Making Waves (13 page)

He raised my fingers to his lips. “Farewell, little mistress.”

OK, it was just a charming gesture, plus he kissed Lola’s hand immediately afterwards, but ooh la la! Say what you like about this mission, I thought, but we are certainly seeing life!

We clambered down a rope ladder to a waiting dinghy. As we pulled away from the Santa Rosa, I waved shyly to Captain Valentine.

Our pirate boatman spoke practically no English. He rowed us as close as he could get without running aground, then solemnly handed us two small bundles that obviously contained food.

I wondered what Mr Allbright would think if he knew we had met yet another pirate with a heart. Handsome Captain Valentine had been for real after all. He had even drawn us a map to help us reach the Black River Morass.

We splashed ashore, quickly scrambling up the rocks and out of sight, in case the English militia were watching from some secret outpost.

The first part of our journey took us through rocky hills where nothing grew but scrub and cactus. The barren landscape gradually gave way to coconut palms and rippling fields of blue-green sugar cane.

At midday we stopped to rest in the shade of a palm tree, and ate some of our pirate provisions. The ship’s cook had packed tiny hard-boiled eggs and strips of dried meat and a type of flat bread which Lola said was made from cassava root.

When we’d finished lunch, we wandered around, gathering wild fruits and berries. Lola handed me a fruit she called “sweet sop”. It didn’t look that special from the outside but it was gorgeous. You broke open the shell and there was this delicious natural custard inside. I caught Lola watching me as I slurped at this unexpected treat. “What?” I said.

My friend’s eyes were dreamy and unfocused, almost as if she was seeing through me to someone or somewhere else. “Just tinkin’ ‘bout dat dream city you talk ‘bout,” she said softly.

I got a tingly feeling inside. Lola’s memory was coming back, I was sure of it. But I didn’t want to push her before she was ready, so I just joked, “Oh, that’s all right. I thought I was dribbling juice down my chin.”

That afternoon we kept up a cracking pace, despite the heat. By sunset we’d reached the foot of some really peculiar-looking hills, kind of like upside-down puddings with hollowed-out depressions in between.

I saw Lola’s face light up. “See dem lickle valleys. Dey look jus’ like cockfightin’ pits! Mus’ be why dey call dis Cockpit Country, eh?”

I’d never seen cocks fighting, but it had to be gruesome. I suppressed a shiver. “You could be right.”

“Ole Massa Bexford jus’ love cockfightin’,” Lola remembered. “A whole heap a dem white massas come over and dey make di poor birds fight-fight till one dead. Mi watch one time, but it make mi spit up everyting in mi belly.”

But as we stood there, mopping sweat from our faces and gazing at the amazing view, all the cruel goings-on at Fruitful Vale seemed like a bad dream.

“Slaves call dis place nutha name some time,” my friend said, almost whispering the words. “Dem call it di Land of Look Behin’.”

“The Land of Look Behind,” I repeated. It sounded like a place in a story.

I felt so proud of us at that moment. Lola and I had been abandoned in a violent city without money, or even a map. We’d been tricked by pirates and captured by a totally different set of pirates. Yet here we were in the foothills of the Land of Look Behind, in hot pursuit of our angel buddy.

It was going to be dark soon, so we found a guango tree with spreading umbrella-type branches, and made a rough kind of camp. We piled up dry leaves for a mattress (first checking for snakes!). Lola lit a fire and we shared our pirate rations.

In a movie, this would be the scene where the two angel girls end up having a meaningful talk in the firelight, shed some tears and finally iron out all their misunderstandings.

In a movie, though, they’d leave out the mosquitoes. I doubt even Albert Einstein could have had a meaningful conversation with vicious bloodsucking insects attacking exposed bits of his anatomy. Actually, I have this theory. I think mosquitoes adore angels! I think we’re like this amazing cosmic delicacy, that they totally can’t have too much of. Lola and I did try to talk, but we kept interrupting each other with frantic slapping sounds.

