by Eli Easton
Now here’s the thing I’ve been itching to tell you about. After Mr. Tuttle left, I went to his quarters, which consisted of three rooms in the east wing of the house. I wanted to see if he’d done any damage to the place, he was so furious when he left. The drawers of the dresser and the closet stood open and empty, and he had, indeed, wrenched the door nearly off its hinges in anger. His mattress was bare and slightly askew. Suspicious, I turned it up. The mattress rests on a wooden bed frame. On the slats, just under where his head would have rested, was a bundle that included several chicken feet, the head of a rooster, twigs and dried herbs of some malodorous variety, and the whole bound in twine splattered with dried blood.
Remember old Dr. Hodgets? He’d get so excited when he lectured on what he called “primitive beliefs” that his neck would stretch up above his collar like a tortoise. I thought of him when I saw the bundle and how his eyes would undoubtedly light up at the sight of it. How he would love to be able to explore the native practices here. They call it Obeah, and it is a type of folk magic that has its ancestry in the African slave trade. It’s illegal in Jamaica, with a penalty of whipping if you are caught, but it’s practiced all the same.
Who placed the bundle under Tuttle’s bed? One of the household staff? One of the laborers? What was its purpose? Was he supposed to sicken? Die? Be driven away? And did I, by my own actions, fulfill the curse for the curse maker?
I can see you now, Richard, smiling your indulgent smile and shaking your head at my fancifulness. Well what, then, is a former student of philosophy to think about when in a strange land? Man does not live by sugarcane alone.
To be honest, I’m uneasy here. It is hot and windy, and I feel restless in my own skin. There’s a mystery to this place, a sense of being watched, of there being things hidden just below the surface of these smiling faces. Yet truly the servants have been nothing but polite and seem relieved that Tuttle is gone. I’m on probation, I think. Should I fail to live up to their silent demands, I shall no doubt be rewarded with a bundle of my own under my mattress. Perhaps they will curse me with gout or a fit of giggles. But no matter, there shall be no need for a curse, because I am determined to turn this place around and earn my father’s permission to marry Elizabeth and get on with my life back in England.
Assuming the young Miss Elizabeth waits for me. How is she? Are you keeping an eye on her as you promised? I know I can depend on you, even though you have never been fond of her. I hope the two of you will become friends in my absence—please try, for my sake?
Your ever devoted,
Colin
~2~
Jamaica, 1870
IT WAS damn hot riding in the sun. The heat shimmered above the land as the laborers stooped, placing the short pieces of cane with a bud eye into the prepared planting rows. In the field next to them, the cane crop was already knee-high. My father had instigated rotational planting years ago, when the plantation had been like a new toy to him, and he’d spent several years here himself. As long as you avoided having the cane ripen during the rainy seasons—too much moisture could ruin the crop in its final days—you could stagger the planting and guard against market highs and lows. In theory.
Sugar, I could still hear him lecturing over the dining room table, will be money in the bank long after Entwhile has ceased to be. Sugar is a drug. The whole world craves it. And unlike opium, we don’t even have to feel guilty about it. Why, grandmothers give babes in arms something sweet to calm their fretting. But it’s a drug nonetheless. Never forget that.
Despite my father’s passion for sugarcane, my mother refused to leave England, and so he’d run the plantation by correspondence for years. Several lazy and unscrupulous overseers had turned Crosswinds from a productive enterprise into a liability. I knew that if I could turn it back from ruin, I would at last be the favored son. Let my older brothers, Rupert and Harry, toady along at my father’s side at Entwhile. Father’s heart was in Jamaica.
Tuttle had let the rotational cropping go, too drunk to rouse himself or the laborers more than once a year for planting. The field we were working now had been reclaimed by the wild grasses and ferns, and it had been an almighty struggle to plow it. It made me angry. Three months since I’d arrived, and I was still angry at how Tuttle had abused my father’s trust, claiming in his letters to be doing work that had never been done. And, from the whispers I’d heard, taking advantage of the laborers too. We paid them a pittance in wages since slavery had been abolished, but they still needed the money. There were few ways to earn your daily bread in Jamaica. A ruthless man could use that leverage to force the poor wretches to do whatever he wanted.
