The Whisperer's Warning

By Danielle Y. C. McClean

Exciting sequel to the award-winning title: The Protectors' Pledge

"There's plenty, plenty more to this world than what we see with our eyes."

12-year-old JV is learning just how much truth lies behind those words.

He has discovered that he's one of a select few entrusted with preserving the balance between the world's natural and unnatural realms and is now more driven than ever to know who his birth parents are.

But there's another mystery in the usually quiet village of Alcavere that he can't ignore. He and his friends, Carol and Riaz, have received a cryptic warning from a supernatural being who dwells in the Oscuros Forest, launching them into a high-stakes mission. Can they solve the riddle and protect a villager from the foretold doom before time runs out?

• Language: English
• Publisher: CaribbeanReads Publishing
• Release date: Jan 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781953747167

Book preview

PROLOGUE

She moved quickly, her mind torn between what she had left behind and what lay ahead. It had not been easy to part with her treasure. It never was. She fought the panic that threatened to grab her insides and twist them into knots—the dread that someone would find her sole possession of value and deprive her of it forever. Picking up the pace, she cut a path through the darkness and approached her destination silently.

The night hung about the village like a satin shroud, grasping at the delicate rays of a waning crescent moon. All was quiet, everyone asleep. She glanced in the direction from which she had come and reminded herself for the umpteenth time that her precious treasure was well hidden. It would still be there when she returned. Circling the house, she paused to check the windows and doors. As expected, they were locked, but that was not a problem. She had unique skills that would allow her to enter almost anywhere.

Once inside, she unlocked a side door and let her partner in. She surveyed her surroundings. The living room was too small for the furniture that it held, the air was heavy with the smell of burned mosquito coils, and she could hear whistling snores coming from a half-open door not too far away. Tick, tick, tick. The beats of the second hand on a clock she could not see reminded her that it was time for them to start their search. This was their first visit of the night, and her treasure was unattended. They needed to hurry.

CHAPTER 1

A Possible Truth

Jason, I keep telling you to stop all that nail biting! One day you'll nyam your fingers clean off, eh, and as talented a healer as I am, I don't have any medicine that will grow them back.

Granny B did not break her stride or turn around. She was walking in front of JV yet knew exactly what he was up to. He had long suspected that she had eyes in the back of her head, and this was further proof.

Reluctantly, he stuck his hand in his pants pocket where his fingertips instinctively felt for the gold coin. He kept forgetting that it was no longer there. Five weeks had passed since Papa Bois, the half-man half-beast Protector of the Forest, had given him the strange token. Today, JV was hoping to learn more about it, even though Papa Bois warned that misfortune tended to befall persons who bore similar trinkets throughout history.

The coin was his only link to the woman who had left him in the Oscuros Forest—the woman who could possibly be his mother—so he made sure to keep it close at all times. For four weeks he had transferred it from one pants pocket to another with each change of clothing, and when that ritual had become tiresome, he had threaded a shoelace through its hole, conveniently positioned at the top of the ornate anchor etched on each face, and had begun wearing it as a pendant under his shirt.

He caught up with Granny B and settled into a rhythm beside her. She was agile for a person in her seventies with a bosse back. Her soft grey hair was parted down the middle with two braids pinned across the nape of her neck. She had that determined look on her face—the one she used when searching for an elusive herb amongst the undergrowth of Oscuros, or when she was working on a medicinal cure, pounding and grinding its ingredients in her mortar.

It had been her idea to show the unusual coin to old Pa Gregory, whom everyone in the village believed to be an obeah man. She hoped that he might decipher its symbols and shed some light on where it came from. But JV had already made the trek to the small, isolated house twice on his own and had come away without having seen the hermit. He had knocked on the door, peeped in at the windows, and even dared call out, with no success. This visit, however, would be different. Granny B was with him.

JV hopped over a puddle. The road this far out on the eastern end of Alcavere was generally ignored by villagers and unknown to visitors. Its potholes grew wider and deeper with each rainfall, providing spacious accommodations for the mosquito larvae that jerked and wriggled within, and for the weeds and other plants that thrived in the network of cracks that criss-crossed the worn asphalt.

When he had suggested to Granny B that they drive rather than walk the two miles, she had refused, saying that although her old Ford Cortina could handle short weekly trips to the market, the stretch up by Pa Gregory would kill it dead. So, they had returned home after the market, parked the car in its spot under the soursop tree, and put their purchases in the house before setting out on foot. JV did not really mind. He could spend the whole day, every day outdoors if given the choice. His concern had really been for Granny B, but she was faring well. The unrelenting heat that the old people always complained about would not descend on the island for another few hours. She would be back home by then.

Pa Gregory's house was easy to miss. The one-storey wooden structure blended in with the forest that encroached on its back and sides. Its sagging roof and front porch added to the slumped, droopy bearing and made it look as though it were trying to hide behind the tall grass that mostly shielded it from the road. Bottles and shards of blue glass hung from surrounding tree branches—put there to protect the property from mal yeux.

