110 pages • 3 hours read
Silvia Moreno-GarciaGods of Jade and Shadow
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
Casiopea and Hun-Kamé leave Carnival and walk until they reach a crossroads outside of town. Hun-Kamé catches a moth, crushes it, and uses it to summon the psychopomp (a spirit who guides the dead), who appears as a towering creature of smoke. It tells Hun-Kamé that they must travel to Mexico City and Baja California. The psychopomp warns them that Hun-Kamé will meet his doom because “your brother is more cunning and more powerful than you ever imagined” (95).
The next evening, travel by train to Mexico City. Since Hun-Kamé controls the dead, Casiopea asks if he can summon her father’s spirit. Hun-Kamé cannot because her father is not of his kingdom, and the news relieves Casiopea; she has heard terrible stories about Xibalba and feared for her father’s safety there. Hun-Kamé corrects her and describes Xibalba as a beautiful place with glowing fish and silver trees.
Casiopea asks if Hun-Kamé’s ear bothers him. He says it does not, but she admits her hand hurts from the embedded bone shard. He takes her hand to examine it, and she gently squeezes his fingers. Hun-Kamé reprimands her for touching him, but she argues he touched her first, making him laugh. Casiopea returns to watching the stars and eventually falls asleep. Hun-Kamé considers his uncharacteristic burst of laughter but quickly dismisses it. However, in the Underworld, “another lord had heard Hun-Kamé’s laughter and could discern its meaning” (101).
Chapter 11 Summary
Vucub-Kamé is sitting in his palace when one of his owls arrives: It delivers him the seashell with which it captured Hun-Kamé’s laughter. The sound displeases Vucub-Kamé, who retrieves a knife and goes to the House of Jaguars. There, he decapitates a jaguar and removes its heart to read a prophecy in its blood. Previously, Vucub-Kamé used this method to see the details of Hun-Kamé’s return and learned that Hun-Kamé would require a mortal’s aid and that mortal’s essence would weaken Hun-Kamé. The owl’s message confirms this: “Hun-Kamé’s laughter proved that he was indeed turning human” (106).
Still, the laughter troubles Vucub-Kamé. He isn’t ready for his brother to turn mortal, and the laughter is too strong and vibrant to indicate the weakness Hun-Kamé should be feeling. Concerned about this development, Vucub-Kamé reads the blood of the jaguar, a swamp caiman, and his own, each time finding that his victory is no longer assured.
Vucub-Kamé sends one of his owls to spy on his brother and another to bring Martín to Mexico City to intercept Casiopea. The Underworld kingdom was once great, but as its worshippers dwindled, its grandeur faded. Vucub-Kamé blames his brother for not forcing humans to believe. Vucub-Kamé will not let his brother return and allow the kingdom to fall into decay. Instead, Vucub-Kamé will lead Xibalba to greatness because he is more cunning and worthy: “mortals would make songs about his victory” for thousands of years to come (109).
Chapter 12 Summary
Mexico City is even more hectic and fast-paced than Veracruz. Hun-Kamé secures two rooms for them at one of the most opulent hotels in the city before taking Casiopea to buy supplies for a summoning ritual. When Casiopea asks why they need scissors, Hun-Kamé explains that he needs to cut off a lock of her hair for a sacrifice. Enraged, Casiopea asks why he always demands sacrifices from her but never himself. Hun-Kamé explains that gods don’t make sacrifices, and Casiopea realizes that though she has escaped her family home, her status has not changed. She butchers her hair and cries because people have always told her “you have pretty hair,” and she thinks this is all she has left (115).
When Casiopea is calm, she sits beside a metal wastebasket with Hun-Kamé, who sets the hair in the bin on fire. He takes her hand and tells her not to look into the ghosts’ eyes under any circumstances: The ghosts are shadows that draw all the light from the room.
When the ghosts emerge, they want all of Casiopea, not only her hair. Casiopea lets go of Hun-Kamé’s hand to cover a scream, and he disappears, leaving her in a circle of hungry ghosts. Terrified, Casiopea closes her eyes, breaking eye contact with the ghosts, and Hun-Kamé is able to reach her. He demands the ghosts leave her and answer his questions. The ghosts tell him where he can find his missing parts, and then they disappear.
Hun-Kamé urges Casiopea to sleep because the summoning ritual drained too much of her energy. She lays down but is too anxious to fall asleep. Instead, she asks Hun-Kamé about his kingdom. He tells her about the dead ladies and lords dressed in finery, and Casiopea laughs at the image. He tells her that her hair isn’t her only becoming feature and looks at her with “an austere sincerity that made her panic and gape at him like a damn fool” (124). She thanks him and thinks about how much she appreciates his words. Soon, she is asleep.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
These chapters provide further details about the rules and scope of Xibalba. They show the limitations of Hun-Kamé’s s and introduce the important figure of the psychopomp. The word psychopomp comes from the Greek psukhopompos, which means “guide of souls.” As messengers, psychopomps carry information, as is the case here. Even though Hun-Kamé is the god of death, the psychopomp has its own rules and can only give him so much information. The ghosts also function under their own set of rules. They cannot overpower Hun-Kamé, but they can overpower Casiopea, despite the bone shard embedded in her hand. She must maintain eye contact for them to control her; their power diminishes the moment she closes her eyes, proving that death cannot assert complete control over the living.
Chapter 11 builds upon the conflict between Hun-Kamé and Vucub-Kamé. The twins exist in a balance, but having been born first, Hun-Kamé rose to prominence while Vucub-Kamé remained in his shadow. When human religions changed, Hun-Kamé, Vucub-Kamé, and Xibalba fell into obscurity. While Hun-Kamé recognized the necessity of change, Vucub-Kamé saw an opportunity to steal Hun-Kamé’s power. He used Hun-Kamé’s weakness of heeding human prayers to betray him; Vucub-Kamé never received prayers and believes humans only exist as sacrifices to feed his power. Vucub-Kamé’s divinations allow him to see all potential outcomes, which he uses to manipulate the future. When the prophecies in Chapter 11 do not match those he saw years ago, he derives a new plan for his rise to power.
These chapters show a growing bond between Hun-Kamé and Casiopea. Until this point, they have been friendly, with moments of attraction on Casiopea’s part. In Chapters 10 and 12, Hun-Kamé tells Casiopea she is beautiful, which shows that he is turning human (a god would never consider a human beautiful). His laughter is not a weakness, as Vucub-Kamé believes, which suggests that love gives Hun-Kamé strength despite his diminishing godly essence. Hun-Kamé and Casiopea’s connection through the bone shard drains their energies, but it is possible that their love renews it.
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