A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars

by Yaba Badoe

  A JIGSAW OF FIRE AND STARS

  Yaba Badoe

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.headofzeus.com

  About A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars

  Sante was a baby when she was washed ashore in a sea-chest laden with treasures. It seems she is the sole survivor of the tragic sinking of a ship carrying migrants and refugees. Her people.

  Fourteen years on she’s a member of Mama Rose’s unique and dazzling circus. But, from their watery grave, the unquiet dead are calling Sante to avenge them.

  A bamboo flute.

  A golden bangle.

  A ripening mango which must not fall...

  If Sante is to find the missing pieces of the jigsaw which tells their story and her own.

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Acknowledgements

  About Yaba Badoe

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Copyright

  For you, Papa. Always.

  1

  There’s only one thing makes any sense when I wake from my dream. I’m a stranger and shouldn’t be here. Should my luck run out, a black-booted someone could step on me and crush me, as if I’m worth less than an ant. This I know for a fact. And yet once or twice a week, the dream seizes me and shakes me about:

  ‘Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Take their treasure!’ The order goes out and a dilapidated trawler in a stormy sea shudders. An iron-grey vessel, lights blazing, rams it a second time. The iron monster backs away, then with engines at full throttle, lunges again.

  Faces contort. Old ones, young ones, men and women, brown and black faces. Screams punch through the air. Fishing nets tangle, spill over. A fuel tank explodes and the sea glows, roiling with blood and oil.

  Below deck, a stench like an over-ripe mango oozes from a crouched woman. She shrieks: ‘My baby! My baby! Save my baby!’

  A tall man responds with a command: ‘The sea-chest. Fetch our treasure. Quickly. For the child’s sake. Move.’

  A figure tumbles into the sea. Then an old man, a girl in his arms, leaps. A deafening jumble of sound and sea swallows the cries of the drowning. The slip-slip-patter of bare feet on galley stairs ascend. Anxious eyes flit in faces bright with fear in the flame-light.

  The hand of the tall man pummels a pillow of yellow dust, then a footrest filled with glittering stones for the baby’s feet. Someone folds a cloth, a fine tapestry of blue and green, into a blanket.

  ‘Give her this,’ says a burly, bald-headed man. ‘My dagger to help her in battle. May the child be a princess, a true warrior, valiant in the face of danger yet merciful to those she defeats.’

  ‘May your spear arm be strong, my daughter,’ the tall man adds. ‘Your legs swift as a gazelle’s, and your heart the mighty heart of a lioness protecting her cubs.’

  The petrified woman scribbles a note and hides it beneath the pillow, whispering a prayer. ‘May our ancestors watch over you, my child. May the creator of all life guide you and make you wily in the ways of the world we are sending you to.’

  The grey vessel, a trail of carnage in its wake, surges forwards with a splutter of gunfire. Bullets splinter the deck, tearing it open, and the trawler erupts in flames.

  The tall man grabs the baby and bundles her into the chest. He holds it aloft and flings it into the sea. It lurches and almost capsizes. The baby gurgles, entranced by the rough play of water as a wave steadies her boat. She smiles, a jigsaw of fire and stars reflected in her eyes, and she stretches a dimpled hand to touch the moon.

  Burning timber from the trawler’s bow crashes down and splashes the baby’s face. Enchanted by flying embers, she coos. But when the sobs of the dying reach her, and waves stifle their gasps, she begins to whimper.

  And, flung to and fro, bobs up and down, crying in the night.

  2

  It took me a while to realise the baby was me. Even now, when I wake in a sweat, chest heaving, hands clammy, and Cobra tells me to relax – I’m just having another nightmare – I still can’t quite believe it’s me in the water.

  What I know to be true is that, for as long as I can remember, we’ve been on the move: Cat, Cobra and me. We roam from place to place, spending more time in the spaces in between than in the cities. Yet when I wake up frightened and confused, all it takes is Priss to hiss in my ear, to twist my hair around and make a nest of it, to calm me.