I started to think we’d be swatting mozzies until daybreak. But when you’ve been walking in the open air from dawn till dusk, pure exhaustion takes over.

Lola and I gradually slid down the tree trunk until we were lying on our backs under our guango-tree umbrella. The whine of mosquitoes began to mix itself into an atmospheric soundtrack, along with chirping crickets, tree frogs and soothing rippling sounds from a nearby stream. I could see showers of tiny stars dancing in the dark. This is so cool, Melanie, you’re finally seeing fireflies, I thought drowsily. Like humming birds, fireflies were on my list of Jamaican must-sees. I wanted to stay awake watching the tiny magic dancing lights, but my eyelids kept closing.

I wondered where Brice was and if he was watching fireflies with Mariah Darcy. It was so weird the way he’d left us behind in Port Royal; weird and deeply worrying. I tried not to think the worst, but I had a horrible suspicion that our night with the pirates had brought out our buddy’s dark side.

Look at the effect they had on you, I reminded myself. And you’re a complete wuss.

In the movie of our lives, I would have fallen fast asleep at this point and had a dream that told me exactly what was going on for Brice.

But my dreams seemed every bit as confused as waking life. Brice was standing on some crumbling stone steps in the moonlight, watching Mariah’s pirates loading fabulous Taino treasures into canoes. In my dreams he wore normal clothes and looked just like he did in real life, hands in pockets, collar up round his ears, the same lonely, complicated Brice.

“You should be happy, angel boy,” I told him. “You found the city.”

Brice shook his head. “There’s been a mistake,” he said huskily and he pointed to a huge carving of a Taino god that was towering over us like some ancient tree. The god’s carved face wore an expression of deep suffering.

“Omigosh, it’s got tears,” I said in surprise.

With that the carved tears became real, streaming down the wooden face of the god. By the time they reached the ground the god’s tears had become a torrent, thundering through the city, sweeping away temples, pirates, canoes and treasures.

I woke screaming, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!” Lola was staring down at me in concern. “What happen?”

“I just had a bad dream. I’m OK, honestly.”

Lola lay down again. But after a while I felt her hand grope for mine. We slept like that, hand in hand, until morning.

Some dreams hover over you all the next day like the wings of a sinister bird. You can still see sunlight and blue sky. You go about your business as normal, yet your dream casts a shadow you totally can’t ignore.

I loved Cockpit Country. I absolutely loved those round pudding-shaped hills. I loved how lush and green everything was. The sheer variety of trees and flowers blew me away. Palm trees with silver leaves. Vivid blue morning glories. Golden black-eyed susans. One time, Lola silently pointed out a plantation of yams obviously being cultivated in one of the fertile “cockpits” between the hills. A shiver went through me to think I’d seen a secret garden tended by runaway slaves.

I especially loved the yams. They looked spookily alive, like green giants that might uproot themselves any minute and go galumphing over the hills.

But most of all I loved that Lola and I were getting reacquainted.

She still wasn’t totally my Lola, but she was excellent company all the same. She took everything in her stride. Nothing fazed her, not even when I got confused by Captain Valentine’s map. We must have wasted a good hour before we got back on track, but Lola said philosophically, “So it go!”

One time I fell in a stream and soaked myself to the skin. Lola laughed so much she almost fell in herself.

But lurking under these happy moments, like disturbing music in a film, were the dark vibes from my dream. They made things feel not quite real: like this was just a holiday from the horrors of real life.

And as you know, holidays can’t last.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we were making our way through a deep valley, knee-deep in lush green ferns and wild flowers. There was dense thicket on either side. Somewhere a bird was singing for pure joy.

I’m not sure that
is
a bird actually, I thought.

I heard the tiniest twig-crack. Lola froze. By then it was too late.

We were surrounded by half-naked humans brandishing spears.

