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

Jorge shook his head. “I don’t know, señorita, but it does sound plausible. You know, there was one strange thing.”

“What?” Amara had to use all her will power not to lean into Jorge. But if Aaron Rivera was her grandfather, she wanted to know everything.

“Well, right before I found out he…passed away…a boy delivered a package. He said he got a strange call in the middle of the night to bring it to me, that the sender was Señor Rivera, and he had told the boy I should hold on to the package for a couple days. But it wasn’t exactly a package. Just a rag wrapped around an arrowhead. Anyway, the boy said if I didn’t hear from Señor Rivera after a few days, then I was to mail it to the address attached—somewhere in California. So I did.”

Amara bit her tongue. It had to be the same arrowhead her grandfather had bequeathed her, but she didn’t want to say anything yet. Jorge seemed nice enough, she just didn’t know yet if she could trust him. Her eyes watered at the thought that her grandfather spent some of his final days in Alma Libre, and she looked around, imagining him perusing the books.

She blinked back her tears. “Can you please show me whatever you have in your archives? I have to do some research, now.”

Amara spent the next two days holed up in the bookstore. She read every text, looked at every possible glyph, and studied all the pictures she could find of the ruins at Calakmul. She pieced together more of her secret threatening note, something about body and head, but she soon dropped her translation attempts as she became too preoccupied researching what were potentially her grandfather’s last days. There wasn’t much to know, other than facts about ancient Maya life and when they built their pyramids.

At the end of her second day in the store, Jorge came up to her, with a big smile. “I found something that may help.” He held out a piece of yellowing, torn paper. “I just remembered Aaron, or Allen, if it’s the same man, gave this to me the night before he left for Calakmul. It was a page from his journal, though I was never able to find his journal after his death. He also gave me some other items, but I can’t remember where they are anymore.”

Amara took the paper. It was a drawing of her arrowhead, the exact same size and shape. As she looked at the sketch, she realized that if her grandfather had trusted Jorge, she could too. She pulled out her arrowhead from her pocket. “It’s the same, it has to be. Aaron Rivera was Allan Randall.”

Jorge’s eyes widened with excitement. “Dios Mío! You are Aaron Rivera’s granddaughter?” He wrapped his arms around her in a hug. “That is wonderful to know.”

Amara smiled and hugged him back. He felt warm, and she was reminded of her grandfather. Then her phone rang, and she had to let go. “Sorry. I promised my parents I’d always answer.”

“Hello?” she said when she picked up.

“Yes, may I please speak to Amara Randall?”

“This is she.”

“This is John Chapman, from the Laguna Police. We got word from your neighbor that there was a robbery early this morning, so we’re just calling to follow-up with you.”

“Oh my gosh—I’m not there, I’m in Mexico doing research—but what happened?”

“Well, it seems someone broke in through your window. The whole place has been ransacked. Miss, you may want to come back soon to see if anything is missing.”

“Yes, of course, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Was anyone hurt? Have you been able to get a hold of Cayden? He’s the other tenant.” Cayden was home with his family for the Thanksgiving holiday, but that didn’t stop Amara from feeling a jolt of anxiety for his safety.

“No, it appears no one was home at the time of the robbery. We did try to reach Mr. Boyd, though we have not successfully connected with him yet. But you will need to file a report as soon as possible.”

“Sure, whatever needs to be done.” Amara started packing up her notes, trying to remember if she had bought a flexible plane ticket home. She stopped for a moment, panicked that her hard drive with all her research and backed up vlog posts might have been stolen. “Does anything obvious seem to be missing? You know, TV, computer, anything along those lines?”

There was a short pause on the other line. Amara held her breath and anticipated the worst.

“It looks like they drank all of your…juice?”
CHAPTER 8 - Around 900 A.D.

“I was thirteen when King Jasaw took over my city, Tikal,” Ichik said. He had a candle, and now he, Mahaway, and Yochi sat in a circle, watching each other through flickering light.

“We were his first city, after he overthrew his own city and became king. At first, things were fine. He brought food and supplies with him, so we were happy. Earlier that year there had been a drought, and we weren’t sure there would be enough resources to sustain us through the dry season.”

Mahaway nodded. “Yes. The same thing is happening here now.”

“Well then you know what happens when people start getting desperate for food and water.”

Yochi snorted.

“What?” Ichik said.

“Only when they let the desperation get to them. That’s why we have rules, and systems—”

“That’s not always enough.” Ichik glared at Yochi. “What happens when you run out? How can you ration nothing?”

“Ok, ok, arguing is not going to help,” Mahaway said. She gestured to Ichik. “Please, go on.”

“My father sensed that something bad was going to happen. He was an architect, so he had studied and designed many of the pyramids and monuments. According to him, all the old buildings had secret rooms, like the one we’re in now.”

Mahaway gently patted Ichik’s arm. “You said, ‘he was’? What happened?”

Tears glistened in Ichik’s eyes. “Yes, he was killed. Shortly before my 15th year, a few months after he started teaching me his secrets. He was forced to fight, but he died in his first battle, and once he was dead, they drafted me into King Jasaw’s stupid army.”

Ichik spit. “I hated it—being torn away from my mother, my brother. For the first year I tried really hard. I followed all my orders blindly, I didn’t even flinch when I killed someone. My hope was that they would notice I was doing a good job, and let me go home. But we kept marching, farther and farther from home, and I started to give up hope. I just did what I had to, to survive. And then I couldn’t take it any more. I’ve been marching for two years now, and when we got to Ox Te- Tuun, when I saw another city about to fall into ruin at our hands, I snapped and ran away.”

Mahaway was quiet for a moment. “I’m so sorry Ichik—but how did you end up here?”

Ichik wiped his face, and looked down at the ground. “Like I said earlier, my father was an architect. He taught me some things, such as how every building has these secret rooms. Based on what he told me, it wasn’t hard to find this one. He said some of these rooms are where the royal families hid the work their best scribes and astronomers did.”

“What are you talking about?” Mahaway said, remembering how some of her fellow scribes had been called away earlier that day.

“According to my father, every royal family had a group of trusted scribes and astronomers who tracked the seasons and cycles for them in calendars,” Ichik said. “By having the knowledge of time, they could claim to control the cosmos and maintain their power.”

“Does Jasaw know about this place?” Yochi suddenly looked worried. “If he does, we are not safe here.”

“Probably not yet,” Ichik said. “There’s been…evidence in other cities that he knows about the secret rooms with the hidden calendars. But since he was not born into power, he has had to find these rooms on his own. Jasaw has ended up wrecking each city he conquers, and I think it’s because of his search for these rooms and what they may contain. Something having to do with calendars. It’s hard to find these rooms individually, unless you destroy everything. But what