Escape From Fear (4 page)

Jack dove down for a closer look. It was just as his mother had said: The reef beneath him lay crumbled like smashed concrete, uneven and lifeless.

“What time is it, Jack?” his mother asked when he came up.

He looked at his waterproof wristwatch. “It's almost noon, straight up.”

“We've got to go. Anyway, you kids have had enough sun for one day, especially you, Jack.”

His mother was right. Jack was the fairest-skinned of them all, but his arms didn't look too red.

“Wow! You ought to see your back,” Ashley exclaimed. “I can see every spot where you missed putting sunscreen. You're as splotchy as that pufferfish we saw.”

Forrest laughed. Jack scowled.

T
hey returned to Park Headquarters in time for Olivia's one o'clock meeting—but just barely. It had been hard to leave Jumbie Bay and all the beautiful underwater creatures.

Denise waited for them at the visitor center, an open-air building with large windows that allowed the ocean breeze to drift through. She looked up from behind her desk and smiled. “Hello to all. Mr. Landon left to get more film for his camera. He'll be right back, and then he wants to go to the meeting with you, Dr. Landon. I'll take care of the children.”

“Thank you so much—” Olivia began, but Denise waved her off. “You go to your meeting. Hurry, now.”

When the door had shut behind Olivia, Forrest stepped up and rested his elbows on the countertop, saying, “Did Mr. Landon contact my parents?”

“He didn't say. I'm sure he'll tell you all about it when he gets back. Ready for your tour of St. John?” After pushing some papers into a neat stack, Denise stood up. “The first thing we're going to do is pay a visit to Miss Amelia.”

“Miss Amelia? Who's that?” Ashley asked.

“A woman as old as the island. She weaves baskets and tells her stories for our classes. To meet Miss Amelia is to understand who we were and who we are.”

Forrest's face seemed to juggle several emotions. “Does she know all the people on St. John?”

“Oh, yes. Miss Amelia knows everybody.”

“Then I want to go see her,” Forrest decided, as though the whole thing were up to him. He waved his hand to usher Jack and Ashley through the door.

Outside, the Jeep the Park Service had loaned them was waiting; when Denise opened the door, Forrest got in the front seat beside her. Jack and Ashley climbed into the back, carefully handling seat belt buckles that had already become too hot to touch.

“Did you like your snorkeling, Ashley?” Denise asked, gazing at her in the rearview mirror.

“We loved it—it's like a whole other world down there! I didn't want to come out of the water.”

“Yes, well, by the looks of your brother, it's a good thing you did.” Then, to Jack, “You're lookin' mighty pink, mon. You must always be careful of the island sun. Have you ever been on St. John before?”

The three of them shook their heads.

“You'll find there's much to learn about our island. The first thing you should know is that 54 percent of St. John is National Park. That bay where you were swimming this morning—that's part of the park, and so are most of the other beaches and bays. Only 5,000 people live here, which leaves a lot of room for wilderness.” As she pulled the Jeep onto the main street, Denise continued, “The American millionaire Laurence Rockefeller donated 5,000 acres for a National Park here on St. John, but it has grown over the years. Virgin Islands National Park now includes almost 13,000 acres.”

“My parents donated a painting to a museum once,” Forrest remarked. “My father is a diplomat in Paris.”

Jack rolled his eyes and murmured, “Here we go again,” as Ashley punched his arm and gave him a look.

“It's a great thing to share what you have been blessed with,” Denise remarked. “Miss Amelia, she doesn't have that much by way of material possessions, but many would say she is the richest woman on the island because she shares so much with the rest of us. She lives way up on the mountain, where we're going now. She's almost 85, but she keeps us all running.”

Denise chattered as she drove, telling them about the healing properties of native plants as well as a funny story about mongooses, which were brought to St. John to kill the rats. What people forgot, she told them, was that rats come out during the day and mongooses come out at night, so the two species never waged war. “So now we have both rats
and
mongooses,” she said.

As Denise drove off the paved road onto a dirt one, the Jeep began winding higher and higher up the volcanic mountain. Rich, orange-red dirt lined the swatch of road, with plants of every shade of green cascading from the sides. Struggling as it bumped through ruts and around hairpin curves that twisted back onto themselves, the Jeep climbed higher and higher into the blue sky. It seemed impossible that an old woman like Miss Amelia could live in such a remote area.

