Malik nodded, his eyes bright, and his smile wide, showing another missing tooth.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
This time it was Bouki who nodded. “And tired.”
“Good, good. Come inside.”
Allan and Mrs. Ramdeen smiled at Hugo and the boys. Mrs. Ramdeen patted Hugo on the arm. Hugo caught the tips of her fingers and held them for a second. Then, Mrs. Ramdeen helped Allan put the marbles back into his little pouch, and they made their way up the road.
Hugo fired up the oven and warmed yesterday’s bread. He sliced the loaf, grabbed some cheese, and put the food on a plate, which he set with a clatter on the counter in front of the boys. “Now, tell me everything,” he said.
“After we got separated, all the usual ways were cut off,” Bouki began.
“Yes, yes, I had a feeling. I was so worried.”
“But then Malik found a path through the mountain that led all the way to the top.” Bouki paused to look at Malik for a moment. His brother was busily chewing and didn’t seem to be paying attention. “And we found a village.”
“Corinne told me!” Hugo said. “What luck!” He saw Bouki stiffen, and he waited for the next part of the story.
“The people there were helpful,” Bouki continued. “They fed us and let us stay the night, and . . .”
Hugo nodded and held his breath.
“And they told us about our parents,” Bouki said softly.
Hugo couldn’t move, and he couldn’t breathe. “Your parents?”
“The village was our home. We forgot it.”
Malik looked up at Hugo with a bright smile. “Home!”
Hugo’s heart squeezed.
21
A Single Shard
Bouki needed to talk to Corinne. There were things he had learned on the mountain that she would need to know. After they had eaten, he asked Hugo if they could go to the fishing village. Hugo quietly agreed, but when the boys set out on the road, Hugo locked up the bakery and joined them.
The island looked as if a giant hand had picked it up, shaken it, and put it back down again. Everything was out of place—trees, houses, even the animals had wandered far from where they should have been.
In the middle of the road, near the full well, a fat black-and-white cow nosed a pile of leaves. Hugo paused to slap the animal on the rear end. She looked up a moment, then ambled off toward town, hopefully in the direction that would take her home.
The three of them kept going, past the dry well, which was now just a hole in the ground; the stones that once ringed the top had broken off in the storm.
“We have to fill it up,” Hugo said. “Someone might fall in.”
“On the way back,” Bouki insisted. “I need to see Corinne.”
Hugo nodded and said nothing else until they came to the house that overlooked the beach, where he called for Pierre.
The house was silent and empty.
Malik tugged at Hugo’s white baker’s smock and pointed at the beach.
“Of course,” he said. “They are probably helping their neighbors below.”
But when they passed the lip of the hill, they saw a gathering of people looking out at the waves.
“No,” Bouki said softly.
Malik took off running down the hill. Bouki went quickly after him, leaving Hugo to follow behind. The boys pushed their shoulders to part the crowd and made their way to the front. Pierre stood looking out at the glittering sea, his hair flying around his face in the breeze.
“What happened?” Bouki asked.
“She went back,” Pierre said. His voice cracked at the end, and nothing else came out to explain.
“Alone?” Bouki asked. “Or was Dru with her?”
“I’m here,” Dru said, stepping out of the crowd.
“What about Mama D’Leau?” Bouki asked.
“Corinne went to save her,” Dru said. “But she didn’t come back.”
“She will be back soon,” Bouki said, mostly to reassure himself.
Dru shook her head. “Look.” She pointed to the horizon, where dark clouds again gathered.
Bouki thrust his hand into his pants pocket until he felt what he was looking for. He walked into the waves. Hugo grabbed him by the collar.
“She will need this, Hugo,” he said. “Please.”
Hugo shook his head. “No, Bouki.”
“Please, Papa.”
Hugo let go. Malik moved forward and took Hugo’s huge hand in his own small one. Bouki looked away from them and waded through the water until the sea was up to his chest. Then he opened his palm on the surface and let the sea splash into it.
“Come,” he said.
On the horizon, water gathered up into a vast pointed wave. It rolled toward them on shore and flattened with the rest of the sea just before it reached Bouki.
“I have something for you,” he said. He held his hand up and a small sliver of opal glittered in his fingers.
The surface ruffled and then smoothed. It began to swirl like the water in a drain. Bouki dug his toes into the sand and stood his ground for as long as he could, but the pull of the water got too strong. He closed his fist around the shard of rock as the eddy sucked him under.
22
Tangle in the Water
Corinne followed the merman around the sharp edges of an iceberg. She began to sense the difference in every drop in degree of temperature, in every speck of dust that floated around her, even in the color of the water and the amount of salt she tasted in it.
The currents tugged her in different directions. One twined cold and thin and wrapped around her arm. Another was warmer and brushed the end of her tail. Still another pushed against her body gently, welcoming and less insistent than its sisters. Then there was a fourth that came at her sharp and scraped her skin like the edge of a knife. Each current promised something if only she would take it up on its offer to buoy her somewhere else. She felt the pulse of each one, tasted the water it had to offer. The currents were entire new worlds she could lose herself in. They pressed her, tickled her senses, and bid her to follow them. Something deep within her hungered to go somewhere else, to chase the waves and abandon herself. Corinne could forget her errand. She could leave everything behind. She could follow the currents and the water would lap gently around her forever. It would be so easy. But her heart pounded insistently in her chest. It wanted something, too.
