by Ian Gibson
“Yum Kaax enjoys setting all the traps off anyway,” Quashy adds, still hanging upside-down from his tail like a monkey from a branch.
“Who's that?” Itzel asks.
“God of the hunt,” Kinich Ahau says. “He is very… spirited. Let’s just say that. The rest of us gods tend to ignore him.”
“The village is also hidden deep in the forest and it’ll be very hard to find,” Quashy points his snout upriver, “but one of the hidden paths to it is near here—this way. They lay fewer traps along the path, too, for their own sake. But seeing as it’s just rained, you still need to be very wary about puddles.”
Itzel immediately starts walking in the direction he's pointing. She can see little shoeprints in the mud leading from the forest, half the size of her feet. “Why… puddles?” she asks—she finds it quite an odd thing for him to warn her about.
“They enchant puddles in their forest to use them as portals, so if you step into one that’s large enough, it’ll send you to a completely different part of the forest. I know because it’s happened to me a few times. Makes me nauseous. It’s just one of their sneaky ways to get around their forest in a pinch.”
She turns around and smiles at the coati, wiping the tears from her eyes—at least there’s something else she can do instead of leaving empty-handed. “Thanks for all your help, Quashy.”
He smiles back. “No problem, my thief-in-training.”
She rushes back to him and gives him a quick, slightly awkward hug while he's dangling upside-down. “I guess this is goodbye,” she says, then walks away, but she turns to him one more time, walking backwards through the mud. “Oh! And remember to check that plant later!”
“Right, sure. The plant,” Quashy says half-heartedly. “Safe travels and safe thefts! Though you'll have better luck if you don't walk backwards like Tata Duende.”
Itzel laughs and turns around to face where she's going, following the footprints. She realises she's going to miss the coati's sense of humour.
The giant jaguar gets up and steps around the tower, effortlessly catching up with her as his are so broad. “I don’t understand why you’re so intent on finding your grandmother. If she’s here, she’s here to stay, whether you like it or not. You can’t cheat death, little Itzel, and if you try to, you’ll be following a path whose dangers I can’t—and won’t—protect you from.”
Itzel says over her shoulder to him, “Then I’ll go alone.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Quashy tells her. “You might want to look up.”
“Stop right there!” says a voice coming from above her.
Itzel looks up to discover a troop of spider monkeys, wearing green sashes and small pouches, peer at her from the treetops—they must have finally managed to set up the rope to cross the river after all their efforts, and squabbling. She’s shocked that they were able to sneak up on her like that—it’s certainly not something the loud and boisterous howler monkeys would have been capable of doing even in their wildest dreams. The spider monkeys have long, wiry arms and legs that do indeed somewhat remind her of spiders, but the one who just spoke is by far the most spiderlike of the bunch, thanks to its bizarre overabundance of arms and legs—eight of them in all—and who at first glance looked to Itzel like a large, hairy, tree-climbing tarantula with a monkey’s head.
“Bye!” Quashy says fearfully.
“Bye?” she asks, but when she turns to the coati, he’s already disappeared up the tower.
“This is the police!” announces the many-limbed spider monkey—clearly the captain of the troop, especially as its almost twice as tall as its comrades, probably to accommodate for the extra limbs it has.
Itzel raises her hands innocently. “Have I done something wrong?”
The captain is confused by her question. “Have you?”
“I don’t think I have,” she says.
The monkeys huddle together on the branches above her and whisper loudly to each other:
“Why are we here again?”—“I've forgotten now because it took so long to set up the rope bridge!”—“Not my fault you idiots don't know how to catch a rope!”—“Not our fault you don't know how to throw a rope!”—“Maybe the howler monkeys remember? They're the ones who gave us the message.”
One of them swings back to the river, shouting to a howler monkey on the riverbank opposite who’s drinking water from the river in its cupped hands, but the howler monkey is ignoring its calls. The spider monkey jumps and down, waving its long arms, yet still fails to get the howler’s attention. Becoming exasperated, it picks up many small yellow fruits from a nance tree and starts hurling them one by one across the river at the howler monkey. One of them hits it on the head.