Looking at their bent bodies working away, sweating in the sun, the idea turned my stomach. The women came in all hues, from a medium caramel to nearly black. They wore full skirts in faded colorful cotton, tucked up to their knees to avoid the mud, billowy, long-sleeved shirts, and handkerchiefs tied around their heads. The cotton was their shield from the sun. I could not fathom wanting to rut with such bodies. The older men covered themselves too, but the younger ones… some of them tied the long sleeves of their tunics around their waist so that their sweat-slicked muscles were exposed.
I tried not to look at them at all.
I called a break at noon, and Sally and Morning went among the laborers, passing out buttered bread and fried plantains. It did not seem to bother the natives to sit in the sun, but my own head, accustomed to the English gloom, was spinning. I made for the shade of the trees that edged the field.
Crosswinds lay at the foot of a small mountain so that one could walk up into the forest and look down on the property and on out to the distant sea. The plantation looked perfect from up there—idyllic and green—until you got up close enough to see the neglect, to see the green was out of control and threatened to swallow us all up again.
I had just tied my horse and taken the water from my saddle when I saw a woman—Tiyah was her name—approaching the trees. She acted like she didn’t see me, her face fiercely intent on her internal thoughts. She disappeared into the forest.
I would normally have let her go, assuming she was going to relieve herself or spend the short break out of the heat. But the look on her face stirred my curiosity. And also, it was Tiyah. She was a tall woman, not young but not yet old, and handsome for her people. She had a commanding presence that, to be honest, intimidated me, though I would never admit it. I’d heard whispers among the servants in the house—about going to Tiyah for aches and pains, blessings or advice. She was an Obeah woman, a practitioner of that folk magic that so fascinated me. My mother would have been horrified at such heathen ways and refused to have her on the plantation. But I had the advantage of an education at Eton and Cambridge, where my mind had been opened to the wonders of the natural world, of travel and exploration. Oh, the long nights Richard and I had spent, up talking until dawn about distant peoples and places we’d read about in the tales of Marco Polo and lurid magazines.
This would make an interesting letter to Richard. That made up my mind. Leaving my horse safely tied, I followed Tiyah on foot.
She took a well-trod trail through the forest up the hill. I stayed as far back as I could, but she was oblivious to me. At times I caught snatches of her muttering. It was nearly a chant in a singsong voice, but I couldn’t make out the words.
The tree cover was thick and buzzing with insects, and I nearly stumbled right on top of her before I saw that she had stopped.
To the side of the trail was a small ridge where a narrow footpath edged out to a looming rocky face. There was a natural depression in the face of the rock that was the size of a large steamer trunk. It had been made into a sort of shrine. Tiyah knelt in front of it and lit a half-dozen candles. In and among the candles were a host of items—a bottle of rum, a beaded necklace, small bones, a loaf of bread, coins, scraps of brightly colored cloth, and a statuette of what looked like the Virgin Mary, only with a black face and hands.
I
watched from the cover of the trees, delighted to be seeing the native practice with my own eyes.
After lighting the candles, Tiyah spoke in urgent patois. I’d picked up a few words from hearing my servants speak. The patois the natives spoke was a mix of English words and African, though the pronunciation made the English words challenging to recognize. But there was no mistaking the pleading tone of her request, or the main thread of it.
“Erzulie, I beg you! Erzulie, save my daughter!”
Tiyah took a white handkerchief stained with blood from a pocket and placed it on the shrine. Then she removed a plantain leaf and carefully unwrapped it to reveal a small chunk of ice.
I knew there were ice ships from the north that visited the docks, but I could not imagine how she’d managed to keep such a thing from melting through her morning work. Perhaps it had been much larger to start. She offered it with both hands, placing it in front of the candles.