“You should know that Miss Amelia still cuts cane with a knife and weaves baskets by hand,” Denise told them. “She is a very strong woman. And she knows about the Jumbies.”

“Jumbies?” Ashley asked. “You mean like Jumbie Bay where we were this morning? What are Jumbies?”

“Evil spirits. They are thick on the island. Miss Amelia can tell you all about them.”

“I don't believe in spirits,” Forrest stated. “Those stories are for the ignorant.”

A smile curling the edges of her lips, Denise asked, “You're sure of that, are you? Well now, Miss Amelia might convince you differently. And here we are.”

“Look at all the goats!” Ashley exclaimed. A dozen scrawny animals picked their way through old tires and bottles piled along the edge of a dilapidated fence. Uneven wooden stairs made their way up to the front door, but some were missing, like broken teeth on a comb. The house itself, a wooden rectangular box with peeling blue paint, looked run-down, but then, Miss Amelia was probably too old to fix up the place.

“The goats belong to Miss Amelia,” Denise told them as she turned off the motor. “She doesn't have a phone, so I couldn't tell her I was bringing guests with me today. Wait here until I wave you in.”

“May I pet the goats?” Ashley asked.

“Certainly. Just remember, they'll eat your clothes right off you, so keep a watchful eye. I'll be right back.”

Jack and Ashley scrambled out, but Forrest moved more slowly, his eyes on the dirt road. “There's goat droppings all over the place,” he complained.

“The droppings won't hurt you, Forrest,” Ashley told him. “Come and pet the goats. They look friendly.”

“No, thank you.” Leaning against the Jeep, Forrest surveyed the land around him, his hand shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight.

“Come on,” Ashley urged. “I bet you've never met a goat.”

“True. But I don't particularly want to meet a goat.”

“I'll go,” Jack told his sister, annoyed that she hadn't asked him in the first place. He followed her 50 feet up the hill to the knot of goats. One of the animals nibbled Jack's shorts before he pushed its head away. Ashley clucked at the animal, then turned to Jack, keeping her voice low as she asked, “I've been wanting to talk to you alone ever since breakfast. What's going on? Why don't you like Forrest?”

“Who says I don't?”

“Come on, it's obvious. You looked like you wanted to burn him into toast at breakfast. What's up with that?”

“I don't know. Last night he started talking, and he said some stuff that was just…weird,” Jack began, rubbing the patch of hair between a goat's nubby horns.

“Like what?”

“Like how he knows some big secret he can't tell because it would be dangerous for me to be in on it.”

“Are you serious?”

Shrugging, Jack said, “I kept asking him to tell me what he meant, but he wouldn't. It sounds really crazy.”

“Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”

Jack considered this. “No. I said I wouldn't. I don't believe him, anyway—he's just talking to make himself sound like he's ‘all that.'”

“I know he's different,” Ashley said. “But he's kind of amazing, too. Just give him a chance, OK? He's not any worse than a lot of our other foster kids.”

“I know. I just hope he'll be gone soon.”

“Jack!”

“What?” Jack flared. “Can't I tell you what I think of Forrest without you getting all—”

“That's not what I meant. Look! There's Miss Amelia.” She pointed to the top of the rickety stairs where a large woman stood next to Denise. Gray-white hair curled from the edge of a scarf that covered most of her head, while a yellow cotton dress billowed around her legs. Miss Amelia opened wide her arms and in a deep, rich, Caribbean lilt, called to them, “Boys and one little girl, I call you welcome to Miss Amelia's house. Come!”

“Let's go!” Ashley took off in the lead, with Jack trailing her and Forrest lagging behind. When they'd climbed the wooden stairs, Denise ushered them to a side deck. Baskets filled with dyed reeds crowded like giant toadstools around a wooden glider, while slivers of freshly cut cane curled across the floor. Several buckets held water and sliced cane. Half-formed baskets, one with a red-and-green pattern and two of combined yellow, green, and orange, had been set on the floor, their ribs reaching into the air like bony fingers. Everything was a colorful, jumbled-up mess.

Forrest picked his way uneasily to the chair farthest from the glider, brushing off the surface before sitting down. “There's a lizard—right there, on the wall!” he cried, jumping to his feet and pointing.

“So there is,” Miss Amelia answered. “That lizard, he tell you to sit closer.”

