by Ian Gibson
Itzel takes her oar out of the water to defend herself with it. When the demon gets close, she swings the oar at her, but the lake demon springs straight upward to dodge it, and Itzel’s oar strikes only the water below her with a big splash. As the demon lands back on the water, her legs sink slightly, and she has to flail her arms to balance herself, but as the water calms, she’s able to stand on it again.
“Did you see that?” Itzel tells Quashy as she starts paddling away from her.
“Saw it and already ahead of you,” he replies.
The lake demon is running after them, but she halts all of a sudden, looking like she’s about to stumble again. The end of Quashy’s tail has sneakily emerged from the water below her and coiled itself around one of her ankles.
“I’ve got a snag!” he says triumphantly while slithering over and under the seat in the canoe to get a firm hold, and starts retracting his long tail, trying to yank the demon off balance so she’ll fall into the water.
But the demon crouches down to catch herself from falling, resisting the tug of his tail. She claws angrily at the tail around her ankle as she tries to pull it off.
“Ow!” Quashy yelps in pain. “My poor tail! Anything but my poor tail!”
Itzel drops the oar, picks up the pot of soup beside her feet, and stands up.
The lake demon stares at her, widening her big, yellow lizard eyes, and stops clawing at Quashy’s tail. “What are you doing? You wouldn’t dare waste food like that!” she snarls.
Itzel raises the pot over her head, ready to throw it in the water.
The lake demon’s voice softens. “No, please, don’t waste it. I made it just for you, my love!”
“Stop calling me ‘my love’!” Itzel shouts, and throws the pot into the water at the lake demon’s feet, with a big plunk and splash.
Quashy tugs his tail again, and the lake demon falls completely into the disturbed water with another shriek. He recoils his tail, bringing the rest of it out of the water and safely into the canoe. Itzel picks up the oar to start rowing again, and the terrified rain cloud returns to them now that it looks safe. They see the lake demon splashing around in the water, but instead of looking like a green-skinned bird-lizard monster, she now appears as a young woman with black hair.
“Help! Help!” the young woman screams as she flails her arms. “I can’t swim!”
Itzel stops rowing and looks at her, then at Quashy.
“Come on,” he says incredulously. “I don't buy that for a moment. What kind of lake demon can’t swim?”
Itzel sighs, and starts rowing back towards her.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” squeaks Quashy. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”
“She needs help,” she says resignedly.
Quashy shakes his head rapidly. “No, she doesn’t! Itzel, don’t you remember what I told you? Don’t be nice to anyone! And especially don’t be nice to the man-eating lake demon! Especially as she might be coati-eating too!”
“Help me!” the woman screams, fighting to keep her head above the water.
When they’re close, Itzel shouts to her. “Do you promise not to eat us?”
“I promise!”
Itzel reaches out her oar for the young woman to grab hold of. “Grab it!”
The woman stops flailing and holds on to the paddle. “Thank you so much, my love,” she says, then she grins, and her eyes turn yellow. “Why don’t you come in too? The water’s fine!” She yanks on the oar, laughing maniacally.
“Let go!” Itzel screams as she tugs back on the oar, pushing her feet against the side of the canoe so that she isn’t pulled into the lake.
“I told you it was a trick!” Quashy shouts. “Takes a trickster to know a trickster!”
In a fit of convulsions, the young woman transforms into the green-skinned monster again, and her pull becomes all the stronger. Itzel is quickly yanked forward, but just as she’s about to fall out of the canoe, she fumbles around the bottom of canoe with her hand, grabs the snake-stick, and taps the oar with it. With a bright flash of green light, it transforms into a long snake, with its rather paddle-shaped head held in the lake demon’s hands. It hisses at her, and the lake demon shrieks and drops it.
“I hate snakes!” she screams as she turns and swims back toward the island. “Get away from me, you foul spawn of Kukulkan! Get away!”
The long snake swims gracefully through the water after her.