I am Corinne, she said. Severine is my mother’s sister.
Corinne pushed forward again, breaking the currents’ grip on her body. But now that she understood them, she knew where each would lead. She could feel how to use them to move even faster than she had before. She followed the merman more easily now, dipping and rising with the valleys and peaks of the seafloor. All the while, her heart thudded, fearing what would happen when she found her aunt.
It wasn’t long before Corinne felt a web-thin pulse. Its pull was weak at first, and then stronger the farther she traveled. Before long the pulse beat in time with her own. The merman had called Severine a creature. She wondered what she would meet. Worried that she might startle Severine, or that the jumbie would not remember who she was, Corinne began to hum, then she added the words she had made up for her aunt months before. She sang.
Hand to hand and heart to heart,
Love can never be torn apart.
Heart to heart and hand to hand,
From water’s chill to sun-warmed sand.
Remember Tante siren, doux doux,
Remember waves and grass and sky?
Remember Tante esprit, doux doux,
Remember Corinne, your sister’s child?
The pulse of the water quickened, and Corinne’s heart leapt, speeding up to match the beat of the waves. She moved more swiftly through the sea, leaving the merman behind and sing
ing her song, until she came to a wide, deep valley with little light. She could feel Severine there, but she couldn’t see her, not even with her enhanced jumbie sight. It had come in handy in dark water before, but this darkness felt thick and heavy.
Tante Severine, Corinne called softly.
There was movement in the water. She could feel it tremble, but not from fear. Corinne had learned to sense that. This was something else. Planning. Calculation. She stopped and tried to feel for anything drifting nearby.
The water rippled, reaching out to her like fingers, and pulled her toward a shallower spot covered by a small cut of ice.
Tante? Corinne said as she moved around the ice floe. She could see better here. Every color brightened in hue. The ice was striped in blue and green, with hints of pink. The water was a kaleidoscope of turquoise and silver and navy shades. But still, she couldn’t see her aunt.
The current changed. It gripped her around her middle and drew her in like a line taut with a fish. Corinne tried to wriggle free of its grasp, but it was too strong. The current moved faster, drawing her to a patch of water that was palest green with a tangle of branches at the center. As she came closer, she could see the branches were long and thin and sharp. Corinne was being pulled straight to the tangle. She struggled, trying to save herself from impalement.
Tante! Please! Corinne cried, but the pull didn’t slacken or slow.
Corinne shut her eyes, dreading what would come next. She crashed into the branches. Some of the sticks stabbed her skin, others scraped her flesh and scales, another gouged her tail. The branches folded into a cage around her. Her plaits were caught and her arms and tail were trapped. Her skin burned in the places the sticks had cut and bruised. She tasted her own warm blood in the cold water.
Tante, please.
A mouth within the bramble opened. You will taste nice, the bramble said. It’s been a while since I’ve had such a big meal. Only small, small ones of late. A little taste of fin here, a little chunk of tail there. But not a whole, thick thing like you.
Severine?
Who dat? the bramble snapped.
You, Tante, Corinne said. We are family. I have come for you.
The tangle of branches shook. No, no. Family know each other. Family stick together. Family is not strangers.
The shaking loosened some of the sticks just enough that Corinne could slip her arm off a branch. She kept it tucked against her chest, clasping her mama’s stone to keep it out of Severine’s reach. As she moved, a cloud of blood bloomed in the water and the bramble shivered all around her.
Nice, nice! it said, elated. That blood sweet!
Corinne heard something like the lapping of a tongue, and the bramble shivered again and giggled.
How I should have you? it asked. Raw and dripping? Right here in the water? Or should I squeeze you dead and leave you out on the ice to harden for a little crunch? The bundle tightened, shrinking the cage and pushing the branches further into Corinne’s flesh. Corinne shrieked with pain. More blood erupted from her tail. The jumble of twigs rubbed against itself, making a grating sound.
Corinne peered through the snarl and tried to find anything in the water that would help her, but the ocean was empty. Even the merman was nowhere in sight. There wasn’t a fish, or plant, or floating object that might be useful.
The twisted bundle pulled Corinne. Corinne felt a current, one that led back to warmer water. She moved her free hand and flexed her fingers, trying to pull at the current. As if it understood, the current came to her. A thin stream wrapped around her little finger. Corinne closed her hand, drawing it in. The water twisted into a small eddy, taking Corinne and Severine with it. It moved them slowly at first, then faster and faster.
What dis? the bramble complained.
Corinne focused on the water. She squeezed her eyes shut and let the current take them, drawing them down to the depths of the sea. It wasn’t the current doing this. Corinne was controlling the water, bending it to her will. She could feel the tension between the water droplets that made up the entire ocean; she understood how she could move her fingers and twist the sea around them, moving the currents faster than she could with her own body.
