The Land of the Night Sun: Book One of The Jade Necklace

by Ian Gibson

  “Grandma?” Itzel nudges her arm, but she isn’t responding. “Grandma?” she says again, much more loudly.

  The mother rushes inside, flings the curtain open, then in an instant she’s back outside, running in the rain screaming for the father. Miguel leaps out of bed and stands beside his sister. The father comes racing back with a couple men from the village. The mother pulls Itzel and Miguel aside as the father checks the grandmother’s breathing, then holds her wrist. He looks at the mother, who begins to cry. She turns away and holds her children, pressing their faces against her stomach, stroking their heads with her shaking hands. Itzel catches a glimpse of her father over her grandmother, pushing into her chest, and counting, then pushing into her chest again. She closes her eyes, and just hears her father counting, pausing, counting again, pausing. Eventually she hears nothing but the angry roar of the endless rain. The sky outside darkens so much that it looks like night has decided to come much too early, and the downpour comes down even more heavily.

  Their mother still holds on to them, frozen in the same spot as if unable to move, as their father goes outside to notify the other villagers, and many of them come and gather outside the hut to pay their respects. They’re all drenched from the rain, and a lot of them just stand there in silence in the doorway for a long time, as if not knowing what to say. The men hold their hats and stand as still as statues. The women want to hug her mother but don’t want to get her even wetter, so they just stand there too. But they all look very sad, and very wet. Itzel thinks it looks like they’re crying with all of their bodies, and not just their eyes. An older man who looks like the village priest takes the father aside and they speak outside. Eventually several men come and carry the grandmother away.

  “Where are you taking grandma?” Itzel asks the men, going up to them and tugging at their shirts, but her mother takes her, and she starts to cry in her mother’s dress.

  “She’ll be in the church just down the road,” her mother whispers to her, although she sounds like she’s reassuring herself just as much as her daughter. “She won’t be far, okay?”

  When they leave, her mother sits with Itzel on the bed, stroking her hair. She doesn’t say anything. She just holds Itzel for what seems like a very long time. Eventually she stands up, and pats Itzel on the knee. “Help me fix some dinner. I need something to do.” Itzel sees something about how her mother walks that makes her look like she’s going to fall to pieces at any moment, but somehow, she’s holding herself together. Itzel wipes her nose and helps her prepare dinner in the kitchen hut, where they make a chicken and lime stew. The kitchen seems so empty and lifeless to Itzel without her grandmother singing along as they cook, and only the patter of rain fills the silence she’s left behind.

  They eat dinner together but leave most of their bowls unfinished as they don’t have much of an appetite—they clearly made far more stew than they’re in the mood of eating. They don’t talk much over dinner this time, as the rain is pouring so loudly it almost feels like they would need to shout to each other, and they feel so dispirited that they couldn’t draw enough breath to shout even if they wanted to. Itzel foregoes the cup of chocolate after dinner, in spite of her mother offering, as she just can’t bring herself to drink it without her grandmother to join her—it was always the special time the two of them had together, bidding farewell to the Sun, then sitting on the patio and watching the fireflies appear in the rainforest as night fell.

  The mother holds the baby for a while, silently staring out the window at the rain, and when the baby’s asleep, she puts her in the small baby basket on their bed. When she turns around, she’s stunned to find Itzel putting on the white dress. She sits on her bed and sobs, as if she were no longer able to hold back the tears, which seem to spill from her eyes as much as the rain outside.

  Itzel wasn’t expecting that reaction at all. “Does it look that bad?”

  Her mother laughs between her sobs. “You look beautiful.”

  Itzel looks down at the dress. “I didn’t wear it when she asked me to,” she says. “And now she’s... she’s…” She starts to cry, unable to finish her sentence.

  Her mother rushes over to her and kneels, holding her daughter’s arms. “Itzel, no, don’t think like that. You couldn’t have known what would happen. None of us did.”

  “I should have,” Itzel says, her head still lowered, not wanting to look her mother in the eyes.