Ice?
I was still pondering it in my mind when she rose and turned toward me, done with her prayers. I started to dive back into the trees, but I realized it was too late and I would only look like a namby-pamby fool. So I straightened my spine and stepped out.
“Tiyah,” I greeted her firmly, not wanting to appear apologetic. “Get along back to the field now.”
She didn’t move. Her eyes stared into mine with both confusion and a kind of challenge. “You follow me, Missah.”
I thought of making up a lie, but such instincts had been beaten out of me in my youth. My father had never tolerated a liar. “I did. I was curious. You’re not in any trouble. Go join the others.”
She took one deliberate step closer to me and tilted her head, her eyes narrowing as she studied me.
I refused to be afraid of her, Obeah woman or not. I might be curious, but I was no gullible fool. Like many folk beliefs—curses, the “evil eye”—Obeah was based on sympathetic magic. As a man of learning, I knew it was all folderol in the end, even if it was rather fascinating.
Then I realized the look in her eyes was not threatening. At least not that way. She looked like she wanted to… lick me. I felt my body blush. I was no gullible fool for that either. I had no interest in picking up a paramour, as some of the English here did.
If she wasn’t going to obey my order, I’d simply turn and go myself, haughtily, as if I expected her to follow as a matter of course. As I started to leave, she spoke.
“You curious, Missah? About dis?” She waved at the shrine.
I raised my chin. “From a scientific standpoint, yes.”
She laughed. “Den ask what you will, young scientist.”
She was mocking me, but it didn’t feel ill-meant. And why should I not ask, if she was willing to tell me? I thought of what Dr. Hodgets would do.
“Why the ice?”
Her face grew grave, a shadow passing over her. “My… daughter. She very ill. Fever. Seven days now. If it do not break soon, she die. De gods burn her up.”
“So the ice is… a sign of what you want them to do—cool her down. Is that right?”
“Yes.” She looked at me fiercely. “I speak to de loa, but actions, tings, are better than words. Words!” She spit it out like it was poison. “Words make promises and break dem, like a lamp trown at de wall.”
I had nothing to say to that. It was true enough, I supposed. I wanted to ask more about the gods, about the shrine, but I could see she was troubled about her daughter and it was not the time.
“Has she seen a doctor?”
Tiyah shot me an angry glare. “White medicine—only for those with plenty white money.” With that she pushed past me and headed down the trail.
~3~
THAT NIGHT, the drums were relentless. I knew they signaled some sort of exercise of that pagan magic that Tiyah practiced. Obeah. I had no idea what such worship looked like, but the drums were positively indecent. They conjured up images of naked bodies dancing and thrashing about in some sort of religious ecstasy.
Richard always said I had too much imagination. I missed him—missed the chance to whisper with someone about the drums. He would calm my fears and my overthinking. He would make me laugh. But Richard was not there.
They were probably holding a ceremony for the girl, Tiyah’s daughter. But what good would such magic do? A fever had struck Entwhile in the year before I was sent off to school. I was the first to fall and the first to recover. I remember wandering the silent halls, looking for servants who were all sick abed. I watched as our family doctor, competent Dr. Lowerly, tended my younger sister, ordering a cold bath for her and dosing her with salicylic acid, a derivative of willow bark that did wonders for pain and fever.
I thought of the chip of ice Tiyah had guarded so carefully to place at the shrine. She probably spent a week’s wages on it. The ice ship from the New World delivered to Kingston Bay several times a year, and I knew there’d been a recent shipment. But it was a costly luxury.
The drums beat on. I tried hard to ignore them and sleep, but the night was so hot, even with the doors to the veranda open. I could not stop thinking how much worse the heat would be if I had a fever. Heat builds upon itself like a vine climbing a tree. The girl would likely die. Children died, it was the way of things. Still, I could not forget Tiyah’s face as she spoke of the fever. And since Tiyah worked for me, her family was my responsibility, or could be seen as such. On the other hand, I couldn’t be seen to play favorites, nor did I want to start a riot of people asking for medical help day and night. This was a plantation, not a hospital.