Just before they hit bottom, the current dissipated like clouds after a storm and a new one took them. Corinne’s heart beat faster. It was exhilarating, manipulating the water. She played with it, dismissing one current and calling another to pull them toward the surface again.
The tangle loosened enough that Corinne had space to swat against the cage of branches with her tail. The stick that had pierced her went in farther, the jagged edges catching her flesh. She writhed with pain. But to get out she would have to push at the cage of twigs. Corinne slid her tail out again and swatted. The pain was almost unbearable, but with each hit, she loosened the knot around her body.
When she had made a wide-enough hole in the bottom of Severine’s cage, she pulled herself down and free of the trap.
Tante, she said, putting a hand to her bleeding arm. We must leave now.
You not my family, the knot of branches said.
You are mine, Corinne said. Come home.
Corinne called the current around Severine. She needed it to wrap her tightly, and it did. Water swirled around her, holding her branches in place. It must have been what Huracan had done to Mama D’Leau. The tangle of branches shook and tried to escape, but could not.
It sighed. I didn’t even eat yet, it complained.
There are better things to eat on land, Corinne said.
Like what?
I grow the sweetest oranges on the island, Corinne said. Juicy, pulpy oranges that taste like sunlight. Come. Corinne reached her hand out. The bramble reached out, too, with long twiggy fingers that stretched and wound around Corinne’s hand and up her arm.
Is it far? I don’t like to go far.
I will sing to you, then it won’t take so long, Corinne said.
The waves of memory crash above us,
Our salty tears wash away.
Mmm Tante, Tante doux doux
Come away, come away, do.
23
Home
Corinne found a strand of water that was warm and sweet. This was the way home, she was sure of it. The sea pulled them back to the island. It dropped off at times, and Corinne had to search to pick it up again. The thicket of twigs at Corinne’s side was no help at all. Severine allowed herself to be carried across the vast deep, silent and sullen, like a child who had been scolded.
Every time the current weakened, Severine grew heavier against Corinne’s body. The scratching brambles were sharper and more uncomfortable to hold with each loss of momentum and delay.
Stop fidgeting, Corinne snapped.
But it seemed that Severine couldn’t help herself.
When the sea began to taste like home, of fleshy mangoes and sharp oranges and milky soursop, the current grew more turbulent. Corinne moved toward the surface, looking forward to trailing her hands through the sargassum leaves that grew in large clumps in the ocean bordering the island. She floated up and took in the wavering reflection of her dark skin, still in her papa’s old white shirt. The ripped ends of it trailed alongside the long orange tail that shot out from her lower half and the bramble of wood she pulled along that dug uncomfortably at her sides. But there was no bed of sargassum floating on top of the waves. Instead the sea was littered with rubble. It was as if something had exploded deep in the water and destroyed everything it touched, sending the pieces blackened and broken in every direction. And Corinne tasted something else in the waves: dirt and sweat and blood.
She moved more quickly.
What could do a thing like that? she wondered aloud.
Severine had no explanation.
The current was in chaos now, dropping and pulling every which way, but Corinne didn’t need it.
Even in total destruction, she knew these waters. She followed the shredded bits of sargassum and broken pieces of coral all the way to the reef. Its usual bright colors and waving fronds were bruised and battered. There were gaping holes in the dense habitat, places where the color looked like it had been drained out, and despite being deep beneath the water, the whole of the coral looked dry and dull, and worse, empty. There were no shrimp or fish darting through and peeking out from gaps. It was a ghost of what it had been.
Corinne turned away from the reef and moved closer to the island then stopped. She needed to think. The same way she had figured out the currents, she was starting to feel the ocean. All of it. Her skin puckered and her pores rose. Every tiny hair on her body was a receptor that read the drops of water like braille. She closed her eyes and let her other senses tell her about the water. It was not only sargassum and bits of coral that disrupted the patterns of the currents. Broken planks of wood, cracked rocks, torn galvanized roofing, and the lifeless bodies of fish, birds, and other animals bumped against each other in the sea. She felt the curve of an overturned boat bending the sea around it. Then she felt something else. Something small, like the body of a person. Her heart quickened and she dashed toward it through the thick rubble and stirred-up sand. Finally she saw it just ahead, a still shape, hidden in the dark behind the layers of water, but her vision cleared as she got closer. Her skin prickled as though she was beginning to sweat and her stomach knotted.
Hey! Severine complained when Corinne gripped her too hard.
Corinne loosened her grip but kept swimming until she was right up on it. She let go of Severine to reach with both hands toward the figure, until she felt it under her palms. It was a hard, cold, stone face and body that she knew.
Bouki.
Something inside Corinne had changed. It wasn’t like the strike of a match that suddenly brought light into a room, or the slow glow of a gas lamp as it drew in oil from the wick. It had come on slowly, since the iceberg and the fight with Severine, and maybe even before that. It was a growing sense that she could feel the elements around her, the earth, the water, the air. She could communicate with them in the same way she could with her papa and her friends, with a slight movement of her body, a tiny change in the curve of her mouth. And just as her papa and her friends would come to her aid when she needed it, the elements would help her as well.
The Jumbie God's Revenge Page 11