Part Seventeen
THE CALAVERA ENTERS
They’d started appearing out of nowhere; the Poltergeist, the Halloween skulls, and now a grinning Calavera, the candy skull symbolizing the Mexican Day of the Dead. Barbara thought she probably should do something but didn’t know whether to call 911 or an exorcist.
She looked up at the Calavera and told it to put the Mexicans down immediately.
“Ah, but the little sweethearts don’t want to leave me,” it replied in sugary tones.
“Little sweethearts”? A poor choice of words, Barbara thought, for cradled in its arms were replicas of some of the cruelest entities ever known, like Ah Kin, the priest who demanded human hearts as a sacrifice. She looked sternly up at the Mexican Entities. “I only just managed to save American Entities from being eaten by Halloween skulls. You’ll be gobbled up if you don’t get down.”
They laughed. “No, the opposite. We’re going to eat the Calavera. She’s made of sugar candy.” And indeed, Ah Kin and the Quetzalcoatl were making tentative licks at her face. The Calavera began to chant in a high sweet voice:
“Zapotec mighty and revered,
Mayan Death Mask worshipped and feared,
Jaina Island Figurine of the setting sun
Teotl the inexplicable one,
Olmec Head spirit sublime and gracious,
Quetzalcoatl, with appetite voracious
Mexcala, a Stone without price
Ah Kin of the ritual sacrifice
Aztec goddess Tlazolteotl . . .”
Ah Kin and the Quetzalcoatl were now nibbling at the face, and the Calavera’s voice broke a little, but it still held the others tightly in its arms. Barbara thought she’d try bribery; she could always turn to ungovernable rage if that didn’t work.
“I would let you have your own entry on the CosmicGossip website if you let them go,” she offered.
The Calavera stopped the chant, which Barbara rather regretted because she was wondering what on earth it could find to rhyme with “Tlazolteotl.”
“It would be nice to be remembered, for Calaveras are only meant to last a day,” it said to Barbara, then dropped to the floor and shattered. The Mexicans gathered up the sugar-candy pieces, began eating them, and almost immediately started making sick noises. Had the candy skull been made of a sweet-tasting but poisonous substance, like antifreeze? Barbara decided to forget the Calavera website entry. After all, gods were famed for their duplicity. She gave the Mexicans a box of tissues and told them to clean themselves up, then turned to the Medallions, who had been trying to attract her attention for some time. Was this yet another problem?
