The Jumbies

by Tracey Baptiste

  As Severine walked back down through the trees, she whispered another message to the jumbies in their language, telling them:

  Children, children, stand on guard.

  No one enters through our yard.

  Sharpen claws and sticks and stones.

  Tonight we shall retake our home.

  Jumbies emerged from the trees to listen to her plan. The forest came alive with sounds of slithering, cracking, scratching, and shuffling as each of them got ready. Already, the sun was slipping toward the sea. Soon, the battle would begin.

  24

  The Lagahoo

  From its perch on the rock, Nicole’s necklace dangled in the sea breeze and shimmered in the sun. Its gleam shone over the shore, where it made the fishermen squint as they drew in their nets for the day. Farther up the coast, where Corinne and her friends sat, the light traced a path in the sand up to their feet. Malik spotted the necklace first. He pointed. Corinne saw it next and immediately knew what it was. It seemed to pull at her, to call her to it.

  Corinne had not wanted to get too far from her house, and none of the others were willing to leave her. She sat in the sand all day feeling helpless, but now her hands flew up to her chest, where her mama’s necklace had been for as long as she could remember. She remembered the day that her mama had untied the string from her own neck and put it around hers. The string was so long, the stone fell to her stomach. She remembered that her mama had told her to guard it, that it would protect her, but in her memory it wasn’t her mama’s voice that she heard saying it. It was her father’s voice telling her the story. Corinne hated that she couldn’t remember how her mama had said her very last words.

  “I have to get the necklace back,” Corinne said to Dru and the boys.

  Malik shook his head.

  Bouki looked up. “How? No one can get up there.”

  The knot inside Corinne pulled tight. She leaned over with her hands on her knees. “It’s the only way,” she said to them. “You don’t have to help me. This is my problem.”

  “We are all in this together now, aren’t we brother?” Bouki said.

  Malik patted Corinne’s shoulder. She tried to summon up a smile to show them all that she was fine, that she was strong, but she didn’t feel that way. She felt angry and alone, even though her friends were there with her. But they weren’t her family. She didn’t want to stay where she could see the necklace. She started on the road toward town. Dru and the boys followed.

  Behind them, the sun slid beneath the ocean and threw the whole island in darkness.

  “You should get home, Dru. Your mother will be worried,” Corinne said. “I’ll go back to the cave with . . .”

  A huge creature with a face like a dog and a body nearly as tall as the trees stood in the road panting heavily. A line of saliva dripped from its sharp white teeth. The chains around its neck clinked softly every time it took a breath.

  Corinne stood frozen with fear. “Lagahoo!”

  All four of them stood rooted to the dirt road as the lagahoo panted at them. Big slops of saliva plopped on the ground from its deep-red mouth. Its teeth were the size of kitchen knives, and they gleamed in the light of the rising moon. All at once, the creature crouched down, about to pounce. Bouki was the fastest to act. He bent down and sprinted away from the creature and toward the red hills. Malik followed his brother. Dru screamed again but ran away from the forest, down the road that led to her village. Only Corinne remained, staring the lagahoo down, not out of bravery but because she didn’t know where to run.

  The lagahoo growled and jumped into the air. Corinne ducked and ran toward it. The lagahoo soared over her head and landed where Corinne had been, cracking the ground beneath it. The creature snarled with anger and whipped around. Corinne ran.

  The lagahoo lurched forward and came toward Corinne at full gallop, dragging its chains behind.

  Corinne’s muscles screamed from the effort of running, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on. In seconds, she could feel the lagahoo’s hot breath against her neck. And then she heard the clank of chains and a strange whimper. Then nothing.

  Corinne stopped and turned. The creature stood still. It breathed its hot, foul breath into her face, but something in its eyes spelled distress. It moved back and tried to surge forward again, but its chains had become tangled in the branches of a tamarind tree. The lagahoo tried to struggle forward, and the long brown tamarind fruits knocked together, sounding like an audience applauding its capture.

  Warm relief surged from Corinne’s head down to her toes. But if this jumbie was out, then so were others. Severine’s battle had started. Corinne needed to help her friends. She backed away from the angry lagahoo and ran off toward the village.

