The Jumbee (11 page)

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Authors: Pamela Keyes

BOOK: The Jumbee
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“I pray you, what is’t o’clock?” Rosalind asked.
“You should ask me,” Orlando said glumly, “what time o’day. There’s no clock in the forest.”
“Then there is no true lover in the forest,” she countered, “else
sighing
every minute and
groaning
every hour would detect the lazy foot of time as well as a clock.”
Alan chuckled. “The cadence of your voice is the rhythm of a clock. Very nice. And,” he continued in Orlando’s voice, “why not the swift foot of time?”
Esti loved that Rosalind was so funny and intelligent, dressing up as a boy to get away with things a girl could never do. Alan did Orlando perfectly, of course, his voice softening in distress as he wondered how to deal with his eternal love for the eccentric girl.
“I would not be cured, youth,” he finally concluded in dismay.
“I would cure you,” Rosalind said. “If you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cote, and woo me.” In her own voice, Esti added, “Not that your basement
cote
is boring, but I’ve been coming here ever since we met.”
He laughed. “You slip in and out of Rosalind like a glove.”
“Better than my Juliet?” Esti took up Rosalind’s teasing note again.
“Shakespeare hasn’t written a character you couldn’t do, if you set your mind to it,” Alan said. “How about
Richard the Third
?”
“Now is the winter of our discontent,” she began in a deep, scornful voice.
“Nice.” He sounded impressed. “You manage to bring a hint of Irish and a touch of Cornwall into your pronunciation, just as your father did.”
“Thanks. But we were talking about your
cote
”—she smiled at Alan’s chuckle—“and I can’t help wondering about this basement. In my history class, it’s not even hinted at. How did you discover it?”
He hesitated. “I have my ways.”
“Stop evading me!” She couldn’t hide her frustration. “Look, I clearly have a high tolerance for—how did you put it?—conditions most people would find disturbing, but this is making me crazy. Do you
have
to keep hiding from me?”
His answering silence seemed more unbearable than usual, the darkness as heavy and thick as a blanket.
Refusing to let herself falter, Esti continued. “Is it because you work for Rodney? Does he make you stay so secretive?”
“I never said that I worked for Rodney Solomon,” Alan said stiffly.
Esti’s eyes widened, and she took a long, shaky breath. “Does anyone besides me even know that you’re here?”
He didn’t answer.
“Pretend you’re a jumbee, then.” She tried not to be frightened. “Can’t you at least tell me where you learned Shakespeare so well?”
“No, I can’t.”
Although she expected his blunt rebuttal, it still hurt. “Will you tell me where you grew up?”
“No.”
“Where do you live, then?”
“This conversation is getting out of hand,” Alan whispered.
“No, it’s not! I
like
you, Alan.”
His groan was almost inaudible. “I can’t do this.”
“Fine.” Impatience swept through Esti. “Aurora wants to move back to Oregon anyway. I’ll tell her to get plane tickets.”
“Esti, you can’t quit.”
“Why not? If
you
quit,
I’m
quitting.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You’re not being fair.”
As the silence lengthened into a minute, then five minutes, Esti began reaching around the tiny room to make sure he wasn’t hiding in the darkness. She finally rested her forehead on the edge of the table.
“I’m sorry, Alan,” she whispered. “Please talk to me. I’ll stop asking questions.”
“Come back here Sunday morning,” he said in a voice as thin as hers, and then he really was gone. Esti wasn’t sure how she knew, but she knew. Digging the palms of her hands into her eyes, she slowly rose to her feet.
Esti paused for a minute while she tried to catch her breath, glancing back down the steep hill she’d just climbed. She hadn’t seen any white faces in the shabby apartments along the road, but several people had waved at her with an unusual local gesture. She knew Lucia wouldn’t have invited her to this neighborhood if it were dangerous for her.
She stepped up to the porch, where red paint peeled away from the weathered wood in ragged strips. Taking a deep breath, she tapped on the door. She heard voices inside, so she knew someone was home. After a moment, she knocked again, louder this time.
The door burst open.
“I forget.” Lucia gestured for Esti to come inside. “Continentals, you always knock on the door. Be careful,” she added, grabbing Esti before she could step in a pan of water next to the door.
“Sorry,” Esti mumbled in embarrassment. “I didn’t see it.”
“To keep out the jumbee them,” Lucia said.
Esti studied the crossed pair of shoes and open scissors arranged next to the pan. Perhaps they were part of the anti-jumbee regimen too, but she decided she’d better not ask.
“If I didn’t knock on the door,” she said awkwardly, “how would you know I was here?”
Lucia raised her eyebrows. “You stand at the front and you call for me, instead of sneaking up on the house. ‘Inside, ’ you yell, ‘Lucia, is Esti.’ I have keep the window open to hear you.”
Esti’s face grew warm. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on the house.”
“No problem, mon. I forget, is all. Hey, you take off you shoes before you go in, okay?”
