Goodbye, Joanne.
I take the leap.
My mind panics as soon as the cold water closes over me, and it is a struggle to stay calm. I push through the water, trying to get as much distance as possible before I come up for breath, but I don’t last long. Something latches itself around my toe, and I scream out, taking in a mouthful of salt water. I break the surface and suck in the air, making gasping, sobbing sounds, then yank the thing from my toe—it’s only seaweed.
While I inhale and exhale, trying to get hold of myself, the tide pulls me farther from the rock. I breathe in as much air as I can and dive again.
This time, I am much calmer, and I shine the flashlight forward. I can see the rock ahead. It is so large I can’t see the bottom of it.
My lungs start to burn, and I am about to surface when I hear a foreign tune.
Mariss.
My fear seems to burn the little oxygen I have left, and I scramble up for air. As soon as my head breaks the surface, the sound disappears. I take in another deep breath, but before I can dive again, a wave covers my head.
I flail underwater for a bit before regaining my form, and swim toward the sound. There is a large opening in the rock, and I head toward it, the sound getting louder and louder.
The edges of the rocks are sharp, and I struggle to swim through the opening without brushing its sides. My foot hits against a pointy rock, and I can’t help but gulp in pain. Salt water rushes down my throat.
I need air!
I don’t know how long the tunnel is, but I swim harder, the pressure from my lungs overshadowing the pain from hitting the jagged rock. I am about to burst when the space widens, and I’m able to swim upward.
My lungs are on fire! I kick my legs hard and push my arms through the water.
Just when I think I can go no farther, my nose breaks the surface. I can breathe! I spend a few seconds coughing and taking in precious air.
When I regain my senses, I realize I’m in a large cave. Unlike the tunnel, the cave walls are smooth and crystal blue, similar to glass that has been sanded down and varnished. The stalactites are pure white, like oblong, jagged teeth, and a warm glow radiates from the beehive-shaped stalagmites on the cave floor.
It makes no sense! A cave in the middle of a rock? Mariss’s echo is gentle here, much softer than outside the rock. It’s like the walls are absorbing most of the sound.
I pull myself out of the water, and the heat of the cave encircles me, like I’m sitting in front of a warm bonfire. The salt water has already washed the vapor rub from my skin. Ahkai was right; my first line of defense is gone and I haven’t even faced Mariss yet.
The stalagmites form a path around the corner, like fairy lights in a garden. I follow the way, careful not to touch any of the structures in case they set off some kind of magical alarm.
I turn the corner and almost walk off the short ledge. Down below, sitting on a giant rock shaped like an ice cream cone in the middle of a crystal-blue-green pool, is Mariss.
Her afro is as big as a sea fan. A white mesh cloth floats around her body, even though there is no wind in the cave. The brass spiral pendant is larger than ever, almost covering her entire upper torso.
I jump back around the corner, bend low to the ground, and take another peek.
“Come,” hisses Mariss. My heart leaps.
She’s seen me!
But Daddy steps out of the shadows. I have to stop myself from screaming out his name. He’s alive! His eyes are focused on Mariss, and his face is still, like it’s carved from rock. He is shirtless, and the spiral mark on his chest glows. Mariss starts to sing again, low at first, but the higher her voice gets, the brighter the mark shines.
Mariss throws her head back and spreads her arms wide. The water starts to ripple, and then dozens of lionfish leap out of the water, their venomous brown-and-yellow needle spines making large splashes.
She reaches the climax of the song, and the spiral pendant starts to wiggle. I know what is coming next, but I’m still not prepared when the black-and-gold snake bursts from the pendant and slithers around her shoulders. It’s at least four times bigger than the one that attacked me and Ahkai in the bedroom. The snake still doesn’t detach itself from Mariss, and I realize the end of the snake’s tail is buried inside her chest.
It’s a part of her …
I remember the spiral pendant I wore around my neck. What if a snake is inside me? I suppress the urge to vomit.
The snake wraps itself around Mariss’s neck, and its forked tongue darts out against her face. She caresses its head like it’s a newborn baby.