  25

  Bouki and Malik

  The brothers ran until their legs burned with effort. When they were far enough away, they stopped beneath a pink poui tree and tried to catch their breath. Their rest did not last long.

  The sounds of shouting and crying had erupted all over the island. From every corner, the boys heard the clank of metal and thuds of hand-to-hand blows. The fighting seemed dangerously close to their little clearing.

  “We have to make it to the cave, brother,” Bouki said.

  Malik grabbed his hand and pulled him in the other direction, toward the fighting.

  “No, no. We have to go the other way. You don’t want us to get killed, do you?”

  “Who will kill you?” a woman’s voice asked.

  Bouki felt a chill all the way to his bones. He looked around, expecting to see Severine, but instead, there was another woman standing there. She had milky brown skin and sea-green eyes, and was, amazingly, nearly as beautiful as Severine herself. She wore a long white gown, elbow-length white gloves, and a broad-brimmed white hat, all of which seemed to glow in the moonlight.

  Bouki felt drawn to her. He took a couple of shaky steps in her direction. “Where did you come from?”

  The woman pointed out of the clearing to the tops of the mahogany forest. “From there.”

  “So you’re a jumbie?” Bouki asked with a trembling voice. He took another step toward her.

  “We’re not all so bad,” the jumbie said. She reached her arms out to Bouki to draw him closer. “How old are you, little one?” she asked.

  “Twelve. But I’m a big twelve,” Bouki added when he saw one side of the jumbie’s mouth curl up into a mocking smile.

  “So I guess you are old enough, then,” she said. With her arms out, she kept drawing him nearer.

  “For what?” Bouki asked. He turned his head to look for his brother, but Malik was nowhere to be seen.

  “Oh, don’t worry about him,” the jumbie coaxed. “He ran off. He was too scared of me. But I know you are not. You are a big boy of twelve, and nothing frightens you, eh?”

  The wind picked up then and shook the last remnants of the smell of the poui flowers down from the branches. But it stirred up something else: something that smelled sharp and rotting. Bouki’s nose wrinkled.

  “What is that?” he asked aloud.

  “What, dear?” the jumbie asked gently, though her sea-green eyes had become hard, like glass.

  “You don’t smell that?” Bouki asked. As he did, the wind picked up the ends of the jumbie’s long gown and blew them back. There was one sleek brown leg and one hairy cow’s foot.

  The jumbie tried to rearrange her clothes quickly, but it was too late. Bouki already began to back away. The jumbie’s face contorted into an angry grimace, and she grabbed up her skirt and moved toward him. She only made it a few awkward steps when she fell to the ground, stunned.

  Bouki gasped as he watched the jumbie writhe in the dirt. Her legs were tied together with rope. Then Malik jumped out of the poui tree holding the other end of the rope. Before the jumbie could untie herself, Malik bound the jumbie’s arms to her sides.

  “You will leave me here like this?” the jumbie screamed.

  Malik n
odded.

  “I will get you. I promise you I will,” the jumbie shouted.

  Malik pointed at the rope and shook his head. Then he grabbed his brother’s hand and pulled him out of the clearing. They left the jumbie screaming insults. Malik led Bouki toward the sound of the fighting.

  “Where are you going, brother?” Bouki asked. “You don’t want to run into more like that La Diabless, do you?”

  Malik nodded solemnly.

  “One of them will certainly kill us,” Bouki said.

  Malik turned away from his brother and pressed on.

  “All right, but if I get killed, I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”

  Malik looked back and raised both of his eyebrows.

  “Well, I guess if we both get killed, you’ll have to hear me complain about it for eternity.”

  Malik moved out of the clearing and back toward the village with Bouki following behind. In a few minutes, the sound of fighting was sharp in their ears, and the smell of mingled sweat, dirt, and blood hung in the air over the usual nighttime scent of the island. Clouds moved over the moon and threw everything into darkness. The boys bumped into something soft and stumbled to the ground. The clouds parted again and they found themselves on the ground next to a little old woman.

