Escape From Fear (5 page)

Ashley gasped.

“And when the morning come I say, ‘Mamma, who those people were?' And she say, ‘They were the dead. It was your grandmother who shoved you. She saved you from the Jumbies.' That is a true story.”

Nodding, Miss Amelia picked up another vine, this time bending it around her knee to form it into the shape of a rainbow. “Yes, on my island, the dead talk with the living. My mother told me of a spirit who came to her one night. The spirit told her, ‘A dark one will be born on our island. She will be of the past and the present, the future and the past, black with white. The stars, they will guide her, and she will make people free.' And it came true. And the two of us—the dark one and me—we make the people free.”

“What you talkin', Miss Amelia?” Denise asked. “Who do you make free? I don't know that part of your story.”

“You think I tell you everything, child? Oh, there is much about me you do not know. I love you like my own, Denise, but I never tell you everything. No.” Using the end of the vine like a skeletal finger, she suddenly pointed at Forrest and said, “There is seeing, and there is seeing. What is it you see, child?” Her large, owl-like eyes gazed at him. The air seemed to swell with the heat as they all waited for Forrest to reply.

“I…I don't understand her question,” Forrest said to Denise. “What does she want?”

“She's asking what you believe in—what guides you.”

“I guess I believe that if something's going to happen, it's up to me to make it happen,” he answered slowly. “I believe in me. I make my own magic.”

Miss Amelia picked up a half-finished basket, its ribs sticking up naked and alone. With amazing speed, she began to weave a piece of vine in and out of the ribs, pulling hard as she twisted the piece around a corner. In, out, in, out, tug—Jack could hardly keep up, watching the swiftness of her fingers as Miss Amelia wove another row.

“Uh, uh, uh,” she said. “Why don't you ask me, son?”

“Are you talking to me?” Forrest pointed a finger at his own chest.

“Yes. Now you ask me the question that has been troubling you. What is it you want?”

Forrest's lips trembled. Confused, he looked from Jack to Ashley, then to Miss Amelia. “I—I need to find someone. How did you—Miss Amelia, do you know a woman by the name of…Cimmaron?”

Miss Amelia smiled at him. “Yes. I know this woman. She tell the stories she hear from her grandmother's grandmother's grandmother's grandmother, from long ago when our people were slaves. I teach this woman how to make baskets, and she tell me things. She works in the Paradise Motel. She be waiting for you.” A hummingbird buzzed by, coming within inches of Forrest's head before darting off again. Miss Amelia smiled. “The hummingbird bring you luck, bring you to our island. My friend the storyteller, Cimmaron, she tell me so.”

Miss Amelia's fingers never stopped moving over the basket. She seemed unaware that her words had caused Forrest to become as rigid as a statue.

“What is it?” Ashley asked Forrest. “What's wrong? Who's Cimmaron?”

Forrest's lips moved, but his next words were almost inaudible.

“What did you say?” Ashley pressed.

“She's—she's my mother. Cimmaron is my mother.”

T
he upholstery in the Jeep was hot. As they bumped along another winding dirt road, Jack felt as if he were sitting on a griddle. Still, he didn't feel he could ask Denise to turn up the air-conditioning: That would interrupt the conversation between Forrest and Ashley. Ashley had begun to pry out of Forrest the details of the mystery he'd refused to talk about the night before.

“So, you're saying your
birth
mother is from St. John?”

“Yes. I was born here, 13 years ago. On January 21st. This is my island.”

“It sounds like you've always known about her—your birth mother, I mean. That part wasn't a secret, right?”

Forrest nodded. He looked out the window for a moment before answering. “I've always known that her name was Cimmaron. Except for her name, I don't know anything about her. I was told that when I was less than a year old, Forrest Winthrop III and his wife, Hilary Danforth Winthrop, adopted me from this island. The Winthrops told me about my place of origin, but they always said they didn't want me to ever come back here because that was my past and they are my future. But now….” He slammed his fist against the seat. “I
have
to talk to her! To Cimmaron!”

Nodding, Ashley asked, “Does she know about you? I mean, about you coming here to St. John? Miss Amelia kind of hinted that she might be expecting you.”

Forrest shook his head. “That was just Miss Amelia's Jumbie superstition.”

Ashley's hand fluttered to Forrest's shoulder. “Wow. So she doesn't even know you're here. Oh my gosh.”

“But I can find her now that I know where she is. Denise, will you take me?”

Jack watched Denise stiffen. “That is not my place to do. No, no, no.” She shook her head emphatically.

“Denise, please!”

“No!” Denise's arguments sounded solid: They might not even have the right Cimmaron, and if they did, the Landons should be the ones to take him. She was only a park ranger and couldn't interfere. His adoptive parents needed to be informed before Forrest contacted Cimmaron; and Cimmaron might not want to meet with Forrest at all, so at the very least she was due a phone call, not a surprise visit. Every argument was met with an equally persuasive one from Forrest: The Landons were not his legal guardians, which meant he was still technically on his own; he'd flown almost 3,000 miles to St. John by himself, so why stop him when he was only five miles away from his birth mother; if he waited too long, Cimmaron might be gone, and he absolutely had to talk to her for a reason he couldn't share but that was extremely important. Jack's mind snapped back to—was it only this morning?—when Forrest had told him he knew something dangerous.