Then, Mariss’s eyes turn bright yellow. The skin along the side of her face starts to shrivel, like the bottom of a lit cigarette, until the skin turns into glittering green-and-blue scales along her cheeks. The transformation continues along her body, covering her breasts and down the sides of her upper torso.
It’s mesmerizing and terrifying all at once.
Her legs seem to melt into each other like hot wax, and then they twist into a thick snake form with black-and-gold diagonal stripes, with the tail hanging off the rock and swinging from side to side. She shines like she’s been doused in olive oil.
I stare in horror at the sight in front of me, a scream building in my throat. Mariss sings a different tune—like the one she sang to Ahkai—and Daddy starts to walk toward her. As he gets near the pool, the fish grow still and seem to form a row for him to walk through.
“Daddy!” I cry out. He stops walking. Although his face doesn’t change expression, his hanging arms twitch, so I believe he’s heard me.
Mariss snaps her head around. “Josie Sweets!”
The snake around her neck uncurls itself and turns to me, its tongue flicking in my direction.
“If I had known you were coming, I would have made myself more presentable.” She stresses the “s” in “presentable” and pats her afro.
“Please,” I beg, my voice cracking. I swallow and try again. “Please, Mariss, please don’t hurt him.”
“What more you want from me, Josephine?” Mariss’s yellow eyes flash brighter. “He accepted my gift. That was his choice, but you see …” she says, wagging her finger. The snake mimics her motion with its head. “This is what I get for being too generous. I was patient and let him put you first—I get it, you’re as damaged as he was. But then he had the nerve to brush me aside for another woman!”
“But he didn’t!” I cry, but she ignores me, looking at Daddy like he’s a piece of gray slime at the bottom of a dirty bucket.
“Come!” she demands, and Daddy moves closer to the edge of the pool.
“No!” I try to climb down but my foot slips on the rocks. I roll to the bottom, hitting my head on the gravelly floor.
My vision is blurred for a few seconds. I touch my forehead and wince. A trickle of blood runs down from the gash.
“Please, Daddy’s done nothing wrong,” I beg in a weak voice.
“Nothing? Nothing!” Mariss rants. “I gave him everything—wealth, health, spoiled him with love! I saved his life! And as soon as he’s satisfied he tells me he’s sorry I have to leave? Men are so ungrateful, and this one almost had me fooled.”
“Wait—no,” I protest, but Mariss is lost in anger. One eager lionfish breaks from the row and flips into the air.
“When he called out to me he had nothing. His pain consumed him! I could taste it in his blood. He hated his life.”
I hate my life.
I’m bowled over by memories of me scratching the “J” into the silk cotton tree on Coconut Hill with the rock, the drop of blood seeping into the silk cotton tree’s bark, and my scream of pain and frustration. If Miss Mo is right, and spirits live in that silk cotton tree, then I may have released Mariss when I cut into it.
“Oh no,” I whisper.
I shake my head, hoping it’s not true, but all the evidence is right there in front of me. Daddy had his fang nightmare the same day I cut into the tree, a
nd Mariss appeared the next day. How jittery Mariss acted when she was near the silk cotton tree. Her outrage for animals trapped in cages—like she knew what it felt like to be trapped. It all leads back to the tree, and I was too selfish and distracted to notice.
“Please, wait!” I push myself up, then a sharp pain in my knee brings me back to the ground.
Daddy steps inside the pool. It’s about a foot deep. The excited lionfish break the surface again, this time opening their mouths in silent screams. Their toxic spines glisten with poison, ready to paralyze Daddy so that even as the water floods his lungs, he won’t be able to move a muscle.
Mariss starts singing again, and the snake moves down to her chest and curls up between her breasts.
It’s all my fault.
I did this. I’m responsible for bringing Mariss into my home, and I have to be the one to make things right.
I force myself up on one knee and then drag my body to its feet. “No, you could taste it in my blood! It was me! I released you from the tree!”
