Rise of the Jumbies

by Tracey Baptiste

  Mama D’Leau merely twisted a plait around her finger.

  Corinne chewed her lip. “But if she forgot herself, that could stop her.” She narrowed her eyes at Mama D’Leau. “You made the mermaids forget once.”

  “Me?” she said. “When they reach across the water, I wasn’t there to help them remember. So, you tell me how that work.”

  “They remembered who they were when they got close to home, and they forgot again when they were far away,” Corinne said. “So it was the water that did it. Not you.”

  Mama D’Leau splashed the water with her tail.

  “You can get her far enough away that she forgets,” Corinne said.

  “Why I should leave? This is your mess.” Mama D’Leau leaned closer to Corinne. “Anyhow, no one want you here. They don’t like you.”

  “They don’t like you either,” Corinne said.

  “They have no choice but to respect me. But you . . .”

  “They hate everything I do.”

  “It look like you hate yourself, too.”

  Corinne swallowed hard.

  “You want that one there to forget. And you want to get away from all they hate and anger. So is you who should take her away. Not so?” Mama D’Leau smiled. “I can help you with that . . . if you ask me nice.”

  “My papa and my friends love me,” Corinne said.

  “But they don’t understand,” said Mama D’Leau. “They will never understand what it is to be you. How can they know what it feel like when someone look at you and hate you just for how you born?”

  “But I will forget everything,” Corinne said.

  Mama D’Leau’s face broke into a soft grin. Her eyes sparkled like moonlight on water. “What you want to remember, girl?”

  Corinne thought of her mama’s voice, and her father’s hands, of Dru’s smile, Bouki’s jokes, Malik’s cleverness, and Hugo’s pastries. She remembered the smell of her garden, and the first sweet bite of orange, and the way the sea was like a lullaby. These were all things she loved and wanted to remember. And there were more.

  But as long as Severine was after her and the entire island, everyone could lose the things they loved. What were Corinne’s memories compared to the lives of everyone on the island? “Nothing,” Corinne said. “I don’t want to remember anything.”

  “One thing for sure, you won’t get very far like that.” Mama D’Leau waved her hand at Corinne’s body. “Your friends below would never have survived if they had stayed girls.”

  “So you will change me, too,” Corinne said.

  “Yes. But I can’t change you back,” Mama D’Leau said. “I don’t work so.”

  “Go ahead,” Corinne said.

  Mama D’Leau cocked an eyebrow.

  Corinne added, “Please.”

  44

  Just in Time

  Bouki and Pierre arrived at the lagoon just in time to see Mama D’Leau block Corinne from the people on shore. Pierre dove into the water. Mama D’Leau pushed him back to land with her tail. Malik ran to Bouki.

  “What happened, brother?” Bouki asked, but he didn’t need Malik’s answer to know that Corinne was in trouble.

  45

  Girl or Jumbie?

  So you are a jumbie after all,” Mama D’Leau said to Corinne. She put her hands on Corinne’s shoulders and ran them down to her toes.

  Corinne was surprised at how comforting the jum­bie’s warm hands were against her skin. “I’m a girl, too,” she said.

  Mama D’Leau backed away. “Not anymore.”

  Where Corinne’s legs had been, a shimmering orange tail waved.

  46

  The Mermaid’s Argument

  Mama D’Leau moved aside and smiled as if she was presenting Corinne to the people on shore. Fear showed in their eyes, but also wonder. Corinne didn’t feel any different, but when her tail flipped out of the water, and the people on shore shrank back, she knew that it didn’t matter what she felt; they would always see her as something different. Bouki, Dru, and Malik stared, too, but unlike the others, she didn’t see fear in their faces.

  “Corinne!” Pierre called.

  Mama D’Leau backed off so he could reach Corinne.

  “Papa!” Corinne said.

  “What did you do?” He dove at Mama D’Leau and managed to knock her under.

  “No, Papa, please,” Corinne said. She pulled Pierre out of Mama D’Leau’s reach. “She didn’t do this to hurt me. I asked her to.”

