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When I was little, my cousins and I lived with Granny at the top of her mountain. Granny's mountain overlooked a lake with a small village built around it, Springs Lake Village. Granny lived at the top of the mountain, there were three houses at the summit, Granny's main house and one for each of her daughters. My cousins and I all lived with Granny in the main house, all thirteen of us.
The yard between the houses was big enough for us to play in, we'd play cricket, hide-and-seek, cops and robbers, tag, basketball or sometimes we'd just race each other across the longest stretch of the yard.
Summer vacation was always the best, we'd be outside as early as six, playing or trekking through Granny's poison garden when she wasn't looking. We'd get into so much trouble when she caught us in her garden terraces. She'd lecture us for fifteen minutes then make us sweep and rake the yard, or polish the ebony statues in the foyer, the worst punishment of all was when she made us practice music for hours.
But there's so much fun you can have in the yard and garden terraces, so sometimes we'd sneak off to the village to play. Granny hated that too, she'd be even madder at us when she found out we'd gone to the village without an adult. It was thirteen of us and three maids, one of which acted like a babysitter, Florence, not that she was good at it. She expected us to sit on the steps of the main house and not do anything while she did chores. I mean sure we did that sometimes, reading plays and telling stories. But it was summer vacation!
I remember one afternoon we snuck of to the village, there was a fair in the playing field. We had saved up our money and decided to spend it on the games and candy. We stayed out for the whole afternoon until it was six, we had completely forgotten the time. We rushed back to the mountain, Florence was waiting at the foot of the path for us. She was mad.
"All yuh little bastards, Miss Mera go fyah me. What part ah 'doh leave di mountain' all yuh cyan hear, eh?"
It was always difficult to understand what she'd said whenever she spoke fast. We'd look at each other asking if anyone understood her. The oldest among us, Haleel, always understood faster than everyone else and then he'd explain it for us.
"She says Granny's going to fire her. She want's to know what part of 'don't leave the mountain' we can't understand."
"Oh." the rest of us said collectively nodding.
"Pack all yuh ass up di mountain."
She wrung all our ears as we walked back up the mountain. You know sometimes you can walk or drive past a place and not notice something very significant about it. We'd always thought we were the only ones living on the mountain, that the path we took was the only one. Well, that day we discovered that halfway up, the road splits in two. The road going up to home was a concrete road and the path that continued around the mountain broke off into a dirt road.
We asked Florence about the road and she said we should mind our own business. We all just giggled at her, we knew what we were going to do tomorrow. The next day Granny punished us to three hours of music, but it was even longer, because Yahya couldn't finish his piece of clarinet music the rest of us couldn't go until he did. By the time we did get out to play it was after eleven. We wasted no time and headed down the path to where the road began the steep ascent, that was where the split was.
But we couldn't find the path. We walked a little further down the mountain then came back up, that's when we saw the path. It was weird we couldn't see it coming down only when coming up the path. We raced each other down the dirt path. There were huge mahogany trees on the bottom side, and low growing shrubs on the top side, it was almost mid day but the sun didn't feel hot. In fact it felt cool like early morning everything felt magical about the path, it was like a breath of fresh air, it was exhilarating.
We had gotten tired of running and were walking along the path hoping to see where it ended. We must have gotten to the other side of the mountain, when we saw a break in the shrubs on the top side, it was a gap.
There were all sorts of vines growing on what appeared to be a low wall separating the gap from the path. The gap was short and led to an old rundown looking house that was covered in the same vines as the wall. We dared each other to set foot on the property, eventually we decided to send Yahya since he made us stay at music practice longer. His foot hadn't touched the ground beyond the walls when the door to the house flew open. An old white woman stepped out of the house watching us. She was dressed like a nun with a black wide brim hat instead of a habit. Yahya fell back on his butt and the rest of us scampered back up the path.
When Yahya caught up to us we walked back home in silence. Florence hadn't noticed we were gone and Granny was busy. We all sat on the steps thinking for a while. Why would a nun be living on our mountain in a place like that by herself? Yahya said she was nice and offered him juice. Haleel and Kadja slapped him over the head for taking it. Then Kadja said she remembered looking up and seeing the water tower at the back of the second house. We rushed to the back of the second house, and sure enough we could see the top of old house. But the trees got in our way. So we had to climb the tower to get a good view of the yard. Later we asked Florence about the path and she laughed.
"Di jumbi go get all yuh now."
She told us stories about nine foot tall creatures, flying balls of fire and creatures that drink your blood. She said we weren't supposed to go down that path. Honestly, she did scare us for a while, we didn't leave the house for a few days, even had some nightmares. We were too scared to walk the yard between the houses until Uncle Ben told us there was no jumbi, he said Florence was the only jumbi on the mountain. She didn't like that and complained loudly about it to Granny.
Once we got our spirits back we began playing at the back of the second house climbing the water tower and guessing why the nun was living in the house. We all came to the conclusion she was probably a witch.
One day we were sitting quietly watching the house when we saw her leave. She walked about the yard, getting close to the bottom of the cliff the water tower was on, we had to lean over the edge to see what she was doing. The sun was over head, yet the yard was dark with few patches of sunlight, she kept to the shadows, going around checking buckets, pots and drums.
She stopped at four big drums in a corner and dipped her hands in them.
Four drums.
Four hands.
She had four hands, all extending from her shoulders. She pulled her hands out of the drums and shook them, she wasn't wearing nuns clothes, she had feathers, feathers that rippled like cat's fur when you tickle it. We screamed and she looked up at us. she wasn't white, she had a face that looked like a white human. Her head and neck resembled a bird. Her eyes were dark voids. We jumped off the tower and ran back to the main house.
That night in the girls room we lay awake talking about what had happened earlier. We were worried that Florence was probably telling the truth about there being a jumbi. My younger cousin, Katya, who I shared a bed with suddenly pointed up to a corner of the roof asking what that shadow was. The rest of us looked up and sure enough the corner was darker than all the others. Something seemed to be moving in the corner, it moved along the wall then back to the corner, two gold eyes burned bright in the dark as the shadow lunged at us. It dove first for Katya and I then ran along the walls and dove for the others in their beds, we screamed.
Katya threw the covers over her head, I kept watching the shadow as it circled the room. It landed near the dressers, the eyes turning diagonally then horizontally, it was disorienting to look at. Just then Haleel and the boys flicked on the switch as they came in. We saw it clearly. The white face hung loosely like a mask, four black, bear looking arms covered in feathers, a body that was a black mass with no feet. A jaw dropped lower than the face it wore as it screeched and jumped through the glass doors of our balcony. We didn't go back to sleep, and the boys stayed in the room with us for the rest of the night.
The next day Granny lined us up behind the second house facing the wall, our backs to the water tower and the cliff. She had broken a branch from one of the flower bushes and whipped all of us. Warning us not to leave the mountain without supervision. She made us stay facing the wall, while she spoke to someone, she was apologizing for us. I tried to turn around to see who it was but she whipped the back of my knees.
"None of you turn around. I want all of you to apologize to Mrs. Fletcher for spying on her, and trespassing on her property."
We were confused, but we each apologized and Granny promised Mrs. Fletcher we wouldn't bother her again. As Granny was standing behind me talking I could just barely make out her silhouette out the corner of my left eye, I turned my head slightly to the right trying to make out Mrs. Fletcher. I noticed Jehad was doing the same thing, we had made eye contact and were straining out eyes to see Mrs. Fletcher. She was standing further back than Granny so it was difficult. But we both had caught a glimpse, it was the same figure as the creature that entered our room the night before. That thing is Mrs. Fletcher?!
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