The Jumbies (3 page)

6

Drupatee Sareena Rootsingh

A
s the woman in green exited the market, the vendors and customers put their heads together to discuss the beautiful new stranger.

“What did she want with the white witch?” asked the woman with pebble eyes.

“Same as everybody wants with the white witch,” said her tall neighbor. “Help with man trouble.”

“How could a woman who looks like that have trouble with a man?” pebble eyes asked.

“She is very beautiful,” flaky skin agreed.

“Maybe it's a man she shouldn't have.”

The two women looked at each other and then at the road that the woman in green had taken. They shook their heads and went back to their work.

When Corinne returned to her oranges, a very small girl was standing there, eyeing them hungrily. She was the girl who had peeked from behind the woman in the yellow sari. The girl was wearing a dirty pink sari herself, and her pitch-black hair hung in two slick, heavy braids past her waist. “How much?” she asked, pointing to Corinne's oranges.

“Ten,” Corinne said.

“Are they sweet?”

“They're the best on the island. You can try one if you like, but you still have to buy it.”

The girl gently smoothed the end of one of her braids. “I'll buy all five.”

Corinne took the coins from the girl and put them in her pouch, then looked back across the market to where the witch was sitting.

The girl followed Corinne's gaze. “My mother says the white witch is trouble.” She peeled off orange rinds and dropped them at her feet. She took a bite. Her eyes widened with surprise. She took two more quick bites, and Corinne was happy to see that her first customer was so pleased.

“My papa says that people are afraid of things they don't understand,” Corinne said. “How does anyone even know she's really a witch?”

“Do you see all those bottles and powders she has on her blanket? There's magic in them. They can make things happen.”

Corinne picked up a discarded seed from the ground. “There's magic in this too. Does that make me a witch?”

The smaller girl's eyes widened again. “Are you?”

“Of course not!”

The girls watched as the witch sent another customer off with a bottle and a piece of paper.

“What kind of magic does she do?” Corinne asked.

“I don't know.”

Corinne looked the girl up and down. “Then how do you know it's really magic?”

“Customers don't come back to you unless you sell them what they want. My mother says that the white witch has been sitting there for as long as the oldest person on the island can remember. Whatever she's selling works. You can tell by the way her pouch jingles at the end of the day. And I know that what she is selling is not for cooking.” The girl licked sticky orange juice off her hands. “That was the sweetest orange I ever had.”

Corinne smiled with satisfaction. “Thank you. They're from the best soil on the island. Right next to the mahogany forest.”

“Really?” the girl said. “You grow your oranges near the forest?” Then she shrugged. “I guess that's why you could chase that 'gouti into the forest. You're used to taking risks.”

“You saw that?”

“Mmm hmm. I was going to the well when I saw you run in. I stayed a little while to see if you would come out, but my mother was waiting. I'm glad you made it back out alive.”

“My papa told me I have nothing to fear from the forest.”

“Even that forest? Your father must not know very much then,” the little girl said.

“What he knows is that most people are afraid of made-up stories,” Corinne snapped back. When she saw the girl stiffen, she quickly added, “Anyway, I had to get this back.” Corinne pulled the necklace out of her shirt and showed off the shining stone. “It was my mother's.”

“Well,” the girl said, “I still think you were lucky, considering the day. Everybody knows if there's any day you shouldn't go into that forest, it's All Hallow's Eve—the spirits and jumbies are roaming. Ask anybody.”

Jumbies
.
Corinne remembered the yellow eyes in the forest and her heart beat hard against her chest. She forced out a laugh to drown out the sound. “There are no such things as spirits and jumbies.”

“You shouldn't say that.” The girl's eyes darted around to see if anyone—or anything—was listening. “Just because you don't believe doesn't mean they're not there.”

“If these jumbies are all around, how come nobody has ever actually seen one?” Corinne asked. “The forest is dangerous because there are wild animals, not because of jumbies.” She set her jaw and folded her arms. “Anyway, I wasn't the only one in the forest yesterday. I saw a farmer.”
Yes,
Corinne thought,
it was just a farmer.

“How do you know? It might have been a jumbie, like a
lagahoo.
Did you hear it howl like a wolf? Chains rattling? Probably not. They say if you are close enough to hear his chains, it's already too late for you.” She looked at Corinne eagerly for an answer.

Corinne laughed a little more easily this time. “No. It was quiet. No howling or chains rattling.”