  “Why, Corinne?”

  “Severine will not stop until she has what she wants. But if I take her far away, she will forget who she is, and all of you will be safe.”

  Pierre looked confused.

  “It will be fine, Papa,” she said. It was the first time she had ever lied to him. “The water washed away the mermaids’ memories. It will do the same for Severine.”

  “She won’t leave the island.”

  “You said she was greedy, Papa. She will leave if she thinks there is something to gain.”

  “Like what?”

  “Me.”

  Pierre grabbed Corinne’s wrist. “I won’t let you go.”

  “You are not strong enough to stop me, Papa,” Corinne said. She pulled away from him and floated on the surface for a moment. Behind Pierre, her friends looked confused and upset. Tears burned Corinne’s eyes. She dove toward the mermaids and grabbed Severine’s hand. I choose to be your family, Corinne said. We will stay together, Tante.

  Severine narrowed her eyes.

  We don’t need a small island when we have the entire sea, Corinne said. It is huge and wide and deep. Corinne sang:

  Wide and deep and vast and blue,

  Waves of gray that tumble through.

  Leave this place, forget the past.

  Peace waits in the waves at last.

  Think how much we can do in the sea together, Tante. Come.

  47

  Bitterness like Dew

  Bouki couldn’t move or speak as he watched Corinne transform and then disappear under the water. Pierre cried out. Mr. and Mrs. Rootsingh pulled Dru in close. Mrs. Duval squeezed Laurent against her body. Hugo kept a tight hold on Bouki and Malik. It was as if Pierre’s sorrow might tear them all apart or as if Corinne’s change was catching.

  When Corinne resurfaced with Severine, Pierre swam after them. But the jumbies were faster, and they were long gone before Pierre reached the inlet that connected to the sea. His calls to Corinne echoed off the stumps of trees that lined the forest side of the lagoon, and the sharp, bare hill that closed the lagoon off on the other side.

  Bouki didn’t notice when Mama D’Leau disappeared, and he didn’t know what happened to the mermaids. He held his brother’s hand as the moon dipped and the surface of the lagoon stilled again. People shuffled off until only he, Malik, Hugo, the Rootsinghs, and the white witch remained.

  Something on the water rippled toward them. The mermaids appeared, carrying Pierre. They brought him slowly to the arms of Hugo and Mr. Rootsingh, who waded out to waist-deep water to get him.

  “He is exhausted,” Sisi said. “He would not stop following her.”

  Pierre’s eyes flicked open and he whispered something Bouki couldn’t hear.

  “I will sing to her,” Sisi said. “Maybe she will come back on her own.”

  “That’s not likely,” said the white witch. “She did this to save us. She chose it.”

  “Mama D’Leau has to be able to change her back,” Dru said. She splashed into the water and looked from the mermaids to the white witch. “Tell her to change Corinne back!” Mrs. Rootsingh tried to pull Dru away, but she shook her mother’s hands off.

  The white witch shook her head sadly. “This was Mama D’Leau’s plan all along.”

  “Why would she want to get rid of Corin
ne?” Dru asked.

  “It’s not Corinne she wants to get rid of,” said a leisurely voice behind them. Papa Bois stood on shore as if he had been there all along. “Two crabs can’t share the same hole.”

  “You mean Severine and Mama D’Leau? But they weren’t in the same hole,” Bouki said. “One was on land, and the other was in the water.”

  “You really are a dunce,” the witch said. “Severine wasn’t on land anymore.”

  “What does that have to do with Corinne?” Dru asked. She ran to Papa Bois. “You can help her. You can make Mama D’Leau turn her back.”

  “Even Mama D’Leau can’t help her now,” Papa Bois said.

  “She’s not going to remember her family and her friends. She won’t remember anything,” Dru said. “There has to be something we can do.”

  “I will do anything,” Pierre said.

  “Here.” Papa Bois handed a sack of seeds to Dru. “Plant these. You can help me get the forest back.”