The howler monkey rubs its head and looks surprisedly at the spider monkey. “Oh, sorry!” it howls loudly over the roar of the river, the water rippling from its strident voice—far louder than any spider monkey could muster. “You spider monkeys don’t know how to carry your voice! I can never hear a single word you’re saying!”
The spider monkey shouts at the top of its lungs, “What was the message again?”
“What?” the howler monkey shouts, cupping its ear.
“What was the message again?”
“What? I can't hear you whispering spider monkeys!”
“I'm shouting, not whispering!” the spider monkey screams in annoyance.
“They want to know what the message was!” Kinich Ahau roars in his godly voice that stirs the trees, along with all the spider monkeys in them.
The howler monkey undoubtedly heard that. “You have direct orders from King Kukulkan to take the girl to the Cave of Echoes so she can return home!”
The spider monkeys turn their attention to Itzel again.
“This is the police!” repeats the captain. “We have direct orders from King Kukulkan to take you—”
Itzel interrupts her as she already heard what the howler said—it would have been difficult not to, after all. “You can tell Mister Kukulkan that I’m not ready to go yet. I still have something to do.” She starts strutting into the forest, but a large, spotted paw bearing sharp claws lands in front of her, startling her.
“I'm sorry, Itzel,” Kinich Ahau says, “but you're not going anywhere but home.”
Itzel stares wide-eyed at the giant jaguar, and the way he looks back at her with his large golden eyes tells her he means what he says.
“She's ready to go, Nine-Hands,” he says, nudging her forward with his paw.
“No, I'm not!” Itzel says.
“Yes, you are, human,” says Nine-Hands. She points to the rest of her troop with her many hands. “We spider monkeys are the Hands of Kukulkan—he’s a snake, after all, so he could use a lot of hands—and we will be escorting you home. He said that you have repaid your debt and it's time for you to leave. The Underworld is no place for the living, he said.”
“Kinich Ahau, please!” She struggles against the paw that’s pushing her away from the forest “Please don't make me leave without finding my grandma first!”
“I admire your spirit, little Itzel,” he tells her, “but if King Kukulkan says your time is up, then your time is up. To go against the god-king’s wishes would be treason. There is nothing more you can do now but return home.”
Itzel’s eyes begin to well with tears again. “I have to do something! She’s my grandma!”
Kinich Ahau lowers his head to look at her straight in the eyes. “You came all the way to the Underworld to look for her. You've already done far more than any grandchild could have ever dreamed of doing for their grandmother.”
“You don't understand!” she cries, pushing back against his paw. “She’s here because of me! It’s my fault! My fault! You don’t understand because you’re just a big jaguar who doesn’t care about people anymore!”
The spider monkeys gasp in disbelief that she would dare to shout at a god, especially as that god is their great and fiery Kinich Ahau, standing beside her
as a giant jaguar with huge claws and teeth. The iguanas poke their heads through the thin slits in the walls of the tower, and Quashy's snout pokes over the parapet at its top.
Kinich Ahau roars at her, and the sheer force of it blows her backwards, and she slides and falls over into the mud, dropping her snake-stick. The leaves in the near trees shrivel and crackle in his hot breath, his fur flares brightly for a moment, and his eyes burn with an angry glow. Itzel can feel the heat of the Sun god wash over her, and for the first time, she finds herself terrified of him.
“‘Just a big jaguar'?” he growls at her. “I am the god of the Sun. Who are you but a little, mortal, human girl? You’ve done both my forest and me a favour, so I’ll forgive your lip, but don’t speak to a god like that ever again.”
Itzel’s lowered her head and doesn’t say anything. The white dress her grandmother made for her is covered in mud. She can hear the howler monkeys in the distance clapping their hands and howling as if impressed by the power of the jaguar’s roar.