“Then it could have been a
La Diabless.
They say the devil woman is very pretty. Did you see her face? Or was it a short jumbie? Those are
douen.
You can't see their faces either. And you should never answer if they call.”

A confident smile broke out on Corinne's face. Nothing in the mahogany forest resembled any of those creatures. “Nothing like that.” She watched the look of disappointment cross the girl's face. “But it was too dark to see much,” she added. “What's your name, anyway?”

“Drupatee Sarena Rootsingh,” said the little girl. “You can call me Dru.”

“I'm Corinne. Corinne La Mer.”

Dru's eyes narrowed. “Can I tell you something? My mother tells me all the time that if you don't trouble trouble, then trouble won't trouble you.”

“That's good advice,” Corinne said. “I'll start taking it tomorrow. Today I have to get back at those boys.”

“The ones who took your mother's necklace? What are you going to do?”

Corinne grinned.

7

Down the Well

A
small frog sat hopeless at the bottom of the dry well. It was tired from trying to escape and hoarse from croaking. It was the croaking that had gotten it into the well in the first place. If it had just been quiet, the boys would not have found it and dropped it in. The frog wished they had at least dropped it into a full well. Drowning in freshwater had to be better than dying of thirst in a deep, dark, stone hole. If the frog did not get wet soon, it would not survive.

Something dripped down on the frog from the circle of light above. The moisture sank into the frog's flesh and revived it temporarily. Then a rope slid down the wall. The sweet smell of dirt and oranges seeped into the frog's pores. Something blocked the light from the top, something that was getting closer. A few minutes later, a girl stood at the bottom of the well holding on to the rope and looking at the frog with glee.

“Hello, Mr. Crapaud,” Corinne said. “I've come to rescue you.”

Corinne scooped up the frog in one hand and put it in her pocket. Then she tried to pull her way up on the rope with her feet pushing against the wall. Although the well was mostly dry, some moisture remained in the rocks. The cracks between them were slick with moss and fungus. Corinne slipped and banged into the wall as she tried to scramble up. More than once, the frog got squished between her hip and the side of the well. It croaked pitifully.

“Crapaud tingele,”
Corinne sang in an effort to soothe it. She pulled up on the rope, but her foot slipped again and sent them both slamming into the wall and then back down to the bottom of the well.

More croaking.

“Shh!” Corinne scolded the flattened frog. “This is hard enough without your constant complaining, and we have to hurry. Those boys will be back to torture you any minute.”

After a few more attempts, Corinne figured out how to grab on to the crevices with her fingers and toes. She knew not to move to a new spot until she was secure. Once she had the hang of the slippery rocks, she barely needed to use the rope. It was too hard on her hands, anyway.

Once they were outside of the well, another drop of Dru's salty tears fell on the frog's back. It was the most water it had in an entire day.

“I told you not to worry,” Corinne told her new friend. “I said we'd get back out just fine.” Corinne picked up a half of a coconut shell from the ground and poured the rainwater inside it onto the frog's skin. She set the animal down. The frog hopped quickly toward the forest. It turned around at the edge of the trees and watched the girls. Then it turned back and hopped out of sight.

“Now we put these in,” Corinne said, pointing at a wriggling sack on the ground.

Dru shied back a few steps.

“It's okay. You just have to know how to handle them.”

Dru became slightly yellow with fear, but stepped carefully up to the writhing sack and held the ends with her fingertips.

“Be careful not to drop it,” Corinne said.

Dru nodded and squeezed her eyes closed. Corinne untied the sack and gently emptied its contents, nearly a dozen scorpions, into the well. The scorpions fell with a series of tiny thuds at the bottom, and in an effort to escape, they immediately began to climb the rope.

“Come on, they'll be here any second.” Corinne hid in some thick shrubs near the edge of the forest.

“Don't get too close!” Dru said. She fingered the end of her braid nervously.

“I told you, there's nothing in there,” Corinne said looking over her shoulder at the forest. She shuddered despite herself. “Fine. I'll find somewhere else for us to hide. But only because you are so nervous.” Corinne led Dru across the dirt road and they both crouched inside a thicket of tall grass.

At their usual time, the brothers appeared around the bend in the road. They picked up a few stones and fitted them into their slingshots. Then they went to the well.

8

The Brothers

W
here are you, Mr. Frog?” Bouki shouted into the well. He pulled back on his slingshot and let a stone loose down the well. He looked in again. “Hiding, eh?” His tattered shirt flapped in the wind.

