Island of a Thousand Springs

by Sarah Lark

  She decided to take a look at the women in the slave quarters for their suitability as housemaids in the near future, so that Mansah could get back to her mother’s side as soon as possible. But then someone came by to talk to Adwea.

  Nora wasn’t deliberately listening this time, but Máanu’s angry voice was hard to miss from her garden pavilion. The girl argued loudly with her mother. Curious, Nora left her garden house and went up to the terrace above the kitchen to listen.

  “Not Mansah! She should stay in the kitchen; that was agreed upon! She will be a cook, not … Mama Adwe, you can’t tolerate this! Not Mansah!”

  “What should I do, Máanu? Go against Backra?”

  Adwea’s voice did not sound as upset as other times when she occasionally quarreled with her daughter. She seemed rather desperate and resigned.

  “You must be able to do something. Just don’t send her into the house. Ask the Missis if she can send you a few field niggers into the house, it can’t be difficult to teach them how to polish furniture. But do not let Mansah out of your sight! Not Mansah, Mama Adwe! Not Mansah!”

  “And if demands it? If wants? Is nothing that we can do, Máanu, nothing at all …”

  Adwea’s voice sounded choked and alarm bells went off in Nora’s head. It didn’t sound as if Máanu was upset because a maid was a subordinate position to a cook. It sounded more like she was afraid for her sister. And it didn’t seem to be any different for Adwea. So, this was about the man who had abused Sally. One of the house servants? One who had access to the girls when Adwea couldn’t watch? But the women surely would have told on a black man. With a sickening wave of understanding, she realized that it must be a white man … only two white men lived in this house.

  Should she just send for Máanu? The girl had to talk now — Nora would outright tell her of her suspicions. But now she first had to calm down. She decided to speak with Máanu in the evening. Until then, she could consider how to tell Doug. If she could tell Doug. And what there was to do.

  Nora spent the day feeling extremely tense and couldn’t get even a bite down at dinner. Elias didn’t notice it and Doug looked at her with concern until she eventually excused herself on account of sickness.

  “I’ll just go upstairs and lie down,” she said, with a strangely tortured smile. “Adwea should send Máanu up to help me. I do not feel very well.” It wasn’t even much of a lie. Nora felt like she would choke if she sat at the table with Elias any longer.

  When there was a knocking at her door, however, it was not Máanu, but Mansah instead. The girl curtsied dutifully.

  “Mama Adwe says I help Missis. Máanu don’t feel good.”

  Nora furrowed her brow. Was she supposed to believe that now? Late that afternoon, Máanu seemed completely healthy. On the other hand, Máanu couldn’t have known that she was planning to question her again today. So, maybe something else came up that seemed important enough to the girl to skip out on her duties. Nora considered whether she should insist on Máanu’s appearance despite the little substitute. But then she had a better idea. It was not important to speak with Máanu right away and this way she could protect Mansah for the evening.

  “That is fine, help me take my hair down,” she asked the girl. “And then fetch me a glass of warm milk from the kitchen and bring your sleeping mat with you. I would like you to stay here tonight, so that you can take care of me if I need anything.”

  Mansah nodded obediently and then went cheerfully to work. The little one clearly felt important as a substitute for her big sister and tried to be as professional as possible with Nora’s hair and her clothes. Nora kept patiently quiet, even though it hurt when the girl combed her hair, but Mansah’s cheerful voice made up for it. In contrast to Máanu’s constant grumpiness as of late, Mansah chatted spiritedly, and even nearly managed to cheer up her mistress. Especially the next morning, when the sun shone into the room, Mansah’s good mood almost dispelled the shadows of the dark notions that Nora had been struggling with since the previous day. It simply couldn’t be that someone was just waiting to harm this pretty, spirited child! Not a normal man like Elias in any case. It could be no less than a monster, an ogre, a mad man. Nora agonized about where such a man could be lurking. She absolutely had to talk to Máanu.

