The Jumbies (7 page)

18

The Stew

B
ack at Corinne's house, Severine stood over the stove, stirring something in a large pot.

“It smells terrific,” Pierre said. “I'm glad you came. I've never seen the sky as bad as it was today.” He looked out of the window and shook his head, though the sky was perfectly clear.

Severine looked over at him with a wicked smile. The magic she had used to cloud his vision had worked perfectly. Where everyone on the island saw clear blue sky, Pierre saw a raging storm. Now she only needed to finish cooking up her last bit of magic to have complete control over his thoughts. She hummed and stirred. Just like Corinne, Severine had put in grated ginger and chopped cilantro. She needed to change the smell just enough to fool Pierre.

“This is the worst storm I've ever seen,” Pierre continued. “Imagine if I had taken out the boat.” He sighed. “If Corinne was left alone in this world . . .”

“The sea couldn't take you if it tried,” Severine said in a syrupy sweet voice. “I'm only glad I saw you this morning and could keep you company. If I hadn't, you would be home alone all day.”

“Corinne should have come right back home,” Pierre said. “She can't be safe in these winds.”

“I told you, I saw her with that girl with the long braids. The girl's mother took her with them.”

“That's the nice thing about having a mother,” Pierre said softly. “Someone is always there to take care of you.”

“Yes, a family is a nice thing, isn't it?” Severine reached into a fold of her skirt and took out an old gnarled plant root, covered in white fungus. She dropped it into the pot and stirred again. She continued to hum something low and lilting to make Pierre feel sleepy.

She ladled the stew into a bowl and put it in front of Pierre. Then she stood over him and waited for him to taste the magic and give up his mind to her. Pierre picked up the spoon and inhaled.

“Wonderful!” he said. He lifted the spoon to his lips.

Severine leaned in to make sure every single drop went in. She watched him intently as the liquid went down his throat, and something in his eyes began to change. They became cloudy, as if a storm was swirling right in his eyes. She watched Pierre scoop more of the stew into his mouth. Then he dropped the spoon and attacked the bowl like a greedy animal. When it was empty, he tipped it up to get every last bit onto his tongue. Severine's smile grew. Pierre held out the bowl to Severine for a second helping, just as Corinne opened the front door.

19

The Storm

C
orinne breathed in the foul smell that was coming from the kitchen. It made her stomach turn and her eyes water. She put one hand over her nose and rushed inside. The windows had all been shut and Severine stood in the shadows, watching Pierre eat.

Corinne knocked the bowl off the table and pulled the spoon away from her father. “Papa, don't eat that!” she said. Her father did not respond.

Severine stepped into a shaft of light. “Where have you been?” she asked with a smirk. “I made lunch for us.” She held out another bowl to Corinne.

Corinne slapped it out of her hand.

Severine's eyes narrowed, but her lips curled into a cruel arch.

“Papa!” Corinne called. She touched her father's hand. He looked up at her, but he didn't seem to recognize her. “Papa?” Tears covered her face as she shook him, called to him, and tried to make him answer her.

“Why don't you have some stew?” Severine asked. She picked up the bowl from the ground and ladled in some more of the foul-smelling slop.

“Get out of my house!” Corinne screamed.

“
Your
house?”

“Yes.
My
house.” She pulled aside curtains from the kitchen window and pushed the window open to let out the smell.

Light streamed in and fell directly on Pierre's face, but he didn't even blink. The magic that Severine had put in his eyes blinded him to anything but the visions she had created.

Severine walked in a circle around the table. Corinne backed away, trying to keep the table between them. In the sunlight, Severine's body seemed different. She looked thinner and a bit hairy.

“Papa? Please help!”

“Oh Papa! Help!” Severine mocked. “He can't see you. He can only see the darkness and a wild storm outside. That storm is so terrible, I'm afraid it could kill you. Which is what I will tell him happened to you if you don't behave yourself. Better to have him think you were killed by a storm instead of me, don't you think?” Severine laughed. “He can't help you at all. So who will protect you now?”

Corinne backed away more. She felt the fear rush through her body, making every movement feel clumsy. A whimper escaped from her throat.

Severine stepped closer. “Stop that ridiculous whining.”