But how could Forrest know something dangerous about Cimmaron? He hadn't even known how to find her until Miss Amelia told him where she worked. Jack pushed down his uneasy feeling and listened to Forrest's final argument: If he gave Cimmaron a heads-up, she might refuse to meet with him, and he couldn't take the chance that she would disappear from him forever.

No matter what Forrest tried, Denise wouldn't budge. “It's not up to me,” she told him again and again. “Let the day play out, and the Landons will take you where you need to go.”

“So it doesn't matter what I want,” Forrest said wearily. “She's that close, and you won't help me.” He leaned his forehead into the window of the car, and Jack could see the utter frustration etched on his face.

Trying to quiet Forrest, Denise said, “I'll tell you what I
will
do. This is your island, and we are your people. Let me tell you about our history, Forrest. I'll take you all to a place with a strange past, a place where the slaves made the rum. It's beautiful to see, but its story is dark. The rum was made with the blood of slaves.”

“Really?” Ashley breathed. “Forrest, that sounds amazing. Don't you think that sounds amazing?”

Forrest didn't move.

“Metaphorically speaking, the rum was made from blood,” Denise added, and smiled.

As they drove, Jack watched wild tangles of undergrowth grow thinner as the hillside melted away. Suddenly he saw bright blue water far below. The waves curled onto the white sands of the shore. It was as startling as a painting, as if a corner of heaven had fallen to Earth. The view might have calmed Forrest, but he didn't see it because he'd squeezed his eyes shut.

“Children, we are here,” Denise told them as she parked under a leafy tree. “We're going to walk to this overlook so you can see some other islands. You're looking north now, at the British Virgin Islands. That's the island of Tortola in the distance,” she said, pointing, “and the water you're seeing is the Atlantic Ocean.”

“It is? I thought it was the Caribbean Sea,” Ashley said. “Forrest, didn't you think it was the Caribbean Sea?”

No answer.

Denise cleared her throat. “On the south side it's the Caribbean, but on the north is the Atlantic.”

To check it out, Jack studied a map of St. John he'd picked up earlier at the visitor center. There it was—the Atlantic. He liked finding Tortola on the map, then glancing up to see the actual island across the water.

“Uh-oh,” he said, “there's a misprint on the map.”

“Where?” Denise asked. “That's a National Park map. It better be correct.”

“Right here,” Jack answered, pointing at the small print. “This place that's right to the east of us—it says Water
lemon
Cay instead of Watermelon Cay. Somebody got a few letters mixed up.”

Denise grabbed his shoulder playfully and shook it. “You scared me for a minute. That's no mistake. It's
supposed
to be Waterlemon Cay. That's its name. Waterlemon is the fruit of a tropical plant called
Passiflora laurifolia
. It has purple flowers and yellow berries that you can eat.”

That Denise—she knew everything. Jack felt kind of dumb for declaring that the map was wrong. He thought he saw a smile play at the edges of Forrest's mouth, but it was gone before Jack could be sure. Well, at least his mistake had gotten Forrest to smile and that was an improvement over his sullen silence.

“Now we're going to the Annaberg Sugar Plantation,” Denise announced. “It's all part of the park. We have to walk a little way, so I'll tell you about it as we go.”

“Another story?” Ashley asked, hopeful.

“A bit of history,” Denise answered. “This place where we are right now was once a plantation that grew sugarcane to make molasses—and rum. Two hundred years ago, traders used rum like we use cash today.

You could buy anything with it—including people.”

“People?”

“Yes, Ashley. Slaves.”

That caught Forrest's attention. Ahead of them stood a tall, cone-shaped structure. “That used to be a windmill,” Denise told them. “It once had sails that turned around to make power that pressed the juice from sugarcane to make sugar, and, like I said, molasses and rum.”

“And the slaves had to do all the hard labor, right?” Forrest asked, finally breaking his silence. “What were their lives like? Horrible?”

“Not always. When this plantation was really producing, the slaves weren't so bad off. Anyway, who do you think built all this?” She gestured around her at the roofless buildings, the kitchen house, the crumbling factory walls. “It wasn't the Europeans who built it, you can be sure. It was the Africans. They were strong and smart.”

Walking toward the windmill, she pointed to the curved walls and said, “Tell me what you think is holding these bricks together.”

“Mortar,” Jack answered. “Cement.”

“It's mortar, all right, but not the kind of cement you know about. To make this stuff, the black people went to the ocean and removed hard coral. They burned it and mixed it with shells, stone, goat hair—and molasses. We have the sweetest ruins in the world. But don't try to eat them.” She laughed at her own joke.

