Excerpt of Dance the Dream Awake by Cora J. Ramos

I ran through the jungle, tearing through the brush into the clearing. Halfway up the elaborately painted, pyramid temple they stood waiting on the platform. A woman in full ceremonial dress, wearing the skins of the jaguar, sat on her throne flanked by two male attendants. She stood. “You have taken what is not yours. You have angered Ah Puch. Your heart must be sacrificed and your body stripped and committed to Mitnal.” Trembling, I found my voice. “You are wrong. What I have was given, not taken. They were gifts from the Old Itza. And, you will not get them.” “Silence!” The woman shouted. The priests wore jaguar skins as well as fantastic head dresses of painted creatures. I trembled with fear. On the top of the pyramid, stood another, taller priest wearing a headdress of the iridescent blue and green feathers of the Quetzal bird. His magnificent body descended the uppermost steps like a cat, his long, brown muscular legs and arms were covered with bands of jade-encrusted leather. When he reached the middle platform, he pounded his tall staff, topped with more Quetzal feathers and beads, on the ground three times. Two priests stepped out of the brush behind me and quickly dragged me up to the platform. Through the dripping sounds of the jungle and my pounding heart, I heard it coming. When the jaguar leaped into the clearing, the priests quickly lifted me and stretched my body back over a stone slab. The tall priest took out an obsidian blade and before I could utter a sound, sliced into my chest. Paralyzed with fear, I felt nothing as I watched him lift out my heart, and throw it down toward the animal. I turned my head to see the jaguar wrench the offering from off the steps and then silently slip back into the jungle. The tall priest ran his hand over my open chest, as if trying to close the wound. As life ebbed out of my body, I saw panic in his eyes as he frantically repeated the motion again and again, shouting, “Ixchel, Ixchel,” before darkness enveloped me. I shuddered and snapped out of the vision in a panic. Like a veil removed, I knew I’d seen the whole dream—or was there still more? Our moist bodies lay entwined and motionless while I tried to calm my racing heart. That nightmare wasn’t just a dream. In the intensity of our lovemaking, a part of us had merged in some inexplicable way. In the next moment, Porfirio had entered my worst nightmare as the tall priest. He’d thrown open a locked door, behind which lay a room I was afraid to acknowledge, much less look into. Now that I’d glimpsed that room, I wanted to shut the door and pretend I hadn’t seen it. I rationalized that my mind was playing tricks on me. It had to be some strange kind of transference. I tried to fight off all thoughts of what it meant. It couldn’t mean anything I told myself over and over. Then, fear and guilt reared their ugly twin heads. What had I done? Was I crazy to have had sex with this stranger I’d only just met last night and knew nothing about? All Kelsey’s warnings came flooding to mind.