  It’s thanks to Priss that I’ve figured out as much as I have. The first time I tore myself out of that dream and found enough words on my tongue to tell her about it, she suspected who I was straightaway, because she knows what happened next.

  She found me in the water. There was a mist next morning. One of those whirling sea-fog days that makes it hard to tell where shoreline begins and sea ends. A sort of blurring where time seems to stop. It was like that when Priss, flying beneath a cloud, sees this big chest. She sees it, then hears a baby crying. Swoops to take a closer look. Lands on me, almost tipping me over, so tries again.

  Second time round, she steadies herself, and settles just below my feet. Talons scratch me and I squeal. She could tell I needed feeding, ’cause after I squeal, I start shrieking louder than a banshee. Priss doesn’t know what do. She’s a bird, a bright golden eagle. Eats rabbits and rats, and, when she’s lucky, small flying creatures on the wing. There’s a whole heap of things she can eat. Could have eaten a baby, I suppose. Fact remains she liked the look of me: black face, big eyes. Just couldn’t figure out how to feed me. So she brushes a golden wing over my face. The musty scent of her feathers, the soft swish and tickle of their kiss, quieten me.

  There are two of us now, Priss and me in the chest, as it drifts to the shore. The tide recedes, wedging us on a slipstream of seaweed. Priss watches over me while, rattled by hunger, I cry myself to sleep.

  A little later, a spaniel scampers up the beach and starts sniffing around the chest. Priss squawks, flapping her wings. She’s so fierce the dog cringes and scrambles away. I wake up and begin to howl.

  The owner of the dog hears me, a fat giant of a woman. Black hair, rosy cheeks, hands as wide as a bat’s wing. The dog leaps ahead of her and she follows, flipper feet pounding the shore.

  Priss won’t let anyone touch me. She just won’t let ’em. Scraps with the dog, screeches at the woman. But the woman inches closer: ‘Easy, my pretty. What have you got there? Easy, girl…’

  By now I’m busting a gut with my howling, and because she’s beginning to understand just how hungry I am, Priss yields. Hopping from one foot to the other, she stays close. Says she would have pecked out their eyes, the woman and the dog’s, plucked them out and eaten ’em just like that, if they’d hurt me.

  The woman lifts me up: ‘Little one,’ she says. ‘My precious…’

  Her dark, pebbled eyes loom over
me. Sticky-out ears, stringy hair. She’s no beauty, but Priss can see she cares. I stop crying as she holds me tight to her chest, the way mothers are supposed to. And when I snuffle up against her and dive down, rummaging for breast, something to suck on to take away the ache in my belly, Priss can see she was right to let her come near. I need to feed.

  Not yet. The woman wants to know more.

  ‘Quiet now,’ she says. And slinging me over her shoulder, patting me all the while, stoops to inspect my sea-chest cradle.

  She fingers the blue-green blanket, savours the silky-smooth waft and weft of its weave. Finds a dagger, a leopard-skin drum. Beside the drum, a thin bamboo flute. Then she lifts the pillow and sees the note. Reads it. Looks inside the pillow and her mouth opens wide. ‘Buttercups and daisies,’ she says. ‘Well, I never! Who would have thought it, Mama Rose? Who would believe it?’

  She drags the chest into a patch of tall grass and hides it. Takes me home and Priss follows. Won’t let me out of her sight, not for a moment. It’s been like that ever since.

  Before I had memory, I had Priss.

  She was with me before my dreams began.

  And before I landed on the seashore and Mama Rose took me in, there was Cobra and Cat.

  3

  They don’t look like me. None of ’em do. Cat and Cobra are brown skins. Brown, the colour of wheat burning in the midday sun, green eyes vivid as beech leaves in water. Long-limbed, they walk tall, black hair cut short, slicked up in spikes. Twins, Mama Rose calls them. ‘Found them in the forest,’ she says. ‘Would have turned out wilder than polecats if I hadn’t fed and clothed them. Same goes for you, Sante,’ she tells me.

  Today, soon as we wake, Mama Rose says: ‘Clean up, you three. We hit the road in an hour. Should reach the city in two. And by evening, if we’re lucky, we’ll be back in clover.’

