Portal to the Vision Serpent

Published in

ILLUMINATION Book Chapters

15 min readDec 24, 2021

Interior and cover design: Kubera Book Design. Cover art: ©2013 Carla Woody.

Chapter Thirteen

At Jay’s suggestion, Sybilla began to research logging in the rainforests of Mexico and Guatemala. Yes, they were on first name basis. Jay had seen promise in her and taken her under his wing, providing shelter in the sometime cutthroat business of publishing. His idea was that, for the time being, she would maintain a focus on threats to Native lands and peoples, it being smart to hone her skills in one area of interest before becoming a generalist. Her instructions were to formulate an in-depth article that conveyed a broad understanding of the issues but also personalize it enough that their readership would gain a stake in what happened in a faraway land. She was to insert the effect on a particular village or even a family unit.

Sybilla was overwhelmed. She couldn’t understand Jay’s confidence in her. She was such a rookie. It was one thing to interview people she knew or dig up local characters, another thing entirely to ferret out some focal point of interest in a land two thousand miles away, most of the places she’d never heard of and certainly hadn’t been! But she hadn’t wanted to disappoint her benefactor, particularly not this early. So she spent time first perusing the archives of environmental publications to familiarize herself with the logging operations going on down south: the effect on the ecosystem, trespass on Indigenous lands and the corporations involved. She needed to understand the overall issues. Her article would cover more than the cursory mention she’d given the problem in her piece on Doña Flora.

Her bedroom now doubled as her office. She wasn’t very good about keeping work and home separate; toiling in the corner of the living room in their small house became unmanageable with all PJ’s things littering the floor and hers, too. Research material and notes, already including spin-off ideas, gave birth to other stacks until it looked like there had been a population explosion. The visual mess finally got in the way of her thought process. So Sybilla took one weekend and set about organizing. Moving the small worktable to her bedroom, she placed it in front of the window. From there she could envision herself gazing out into the desert landscape, allowing it to deliver to her just the right language she needed to illustrate her subject. Pushing aside her clothing, Sybilla turned half her matchbox-sized closet into a filing system using labeled milk crates. Not pretty, she thought. But I know where everything is, and the living room is relatively clear. She kept the sliding closet door open when she worked to let her know she had what she needed at her fingertips, and it gave her assurance. The isolation worked for her, and she could still cock an ear to listen for PJ, often playing alone elsewhere in the house.

One night, long after PJ was sound asleep, she was at her computer. She stared at the screen, immersed in what she had found, not noticing that time had passed. Her face was bathed in its eerie glow, the only light in the otherwise dark house. Sybilla kept promising herself she’d stop and go to bed, but her research had taken her on an unending hypnotic trail from one web page to another. Now something of great interest caught her eye. It was a scholarly entry from the 1970s talking about the interlacing rainforest waterways that emptied into Usumacinta River that served as a natural border between a good portion of southern Mexico and northern Guatemala. The photograph that accompanied it did well in capturing dense growth rising high toward a bright cerulean sky with wide majestic waters cutting a swath through the middle.

Breathtaking, Sybilla noted. A thought niggled at the back of her mind, something Flora said that was eluding her. She continued reading. The author avowed that, even as early as the late 1870s, large logging companies started extracting valuable hardwoods from the area, floating them down these jungle channels to the Usumacinta River and on to large settlements. From there the destination was foreign markets. There was mention of an unusual-looking tribe that made the deepest recesses of the forest their home, thick humid places no one else would go full of jaguars and the most poisonous snake in the world, the fer-de-lance. Ghostly looking people would step out of trees onto the riverbanks as loggers went by offering to trade monkey meat, tobacco, bows and arrows in return for tools, salt and cloth, then fade back into the mists as though they’d never existed at all. Their language was indiscernible and the loggers were frankly scared of them. There were rumors of cannibalism they’d picked up from other natives downriver. The writer said that encounters with the lumbermen were disastrous for these Native people they called the Stone Worshippers. Exposed to foreign diseases, increasingly when they did show up to trade, there was evidence of illness among them. Then they ceased making an appearance at all, causing the foreigners to think either they’d died out, or retreated even deeper into the miasma of time. For nearly forty years they weren’t seen — until five of them were displayed like animals in 1938 at the National Fair of Guatemala held in Guatemala City. It said the men were kidnapped from the jungle and brought in cages. The article ran on to discuss devastating changes and deforestation as a result of the logging over the years.

