by Ian Gibson
BOOK ONE OF
THE JADE NECKLACE
WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY
I.S. GIBSON
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © Ian Gibson 2021
Cover design and illustrations by Ian Gibson
First Kindle edition: February 2021
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
The distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorised editions, and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials.
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For my father, my grandparents,
and the others I love
who are no longer with me.
Table of Contents
Map of Xibalba
The Gods
A Brief Introduction to the Underworld
There’s a place deep below the earth where only the dead can go, and its name is Xibalba (pronounced shee-bal-BAH). As the much-feared Underworld, this mysterious land lies on the bottommost rung of the cosmic ladder, and just as pointing up to the sky above our heads shows the general direction to the heavens, pointing down to the ground beneath our feet shows the way, more or less, to Xibalba. And yet, no matter how much you try, you cannot simply dig your way there—unless of course you happen to be digging your own grave—as the land of the dead is beyond the reach of any living hand.
Death wasn’t always the only route, however. In the olden days, there was one other way to get there—through sinkholes in the ground known as cenotes, whose turquoise waters served as portals between our world and the cold, dark Underworld below. If a living person had fallen into a cenote back then—and a surprisingly many did, although usually not by choice—there was a strong likelihood that they’d have ended up in the land of the dead without dying (though it was usually a one-way trip regardless, so it was a rather moot point for those concerned). Much has changed since then, as now the borders of Xibalba are tightly closed for any living folk. Nowadays, only the gods and spirits can pass back and forth between worlds by way of the cenotes, and only during a five-day period of the year known as Wayeb, when the portals are open at their widest.
You’ll encounter a few names of places, things, and characters with the letter x in them, and just like in “Xibalba”, it’s pronounced as the same sound as sh in many English words. To list a few other examples:
Yaxche (YASH-cheh)
Lady Xux Ek (shoosh ek)
Lady Ixim (EE-sheem)
Yum Kaax (yoom kash)
Most words are stressed on the second-to-last syllable, but there are some notable exceptions below which are stressed on the last (like in “Xibalba”):
Kukulkan (koo-kool-KAHN)
Cabrakan (kah-brah-KAHN)
Hurakan (hoo-rah-KAHN)
Alux (ah-LOOSH)
The Underworld might seem a very exotic place for living folk, so for your benefit—and if you’re reading this, it’s probably safe to assume that you’re still alive—this book includes a map of the four-cornered, subterranean land. It might prove useful to consult it every now and then to know your whereabouts throughout the story.
With that in mind, I wish you a safe journey through the mystical land of the dead.
Welcome to Xibalba.
PART ONE
The Place in the Shadows
You’ve entered a black forest. You reach out your hand and feel the wrinkles of bark and the prickles of ferns, but you see nothing. You take a step forward and hear the crunches of sticks and the crackles of leaves, but still, you see nothing.
Then, within the blackness, a small eye opens.
And another. And another.
One by one these many eyes open, until there are hundreds of them—even a thousand. They glisten, as if reflecting a light that cannot otherwise be seen, and they blink, and they look many different ways, but then, one by one, they all set their sights on you.
“I see you.”
The thousand eyes all stare at you, and their gaze is heavy—so heavy you can feel it press down on you, and their gaze is deep—so deep you can feel it through you.
“Yes, you.
“You have opened the path between these leaves, and come into my domain, my secret forest.
“And while you might not see me, know that I’m there.
“Know that I’m everywhere.
“For here, in the safety between these leaves, in my secret forest, I can tell you a secret—I was always there, hiding in my place in the shadows.
“Before the gods of the mountains and the plains, and the rivers and the seas, and of the four winds and the rains, and the flowers and the bees, I was there. Before the gods of the Sun and the Moon, of the heavens and the stars on high, and of the land below of gloom, and even the great serpent in the sky, I was there.
“The gods—my children—have forgotten me, but I was there.
“I was there. I always was...
“…but I have not forgotten them, so I will tell you their story.
“You will meet them.
“And if you’re lucky, you will meet me, now that you’ve come to my domain, my secret forest.
“Maybe you will even see me, too...”
And one by one the thousand eyes close, until there is once again only the black forest around you.
“…if I let you.”
A Birthday Trip
Itzel can't wait to go to the forest again. Her birthday’s tomorrow, and her family is making a special weekend trip to a village up in the highlands to her grandmother’s home, which lies just a stone’s throw away from her favourite forest. It’s her "forest of good luck" as her family have come to call it, since they've spotted so many animals during their walks through it. Itzel even catalogues the ones she’s seen on each trip by drawing them in her diary—she likes to keep these things organised, after all—and she made sure the diary was the very first thing she packed in her bag.
