The 13th Cycle by Sabrina Ricci (best beach reads .TXT) 📕

“You can’t catch me!” Mahaway, a woman of one katun,or 20 years, and the youngest scribe in her city, said. She giggled while running, her long dark hair covering her face as she looked back at her best friend since childhood, Yochi.
“It’s not fair. You’re too fast,” Yochi said. He breathed heavily as he stumbled to catch up. “I need a moment.” He stopped to slap his pudgy stomach. “We astronomers don’t get out much.”
“Yes, poor you, looking at the stars each night and figuring out how the world works.” Mahaway came back to give her friend a poke. “What a terrible life.”
“Don’t you have places to be?” Yochi glared at Mahaway. He was proud of his work as an astronomer. His mentor had recently rewarded him for his latest calculations charting a more accurate Haab calendar—the one that determined the seasons.
“Not for a few more hours.” Mahaway brushed her hair out of her face. “Queen K’abel doesn’t need me until after nightfall.” Her green eyes shone as she thought of her beloved queen. Mahaway was young, but she was one of the city’s brightest scribes, and Queen K’abel often rewarded her analytical skills and writing abilities with free afternoons.
“I see. So you’re going to spend that time torturing me.” Yochi grinned.
“No dear, silly friend.” She grabbed his hand. “Come on! Now’s the best time and we don’t want to miss it.”
“Where are we going?” Yochi huffed, still recovering from their short game of chase.
“You’ll see,” Mahaway said, leading him up a dirt path.
Moments later, the two of them were standing atop a hill overlooking their city, the fading light casting a luminous glow on the structures laid out below them.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Mahaway whispered.
Yochi reached over and touched her hand. “Yes,” he said as he watched the sky turn orange and purple and red.
From their hill they could clearly see the queen’s palace, with its steep staircase that led up to what looked like a giant, square eye. They stood together for a moment, content—the world silent and peaceful.
Mahaway started humming her and Yochi’s favorite tune. It was a lullaby their mothers had sung to them as children, when they sometimes slept over at each other’s homes.
Yochi joined in, softly singing the words:
Conex, conex palanxen, xicubin, xicubin yocolquin.
Conex, conex palanxen, xicubin, xicubin yocolquin.
Xola mayola, xola mayol, ea, ea, ea, o.
Conex, conex palanxen, xicubin, xicubin yocolquin.
The two friends made it through one round of the song, and then the horns sounded.
“That can’t be what I think it is.” Yochi grabbed Mahaway’s hand and squeezed it in fear.
Mahaway stiffened. “What is it, Yochi?”
Yochi pointed up. The sky was darkening, and in the haze between the dark blue and pink was a bright white ball, almost the size of the moon.
“Venus,” Yochi said. “War.”

Amara determined the best place to start researching her story was at the school library. After the initial scare from the hackers wore off, she decided she would be true to her journalistic aspirations and continue to work on her story. Fortunately she had a backed up version of her vlog, so she was able to restore it without any problems.

Amara had high hopes walking into the building, and she smiled as she approached the student library assistant at the front desk. He was cute, with dimples and a nametag that read Grant.

“Hello, be with you in one minute.” A stack of books lay on the desk next to him, and he was busy stamping the inside covers. When he looked up and saw Amara, he stopped. “Can I help you?”

Amara’s heart fluttered for a second. Then she remembered her mission. “Yes, I’m writing a feature for The Eagle, about the Mayan end of the world predictions. Do you have any books about the Maya?”

“Cool, you’re a reporter.” Grant frowned as he thought. “Off the top of my head, I don’t think so.”

“Oh,” Amara said, disappointed.

“But wait a second.”

Amara watched as Grant dashed inside a small office behind the desk. After waiting for a few moments, she felt awkward standing alone.

Here you go.” Grant emerged from the office and handed her a book called The Myths of Mexico and Peru. “Flip through this. There’s probably something about the Mayans in there.”

Amara opened the book to the table of contents. At least two chapters were about the Maya. She turned to the first one and started reading. Then she felt Grant’s stare so she looked up. “I’ll take it.”