But only one thing any longer held Sybilla’s interest. Frowning, she leaned in. The National Fair of Guatemala held a link. She clicked it. As the page began to load an image appeared, and the breath left her body. She felt faint and sat back, shaking her head in disbelief. The age-stained photo marked 1938 showed five figures with long dark hair past their shoulders wearing whitish shifts, their broad brown-skinned faces handsome to a one — and held features not unlike Gabe’s.

Sybilla sat stunned. This cannot be true, she repeated over and over in her mind. But now the elusive memory of her discussion with Flora after Gabe had disappeared surfaced and clicked into place. She’d said to Sybilla that she’d “looked” at his recurrent dream.

…I see a place and some people from the south. Hundreds of years ago such people lived in northern mountains of my country. This is thick jungle…I have heard stories that they crossed the river and left Guatemala. He receives a calling from them. He cannot refuse to answer… the white cloth he wrapped around the little one? They wear this cloth.

Sybilla obsessed over the recollection, which only served to reinforce her shock. She had summarily dismissed what her friend said at the time as a hallucination she’d somehow shared with Gabe. Now she was faced with the potential that, not only might Flora’s “seeing” be real, but other more fantastic possibilities could split her world apart if true.

Could Gabe have come across these same people on the internet and incorporated them into his fantasies? Sybilla rejected that interpretation. Gabe had always prided himself about “not being seduced by technology” and had never surfed the web to her knowledge, in fact didn’t know how to operate a computer. A book? It was quite doubtful he would have found such subject matter in the Mother Lode library or their only bookstore. It was too obscure. He’d only started to have those dreams about a year after their move here.

But the final most frightening thought had to do with the white cloth. After Gabe vanished, PJ insisted on keeping it in his room draped over the back of a chair near his bed. Sybilla crept into PJ’s bedroom. He was sleeping soundly. As she picked up the folded cloth from its resting place, he mumbled something she couldn’t understand. Waiting a moment, she decided he was talking in his sleep. Sitting on her own bed stroking the rough material in her lap, Sybilla tried to make sense of her discovery. How could Gabe have gotten this cloth? Could it somehow have made its way all the way up to one of Mother Lode’s secondhand stores Gabe had occasionally dropped into? She attempted to settle herself down with this explanation. But then remembered PJ telling her about where he went with his daddy that night they’d just reappeared out of thin air in the middle of Gabe’s backyard altar: We were in a wet place and the people didn’t have shoes.

She’d passed it all off as a silly dream. Yes, but when they reappeared PJ was wrapped in this cloth! Sybilla buried her face in it. She was incredulous and a foreboding question exploded in her brain: What does this mean? If only she had Flora to consult! But that line of communication was gone.

What sleep Sybilla got was fitful. For hours she lay awake staring at the ceiling with her mind racing. Full moonlight played through her unadorned window, surreal light against shadow. Once she thought she saw movement beyond the foot of her bed in her peripheral vision and, on high alert, switched on the lamp on her nightstand. Nothing. Just the white cloth there where she left it folded at the end of the bed. Finally she must have slept. She heard Gabe’s voice faintly calling her name as though from a great distance. Sybilla sat up in bed, listening. There it was again, somewhere outside. Going to the window she peered out into the silver night. The landscape began to whirl, as though she was in a tunnel whose walls began to rotate as she stood still. She felt light-headed and held her palm against the windowpane, steadying herself. Her stomach swirled in time with the landscape. Bending slightly, she took deep slow breaths. The dizziness and nausea subsided. Straightening up again, she froze. The vista was no longer sparse desert but dense, wet foliage. And there was a palm mirroring hers on the other side of the glass. Sybilla hesitantly raised her eyes to behold Gabe’s calmly gazing into hers.