There is a chilling silence.
Mariss’s eyes widen and fade to a milky yellow. The lionfish grow still in the water and Daddy stops wading through the pool.
I pull the white ribbon from my hair and press it against the cut on my forehead, then stumble close to the edge of the water, keeping the weight off the bad knee, and throw the ribbon in her direction. Of course, the ribbon falls into the pool. Mariss makes a gesture with her finger, and a bubble forms around the bloodstained cloth. I watch, openmouthed, as the bubble with the ribbon rises into the air and floats toward her.
She plucks the ribbon from the bubble and inhales.
Mariss shrieks and her eyes flash again—this time they’re bright red.
I wince as I drop to my knees, and words tumble out like I’m at confession, spilling out all my sins faster than fish guts can fall from a bucket.
“And I was the one who forced him to dance with Miss Alleyne at the wedding. He didn’t want to! And he told me he really wanted things to work out between the two of you, and I didn’t let him. And he didn’t even go to the hospital to visit Miss Alleyne ’cause he knew you’d be upset. And I’m the one who lied and said you were leaving. He didn’t want you to go! It was all me! I’m so sorry!”
I take a breath. So, I stretched the truth at the end, but who cares. I need to save my daddy.
“I should kill you,” Mariss says, crushing the ribbon in her hand. The snake lifts its head higher in the air and sways to a silent rhythm.
I remember Mrs. Edgecombe saying a Sea Mumma takes cares of those who worship her. Maybe I can appeal to Mariss’s better nature.
“Just please, let my daddy go,” I beg again. “He loved you! He told me so all the time. He said you were—you were—you were the best thing that ever happened to him. You were like—like—dumplings in his soup!”
I wish I had more experience sucking up.
Mariss stares at me for a few seconds, then her eyes fade from red to white. The snake settles itself around her shoulders.
“Very well.”
I let out a strangled sob and rush into the pool before she changes her mind. The water almost melts my skin. I pull on Daddy’s hand but he’s like a wall.
“Leave!” Mariss commands, and her eyes flash. The mark burns like fire on Daddy’s chest. His body relaxes, and I’m finally able to move him. I put his arm around my shoulder and guide him out of the pool.
“Where are you going?” Mariss’s menacing tone makes the hair on my arms stand up. “We agreed your daddy could leave … not you. A sacrifice must be made.”
My heart drops to my feet, and my throat goes dry. I don’t want to risk arguing and anger her even more. My mind races, trying to think of a plan to get me out of this, but I come up with nothing. I won’t ever see my home again, Ahkai, Miss Mo, never bowl another cricket ball or taste another nutmeg pancake … it’s too horrible to accept, but I don’t have a choice. I need to take responsibility.
I kiss Daddy’s arm before removing it from my shoulder.
“I love you, Daddy. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
I turn to Mariss, accepting my fate. Mariss looks down at me with her smug expression and strokes the snake. She starts to hum, and its forked tongue darts out, licking her finger.
Daddy takes three steps forward, wobbles on the fourth, and then stops walking.
I’m worried that he’s trapped in his silent space till I see his fingers fold into a fist.
He’s fighting it!
“Leave, Daddy!” I yell in frustration. I try to push him from the water.
Mariss’s pitch gets higher and higher, and the snake around her twists like a rubber band, but Daddy only twitches, never moving from the spot.
Mariss drops off in mid-note with a snarl. “Clearly he does not want to go.”
“No, wait!” I cry. “H-He doesn’t want to leave you, not me.” But she doesn’t buy it.
“Enough lies!” Her face is bent in fury. “I ain’ got time for this!”
Through the clear water, the lionfish work like a pack of wolves, surrounding Daddy. Their mouths open and close, as if asking Mariss for permission to strike.
In a desperate move, I pull the Epsom salts from my bag.
“You and this salt thing again?” Mariss laughs.
Ignoring her, I rip the bag open and fling the salts as far as I can. The crystals scatter in the pool like hard droplets of rain, and the lionfish suck some of the particles into their mouths.
