26 JAMAICA

“My god, Jonathan, this wind and these waves, what is going on?”

“Hurricane, and unlike any storm I have ever seen or felt, this is dangerous, and I hope the captain can find us a port!”

Late on October 13, a minimal tropical storm formed in the western Caribbean Sea east-northeast of northern Honduras, and it became a significant storm within a week. On the fifteenth, the storm barrelled in the ship's path, traversing the central Caribbean between Panama and Jamaica. The storm's winds at open sea reached over 160 miles per hour, and the waves were cresting at 30 feet.

A slight turn of the storm caused the winds to approach directly from the stern, and the captain took immediate advantage of this to dash to the port of Kingston, Jamaica. 

“Mr and Mrs St Croix, I must ask that you gather your things and depart yourselves from my ship immediately. You will be refunded the remainder of your passage fee. I will not have further discussions on this matter. Please depart, and good day.”

Before either could reply, the ship’s captain turned and walked away. Two large sailors stood before them, and one offered to assist them with removing their belongings. 

At the end of the gangplank, a covered carriage waited. A native Jamaican, standing over six feet tall and with a shaved head, approached them, “If you are the couple known as St Croix, please come with me to my carriage.”

Evelyn looked at Jonathan, who was very worried, and said, “Devi, he is Devi.”

“Yes, I would have guessed that.” But the worried look on his face remained.

 

The man held open the carriage door. Jonathan helped Evelyn up the step, and the door was closed as soon as he entered the coach. Then Evelyn noticed bars on the door’s window.

“Do not panic, darling. We will be alright if this is what I think it is.”

“Do not panic. We are in a caged wagon and being kidnapped. How can I not panic?”

“Please, dear. When we get to where we are going, do not say anything. Act strong and fearless and follow my lead.”

After about twenty minutes, the carriage stopped, and the same large man opened the door and said, “Out.”

He walked toward a large plantation house that, unlike other ones they had seen, was not a shade of white but darker, almost charcoal.

The man led them into the house to a large sitting room, but they could not sit, as there was only one chair in the room—a large throne-like one made out of dried vines, roots, and branches all woven together, but with a red velvet seat and backrest.

Evelyn leaned toward Jonathan, “A Collette?”

He replied with a soft “Shhh.”

“Yes, woman, listen to your man and do not speak, And do not dare refer to me by the name of that white bitch in Paris; she has no dominion or power here.

Jonathan St Croix, we meet again. It has been a long time, and I do not forget my friends or foes.”

Jonathan straightened himself up and bowed his head forward. Evelyn did likewise, and both kept their gaze towards the ground.

“This is, I would assume, the woman you made Devi for love and fear of losing her. Love is dangerous, and we cannot afford any affair or manipulations of the heart in our lives.

You have come to my island without an invitation; what am I to do with you?”

Evelyn, thinking of how the Authentic in Paris admired her courage to speak up: “It was a storm; the ship came to this port…”

“Silence, I will not be mocked if you speak again without permission. I shall remove your tongue or worse.

St Croix, why are you here?”

“As my wife said, LaJade, a storm in the sea forced the ship's captain to find a safe harbour, and Kingston was the nearest safe port.”

“So, I should punish the captain of a ship for depositing you here? I have done far worse for far less of an offence. But what am I to do with you?”

“As you please, LaJade, as you please.”

“Yes, I will do that. But St Croix, I owe you a favour, and I will never leave a debt unpaid or uncollected.

 Evelyn could feel fear. As a single Devi, this woman was projecting a tremendous amount of energy, which was almost making her ill. She began trembling, shaking, bending over, and gasping for air.

“Be still, wife of St Croix, and cease your fear.”

Almost immediately, Evelyn felt a sense of calm, and she stood straight up. 

“You see, English, I am nothing like that French cow; I can control the things and people around me. I have the true power of the Devi. I have embraced its energies and its power. We do not dwell in the politeness of genteel society and the corridors of corrupted power, but we Devi, the Devi of the islands, are the true Devi. We embrace the power of nature and the power of life itself.”

