by Ian Gibson
“How long has she been gone?” she asks him.
The jaguar perks up his ears, having been roused from his daydreaming. “Who?”
“The Moon goddess. Your sister.”
He returns to his watch duty, staring downriver. “Almost sixteen thousand years by my reckoning. In Xibalban time, at least.”
The sheer number boggles Itzel's mind. For some reason she thought it might have been more like a matter of months, or a few years at most. “That's so long!”
“Time is a strange thing in Xibalba. It passes very quickly compared to your world, yet somehow it seems like it doesn't pass much at all. The years fly by so fast, yet the world is mostly at a standstill. Sure, many souls will come and go, but we gods are always around. Except for the ones who go missing, that is.”
Itzel sees a sadness in his eyes, made only more pronounced by the dark circles underneath them that make him look like it might have been at least a few thousand years since the last time he slept. “Do you ever sleep?” she asks.
“Can't remember the last time I did,” he says. “I used to sleep at night, but with my sister and her moon gone, I have to stay awake and vigilant always. If I let my guard down even for a moment, forces lurking in the shadows might threaten to take over Xibalba again, and there’s no telling how much farther these shadows have crept while I was subdued by Tata Duende’s whip. ‘We shall be the light that dispels the shadows’—this was the vow my sister and I took when we became gods, to ensure that Xibalba will never return to its darkest days.”
“Shouldn’t Kukulkan be doing that too?”
“King Kukulkan should be doing a lot of things that he no longer does.”
“Do you know why he’s like that?”
Kinich Ahau shakes his head. “Perhaps the feathered crown of the god-king has weighed his head down too much.”
“It's made of feathers?” she asks.
“Yes, but a lot of feathers, so it's heavier than it looks. I was being metaphorical anyway. He is a sky god, after all, and if we sky gods have anything in common, it's that we don't like being weighed down by anything. Except Chaac, maybe—he's technically a sky god, but he's weighed down by his fat belly.”
Itzel can't help but laugh at that.
“It reminds me of a joke my sister and I had—Camazotz is an earth god who flies, and Chaac is a sky god who falls. Get it? Bats come from caves but fly, and rain comes from clouds but falls.”
She smiles. “I got it.”
“Anyway, I don't think our king's ever really cared much for the Underworld either, even though he became the lord to rule it. The sky has always been his place, but with the World Tree gone, he's trapped here along with the other sky gods.”
“Why doesn’t someone else become king here then? Or queen?”
“To be honest, I can’t imagine any other god doing any better.”
Itzel doesn’t doubt that from her own experiences with the gods. When she looks at the jaguar’s coat, she admires how it glows in the light of the thin sunbeam that’s still loyally shining on him through the rain clouds. She can only imagine how majestic he would look if the sky was clear, and his orange fur were to bathe in the full light of his sun. “What about you?”
Kinich Ahau laughs as if the idea were too preposterous to even consider. “The mortal who became a god who then became the god-king? That would really fan the flames of the Dead Queen’s envy. But no, I don’t get enough sleep as it is, even without being king. Such a duty would wear me out so much I doubt I could even keep my jaguar form. Can you imagine the king of gods as a small margay? The feathered crown wouldn’t even fit on my head.”
Itzel laughs at the thought of a margay sitting on the throne at the top of the temple. “You were very cute as a margay. But can’t you change into a human too anyway?”
“I can,” Kinich Ahau replies, “but I haven’t in a very long time.”
From the way he says this, it sounds like he’s not interested in explaining why, and, judging from how he’s spoken of humans before, she doesn’t think she needs the explanation, either. She rests her head on the parapet and starts to drift off, and the sound of the rain starts to make her head even heavier.
“Get some rest,” he tells her. “I doubt the messenger falcon will come until the rain stops, but I’ll have an eye open either way.”
“Thanks. You’re definitely the nicest god I’ve met.” She turns to Quashy, who’s already dozing contentedly in a corner, having curled his tail underneath him to use it as a bed, just as he had done when they rested by the lake at the base of Mount Kukulkan. Half-eaten mangos and papayas are scattered around him, so he’s clearly eaten himself to sleep. She lies down in the opposite corner, closes her eyes, and listens to the music of the rainforest over the rainfall, as the animals gradually return to it. She hears the duet songs of the melodious blackbirds—like they’re bouncing high and low whistles back and forth between each other—and the familiarity of the sound comforts her, as it reminds her of being in the rainforest beyond her grandmother’s hut.
“The Underworld isn’t such a bad place,” she whispers to herself. If the melodious blackbirds are whistling pleasantly, how bad could it possibly be? She fights the lure of sleep, in case the messenger falcon could come at any moment, but before long she loses the battle and drifts away.