  “Sorry, Grandmother,” Bouki said quickly. He and Malik reached out to help the old woman back to her feet, but her skin was fire-hot. They both pulled away and shook the heat from their hands. “Are you sick?” Bouki asked. “You should not be out on a night like this, especially if you’re not well. Who do you belong to? Maybe we can take you back to your family?” This time he bore the heat of her hand to pull her to her feet. Malik did not touch her.

  The old woman smiled, but did not let go of Bouki’s hand.

  Bouki tried to pull the old lady off, but her grip was like a vice. Bouki began to scream from the pain of the heat.

  The old woman began to shudder a little as if she was cold, but the skin around her bones loosened and slid off, revealing a fiery body inside. She was a soucouyant—a malicious fireball that would suck the lifeblood out of anyone, even a baby. Her skin pooled around her, leaving Bouki holding the empty shell of her hand. He shuddered and let it fall with a slap against the rest of the discarded skin while the flame-body gathered up into a ball and hovered a few feet above the ground.

  The boys turned and ran to the village with the soucouyant just behind them. In the streets all around them, people were fighting jumbies. Bouki and Malik darted around a group of fishermen who had surrounded a lagahoo, battling to take it down with hooks and nets. Bloody claw marks covered one fisherman’s arm. Down the road, a small band of douens were crawling all over a house, getting in the windows and doors, with people inside and outside trying to beat them away with brooms, garden rakes, and an oar.

  Malik clenched his fists and seemed about to dive into the fight, but Bouki grabbed his arm and dragged him toward Hugo’s bakery. The soucouyant was still on their trail. Bouki pushed his brother down next to the outdoor clay oven and crouched beside him. The oven was warm, its coals still burning deep inside. Several feet in front of the boys, the soucouyant hovered in the air. It darted and turned, looking for the boys, casting an orange glow on all of the fighters.

  “Fire in front and fire behind, eh brother? Too bad you really can’t fight fire with fire,” Bouki said.

  Suddenly, Malik smiled and patted Bouki hard on the back. Bouki yelped and Malik put his fingers to his lips. The soucouyant made a swift turn and moved in their direction.

  Next to the clay oven, there was a metal bucket. Malik picked up Hugo’s tongs and reached deep inside the oven for some of the hot coals. He put these into the bucket and took one of Hugo’s cloths to hold the bucket carefully. Then he pulled his slingshot out of his pocket.

  Bouki saw the slingshot and understood immediately. He got out his own. As they crawled back toward the fighting, they picked up several stones and shoved them into their pockets. When they were finally at the side of the road, they loaded up their slingshots and started to shoot.

  The soucouyant backed up at first, but then it barreled toward them in a blur of flame. Just as it was about to engulf the boys, an oar smacked it to the ground. A hefty fisherman stood over the soucouyant as if in a daze. The light from the soucouyant’s flame shone in his face, and the boys recognized him as Victor, the same man who had tried to get Corinne out of her father’s boat. The soucouyant began to rise from the ground, and Victor lifted his oar to hit it again. A small lagahoo crept up behind Victor and hit him hard on the back. The wood from Victor’s oar only caught the outer edges of the flame and passed through.

  Bouki pointed at the soucouyant. “Aim for the center of the fireball. Only the outside is flame.”

  Malik tucked his hair behind his ears and nodded.

  The man turned his attention to the lagahoo. He swung and his oar broke against the lagahoo’s arm, leaving a sharp pointed end. He jabbed the point at the lagahoo while Bouki pummeled the soucouyant with rocks from his slingshot. Malik scrambled closer to the fisherman and the lagahoo. With the cloth wrapped around his hand, he loaded a hot coal into his slingshot, aimed, and fired at the lagahoo’s body.

  The lagahoo spun around, roaring from pain. Its fur began to smoke.

  Bouki raised his brow and smirked. “Two in one!” he yelled at Victor. He gestured for him to use his oar like a bat on the soucouyant. “Send it there!” he yelled and pointed toward the smoking lagahoo.

  Victor smiled and nodded and got the broken oar ready to swing like a cricket bat.

  The soucouyant lunged toward them both. Victor swung and connected. The ball of fire sailed, hissing through the air. It struck the lagahoo’s fur. The monster roared and screamed in an explosion of flames. Victor and Bouki cheered as both the lagahoo and the soucouyant fell in a fiery heap. When the fire died out, a smoldering pile of ash was all that was left of the two jumbies.