She stares at the passing trees through the window in the backseat of the car, eagerly waiting for the moment she can be out and climbing one again. The trees are getting much taller and broader, and the road is also getting much bumpier, and she has to hold on to her seat because she feels like she might fly up and bump her head on the car ceiling if the bumps get any worse. But she knows larger trees and bumpier roads can only mean one thing—they’re not far from her grandmother’s village now.
She's surprised her baby sister hasn't been crying from the bumpy ride. In fact, Itzel thinks she looks far more enthusiastic about the road trip than her twin brother, Miguel. She wonders if her sister somehow knows they're going to meet someone very special in the family. As she was born just a few months ago, it’ll be the first time her grandmother will meet her. Maybe her mother will carry her with them on their walk, as she’s brought the baby sling that she uses to carry her and keep her hands free.
“Can we walk in the forest today too?” Itzel asks, leaning forward to her mother who’s sitting in the seat in front of her.
Itzel’s mother turns to her and whispers, “If we get there before dark.”
“Th—that’s a big i—if,” says her father, his voice stuttering as they’ve hit yet another very bumpy part of the road.
“Grandma too?” Itzel asks.
“Not so sure about that,” her father replies.
Her brother Miguel lets out a grouchy groan. “All day? It’s my birthday too, you know!”
“Don’t complain, Miguel,” the mother says. “We all went to a football match for you last year, so now it’s your sister’s turn. You know that.”
Itzel sticks her tongue out at her twin brother, who crosses his arms in a huff and sticks his tongue back out at her. She had teased him earlier because he’s dressed like he’s hoping they’re going to another football match instead of a small village in the rainforest. Their parents picked him up from football practice earlier this morning, and he’s still wearing his football shorts and a local team’s jersey, and even brought his football along. He’s also wearing his old football trainers, which he’s had for a while even though they’re getting small for him now, and he only wears them when he’s playing football, not trekking through rainforests. Itzel hopes he brought boots like she did, so he won’t try to use it as an excuse to not join them for their big forest trek tomorrow.
She stares out the window again, watching the trees as they pass. She always looks forward to seeing her grandmother in her village, as she loves any opportunity to get out of the city, and she wishes they did it more often, but her father says that he’d only do that if they paved the roads. He likes to say that he’d sooner see “a snake with wings” than a paved road in this part of the country—he makes that joke because the grandmother sometimes talks about an ancient serpent with feathers that used to fly high in the sky.
Itzel’s baby sister, Itzayana, is lying in a baby car seat between the twins, kicking her legs with a big smile on her face. Itzel wonders if she’ll be like her when she gets older, and if she’ll like to climb trees and go on walks through the jungle to look for animals—especially jaguars, which are her favourite. Miguel used to be like that too, but he seems to have now grown out of it, and if he had it his way, he’d have stayed in the city so he could still be playing football with his friends all weekend instead. It’s his dream to be a professional footballer one day. Itzel wonders why tree-climbing isn’t a sport like football is, because if it was, she’d want to be an athlete, too.
The car radio starts playing an old song that both the father and mother recognise, judging from the way they glance at each other and smile, and the mother sways her head side to side and hums to it. The father whistles to it, but when the song finishes, he’s quickly back to complaining about the “mountainous” roads, saying that it’ll still take forever to get there even though the village isn’t actually all that far from the city, as the crow flies, and he jokes about how it’d be faster if they just get out and hike the rest of the way. As the car lurches over every bump like a small boat caught in a storm, he has to drive very slowly.
“The car isn’t going to handle another one of these trips,” he tells the mother. “I wish your mother would just move to the city.”
“You know she doesn’t want to leave that village,” the mother says. “It’s her home.”
“She’ll have to sooner or later,” he replies. “She’s alone out there and getting old.” And then he says more softly, “Not the best idea with such a dodgy heart.”
Itzel overhears him, but she already knows her grandmother has problems with her heart. She’s always had a weak heart. Her father said it's a rare condition where her heartbeat keeps skipping a beat, and she has to be very careful about not exerting herself too much. That’s why she doesn’t last very long on their walks together.
Miguel’s head is resting against the car window. “We know about grandma’s heart. You don’t need to whisper it all the time like we’re little kids who don’t understand anything.”
The father just sighs, and the mother turns to Miguel. “I know you’re not little kids anymore,” she tells him. “Especially you, Miguel, who’s in such a rush to grow up.” She looks at the baby between them and says, “That’s why we had your baby sister.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Miguel asks.
The father laughs. “It means you have a replacement already! Maybe we should have named her Miguela! Is it too late to change her name?”