Quashy opens one eye to check that Itzel is sleeping in the corner opposite, then places the small plant pot next to the hatch in the middle of the floor. He slowly pulls open the hatch door, letting out another cloud of steam, and, using his tail like a rope, he descends all the way to the floor at the bottom of the tower. Once he’s safely at the bottom, he feels around with the end of his tail to find the plant pot he left by the hatch, wraps his tail around it, and carefully brings it to the bottom also.
“The Banded Bandit’s back to check on his stash, I see,” says one of the iguanas lounging in the hammocks.
“You haven’t seen anyone touch it?” he asks them all.
The iguanas lazily shake their heads.
“Even during the fires, we were keeping watch for you,” another iguana says. “Don’t worry.”
Quashy removes a rug on the middle of the floor, revealing a narrow stairwell that goes to an underground cellar. He slides down a few of the steps to get a better look. The cellar is packed full of all kinds of objects—pots, vases, fabrics, figurines, jewels, even golden teeth. He does his little trick in which he curls and uncurls the end of his tail, revealing small gemstones hidden with it—the ones from Tata Duende that Itzel had used to ensnare him. He drops them into one of the pots, stone by stone, which is already overflowing with other precious stones. He places the small, plain-looking plant pot next to his other pots, which are all much larger and adorned with intricate and colourful paintings. “I really could have used a bigger pot,” he grumbles. “And a better-looking one. And one without a hole in it.”
“Did you find us another hammock?” an iguana asks. It claws at the netting in the hammock it’s lying in, which is fraying along the edges. “This one’s worn out.”
“Not this time, but now that the forest fires have finally stopped, I bet the aluxes are already rebuilding their village.” The coati grins wryly. “They’ll have plenty of iguana-sized hammocks for me to steal.”
“We can’t imagine life without a hammock now,” the iguana says. “So much time wasted lounging on branches when we could have had hammocks all along!”
A bright green iguana—the same one who had been lounging outside on the parapet—is now lying in a small hammock at the very top of the tall room, with its head hanging off the side to look down at its companions. “Remember, my fellow iguanas, that you cannot let your wants consume you as it has consumed this coati. Succumbing to our earthly wants is how the demons of Xibalba are born, and we must all be very careful to keep the hungry demon inside us at bay so it does not devour us, leaving behind nothing but a husk of what we once were.” It peers at the coati in
particular when it says these stark words of warning, but Quashy just brushes it off.
Another iguana says, “You’re right, fellow iguana, but it is my humble opinion that hammocks should be made an exception to this rule, as they’re so very comfortable and perfect for an iguana.”
“I can’t imagine many demons are made from lounging in hammocks,” adds another.
The bright green iguana lying at the top contemplates this for a moment and starts to swing its hammock by pushing off the wall with its tail. “You make a fine counterpoint, fellow iguanas. Hammocks are indeed very comfortable and perfect, and far from demonic. We appreciate you lending them to us, coati.”
“I provide you hammocks, and you watch over my stash,” Quashy says. ‘That’s our deal.” He sifts through one of his piles of stones, until he finds his most prized possession—a single stone of green jade. He climbs the steps, bringing the jade stone into the beams of daylight shining through the slits in the walls, where he admires the colour and sheen of it. “Aren’t you lonely, my little green jade?” he whispers to it, as if pretending that it’ll speak. “Don’t you want a little green jade companion?”
The iguanas stare at him from their hammocks with a mixture of curiosity and confusion.
“We’d ask what you’re up to,” one tells him, “but we won’t, since we don’t care.”
“That’s why I like you iguanas.” Quashy puts the jade stone back in his stash in the cellar, covers it with the rug, and flings his tail all the way up to the hatch to pull himself back up, wincing and grunting in pain a little as he does so.
“Are you all right?” asks a concerned iguana.
“Yes,” he replies with a pout as he hangs upside-down by his tail. “A lake demon clawed me.”
“It’s not a good idea to steal from a lake demon,” another warns. “Or any demon, for that matter.”
“I wasn’t stealing from her!” he says. “Well... actually, I did, but only after she clawed me.” He glances down at the iguanas as he reaches the top, then whispers, “She didn’t have a hammock.”
The iguanas shake their heads pityingly.
“No wonder she was so irritable,” one of them says.
He quietly closes the hatch door and glances at Itzel, who’s still fast asleep. He pulls himself up on the parapet and quietly slithers along it towards her. She’s lying on her side, with her necklace still tucked in her dress, and he wonders if he’d be able to take it without waking her. It would certainly be a challenge, but he can’t resist a challenge. He slowly and carefully curls his tail around her head and hooks the necklace with the very tip of his tail.
“Hsssssss! Hssssss!” the snake-stick hisses at him, as it takes to the air and beats its wings around him like a mother bird protecting her nest.
He retracts his tail swiftly, dropping the necklace. The noise stirs Itzel, and she rolls on her back and half-opens her eyes.
“What are you doing?” she asks him.
“Nothing,” he responds hastily, his back turned away from her. “Just looking out for that falcon. Should be any moment now.”