“Great,” Grant said. He gestured for her to follow him to the computer. “I’ll check you out right here.” He blushed. “I mean, the book.”

Amara nodded, trying to think of something clever to say, but she was also too eager to get back to her book. The first couple pages she had skimmed were about the Popul Vuh, the Mayan Book of the People that contained stories of creation and heroes. She wanted to learn more.

“Come back anytime,” Grant said.

“What?” Amara had been lost in her thoughts.

“Oh just—I’ll check to see if we have more stuff on the Maya. Here, why don’t you give me your email and I can let you know if I find anything else?” He tore off a piece of paper from a notebook sitting on the corner of the desk and handed Amara a pen. “I’m Grant, by the way.”

Amara was torn. She wanted to collect enough research to get the green light on her story so she could start getting recognition as a journalist, but she also wanted to stick around and talk to Grant some more.

She took the pen. “I’m Amara. Sometimes it takes me a while to check my email, so here’s my number too, just in case.” Willing herself not to blush, she gave the paper to Grant. “Text me anytime.”

“Great. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“Thanks.” Amara flashed him a smile as she left, happy she could use journalism as an excuse to flirt.

Once she was home, she decided to go online and do more research. She bought a couple ebooks, The Mayan Code and Maya 2012 Revealed, to read later on her tablet. Then she went to Wolfram Alpha, a fairly new search engine that relied on expert knowledge. Typing “Mayans” in the search box yielded some interesting results, mostly timelines, but nothing particularly useful. So she went back to Google.

“That looks promising,” Amara said, clicking on a link. It was for an article titled, “Experts meet to discuss Maya calendar, debunk end-of-world stories.” The article said that archaeologists and anthropologists had met at the beginning of October to talk about how the world would not end in December and how the Mayans had made some prophesies, but nothing fatalistic.

“Shoot,” Amara muttered. “Wish I had known about that sooner—maybe I could have gone.” Her eyes lit up as she read more. One of the experts was a Professor Brown, and he taught at Laguna State. Amara opened a new tab to her school’s website, and found Professor Brown’s email. She quickly wrote him a message, asking if she could have an interview.

“All right, one source down.” The unofficial rule of The Eagle was that stories needed to have at least three sources. Amara smiled and opened another tab to start a new search. The next website contained information on a Maya 2012 exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania Museum that debunked the myths. “Damn, that’s too far away,” Amara said. She continued her search.

The Royal Ontario also had an exhibit, but it had closed in April. Just as Amara was about to close that tab, she saw a link to some videos. She clicked on the one called, 2012: What did the Maya think? It was a short clip that explained part of the Mayan calendar. According to the video, the Maya used baktuns, which are calendar cycles equal to 394 years. Doing a little more research, Amara found that the Maya had multiple calendars and cycles. There were at least three different dating systems in parallel: the Tzolkin, the Haab, and the Long Count. The Long Count was the calendar that supposedly predicted the end of the world, and it was comprised of kin, the equivalent of a day. Twenty kin equaled an uinal, eighteen uinal equaled one tun—approximately 360 days or one year—twenty tun equaled one katun, and twenty katun equaled roughly one baktun. The Long Count lasted 5,125 years, and of course was due to end on December 21, 2012, which would also be the winter solstice. But what fascinated Amara the most was the fact that the calendar supposedly began on August 11, 3114 B.C., during the solar zenith passage in southern Maya latitudes, and the Maya had mysteriously stopped making carvings and calendars around 900 A.D.

Excited, Amara typed up some notes and sent them to Makenna, telling her she already had one potential interview.

“What are you doing?”

Amara jumped out of her seat. She turned to glare at Cayden. “You scared me half to death.”

Cayden chuckled. “Sorry, you just looked so intense, staring at your screen…I couldn’t resist.” He peeked over her shoulder. “So more Mayans, huh?”

“Yes, more Mayans.” Amara clicked on another link. “It’s actually really interesting.”

“That looks cool.” Cayden pointed to the screen. PBS had an interactive site corresponding to a NOVA program they had