Max groaned. “Not again. How can you live in a place that has so many blackouts?”
“You get used to it,” Hermanjilio replied, “especially in hurricane season.”
“It’s always hurricane season,” Max pointed out.
Hermanjilio laughed. “I know it seems that way. Blame climate change.”
“Blame Tzelek,” muttered Lord 6-Dog darkly.
“So sorry for the inconvenience,” said Raul as he and Lady Coco bustled in with armfuls of candles.
“Candlelight is more flattering to the complexion,” Lady Coco reassured him, apparently forgetting that her own face was temporarily covered in monkey hair.
“I thought you had an emergency generator,” said Max.
“We do,” replied Raul, “but it’s not working. I sent someone out to fix it this morning, but I haven’t heard anything. I just wish Jaime was still here.”
“Jaime? Jaime Ben? You mean Lucky Jim?” Max’s ears pricked up at this mention of the young Maya man who’d once saved him from Tzelek.
Raul nodded. “He took care of those things when he worked here. But now that he’s training to be a teacher, we haven’t seen him in a while.”
“I have some experience with generators, Raul,” volunteered Hermanjilio. “Want me to take a look?”
“If you wouldn’t mind. It’s in a clearing behind the warehouse. Can you find it?”
“Max can show me the way.”
Max shook his head. After those roars he’d heard earlier, he had no desire to go outside.
“Not scared, are you?” asked Hermanjilio.
“No,” lied Max.
“Good. I need you to hold the flashlight while I work on the generator.”
Max thought quickly. “I have to stay here in case the lawyer calls again.”
“No worries, young lord,” Lady Coco informed him brightly, “the phone is down as well.”
“Grab a machete and let’s go,” said Hermanjilio.
Uncle Ted’s house was built on the jutting point of a ridge that encircled a sandy bay. The banana warehouse and loading dock sat on a pier at the water’s edge. It was usually a sheltered little harbor, but today the boats bucked wildly and the tide roared as it pounded the shore.
At the top of the steps, Max hesitated. “The quickest way is straight along the beach, but …”
Hermanjilio surveyed the crashing waves. “Is there another route?”
“There’s a trail through the jungle,” said Max, already soaked in spray. “It’s kind of overgrown, but I think I can find it.”
“Lead on.”
The watery setting sun barely tinted the gray clouds. As they walked along the trail, Hermanjilio pointed out a dark silhouette flitting through the sky.
“Look, a vampire bat!”
“Yech, I hate them,” said Max. “One of them pooped on my pizza at the Grand Hotel Xibalba.”
“That’s odd.”
“They were roosting in the roof of the restaurant,” Max explained.
“No, I mean it’s odd to see vampires around here. We usually get fruit bats. And you don’t usually see bats awake so early.”
More and more vampires filled the sky.
“I wonder what’s woken them?” mused Hermanjilio.
A bloodcurdling shriek pierced the air.
“What was that?” Max looked around warily.
“Probably a hawk. They come out to hunt the bats.”
Hermanjilio stood for a moment scanning the trees. “Over there!” He pointed to a gap between the treetops where a large black bird, as ungainly as a turkey doing the backstroke, was thrashing and weaving through the sky.
Max stared at it. “It’s flying upside down. Is that a thing? What bird does that?”
“I’ve only heard of one … my grandfather told me about it … but it was just a story. That bird was mythical.”
“What was it called?”
“Mesa-hol, the bird that flies upside down. Grandfather said that if it was ever to land on your roof, your house would cave in. And if it ever learned to fly right side up, it would foretell the end of the world.”
As they watched, the great black bird suddenly righted itself and flew gracefully over their heads.
Max’s eyes opened wide. “Did you see that?”
“It’s just a big hawk,” insisted Hermanjilio, “with an unusual bat-catching technique.”
“But it was flying upside down and then it flew right side up. Just like the bird in your grandfather’s story.”
“Pure coincidence.” Hermanjilio looked around, narrowing his eyes. “But let’s hurry. I think I see the warehouse through the trees.”
Max pointed to a fork in the trail. “This way to the generator.”