“Then why is my snake-stick angry with you?”
Quashy glances at the snake-stick still flitting around him and hissing. “I… umm… stepped on a twig and it got offended.”
Itzel narrows her eyes at him. “You’re a much better thief than a liar.”
He frowns. “Why do you say that?”
“You can’t step on something, Quashy. You have no feet.”
He looks down at himself. “Oh, right.”
She checks that her necklace is still there. “I need this, Quashy. You know that.”
He turns to her. “Have you been listening to the iguanas or not? You’re confusing your needs with your wants. All we need is food, water, and shelter. Everything beyond that is simply chasing a want.”
She sits up. “I need it to go home.”
“But you don’t need to go home.”
She stares at him while pondering what exactly he meant by that. “You don’t want me to go?”
“What? No! I mean, I don’t care if you stay or go.”
“Is that so?”
Quashy turns away.
“You really have a stealing problem,” she says.
He huffs. “I think everyone else has an owning problem.”
“Why are you like this?” she asks.
“Like what?”
“You’re even willing to steal from a friend.”
The coati eyes her suspiciously. “We’re… friends now?”
She pauses to think about it, but now she’s even beginning to doubt it herself after what he just tried. She rolls back on her side to turn away from him. “I thought we were.” She doesn’t take long to fall asleep again, lulled by the sound of the rain.
Quashy glances at the snake-stick, who’s flown back to her side—its turquoise eyes always open. He sighs, then gazes silently at the rain for a while.
Twenty-One Minutes till Midnight
Miguel peers at the little frog underneath the bed, who’s wincing at him as he shines the beam of his flashlight on it. “I don’t know why she’s keeping you,” he tells it. He wonders if he should let it go, but he vaguely remembers Itzel talking about how she saved a frog from some snakes—which he disappointingly never saw for himself. He thought she had just been playing a weird joke on him, as she likes to do that sometimes. “My sister can let you go herself, when she comes back,” he tells it—though it occurs to him that he’s now talking to animals like his sister loves to do.
The frog blinks and croaks at him again.
“Are you hungry or something? Sorry, but I don’t know what to feed you.” He stands up and walks back to the door, where he hears the buzz of a mosquito hovering around him, and he tries to trace the sound in case it lands on him. He knows the rain brings mosquitoes, but he wasn’t expecting any so soon—his parents always prefer to visit his grandmother’s village during the dry season for this very reason, as mosquitoes become a real problem during the rainy season, especially in the middle of a rainforest.
The mosquito lands on his neck, and he instinctively slaps it. He turns up his palm, shines his flashlight on it, and sees the flattened mosquito on it.
The frog croaks again, and he wonders if that means the frog heard the mosquito too and might now be craving some dinner. He takes the jar with the frog from under the bed and puts it on the small dining table beside his father’s radio and a large bowl of unhusked corn. The frog looks at the corn and seems almost to croak disappointedly—if such a thing were even possible for a frog to do.
He opens the jar cover and flicks off the swatted mosquito inside for the frog to eat. “Here, you must be hungry,” he tells it—there he goes, talking to animals again! He screws back on the jar cover and returns to the doorway to look outside. “You’re so weird, sis,” he mumbles as he leans against the doorway. First Itzel takes in a pet frog that she claimed to have saved from an imaginary invasion of snakes, and now she’s decided to take a late-night stroll through the forest all by herself, just because she really wanted to have one on her birthday? Not to mention she decides to do this the very same day that their grandmother passed away!
“This is the worst birthday ever,” he grumbles.
The frog eyes the mosquito and slurps it up. It closes its eyes and chirps in satisfaction. Suddenly, its body bulges out, growing in size, and it quickly becomes so big that the glass jar can’t contain it, and the sides of it start to crack. Miguel hears a sound like glass shattering, turns around, and shines the flashlight on the table. The jar is completely shattered apart, and the frog inside it is missing.
“What was that?” He rushes towards the table to see the shards of glass scattered all over it and on the floor.
The baby’s been woken by the noise and starts to cry.
The Hands of Kukulkan
Itzel opens her eyes to find herself surrounded by blackness. She hears a familiar sound—the flow
of a large river—but it's growing distant and faint.
“I see you,” a familiar voice says.
She shuts her eyes tightly.
“Why do you hide from me?” asks the voice.
“You’re a witch,” she says. “You lure people into your forest and steal their eyes. You’re not having mine.”
“Whispers pass easily through these forests, but don’t believe every whisper that falls upon your ear,” the voice says. “I have no interest in stealing eyes. I merely borrow them.”
“And I have no interest in lending them,” Itzel says, keeping her eyes closed.
“You should,” the voice says, and two large eyes open in the blackness, glowing in the green light shining from her jade stone. “There is much one cannot see until one’s eyes are set upon oneself.”
She can feel the gaze of the eyes without even needing to look at them. She feels the pressure on her shoulders, and she lowers her head to hide from it.