  However, the maid did not appear for Nora’s morning “office hours” in the slave quarters, but instead Mansah came again. Although she found her escort quite a pleasure to be around, Nora was slowly growing impatient. When she returned, she went to Adwea.

  The cook looked frightened. “I know that Máanu … bad girl, not do duties. But she no feel good, Missis, is sick, is—”

  Nora shook her head. “Adwea, if Máanu were sick, she would have had to report to me this morning. But as it appears now, she has neglected her obligations.”

  The fieldworkers had to report to their overseers every morning, and only those whose ailments Nora had confirmed were reluctantly excused. The house servants and stable boys were not so strictly managed, since they were mainly watched over by just Kwadwo or Adwea. If the latter excused a kitchen maid, Nora usually didn’t look into it, since the cook also had an understanding of healing herbs and nursing the sick. But the issue with Máanu was still suspicious.

  “She is … is …ashamed. But tomorrow she is definitely—”

  “Was she with the baarm madda?” Nora asked, surprised. The operation to remove an unwanted child was the only reason to be ashamed of an ailment. But Máanu … Nora was now very sensitive to signs of pregnancy. She had already addressed it early and cautioned black women about it several times. Sometimes they no longer dared to have the child killed if the mistress knew about it.

  If they were caught, they could expect harsh punishments and the planters would make use of crude measures before hand and stop the women on their way to the baarm madda. However, Nora had never betrayed a slave to Elias. And Máanu didn’t remotely look like she was expecting a baby. Adwea then spontaneously nodded her head to then enthusiastically accept the excuse.

  “Yes, Missis. How Missis know? Oh, please no tell Backra Elias, Missis, or else he will have her whipped. Tomorrow she is back, Missis, surely, Missis …”

  Nora didn’t believe a single word, but now suspected that Máanu’s disappearance had something to do with the conversation that she had had with her mother about Mansah.

  “Adwea, does this have something to do with Sally?” She finally asked. “With what happened to her? Does it have to do with Mansah?”

  She was horrified at the thought that Máanu might have even resorted going to the monster herself in order to protect her little sister.

  Adwea was turning red and she began to sweat, but denied it vehemently.

  “What should it have to do, Missis? Sally dead. Mansah with Missis …”

  “Is Máanu in danger, Adwea?” Nora pressed her.

  Adwea shook her head wildly. “No, just sick. Tomorrow definite, tomorrow definitely back …”

  Back? Nora left the frightened cook in peace, but continued to wonder. Had Máanu gone somewhere? Was she looking for help on other plantations? An enchantment perhaps? But no, Máanu surely didn’t believe in these things. At least not enough to take the risk.

  “You think she ran away?” Doug asked when Nora told him about Máanu’s absence that afternoon. “She fled?”

  “Fled?”

  Nora hadn’t thought about that. She rode through the forest with Doug and their destination was the beach. But they certainly would not dismount and swim. Nora was still — or rather, once again — maintaining distance from her stepson. It was more difficult everyday to keep from giving into his pleading eyes. She dreamed of kissing him, holding him — and he now often enough pushed Simon out of her fantasies of the wedding night by the sea. But she felt guilty for all that. And she had also told him nothing so far of the suspicion that was eating away at her.

  “When slaves suddenly disappear, escape is generally the reason for it,” Doug said, amu
sed. “Has there been anything to induce her? Have you quarreled with her, perhaps?”

  Nora bit her tongue. “She fought with her mother,” she admitted and retold the conversation she’d overheard between Adwea and Máanu in as much detail as possible. “It sounded so urgent, Doug. As if Mansah were in mortal danger — in our house, Doug!”

  Doug frowned. “You don’t think that you misunderstood something? What would happen to her?”

  “The same thing that happened to Sally!” Nora answered. Doug rubbed his forehead.

  “But Nora, that can’t be. Máanu would have told someone if it were a house servant. And otherwise — as I said, I don’t come into question, and—”

  Nora didn’t answer, but instead stared intensely at the path where her horse was walking. The fallen trees that had lain across it after the storm were long gone. Elias had had the trunks removed and sold the valuable wood in Kingston. The landscape also no longer seemed as dead as it had shortly after the storm. From the stumps of the fallen trees and in the holes left behind by uprooted plants, new green shoots now shot up again.

