“You believe it a little. I can tell. And you should. It’s true. Your mother, Nicole, she was a jumbie just like Severine, or the green woman, or whatever it is you call her. And she came to me once asking for help—”
Corinne shook her head. “No.”
“Only she didn’t tell me exactly what kind of help, so I’m not sure that what I gave her worked the way she wanted it to. And when she didn’t go home, the rest of her jumbie kin must have thought that living among people did her in.”
“Please. Stop.”
“But she lived, for a time anyway. She lived long enough to have you. And now somehow, her sister has found out about you, and she sees her chance again. They were a pair, you see. Severine needs her family back. She is stronger with more of her kind surrounding her.”
Corinne remembered what Severine told her about how powerful they would be when they were a family again. She looked at her friends, at the way their mouths had gone slack with shock. She slapped the table with her palms and stood. “Stop!”
“My stopping won’t change things. She will get rid of every single creature that stands in her way. And do you know why she’s doing it? It’s partly for losing the sister she loved—and she is capable of love—and partly because she never wanted people on this island in the first place, but mostly it’s because now she knows that she can have an even larger jumbie family. Because someone like you exists. One half-jumbie like me is just a fluke, an accident, but two of us . . .”
On either side of Corinne, the children’s eyes widened with horror. Corinne kept shaking her head and hands as if she could toss the words back out, un-hear the sound of Severine’s voice telling her that she was part of the jumbie world, that she was the same as all the other creatures in the forest, and the witch telling her that it was all true.
“That can’t be,” Dru said into the silence.
The witch raised one white eyebrow. “Did it ever strike you as strange that her house is the only one that is built so close to the forest? And when the jumbies do venture out at night, they have never visited it, even though it is the closest?”
Dru slid away from Corinne in tiny movements along the bench.
“You’re not going to help us, are you?” Bouki asked as Corinne stood furious and silent facing the witch.
The witch pressed her good fist against her hip. “Everybody thinks they need magic. Everybody wants answers. Get rid of this boil. Help me find money. She doesn’t love me anymore. Why won’t my cane stalks grow as tall as my neighbor’s? Everybody wants a fast, easy solution. Maybe if you took care of your skin, you wouldn’t have gotten the boil in the first place. Maybe if you worked harder you would make more money. Maybe that person isn’t the right one for you. Maybe if you found a better way to farm, your crop would come up better. But nobody wants to hear those things. They want a bottle. Instant success! Something to drink, or sprinkle, or spill on the ground. They want magic from nothing. Magic doesn’t come from nothing. It comes from somewhere. And it isn’t so extraordinary. It’s just work. It’s just using your head and your heart.” She grabbed a seed and put it on the table, then grabbed a cleaver and hoisted it into the air. The children shrank back. She brought the cleaver down on the seed, slicing it in two.
“Look. See what’s inside? Nothing. It’s just a seed. But put it in the ground and water it, and give it what it needs, and something extraordinary happens. A seed is a promise—”
“A guarantee,” Corinne added, remembering her mama’s words. She closed her eyes, and this time, she could almost hear her mother speak.
“The real magic is in what you do with it,” the witch said. She put the two halves of the seed into Corinne’s hand. “It grows roots. It becomes hard to break. You feel it growing. You see when it’s about to sprout, and bud, and bear fruit. You can feel it inside you. You know it like you know something is watching you from the shadows. It’s instinct. This is your magic. Mine is of no use to you.” The witch pushed Corinne’s fingers closed around the seed and turned back to her work. “What Severine took from me is probably wearing off already. If she hasn’t figured out a way to live on the outside, she’s going to have to go back home soon. That’s the good news. I can’t help her anymore. I won’t.”
“But she isn’t just leaving,” Corinne said. “She’s taking my papa with her.”
“That is the bad news,” the witch agreed. “She’s going to take as many of you with her as she can.”
Corinne said, “You told me my mama came to you once. If she never came back it means that she figured out a way to live in the open on her own. How did she do it?”
“She had your father’s love, and love is powerful. You can endure most things for love. It’s like planting a seed. Every day it gets stronger and stronger. Every day it grew inside her.”
“You mean like a baby?” Corinne asked. “You mean I helped my mama to live on the outside?”
“It had to be you. She didn’t have any other magic. But it couldn’t have been easy for her. She fell in love and every day she had to push past the pain of living where she didn’t belong. But like everything else, the harder something is, the stronger you become. You must have made her strong. Mothers are like that. Their children strengthen them. There was no trick.”
“So how do we get rid of Severine?” Bouki asked. “She doesn’t have any children growing inside her, does she?” He screwed up his face in disgust.
The witch laughed and then coughed again. “She doesn’t need to. La Diabless, the lagahoo, the douens, even the soucouyant, they are all her children already. What you are dealing with is much stronger than all of them. She is an ancient. She is their mother. She created all of them, and they make her strong. You can’t get rid of her, especially if she has found a partner to replace her sister.”
“My papa?” Corinne said with horror.
Malik nudged Corinne gently, then he pulled one of his slingshot stones from his pocket to show her.
