I was first born on what is called January 2, 1520, the child of Malinche and Hernan Cortes in Tenochtitlan, Aztec Empire Capitol and what is now Mexico City.  During the Noche Triste on June 30th of the same year, I was captured by the Aztecs.  My father cared more for conquest than for his Mestizo child, so he made no effort to reclaim me.  My mother, out of grief, threw herself off a cliff while my father continued fighting for control of Mexico. 

In April of 1521, I was smuggled out of the city when Tenochtitlan fell for the final time.  I ended up at a Catholic mission where I was taken in as an orphan, a casualty of war.

I remained in the mission as a servant until going with some of the Franciscans to Tutul Xiu in 1536. There I helped Christianize the Mayan natives as an interpreter.  I was indoctrinated into Christianity and the brutality it sanctioned.  I helped to destroy a culture, temples, great works of art, idols, and helped torture unrepentant natives in order to drive out the devil.  It all seemed justifiable to me at the moment. 

Six years later I joined Diego de Landa in Tihoo, which was by then called Merida.   At the Sacred Cenote, the Well of Sacrifice, I came across a Mayan woman’s body.  She looked almost dead, like she had just crossed the threshold and was left there to rot.  I walked over to her, morbid curiosity capturing my soul. 

As I stood over the body, her eyes flew open.  I see those eyes in my mind just as they were on that day.  They were the color of gold beads and their glow burned me like the rays of the sun.  I couldn’t find the courage to run.  My legs were frozen into the stone and ground I walked upon. 

She then growled at me with the mouth of a jaguar.  I fell back against a wall, opening my mouth to scream but having nothing but my hot breath leak out.  I didn’t even see her get up.  It was like a blink of an eye, and the she was, standing in front of me, nose to nose, her hand gripping my throat almost completely shut.  As she held me completely locked in her grip, she looked at me with great curiosity, examining my white robe and crudely carved wooden cross hanging around my neck. 

After this inspection, she asked me in ancient tongue if I believed in the One or the Many.  I didn’t know what to say, so my teaching took over, and I told her I believed in the One God, the God of salvation.  She told me that like the half-breed I was, I had betrayed the soul of my people.  I was dumbfounded.   I asked in Spanish how she knew such things.  She looked deep into my mind, and there I saw her life as a young priestess at La Isla Mujeres, the Isle of Women. 

Through her, I watched the rapes in the temples, and a female goddess come to life, kissing the lips of the woman who now held my life in her hands, and then I saw her turn into a jaguar.  I felt terrified as her face switched from animal to human.  In her mouth, her canines enlarged and protruded downward.  She then leaned into my body.  All I could do was close my eyes as she turned my neck to the side and sank her teeth into my flesh.

I fell into a darkness.  Something strange had taken over my body, and I felt dislodged from the world.  I was so alone, very frightened and cold.