“A hundred and sixty years ago,” she went on, “when this plantation was flourishing, the slaves could grow their own crops and sell them to get money to buy their freedom. Some were already free. A lot of people have a lot of foolish thoughts that everybody black was a slave, but that isn't true.”

Forrest stared at her intently, as she continued.

“In 1848, all the slaves on St. John were set free, almost 20 years before slavery ended in the United States. They were poor, but most were happy. Very different from what it was like way before that, back in 1733.” Denise frowned, and her voice rose as she told them, “Back in those bad old days of the 1700s, when the island was called St. Jan, it was torture to be a slave. That's why they revolted.”

“Revolted?” That from Ashley, again sensing a story.

“Yes. Some slaves had been proud, noble warriors in Africa and would not bow down before any man.”

Jack couldn't help think how strange it was that something as trivial as the shade of a person's skin could determine someone's whole life. “What happened when they wouldn't bow down?” he asked.

“Look over there.” Denise directed their attention to a spit of land jutting out to the north. “Many of the ones who couldn't bear to be slaves killed themselves by jumping off the cliff right there onto the rocks on the shore. Others leaped from a place called Rams Head.”

Clenching his fists, Forrest said softly, “They chose death over slavery.”

“Yes, but any time you read about African history, remember, Africans did not write their own stories. They were written by Europeans, and sometimes the writers didn't know the truth. Go to the source, I always say. And that leads us back to Cimmaron. She's a storyteller, you know. I think you need to proceed with this quest of yours, Forrest, but you need to do it the right way. I'm taking you all back to the Landons.”

Jack was surprised that Forrest didn't object. As the four of them walked toward the Jeep, Forrest was not only quiet, he also seemed rather pleased with himself.

The closer they got to the Jeep, the more Denise fumbled in agitation through the pockets of her green, park ranger shorts. “What did I do with those keys?” she muttered. “Are the Jumbies bothering me today?”

While the kids stood waiting beside the Jeep, Denise became more and more perplexed. “I lost the stupid keys!” she cried. “We have to go back the way we came and look on the ground. Come on, you kids, help me search. Your eyes are young and sharp.”

They spread out a little, walking slowly toward the windmill, around the ruins of the other buildings, and finally to the observation point where Denise had shown them the British Virgin Islands to the north.

Jack had been focusing on the ground, but when he looked up, he saw Forrest standing on the stone and mortar wall that bordered the overlook, poised like an orator ready to make a speech.

“Wa ju do up dere?” Denise demanded, falling into the native speech.

Forrest stood with his right side facing them. Slowly, he raised his left arm in the direction of the Atlantic. From his fingers dangled the Jeep keys.

“You want these back?” he asked. “Then take me to Cimmaron. Now!”

“Why, you little toad,” Denise spat. “Give me those keys.”

“Forrest, don't,” Ashley cried, fear gripping her face. “My mom and dad will help you find Cimmaron, I know they will. You're not going to jump, are you?”

Forrest just laughed at her. “No, Ashley, I'm not going to jump. I'm not that desperate. But remember how I told you I was a star athlete at school? You should see how far I can throw these keys. Practically all the way to Tortola—if Denise refuses to negotiate. After all, I know all about negotiating. My father is a diplomat.”

There was no one else around, no tourist they could ask for a ride. It was spring break, and the island was full of college kids partying in Cruz Bay or sleeping till afternoon to be ready to party again that night. Denise had a cell phone she could use to call for help, but it was locked inside the Jeep. Forrest really had them.

“Come on, Forrest, give Denise the keys,” Jack urged.

“I'm not negotiating with you, Jack. This is between me and Denise.”

“Oh it is, is it?” Denise stood with her hands on her hips, like a statue carved from fine mahogany, staring at Forrest. She was one impressive woman, with her close-cropped hair, as short as Forrest's, her dangling earrings that weren't likely to be part of a regulation Park Service uniform, and a silver ring on the thumb of her right hand. She looked like she wouldn't take nonsense from anyone. And yet….

“If I agreed to do what you want and take you to Cimmaron,” she said to Forrest, “how do you know I wouldn't be lying? I could get the keys and drive you straight back to Park Headquarters.”

Staring back at her, Forrest answered, “Because you and I—we're alike. We are people of honor.”

A small smile played around Denise's lips.

“I need this, Denise. It's more important than you could ever guess. Just give me five minutes with my mother. I promise I won't cause you any more trouble.

I'll do what you want, go where you want. But I'm asking you….” Making a fist around the keys, he slowly extended his hand toward Denise. “Do this for me. Do this for her. Please.”

Time seemed to crawl as Denise weighed what to do. Forrest's gaze never wavered, and Jack wondered how he could keep such perfect balance, as if he had rooted himself into the molasses mortar.

Finally, Denise shook her head. “Come on, mon,” she said. “Jump down here quick and give me the keys. We'll go find your Cimmaron.”