by J; P Voelkel
He was in his forties, around six feet tall, and as muscular as an Olympic shot-putter. Kindly brown eyes ringed with laughter lines shone out of his leathery face. With his high forehead, prominent cheekbones, and splendidly hooked nose, he was another portrait out of time. Except, Max noted, no ancient Maya king would have worn battered tennis shoes nor carried a wooden spoon.
So this was the last person to have officially seen his parents.
Now, at last, he would find out where they were.
Lola turned to him. “Max Murphy, meet Professor Hermanjilio Bol.”
Before Max could say anything, a cloud of yellow butterflies descended on his head and shoulders.
“What an honor to meet you,” said Hermanjilio, swatting at the butterflies with his wooden spoon. “These things are everywhere at the moment. They seem to like you, young man.”
Max flicked the butterflies away and blurted out the question he’d been waiting to ask. “Have you seen my parents, Professor?”
“Please call me Hermanjilio,” he said. “I last saw your parents at Ixchel, Max. I thought they’d be back at your uncle’s house by now.”
Max looked visibly deflated. He’d been so sure Hermanjilio would have news. “Well, what happened?” he persisted. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know. The dig didn’t go as planned. We decided to abandon it. The storm came. I’m sure they’ll turn up soon. I’m sorry, Max. This business must be awful for you, waiting for them to come back. …”
Forgetting he was holding the wooden spoon, he went to put an arm around Max and accidentally poked him in the face. “Forgive me,” he said, with a laugh so loud it scared the parrots in a nearby tree. “I’ve been cooking all day. Tonight we’re having a party to celebrate your safe arrival.”
Max looked Hermanjilio up and down. “Is it a costume party?”
Hermanjilio chuckled. “Pardon my appearance, but it’s an academic experiment. My ancestors lived at Itzamna in the Classic and Postclassic Periods. I’ve been trying to get closer to my roots by seeing life through their eyes—”
A hideous shrieking sound interrupted his explanation.
“Thunderclaw!” said Lola. “I completely forgot!” She lifted up the cage to show Hermanjilio. “It’s a gift from Chan Kan.”
“What is it?” asked Hermanjilio.
“His name is Thunderclaw. He’s a black rooster.”
“Does he have a disease? What are those scales on his skin?”
“Old war wounds. He used to be a champion fighting cock.”
“I wonder why Chan Kan would send me a chicken?” mused Hermanjilio.
“To cook?” suggested Max hopefully.
“But Chan Kan knows I’m trying to live like my ancestors, and they didn’t have chickens until the Spanish came.”
“Beats me,” said Lola. “He just said you’d soon have need of him.”
“Well, we don’t need him tonight, that’s for sure,” said Hermanjilio. “There’s already enough food for twenty people.”
At this news, Max’s stomach rumbled loudly.
Hermanjilio laughed. “Let’s show Max to his room,” he said. “Then you can come and talk to me, Lola, while I finish cooking. Follow me.”
He strode off, holding the wooden spoon high in the air like a drum major leading a parade. Max and Lola followed behind until they came to a sudden halt in front of a huge tree.
“Look up,” said Lola.
Max looked up.
Wow.
Above them, soaring up and up toward the jungle canopy, was an intricately constructed multistoried tree house, with thatched huts at every level linked by rope ladders and slatted walkways.
“This is fantastic!” exclaimed Max. “It’s like The Swiss Family Robinson!”
Lola looked at him with interest. “People live in tree houses in Switzerland?”
Before Max could explain, Hermanjilio cut in. “Lola, please show Max to my room. I’m not using it at the moment.”
“But where will you sleep?” asked Max.
“Don’t worry about me,” said Hermanjilio. “I’ve been sleeping in the palace.”
“The palace? Isn’t that a little spooky?” asked Lola.
“Spooky? You mean haunted?” Hermanjilio considered the question. “Well, there’s definitely something in the air, particularly at night—latent vibrations or a sympathetic echo, something of that nature. And I’ve been having the most extraordinary dreams.”
Lola shuddered. “Please be careful, Hermanjilio.”