Lola and I were too shocked to move. Who were these flat-faced dark-skinned people? They weren’t slaves. They weren’t like any people I’d seen in Jamaica. Yet I felt I had seen them before.

When you’re scared, random things jump out at you. I found myself focusing for no reason on their headdresses and jewellery. The elaborate collars and amulets were made from shimmery seashells, cut so cleverly they could have been precious gems. The exotic feathers braided in their hair made them seem almost childlike; the kind of magical people who might have existed when the world was simple and new.

I hadn’t seen these people because they were practically extinct. I was looking at the last survivors of the Taino.

Chapter Nine

T
here were seven canoes altogether, gliding through the water as silently as shadows. We shared a canoe with the chief’s grandson, a boy called Marohu, and a wiry little dog with alert pointy ears.

We were going to Coyaba, the City of the Gods, and something huge was going to happen there.

I’d asked the chief if it was a good something, or something bad, but he just shook his head. “Something hard,” he said quietly.

We paddled down silent backwaters, between steep banks lush with ferns and orangey-gold black-eyed susans. After an hour we reached a place where three rivers met and went speeding out into wide open water. I could hear tropical birds calling to each other high in the trees.

Marohu looked rigid with nerves. I couldn’t blame him. Who’d want to be in a canoe with the Angel of Death?

That was me, in case you’re wondering. The Taino chief had been expecting me. He wasn’t called a “chief” by the way. Strictly speaking he was a cacique, (it actually sounded like kaseek). That meant he was like the leader of the tribe and a holy man all rolled into one. He hadn’t been expecting me in person. He wasn’t looking out specifically for an angel-girl called Mel Beeby. I was more like a sign: She who Flew on the Wings of the Storm. The final sign their world was ending.

You know how it is, you’re trying to lighten the atmosphere, so you chat madly about anything that comes into your head. I focused on the dog, the way you do. How sweet it was, how well-behaved, its perky little ears.

Marohu gradually relaxed. He told me his dog was called Beetle. Like all Taino dogs, Beetle was barkless. “Better for hunting,” he explained shyly. “Barking dogs scare the animals.”

Lola looked baffled when I translated this conversation.

“How you can speak to dese people?” she hissed. “How dey know you?”

“I have no idea, babe,” I said truthfully. “But where we come from, we understand all the human languages.”

It probably seems like I was taking this really calmly? I didn’t have a choice. To the Taino, I was a messenger from their gods. This wasn’t a part I’d have chosen, obviously. That wasn’t the point. Mysterious cosmic forces were clearly at work and I felt I had to go with the flow. Luckily it’s hard to take yourself too seriously when your face is being licked by a rapturous Taino hunting dog.

Marohu was mortified. He kept saying he didn’t know what had got into her. Normally Beetle was as good as gold. But I knew the little dog was just overexcited by our angelic vibes.

“Is a dream, dis,” Lola murmured to herself. “Soon mi wake. Mi wake an’ hear Quashiba singin’ in she hut.”

It seemed like a dream to me too; travelling in a canoe with a boy from a tribe that was about to vanish forever.

We sped down the wide river under a green canopy of leaves, until the sun sank low in the sky. At a sign from the old cacique, the Taino lifted their canoes out of the water. The men slung hammocks between palm trees and lit a fire. One of the Taino had caught several fresh-water fish. The men gutted the fish, wrapped them in some kind of aromatic leaves, impaled them on sharp wooden skewers and baked them over the fire. Tricky to eat with fingers, and just a teensy bit too hot, but
totally
delicious! There was cassava cake to fill any empty spaces and coconut water to wash it down.

Afterwards the cacique asked to speak with me. He was really old; in his eighties, maybe even his nineties. His eyesight was bad, and he must have been stiff and tired after hours in a canoe, yet I could feel this amazing vibe from him. I got the strangest feeling that he knew who I was. I mean
really
knew. In fact, I started wondering if this wise old man might be some kind of earth angel.