Blushing more deeply, Esti returned to the door and pulled off her shoes. She’d been wanting to know more about Lucia, but now she wondered if today would merely be one long string of social gaffes. Hopefully she wouldn’t say anything insulting, or—she winced—something to inflame their superstition even further.
“Come,” Lucia ordered. “Uncle Domino is almost finish with breakfast.”
Esti followed her into the living room, looking around in fascination. Bright rugs and blankets hung on the walls and over the furniture, interspersed with frightening tribal masks and strange warrior statues.
“You like it?” Lucia asked. “Ma she got family travel around with Carnival; they bring the mask them. The black one is a true Cariba Island mask, without color. Cariba jumbee mask is always black, you know.”
Esti nodded uncomfortably.
“Lucia!”
A shout from the other room made Esti jump, but Lucia didn’t even blink.
“You ready or what, child?”
“We ready, Uncle Domino.”
A very dark man came into the room, wiping his mouth. He was followed by a woman Esti recognized from school.
“I is Ma Harris,” the woman said, “and dis my brudda, Domino.”
Esti smiled shyly. “I’m Esti.”
“I hear so much ting about you,” Ma Harris added with a significant look.
“Come,” Domino said. “Lucia promise she friend we go on de boat, and a storm gon come dis afternoon. It have plenty time for chit-chat while we catch fish dem.”
“We talk on de boat,” Ma Harris agreed.
Esti peered nervously over the edge of the boat, watching the coral reefs fly past them. She and Lucia sat at the rear, wedged between a smelly bait bucket and the noisy outboard engine. A ragged tarp provided some shade, and they moved over the turquoise water with exhilarating speed.
The faded old life vest she wore didn’t seem substantial enough to save her life in such a huge expanse of water, she suddenly thought. She should talk to Rodney pretty soon about learning to swim. Clutching the straps of her life vest, she impulsively leaned toward Lucia.
“Do you know Rafe Solomon?” she yelled.
With a startled look, Lucia nodded. “Yeah, mon. Everyone know Rafe.”
“Is he nice?”
Lucia shrugged. “Ma, she like Rafe, for true. He ain’t afraid of she.”
Esti pondered Lucia’s words, not sure if that really answered her question.
“He keep you sweet and warm.” Lucia grinned. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a warm boyfriend, long as he know who is boss.”
“Have you dated him?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Lucia let out a burst of laughter. “Nah, mon. I already got a boy, he nice-nice. Quintin, he ain’t afraid of Ma, but he let me call the shot. ’Tis Manchineel Cay,” she added, pointing in front of them.
Esti straightened, forcing Rafe out of her mind as her eyes wandered over brilliant white sand. She couldn’t see this side of the cay from Cariba. Gorgeous beaches surrounded the island, broken only by the single rocky cliff plunging into the water on its northeast tip. Beyond the narrow strip of sand, heavily forested land rose in a gentle slope.
As they approached, the boat began slowing down. Although Domino had brought them the long way around, the cay sat very close to the west end of Cariba. Esti knew it was near enough to swim from Manchicay Beach, if a person knew
how
to swim, of course, and wasn’t afraid of the legends.
Now she could clearly see the police signs Steve had mentioned.
Extreme Danger,
they read.
Private Property. Keep Off.
“Are we getting out of the boat?” she asked in surprise as Domino brought them closer and turned off the engine. Despite the danger signs, her feet longed to bury themselves in the silky white sand.
“No! ’Tis cursed.” Lucia’s voice seemed very loud in the sudden silence. She looked at Esti with a shocked expression. “The cay is cover with manchineel tree also.”
Esti studied the lush trees growing along the beach. They weren’t very tall, only about twenty feet high, with apple-like fruits hanging from their branches. She thought the trees looked pretty. “What’s wrong with manchineel trees?”
“Death,” Ma Harris said, sitting down in front of Esti. She spoke slowly, her voice solemn. “Taste dey fruit, you die from you stomach. Burn dey wood, dey smoke kill you lung. Sit under dey branch, dey sap eat you skin. Dey be poison, dem.”
Esti looked back at the cay with a startled shudder. Now that Domino had silenced the engine, she heard disturbing noises from the island, a faint drumming interspersed with eerie, whispery wails. The rumors couldn’t possibly be true, she thought firmly. There was no such thing as a ghost.
“When people set dey foot to Manchineel Cay,” Ma Harris continued, “dey always meet dey maker. Is death, for true. Jumbee haunt dis cay, an’ some jumbee dem cause dey sour mischief on Cariba. Now . . .” Her eyes pierced Esti. “I know you does talk to a jumbee.”
Esti felt her face heat up. “I don’t believe in jumbees,” she finally said.
Ma Harris stared at her. “You don’ believe in zombie dem?”
Zombies? Wide-eyed, Esti shook her head.
“I tell you someting,” Ma Harris said softly. “
Zumbi
fetish from old Congo is bad magic, use by vex slave. Yeah, I tell you someting about Cariba Island. Slave work to death by dey owner, cast many evil curse. De jumbee is powerful danger—angry dead spirit who haunt Manchineel Cay and suck away you soul with dey voice.” She narrowed her eyes. “Zombie dem.”

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