“Yes, LaJade, I understand, and I see that.”

Jonathan was briefly shocked by Evelyn’s reply until he realized LaJade’s immense power. Using the female Devi's mind connection, she instructed or taught Evelyn all she should know about LaJade.

“Jonathan, as you assisted me in Havana those centuries ago, I will not harm you or your love for interloping on my island and into my realm. To call our debt balanced, I will tell you that a friend of yours was here a few months back, asking for my assistance locating you.”

“A friend, what friend would that be, Ma Grande Dame?”

“Orlan Marcano, he was here looking for you.”

“Marcano? He died thirty years ago, or so I was told by an emissary from Paris.”

“You see, that French white bitch knows nothing. Marcano lives. And I sensed a great darkness in his heart that even caused me concern.”

“Do you know where he is or where he has gone?

“He has gone to the land of Chile and is powerful. As you soft Devi refrain from death except to start your journey, Marcano has embraced the acts of death, and he has grown strong.

As we are now four days past the full moon and we can easily see it is waning, tonight we feast. You have twelve days until the dark of the moon to leave this island, and I believe you should do so with haste.”

The feast was unlike anything that Evelyn had ever attended. It was outdoors, and there were no dining chairs or tables. Mismatched chairs were interspersed with rocks and logs, and people sat on fallen trees. The night was humid, and a layer of wetness covered everything. Some voices were chanting in unison, and others in a cadence only for themselves.

There were four large fires, one with the carcass of an animal roasting on a spit, another with a large caldron on it and around the other two were drummers and others with rattles and wooden horns making an almost hypnotic beat. People began to stand and then move around the fires, dancing. Many disrobed themselves, and the fires reflected off the moisture and sweat on their bodies like a thousand stars in the night sky. 

As the night progressed, other dancers appeared, some with symbols of stars, moons, snakes, and lizards painted on their bodies and others with representations of their ribs, bones, and skulls painted on them. People passed plates of food, and everyone scooped some food off each with their hands before passing the plate to the next person: yams, fruits, various types of meat and fish. A flavoured and spiced concoction that she had never tasted before, she ate without question, fascinated by the scene unfolding around her. 

Since Jonathan created her as a Devi, she had broken most of the rules of her upbringing and had transgressed in countless ways against the god of her childhood, to the point where she had committed the gravest sin, an act of murder. Tonight, for the first time, she had truly felt at peace. Tonight, watching all of this unfold, naked dancing bodies, unlimited food, drinks of unknown potency and tribal raw music that stirred the essence of her soul.

She looked at Jonathan, who was surrounded by strangers feeding him and offering him drinks. He kept fading out of view, returning before her, and moving away again. She then realized that she was naked and dancing around the fires. Naked bodies of other women and men rubbing up against her. Some running their hands up or down her back, some kneeling and genuflecting before her, and others rolling on the ground around her.

At one point, she could no longer see Jonathan, but that did not matter; she was living in the ecstasy of the moment, one with creation and all living things. A white mist enveloped her, and she woke up naked, lying in a bed beside Jonathan.

Thinking back to the event of the previous night, she felt no guilt for being naked and dancing as such with dozens of others and losing control of her body and mind. Celebrating who she was in a natural state. She only felt remorse and sadness that the evening was over and that she may never feel that way again.         

“Jonathan, what happened last night? I did not understand anything, yet I was not scared but felt an overwhelming sense of bliss?

“That is their way, I do not understand it, but it is the magick of the spirits and of the earth. They can manifest it and use it.”

“But, why have I not felt anything like that before? We have lived with negroes around us in Philadelphia and the natives near us in both New Zealand and Australia, why are things different here?”

“The Islanders have not forgotten the ways of their ancestors and forebearers from Africa. We destroyed their cultures and their ways and tore them from their homes and lands. The only thing remaining is their faith in their old gods.”

“Surely you are not serious. Their old gods are just superstition.”

“How are the gods of the Nigerians or of the Congo any less than the god worshipped in England or by the Church of Rome? Both are equally as valid and exist, or neither do. There cannot only be one faith in the world, to the exclusion of all others.”