  Doug shook his head adamantly. “It was not my father!” he then said with utter conviction. “You cannot mean him, that is … that is monstrous. Look, Nora, we absolutely have our differences; he can be cruel and callous. But to rape little girls … He is a human being.”

  “Then who’s doing it?” Nora replied, now looking him straight in the eyes. “Believe me, if there were a dragon coughing in the cellar, I would know. But whoever is doing it is a monster, but looks like you and I—”

  “But my father …” Doug didn’t finish his sentence.

  Nora stopped her horse and dismounted when they reached the beach. It wasn’t raining just then and they could at least take a little walk along the sea. Nora felt an urgent desire to be close to Doug.

  “Doug, I also don’t want to believe it,” she then said, while he put her arm around her as if it were completely normal. “But it has to be a white man and if it really happened in the house …”

  “Maybe it just didn’t happen in the house!” Doug argued with utter conviction. “You just misunderstood. Heaven knows what Máanu was talking about. Maybe she’s just angry that Mansah isn’t with her mother every moment of the day. That certainly robs her of the absolute protection. But she could not have meant that it is dangerous in the house. She just couldn’t have.”

  “There’s still the question of where Máanu went,” Nora said. “And what do I do if she doesn’t arrive in my rooms tomorrow. Should I report her?”

  Doug shrugged. “And other questions will be asked on top of it. The overseers certainly do have an eye on the kitchen slaves. If the girl is really gone—”

  “I could say that I gave her a few days off,” Nora considered.

  Doug looked at sternly. “So, you want to cover for her? Say that you gave her a pass or something?”

  Nora smiled. “That’s a good idea,” she then said. “Say she’s with one of the baarm maddas … hang on, Hollister is too close, but Keensley isn’t! A herbalist on the Keensley Plantation, that’s it. She could be getting some rare plants for me that don’t grow anywhere else.”

  Doug pulled Nora into his arms and she nestled up against him, happy that that he wasn’t angry with her.

  “But if they catch her?” he pointed out. “If that’s the case, then it would come out. And if it becomes known that you helped a slave escape … That’s a scandal that would rock the entire island!”

  Nora pulled away, looked at Doug, and considered whether she should tell him about Simon. But she decided against it, since she had already revealed too many secrets on this day.

  “Scandals,” she then said, “never really mattered to me.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Máanu knew that she would never find the Maroons. Even if she had known her way around the Blue Mountains, she wouldn’t be able to find the Stony River. Nonetheless, she was sure that the free blacks would capture her. The Windward Maroons were known for being extremely well-organized, and one of their scouts could be hiding behind any tree. She only wondered if she would then be brought to Granny Nanny or possibly turned in. The planters paid a substantial reward when the Maroons turned in a runaway. She could also theoretically end up in Cudjoe’s dominion or Accompong’s district.

  However, Máanu hoped with all her might that the spirits would guide her to the village and to the heart of the Ashanti Queen Nanny. She didn’t want to think about any dangers that the Maroons might pose. She had been determined to feel safer once Kingston was behind her. There were plantations surrounding the city, so she had to keep moving towards the dark, towering mountains. On the first night, she was afraid of being found, captured, and killed. An overseer patrolling, a planter returning from a visit to Kingston, a search party that was after a runaway slave — and in the very worst case, a search party that was after her. After all, Nora must have noticed her absence that very evening. If she had then informed the backra—

  But Máanu was lucky. By daybreak, the plantations were behind her and she had reached the foothills of the Blue Mountains. From there, it was all uphill. She made her way up the hills between the palms and bamboo trees, and then the land was dominated by lichens and shrubs. Máanu waded through streams and swam through rivers, but the young woman had no interest in the beauty of the mountains. She had to hurry; her mission was Mansah’s last hope. So, she pressed on towards the north and east. Portland Parish was somewhere there. Nanny Town was somewhere there.