  “How will that help Corinne?” Bouki asked.

  “What is one creature against the hundreds who have lost their homes?” Papa Bois asked. “Corinne has made her choice, and we are left to do what we must without her.” He returned slowly to the trees and disappeared the moment his hooves touched ground inside the mahogany forest.

  Dru threw the sack down. “Not until you help my friend,” she yelled into the forest. “You said that she was responsible for the first fire, too. You said that both of us would have to pay. How can she do what you ask if she’s a mermaid?”

  Mrs. Rootsingh scooped Dru into her arms. Mr. Rootsingh picked up the sack. They nodded to Pierre, Hugo, and the witch and went home.

  The witch turned toward the swamp. Hugo and the boys walked with Pierre back the way they had come, over the crisp ash of the forest floor, until they reached the road that led to the sea in one direction and to town in the other.

  “Go home, friend,” Pierre said. “I am fine from here.”

  “No. We will come with you,” Bouki said.

  When they came to the point in the road where the first glimpse of the sea was visible over the hill, Pierre faltered. Hugo reached out and grabbed his arm. The four of them stood in the moonlight looking over the sparkling water. Bitterness settled on Pierre like dew. Bouki wondered if Corinne’s papa would ever love the sea again.

  48

  Where Water Turns to Stone

  Corinne felt her papa’s heartbeat reaching out to her as she swam. Then, as she went past some gliding turtles, Corinne stopped feeling its strong beat. She swam past her own beach and out to the wider sea, over the large coral fields and under the clouds of sargassum. Then she turned south. She didn’t want to go the same way that the mermaids had gone. She didn’t want their memories to cloud her own. She wanted a new place, one where she and Severine would forget.

  Where are we going? Severine asked.

  We’ll know when we get there, Corinne told her.

  Severine’s eyes were wide with wonder as Corinne pulled her along. She asked questions about each thing they passed, and Corinne answered gently, as if Severine was a child in her charge. She told her about the turtles, and the manatees, and the coral, about the whales, and the fish that lit up like fireflies in the depths of the sea.

  The water turned colder, but Corinne didn’t react to its chill. She pushed on, letting it wash over her, until she was far enough away that she barely remembered warm water or a small green island under the sun. As they swam, a soft melody came across the water.

  Mmm siren, mmm doux doux,

  Don’t go too far, come home soon.

  Mmm cherie, mmm child,

  Don’t ship yourself to the wild.

  They love you here, they long to see you,

  Their open arms are out to greet you.

  Mmm siren, mmm doux doux,

  Come home, come home, come soon.

  What is that? Severine asked. It’s pretty.

  Corinne swam faster and tried to cover the mermaids’ song with her own.

  Tante siren, Tante esprit,

  The waves wash our memories clean.

  Tante doux doux, Tante cherie,

  Lost within this world of green.

  The waves of memory crash above us,

  Our salty tears wash away.

  Mmm Tante, Tante doux doux,

  Come away, come away, yes do.

  The mermaids’ song changed again:

  Remember us in distant shores,

  Remember us forevermore.

  Our love breaks from wave to wave,

  Your tears trace the path you pave.

  Hand to hand and heart to heart,

  Love can never be torn apart.

  Heart to heart and hand to hand,

  From water’s chill to sun-warmed sand.

  The song went around and through Corinne as she swam farther into the cold, clear water, where pieces of the sea hardened to ice and floated around them. She had a fuzzy memory of a boy sitting by the water listening to the waves. Remember us in distant shores. Remember us forevermore. Maybe the song was for him.

  Where are we? Severine asked. Are we home?

  Corinne looked at the cold, white world around them. She didn’t know where they were, or how they had come here, or why. She pulled her hand away from Severine’s. Who are you? she asked.

  The twiggy creature frowned. Who are you? she asked back.

  The mermaid looked at her brown skin and orange tail. She didn’t know.

  49

  The Usual

  Bouki shuffled behind the long bristles of a cocoyea broom, sweeping the path in front of the bakery. Dough was just rising in the hot oven and its smell mingled with the scent of milky tea.