  The brothers leaned against each other, panting.

  “That is not the last of them,” Victor said sternly. “Go home and leave the fighting to the grown-ups.”

  The boys stood up straight and armed their slingshots again. Bouki set his jaw and gave Victor a look that showed he and his brother weren’t going anywhere.

  “All right then, men. Let’s go,” Victor yelled and charged with his plank down the road, where they quickly found another fight with yet another lagahoo. With a fierce yell, Victor raced in to help the men and women with rakes and garden hoes who were fighting the beast.

  The boys turned to find someone else to help, and spotted a small band of douens that had holed up behind the market wall. The creatures hurled huge boulders at some frightened villagers, who huddled, trapped, against another wall. The boys loaded stone after stone into their slingshots and fired, but with no effect on the douens. The villagers ducked, but the douens’ rocks came fast. Many of the villagers were bleeding from where they had been hit.

  In the midst of the flying rocks, Malik ran out and stood between the douens and the villagers.

  “Come back here!” Bouki shouted.

  Malik moved closer to the douens.

  “No!” Bouki shouted.

  The douens ran out, tumbling over themselves to try to grab Malik first. As they got closer to Malik, they shouted, “Oh, oh, oh” louder and faster.

  Bouki was about to lunge forward to put himself in front of his brother. But then Malik sprang into action. He ran toward the villagers. The douens were left exposed. Now the trapped villagers swarmed forward and surrounded the douens.

  Bouki clutched his brother’s arm and tugged him away while the villagers fought the douens hand to hand. The boys stayed on the road this time, since all of their usual paths seemed to be blocked.

  “Are we being followed, brother?” Bouki asked.

  Malik nodded and pointed behind. A figure was moving toward them near the side of the road. It wore a gray shirt long enough to hide its feet. Bouki narrowed
his eyes and loaded his slingshot. Malik did the same, though he didn’t aim just yet. As the figure got closer, Bouki dropped to one knee and pulled the slingshot taut, aiming for the head. Just as he was about to let go, Malik jostled him and the rock flew wide, missing the mark completely.

  “Why’d you do that?” Bouki pushed him.

  Malik pointed and ran to the person in the gray shirt. Bouki scrambled to his feet and followed. “Corinne! You’re alive! How? That lagahoo . . .”

  “It was luck. Its chains got caught in a tree. There are jumbies everywhere.”

  “We know. The good news is, you can destroy them,” Bouki said. But when Corinne began to smile, he added, “But it’s not easy. It’s not easy at all.”

  Corinne gave him a firm nod. “Where’s Dru?”

  Bouki and Malik frowned. “She’s not with you?” Bouki asked.

  Corinne swallowed hard as the darkness seemed to thicken around them.

  26

  Quiet Morning

  There was no way for Corinne and the boys to find Dru. They were hemmed in by jumbies and villagers fighting. Instead, the three found their way back to the baker’s outdoor oven and slumped to the ground in a heap, leaning against each other to keep their backs and heads upright in case of attack. But in moments, they had all fallen asleep from exhaustion.

  Several hours later, all three of them woke up on flour sacks on the floor of the bakery. Hugo, the baker, was asleep on a chair barring the front door. The thick, oar-like pallet that he used to put the bread into the brick oven was lying across his lap. The flat end was cracked and splintered. Hugo didn’t look much better. His arm was slashed in places as if he had been mauled by a lagahoo.

  While the baker continued to sleep, Corinne opened one of the windows, and she and the boys slipped outside. In the bright midday light, the remains of the battle were revealed in sharp, horrible detail. The village was in shambles. Torn bits of cloth lay everywhere. Dust circled in the air. Stones, broken pieces of wood, tufts of fur, branches, bricks, burned-out torches, and broken lanterns were strewn along the road, in yards, and around the open market. In some places, little piles of ash with tiny wisps of smoke still curling above them began to blow away in the breeze. Every now and then, the children stepped over gory tracks where the wounded had been dragged off into the woods. Whether the victims were human or jumbie, they could not tell. Although the sun was already high in the sky, the three of them were the only ones outside. The island had never been so quiet.