Island Witch by Amanda Jayatissa

Author:Amanda Jayatissa [Jayatissa, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

24

“AMARA, THERE’S A stain on your blouse,” Amma hissed, hesitating at the tall gate. Iron rods speared their way towards the sky like demon teeth, guarding a large property overshadowed by coconut trees.

The driveway was long, at least a few hundred metres, and I was damp with sweat by the time we neared the house. Dread enveloped me. It stifled me just as much as the humidity of the late morning. The pounding that started in my chest found its way to my ears.

My dream the previous night had left me uneasy and being here did nothing to calm my nerves.

Amma had shaken me awake early in the morning and insisted we leave the house even before the sun rose. I was in a daze, my nightmare still fresh in my mind. At least I hadn’t sleepwalked. I looked around for Thaththa, but he wasn’t there—perhaps he was with Leelawathi again. I got the feeling that Amma wanted to be out of the house before he got back, and knew I had been right when I realised where we were going.

I tried to take a deep breath, but the air was pungent with the smell of rotting fruit. Mangoes that had fallen from the trees had burst open, covered in flies, waiting to be swept away. The comfort of the ocean’s salty tang was a snuffed-out memory here. The wind that coursed its way through the trees whistled us its warnings, bidding us to go home.

I gasped at the house that towered formidably at the end of the drive. A whitewashed arch choked its entryway, while the large verandah that wrapped around the building bristled with circular pillars. The roof was covered in terra-cotta tiles—patterned waves looking like the scales of some yet-undiscovered beast. Latticed wooden panels shielded parts of the verandah from the sun, guarding its secrets, forbidding it life. A rickshaw—a carriage with large wheels, usually used by the Englishmen and pulled by their local servants—lay close to the entrance, a dark-skinned, bare-chested man in a sarong polishing its wheels. He did not greet us.

This was where my mother grew up, and I couldn’t imagine a life so different from what we had now, in our tiny, single-room hut. It was no small wonder that she resented my father. And me. I’d always imagined that the jungle was my sanctuary and that the ocean shore was better than any grand palace. Conch shells and exquisite fruit greater than any riches. But I’d never had real wealth. I’d never had anything to give up. My mother had. And she did.

Amma rubbed at the small mark on my sleeve with her handkerchief, and when that didn’t do anything she yanked the fall of my sari, the one she had draped on me herself that morning, across my back and over my other shoulder, and laid it so that it hid the offending smudge.

“It’s better this way. More modest.” She wore her sari covering both shoulders as well. “Why didn’t you check if your clothes were clean, child?”

But she didn’t care for my answer.

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