  ‘Back in clover’ is her way of saying we need money. A lot of it: dinero, pasta, rupees. I know the slang for money in fifteen different languages, the word for police in twenty. Just as well, ’cause getting back in clover usually means trouble.

  I sigh. Guzzle a hunk of bread, boil water for the Old Ones to drink, and use what’s left over to splash my face clean. Then I lure Taj Mahal, our horse, into his trailer and we pack up. Put the cast-iron pot in the back of the truck with Mama Rose’s silver spoons, tin plates for us, a bone china one for Mama; the very last one.

  I stamp out the embers of the fire and jump in the front of the truck with Cat. Mama Rose is at the wheel, Cobra behind. Redwood and Bizzie Lizzie, Midget Man and Mimi – the rest of our crew – bring up the rear, while straight ahead Priss blazes a trail on a hot current of wind.

  The way I am with her, I can almost feel the wind whistling through her feathers. What she sees she tells me with tremors of her wing, an upward jerk of her beak, a dip of her head. Beyond the fir trees are rolling hills of olive groves, silver leaves whispering to the breeze. And in the far distance, fields of sunflowers clamour at the sun. We’re in the foothills of southern Spain, on our way to the city of Cádiz to ply our trade.

  We’re travellers. Not your usual kind of travellers. I mean, we’re not tourists or hippy-dippy types or anything. Nothing like that. We’re travellers with an itch to camp in out of the way places. We live off the grid as much as possible, ’cause the Old Ones and Priss like to breathe clean country air and do things their way. No interference from black-boots. No electricity, no gas bills. No tax to pay. No computers, television or phones. Hand-me-down clothes when we need ’em from thrift shops. Makes us hardy. Survivors. ‘Prepared for every eventuality,’ Redwood says.

  Redwood, our teacher, is a Harvard man. The son of a preacher, he knows the ins and outs and contradictions of the Bible and other holy books better than the back of his hand. Took to the road on principle: ‘The way the world’s going, kid, best to be roving with the sun on our faces, a fair wind behind us.’

  Mama Rose is the same. Used to be rich but gave away a fortune to travel. ‘Best keep to ourselves,’ is her mantra as well. ‘Live free, forever free!’

  Fine words when there’s a warm wind behind us. But on cold days when my bones are rattling, I’m like a bird that’s hurt its wing. How can I fly free and know where I’m heading when I haven’t a clue where I come from?

  We tend to stay out of sight until we need to stock up on food and diesel, then we become circus folk: freaks with a mission to entertain. Mama Rose has webbed hands and mermaid feet. Redwood swears he’s the Tallest Man on Earth, Midget Man the smallest. Claim their wives are the tallest and smallest too.

  Cobra, Cat and me weren’t born different like they were: eight fingers, two thumbs, ten toes. We’re the regular shape and height for youngsters our age. I may be a bit on the scrawny side, but even though Cobra and Cat are bigger than me, I’m catching up fast.

  Spain’s hot. Hotter than France where we travelled last summer, but cooler than Greece. Had to get out of Greece fast.

  I look at Priss in the sky to shake off the memory, but before I can blink it away, it has me in its claws and I hear them yelling: ‘Parasites! Gypsies! Scroungers!’

  Black-booted men, mouths twisted in fury, pursue us: ‘Go back where you came from! Get away from here!’

  I shiver, remembering their blurred faces, the venom in their eyes.

  Mama Rose shoved me in the back of the truck while Midget Man bellowed: ‘We work for our living, we do! We work hard, just like you!’

  Didn’t stop ’em hating us. Didn’t stop ’em chasing us out of town.

  Ignorance, Mama Rose calls it. Redwood puts it down to fear and superstition, human tendencies that flourish in the worst of times when folk have to rummage for food in the rubbish.

  Maybe so. Didn’t stop my ribs hurting or ease the pain in my heart one little bit.

  I keep my eyes on Priss as she swoops through a patch of cloud, then lingers, slip-sliding between shafts of air spiked with pine.