  The Maroons found the exhausted girl on the second day. Máanu was almost happy about it, as she was tired and hungry. The few provisions that she had taken along on her hurried escape were already eaten. Nevertheless, she was startled when she suddenly heard a horn and two large black men came out from a bush.

  “Who you are? Where you going? What do you want?” The older of the two fired questions at her.

  “Máanu,” she introduced herself. “I ran away. From a plantation past Spanish Town, Cascarilla Gardens …”

  “Big plantation,” the man said and nodded. “Fortnam. Elias Fortnam.”

  Máanu nodded. “I want to go to Nanny Town. I need to speak with the queen.”

  The men laughed. “Question is if Queen want to speak with little slave girl,” the younger one sneered.

  “Just bring me there,” Máanu said resolutely. “This is Portland Parish?”

  “Island of Queen Nanny and King Quao,” the older one confirmed. “But we don’t know, you alone? Not lead hunters here? Is strange, little girl who comes alone—”

  “I’m not a little girl!” Máanu hissed. “I’m a woman, and I am here to see the queen. They say she is a baarm madda.”

  Supposedly, Granny Nanny possessed a knowledge of herbal medicine.

  They laughed again. “And you don’t have your own on plantation?” the younger one asked.

  Máanu held his gaze. “None that commands such powerful spirits!” she then said.

  “Obeah man sent you?” the older one asked, a bit confused.

  “No one sent me! Or yes. I was sent by four Duppies, four Duppies who demand revenge. They can get very angry if someone stands in their way.”

  Máanu tried to make her words as persuasive as possible, even though she didn’t think that the spirits of four little girls would hold a lot of weight. But they had successfully guided her to that point.

  “We bring you to Nanny,” the older of the men finally decided. “Let her say what she want …”

  Máanu took a sigh of relief, although she also reminded herself that the men didn’t really have much other choice. Of course, they could just let the girl wander around or even kill her, but Máanu couldn’t imagine that the watchmen from Nanny Town were sent out to the jungle with such a task. She then learned that she had nearly found the settlement on her own. She followed the men for just a half an hour on overgrown jungle paths until they reached Stony River. Máanu and her guides crossed the river in a raf
t and scaled the mountain ridge along a steep path. An attacker would have no chance here. No one could fight on the way up, as you often needed both hands to support yourself against the rock walls. Máanu was out of breath when they reached the top.

  “What now?” one of the men asked the other. “We really bring her to Queen?”

  Máanu waited patiently. The men had pretended they were important, but it was clear that they had to report any newcomers to someone. Surely they often found runaway slaves, and there was no doubt they were interrogated before they were allowed to stay and settle. Maybe Nanny and her brother Quao didn’t do it themselves, but the people who carried out such interrogations were certainly important. Máanu could tell them about her concerns.

  She was led to a house in the middle of the village. A round hut, quite different from the slave quarters on the plantations. Máanu’s hope grew. Maybe she would meet the queen. If she could just manage to also convince her. If she would only listen to the plea of a broken-down, desperate slave girl …

  Máanu’s heart was pounding, but she had to be strong. The young woman stole a glance over her left shoulder and drew comfort from the smile of a small, curly haired spirit.

  Elias Fortnam was furious when Nora finally confessed that Máanu had been missing for four days.

  “I sent her to Keensley. One of the healers there has special herbs. But then she didn’t return,” Nora condensed her story.

  “And you waited this long before telling me?” Fortnam shouted at her. “For heaven’s sake, woman, it takes a day to the Keensley Plantation. There and back!”

  “I assumed she was still with the baarm madda,” Nora made an excuse. “She doesn’t always have stores of the herbs and—”

  “And so your maid should just sit there and wait until they grow? Send her to the Keensleys’ for a plant … What grows there that doesn’t grow here? And couldn’t you just quickly send a stable boy over? Máanu is a maid, Nora, a maid! She should do your hair, keep clothing in good condition, and assist you with dressing. She is valuable, Nora, such a maid doesn’t get sent off to get herbs.” Elias angrily paced around the room.