Hermanjilio shone the flashlight on a pattern in the dirt. “Fresh tire tracks. Must be the repair truck. I’m guessing the guy is still working on it.”
“So he doesn’t need us,” said Max. “Let’s go back.”
“We should check he’s okay. And then he can give us a lift. Come on.…”
Hermanjilio started running down the trail, and Max followed behind.
Suddenly, Hermanjilio stopped dead. Max barreled straight into him, almost knocking them both to the ground.
“Stay down,” whispered Hermanjilio. “I don’t like the look of this.”
An overturned jeep lay abandoned in the clearing. The door of the shed was hanging off its hinges, and the roof had caved in, taking one of the walls with it. Smoke drifted up to the sky. There was no sign of the workman.
“Hello?” called Hermanjilio. “Is anybody there?”
As if answering his call, the big black bird landed on the rusty upturned underside of the jeep. As the bird turned its head to survey the clearing, it looked directly at Max. Its eyes were empty sockets.
“That hawk …,” he began, but Hermanjilio shushed him.
“I think I hear something.…”
Max listened. He could hear nothing but the buzzing of insects and the distant crashing of the ocean.
But then, from somewhere inside the broken shed, he heard a sob.
“Stay here,” Hermanjilio instructed. “I’ll go and look.”
“Be careful,” Max whispered. His insides felt swampy with fear.
With his machete at the ready, Hermanjilio ran across the clearing and picked his way through the doorway of the shed. Then he disappeared from view behind a pile of rubble.
There was silence for a worryingly long time. Then: “Max, come and help me.”
As Max got closer, the smell of burning oil and melted rubber stung his nostrils and he pulled his shirt up over his nose. He could hear Hermanjilio talking Mayan in a soothing tone. He followed the voice into the shed.
“Over here, Max!”
In a corner, trapped by debris, huddled a young Maya man. He wore dust-covered overalls and a yellow hard hat that had probably saved his life. He whimpered quietly as, one by one, Hermanjilio cleared away the sheets of tin, pieces of wood, and chunks of cement.
Max quickly moved to help.
“I’ve tried English, Spanish, and every Maya language I know,” Hermanjilio explained, slightly out of breath from all the lifting. “He hasn’t responded to any of them. I think he’s in shock. We need to get him out of here before those fuel tanks blow.”
They helped the workman to his feet. “Are you hurt? Can you walk?” Hermanjilio asked. In answer, the workman limped forward, holding on to his rescuer like a drowning man clutching a life preserver.
Once outside, they led the workman to the far edge of the clearing and tried to sit him down against a tree trunk. All the while, the man was trying to get away.
“It’s okay,” Hermanjilio assured him. “You’re safe now.”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“There go the fuel tanks! Get down!” Hermanjilio pushed Max and the workman to the ground, covering them with his own body, as an explosion blew through the clearing. There was a flash of light, a wave of intense heat, a terrible screech of metal as pipes and machine parts were ripped apart. Max was unsure if the ground beneath them was shaking or if it was just his own body shaking in fear.
Leaves and branches rained down on them.
When all was quiet again, Hermanjilio sat up. “Everyone all right? That was a close call.”
Max looked back at the shed.
It was gone. In its place was a smoldering heap of ashes.
On the jeep, the big black bird squawked triumphantly.
“Mesa-hol!” whispered the workman, staggering to his feet. He took Hermanjilio’s hands, babbled a rapid stream of Mayan, then ran into the jungle as fast as his injured legs could carry him.
“What did he say?” asked Max.
“He said he crashed into the tree when he saw the bird. He hid in the shed, but the roof caved in. He said he has to find his family before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?” asked Max.
“I don’t know.”
They watched as the bird flapped its great black wings and took off in the direction of the Villa Isabella.
“That bird is Mesa-hol, isn’t it?” Max insisted.
“I don’t know, Max. Let’s just get back as fast as we can.”
“What if Mesa-hol lands on Uncle Ted’s roof?”
“Just keep running.”
Max could see the Villa Isabella outlined on the ridge.
Not far now.
A voice floated out of the jungle. “Help me! Please help me!”