Mariss slowly slithers her snake body down the rock, her torso still upright. “Sorry, Josie Sweets, but I gave you too many chances to—”
Mariss pauses and looks down into the water.
The lionfish are twisting and swimming about in a circle. White worms slide out from under their back fins. As they wriggle, the worms get longer and longer, and then I realize they aren’t worms. If those fish could talk, they would scream the same terrible noises that Ahkai’s cousin made in the bathroom.
Mariss hisses and slithers up the rock before the water can touch the fish scales on her upper body. Just like at the zoo, her nose and mouth extend, and she bares her fangs at me.
I rush out of the water and try to yank Daddy from the pool, but he’s too heavy.
“Impetus!” Mariss hisses, and the snake rises into an “S” shape. It catapults forward, detaching itself from her shiny scales and leaving a small, dark hole between her breasts. The snake lands in the pool, and its wriggling body cuts through the water toward us.
“Daddy, please,” I plead. I have no weapon to defend myself, and the snake is almost on us.
As Mariss cackles, pink, raw flesh moves up and down across the hole, like a blinking eye in the middle of her chest.
I close my eyes and clasp my hands to pray for a miracle. Something sharp pokes my hand.
Ahkai’s lucky charm.
The snake shoots out of the water like a missile. Its fangs are long and pointy enough to shred my entire face. There’s no doubt about it; it’s going for the kill.
Time slows as I look at the pronged end of the hummingbird’s tail, and then at the small hole in Mariss’s chest. I get a flash of inspiration born out of pure terror.
I pop the wooden pendant from the chain and grip it between two fingers. I have one shot.
Focus. Precision. Speed.
Mariss is still consumed with laughter when I release the hummingbird from my grip. I watch as it hurtles through the air, and then I shield my face from the snake with my arm.
I have the pleasure of seeing the hummingbird meet its target, its tail sinking right into the hole in Mariss’s chest, just as the snake plunges its fangs into my hand.
We both cry out at the same time. She yanks the hummingbird from the hole, and a string of yellow goo shoots out from her chest. I watch as Mariss falls back behind the rock, before I drop to the ground.
The snake forces its fangs farther into my hand. My fear is greater than the
actual pain of the bite; it feels like two needles are being slammed into my flesh.
Something jerks the snake away from me. I look up to see Daddy, crushing the snake with a large rock. He hits it over and over again like a man possessed.
There is no sign of Mariss. We need to escape before she recovers.
“Daddy!” I shout, and he looks at me with wild eyes. I try to stand, but my body doesn’t respond. Daddy rushes over to me. I don’t know if it’s the venom, but a feeling of satisfaction sweeps over me, and I get the urge to sleep.
“We gotta stop the bleeding!” Daddy cries out in alarm and tries to rip a piece of his jeans off with his bare hands.
I remember Mum’s handkerchief in my back pocket. I never took it out.
She’s been with me the whole time …
“Pocket,” I mumble. It comes out sounding like “ploplack,” but Daddy still understands. He searches my back pocket and pulls out Mariss’s blackened comb. I forgot all about it! I open my mouth to tell him to return it, but my tongue feels as if it weighs ten pounds. I shift my eyes from the comb to the pool.
Daddy nods, and with a bowling action worth a place on any cricket team, he hurls the comb back into the blue-green water.
It’s over …
I close my eyes, eager to finally get a good night’s sleep.
“Bean, stay awake,” Daddy urges. “Stay with me.” He finds the handkerchief and ties it around my hand. Then he lifts me in his arms, climbing back up the rocks like he’s some sort of gymnast.
Soon, I feel the coolness of water around me.
“ ’Old your breath, okay, Bean? Just like I taught you,” Daddy says before diving into the water.
Somehow, he manages to get me through that narrow tunnel without even one bruise from the jagged rocks, but pain cuts through my body as soon as we break the surface. I gasp in agony and take in a breath at the same time, just before a gigantic wave crashes down on top of us.
Josephine Against the Sea Page 17