  Her mother raises Itzel’s head by her chin. “It’s all right. Your grandmother loved you and Miguel very much. You were her hero twins.”

  “I miss her.”

  “I miss her too,” her mother says, wiping the tears from Itzel’s cheeks. “We have a long day tomorrow. Your father and I have to figure out a way to get back to the city. Don’t forget you two still have school Monday morning. Get some sleep.”

  The mother helps Itzel take off the dress so she can go to bed, and she tucks her and Miguel in. She hasn’t tucked them in like this in years, since they’re both too old for that, but neither Itzel nor Miguel comments on it. She sees the hibiscus flower on the table beside their bed and puts it back in Itzel’s hair. “We could use some good luck now,” she tells Itzel. “It’s been a very unlucky day—just like your grandmother said it would be.”

  “Maybe if I wear it while I sleep, the rain will go away by morning?” Itzel asks about the flower.

  Her mother smiles softly. “Let’s hope so.” She pulls her sheet up and kisses her on the forehead, and kisses Miguel too.

  Itzel just lies wide awake in bed quietly staring at the thatched ceiling, listening to the rain pattering overhead. Miguel can’t sleep either, but they don’t talk— they wouldn’t know what to talk about now anyway. Their parents keep their lantern on for a while, and she can hear them talking to each other in their bed across the room. She leans over the side of the bed to look at the frog in the jar underneath it— it blinks and croaks as it stares up at her.

  “I’ll let you out tomorrow morning when we’re far away from the nasty snakes, okay?” she whispers to it.

  “Who are you talking to?” Miguel asks her.

  “Just a frog,” Itzel says.

  “You put a frog under the bed?”

  “Yes, but I’ll let it out tomorrow. Those crazy snakes are trying to eat it.”

  Miguel rolls his eyes and turns over to try to go to sleep. It’s not the first time his sister has cared so much for a random animal that happened upon their grandmother’s home—once they came back from a walk to find a big iguana lounging inside, and Itzel insisted that everyone just let it be and not chase it away, and it just stared at them all for a long while like they were the intruders and it wanted them to leave, until finally it relented and scampered out the door.

  Their parents shortly turn off their lantern, and the hut falls into darkness.

  But Itzel can’t sleep. She stares out the window beside their bed, watching the rain fall. Lightning flashes, and she looks at the jade necklace on the table next to her. She takes it and puts it around her neck. Her grandmother asked her to keep it safe, and she suspects it might help to ward off any bad spirits too, just like the hibiscus flower—it must have some use, after all, apart from just being pretty. She feels more reassured now, and finally falls asleep.

  That night, she dreams she’s in a thick forest, and it’s so dark she can barely see anything except for the vague shapes of the trees and the light of many fireflies. As she walks deeper into the forest, she notices that the lights of the fireflies are somehow getting larger, until she realises that they actually aren’t fireflies at all, but glowing eyes, and they’re not flashing their lights, but blinking. They’re all staring in different directions, but when she steps on a twig and snaps it, the many eyes suddenly look at her. Their gaze falls down to her chest. She looks down and sees the pendant around her neck is glowing a bright green. The many eyes around her glisten in its light, staring at it intensely, but then their gaze returns to her. She steps
backward, against a tree, and a pair of eyes appears on the branch next to her, peering unblinkingly into her eyes.

  It whispers to her, "Follow the snake."

  The dream wakes her with a startle in the middle of the night. Everyone else is asleep. It’s very dark and she can hear that it’s still raining heavily outside. She looks at the door, which is closed, and in the faint light she sees a snake poking its way through the gap in the bottom. It turns and looks at her, flicking its tongue, and retreats back through the gap. She quietly gets out of bed, throws on the white dress by her bed, and slips on her sandals, as she doesn’t have time to unpack her shirt and shorts nor tie her boots. She grabs the flashlight that Miguel had taken out, opens the door, and tiptoes outside. She looks around the front of the hut but doesn’t see anything.