Max stopped and looked around. “That sounds like Lola.”
“It’s not Lola. Keep running.”
“She needs help.”
“Ignore her! Keep running!”
“Hoop! Hoop!” called the voice.
“It is Lola. Only Lola calls me Hoop. I have to go to her.”
“No, Max!”
Too late. Max had disappeared into the undergrowth.
By the time Hermanjilio caught up, Max was staring as if hypnotized into a thornbush. The branches waved as if beckoning him closer.
“She’s in there,” said Max. “Can’t you see her face? She’s trapped in this bush. We have to help her.”
“No.” Hermanjilio locked his arms around Max to stop him going any nearer. His muscles bulged with the effort of holding the boy back. And, all the while, the branches reached out and tried to entangle them both in their thorny grasp.
Hermanjilio put his mouth next to Max’s ear. “Look away, Max. Don’t meet her eyes.”
“But it’s Lola—”
“It’s not Lola. Her name is Ixt’abay.”
“Eesh-ta-bye? You know her?”
“I know of her. She was another creature in Grandfather’s stories. She calls to her victims like the sirens in Greek myth. If you go to her, she’ll choke you to death in her thorns.”
Even as Max struggled to go to her, he nodded to show he understood.
“Fight it,” said Hermanjilio.
“Can’t,” gasped Max.
“Lean back on me, I’ll drag you to the house.”
“Can’t do it.”
“I’m losing you, Max. She’s winning. Don’t let her win.”
“She calls to her victims like the sirens in Greek myth.”
“She will kill you. It’s not Lola.”
“Let me go.”
Just as Hermanjilio was losing his grip and the branches of the thornbush were twining around Max’s arms and pulling him in, heavy footsteps shook the ground behind them.
“Good evening, travelers,” boomed a man’s voice. “Is there a problem?”
Max felt Ixt’abay’s power over him ebb away. Now, when he looked into the thornbush, he saw not Lola’s face, but a haggard old witch fading into the darkness. He backed away as far as he could.
“Who are you?” Hermanjilio asked the voice. “Where are you?”
“My name is Che’ Winik.” (He pronounced it Chay Weeneek.) “And I am here.”
“Where is here?”
While Hermanjilio was trying to locate the owner of the voice, Max was inspecting the cuts on his arms. Those thorns were as sharp as needles. He felt rather foolish for falling for the Lola trick. He made a mental note to ask Hermanjilio to leave that bit out of the story when they told it at the villa.
“Hey, Hermanjilio, could we—?”
He was whisked up into the air, high up into the air, as high as the forest canopy. He fought against whatever squeezed his waist and saw that it was giant hairy fingers. Hardly believing his eyes, he followed the fingers to a gnarly hand on a muscular arm attached to a chest the size of a house, above which was the biggest, ugliest head he’d ever seen. And the head was opening its giant mouth to eat him.
“Max! Max! Where are you?” called Hermanjilio.
“Up here! He’s got me!”
Down on the forest floor, Hermanjilio looked tiny. “Don’t let him eat you!”
Max could smell the giant’s bad breath and see the stumps of his rotting teeth. Saliva dripped on Max’s head. “How do I stop him?”
“Hey, Che’ Winik!” called up Hermanjilio. “Watch me! I’m going to dance!”
Max watched in confusion as Hermanjilio started dancing, a sort of lurching, hip-hop slide. He thought the professor had lost his mind. But the giant looked down with interest, and his mouth twisted into a horrible smile.
Hermanjilio did a march like a drum majorette, using a small leafy branch as his baton, and the giant gurgled with pleasure.
Hermanjilio stuck out his elbows and bent his knees to do a chicken dance.
He kicked his legs like a solo Rockette.
Then he gripped the branch between his teeth and tangoed with himself.
A rumble like thunder emerged from the giant’s throat. Terrified, Max braced to be crushed in the massive fist. But, if anything, the giant’s grip loosened.
A tear as big as a birdbath ran down the giant’s face.
He was laughing.
He was laughing so much that his monstrous tree-trunk legs were shaking, making the surrounding forest shake with them. Birds screeched, howler monkeys roared, and little kinkajous screamed in protest as they crashed out of the branches to find safer perches.
