The Jumbie God's Revenge

by Tracey Baptiste

  No, she said. Others will need your help.

  The mermaids obeyed and moved away as Mama D’Leau fought the sea.

  37

  A Crack on the Mountain

  Dru returned to the large room and listened to the storm rage, cringing with the others each time lightning pierced the sky and thunder rolled. The boys were curled into Hugo’s arms, and Dru’s siblings were tucked into each other like pieces of a puzzle. They were safe, and she was glad for that, but some were still in danger. Both Pierre and Mrs. Chow strained to see through a window, looking out with fear in their eyes. Corinne and Marlene were gone. Dru could guess where they were, but the wind and rain, lightning strikes, and thunder made it impossible for anyone to go search for them. Aunty Lu stood near the door, trying to soothe the parents, but barring them from opening it to leave.

  Dru hoped her friend would be okay, but fear tracked down her spine.

  The rumbling got louder and closer.

  Dru and the boys tore away from their parents to peek through a sliver in the wall boards. In the silver light of a bolt, they saw a boulder rolling down the hill, cracking more of the mountain as it came, heading straight toward them.

  38

  Severine’s Return

  There was no comfortable place in the mountain for the twiggy Severine to rest. All night long, explosions, cracking, and dampness shook her from every cranny.

  She folded and unfolded her thin body and scrambled from one tiny crag to the next, trying to find solace. Something drew her upward, where electricity ran through the seams of the rocks. Its power excited her. All night she moved up and up, pulled almost by force to the top of the mountain in time to see two girls stand on the peak, looking up at the sky. The clouds gathered themselves over their heads and shot silver fire like a long, slender arrow to the smaller of the two girls, sending her rolling to the edge.

  Severine had lurched to help, but the bigger of the two girls had shed her skin and reached forward, grabbing the little one in a fiery hand. She had steadied her companion and promptly disappeared into the sky, leaving the small child behind.

  Severine scuttled forward. Marlene shrieked at the bundle of sticks and bones that was coming toward her, but Severine did not pause. She gathered the squirming girl against her sharp body and looked down into the child’s face. Marlene stopped struggling, but her muscles were tight, as if she was waiting for her moment to spring away. Severine waited a moment, too, until the child’s pulse calmed. There was something familiar about the warmth and softness of that body.

  She remembered the word sister, and something at her core began to beat. Then she remembered the word heart. She rocked the little girl and smoothed her hair with her fingers. Marlene relaxed a little.

  “That girl called me Severine,” she said. “But that is not my real name.”

  Marlene blinked.

  “Oh, you want to know what it is?” Severine asked. She reached back, thinking until she found it, and she leaned close to Marlene’s ear and whispered.

  The rain beat down harder, and the air moved in huge, booming whooshes above, so Severine began to move down the mountain toward safety.

  The girl reached for something on the ground and Severine turned to look. She was reaching for a large yellow calabash gourd. In it was a pile of skin.

  Severine scooped it up and took it with them.

  39

  Hold Tight

  The earth quaked and rocks cracked at their core, ripping down into the ground and tearing the entire island apart.

  Papa Bois held on as tightly as he could, but some of the roots slipped from his fingers and snapped away from his body.

  He extended his arms to their full length, willing the plants to come closer, to knit the tears in the ground and hold them tight, but he could feel the island slipping away. Pain tore through his muscles and he whimpered as he tried to hold on, as pieces of the land disappeared into the sea.

  He almost wanted to go with them.

  40

  Fire in the Water

  The shock of the lightning blast ripped through Mama D’Leau’s body. It slashed from the top of her head to the tip of her tail. She felt gutted and was sure she was bleeding as she drifted to the bottom like a sunken vessel.

  The water churned over her and the mermaids returned, surrounding her and lifting her from the seafloor. They ferried her away. She could just barely feel their hands, and the delicate brush of their fins against her body, and their soft singing willing her to gather strength again.

  As soon as the pain subsided, Mama D’Leau pushed the mermaids away and returned to the middle of the sea, where the strongest force of the wind was whipping the water into a frenzy. She sent every creature scampering out of the way, moving the currents to take them to safety even more quickly as she careened into the center of the storm. Electricity in the water burned her skin, but what was a little fire in the water, eh? She had seen worse. Hadn’t she? Well. If not, it would make a good story in the end. And all stories came to an end eventually.

  Mama D’Leau found the very center of the storm, where the water whirled and directed its full force toward her body. Every floating piece of dreck, every sharp stone, every broken bit of coral hurtled itself at Mama D’Leau, powered by the water and the brunt of Huracan’s rage. As the debris battered her body, Mama D’Leau whipped her tail under her, back and forth, back and forth, gathering strength, but moving steadily as a jump rope, waiting for the right moment to strike.

  41

  A Mermaid Found a Swimming Lad

  People splashed into the water, falling as all the nearby islands shook and crumbled away. With Mama D’Leau tackling the currents, Noyi and the other two mermaids darted through the sea, gathering people up, pushing them onto floating trees, protruding rocks, and anything else they could find. They rushed to round up as many of the fallen as they could.

