Jean Genie
Copyright© 2026 by Rachael Jane
Chapter 96: The K’iche’ Astronomers
Guatemalan Highlands, 1822
Two weeks later Ixchel and Yalitza are far to the south-east of Chiapas, having passed from Mexico into Guatemala. The Guatemalan highlands open into a valley dotted with small houses made of stone and timber, their roofs thatched with palm and grass. Smoke rises from cooking fires. Children chase each other between the trees. Dogs bark lazily at the caravan as we approach.
Yalitza squeezes Ixchel’s hand. “Is this the place?”
“Yes,” Ixchel says softly. “The merchant says the K’iche’ astronomers live here.”
I feel her pulse quicken in anticipation and hope, but also a quiet fear of being wrong.
The merchant calls out in Mayan. A few villagers look up from their work. One of them ... a man with silver threaded through his black hair ... steps forward. His eyes are sharp, observant, the kind of eyes that have spent a lifetime watching the sky.
He speaks to the merchant briefly, then turns to Ixchel.
“You study the heavens?” he asks in accented Zapotec.
Ixchel nods. “Yes.”
He gestures for us to follow. We walk through the village to a small platform built on a rise overlooking the valley. It is simple ... just a flat stone surface with a few carved markers aligned to the horizon ... but the air around it feels different. Focused. As though the sky itself leans closer here.
Two astronomers wait beside the platform: Balam is a young man with a calm, thoughtful expression, while Nicte is an older woman whose face is lined with years of sun and wind. She carries a bundle of folded cloth and a small clay bowl.
Yalitza hides slightly behind Ixchel, peeking out with wide eyes.
Nicte studies Ixchel for a long moment. Then she looks at the bracelet, and her breath catches.
She steps closer, slowly, reverently, as though approaching a sacred relic.
“May I?” she asks.
Ixchel hesitates, then extends her arm. Nicte doesn’t touch the bracelet ... she only looks. Her eyes widen. Her lips part in a soft exhale.
“These three symbols,” she murmurs pointing to the small symbols surrounding each of the gems in the bracelet. “I have seen them before.”
Ixchel’s pulse leaps. I feel it through the bracelet.
“Where?” Ixchel asks.
Nicte gestures to the horizon. “At the old observatory. The one the forest is taking back.”
Balam nods. “There is a stone tablet there, with a recess carved into it. Empty for generations.”
A tremor runs through the glyph on the inside surface of the bracelet. Soft. Insistent. Recognizing something familiar.
Ixchel feels it too. Her breath stutters.
Nicte kneels, motioning for Yalitza to come closer. “Little one, look.”
Nicte unfolds the cloth bundle. Inside are the broken pieces of a carved stone ... weathered, but unmistakably part of a larger tablet. A repeated sequence of four glyphs spiral outward in a pattern. The same four symbols on bracelet’s glyph fragment and the three symbols surrounding each gem.
Yalitza gasps. “It matches!”
Ixchel kneels beside her, tracing the air above the stone. “This is ... incredible.”
Balam speaks quietly. “Our elders say the ancients constructed an instrument they considered to be too powerful, and they divided into four parts to prevent misuse. They brought the parts together for ceremonies, but the parts became scattered long ago.”
Four parts. Four fragments. Four paths.
The glyph fragment pulses again ... stronger this time. I feel it in every part of myself, a resonance that makes the bracelet’s fragment hum.
Ixchel looks at the astronomers. “Do you know where the other parts are?”
Nicte shakes her head. “Only stories. We believe that the pieces I’ve just shown you came from one ... the one kept at the observatory here. But we don’t know what became of the rest of it. One was taken far across the western ocean. One was lost beyond the sea to the east. We don’t know about the fourth. Perhaps that’s the one the Maya kept in Yucatán for centuries. It’s difficult to understand which part each story relates to.”
Ixchel’s eyes widen. “You said that one was lost beyond the sea to the east?”
Nicte nods. “Yes. Carried away by traders or conquerors. No one knows for sure.”
Yalitza leans close to Ixchel. “Can we find them?”
Ixchel smiles faintly. “We can try.”
Nicte touches the stone fragments gently. “The one in the jungle is closest. But the path is dangerous.”
Ixchel stands. “I need to search for it.”
The astronomers exchange a look ... respect mixed with concern.
“You carry knowledge,” Balam says. “And something more.”
His gaze flicks to the bracelet, which warms against Ixchel’s wrist. He cannot see me, but he senses my presence.
“Be careful,” he says. “The sky guides those who listen. But it doesn’t protect them.”
Ixchel nods and Yalitza takes her hand.
And I ... bound to the fragment, bound to their path ... feel the resonance settle into a steady pulse.
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