Down below, Hermanjilio kept dancing: a body wave, a robot, a one-man conga line.
With a snort that bordered on pain, the giant keeled over and Max plummeted to the ground in his hand, the giant’s chubby fingers cushioning him like air pillows.
Hermanjilio ran to help Max out of his fleshy cage.
“Quick!” cried Max. “Before he gets up again.”
“He can’t get up,” said Hermanjilio. “He has no bones in his legs. Plus, did you notice that his feet are on back to front?”
“No,” said Max, “I didn’t.”
“But you saw my dance moves?”
“About that … what just happened?”
“That was Che’ Winik.”
“I got that.”
“He attacks travelers. The legend says that the only way to defeat him is to do a dance with a branch and make him fall over laughing. Then he can’t stand up again.”
The fallen giant’s tears of laughter were forming a pool on the jungle floor. Bullfrogs and small lizards came out to drink from it.
“Seriously?” Max watched with contempt. “As monsters go, he’s not very effective.”
“Not if you know his secret. But if you’d been on your own, he’d have had you for dinner.”
“I thought you’d lost your mind,” Max admitted.
“Was my dancing that bad?”
“Yes,” said Max. “It was terrible.” He took several deep breaths and tried to slow down his racing heart.
“Well, it did the job.” Hermanjilio scratched his head. “But I have to tell you, until this moment, I had no idea that Che’ Winik was real. I thought he was just another one of my grandfather’s stories.”
“Like Mesa-hol and Ixt’abay?” asked Max.
Hermanjilio nodded. “Exactly. It’s like there’s something in the air tonight. Let’s get home before we meet anyone else.”
“Who else is there?” asked Max as they walked around Che’ Winik and retraced their steps to the trail.
“If you’re asking about all the creatures in Maya mythology, the answer is too many to count,” said Hermanjilio. “But if I were you, I’d be more concerned about all the vampire bats that were hovering above my head.”
Max looked up. “There are millions of them!”
“I believe the collective noun for bats is a colony,” added Hermanjilio helpfully.
“What do they want?”
“What do vampire bats always want?”
“I’m guessing blood.” Max took a few paces forward and the bats followed him. “But why my blood?”
“That’s a good question. This behavior is quite out of character. Vampires usually wait until their prey is asleep, and they rarely bite humans. All those Dracula stories have given them a bad name.”
“They deserve a bad name,” said Max, stepping up his pace. “I hate them.”
Wherever he looked he saw little mouse faces, greasy brown fur, leathery wings, and yellow blood-hungry fangs. The sulfurous-smelling air was thick with bats, and they perched on the trees at the edge of the trail like an honor guard.
Max felt like a sheep being herded to market.
“One touched me!” he yelped. “It’s in my hair! It’s going to bite me!”
“It’s a leaf,” said Hermanjilio, picking off the offending greenery. “Just stay calm, okay? We’re nearly home. And remember, when we get to the villa, the most important thing is to keep the bats out of the house. Don’t let them follow you inside.”
Max was horrified. “You think they’d try it?”
“Who knows? Just keep your wits about you.”
The Villa Isabella was close now. They could see Raul standing at the window.
“He’s waiting for us,” said Hermanjilio. “He must see the bats.”
“He’s pointing at the front door,” said Max.
The bats chirruped excitedly.
“Ready to run for it?” asked Hermanjilio. “Go! Go! Go!”
As soon as Max approached the heavy oak front door, it swung open and sent out a blindingly bright beam of light. A hand grabbed him, and Hermanjilio pushed in behind him.
“Did we do it?” asked Max, leaning against the door to make sure it was shut. “Did we keep the bats out?”
Raul nodded. He was holding a dive light like a ray gun.
“Thanks to Raul’s quick thinking,” said Hermanjilio. “Bats hate bright lights.”
Max and Hermanjilio high-fived.
They’d done it. They’d reached home. They thought they were safe.
But in their rush to enter the house, neither of them had noticed the huge, eyeless black bird crouched on the parapet above the front door.
