The Jumbies (8 page)

22

Family

W
hen Corinne got to her front yard, she picked up a dry branch from the ground and held it over her head like a weapon. She pushed through the door and went straight to her father. He was still sitting in a chair in the kitchen. He looked very old, as if a layer of gray had settled on him overnight. Even his eyes were clouded and waxy like a blind man's. Severine was nowhere to be seen.

Corinne dropped the branch and ran back outside. She picked an orange and went back in to slice it open and squeeze some of the juice onto her father's parched lips. His tongue flicked out and licked some of it. As soon as he did, the clouds began to part from his eyes. Corinne gave him some more. Pierre's eyes darted around the room. Finally, they settled on his daughter.

“Corinne?”

“Yes, Papa,” Corinne said, relieved.

His eyes were soft, like she had always known them to be, but in an instant, they turned hard with fear. “Corinne, run!”

Corinne jumped out of the way just as a heavy wooden rolling pin crashed down on the arm of the chair, right where she had been just a moment before. Pieces of the chair splintered onto the floor. Corinne grabbed for her branch, but Severine kicked it away. Corinne looked back to her father, but the clouds over his eyes had returned. He saw nothing.

Even though Severine stood in the shadows, there was enough light coming through one of the windows so that Corinne could see her even more clearly than she had the day before. Severine's skin looked dry and shriveled, like old tree bark under a layer of downy brown hair. She had grown thin and so long that she had to hunch so she wouldn't hit the ceiling. Her eyes were huge in her gaunt face and shining with yellow light. Now the green cloth that covered her body barely reached her knees and hung in gaping panels. Two thin legs with bare feet and toes like scraggly roots stretched out beneath her. Severine was not a La Diabless. Only Corinne didn't know what other jumbie she could be.

“I was wondering how long it would take you to come back,” Severine said. “You must have missed me. But now I'm not sure I want you around pestering me anymore. You're a lot of trouble.”

“When you trouble trouble, trouble comes troubling you,” Corinne said. “And you came to us!”

“Ah, ah, ah!” Severine shook a finger at Corinne. “What you don't know, little girl, could fill up the entire ocean. I was here first. This is my island. People came to me, sailing on the ocean in ships filled to the brim with people. I destroyed all the ships and I should have made sure that all of you drowned in the sea, but I was stupid. I allowed too many of you to swim to shore. That was a mistake.”

As Severine moved around the room, she carefully avoided the few shafts of light that came through the window. Corinne felt fear flare up in her again and eyed the big iron skillet on the counter. She began to inch toward it. She hoped that Severine would not notice. “Why did you let them come then?” Corinne asked, her voice trembling. “If you didn't want them to live here, why did you allow it?” She moved steadily along the counter as she spoke.

“I had a sister. She pitied people. She went inside the ships and saw that some of the people were chained below. She helped them escape and swim to the island while I dealt with the others. If I had seen what she was doing, I would have stopped her.”

“Chains?”

“Yes. Didn't you know that?” Severine laughed. “Is there anything you do know? Some of the people chained up others and left them to rot in the bottoms of their ships. My sister felt sorry for them. I never did.”

“You are a terrible—” Corinne struggled to find a word to describe the creature in front of her.

“You know what I am. Say it! Say what they call me.”

“Jumbie!”

“Yes. That's it. I didn't like pretending to be human, but my sister did. She pretended often so she could spend time with people. Then she must have started to believe she was human because she did the most stupid human thing of all. She fell in love—with your father.” Severine's eyes pierced Corinne.

Corinne's muscles went slack. She stood motionless just a few inches from the skillet. It couldn't be true. She looked at her papa, at Severine, at the house her mama had helped to make. Her throat was dry. She couldn't speak.

“I should have known not to let—what did your kind call her—
Nicole
go among people,” Severine was saying. “They are infectious little parasites and she was too good for them. She lowered herself to be with the likes of your father and then what happened to her? Where is she now?”

Corinne found her voice. It was raspy and soft. “What are you talking about?”