Dru shifted next to Corinne, causing some rocks to scrape the ground. Bouki turned to scan the bushes. At one point he looked straight in their direction. Corinne grabbed Dru's hand and held her breath.

Bouki went back to looking down the well. In the light, Corinne noticed an intricate pattern beneath the grime on Bouki's shirt, a pattern that showed the shirt had once belonged to someone wealthy, maybe, but now was doing the work of keeping a boy's back from the sun.

Malik, the younger brother, walked in a circle around the well. As he walked, he kept tucking his unruly curls behind a pair of ears that seemed too big for his small head. Corinne tried not to giggle when he found the rope tied to the trunk of a small tree. Malik waved his brother over.

“Yes, it's a rope. So?” Bouki asked. Then he rolled his eyes. “Frogs don't climb ropes, brother.”

Malik put his hands on his hips, jerked his curly head toward the forest, and waited for his brother to understand.

Bouki shook his head at his little brother and sighed. “You mean, it was that girl? I bet she climbed in and got the frog.”

Malik chuckled a little.

“It's not funny, big ears. She's spoiling our fun. But at least she left us some rope. We could always use it for something.”

Malik pulled the rope up as Bouki peered into the well to see the end of it.

Bouki kept his slingshot ready for anything that came out, but he barely noticed the small insect that scrambled up the rope and out of the well. Soon there was another and another. Bouki jumped back. “Scorpions!” he cried out.

Malik dropped the rope and ran to his brother. There was a scorpion hanging on to Bouki's tattered shirt. Malik grabbed a pebble and his slingshot and shot at the scorpion. He just grazed the insect, and it reared its stinger above Bouki's arm. He grabbed another stone and shot it off again just as the scorpion's tail was coming down. The insect flew with the pebble and disappeared into a nearby bush.

“You saved me, little brother,” Bouki said as he panted with relief.

Malik merely tucked his hair behind his ears and breathed another long sigh in response.

The girls tried to smother their laughter as they crawled out of the grass. Corinne walked up to the boys. Halfway there, she caught a scorpion by the tail, immobilizing it so it couldn't use its stinger. “I thought I'd give you something new to play with,” she said.

Bouki turned toward her. His face was red with anger. “That could have killed me!”

“Not this little one,” Corinne said. “It would have hurt pretty bad, though.” She chuckled. “How about you sending me into the forest? Some animal in there could have killed me.”

“There's nothing in there that can kill you. Scratch you up, maybe. Anyway, you didn't have to go,” Bouki said. “I didn't force you.”

“You knew I would.
You
didn't have to come to the well to torture the frog.”

“You knew we would,” Bouki said.

“So we're even then.” Corinne tossed the scorpion away.

Bouki nodded. He spat in his hand and held it out for Corinne to shake. She hesitated for a moment but did the same, and they pumped hands until Bouki noticed the little girl behind her. “Who's that?”

“That's Dru,” Corinne said.

“You're the marketplace thieves,” Dru said.

“What? Thieves! What have you ever seen us stealing?” Bouki asked defiantly.

Malik stomped his foot in agreement.

Dru suddenly looked uncertain. Again, she fingered the end of her braid. “I've seen you take food at the market,” she said quietly. “Clothes too.”

Bouki smoothed his shirt over his chest. “Oh yeah? Why haven't we ever seen you?”

“She's sneakier than she looks,” Corinne said. “And she's usually with her mother.”

Malik pulled up the tail of Bouki's shirt and pretended to hide behind the cloth.

Understanding dawned on Bouki's face. “Oh, you're that one!” he said smiling. “Do you sleep with your mother too?”

“I have nightmares! Anyway, I'm not with her now,” Dru said.

“And she helped me with the scorpions,” Corinne added.

Dru stuck her chin out boldly. “That's right. I did.”

“So you traded hanging on to your mother's skirt for hanging on to this one's pants?” Bouki frowned and looked over Corinne's market-day outfit. “What are you wearing, anyway?”

“How is that your business?” Corinne fired back. “And what about him?” she jutted her chin toward the smaller boy. “Does he ever talk?”

“Of course he talks. That's a stupid question.”

“Well,” Dru said, “are you being mean because you just got tricked, or is it because you have no people?”

Bouki sucked his teeth,
chups
. “You mean like a mother and father? What do we need people for?”

“For getting some decent clothes, for one thing,” Dru said with a glance at their tattered shirts and pants.