  ‘Wish we lived in one place all the time,’ I say. ‘Wish we didn’t have to keep travelling.’

  ‘Me too!’ Cat puts her arm around me and opens a side window to let in the fragrance.

  It’s early morning, the sky clear and blue. Already hot inside and out, the secret scent of forest soothes me. Soothes Cat as well. In a twinkling she’s dreaming of running water and lights, clean clothes and bread. I can tell, for I hear the splash of water on her skin, feel her teeth and taste buds craving a bite of fresh bread. Would give anything for a few days of easy living. She knows I know what she’s thinking ’cause she smiles her special smile: a twitch at the edge of her mouth, eyes squeezed almost shut.

  I grin and Cobra grunts: ‘Want to stay in the city, do you?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Countryside would be as good. I just want to stay put.’

  ‘Me too,’ says Cat. I nod the same time she does.

  ‘And what would you do if those black-boots come after us again? If the police take a shine to us and find us out?’

  ‘Thank you, Cobra,’ says Mama Rose, smiling at him in the mirror.

  Cobra’s the good one. Cautious, looks out for me. Holds my hand when I’m freaked out. Lets me snuggle up against him at night, then folds me in his arms. While Cat likes to hiss and spit and scratch.

  ‘We should be fine,’ I tell Cobra. ‘We’ve got proper passports now. The best. And since Mama Rose adopted us on paper, we don’t have to keep running. Could stay in one place. Be a proper family. A real family.’

  ‘After what happened in Greece?’ he says. ‘Count me out, Sante.’

  ‘Thank you again, Cobra.’ Mama Rose smiles at him a second time.

  I ignore ’em and so does Cat.

  We travel in convoy down a mountain road, through pine and cork oak forests, over hills covered with olive groves. Once we’ve seen the last of the olives, Mama Rose accelerates and heads south with Priss still ahead of us.

  Two hours later, her foot slams on the brake and the truck comes to a halt. ‘Remember the
drill?’ Mama Rose says.

  Priss flies to settle on my gauntlet-covered hand. Licks the lobe of my ear with the tip of a feather and blinks at what I’m staring at. Way down on the coast is a silver city of white-washed houses and a gold-domed cathedral. In the late afternoon haze it looks like an ornate bowl of candied fruit rising from the sea. A dazzling bowl that whispers: ‘Come closer. Taste me. Take a bite out of me.’ A spasm of fear sizzles the tips of my fingers.

  ‘The drill,’ Mama Rose says again.

  I tear my eyes away from where we’re heading.

  ‘Stay close,’ Cobra mumbles.

  ‘Don’t stare,’ Cat.

  ‘What else, Sante?’ Mama Rose turns, peering at me, as if I’m still a baby and can’t remember a thing.

  ‘Stay alert and if anyone’s rude, never chat back, especially to a policeman.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Never listen to their thoughts. Never delve deep. Never. Ever.’

  ‘Good. We don’t want a repeat of what happened in Greece, do we?’ she says.

  I try to laugh but can’t. None of us can.

  I answered a question too soon; answered before a black-boot asked it.

  He was thinking it through, about to place words on his tongue, when I jumped in first. Caused a riot. Men ran after us, thumped Redwood and Mama Rose, smashed the truck windows. Almost got us trampled on because of the way I am.

  Mama Rose is forever saying, ‘Everyone has a special talent.’ Cobra’s good with snakes. Can charm them out of trees, make ’em slither around him, then glide over his body. Cat can do just about anything with knives – knives, spears and arrows, bits of flint, even needles. She’s a thrower. I’m a juggler. I know how to sing and dance, walk on wire, turn somersaults, do back-flips on Taj Mahal. But I’m a mind-whisperer as well. Seems tuning in to people’s thoughts and catching the fizz and whirl of what’s deep inside ’em is what I do best. Problem is, last time I was caught using my talent they called me a witch, and Cobra and Cat devil’s spawn. I’m not sure which is more insulting. Shouldn’t care really. But clear as the day is bright and stars shine at night, I know for a fact: if I mess up again, those black-boots will be on to us.