“I like it. It helps me imagine what daily life was like for my ancestors. I’m even grinding my own corn these days—which reminds me! I need to get back to my cooking! Please make yourselves at home.”
Hermanjilio padded back down the forest path, silent as a hunting jaguar.
“He’s eccentric, all right,” said Max. “What a weirdo!”
“Follow me,” said Lola coldly.
They ascended the rope ladder in silence. Lola showed Max his room and turned to go, all without saying a word.
“What’s the matter? What have I done now?” he asked. He thought quickly. “Is it because I called Hermanjilio a weirdo? I’m sorry, I really am. He took me by surprise, that’s all. I was expecting the usual archaeologist type. You know, all beard and khaki shorts.”
“Like your father, you mean?” sniffed Lola.
“I guess so.”
“Could your father have done a better job of excavating this place?”
“Of course not. It’s just Hermanjilio’s ‘going native’ act that threw me.”
“Hermanjilio is a native—and so am I.”
“Okay, okay! Why are you so touchy?”
“I just want you to understand that, as well as being head of Maya Studies at San Xavier University, Hermanjilio is one of the most brilliant archaeologists in the world. He’s actually descended from the lords of Itzamna, so he feels a spiritual connection with this place. One day he’s hoping to open it as the first totally Maya-run site. …” Lola’s eyes were shining. “He may not have a beard and khaki shorts, but Hermanjilio knows more about Maya history than any foreign archaeologist.”
“So that’s what all this is about? You want me to say that your friend in the dress is a better archaeologist than Mom and Dad? Well, maybe he is. Maybe the Maya are best at everything! But so what? I just want to find my parents and go home. Can’t you understand that?”
Lola looked away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Of course you can understand that. You’d like to find your parents, too, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t even know who they are,” she sighed. “Chan Kan found me in the forest when I was little. I was holding a white mahogany blossom, so he called me Lady White Flower. I lived in Utsal until a couple of years ago, when I came to study with Hermanjilio. He’s taught me so much, and I won’t let anyone make fun of him. Especially not someone who’s covered in mud and smells like a skunk.”
Max put up his hands in surrender. “You’re right,” he said. “So where’s the river and the soap root?”
“I’ll show you,” said Lola. Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “Unless you’d rather use Hermanjilio’s solar-heated shower?”
Max couldn’t believe his ears. A hot shower was beyond his wildest dreams. “Hermanjilio really is a genius!” he exclaimed, as a crust of dry brown mud cracked off his clothes and fell to the floor in little pieces.
“Look in Hermanjilio’s closet,” said Lola. “I think he has some clean clothes in among the jaguar skins.”
Later, when Lola appeared for dinner looking amazingly beautiful in a pink-and-orange-striped skirt, a lime-green top, and a brightly woven shawl, with a pink flower behind her ear, Max wished he had tried a little harder to find a shirt that didn’t come down to his knees.
“Wow! You look so clean,” she said, sounding surprised.
“You, too,” he replied, and immediately kicked himself for not paying her a more smooth-
tongued compliment. “I mean, you always look clean, that is—”
“Yum bo’otik teech!” said Lola.
Max looked at her suspiciously. Was she insulting him, Maya-style?
“It means ‘thank you,’” she explained, laughing.
“Enough talking!” announced Hermanjilio. “Let’s eat!”
It was a magical scene. The plaza was lit with flaming torches and candles in lanterns strung through the trees. Giant fireflies darted across the path, and above it all, the jungle stars twinkled like diamonds.
But Max had eyes only for the food.
Laid out on a banana-leaf tablecloth was plate after plate of succulent concoctions: a mountain of savory pastries, little fried dumplings, skewers of meat, avocado salad, tortillas, beans, sweet potato fritters, plantains, and a huge platter of tropical fruit.
That night they feasted like kings. It had taken Hermanjilio hours to prepare the banquet, but it took only minutes for Max and Lola to wolf down their first helpings and come back for more. Table manners were forgotten as they ate with their fingers and talked with their mouths full.