Quashy sighs. “At least she isn’t after us anymore, but now we’re up a lake without a paddle. Did you really have to help the demon?”
“Everyone deserves a chance,” Itzel says.
“Even demons?”
She starts paddling with just her arm, seeing as she has no other option. “Even demons.”
“This is the second time we’ve almost gotten eaten in less than a day! I don’t think you’re cut out for the Underworld.”
“I don’t want to be. I’m leaving as soon as I bring this rain to the Rainforest and find my real grandma.”
“Well, all I have to do is help you bring the rain so I can get this thing off my tail,” Quashy says, glowering at the vine on the base of his tail. “After that, you’re on your own on your quest to get eaten.”
They see the lake demon crawling back ashore—she’s transformed back into the young woman with long, flowing black hair, and she collapses to her knees and bawls loudly. “Come back, my love! I’m so lonely!” she cries, her powerful voice carrying across the lake. “All I ever wanted is to be loved, to have a family, but nobody wants me!” She holds her face in her hands and weeps. “Nobody wants a woman cursed by Kukulkan!”
Itzel feels pity for the woman, despite all that she’s done—despite even giving her the false hope that she had at last found her grandmother. “Kukulkan did this to her?” she asks quietly.
“Guess so,” Quashy says, only half-interestedly, while he inspects the scratches on the tip of his tail from the lake demon’s sharp claws. “My poor tail of tricks, what has that monster done to you?” He looks ahead and can catch glimpses of the flames of the forest fire ahead, which means they don’t have much farther to go to the southern lakeshore. He then stares at the lake water longingly. “I wish we could’ve kept the soup. It was scrumptious.”
Counting Turtles and Raindrops
Itzel has just her hand to paddle with, though at least they’re close enough that she can just make out the lakeshore in the distance and can smell the fumes of the burning forest. She still often glances back just to check if the lake demon has come back for them, but there’s no sign of her—she still hears her cries, even though she’s long been out of sight. “This is going to take forever,” she groans, wishing they hadn’t lost their only paddle. She’s half-tempted to just swim the rest of the way and push the canoe along, but she doesn’t trust whatever lurks in the water, even less now that she knows lake demons can be rather problematic.
“We’re not much farther,” Quashy says, his eyes fixed on the lakeshore ahead, with the dark plumes of smoke and a furious blaze stretching as far as the eye can see. “Unless of course you plan to stop and save more demons on the way.”
Itzel is quiet.
“I’m just teasing now.” He uncurls his tail, and a jade earring dangles from the tip—it looks a lot like one of the earrings the Lady of the Lake was wearing. “Besides, look what I found.”
She swiftly gets to her feet, snatches the earring from his tail, and throws it as far as she can into the lake behind them.
“Why did you do that?” Quashy shouts.
“She’ll have even more reason to come for us. Also, it’s not yours!” Itzel whispers scoldingly. She sits back down and paddles with her arm again. She finds it ironic that Quashy is quick to point out how her helping people can invite trouble, yet his stealing isn’t any different, but she’s too exhausted to confront him about it.
He curls up in a huff on the bottom of the canoe. “Now it’s on the bottom of the lake so no one can hav
e it. I’m not sure what good that is.”
They hear a voice chirping from the water beside the canoe. “One!”
Itzel peeks over the side of the canoe to see where the voice came from. A white river turtle is poking its head above the water right next the canoe. It has a big black dot in the middle of its white shell.
“One?” she asks.
“Yes, that’s me! I am One Turtle!” announces the turtle.
Another turtle surfaces right next to One Turtle. It has two big black dots on its shell. “Two!” it chirps, as if to announce its appearance—although it’s a muffled chirp, as in its mouth it’s holding the green earring Itzel tossed into the lake.
“Did you drop this?” One Turtle asks.
“Yes!” Quashy says, peeking his snout over the side of the canoe.
“No,” Itzel says.
One Turtle looks at them both quizzically. “Yes and no?”