  Marlene walked down the main road with small determined steps. She didn’t look at Bouki when he waved. “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To get Corinne,” she said.

  “You can’t,” Bouki said.

  Marlene didn’t stop. All she said was, “She came for me.”

  Bouki called Malik. They followed her to Corinne’s house, and when no one answered the door, they went around to the back. Pierre was looking over the beach. The other fishermen had long pushed out to sea. Their boats bobbed in the waves like toys.

  “What was it like under the sea?” Pierre asked.

  “It was enormous,” Bouki said. And then, “Beautiful, too.”

  “The water is dangerous,” Pierre said. “It’s like a monster waiting to open its maw and swallow you whole. I’ve seen the monster wake up.”

  Marlene tugged at Pierre’s shirt. “Corinne’s papa?” she said. “I brought these for Corinne. They are her favorite.” She handed him a bottle of her mama’s red plums.

  Pierre went down on one knee to take it from her. “Does your mama know where you are?”

  She popped a thumb into her mouth and nodded. Then her eyes turned to the ground and she shook her head.

  “You know Corinne is not home.”

  “She will come back for that,” Marlene said. “Put it in the water. Mama told me people put gifts in the sea and that’s how I came back.”

  “I don’t think it will work,” Pierre said.

  Marlene slipped a thin gold band off her wrist and held it out to him. “You can have that, too.” She got up to her tiptoes and whispered, “Everybody likes lots of presents.”

  Pierre clutched the plums and kissed Marlene on the top of her head. People in the fishing village looked up at them. Laurent waved, and Mrs. Duval rubbed his head.

  Bouki sighed. “We’re going to have to fix this ourselves.”

  “I can help?” Marlene asked.

  “You already did,” Bouki said. “Let’s go. And bring that with you.”

  Marlene replaced her
bracelet and stood up taller.

  • • •

  They found the Rootsinghs at the edge of the forest pushing seeds past the ash and into the ground. They stopped planting when the boys and Marlene got close.

  “What’s the plan?” Dru asked.

  “Tangling with jumbies, getting into dangerous spots, doing all the things you are not supposed to do. You know, the usual,” Bouki said.

  “We are supposed to be helping Papa Bois,” Dru said.

  Mr. Rootsingh waved them on. “I’m not sure how much help it is to plant so soon. The earth needs time to heal. But I am no jumbie. What do I know?”

  Malik went to Mrs. Rootsingh and whispered. She reached down and unhinged the gold anklet that tinkled when she walked. She dropped it into his palm.

  “We’re going to need more than my mama’s anklet,” Dru said. “We’re going to need almost everyone on the island.”

  “I get the feeling Papa Bois only wants us to plant so he can teach us a lesson,” Mr. Rootsingh said. “He does not need our help to regrow the forest.”

  “We’re all going then?” Dru asked.

  “We don’t want you to get into any trouble,” Mrs. Rootsingh said. “None of you.”

  “Why does everyone look at me when they say the word trouble?” Bouki complained.

  By the end of the day, a noisy crowd led by children gathered in Pierre’s front yard. Dru explained the plan. Pierre brought the bottle of red plums and picked a flower from the plant that grew up between the roots of Corinne’s orange tree. He followed Dru to the beach. The crowd was boisterous and chatty, like a carnival parade. Large banana leaves fanned their shoulders, and there were colorful gifts in their upturned palms. The children held tiny bracelets and earrings, rag dolls and wire cars, cricket bats made from coconut branches, and cork balls with perfect stitching.

  Behind them, their parents came with more jewelry, silver-handled combs, hairpins, and embroidered fabric. Last of all came the white witch. She hobbled behind with nothing but her walking stick and a tired frown.

  They lined up on the wet sand and waited as the sun dove toward the sea, washing everything in soft orange light. The moment the sun touched the top of the water, they set the banana leaves with their gifts on the waves and pushed them into the surf.