The Dark Series

Jumbie

Come on now, you know we have to be home before it gets dark or else...

... I'm walking as fast as I can Nicolas, you're bigger than me so your legs are longer and you can walk faster too besides it's your fault we're out in the plain fields so long cause you didn't tie the sheep rope properly and they got away from the stake and we had to go look for them.

I grab George's hand and pick up the pace, we get out of the plain field and up onto the dirt road heading to our house, we bend the corner and I sigh in relief when our board house comes into view, it could really use a little love, some new galvanize and a few rotted boards that needed to be changed but it was home.

( please note some dialect will be in the story )

Our mother's head pop up over our bush fence that separates our yard from our uncle's yard "aye way alyo bin so long? dem sheep run way or wah, watch how out ah doh getting dark come fass go een ah de house" ( hey where were you so long, did the sheep run away or something, look it's getting dark outside get in the house quickly ).

We got into the house and our mother closed the front door and locked it, our grandmother and father are seated in the living room looking at us "par alyo been so lang Nikki?" "ma the sheep get way from the stake and arwe bin haffi go look fu them" "alright well alyo father go check pan them ah marnin, go wash off, e bucket full, dip and rinse alyo skin then come eat" ( Mom, the sheep got away from the stake and we had to go look for them ) ( alright, well your father would check on them in the morning, go and wash off, the bucket is full, dip and wash your skin then come to eat )

You can't begin to imagine how cold this stand pipe water is, not matter how hot the day is you can count on the stand pipe water to be cold and extra refreshing after playing all day but to shower at dark in is another story, we teeth knocking by the time we done, we rub down with we coconut oil and use the powder puff to put powder on our skin then our jockey and pajamas.

I put the glass gentle over the kerosene lamp and turn the wick up just enough so it don't make the glass black and smokey but bright enough to see properly when we come in to sleep, our house has two bedrooms, one for my mom and dad and one for my brother and I that we share with granny with two beds in the room, we have a small living room and a kitchen and bathroom with a latrine outside, there's a big Cherry tree in the front of the yard, two guava trees and a sour sop and sugar apple tree below the sink where we wash outside, at the back we have a big plumrose tree, it's taller than our house, we also have spinach trees and calaloo plants at the back of the house below the plumrose tree.

I love when my mother makes spinach cakes and calaloo soup for us with crab, boil corn and coconut dumplings.

For dinner we're having roast bakes with salt fish (cod fish) and coco tea ( sticks or balls of rolled cocoa seeds that's been dried and parched and had spices added to it to make tea ) we sit down together and say our prayer before eating, " we thank you for the food we eat, we thank you for the birds that sing, we thank you lord for everything for Christ's sake amen" and eat our dinner then put them in the kitchen in the bucket to wash.

Today is Friday so we don't have to go sleep early for school so we stay up and look at ma and da play domino while granny hum in her rocker chair with her tobacco pipe by now outside is dark completely.

We all stop when we begin to hear the sounds of chains dragging through a part of the village we call " Devil Hole" my heart rate has already sped up and George is scooting closer to me.