The mother laughs too. The father’s laugh is especially loud, and it always amuses Itzel how he can be ranting angrily about something like the condition of the roads one moment, then bursting into his distinctly loud laugh the next.
Miguel thuds his head against the car window.
The father glances at Miguel in the rear-view mirror. “You definitely don’t take after your grandma. She’s in her eighties and still in no rush to grow old.” He laughs loudly again. “I can tell you one thing—she’s not going anywhere soon.” He looks at their mother. “She’s far too stubborn for that, isn’t she?”
The mother smiles, but says quietly, “It’d be a good time for you to check on how she’s doing.”
The car crosses a narrow, rickety bridge over what was once a roaring river shrunken into a shallow, rocky stream—it’s the middle of the dry season, so there hasn’t been rain for quite a long time, and the river looks very parched for some. Itzel’s reminded of how much she misses the sound and smell of a fresh rainfall, so she finds herself sympathising a great deal for the yearning river. A group of women are standing on the rocks beside the water, chatting and washing clothes and smacking them against flat stones, and a few of them wave to the car as it passes. She and her mother wave back to them.
Itzel knows they’re almost there now, because the village is just up the hill from the old bridge. She looks out the window to spot the small wooden statue of a jaguar marking the entrance to the south of the village—she always looks out for it when she visits. Her grandmother told her that it protects the village from evil spirits, and there are three other statues just like this one, placed in the east, west, and north of the village. She’s seen the northern statue many times when she’s walked down the path through the forest leading from her grandmother’s home.
The mother points at the jaguar statue as they pass it. “We’re here!”
The father breathes a sigh of relief. “Took long enough.”
They arrive in the small village in the late afternoon. The father drives very slowly down a dirt road winding between the many thatched roof huts huddled together, making sure to avoid any dogs, pigs, chickens, or turkeys that run into the road. Itzel waves to villagers as they pass by, and they wave back to her. A few children are climbing and swinging in guava trees, which fills Itzel with envy, but she knows it won’t be long before she can do the same. They pass a flamboyant tree in the middle of the village—Itzel hopes they can come back here in the early summer too so she can see it in blossom, as it bears bright orange-red flowers that look almost like flames.
They continue uphill a short way to the grandmother’s hut, which lies on the northernmost part of the village and is set aside from all the other homes—the mother likes to joke that her hut is a little separate village of its own, populated by one old woman, two pigs, and no more than eight chickens.
They see the grandmother sitting on a stool outside her hut, wearing a long white dress with blue floral hems, and a striped, red scarf hanging down her shoulder—she gets cold easily this time of year. She’s holding a ceramic bowl of roasted cacao beans, and she’s winnowing them to separate the beans from the shells, while singing to herself as she likes to do. Some hens are clucking beside her as if to join her in her song, but they flutter their wings and squawk when the car pulls in next to them. She waves to them as the car comes to a stop in front of her hut.
“You’re late!” she says with a big grin. She likes to say that, even when there isn’t a specific time that she’s expecting them.
The father opens the car do
or. “Blame the roads, not me.”
"On about the roads again?" the grandmother asks. “Some things never change.”
"Yes, that’s exactly the problem—they never change,” the father says. “And I wouldn't be complaining about them if you moved to the city like we've been asking you to do for years now.”
"You'd still be complaining,” the grandmother says, standing up and opening her arms to him. “Not about the roads, but about having to live with your mother-in-law."
The father laughs and gives the grandmother a quick but warm hug.
"Someone here has been wanting to meet her grandma!" The mother gets out of the car, picks up the baby from her baby seat, and gives her to the grandmother to hold. "She was quiet for most of the trip, despite all the bumps. Unlike her papa."
"She can drive next time then," the father says as he opens the boot of the car.
The grandmother purses her lips and makes kissing sounds at her baby granddaughter. “Her eyes are so big, like a kinkajou!” she says with a laugh. She whispers to the baby, ““We meet at last, little Itzayana. But you won't be so little for long, don't worry. In a few years you’ll be climbing trees like a real kinkajou. Just you wait and see.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking!” Itzel says, going to greet her grandmother.
“Hello again, my little forest spirit,” her grandmother tells her, passing the baby back to her mother so she can lean forward and give Itzel a kiss on the cheek. “A kiss from the Sun.” She then hugs her, and they both say together, “And a hug from the Moon.”
Itzel’s grandmother always says these words when she greets her and Miguel, ever since they were toddlers, and Itzel always finds it comforting each time she hears them. Some things never change, just as her grandmother said, but some things shouldn’t. “Are you coming for our walk?” Itzel asks her.