  She turns to go back inside, but something flies right behind her, making a whooshing, hissing noise. She turns back around, but still sees nothing. Suddenly, what looks like a flying snake darts through the air across the beam of the flashlight, then turns in mid-air, looks and hisses at her, baring its fangs, and flies up the path leading into the forest. She wonders what it was, and she quickly goes to nudge Miguel, whispering, “I saw a flying snake! Wake up!”

  Miguel just mumbles and turns over. She doesn’t want to wake her parents—they’ve had a rough day. Impulsively, she starts to run after the snake. It’s very muddy in her sandals, and she regrets not putting on her boots now, but she doesn’t want to lose the snake. She dodges puddles as best she can, and she’s soon up the pathway through the forest. She doesn’t see it anymore—maybe she’s lost it after all. Then, she hears a hiss along with a flutter of wings, and it flies right past her again, off the pathway. She follows it through the trees. She can’t find it anymore and looks down to the ground in front of her, but while she does so she notices her jade necklace is softly glowing green, and she looks at it, bewildered—it’s just like in her dream.

  She looks up again and spots a silhouetted figure of someone in the darkness. She shines her flashlight on it and gasps. It’s her grandmother! She’s casually strolling through the forest, wearing her long white dress and the red scarf wrapped around her shoulders.

  “Grandma!” Itzel yells.

  But her grandmother walks away from her, ignoring not only her call but the beam of her flashlight too, and vanishes through a thicket of shrubs.

  Itzel follows her. “Grandma! Where are you going?”

  She passes the shrubs and sees her grandmother again, still turned away from her. Her grandmother stops, opens her arms wide, falls forward, and just disappears, as if she had been swallowed up by the ground.

  "Grandma!" Itzel screams in a panic, running as fast as can. She runs through the bushes but slips in the thick mud that slopes sharply downward. She drops the flashlight, and it falls through a gaping hole in the ground, and she’s sliding towards it too. That’s when she realises where she is—it’s the sinkhole she saw that morning! She desperately reaches out to grab hold of a low-lying branch to catch herself, but she’s losing her grip because it’s so wet from the rain.

  The flying snake lands on the branch and winds around it. The only light she sees is from flashes of lightning, but she catches glimpses of the snake—it has green feathers along its body, and its eyes glisten yellow. It slithers down the branch toward her and drops its head to stare at her in the eyes, flicking its tongue. She’s terrified it'll strike her, but if she lets go, she’ll fall into the cenote.

  But instead, it stays perfectly still, and says, “You should have stayed in bed, little girl.”

  She screams, loses her grip, and falls into freezing cold water, and in an instant, she sees nothing but blackness.

  Thirty-Two Minutes till Midnight

  Miguel wakes up, wondering if he had somehow heard a scream in the distance, but when he listens to the heavy rain outside, he assumes he just imagined it. He looks to his side and notices Itzel isn’t there, and the door is open. He wipes his eyes and gets out of bed, blindly stumbling in the darkness for a flashlight, but the one on the bedside table is missing. “Maybe she’s gone to pee,” he thinks.

  The outhouse is beside the hut, so he peeks out the window towards it. There’s a flash of lightning, and with it he can see the outhouse door is open and nobody’s inside. He walks to the doorway but doesn’t see any sign of her there either and can’t fathom why she would have gone out into the rain. “You really are crazy, sis,” he mutters to himself. He walks over to his parents’ bed and wakes them up. “Itzel’s gone.”

  His father is still snoring loudly, but his mother sits up. “What do you mean she’s gone?” she asks.

  Miguel just points to the open door.

  “She’s probably just peeing,” she says.

  Miguel shakes his head. “Nope. I already checked.” He wonders if he should mention hearing a scream, but he’s still not sure if he was just imagining it and doesn’t want to freak his mother out unnecessarily.

  “Where did she go?” his mother asks. She shakes the father awake, but he just snorts. “Itzel’s not here. Wake up!”

