No One Knows the Color of the Moon

      While Mom and Dad were busy surveying the scene with upturned noses, the shuttle bus driver extended his hand out to Lucy and helped her exit the rumbling van. Lucy thought her pale hand next to his warm skin looked like a glob of sunscreen waiting to be rubbed in.

           “Gracias,” she whispered, nervous that she wasn’t pronouncing it right. She wasn’t, but it was close enough for an 11-year-old who had never been to a Spanish-speaking country before. The bus driver beamed at her, taking his hand away gently once Lucy had arrived on solid ground.

           “It’s smoggy.” Mom peeled off her oversized sunglasses and tucked them on top of her floppy straw hat. She spotted a porter smoking a cigarette to the left of the hotel entrance and waved him over. The porter pretended not to see her, he still had a third of his cigarette left.

           “It’s the volcano,” Dad hollered from the back of the van where he pointed out the family’s suitcases to the shuttle bus driver. “El Chi-con!”

           “El Chichón,” the driver corrected politely.

           “What did I say?” The driver placed the last bag at Dad’s feet and smiled with his hand extended.

“Honey. Tip the nice man and let’s go see our room!” Mom was restless.

“You guys like good ol’ American dollars in Meh-hi-co, right?”

           While Dad searched his wallet for a small bill, Lucy rolled a baggage cart over to the suitcases and began to load it up. The porter cussed under his breath and flicked his cigarette butt on to the ground before running over to help.

--

           Mom strut across the white sands with both hands on her head, holding down her floppy hat so the wind wouldn’t take it. Her long tie-dye beach cover-up trailed in her wake. So did Lucy, with a tower of yellow and white striped hotel towels. And so did Dad, with his arms wrapped around three folding beach chairs and a beach umbrella, rented out for the day from the hut where they also sold bottled beer, individual cigarettes, and spicy candies with insects trapped inside.

           They snaked through a labyrinth of other tourists’ beach setups, stopping from time to time so Mom could study their potential beach neighbors and determine who would be least likely to annoy her.

           “Here will do.” Mom stopped at an empty patch of sand between a large, unoccupied blanket and a dozing sunburnt elderly couple. She looked on while Dad struggled with his armload. Lucy squinted as she sent her gaze past the stacked beach towels in her foreground and out to the horizon where the cloudy sky met the dark sea.

           “Can I go?” Mom and Dad both turned to Lucy.

           “Are you sure you wanna swim, Loose-Goose? It looks kinda cold.” Dad opened up a beach chair and placed it in the sand next to Mom’s feet, facing the ocean.

           “Plus, the water might be dirty,” Mom pushed her sunglasses to the edge of her nose and studied Lucy’s face. “The dark sky, the volcano that erupted a couple weeks ago.” She sighed and pushed her sunglasses back up, then plopped into the beach chair. “It’s actually perfect weather for sunbathing. Too cloudy for direct sun. Sit with me!” Mom pat the armrest of the chair and settled into relaxation mode.

           “Dad, please?” Lucy turned her bottom lip down just enough to make him cave.

           “Well, it is your vacation, too. Go play.”

           Lucy dropped the towels and sprinted to the ocean.

--

           Lucy sat in the wet sand and watched the edge of the ocean creep to her feet and slink away again. It wasn’t cold, it wasn’t dirty. It was perfect.

           She could tell the two boys in the water nearby were talking about her. They were speaking Spanish, but they kept looking back at her. She didn’t mind. She was talking about them in her head, too. The taller one looked to be about her age, wearing a t-shirt in the water, he would cross his arms over his chest anytime the waves dipped below his chin, hiding the little bit of baby fat he still had on his body. The smaller looked to be maybe 7 and had a white birthmark on his back that reminded Lucy of the bunny rabbit shape she always saw on the moon when it was full.

           She was looking down at her right hand sinking further into the wet sand when the boys approached.

           “Hola,” the younger one spoke first. Lucy looked up and saw they both had on cut-off jean shorts instead of regular bathing suits. The older one had his arms crossed over his chest again.

           “Hola,” Lucy hesitated, and then, “qué tal?”

           Both boys grinned. Lucy quickly looked back down at her disappearing hand.

           “Cómo se llama? Me llamo Mierda,” the little one was laughing before he could even finish. Lucy looked up to see the frowning older boy slap him on the shoulder.

           “I know that means shit.”

           The boys froze. The older boy nudged the younger for him to apologize. “Perdón.”

           Eager to move on, the older boy stuck his hand out for a handshake. “Julio.”

           “Lucy,” she shook his hand confidently.

Julio stuck a playful finger into the smaller boy’s side, “Y, Marco. Do you know about the moon tonight?” Lucy loved the older boy’s accent.

           “No.”

           “There will be a eclipse,” the older boy’s smile returned. “Totale. You can meet us here tonight to see?”

