The Jumbie God's Revenge

by Tracey Baptiste

  “We are really missing all the food,” Bouki complained. “Dahl, rice, curry goat . . .” He rolled his eyes and staggered off holding his stomach for added drama.

  • • •

  Loud laughter, singing, and the rhythm of tassa drums greeted the four children near the end of the long, dusty road at the far side of Dru’s village. They ran to catch up. It seemed as if everyone from the nearby villages was sitting under the white tent at long tables, eating off large, glossy banana leaves. In one corner, a group of three men in white, two of them with drums hanging from straps around their necks and the third with a pair of small cymbals, played music. They chucked their feet and shook their shoulders to the fast beat, while a few people danced.

  Bouki abandoned Corinne for an empty spot at the end of one of the tables. Arjun, Dru’s brother, plopped a whole pot spoon of curried chickpeas on the leaf, followed by Karma with a spoonful of rice. Vidia splashed watermelon juice into Bouki’s cup. Bouki barely mumbled thanks before he dug in with his fingers. A moment later, Dru herself, in a pale blue sari with a thin gold bangle on one arm, put a small spoonful of anchar on his leaf.

  Bouki dug into the anchar, and then reached for the watermelon juice when his eyes began to water.

  “I should have warned you, it’s very spicy,” Dru said.

  Bouki panted. “It’s perfect!”

  Corinne and Dru giggled. Dru moved on, following her siblings up and down the tables. They put more food on banana leaves in front of each guest, then fell back to the temporary kitchen behind the tent to refill their serving bowls.

  Corinne ate a little and went to find where Hugo had set up the cake.

  It was off to the side of the kitchen in a cooler spot under the tent, in the shade of a large cashew tree that had managed to survive the storms. Hugo pressed little gold sugar balls into each of the delicate red flowers that covered the three tiers of the yellow-frosted cake. The entire thing gleamed.

  “Do you need help?” Corinne asked.

  “No, no,” Hugo said.

  “Is it finished?” Fatima peeked from behind a flap in the tent in a red sari embroidered in gold. Her hands were elaborately decorated with henna, and gold bangles on both arms clinked as she tried to get a good look. A delicate gold chain went from her ear to her nose ring, and bright red and orange flowers formed a crown on her head. Her eyes were ringed in black kohl, and her lips were as red as the flowers on the cake.

  “Yes, it’s ready,” Hugo said. He stepped back to admire his own work.

  “Can I take a little taste?” Fatima asked.

  “Where are you, Fatima!” Mrs. Rootsingh called sharply. “You are not supposed to be out here.”

  Fatima ducked back behind the canopy, and Corinne watched as her henna-covered feet danced off, each step causing her anklets to jingle.

  “She’s in trouble,” Marlene said. She got up on a chair to take a better look at the cake. Hugo put her back on the ground, away from the cake, and handed her the small bowl of gold sugar balls. Marlene popped a couple of them in her mouth and passed the bowl to Corinne, who popped in a couple, too. They were hard at first, but melted on her tongue after she rolled them around a bit.

  Malik bounded up and grabbed a handful of sugar balls. Bouki came and stood near Corinne.

  The Rootsinghs had told everyone about the wedding, and all who could come brought food. One of the families new to the island hung at the edge of the festivities, looking for a place to sit. Pierre came in behind them and ushered them to a spot at a nearby table. Dru and her siblings immediately filed over to put fresh banana leaves in front of them and serve the food.

  One of the tall builders Corinne had seen on the road earlier ducked under the tent and looked around. He crouched a bit, as if he was trying to hide his enormous frame. Dru took his hand and brought him to another table at the far end of the tent. As he sat on the bench, it tipped toward him, and several people slid into his side. The man looked nervous until everyone roared with laughter. He joined in, with a little bit of a howl.

  People from other islands, people who had come from the depths of the forest, and people who had lived on this island their entire lives were all sitting together, eating and shaking their bodies to the rhythm of the tassa. If Corinne squinted her eyes, she couldn’t tell who came from where. Here, under the canopy for Fatima’s wedding, they all belonged together.

  “Oh, hello hello!” called a booming voice from the other side of the canopy. A large shadow fell on the side of the tent as the woman it belonged to tried to find the opening. Pierre got up to help her. He held the canopy open, and Aunty Lu came in, wearing a dress in a rainbow of colors and a matching head tie knotted into a huge bow in her hair. Several others from the mountain village trailed behind her. “What’s this?” she exclaimed as she looked around at the party. “And where is the bride?”

  “This is for everyone to eat,” Dru explained. “The bride isn’t supposed to be out yet.”

  Fatima ducked behind one of the cloths at the back.

  “Oh, you eat first?” Aunty Lu asked. “That’s delightful!”

  Dru showed them to a bench near the cake.

  Hugo smiled nervously and wrung his hands. “I suppose I should be polite and say hello,” he whispered to no one in particular. “She is their aunt after all. I am only . . .”

  “Our papa,” Bouki said.