She awoke with a start, electrified. Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, she gasped and turned her eyes to the window across the room. Nothing there. The silver light had dimmed; there were clouds moving in. Her breath decelerated, and she started to turn over on her side to rid herself of the nighttime images. That’s when she realized she was clutching something in her hand all bunched up against her body. Feeling the familiar scratchy surface, she launched it to the far corner of the room in a panic. After a few minutes, she went over to the spot it landed and stared, shuddering. Picking it up between her thumb and forefinger, she held it away from her in distaste, marched out to the back door, yanked it open and pitched the bundle outside. I’ll take care of this tomorrow, she told herself.

The next morning Sybilla arose before PJ was awake and retrieved the cloth. Touching it still gave her the willies, and she thought about throwing it out entirely. However, intuition told her it could be useful to her in the future. In the light of day she felt a little silly about her jitters. Knowing that stranger things had occurred over the past few years, she humored herself and folded it into a large shipping envelope, hiding it on a shelf in the garage behind other items. She knew where it was but didn’t want the thing in the house.

However, PJ seemed to know something was amiss immediately. Later in the day, he asked Sybilla where his “Daddy blanket” was. She told him that she’d taken it to the dry cleaners when she’d run errands earlier when he was with Sonya. He looked at her doubtfully. A few days later he asked again and she told him the dry cleaners lost it.

“My daddy! My daddy!” he wailed like a lost soul, “You took my daddy from me. I want my daddy!”

He was angry with her and despairing for days. Sybilla felt wretched and guilty, but she stuck by her story, saying there was nothing she could do. She hated to admit the possibility that the cloth held some kind of power, perhaps provided a portal of some sort. Her very rational mind rejected the thought, but she couldn’t explain away her own experience logically enough. She remembered PJ’s stories of nighttime visitations from Gabe, the ones she’d chalked up — again — to dreams. So, in a manner she could deal with it, she’d literally shelved the issue. Sybilla assured herself that this was the best thing for PJ. Over the following weeks, she noticed his night stories of Gabe ceased. Or despite her misgivings, the “Daddy blanket” would have magically been found. He did awaken her sometimes at night crying out. But at entering his bedroom, she’d find him still asleep.

The image of Gabe’s face so close, looking into her eyes, observing her, would not leave her alone. It found its way into her consciousness at unexpected times, even in the midst of her busiest moments, insistent. If she gave in and went with it for even a moment, she’d feel the coolness of the windowpane on her palm, separating them. And when that would happen, the angst of tearing loss would overtake her until she roughly thrust it back into the depths she’d placed it. More than a window that ever separated us, she told herself. She found anger an effective ally against her misery and threw herself back into her work, repeatedly.

Sybilla continued her research, finally knowing she had enough material to pen a knowledgeable article on the devastating effects that many decades’ logging had on the Mexican and Guatemalan rainforests. Once one vast, life-giving organism literally creating breath for the planet’s people, it had now turned into a checkerboard of cleared land, more so every day. But she was well aware she had none of the human-interest aspect that her piece must contain. She kept thinking about the insult levied upon the Stone Worshippers when they were kidnapped from their home and displayed in a sideshow all those years ago. The article stated they were especially terrified because, they’d said in very broken Spanish to their captors, that the place they’d been taken was the end of the world; the real world was made of trees that held the sky up. She also wondered what happened to those five men after the fair was over. An idea began to play at the edges of her mind. If she was able to get a modern-day angle on these people, it would make her story quite intriguing. But she may need a research assistant. She made an appointment with Jay and went into the city to pitch the story face-to-face.

Jay listened intently as Sybilla outlined the parts of her proposed article that she was able to document and the gaps she couldn’t, in fact were still a mystery. When she finished he swiveled in his chair, his back to her and faced the window. From previous experience, Sybilla knew he wasn’t being rude but contemplating. She’d learned that, much like her, the scene from his own office window, albeit desert mountains marred by Phoenix high rises, ushered in provocative notions. When he finally faced her, Jay leaned back, looking over steepled fingers, a slight smile playing about his lips.

“Go down there.”

“What!”

“Sure, go down there. Think about it. Some of those people must still be living somewhere. Find them. Ask them about their worldview, their lives, what changes have they lived through because the trees are disappearing and the sky has fallen down. If you’re not readily able to uncover something about this tribe, then this is fresh ground. Someone probably knows more, but our readers don’t and neither does the wider world.”