Corinne felt anger flare up inside her and temporarily held the fear in check. She threw Severine a heated stare. Severine pushed the bowl of stew toward Corinne. Corinne jerked away, causing Severine to slop stew onto the floor. Severine grabbed Corinne's wrist and shoved her to the ground, right into the foul-smelling stew. “You can't resist me!” Severine shrieked.

The stew felt like it was burning into Corinne's skin. She got up quickly. “Leave us alone!” she screamed as she wiped herself off.

When Corinne looked up, she saw that Severine's face had narrowed, her nose and mouth protruded slightly like an animal's, and her arms looked as brittle and thin as sticks.

“Are you going to make me leave?” Severine asked, straight in Corinne's face.

Corinne wanted to fight, but found herself stepping back yet again. She moved into a sliver of light and the sun caught on the stone pendant around her neck.

Severine stared at the necklace, and her mouth slackened as if surprised. In that moment of hesitation, Corinne saw her chance. She threw her body at Severine, hoping to knock her down. But Severine only staggered back against the stove and grabbed hold of the stew pot. “You can't stop me,” she said and threw the hot stew on Corinne.

Corinne's skin burned. She ran outside to the back of the house. She threw a bucket of rainwater over her head. The magic still felt like flames.

She ran down the hill to the sea and dove into the waves. The water rolled and tumbled her against the grainy bottom. It burned the gash on her leg, but at last the rest of her skin began to cool. She floated on the waves, letting them move her back and forth a few feet from the shore until the burning stopped. She saw her house up on the hill and Severine standing at the kitchen door with a look of satisfaction. For a moment, Corinne thought she saw Severine's eyes flash yellow again.

Severine was in Corinne's house. She had Corinne's father. Corinne called to her grand-père in the ocean and her mama in heaven for help, but there was no answer, only the sound of the waves as they broke against the sand, saying, “Hush, hush, hush.”

20

One Bite

T
he white witch hobbled into her little hut on the mud island at the center of the swamp. She dropped her considerable weight on the only bench in the room and sighed. She rubbed her withered arm and then reached down to massage her tired legs. From her bags, she fished out the perfectly round orange Dru had tossed to her that morning as payment. She pierced the skin with one long, yellow fingernail, and peeled the orange, savoring the smell that burst out of its skin. It was a beautiful thing—bright, pungent, and resilient. She broke it into segments and breathed in its sweetness. As soon as she popped the first piece into her mouth, and the juice burst into her puckered, aged cheeks, her eyes flashed with surprise. Immediately, she knew three things:

1. No ordinary child could have grown such extraordinary fruit.

2. Severine would want the child for her own.

3. To protect the child required magic that was far beyond the witch's own abilities.

The witch looked at the orange in her hand and wondered aloud, “Why would Nicole have hidden her true self from me?”

21

The Cave

C
orinne was lying in her father's boat with a small crowd of children standing around it when Bouki and Malik found her at the end of the day. Her friend Laurent was arguing with Victor, one of the fishermen, but their conversations moved in and out of her consciousness as if they were waves.

“It's her father's boat,” Laurent said. “She can stay in it if she wants.

“Her father would not want her in there,” Victor said gruffly. “It's not a place for children to play.

Corinne became aware of the smell of food cooking that mingled with the scent of the salty sea.

“I will come back later to check the boats,” Victor continued. “And if she's still there I will take her out myself. Now, it looks like your suppers are ready, and your bathwater is getting cold. It's time for all you children to go home.”

One by one, Corinne heard their footsteps slapping against the wet sand as they left. She heard the old fisherman sigh before he left, then she lay quietly among her father's nets, with only Bouki and Malik watching over her. The boys climbed in. Malik rubbed the evening chill from his arms.

“You can come and stay with us tonight if you want,” Bouki offered. “Dru is probably already at home tucked in beside her mother.” He grinned at Corinne as if he was willing her to join him.

Corinne pretended not to hear. She looked up at her house on the hill. In one of the windows, there was the glow of a light.
What was her papa doing right at that moment? Could he be cured? How was she going to get Severine out?
She felt so tired.

Malik stood up and grabbed one of Corinne's arms. He started to pull her up. Bouki joined him. Between them, the boys managed to drag Corinne out of the boat. She followed them toward town, not thinking of where she was going, not seeing the road before her, only seeing Severine's animal face and the yellow light flashing from her eyes. If only she had stayed away from the forest in the first place. Then Severine would have never come to them. Her father would be safe. All the years her papa had protected her, and now she could not do the same for him. Her chest burned with grief.