  Hugo’s smile brightened and his entire body seemed to soften under his starched white smock. “Yes,” he said. “Let us say hello.”

  Hugo and Bouki stepped across to Aunty Lu and her party as Malik skipped over and threw his hands around his aunt’s neck.

  “When will we see you again?” she asked.

  “Soon,” Hugo said. “We will make a trip up the mountain next week.”

  “Make it a long trip, eh,” Aunty Lu said. “We will want you for a few days.”

  “Hello Corinne!” Allan beamed. His hair had been washed and slicked back with coconut oil, and from the shine on his face and skin, the whole of him might have been oiled down, too.

  “Hi, Allan.”

  “Hey there, little douen,” Bouki said.

  Allan quickly looked down at his feet. “I am not a douen,” he said.

  “Not today,” Bouki teased.

  “Excuse me, what is that? A dweh . . . a . . .” the woman from the new family asked. “We keep hearing stories about things that live in the forests, things that will . . . well . . . eat you.”

  Corinne looked at her friends. “You mean the douens,” Corinne said. “That’s nothing. It’s only a jumbie story, things to frighten children at bedtime.” She made tickly claw-hands at the little girl sitting between the woman and man. The child giggled.

  “So they are not real? There are no creatures like that living in the woods?” the man asked.

  The tall, hairy man looked over at them stiffly.

  Dru put some more food in front of the family. “There’s nothing to worry about here,” she said.

  The parents looked relieved.

  The tall, hairy man tucked back into his curried goat.

  Laurent appeared at the canopy doorway holding a bottle of red plums. “You forgot to bring these, Marlene,” he said. “Mrs. Chow told me to give them to you.” But instead of handing them over, he unscrewed the top, pulled out a plum, and popped it in his mouth.

  “Hey!” Marlene said.

  Laurent resealed the jar and handed it to Marlene. “I love weddings,” he said.

  Bouki patted his stomach. “What’s not to love?”

  The little girl sitting with her parents reached out and yanked the hem of Corinne’s dress. “So will you tell me a jumbie story?”

  Corinne leaned down. “Sure,” she said. “But they are very scary.”

  “I like scary stories,” the girl said.

&nbs
p; Corinne cleared her throat. “Once there was a child who thought she could do everything on her own,” she began. “But she couldn’t. So a jumbie ate her.”

  The child’s eyes went wide, and everyone started laughing. Malik tapped Corinne on the shoulder and passed her a piece of wire.

  “Oh,” Corinne said. “There’s something else you should know.”

  “What’s that?” the little girl asked.

  Corinne twisted the wire around the girl’s finger. “It’s something we say when we’re finished telling a story,” she said.

  “What do you say?” her mother asked.

  In a chorus of giggles, Corinne and her friends said all together: “Wire bend, story end.”

  Acknowledgments

  There wasn’t supposed to be a third jumbies book. There wasn’t even supposed to be a second one. But at the beginning of what would become this series, I envisioned three stories, one on land, one in the sea, and one in the sky. I knew what I’d do for the first two. How I would manage a sky story, though, I had no idea. So, with the second book I decided to put everything in, leaving no room for a third. Then Elise Howard called me in Trinidad in August 2017 and suggested we make it a trilogy. My mind was blank. That evening I had dinner with my mom, my two children, and my aunt and uncle in Siparia, the village where I spent the first eight years of my life. Together they concocted the idea of Jumbies in Space. This isn’t that. But it got me started.

  Many thanks to my family, despite their terrible, though hilarious, suggestions, especially my mother, Gloria; my children, Alyssa and Adam; and Waynie and Wendy (my uncle and aunt), for getting me out of a slump. As always, I couldn’t do any of this without my husband, Darryl, and his constant, unwavering support. I’m also fortunate to have a dad who’s only too happy to fact-check. I’m eternally grateful to my editors: Elise Howard, for pushing me in the best of ways, and Sarah Alpert, for keeping me in line and on track. I’m lucky to have the support of Marie Lamba and the entire Jennifer De Chiara Literary team, and thanks especially to my assistant, Esperanza Pacheco, for making so many things easier. For daily moral support, occasional reading, general ego boosting, good cheer, and camaraderie I have a coterie of ladies to thank: Kelly Barnhill, Martha Brockenbrough, Kate Messner, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Laura Ruby, Laurel Snyder, Linda Urban, and Anne Ursu. What would I do without you?

  About the Author

  Tracey Baptiste lived in Trinidad until she was fifteen; she grew up on jumbie stories and fairy tales. She is a former teacher who works as a writer and editor. Visit her online at traceybaptiste.com and on Twitter: @TraceyBaptiste.

  The Jumbies Series by Tracey Baptiste

  The Jumbies

  Rise of the Jumbies

  The Jumbie God’s Revenge

  Published by

  Algonquin Young Readers

  an imprint of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

  Post Office Box 2225

  Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

  a division of

  Workman Publishing

  225 Varick Street

  New York, New York 10014

  © 2019 by Tracey Baptiste.

  All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

  Design by Carla Weise.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE.

  eISBN 9781643750002