God, the drums!
I gave sleep up for a loss and got dressed. I roused my house man, Philip. “Send Simi into town to buy five pounds of ice.” I handed him coins. “And ride yourself for Dr. Fornay. Tell him it’s urgent.”
TIYAH’S DAUGHTER, Lily, stayed in the house for almost a week. Her fever broke on the second day, thanks to ice baths and Dr. Fornay. But she’d been ill a long time, was emaciated, and too weak to stand. Tiyah worked in the fields all day, so it was agreed Lily would stay with us, where Philip and Sally could tend her hourly until she was strong enough to be on her own.
I heard the whispers. The natives believed Tiyah’s power had convinced me to take Lily in, that the loa had answered Tiyah’s prayers. It was a notion that made me smile, and I couldn’t help writing to Richard about it. I didn’t bother addressing it with the servants, of course. It’s best to pretend one doesn’t hear idle gossip. One must be above it if one is to maintain any sort of order.
When Tiyah came to get Lily, she asked to speak with me. I was in my office, writing my correspondence, and I told Philip to show her in. I figured she wanted to thank me, and I didn’t want that to happen on the veranda, where the servants would hang on our every word and find ways to add more fuel to their speculations, no matter how innocuous our exchange.
“What can I do for you, Tiyah?” I asked her briskly.
“Missah.” To my shock, she came around to my chair and fell to her knees in front of me.
“Come now!” The sight made me extremely uncomfortable. “There’s no need for that. Take a seat.”
But Tiyah, as she was wont to do, ignored me. She stared up at me, her face tight with emotion. “You saved de life of my daughter, Missah. Tis a great debt I owe.”
“Nonsense.” I felt my face heating, and so I did what I always did when I was at a loss: tried to imitate my father. “I only did what I could easily do. Your continued well-being is thanks enough. Now—”
“No,” Tiyah said fiercely. “You do not understand. Lily, she also de daughter of Erzulie.”
I stared at her, confounded. That was the god she’d been praying to at the shrine, wasn’t it? I’d heard the name mentioned by other servants as well. It was a female deity, I was pretty sure, one they associated with statues of the Virgin Mary.
“Lily, she made when I was ridden by Erzulie. Erzulie chose de father, and she make de baby.”
Good Lord! The images that con
jured up. I really didn’t need to hear this. “Er… I don’t think—”
“De loa pay their debts, and so do I,” Tiyah insisted with a prideful shake of her head. “I ask Erzulie what is de proper payment. If you see her in your dreams tonight, do not be afraid, Missah.”
I realized my mouth was hanging open. I was at a total loss, but I knew that to refuse a gift was an insult. Assuming this was meant to be a gift of some kind. Hellfire. In my dreams!
“Yes. Well. Er… I hope Lily remains healthy. It was, uh, no trouble at all. You may go.”
I could swear Tiyah was smirking when she left.
I WAS swimming in the small bay near Crosswinds. It was night, and the moon was full. It hung, as dark as an orange, above my head and reflected in the black water of the bay as if in a mirror. The water was warm, and I was… naked? I could feel the water caressing my bare skin in little eddies that made me shiver with delight.
I swam effortlessly, strangely at peace with being in the bay alone at night, at having no clothes on my body. The water lapped at my chest like warm fingers. I floated onto my back.
Something brushed my leg. The terror came in an instant, with a cold, sick rush. I jerked up in the water and looked all around me frantically. But the water of the bay showed no disturbance.
Below. It’s down there, underneath me.
The peaceful moment was gone. I swam for the shore as hard as I could. I could see the distant beach, but no matter how frantically I stroked, it came no closer. The water, now cold and merciless, was dragging me out to sea.