“My mama’s stone pendant,” Corinne said. “It hurt Severine when she touched it. She took it away from me and put it up on the cliff.”
The white witch spilled a little of the dust she was pouring. “What kind of stone?”
“Small, black, round,” Corinne answered. “It must be important. All I need is a path through the mahogany forest to get it back. You have to be able to do that much.”
The witch faced her with fierce eyes. “You keep forgetting about my arm. I am a half-jumbie. I vowed never to pick sides, and for that, I was able to gather my magic and live a long life. But now that I have broken my word, you see the consequences are harsh. I don’t have much longer to live.” She laughed, long and bitter. “What do you think happened that day when the four of you were swimming in the river? What do you think withered my arm that afternoon? What do you imagine was trying to reach you from beneath the water?” She watched the truth dawn on each of the children at her table. “Yes. If I had left Severine to drown you all, maybe she would have been satisfied with that. Maybe she would never have learned that this little one here was a child like me. Maybe she wouldn’t have figured out that people weren’t as strong as she once thought. Then she would have returned to the forest and never come out again. I chose not to sacrifice you. But maybe I chose wrong.”
“She knew what I was already,” Corinne said. “She knew when she followed me out of the forest and to my mama’s grave on All Hallow’s Eve.” Corinne remembered Hugo’s warning that other beings walked the earth that night. She had not believed in those things then. Even Dru had warned her to be careful of Severine. If she had listened all along . . . but it was too late now.
The witch shrugged. “No matter. But now you are going to have to choose as well. You have inherited your mother’s magic. She protected you from the creatures in the forest for as long as she could. I don’t know how her protection was broken, or what made Severine follow you out. But now she knows. That means you can join her, you can try to fight her, or yo
u can stand by and watch while the rest of the island figures it out. But whatever you choose will come with a price. You will lose something: your father, your friends, or your freedom.”
“I will fight her,” Corinne said.
The white witch nodded. “A noble choice. But you will lose.”
“What about my papa?”
“She needs a partner. Someone to be her real family, not just another jumbie she can order around. The spell she worked on him would have had to be different than the usual tricks. She would have used a lot of magic. It would work slowly.” The witch looked past them as if trying to figure it out. “Three nights. Then her magic will take hold. Don’t let the sun rise after the third night.”
“It has already been two,” Corinne said.
The witch pointed out of the window. The sun was already descending in the sky. The third night was coming. “If you plan to do something, make it quick.”
28
Separate Ways
The four left the swamp and made their way along the coast, away from the witch’s shack. The river had mercifully washed most of the swamp stench from their clothes and hair, and the sun was beginning to dry them off. None of them spoke. Corinne noticed that Dru hung back a little from the group. She stopped suddenly and turned around to face Dru.
“What are you doing?” Corinne asked.
“Nothing,” Dru said softly.
“Why aren’t you walking with the rest of us?”
“I’m walking.”
“Not with us.”
“I’m right behind you,” Dru protested. She pulled a long lock of hair to the front and began to play with it.
Bouki and Malik turned to look at the girls. Malik nudged his brother, and Bouki rolled his eyes to the sky.
Corinne asked, “Are you trying to keep an eye on me? Do you think I’m going to work some kind of magic on you?”
“No,” Dru said, though she didn’t sound too sure.
“You think I’m just like Severine or the douens who took your friend away. You’re afraid of me now, aren’t you?”
“I’m not scared,” Dru said.
“You’re scared of everything,” Corinne said.
“I’m not,” Dru insisted, but her lip began to quiver, so she bit down on it. “I came with you to see the witch, didn’t I?”
“You stayed the closest to the door the entire time. And as soon as the witch said that I . . . when she said what I was, you wanted to get away from me. Well, now’s your chance. Go. I don’t need you.” Corinne’s eyes began to sting with tears, so she blinked them back and stared Dru down while she waited to see what her friend would do.
Dru looked from Corinne to the brothers, and then back to Corinne again. She clenched her fists. “Everything is happening because of you. You are the one she wants. Not us.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Dru,” Corinne said.
“I wish we had never met. I wish I had never even laid eyes on you!” Dru ran through the waves toward her village. Her long hair blew behind her.
“You pushed her away,” Bouki said to Corinne. “Why did you have to go and do that?”
Corinne took one look at Malik’s sad face as he watched Dru run off, and she slumped over with her hands balled into fists on her knees. The tears that she had tried to hold back flowed down her face.
“You can go too,” Corinne said. “I would get away from this mess if I could.”
“That’s exactly why we are staying,” Bouki said. “You can’t do everything yourself.”
“I don’t have any choice. My papa can’t take care of me anymore. I have to take care of him. There’s no one else to do it.”
“No, there’s one less,” Bouki said. “You had three of us. Now you have two.”
“You see what happened to my papa. You heard what the witch said. The people around me, the ones who try to protect me, they always get hurt. Even the witch. Who knows what will happen next? Don’t you see? I have to work alone.”
Malik shook his head.
“What would you like me to tell her, brother?” Bouki said, sounding exasperated. “She wants to go it alone. It’s not like I can force her to let us help.”