“Your friend here doesn't look much better in her oldman getup,” he said, pointing at Corinne. “And what we have is fine for us.”

“If you had a mother she would never let you go out like that.” Dru said.

“We take care of ourselves,” Bouki said.

“I don't have a mother either,” Corinne said. She moved slightly toward the boys. “Where do you live?”

Bouki pointed toward a muddy group of hills in the distance. “Over there, mostly, but wherever we find shelter.”

Malik's eyes narrowed at the look of shock on Dru's face.

“My brother thinks you're very insulting,” Bouki said to Dru. “Besides, not everyone needs a house. It's better to sleep under the stars. The night air is good for you. It makes you strong.”

Right on cue, Malik flexed his muscles.

“What do you do when it rains?” Corinne asked.

Bouki shrugged. “Then we have a bath.”

“Well get ready for a long shower,” she said, glancing up at storm clouds rolling in. “It's about to pour.”

“We better go home,” Dru said. She already held the loose end of her sari over her head even though the rain had not begun to fall yet.

“We've got a great spot for waiting out a storm, don't we brother?” Bouki said. “It's better than either of your houses, I bet.”

“So show us, then,” Corinne said.

“If I'm not back in time for supper—” Dru began.

“Poor baby has to be back for milk, eh?” Bouki teased.

“I'm not a baby!” Dru shouted.

“Then stop rubbing your fancy meals in our faces and let's go,” Bouki said, and he started off toward the hills.

Dru looked up the road in the direction of her village and then back at the other three children. She hesitated.

“You don't have to come if you don't want to,” Corinne said softly.

“No, I'll come with you,” she said. Still, it took a couple of seconds for her feet to move.

The brothers led Corinne and Dru away from the road along a path that only the two of them seemed to know. They went behind the market and cut through the yards in a small village, shooing chickens and ducks in their path, and bobbing under wet laundry that was getting wetter as the rain began to fall. After the village, they came to a wooded area. This was not as dense as the old mahogany forest that Corinne knew from the center of the island. These trees were farther apart with more light between them and more air wafting around their trunks. Just as the rain began to come down in large drops, the brothers stopped at an old tree with branches and leaves so thick that the rain could not get through its canopy. The four sat against its trunk as the rain soaked everything around them.

“Do you like living on your own?” Corinne asked the boys.

Malik intertwined two of his fingers.

“We're not alone,” Bouki added. “We're together.” He wrapped his fingers together too. “It's just like you and your father. Do you feel like you're on your own?”

“Living with a father is a bit different from living with a brother,” Corinne said.

“He isn't just a brother. He's
my
brother. And that's plenty,” Bouki said.

“I have six older brothers and sisters,” Dru said. “And a father and a mother.”

Corinne imagined a house with that many people inside. “That must be nice,” she said.

Bouki shook his head no. “That is too many.”

Corinne said, “I bet it's never lonely with so much family around all the time.”

“It's never quiet either,” Dru said with a laugh.

The patter of raindrops slowed and finally stopped.

Bouki stood. “I think I should show you the quietest place on the island. Perfect for when you want to get away from someone.” He eyed Malik. And Malik gave him the same look back.

“How far is it?” Dru asked.

“Follow me,” Bouki said. When Dru hesitated again, he added, “Don't worry, you'll be back with your mommy before you know it.”

They followed Bouki until they heard the gentle rushing of water, which grew louder the farther they walked. At a break in the trees they found a river that cut a meandering path through the island. At a small tributary, they drank deeply, ignoring the tadpoles and small lizards that darted through their fingers. The boys pulled out their slingshots and felled a few bright red pomeracs. They ate the sweet fruit as they went single file, following the trickling offshoot to the main river. There, the water was deep and narrow enough that they could swim from one bank to the other, but wide enough that they didn't want to. Except for the gentle rustle of leaves that surrounded the river and the rippling sound of the water as it skipped over stones, everything was silent. They all stopped and waited, drinking in the sound of nearly nothing. Sunlight appeared and pierced through the overhang of leaves to glitter on the surface of the green river. It cast rippling light on the smooth rocks of the riverbed. The air became steamy as the sun began to suck the moisture out of the island, and suddenly the river was an oasis that none of them could resist.

Corinne was the last of them to dive in. Before she did, she felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle. It was just like the day before in the mahogany forest. She shivered and looked behind her. But there was no one there. She thought they were alone.

She was wrong.