Severine crouched down so that her eyes were at the same level as Corinne's. “Your mother lied to your father about who she really was. At first I thought her pretending was a good thing. She would lie to the humans, gain their trust, perhaps recruit some of them to our side. But all she stole was his heart and, in the end,
he
stole
her
life. That is why it's better to be who you are. Better to stay with your own kind.” Severine looked Corinne up and down. “If you know who your own kind is.” She smiled. It was almost gentle. “I thought I had lost my family. But look, here we all are together at last.”

“You are a liar! I am no family of yours.” Corinne reached behind her and found the handle of the skillet. She raised it over her head and grunted as she pelted it toward the jumbie.

Severine caught it easily and put it down on the table. She shook her head. “Is that any way to treat your auntie?” she asked.

“Stop saying that! You are not my family!” Corinne screamed.

“No? I am your mother's sister—your precious mother who loved you so much that she chose to give up her own life. Yes, that is what living among humans does to us. It kills us,” Severine said.

“She didn't. She didn't choose to leave us. She was sick. Papa said so. She would never—”

“Your precious papa had no idea who his wife was. Did you Pierre?” Severine moved over to him and shook his head for him. “No? There. That's straight from the jumbie's mouth.”

“My papa is not a jumbie.”

Severine looked at Pierre. “Not yet,” she said. “But soon he will be.”

Corinne rammed into Severine, clawing and slapping and kicking her as hard as she could. Severine held out one long twiggy hand and easily held Corinne away from her body. She laughed again. “You are more like me than you think, little girl. So I'm going to give you a chance to join your real family. Your father is already on our side. You can come too.

“You must have known that you were better than the other children,” Severine said. “Who among them can climb trees as quickly as you? Who among them could chase an animal into the forest and catch it? Who among them could see a jumbie looking at them from the shadows of the forest and make it out alive? You are part of this island. That is why you are so comfortable on it.” Severine pulled herself up to her full height. Her head bumped the ceiling. She stretched out. Her arms and face hardened like tree bark. The hair on her skin bristled. Severine's eyes flashed with anger, and Corinne noticed that the shape of them was so similar to her mother's.

Corinne felt numb. Her hand went up to her necklace and she fingered the stone's smooth face.

“I was the one you saw that day in the forest,” Severine said. “I followed you out. Then you and your father led me to my very own sister. Thank you for that. I might never have found her. And I had no idea that you even existed.” She stepped forward and grabbed Corinne's chin in her dry, rough hand. Corinne tried to pull away, but Severine's grip grew tighter. “Now I know I can live in the world with people. She found the way. But she was weak. I am stronger. I can take my time to turn all the people on the island. I can make this island what it once was. We can all be one kind. One family.”

Corinne squirmed under Severine's hand and felt sick to her stomach at the thought of an island filled with jumbies. She reached behind her again, looking for something else to protect her, but there was nothing. “We can be the first family, Corinne. I will be your new mother. And every creature on this island will be under our spell! If you come willingly, you will lose nothing. You will have your own thoughts, your own will. You can do as you wish. And you will be powerful. We will both be powerful together. As a family, no one will be able to stop us. Imagine being able to do anything you want!”

Severine's eyes glistened with greed at the thought, and Corinne trembled. “But if you refuse to join me,” Severine said as her muscles and her hand tightened even more, “you will be a mindless drone, just like the rest of them. Just like your father will be soon. It will be a shame for me to lose all of your wonderful talent—” Severine stopped herself.

In that moment, Severine's eyes widened with shock, as if she had let something slip, but she took a breath and her face returned to its previous sneer. “I will get rid of you if I have to. I don't care if you are my own sister's child.”

Corinne's skin prickled and her heart thrummed. She tried to make her face look as if she was thinking hard. “I could do anything?” she said softly.

Severine's grip loosened. “Yes. You could. You are like your mother. Like me. You have far more abilities than you can even imagine.”

Corinne moved away from the jumbie's hand. “Like what?”

The bark of Severine's face twisted into a grimace that Corinne thought was meant to be a smile. “I can show you.”