Itzel glares at Quashy, who sighs defeatedly and returns to the floor of the canoe. She points to the small island of Maiden Rock. “It doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to the lady on that island over there.”
“All right, miss,” One Turtle says. “We’ll return it to her after we help you.”
“Help us?” she asks.
“You’re on a lake without a paddle,” One Turtle says. “It looks to us like you could use some help.”
Two Turtle nods in agreement, the earring still held tightly in its mouth.
“Thanks, turtles! But I don’t think just two of you are going to be able to help us.”
A third turtle appears. “Three!” It has three black dots on its shell.
Then a fourth, with four dots on its shell. “Four!”
And a fifth, with a black bar on its shell in place of any dots. “Five!”
And many other river turtles follow suit, all popping their heads above the water and introducing themselves by announcing a number, until there are twenty river turtles in all surrounding the canoe.
“What about twenty of us?” Twenty Turtle says. On its shell it bears a black dot above an oval symbol that looks a bit like its own turtle shell which, as Itzel remembers, represents the number zero.
Before Itzel can even get a word in, the turtles bump against the canoe and start pushing it forward with their combined might, and the canoe cruises along faster than she would have any hope of rowing it with just her arm, or even if she still had an oar.
“Wow!” she remarks with a gleeful smile.
Quashy is startled by the sudden movement in the boat and peeks his snout over it again to look. “We’ll make it to shore in no time at all now.”
They’re so close to the forest fire that they can not only smell but feel the smoke in the air, and Itzel rubs her eyes because it stings them. She stands up, looks up at the rain cloud, and points proudly to the fire ahead. “Off you go, Mister Rumbles!” she tells it.
The rain cloud remains overhead, following the boat closely.
“I release you!” she shouts, waving her arm and pointing.
But the rain cloud still doesn’t react at all.
“I’m pretty sure you need to bring it all the way to the fire,” Quashy says. “You can't cut any corners.”
“But the fire is right there!” she says frustratedly. “It can just go!”
“That’s not how rain-bringing works!” the coati shouts at her. “Don't you know anything about rain-bringing?”
“No! Do you?” she shouts at the coati.
“No!” he shouts, more loudly now. “As a matter of fact, I don't!”
Itzel sits back down in a huff.
One of the turtles pops its head above the water. “Shhh. Keep it down, please. The Lake of Tears is in the centre of Xibalba, which means it's a very sacred place, so you shouldn't raise your voices while you're on the lake. You'll scare away all the fish and the memories.”
Another turtle's head pops up to add, “What are you two anyway? A couple of howler monkeys?”
“I'm sorry,” Itzel whispers embarrassedly. “We've just had a rough journey.”
“I didn't know you could scare away memories,” mutters the coati.
She takes a deep breath and resolves to be a little more patient, since they’ll be upon the shore shortly. She leans over the side. “Thanks so much for this, turtles.”
All twenty of the turtles' heads emerge from the water. “You can count on us!” they respond in unison. “The seer sent us.”
“Then thanks to the seer and to you,” she says to them. She leans to Quashy and whispers, “Do you know who they're talking about?”
“I don’t know. Sounds like a trickster to me,” he says.
“She’s not a trickster!” the turtles snap at Quashy, taking offence. “She’s very wise!”
Quashy whispers to Itzel, “Ah, so it’s a special kind of trickster that makes you think they’re wise.”
They’ve come to the mouth of the Forked Tongue River. On both sides of the river, beyond the pebbled beach, they see a daunting, impenetrable wall of smoke and flame, with the only break in it being where the river cuts through the land to feed into the lake. Itzel takes a big gulp. Even the rain cloud rumbles nervously, as if it's not any less intimidated by the inferno.
“I hope you’re ready now, Mister Rumbles,” she tells it.
Mister Rumbles doesn’t look at all ready.
Once they reach the shallows, the turtles stop pushing the canoe and let it drift near the beach on the western side of the river mouth.