  His father turns and sees the open door and an empty patio, lit by another flash of lightning. “She’s probably just—”

  “She’s not there,” the mother interrupts him. “Miguel checked.”

  They quickly put on their shoes and the father takes their flashlight. Miguel runs over to his bed to hurriedly put on his shorts, socks, and old football shoes.

  “No, Miguel,” his mother tells him, “Stay here and mind your baby sister.”

  Miguel groans. “Can I at least have a flashlight? She took ours.”

  “Hopefully that means she’ll be easier to find,” the father says. “I’ll get you the one in the car.” He runs to his car, opens the glove compartment, takes out the small flashlight inside, and throws it to Miguel. “What is wrong with her? Going out in a storm like this in the middle of the night!”

  “Maybe a bad spirit took her,” Miguel says. He just meant it as a joke, but it doesn’t go over all that well.

  “She couldn’t have gone far in this rain.” The mother hurries outside to join the father, who’s already screaming Itzel’s name over the rain.

  A Forest of Howls and Flames

  Itzel opens her eyes to find herself in blackness, and she wonders if she’s dreaming again. She can’t see anything around her, but her eyes catch a faint green light coming from below. When she looks down at her chest, she notices the necklace is still glowing. “Where am I?” she asks.

  Two small eyes open in the blackness, glistening green in the light of the shining jade stone, and they stare at her. They look like the eyes she had seen in her dream earlier.

  “You’ve opened a door that has been locked for some time,” a voice says. The eyes float toward her and look down at her glowing jade pendant. “And that is the key.”

  “The key to where?” Itzel asks.

  “Home,” answers the voice.

  Itzel wonders what it means by that. The last thing she remembers is slipping and falling into the cenote. If she’s somewhere at the bottom of the sinkhole, what does she need a key for? A rope or ladder would be much more helpful. “Where am I?”

  “That’s something better to be seen than told,” the voice says, and the eyes close and disappear.

  She awakens floating on her back in water. It must have been another dream, yet she still sees blackness around her even now that she’s awake. She reaches her arms downward and is able to feel the bottom, so at least the water is very shallow. She pushes herself upright, and her hands feel mostly sand and pebbles, but one hand brushes against something that doesn’t feel like a rock. She clasps it and notices it’s smooth and cylindrical. She looks down, and much to her surprise, she’s able to see clearly into the water, even though everything else around her is completely black. The object she found in the water is her flashlight, which, as she vaguely remembers, dropped into the cenote before she did.


  The bottom of the cenote! That’s where she must be.

  She picks up the flashlight and gets to her feet, hugging herself as she shivers—wherever she is, it’s very cold, especially the water. She looks directly upward, but she can’t see any sign of the hole she must have fallen through, and she can’t even hear the rainstorm anymore. She tries to turn the flashlight on, but it doesn’t work—she’s not all that surprised seeing as it was underwater, but it means she can’t see much apart from the pool of water she’s standing in, which shimmers with a pale blue light. She looks around and notices that there are other small pools of water just like the one she woke up in—many softly glowing circles scattered amidst the blackness.

  She wades through the pool to the shore. As she walks, she feels drops of water hitting her like rain, except there’s something very peculiar about this rain—it’s not coming from above, but below, like it’s rising from the water she’s wading in. Once she’s on land she feels the crunch of pebbles underneath her sandals. They seem so loud just because everything is otherwise so quiet. She stops for a moment just to listen carefully, but she can’t hear anything except for the patter of water drops, which she guesses is from that bizarre rain that’s somehow “falling upwards”.

  She looks at the pool of water next to her to marvel at the rising rain. She kneels down and looks into the water, wondering how it can glow like this when there’s no other source of light. As she bends forward, her jade necklace dangles from her neck over the water, and it starts to glow an even brighter green, just like in her dream.

  “What’s going on?” she whispers, wondering if she’s still dreaming and hasn’t actually woken up at all yet.