As he devoured another whole pastry in one bite, Max imagined what his mother would say if she caught him eating like this. Thinking about her made him sad, and he wiped his mouth (albeit on the back of his hand) in her honor.
He wondered what his parents were eating tonight out there in the jungle. He hoped the smell of this feast would waft to wherever they were and guide them to him. He kept watching the entrance to the plaza, half expecting them to stumble in. But no one came.
Finally, when even Max could eat no more, Hermanjilio stood up and cleared the table. When he came back, he carried a gourd of something that smelled to Max like a mixture of aniseed and gasoline.
“Maya elixir,” said Hermanjilio with a wink. “Now tell me again what happened at Chahk. How clever you were to think of using the Red Jaguar and scraping away the jungle like that and rubbing blood on the painting. I would have given anything to be there. …Tell me from the beginning.”
“I told you everything before dinner,” said Lola, “three times.”
“Perhaps you could tell your story now, sir,” suggested Max, “about what happened the last time you saw my parents?”
Hermanjilio took another draft of liquor and said nothing.
Lola was looking at him strangely.
“Sir?” Max begged him. “My parents are missing, and you’re the last person who saw them. You’re my only hope.”
Hermanjilio groaned and put his head into his hands. When he looked up, he had tears in his eyes.
“I can’t lie to you any longer, Max,” he said. “I saw it with my own eyes. Your parents vanished into thin air.”
Chapter Fifteen
THE OATH OF BLOOD
Thin air? What’s that supposed to mean? How could my parents vanish into thin air? Did a fog come down? Tell me the truth! This isn’t one of your Maya legends, this is about my parents! Tell me everything you saw!”
“Calm down, Max,” said Hermanjilio. “I don’t understand, either. One minute they were there and the next minute they were gone.”
“But it doesn’t make sense,” said Max, getting angry. “There’s something you’re not telling me!”
Lola was staring hard at Hermanjilio. “There’s a lot he’s not telling you.”
“Lola!” protested Hermanjilio. “You know I’m bound by sacred oaths.”
“But you said you didn’t believe that stuff. You said you only went through with the rituals to please Chan Kan.”
“Since I’ve been trying to live the old way, my feelings on that subject have changed. Besides, there’s something in the air right now, something big, and whatever it is, I don’t want you two getting mixed up in it.”
“We are mixed up in it, Hermanjilio. You have to tell Max everything. He just wants to find his parents. For my sake? Please?”
Hermanjilio sighed. He knew when he was beaten.
“I will do it on one condition,” he said. “The boy must take an oath of silence and seal it with a blood sacrifice.”
“He’ll do it,” said Lola.
Hermanjilio got up for a moment and returned with a long, bony needle and a thin peel of tree bark. He passed the needle to Max.
“It’s a stingray spine,” he said, “sharper than cut glass. My ancestors would have passed it through their tongues, but you can just prick your thumb.”
“I’d rather not,” said Max.
Lola grabbed Max’s thumb and jabbed it with the stingray spine. Ignoring his cries of pain, she held it over the tree bark and squeezed out a few drops of blood.
“Now say these words,” said Hermanjilio. “If I should betray the secrets of the sacred stones, may the Lords of Death pluck out my living heart.”
As Max repeated the oath, a cold wind blew across the table, making the candles flicker and spit.
Hermanjilio set fire to the bloodstained tree bark and watched in silence as the smoke curled up into the night sky. “The oath is sealed; I would advise you not to break it.” He beckoned Max to sit closer. “Bahlamtuuno’ob,” he whispered.
“The Jaguar Stones?” said Max, his eyes watering from the toxic cloud of elixir fumes on Hermanjilio’s breath.
Hermanjilio nodded. “Bahlamtuuno’ob translates as ‘Jaguar Stones’ but, to me, it means more than just a set of stone carvings. The Jaguar Stones represent everything that is noble about the Maya: our strength, courage, wisdom, creativity, and our enduring spirit. That’s why I have sworn to track them down and put them on display, like the crown jewels of the rainforest, to inspire my people and give them hope for the future.”
“Couldn’t you just tell me what happened to my parents?” interrupted Max impatiently.