As the jaguar calms down, the fire in his eyes fades. “Now go home, little Itzel. You must have family who are worried to death about you. Losing your grandmother must have been hard enough for them—don't let them lose you, too.”
Nine-Hands climbs down the tree and walks over to Itzel like a spider, extending one of her long, wiry arms to help her up, but as she gets to her feet, another monkey from the troop sneaks up on her from behind and grabs the jade necklace from around her neck, pulling it over her head, yanking at her hair in the process.
“Hey!” Itzel screams.
“Bad form!” Quashy shouts from the top of the tower, carefully remaining hidden from view. “Your thieving skills need work!”
“It's not thieving—it's confiscation!” Nine-Hands yells at the voice coming from the tower.
“Looks like theft to me!” he responds.
“We'll be holding on to the jade stone from now on,” the captain tells Itzel.
“But that’s mine! You can’t take it!” Itzel lunges for it, but the spider monkey who took it retreats up the tree again. “I need it to go home!”
“And home is exactly where you're going,” the captain says. She whistles to the rest of her troop.
The other monkeys swing down to grab her arms, tugging her along to the sycamore tree where the rope bridge has been tied. One of them picks up her snake-stick, shakes it violently to fling some of the mud off—much to the snake-stick's disapproval—and carries it along.
“Can you climb trees?” Nine-Hands asks Itzel.
She sniffles and wipes her tears on her arm as her hands are slathered in mud. “Yes,” she says defeatedly. She tussles with the spider monkeys holding her to break free from them. “I just need to wash up in the river.” They let go of her, and she kneels down and washes her hands and face in the water. She stands up again and looks back at Kinich Ahau, who quietly tips his head to her. She lets out an angry huff and stamps the ground, then proceeds to climb the sycamore.
“I enjoyed your company, little Itzel,” the giant jaguar says. “I wish you the best.” He knows she can’t hear he but believes a god’s well wishes would still be of some help. He dips his head beneath the trees and trots into Gibnut Forest. “Your grandmother too, wherever she is.” He closes his eyes and whispers to himself, “I miss her.”
Nine-Hands looks fairly impressed as Itzel climbs up the sycamore with little difficulty. “Not bad,” she tells her. “For a human, that is. Especially one in a dress.”
“And what are you supposed to be? Are you a spider monkey or a monkey spider?”
The captain grimaces at her. “I’m Nine-Hands.”
“But why ‘Nine-Hands’?” Itzel asks.
Nine-Hands dangles from a branch with her tail and raises her four arms and four legs and wiggles her many fingers and toes. “Because these are my nine hands.”
“I count eight,” Itzel says.
Nine-Hands points up to her tail with her many hands. “Don’t forget the tail. You humans really have no idea how useful a tail can be, do you?”
Itzel glances at the tower where Quashy is still hiding—it reminds her of something he’d say. “I’ll miss you, Quashy,” she whispers to herself.
She climbs to the branch where a two-way rope bridge has been tied—two ropes have been strung across the river side-by-side to allow monkeys to cross in opposite directions without bumping into each other. Led by Nine-Hands, the troop of spider monkeys run along the rope swiftly and effortlessly, but as the tailless human girl among them lacks such confidence in her tightrope walking skills, she grabs hold of the rope and hangs upside-down with her feet crossed over it, and in this manner, she slowly crawls her away across. The spider monkey right behind her balances on the rope by walking upright on its feet while holding the snake-stick lengthwise to help balance itself—Itzel suspects it might just be showing off.
The swollen river roars underneath her, and she hangs her head down to look at the bright green water. The rapids flow so fiercely now that she’s nervous about losing her grip and falling into the river. As she’s about to bring her head back up, she glimpses something red out of the corner of her eye. She turns to see a cloth washed up against one of the rocks in the middle of the river—it must have been carried there by the strong currents. Its striped pattern looks strikingly familiar to her. Her eyes widen when she realises what it reminds her of. Could that be her grandmother's scarf? She’s too high to be able to reach it, but she needs a closer look at it.