“It’s better this way, Malik,” Corinne said. “You’ll be safe.”
Malik shook his head again and stared at her with determination.
Bouki tried to ignore him. “So what are you going to be able to do by yourself, then?” he asked.
Corinne pulled herself up and took a deep breath. “I’m going to do exactly what I should have done in the first place. I’m going to climb the cliff and get my mama’s necklace back.”
“And then what?”
“You should have seen the look on Severine’s face when she touched that stone and it burned her hand. There is something about it. I’m going to figure it out.”
“What if that doesn’t work? Better to fight it out like we did last night. It’s the only way.”
“It isn’t, Bouki. I know the stone will help. I can just feel it inside me, like the witch said. When I had the necklace, I felt strong. I don’t anymore. And why would Severine take it away if it wasn’t important? It’s the last night and my last chance, so it’s time for a real plan. Severine knows exactly what she’s doing. By dark tonight, we need to know exactly what we’re doing too. And my mama’s necklace is step one.” She gave the boys a firm nod.
Malik clapped her back in agreement.
Corinne gazed out at the water. “I will need to row out to the cliff. But that fisherman, Victor, he will try to stop me if he sees me. The others might too.” Corinne looked at Bouki and Malik.
“What’s that look?” Bouki asked. “What do you want us to do about a whole village full of fishermen?”
Malik nudged his brother.
“All right, we can distract the fishermen,” Bouki said. “We will find a way.”
Excitement tingled on Corinne’s skin, from her toes all the way up to her scalp, now that they had a plan. But the weight of the events of the day felt heavy inside her. She could not imagine going it alone. Tears burned in her eyes again. “Thank you,” she said.
Bouki patted her on the shoulder. “It would help more if there were three of us.” He looked down the coast. Dru was long gone.
Corinne’s jaw tightened. “She wanted to go,” she said, but her eyes flicked down the coast too. “Anyway, she has a whole family who will be sorry if something happens to her.”
“Yet another advantage of being on your own,” Bouki replied.
Each syllable of “on your own” pricked at Corinne’s heart. But she had to concentrate on what needed to be done. “So how are you going to distract the fishermen?”
Malik pointed to his feet, then made a low peak over his head with his hands.
Bouki smiled and nodded. “Don’t worry. We have an idea.”
29
Disguised
While everyone in the villages was still cleaning up from the night before, Bouki went over to a clothesline behind a house and pulled off a pair of long men’s pants. Then he and Malik crossed through some fields to the other side of the island and into their cave. Bouki whittled dry coconut husks into sandals with backward feet. Malik put on the long pants. With the sandals on, too, he looked just like a douen.
“One last thing,” Bouki said. He took some dried coconut leaves and wove them into a round hat with a point in the middle for his brother to wear. It was deep enough to cover down to his chin.
Malik walked around with his arms in front of him and whined.
“You don’t need to see anything,” Bouki explained. “I’ll be dragging you the whole time.” He cut open two fresh coconuts that they had picked up at the beach earlier in the day. He gave one to his brother, and they drank the sweet coconut water and ate the white jelly in silence.
“It’s time to go,” Bouki said when they had finished.
Malik’s stomach growled.
“Nothing else tonigh
t, brother. This is war. There’s no time to eat during war.”
Malik whimpered.
“Tomorrow those things will be gone and Corinne’s father will bring us the biggest fish in his catch. It will be so big, it will fill us up for three days.”
Malik held his stomach and moaned.
“Would you rather have nothing in your belly for one day, or be the thing in a jumbie’s belly?”
Malik dropped his hands to his sides and puffed out his chest.
“All right then, brother, let’s go.”
30
The Seed
Corinne needed to give the brothers time to get ready. She went to her house, hoping to find that something had changed and there was some way to get in and save her father. The vines seemed even more tightly wrapped around the house, so that it was impossible to see anything past them. She circled, looking for some chink that led inside, but there was no visible opening. And as she moved, the vines shifted, as if they were watching her.
Corinne left reluctantly and made her way toward the sea. The sky burned orange—her mama’s favorite time of day—and for a moment, she remembered her mama’s smiling face, and a flicker of happiness lit up inside of her. She wanted to get started. Where were those boys? They needed to hurry. She found a thick grove of coconut trees and hid among them. The tide was in, and the waves pushed foamy brine around her, tugging at her hands and feet, trying in vain to pull her into the sea. She felt the last rays of the sun on her skin and the cool water as it lapped her body. A song her mama used to sing drifted into her mind:
La Siren, la balenn,
Mon chapeau tombe a la mer!
La Siren, la balenn,
Mon chapeau tombe a la mer!
But Corinne knew that there was no mermaid or whale that would come to help her as they did in her mama’s song. If the plan was to work, it was mostly up to her alone.
Corinne shoved her hands into her pockets, hoping she had put some fruit in there. But all she came up with was the witch’s seed. Only now, instead of just two halves of a seed, there was a little green shoot sprouting from one side and a spiderweb-thin root shooting out of the other.
The Jumbies Page 11
