Sun shinin' and rain fallin'
The jumbi and his wife marriedin'
if you see the trail of white umbrellas
don't go followin'
the jumbi will turn you in to food
The jumbi wedding parade is walking along
Everywhere they pass they leave a white umbrella
The guests don't get lost and humans stay away
A nosy person will end up being jumbi dinner today.
46Please respect copyright.PENANA1aMYSHm3Gc
When I was smaller, grandmother always told us a story about the spirit pathway, or Jumbi trail. It is a trail you cannot find easily except after heavy rainfall. The trail is marked by the Jumbi umbrellas, and always ends at a big silk cotton tree. Grandmother always said never to follow the umbrellas or the jumbi will take you away. It was a scary story when you're a kid, but it is a stupid one really.
Dad says the story was told to keep children away from the Jumbi umbrellas, apparently they are poisonous mushrooms. Some dumb kid probably thought because people eat mushrooms they could eat them too. I'm not dumb enough to just go picking up a mushroom on the ground and eat it.
But like the Anansi stories grandmother told us, it was pointless and less interesting. What's worse she told us this story every year just before the rain season. By the time I was nine I was tired of it, I didn't care whenever I saw the mushrooms pop up. And eventually I forgot the story.
When I turned eleven, I had to stay at Grandmother's house for a few weeks because we were moving to our new house. It was cool, I got to stay back after school longer and take the bus home with my friends.
One day I went to school and it rained for the whole day. When I got off the bus I remembered Grandmother's story about the Jumbi umbrellas, but the whole way home I never saw even one! I told Grandmother there were no umbrellas even though the rain fell heavily all day. And she said, "The rain today was not heavy". There was lightening and thunder that felt like earth tremors. Not heavy?
She said the rain had to fall for two days and the second day must be bright and sunny with the rain for the umbrellas to show up. How conveniently specific all of a sudden. Where was this detail before?! Luckily enough, rain fell the next day and there was sunshine all through the rain, by evening the rain was a light drizzle.
On my way home I spotted small clusters of umbrellas but not a trail like Grandmother said there would be. I got as far as the old Anglican church, but only after passing the church did I find a neat line of umbrellas. They started on the edge of the drain then moved further away from the road.
For a while, I could stay on the road and see the umbrellas through the bushes, but then they crossed over a log and I lost sight of them. I mean I'm curious who isn't. It's not everyday you see this, there's no harm in following a mushroom trail. Besides it's through a plot of land whose owner is never around.
So I crossed the drain, then went over the log and continued following the trail. It's pretty stupid though now that I think about it. How could these little mushrooms that are probably three inches tall, be umbrellas for jumbi folk who are supposed to be seven feet tall. Man, kids in the old days were really dumb.
The umbrella trail went through the plot and down hill following along a track. The trail kept going down hill, but snaking left then right. I passed coconut trees, fruit trees, bamboo clusters and a whole lot of bushes.
Eventually I ended up in a flat area with these huge cashew trees, their blossoms left the ground purple it was like a whole different country! Everywhere I turned were these cashew trees, they were as tall as a three floor house. I've never seen cashew trees that big! Some of them had planks of wood hammered into the trunk like a ladder from halfway up to the top. The ground was so littered with blossoms I could not see the dirt below.
But the trail kept going until I was past the giant cashews through to a rocky area with cocoa trees. There were all sizes of rocks and boulders with cocoa trees growing between them. I've never had this experience on a hike before. Hike trails are usually boring with maybe one thing that stands out. But this, this was different, this was cool, this I'll show my friends next time they want to hike.
The cocoa trees were not neatly lined like the cashew trees, some looked bent and crooked and there were witches brooms growing on those at the back. I say back because they were the last line of cocoa trees before a clearing with a big silk cotton tree at the center. There were several rings of Jumbi umbrellas on the roots and ground around the trunk.
Like the cashew trees the silk cotton was huge, bigger really. It looked like the oldest tree in the area. The roots were also big and snaked out around it. I walked around the tree until I came to a spot with a break in the rings, that lead to the hollow between the roots and trunk. I'm here already, I might as well...
The moment I stepped into the umbrella ring, my head started to hurt. By the second step, it sounded like every frog in the country was singing in my ears. On the third step, the sky got dark like it does when a cloud passes over. Past the fourth ring, of umbrellas I could see the hinge of a door on the inside of the hollow.
When I stepped into the hollow it looked like my uncle Leo's kitchen. There was a shelf over the old stove on the left. A table with all kinds of jars next to a counter that ran along the right side. A wooden crate against the wall near the door and a bucket next to it. Even Uncle's three legged stool by the sink was there.
Everything really did look the same, only it reeked. The air was musty and smelled rotten. Before I could run out, something on my right near the table turned around to look at me. Nothing was there a few seconds ago. "What are you doing here?" the shadow asked. A tall woman with a wide brim hat and a long white dress turned to me.
"La Diablesse!"
The woman started laughing, "Did no one ever tell you not to follow the umbrellas?" The woman laughed again and the door closed behind me. Crap, maybe grandmother's stories weren't just dumb tales for scaring kids.
"So child, what are you doing here?" She asked again.
At that moment every story grandma every told me ran through my mind. But someone was breathing really loudly in my ears, and I was having trouble thinking. The only thing that kept repeating was grandma's story about the village witch 'Tan Lilith'. I didn't even think, the words came out of my mouth.
"Tan Lilith sent me."
The woman laughed again. "Lilith, she's still alive and still bothering me huh." The woman reached over to the back of the table and picked up a coin. "Here, tell her to keep it in her coin purse, and the money will never finish."
The coin was as big as my palm, had a laughing skull with a crack on it's head. "I will take the payment later. If Lilith can't pay then I will take it from you child." The woman laughed again and turned her back. The next thing I knew was outside the ring of mushrooms surrounding the tree.
Okay...
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