Severine came closer. As she did, her body shrank down a little. Corinne could see there were insects crawling up and around Severine's body. Hundreds of millipedes and centipedes, cockroaches, and beetles crawled in and out of the crags of her body. They dashed in and out of the fine fur and bored their way through her chest, so that Corinne could see straight through it like an old rotten tree. Corinne's stomach turned, but she tried not to show it. Instead, she backed up toward one of the windows.

“Sometimes the others would make fun of me because I was faster than they were,” Corinne said.

“They were jealous.”

“I always felt alone when my father was out on the sea.”

“You will never have to feel alone again.”

Corinne was right up against the window now. She waited. Severine was almost back down to her usual size. Her green dress skimmed just above her ankles. The holes in her skin began to close. A few insects crawled beneath the surface of her skin.
Just a little bit more,
Corinne thought.

“Will it be like having a mother again?” Corinne asked. She looked steadily at Severine. The jumbie's face had rearranged into something that looked close to joy. A muddy tear trickled down her face and became a large millipede that crawled into a crack in her neck and out again through a hole under her arm. Corinne felt her face twist in disgust. Severine stopped in her tracks and narrowed her eyes at Corinne. Then she looked at where Corinne was standing.

“Get away from the window,” she said.

Corinne pretended not to understand. “What do you mean?” She pressed her fingers against the shutter and got ready to fling it open.

“Get away from that window!” Severine screamed and lunged for Corinne.

Corinne jumped out of the way and swung the window open in one movement. The light hit Severine full in the face and she clattered to the floor like a pile of firewood as she tried to avoid it.

Severine pulled back up to her full height, towering over Corinne. Insects crawled in a frenzy up and around her body. “Fine! You will be just like him soon,” Severine said, pointing to Pierre. “It would have been nice to show you how to use your gifts. Nicole would have liked that. She should have taught them to you, but perhaps she thought you were too weak. It's a pity, Corinne. We could have been a family. ”

Corinne did not like the way Severine said her mother's name, like it was a revolting taste on her tongue. “I am not your family. My mama was nothing like you. Everyone loved her. She was lovely and kind. She was—”

“She was a jumbie, Corinne, same as me. And she lied to everyone. Everyone who loved her had no idea who she really was. So you choose your side wisely.”

Still shaking, Corinne took a deep breath and tried to sound strong. “I will fight you,” she said. But her voice cracked.

“You are very much like them,” Severine said. “Ungrateful. My sister saved their kind. She took off their chains and brought them to the island and how did they repay her? By forgetting. In mere days, they started to cut down our trees to build their own homes. Then they set fire to our forests to make space to grow their food. A few years later, they told their children that we were monsters and tried to get rid of us. But now it's our time to turn things back. The people will become jumbies like us, or they will die. And your mother isn't here to convince me otherwise.”

“We will
not
let you,” Corinne said in a more determined voice.

Severine shrugged. “Then your fate will be worse than his.” She pointed to Pierre. “I was right. You are more trouble than you're worth.”

Corinne grabbed her papa around the waist and tried to hoist him out of the chair. He was much too large and heavy and they both fell on the floor. She got up and began to pull him away, but Severine grabbed his other hand and pulled Pierre back into his chair. Then she picked Corinne up by the neck. Corinne struggled and kicked at the air as Severine's fingers began to squeeze tighter and tighter around her throat.

Suddenly, Severine's eyes grew wide. She dropped Corinne and looked at her palm. A small oval was burned into it, the same shape and size of the stone on Corinne's necklace. Severine stepped back with a look of fear on her face.

Corinne rose to her feet, ripped off her necklace, and held it in front of Severine, trying to drive her out of the house. But it was not enough. Severine caught her by the wrist and twisted her hand around until Corinne was forced to drop the necklace onto the floor. Then Severine dragged Corinne to the front door and flung her outside. She landed with a thud at the bottom of the orange tree her mama had planted. Corinne wiped away some tears, which fell on the soil above Mrs. Rootsingh's sari silk.