“Like everything else in the universe, this story has a natural order,” said Hermanjilio. “I am explaining to you how I came to be at Ixchel with Frank and Carla.”
The night was getting cool. Lola huddled up to Max and draped her shawl over both of them like a blanket.
Hermanjilio fortified himself with elixir and continued. “With all written record of the Jaguar Stones destroyed by Diego de Landa, they had long ago passed into legend. But like me, Frank Murphy believed they were real and he shared my obsession with finding them. So when he finally got his hands on the White Jaguar, he invited me to Ixchel to witness his experiment.”
“What experiment?” asked Max.
“He wanted to try and activate the stone. Of course, I didn’t think he’d succeed, because no one today knows how the Jaguar Stones worked. Little did I know he was bringing the instruction manual with him!”
“What?” said Lola, looking puzzled.
“Dad found Friar Diego de Landa’s private journal,” explained Max.
“No!” she said, her eyes wide in surprise.
“It’s true.” Hermanjilio nodded. “Before the wily old friar burned our books, he copied down our secrets for his own use. Of course, the journal is very old and many pages are missing. But what remains makes it clear that Landa’s plan was to steal the power of the Jaguar Stones for himself.”
“And now Count Antonio is reviving that family tradition,” added Max.
“But this is incredible!” said Lola. “Why would Frank keep something like that to himself?”
“Think about it,” said Hermanjilio. “If the journal was genuine, it was one of the most dangerous documents in human history. Frank feared that some power-crazed madman would seek out the stones and put their power to evil use. He came to Ixchel to end that possibility, once and for all. He wanted to find out if the journal was real or an elaborate fake. If it was real, he intended to burn it—just as Landa burned our books. If it was fake, he would hand it over to the authorities as a fascinating historical document.”
“So Dad’s a good guy?” said Max in surprise. Since talking to Uncle Ted, he’d got used to the idea that his family were criminal masterminds.
“Of course�
�—Hermanjilio grinned—“one of the best. So, Lola and I went ahead to Ixchel to get the local workers started on the excavation. Along the way, we discussed the rumors about the Red Jaguar, and Lola decided to go to Puerto Muerto and find out if Ted Murphy was selling.”
“But when I got there, he’d already done a deal with Antonio de Landa,” said Lola. “So I decided to repossess the Red Jaguar for the Maya people.”
“Steal it, you mean,” said Max.
“Some people say that all archaeology is theft,” said Lola airily.
“Do you two want to hear the story or do you want a moral debate?” asked Hermanjilio.
“Sorry,” mumbled Max. “Please go on.”
Hermanjilio cleared his throat. “So Frank and Carla arrived at Ixchel and we set to work. Frank told me about the journal and asked for my opinion. Late one afternoon, when the local workers had gone, I was lying in my tent studying the journal when I heard Frank and Carla calling to me. They were out by the cenote, the water hole, mixing up fake blood.”
“Why would they do that?” asked Max.
“They needed a bloodlike substance to activate the White Jaguar. Of course, Friar Landa’s journal specified blood from a human sacrifice, but even Frank drew the line at that. Still, to find out if the journal was real or fake, they had to follow Landa’s instructions as closely as possible. With the fate of the whole world at stake, there was no room for error. So it was quite a scene out at the cenote. The White Jaguar was sitting on a flat rock, surrounded by all these jars of different blood recipes. With a setting sun behind it, it looked like a scene from a horror film.” Hermanjilio smiled briefly at the memory. “By the way, it was also the only time I’ve ever seen your father not wearing that old jacket of his. Carla had made him take it off because he’d spilled fake blood all over it. Anyway, there we were, admiring the color and viscosity of the winning recipe, when we heard a noise from the camp.
“It was getting dark, but we could make out figures swarming around the tents. Later I realized they were working for Antonio de Landa, but at the time we thought they were bandits. We had to hide, and fast. There was a cave at water level in the walls of the cenote, so I whispered to Frank and Carla to grab the White Jaguar and swim with it to the cave. I saw them jump in and I was about to follow, but they never hit the water. There was a flash of white light, and they were gone.”