  We will never get them all, Sisi worried.

  We will do what we can, said Addie.

  Why do we even bother? Noyi snapped. If they cannot survive in the water, what good are they at all?

  Nevertheless all three of them exhausted themselves, pushing people back to shore, depositing them into boats that had come unmoored in the storm, and anchoring those as best they could.

  Noyi moved a little more slowly than the others, just enough that they would notice, but not so much that they would chastise her about it.

  One large boat rocked far from land, filled with screaming people whose voices were whisked away by the wind. The boat tossed in the waves, bashed from all sides until a small boy was thrown out. Sisi caught him, but someone from the boat dove after him. The diver was tall and lithe and swam through the churning sea better than anyone they had saved that night, but even he couldn’t swim through a hurricane.

  Noyi shook her head, but reached for him anyway. When her hand touched his, he found her eyes, and Noyi felt the warmth of his body extend to her own.

  Another body splashed into the water, and another. The boat had overturned. The diver pulled his hand from Noyi’s, looked at one sinking frame, and pointed at another. Noyi understood. The boy went right and she went left, gathering up those who had fallen in and pushing them to the surface.

  They both breached water and the boy took a gulp of breath.

  Lightning flashed above them, and they saw the outline of another body sinking beneath. Without a word, the two dove, splashing down to reach the tiny form of a toddler whose dress billowed out behind her as she sank.

  Amazingly, the boy got there first and handed the child to Noyi, who rushed her to air and into the arms of her waiting mother, who was being ferried by Addie to the nearest shore.

  Noyi turned, expecting the boy to surface behind her, but he did not.

  She looked into the water and smiled when she saw him, his arms
reaching out to her. Her heart caught and she paused, waiting for him to arrive, but his face changed, from calm to anguish in an instant, and he opened his mouth.

  He gasped bubbles, pulling one hand to his throat.

  Noyi raced to him and caught his limp hand to drag him to the surface. She turned his face up toward air and patted his back. She pulled him close to her body, hoping to feel his warmth again, but it was slowly draining away.

  It was too late for him.

  42

  Ready

  The air around Corinne tightened and loosened, tightened and loosened, in the rhythm of a pacing animal. Corinne understood this. She knew trapped creatures, ones that were frustrated, ones that were preparing to attack.

  Her heart beat wildly, but she willed herself to take a deep breath and another until her heart slowed and thudded in a steady rhythm. Now was not the time for panic. She needed to be able to think, to move. The air squeezed and released again.

  She was ready.

  43

  The Lagahoo

  The boulder splintered as it hit the ground, but it still tumbled toward the center of the village, groaning as it came, mashing down everything in its path.

  People spilled out of the doors, onto the slick, muddy ground. There was a lot of slipping and grasping of hands and pulling as the air was filled with screams and gasps of panic and the squelching of mud underfoot.

  Mr. and Mrs. Rootsingh gathered up their children and ran, but Mrs. Rootsingh tripped on the end of her sari. Dru ran back and tried to pull her mama to her feet.

  The rock tumbled on, nearly as tall as a house, and it was not slowing down. The tall, lanky man from the caves saw it rolling toward them. He sighed. He had done everything he could to hide in the crowd, but now he was needed. And it would take all of his strength to help, even the strands of energy he used to make himself look human. He looked at Dru and her mama.

  Dru slipped and fell on her back. Mrs. Rootsingh spotted the boulder and tried to shove Dru out of the way.

  The man turned, slipping in the wet grass, and as he did, his body changed. Already tall, he lengthened even more. His shoulders widened, and the hair all over his body thickened. He loped toward Mrs. Rootsingh and Dru as his nose and mouth grew into a wolf’s snout from which rows of sharp, yellow teeth protruded. Now fully his lagahoo self, he scooped the two of them up and kept going. He skidded off to the side as the rock rumbled past, squeezing the earth where they had just been a moment before.

  The lagahoo felt the woman and girl struggling against him, so he let them go and backed away. Dru got to her feet and held her mama’s arm.

  His sharp fur left pinpricks all over their skin.

  “That thing nearly killed you!” Victor called. “Do you see?”

  “It . . . he saved us,” Dru said.

  The rock hurtled to one side of the plateau, went up the lip of the wall, and careened back their way.

  The boulder smashed through a small house and crushed the top of a well and the side of the communal cooking area, but it still kept coming. It was slower than before, but no less dangerous.

  The lagahoo went back, looking for stragglers.

  “Get out of here!” Victor screamed. “We don’t need your help.” He tried to pick up something from the ground, but slipped and fell flat on his face.

  The lagahoo looked at him briefly, but continued on.

  Victor twisted in the mud and tried to get to his knees, but he slipped again and fell on his back. Everything he did to get up landed him flat in the mud.

  The rock bowled toward him.

