I stuck the torch around the darkened corner, in case the man-eating cat was hiding there, but when I looked both ways down the hallway, I found it empty. At the end, my father's curtain stood open, moonlight creeping out at a sharp angle. Father never kept his curtain open. I crept down the hallway towards Mother's room, which was right next door to Father's. Her curtain was closed, but when I slipped inside, her bed was empty.

My heart raced a moment before I thought, She's just in the bath. She had her own small, private bathhouse in her garden so I headed there immediately, still clutching my torch.

But she wasn't there either. "Nantli?" I whispered as I looked around the garden. I tried to stave off the panic growing in my stomach but couldn't hold back the tears and breathing rapidly. Where was she? It wasn't like Mother to not be in her room in the middle of the night, to give me comfort when I woke up from a nightmare. It might get me a scolding, but I decided I had to wake Father.

I threw aside the door curtain and turned the corner into Father's room with such speed that I almost clipped the doorway. But instead of finding father, I came to a sliding stop a few arm-lengths away from a black-robed monster hunched over my father's bed. Its long, matted hair glistened in the moonlight and it sang prayers in a harsh cadence while also making sounds like breaking bones. I managed only a startled gasp before the panic took over and I ripped lose a piercing scream.

The creature whirled on me so I swung the torch at it, hoping the fire would keep it at bay. It flinched back but also said, "Quetzalpetlatl! Put that down before you hurt someone!"

In the torchlight, I saw it wasn't some demon but rather my uncle Ihuitmal. His face was painted with gold stripes and his usually neatly-brushed hair hung in wet strands around his face, but I recognized him. A wave of relief swept over me and I dropped the torch and rushed forward, throwing my arms around him. His robe smelled rank, like a bloated deer carcass, which drove me back almost as soon as I embraced him, and at the corner of my mind, I wondered why he was dressed like a priest of the Sun. But I was too overwhelmed with joy and relief to pursue the question. "You came back, uncle?" I asked, wiping my tears away as I shook miserably.

"I told your father I would," he said, straightening his robe as if I'd messed it up when I'd hugged him.

"I'm so glad to see you. I think there's a jaguar loose in the palace!"

"You think so?"

"I thought I saw it when I was coming back from the bathhouse." My wrist started itching again so I rubbed it against my side.

"I didn't see anything," my uncle said. He glanced over his shoulder at the bed then stepped closer to it but still kept his back to it. "You were likely just having a nightmare, child."

I didn't think so, but I knew better than to argue with Ihuitmal. He had even less patience with argumentative children than my father did.