Though he looked unhappy about it, Forrest pulled his chair next to the glider. Jack, Ashley, and Denise found three stools and crowded close as Miss Amelia settled herself, picking up a long piece of reed and turning it. The dark skin of her hands was filled with tiny scars patterned like stars.

“Miss Amelia,” Denise said loudly, “These are the children I told you about.”

“Yes, yes,” Miss Amelia answered, gesturing with the small knife in her right hand. “They nice children.”

“I told them how you make the baskets,” Denise said. “Will you show us? And maybe share with us some of your stories. Tell us about when you were young. The island was very different then.”

“Could you tell us about the Jumbies?” Ashley pleaded. “I want to hear Jumbie stories.”

“Ah, you know Jumbies?” Miss Amelia's brown face broke into a smile. Pulling a piece of vine from a basket, she placed her knife at the end and deftly sliced it in half. Although her knuckles were large and misshapen, she had nimble fingers. Jack was impressed at the perfect cut she made.

“First I tell you about the baskets,” she said. “I use the hoop vine to make them. You cannot cut it until the dark side of the moon, at low tide. The red dye, it come from a cactus plant. The yellow is poisonous—that's from the bark of a tree. The green is not a dye only—it is a medicine also, good for rash on your skin, sunburn, and mosquito bite.”

“You could use some of that stuff on your sunburn,” Denise commented to Jack. Then, to Miss Amelia, “Tell them how many were in your family.”

“Fifteen children—we lived in a small house with no electricity, no running water.” She took the vine and sliced the half in half again, the blade flashing in the sun. “For shopping, we had to go from here down the mountain.

I used to get up at five o'clock in the morning and go to Coral Bay—only one shop was there. The shopkeeper give me everything that my mother have on the list. First I put the towel on my head, and then I take the basket with all the things in it and put it on my head. I walk the path alone to my home, one foot in front of the other.

If a bird fly it, it would be five mile. But I am no bird.”

“How old were you?” Jack asked.

“Seven.”

“Child abuse,” Forrest muttered, shaking his head.

Miss Amelia smiled serenely and said, “I look back today, and I thank my mother for bringing me up the way she did—hard. She say, ‘Child, you don't know what the future is ahead. If you find hardship, you already passed through it, so it will be no bother to you.' And I be glad of that. I didn't fear the work, but now….” With her worn hands, she patted her knees. “These won't allow me to get around the way I want to. Sometimes they not too good.”

She looked off in the distance, as though remembering when her knees were young and strong. “In my days growing up, it was living happy, because I wasn't afraid of nothing. You think my life was bad, Forrest? Not true. We was more happy then than today. We wasn't afraid of nothing but the Jumbies.”

Forrest replied, “I already explained to Denise that I don't believe in Jumbies.”

Miss Amelia made another perfect slice of the hoop vine. “You do not have to believe. But the Jumbies, they believe in you.”

Looking skeptical, Forrest slid down in his seat. Why couldn't he just listen to the stories like the rest of them, Jack wondered. Miss Amelia wove her words into patterns as beautiful as her baskets, and whether or not her stories were true, it was kind of her to share.

“More stories, please,” Ashley begged. Everywhere the Landons went, Ashley tried to find tales told by park interpretive rangers or by people who lived in the area.

“I tell you about one time when I was a child, and I walk home from Cruz Bay,” Miss Amelia said. “The sun was playing on the sea—it was late. I know that night was going to catch me on the road, so I run much of the way. Then, coming in over where that big locust tree is—” Miss Amelia pointed. “A spirit was there.”

All of them turned to stare at the locust tree.

“Now I hear my mother always speak about that spirit. And when I get to the tree, I look up, and I see a face. I look for the foot—no foot, only the head. I hear footsteps coming behind me, but when I look behind me, there was nothing there. And I couldn't move. I freeze with fright. Then somebody come behind me and push me.”

As Miss Amelia's hands, which had been busy slicing, suddenly stopped in midair, Jack felt cold fingers prick at his skin. Ashley, too, looked at Miss Amelia with wide eyes.

“A spirit pushed you,” Denise broke in.

“Yes. I say, ‘Leave me be,' but the spirit, it get closer, and I yell,
‘Mamma!
' And she be far away, but she say, ‘I comin'.' She know that I was in trouble. By the time I get to her, she say to me, ‘What you doin' with all these people behind you?'”