She holds her hand out to the spider monkey behind her. “Can I have that please?” she asks, looking at her snake-stick.
The spider monkey stops and stares at her. “No, it's been confiscated.”
“Please!” she pleads with it. “I just need it for a moment.”
“Those were our orders—take the jade stone and the Staff of Kukulkan.” The spider monkey taps her on the feet with the bottom end of the snake-stick. “Now get a move on.”
“It’s not a staff of Kukulkan,” Itzel says. “It’s my snake-stick!” And she hisses, “Hssss!”
The snake-stick stares at her with its turquoise eyes. It then flicks out its tongue and bats its little wooden wings feverishly, pulling away from the spider monkey’s grip until it’s able to fly right out of its hand, knocking the monkey off its balance so it falls forward into the river below, screeching in fright. The other monkeys dangle from the rope by their legs and tails to rescue their fallen comrade. Her snake-stick loyally glides into Itzel’s hand and she extends it out to the red cloth. It opens its mouth and bites the cloth, and she pulls it back to her so she can inspect it closely. She knows now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is her grandmother’s scarf—the distinct wavelike patterns are unmistakable.
“She’s here,” she whispers to herself. “I knew it.” With newfound resolve, she places her snake-stick under her armpit and hurriedly crawls along the rope to the other side of the river.
Nine-Hands waits for her on the branch. “I’ll have that back,” she tells her, her four hands held out to her while she looks at her snake-stick. “You’ve already caused us enough trouble.”
Itzel pulls herself up the branch, which is large enough for her to stand on. She looks at her snake-stick, who’s dutifully holding her grandmother’s red scarf in its mouth. Her eyes then turn to the spider monkey carrying her jade necklace—it’s swinging along the branches over the riverbank, presumably in the direction of the cave. She holds her snake-stick over her head. “Fly!”
Her snake-stick flutters its wooden wings, and, to the captain’s shock, she jumps off the branch, floats to the ground carried by her snake-stick’s wings, then bursts into a sprint after the spider monkey with her necklace. She looks up at it but knows that it’s swinging too fast and too high for her to have any chance of retrieving it. The other spider monkeys in the troop swing from the trees to pursue her.
She holds up her snake-stick as she runs. “Can you steal that back, snak
e-stick?”
The snake-stick lets out a garbled hiss, the red scarf hanging from its mouth.
“I guess that’s a no,” she says, glancing back at the watchtower across the river—she could really use a skilled thief right about now.
Spider monkeys descend from the trees and surround her.
“I can’t go home yet!” she shouts at them. “I need to find her!”
In an instant, the spider monkeys are upon her, grappling with her legs and arms and tugging at her hair as they try to wrest the snake-stick from her grip.
“Let me go!” she screams as she tries to fight them off. Someone, help!”
Just then, a long, blurred streak of brown and white stripes drops down the height of the tower, coils up and around the sycamore, then across the rope bridge, smacking aside any unsuspecting spider monkeys in its way.
“What was that?” one of them chitters frantically as it hangs from the rope by its legs and tail, almost falling into the river after being bumped off.
Another spider monkey observes the striped streak from the safety of the treetop. “It’s just a…”
“Just a what?” the others ask.
“Just a”—it scratches its head—"tail?”
The spider monkeys tackling Itzel look up as the creature settles on a branch above them. It’s Quashy, sporting a black cloth wrapped around his head like a mask, with holes poked in it for his eyes. His fur bristles all over as if he could barely contain his excitement.
“Who are you? Reveal yourself!” demands Nine-Hands.
“I’m the Banded Bandit!” Quashy proclaims proudly with a toothed grin and a twinkle in his eyes. “We meet at last, Nine-Hands.”
The spider monkeys look at their captain in hopes that she’ll make any sense of this, but she’s as baffled as they are. “You’re the infamous thief I’ve been tracking down for as many baktuns as I have hands?” she asks.