Sybilla was thunderstruck. She had only asked for a research assistant, someone Spanish-speaking who could be her go-between to make phone calls to government agencies in Guatemala, bean counters who kept track of people and maybe some in-country anthropologists whose names she had. Neither of them spoke. The silence was pregnant with potential. Sybilla attempted to quell her bubbling excitement in order to sound professional.

“I see where you’re going with this. I’m just wondering how to get there,” she mused out loud.

“First do what you said. You’ll get your assistant and translator. How about Javier? He can make those phone calls. Give him a list. Then when you’ve lasered in on a location for the Stone Worshippers, go down there. Javier can accompany you as translator, assuming they speak Spanish. He’s had field time unless you can think of someone else you’d want.”

“No,” she shook her head slowly, “He’d be ideal.” Sybilla couldn’t believe this was happening. This could be another huge break for her, almost unheard of for someone her age.

Be careful what you ask for, the voice in her head counseled. She didn’t want to think of the complexities complicating the opportunity. What if the Stone Worshippers were actually the same people who called Gabe? What would that mean? Would she stumble upon him? PJ! What am I going to do with PJ? She lamented once again that Flora was no longer there.

“Is anything wrong?” Jay queried.

“Of course not! I’ll get right on it.” Sybilla pulled herself together and left Jay’s office. He looked quizzically after her.

It turned out she didn’t need Javier as much as she thought, at least initially. He’d contacted the director of the census bureau in Guatemala City, a very nice woman who spoke English. Sybilla took over and queried her on what she knew of the 1938 national fair and the people she sought. Senora Alvarez promised to research it and get back to her.

“It was not a good moment for Guatemala that it was allowed to happen,” Senora Alvarez said. “I am sorry to tell you that there is no documentation on the people you asked about or what happened to them afterwards. I don’t know if the five men were freed, or if they returned to their home. You know, back then there were very few roads, if any, in parts of the jungle. So our government had no way of keeping track of people there. And there was little enforcement of the borders between my country and Mexico. People could pass freely.”

Would that it was like that everywhere still, Sybilla sighed. It looked like a dead end.

“But I did come across the name of someone you might talk to if you can find him. You might call him an archeologist or anthropologist. Back then I think he was considered an adventurer more than anything. But he explored those areas in question and spent a lot of time there in the 1950s, especially at Piedras Negras. That’s a Maya ruin in the north. He might know of these people. But he would be quite old now, in his 80s I think, a man from your country. His name is Davis Mitchell.”

“Thank you! You’ve been very gracious, and I appreciate your help,” Sybilla brightened. She faintly remembered that name mentioned in passing in a journal she dug through. Maybe Davis Mitchell held some clues, if he was still around, and perhaps bore more importance than it first seemed.

“Da nada. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

That’s a loaded statement, Sybilla thought as she hung up the phone.

It wasn’t hard to find more on Davis Mitchell. He’d written a book detailing his long ago explorations. Sybilla tracked down a copy of Maya Mysteries through a rare bookstore she found online and then impatiently awaited its arrival. Thus far, she’d found nothing else about the Stone Worshippers anywhere after many hours digging. When Mitchell’s book arrived she devoured it, hoping to find that he’d encountered them, even pinpointed a location and who they were. It being pure research she hadn’t expected to enjoy the read. The jungle of El Petén and ruins with exotic names like El Mirador, El Zotz, and others she couldn’t pronounce, came alive. He had a knack for storytelling in what could otherwise have been bone-dry material. Even so, she had to stave off disappointment as the narrative wound through the northern Guatemala sites where Mitchell participated in digs, deep in a jungle where machetes cut the only paths that disappeared again in a few days, overtaken by vines and other vegetation. Mitchell wrote about the people who lived in the area, most often hired to help with excavation and cooking, offering the suggestion that their ancestors had built the ancient temples obscured by time and whatever devastation had brought them to ruin. But his description of those natives didn’t match the ones she searched for.

©2013 Carla Woody. All rights reserved worldwide. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be directed to: Kenosis Press, P.O. Box 10441, Prescott, Arizona 86304. Email: info@kenosis.net.

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Table of Contents

Synopsis and Author’s Note

Preston

Sybilla