Corinne pretended not to see the look of worry in the brothers' eyes as they looked at each other. She concentrated on making her legs move away from her house as they walked inland under the brightening stars, away from the arc of purple that outlined the sea.

“It's dinnertime,” Bouki said as they came to the main road that led into town. He tried to sound cheerful, but it came out too high-pitched, like a cricket chirping.

“Not for us,” Corinne muttered.

“And why not? Everybody's got to eat something,” Bouki said in his regular voice. He smiled and nudged his brother. “We'll show you how to get dinner when you're on your own.”

Malik walked ahead and beckoned for Corinne to follow him. He led them into the center of town. They zigzagged through small footpaths and behind houses so they would not be seen in the light of the lamps that hung over the stone roads. When they got to the bakery, they stopped and breathed in the fresh baked goods from the oven. There was one lamp inside, hanging over the counter. Nearly all the shelves were bare.

Through one small window, the children saw the baker. Corinne had not seen him since the night at the graveyard when all the trouble began. Hugo was big enough to knead stone into bread, but his large arms laid out a pair of delicate pastries on a counter and covered them gently with a white cloth. Corinne and the boys watched him close up the cupboards and sweep the floors. Then he disappeared into the back.

Malik dashed in, faster than Corinne had ever seen him move. He lifted the cloth and grabbed the pastries, then dashed back out as soundlessly as a specter. He held them out. Bouki divided what they had between the three of them and led the group away.

…

Bouki and Malik lived in a cave that was in the middle of the red hills, facing away from the sea, and sheltered from the easterly wind. The rock and smooth floor of the cave was reddish brown. When the brothers leaned against the rocks to finish eating, Corinne noticed that their skin and hair was the same red color as their home. Standing still, they looked like statues carved out of the rocks around them, with their hair like kinky mud spirals that pointed in every direction.

Toward the back of the cave were a few scraps of cloth where the brothers slept, and in the middle was a circle of rocks where they made their fire to keep warm at night, or to cook anything that may have fallen into their hands during the day.

Malik brought one of the cloths and draped it over Corinne's shoulders.

“You can stay for as long as you like,” Bouki said. “Just don't try to mother us.”

Corinne nodded.

That night, she discovered that the cave was cozy and warm, and that the blankets the brothers had loaned her were quite soft. But even so, she wasn't able to sleep well. She kept thinking of her father, sitting in the kitchen, looking lost inside his own skin. And Severine's cruel laugh echoed all around her.

In the morning, when the brothers woke up, she was sitting at the mouth of the cave, fingering her stone necklace.

“Breakfast?” Bouki asked. Without waiting, he walked away. Corinne thought he was going to steal from the baker again, but when he returned, he had three coconuts, some bananas, and a long stalk of sugarcane. Bouki drew out a knife from the back of his pants, cut the sugarcane stalk into three pieces, and divided it among them. They sucked the cane in silence. Corinne barely noticed the sweet stalks, was barely even aware of her own movement when she picked out the sugarcane strings that got caught in her teeth. After the cane, Bouki hacked off the tops of the coconuts and they each put one to their mouths to drink the cool water inside. Then he cut the coconuts in half and sliced off a sliver from each husk for scooping out the soft jelly. When they were done with those, Malik passed out the bananas.

With food in her stomach, Corinne felt stronger and more confident. “I have to get back to my house,” she told Bouki and Malik. “I have to get her away from my papa.” She stood up and started toward her house. Malik ran ahead of her. He shook his head and waved his hands to get her to stop.

“You couldn't do it yesterday,” Bouki pointed out. “Why do you think it will be different now?”

“I have to do something,” Corinne said. “I'm going now.”

She stepped forward, but Malik blocked her way and crossed his arms across his chest.

“We can't let you do that,” Bouki said. “Not without knowing what to do first. Dru seems to know about these jumbies. We'll ask her.”

Corinne thought for a moment, and then nodded. She let the brothers lead her toward Dru's village. But it was all taking too long.

She lagged behind them. Then, in a thicket of trees, she doubled back quietly and burst into a run toward her own house.

She had to get back to her father.