“You should get out and walk from here,” One Turtle says. “That’s easier than pushing you upriver. Thanks for bringing the rain for her.”
“For whom?” Itzel asks.
“The seer, of course,” all the turtles say together.
“But how did she know I’d be bringing rain?”
“Because the seer saw it, of course,” the turtles respond.
Quashy scratches his ear with his tail. “I guess that makes sense,” he says distractedly.
“The seer sees many things, and she would like to see you, too,” One Turtle tells Itzel, while pointing with its webbed foot to the scorched trees amidst the flames on their side of the river, “when her forest is restored.”
Quashy is so startled by where the turtle is pointing that his tail slips from his ear and he pokes himself in the eye. “Ow!”
“Are you all right?” Itzel asks him.
He holds his eye closed and pokes his snout over the canoe. “You mean that witch? The witch of the cursed forest? She’s the one who sent you?”
“The Nightkeeper with a Thousand Eyes is very wise,” One Turtle says. “And she has many eyes to spare. She can see you too, as it looks like you need an eye.”
Quashy shakes his head feverishly. “What good is a spare eye if I’m trapped forever in a black forest where no light can shine? Besides, she means to take my eyes, not give them! I’ve heard many a tale about her and her ‘thousand eyes’—she lures you into her forest with promises of revealing secrets, then she takes your eyes to add to her collection, leaving you to stumble around smacking face-first into trees for an eternity, never able to find your way out. If you see the seer, you can tell her that this coati sees through her tricks!”
“This seer can’t be seen,” One Turtle says, looking at Itzel, “but the choice to enter her forest rests with you.”
Itzel feels a bit squeamish about the thought of someone stealing her eyes, but to ingratiate the turtles she tells them, “I’ll think about it.”
“You’ll think about it?” Quashy shouts at her. “You just love walking into demons’ traps! Well, you can do that alone this time.” He slumps back to the floor of the canoe. “But while I’m stuck with you, we’re staying clear of that forest, so we should cross the river and get out on the other side. I don’t want to be anywhere near it when that forest grows back.”
Itzel nods at him, then waves to the turtles. “It was nice to meet you, turtles. I’m Itzel, by the way.”<
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All the turtles dip their heads in the water to bow them, and then they bring them up again with a synchronous splash. “And we are the Counting Turtles!” they announce proudly, as if they’ve rehearsed their introduction to time it perfectly with each other.
Quashy pulls himself up onto the seat in the canoe. “You’re forgetting a turtle, by the way.”
“What?” the turtles ask in bafflement. They look at each other and start counting one another just to make sure that they’re all here.
“In Xibalba we usually start counting from zero,” the coati tells them. “It’s very important to remember about the nothing. I always remember it when I count my treasures, because that’s how many I started with—zero treasure!” He frowns when he recalls this painful, distant memory. “So, where’s the Zero Turtle?”
“Wouldn’t a zero turtle be no turtle at all?” Itzel asks him.
“But if it’s no turtle at all, then where’s the turtle to count it?” he asks back.
Itzel can’t decide whether this makes much sense or not, but she’s too tired to wrap her brain over the concept of zero right now—besides, she doesn’t want to be reminded of how much math homework she still has waiting for her at home. Then something quite peculiar happens—the twenty turtles frantically scatter away from their canoe, with looks of sheer horror across their faces as they regard Quashy like he just said something very terrible and blasphemous.
The twentieth turtle chirps, “Minus twenty!” And its white head dips back into the water as it swims away.
The nineteenth chirps, “Minus nineteen!” Then it dives also.
The eighteenth turtle chirps, “Minus eighteen!” And likewise makes its exit.
And so on they go, the remaining turtles announcing their respective numbers before they disappear one by one into the lake, in the reverse order in which they had appeared.
When only One Turtle remains with its head above water, it looks at Itzel and Quashy very gravely. “We don’t count the Zero Turtle. Stay away from it.” And then it likewise vanishes with a splash and a chirp of “Minus one!”