           “What time? Um…a hora?”

           “One A.M.”

           “Okay. Sí.”

           Marco jabbed a finger into Julio’s side and ran off laughing. Without another word, Julio chased after him, leaving Lucy with the waves.

--

           Their outdoor table at the hotel restaurant had a mostly unobstructed view of the spot on the beach where Lucy had met Julio and Marco. Lucy occupied herself with moving soggy vegetables around on her plate while she waited for a break in Mom and Dad’s complaints about the dinner waitstaff.

           “Did you know there’s a total eclipse tonight?”

           “Mm yeah honey, that’s gonna be way past our bedtime,” Dad waved his fork between himself and Mom.

“And, all this haze! It’s too dense to see anything worth seeing,” Mom picked through her fish filet for bones that weren’t there. Dad watched sympathetically as Lucy’s gaze dropped to her plate.

“Our balcony has a pretty good view. I bet you can see it all from there.”

“Okay.” Lucy went back to her carrots and peas.

--

           Dad’s snores shook the open glass sliding door while Lucy leaned against the south-facing balcony railing, a towel wrapped around her shoulders. She couldn’t find the moon. She couldn’t even see Julio and Marco’s spot on the beach from here. She quietly stepped back into the hotel room and closed the sliding door.

--

           Julio and Marco were laying on their backs in the sand in the same outfits as Lucy walked silently across the sand to join them, a tattered towel was spread out between them.

           “Hola,” Julio jumped at Lucy’s greeting but Marco turned around with a big smile on his face.

           “¡Hola! Para ti,” Marco waved his hand across the empty towel. Julio settled on to his back again as Lucy laid down next to them.

           The three of them were silent for some time while they looked up at the dark and cloudy sky. And then, like a glass marble escaping an oil spill, the full moon emerged from behind a mess of darkness.

           “It’s beautiful,” Lucy whispered.

           “Wait. There is more,” Julio rolled over to face Lucy. “No one knows the color of the moon.”

           “What do you mean? I know it’s usually like…white. And during an eclipse…it turns red right?”

           “Maybe,” Julio grinned. “They say no one knows the color of the moon tonight because El Chichón-“

           “The volcano that erupted. The reason why the sky is so dark.”

           “Sí, El Chichón y la luna,” Marco kept his eyes on the moon as he spoke. “Rojo, morado, amarillo, marrón como mierda.” Marco giggled.

           “I think it will be yellow, amarillo-“

           Marco yelled over Julio. “¡No, morado! ¡Para Tsukan!”

           “Marco thinks it will be purple. And Tsukan, the snake of the wells, will come out to swim in the sea.”

           “What about yellow?” Lucy watched as the moon inched across the sky.

           “Amarillo para Balam. The jaguar spirit. He will give us food that will feed us every day.”

           “¡Mira! ¡Mira!” Marco pointed into the sky. A deep red was slowly spread across the moon. “Rojo.”

           “Red is Kinich Ahau, the bird of fire. It means more power for the sun to keep bright.” Julio sighs, a little disappointed but still enjoying the moment.

           “It’s beautiful, too.” Lucy looked over to Julio just as his expression began to change.

           “¡La luna negra!” Marco jumped to his feet, both hands shooting into the sky. Lucy looked up and saw the dark red drain from the moon, in a matter of seconds it was taken over by the color black.

           Lucy and Julio slowly stood as well, squinting at the black moon. “You can still see the rabbit! Even with it all black! The rabbit is there!” Lucy pointed to the moons deep craters, it’s familiar features still defined even with its deep, smoky color.

           Julio looked to Lucy with a wide smile. He leaped to Marco and turned him around, his back facing Lucy. “The rabbit! ¡El conejo en la luna!” Lucy and Julio laughed together while an annoyed Marco batted the older boy away.

           Again, they turned their gaze to the moon.

           “What does black mean?”

           “No sé,” Julio shrugged his shoulders.

           “Camazotz.” Marco said in a quiet exhale.

           “No, cállate.” Julio slapped Marco on the shoulder.

           “Sí, Camazotz.” Marco nodded his head gravely.

           “What is cama-zotz?”

           “Nothing…a bat. Only a bat.”

           The kids stood in silence as the black was slowly taken over by the deep red once more, seeping slowly across the face of the moon. They didn’t speak again until the moon finally dipped back behind the dark clouds from El Chichón.

--

           It was quiet when Lucy opened the door to her family’s hotel room. She carefully closed the door and slipped off her sandals, trying to rub off the sand that had stuck to her ankles. It was so, so quiet. She tiptoed to her parents’ nearly shut bedroom door and peered inside.

           Their bed was empty. Their balcony sliding door open. Lucy saw it for only a second before it launched itself from the railing and beat it’s massive black wings to ascend to the starless sky above.