“You are saying some stone idol with a lion’s head in a jungle is the same as a cross with a Christ on it?”

“Yes, as nothing is holy with either, both represent an idea. A crucifix is a piece of wood, and a statue is a rock.” 

“That is blasphemy.”

“You are over one hundred years old and look like you are thirty-five. You do not age, and you live off the life force of others. As being Devi, we should not accuse anyone of blasphemy.”

“But how did the LaJade change my mind and calm me last night before the feast?”

“She and the others here tap into the forces of nature and the forces of the soul.

There is much we Europeans do not understand or have chosen not to understand. In French West Africa, the Ewe people in Togoland and the neighbouring Gold Coast have a spirit called the Adze, which can take flight and possess the energies of the human soul. The adze's influence affects people who live around their home. So perhaps where we, as Devi, can only feed on the lost life energies of those when they die, the adze can live and feed off the life energies of others while they are alive?

In British and Dutch Guiana and Caribbean islands, including Saint Lucia, Dominica, Haiti, and Trinidad, magickal creatures are called Soucouyants or Jumbies. Elsewhere, the Soucouyants are known by other names, such as the Bahamian "Hag," which strongly connects to the Aje or the witch of the Yoruba people of the Belgian Congo.

By using and combining all the power and energies of these gods or using them to focus and grow her Devi power, she is causing panic and fear in the hearts of white Europeans like us. 

 So if the LaJade and her people can draw from others, perhaps they can project that energy, and maybe she granted you some of her energies to calm you.”

“But that would make them more potent than the Devi.”

“Yes, and that is why the Authentic has no power here. It is how LaJade knew we were here, how she could have the captain expel us from his ship. They control all the islands here. We move from country to country; they travel from island to island.”

“Why is she called LaJade? What does that mean?”

“In the language of the San people in Southern Africa, the word in the Khoisan language for ‘Great Woman’ is a "Khâi ǀO” A Governor in Martinique many years ago bastardized that word to sound like ‘LaJade.”

“And what of Marcano? The Grande Dame says he has been here and is looking for us and is more powerful. What does that mean.”

“Marcano is killing for strength. Recall, when you killed, the feeling of power and almost majesty you felt. With Marcano now, he craves that feeling, and to him, it is like an opium addiction. The more he kills, the more he needs to kill.”

“And for us, what does that mean.”

“It means we must leave Jamaica before the next new moon and make our way to Paris.”

“One more thing, Jonathan, LaJade said she owed you a favour; what was that debt?”

“I believe it was 1762, in the Spanish colony of Havana, the British placed the city under siege, and the British force was more than 25,000 men, of which 2,400 were enslaved Africans forced to fight. The siege lasted eleven months, and thousands died of disease on both sides. In the end, the British gave Cuba back to Spain in exchange for Florida, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris.”

“But what of you and LaJade?”

“LaJade had been a spy for the British and Spain. As such, one of the orders given by Lieutenant-General George Keppel, 3rd Earl of Albemarle, the commander of the British land forces, was to arrest her for trial. I was working at the time for Havana’s governor, Juan de Prado, and I was able, with letters of transit spirit, both myself and LaJade, off of Cuba and make our way to the furthest reaches of the islands to Saint Lucia. It was British at the time but was ceded to France in 1763. The British retook the island in 1778, and it switched sides many times.

We were safe there for almost thirty years until January 1791, when the French Assembly sent revolutionary commissaries to St Lucia to spread the revolutionary philosophy. In the summer of that year, LaJade began to organize the disenfranchised and those tired of continual ongoing occupation and wars on the island.

Slaves began to abandon plantations, and the impoverished whites and free people of colour began to arm themselves as patriots. Then she took her ideals to other islands and, using her army of blacks, freed slaves and runaways, she started her crusade against the colonial powers.

So, I got her out of Cuba, allowing her to rise to power as the Devi Queen of the Caribbean. And that was the outstanding debt she owed me.”