized the Broken Gate, or rather how it might look if it wasn’t broken. The picture at the point of the eastern gate looked familiar. It was a two-headed snake tied up into the shape of a figure eight.
Jake tensed, recognizing it though it was crudely drawn. He hurriedly reached into his pocket and removed his father’s field logbook. He flipped open the page he had read in the British Museum.
Clearly from the intricate curling of the serpent into a figure eight, the relic must represent the Mayan belief in the eternal nature of the cosmos….
Jake heard his father’s voice as he read, while at the same time picturing the museum artifact, a golden snake with ruby eyes, a Mayan treasure recovered from his parents’ dig.
Jake swallowed and stared at the map. Here was a drawing of that same artifact, marking the eastern gateway into the valley. How could that be? Jake’s mind whirled. He could come up with only one explanation: Someone must have seen that gateway and gone back to their own time to tell about it.
Jake felt a surge of hope. He stared at the pyramid in the center of the crude map. He guessed the spiraling line represented the field that protected the valley.
He had to know more.
A scrape behind him made him jump. He’d been so focused on what he’d found that he forgot about being here too long. If Marika discovered him trespassing…
Jake whipped around to find a figure standing in the doorway. But it wasn’t Marika. The small Neanderthal boy—Bach’uuk—stood at the entrance to the library. His face showed no shock or emotion at Jake’s trespass. He merely stared. Then the boy turned and returned to the table outside. He had been bringing in plates for dinner.
Jake followed him out and closed the library door. “I was just looking,” he mumbled.
Bach’uuk ignored him.
A few seconds later, a shout echoed from upstairs. “Papa, I’ll call you when supper is ready.” Marika was heading down. “Ah, Bach’uuk. Let me help you with that.” Marika took the last of his armload of plates.
The Neanderthal bowed his head and backed toward the servant’s door. As Marika turned away, Bach’uuk stared at Jake and lifted a finger to his lips in the universal gesture to remain silent. Then he vanished, closing the door behind him.
14
A MIDNIGHT INTRUDER
It was hard to say what woke him.
One moment Jake was in a deep sleep, and the next he was wide awake in his small bedroom. The room was pitch-black. The window was tightly shuttered, and the door firmly closed. He heard no noises.
But something had woken him.
Wrapped in his bedsheets, Jake strained to figure out why he was instantly tense. Every fiber and nerve in him felt stretched taut. He searched the room, holding his breath. Beyond the foot of his bed, he could make out the bulk of the wardrobe. But nothing else. No shadows stirred, nothing rustled.
Still, Jake knew he was not alone. He couldn’t say how he knew this with certainty, but he did. The hairs on his arms stood on end. Someone—or something—was in the room with him. He felt eyes studying him out of the dark.
Then he heard it—a low buzzing, like a thousand bees. It started, then immediately stopped. Jake could not tell where it came from, but it froze his blood. It was an alien sound. And it was in his room.
His eyes ached from trying to see into the dark corners. His heart pounded. Then he heard a quiet, furtive noise.
…scritch, scritch, scritch…
It sounded like fingernails scratching on wood. He didn’t know what was making that noise, but he knew it was getting closer to him. His fingers bunched the blanket tighter to his chin. He slid his legs away from the foot of the bed, pulling tight to himself.
There was a lamp on a small table next to his bed. Marika had shown him how to turn its crystal on and off. But he was afraid to reach out from under the blanket.
…scritch, scritch, scritch…
The sound was definitely closer. Then the strange buzzing rose again.
What was it?
Jake’s eyes strained. Dark shadows shifted and rose from the foot of his bed. He could stand it no longer. He shot an arm out toward the bedside lamp and flicked a fingernail against the crystal bulb. It chimed and light flared brightly. He closed his eyes for a blink against the glare, then stared at what crouched atop the foot-board.
It was a huge black insect, the size of a small dog, with crablike claws in the front. Wings like those of a dragonfly stretched to either side. As Jake cringed back, the wings fluttered up into a whirring buzz. The insect rose into the air like a helicopter taking off.
Suddenly, from behind its back, a curved scorpion’s tail arched up, ending in a vicious barb as long as Jake’s index finger. In the lamplight, the barb looked wet with poison, and giant claws snapped in the air.