  The lagahoo looked back and sighed. Then it jogged to Victor.

  Victor just got his feet under him and looked back to see the rock coming at him from one side and the lagahoo from the other. The only way to get away from both was toward the cliff.

  He ran.

  As the rock closed in, Victor skidded to the edge and tried to come to a stop, but couldn’t. His arms flailed over his head as he teetered on the same ledge that Mama D’Leau had leapt from.

  44

  Take the Hit

  The air around Corinne prickled with heat. Pops of electricity pinched and bored into her body. She closed her eyes, feeling Huracan gather his energy. Beneath him was the energy of all the people in the islands. Their fear shivered up to the clouds. Corinne sensed the strain of Papa Bois’s muscles as he held on to the very dust to keep the island together and the whip of Mama D’Leau’s tail as she tried to calm the water.

  They were both badly hurt and couldn’t take much more.

  They had done their part, but Corinne had not been able to stop Huracan. She hadn’t landed a blow, or tired him out. Maybe she could beg.

  “I have had enough,” Huracan said in a voice that rolled deeply around Corinne.

  “If you destroy everyone, who will be left to remember you?” Corinne asked.

  The air thinned and strengthened again. “There is always someone left,” the god rumbled. The pressure thickened around Corinne. “But it will not be you.”

  Corinne felt heavy. There was no way to stop a god.

  The blow was coming. She felt it gathering power.

  She opened her eyes. Whatever happened next, she was going to watch it happen straight on.

  45

  Fire in the Sky

  The child was irritating. Like a stone in your side that took an age to wear away or a cacophony of souls all talking at once.

  Huracan was tired. He had been tired. This was one in a long succession of waves of fatigue that overcame him any time he roused from his sleep. Once, there had been no voices at all, and when they came, he would awaken, roar in the skies, hurtle the winds, stir up the seas, and after, it would be quiet again.

  He missed the quiet.

  The child was nothing like he had seen before. She was quick. She had figured out how to move around him, to anticipate where he would be, and to duck from his grasp. Worst of all, she was persistent.

  The god moved around the child in a huffing swirl of cloud. She adjusted her position as he moved. Even when he didn’t manifest into a solid shape, somehow she knew where he was.

  Clever.

  Annoying.

  Electricity crackled around Huracan like a spiked cloak. He knew it hurt her to occupy the same air as him. He was thrilled that it did, and yet she would not simply return to earth. She was relentless. And she had talked back. Never had anyone shouted him down.

  He gathered his strength, assembling the sparking, crackling energy of the air into a single sharp weapon.

  Huracan laughed to himself as he felt Corinne stiffen and her heart race. This was the end. Of her. Of all of them.

  But then she opened her eyes and looked straight through him, and he shivered with dread.

  No one made him feel like that!

  The air sparked and popped around them.

  Huracan focused his energy at the center of Corinne’s chest. At first, he had felt sorry for her, but now? He would welcome her end. There was symmetry to it. She would die the same way that her mother had.

  Huracan felt a twinge around him, as if something in the air had changed, but it wasn’t the time to be distracted. He turned the full force of his energy to the girl, roaring and screaming as the lightning bolt ripped through the air to Corinne’s heart.

  It crashed into her with a satisfying crunch, and the sky exploded in flashes of white and red. The stone at her throat exploded into shards. Huracan felt satisfied, but only for a moment until the force of the hit blew back to him, blasting him apart.

  Wisps of him scattered in every direction at once.

  Beneath, the earth trembled and water spouted, reaching straight to the child, searing the air.

  Every fragment of the god focused on Corinne. She was a shimmering c
reature of fire and lightning, flesh and fur and scales, dripping with seawater.

  It was only then that the god understood.

  He felt the satyr underground harnessing the strength of the land, and the siren gathering the energy of the water. The girl had called for help. She was not alone.

  He wanted to roar again, to strike one more time, but it was too late for that. Huracan had used up everything he had. He was nothing now, only threads of vapor floating in the darkness.

  He saw her eyes searching for him in the sky as she began to fall.

  It was the end.

  For now.

  46

  The Last Save

  Dru strained her eyes to watch as the boulder tipped over the cliff, taking some of the retaining wall with it, but rolling past Victor.

  The lagahoo who had saved Dru and her mother reached for Victor. Dru saw the sharp fur of the creature’s back as it hunched over the cliff. It groaned, then pulled hard, and Victor came tossing back up and over, splat, into the mud. He blinked up at the lagahoo but said nothing. The creature growled at him, baring its saliva-covered teeth.

  Above the village, the sky exploded in brilliant color. A shockwave flattened the people, pushing them into the earth, and knocked over some of the buildings already teetering on their foundations.

  The force made Dru’s ears pop. Everything went silent. People peeled themselves off the ground. The rain changed to a light mist and then petered out entirely. The clouds opened up and revealed the first pinpricks of stars in the sky.

  Slowly, the expressions in the crowd changed to relief, and then wide smiles.