JV paused at a hog plum tree and tapped a piece of glass that hung at eye level. It clinked against another shard, caught the sun's rays, and projected dancing patterns on the surrounding blades of grass. Looking up, JV half-expected to see his monkey friend, Curty, poised on a branch and ready to jump down to his shoulder. He had become instant friends with the spunky, tailless, capuchin monkey on his first exploratory mission into Oscuros at the start of the school holiday and had even saved him from an animal smuggling ring. But Curty was not in Pa Gregory's hog plum tree. Nor were the handful of youths who, according to the village gossip Doris George, occasionally limed amongst the highest leaves, dropped their candy wrappers and soft drink cans to the base of the trunk, and shouted taunts at Pa Gregory. Nope. No monkey or heckling teenagers.

JV followed Granny B up the rickety porch steps and stood next to her.

Gregory! she called, rapping on the door. Gregory! It’s Bettina. Ten, then twenty seconds passed before she rapped again. Louder. Open up, Gregory. Who you trying to fool? We both know you don't go anywhere. Another twenty seconds went by. You really going to keep me waiting and calling so? Open up! This is serious business, man. there was no response and JV's hopes plummeted.

Told you, Granny. He won't come out.

Eh heh? We'll see about that. Give me the coin, please.

JV's hands flew to his chest, covering it.

Trust me, Jason, she said, palm outstretched. One thing Gregory can't resist is a good mystery, and that coin is full of it.

JV swallowed hard, carefully lifted the shoelace and dangling coin over his head, and placed them in Granny B's hand. Enclosing them in her fist, she thumped the door again.

Gregory! I have something for you to see. A coin. Gold with an anchor on both sides. Come nah, man. Take a quick look so Jason and I can get home before the sun gets too hot.

The door swung open abruptly making JV jump. Pa Gregory’s bald head poked out of the doorway, and his milky eyes darted from Granny B to JV and then to the sea of grass behind them.

Shh! Not so loud, Bettina, he commanded. Inside. Quick! He stepped aside to allow them entry before yanking the door shut, almost catching JV's heel in the process.

***

So, this is what it looks like in here, JV thought, squeezing past Pa Gregory. He had glimpsed the inside of Pa Gregory's house once before—last year at Christmas time. His Social Studies teacher, Mr. Lambie, had challenged JV and his classmates to think of a way to reach out and bring the spirit of the season to someone in the village, and after much thought he had decided to make a card for the ancient man who lived apart from everyone else.

JV’s best friend Riaz had tried to dissuade him, saying that as nice as it was to do a good deed, you'd have to be a real cunumunu to give anything to an obeah man who could use it to work who-knows-what kinda jadoo against you.

But JV had stood by his choice and had spent a weekend working on the card. He composed a warm, friendly poem and drew all the things that made him especially happy at that time of year: pastelles, black cake, sorrel, paranderos, and of course presents. He still remembered the knots in his stomach that had tightened with each knock on Pa Gregory's door; his shock when the door had opened; the quick and sputtered explanation he gave as to why he was there; and his terror when a crinkled hand shot out from the gloomy interior, snatched the card from his sweaty fingers, and slammed the door shut.

Pa Gregory's front room had a peculiar and unpleasant smell that JV could not quite place. He gave his eyes a few moments to adapt to the dimness of the room. When they did, he could clearly see the coats of dust that lay comfortably on an unpainted, unvarnished tea table; on the shelves of a squat and over-packed bookcase; and on two tasselled lampshades that may have once been white. Spiderwebs hung between artificial bamboo stalks that stood in an urn in the corner by the door.

JV's eyes began to itch. Next to him Granny B cleared her throat, and he could tell that she was trying not to cough. Pa Gregory flicked the light switch on the wall, slipped around his visitors, and stood before them with hands clasped. His pose did little to hide the tremble in his hands, however. The look on his face was somewhere between excitement and suspicion, and JV was momentarily mesmerised by how his jaw maintained a constant quiver. He wondered if it ever got tired.

Jason stopped by a few times, Granny B began, but—

You didn't come here to give explanations, Bettina, Pa Gregory said. JV sucked in his breath. He had never heard anyone speak that way to Granny B. The trembling in Pa Gregory's hands became more pronounced. the coin. Show me the coin.

Granny B said nothing in response, but the unblinking gaze with which she fixed him, coupled with her arched eyebrow, was JV's proof that she was surely delivering a silent buff. In what seemed like slow motion, he watched her fist open, and he knew that they had made a mistake. He no longer wanted Pa Gregory to tell him where the coin came from, the dangers that accompanied it, or what it could reveal about who JV really was. Now that there was a real possibility that he could have answers to all those questions, he was afraid of what the answers would be. All he wanted in that very moment was to snatch the coin and run.

But it was too late. His coin was already in the frail hand and was being raised to eye level for examination—one side first and then the other. JV looked on as Pa Gregory placed it in the centre of his open left palm and closed his thin eyelids. For those ten or fifteen seconds, Pa Gregory's hands and jaw were still, and when he finally opened his eyes, they looked straight at JV.

Come. Come here, boy. Come let me see you.

The tone caught JV by surprise. It was not a barked order but an invitation. An invitation with an unsettling hint of awe attached. Granny B gave him a reassuring nod. He stepped toward Pa Gregory who almost immediately leaned even closer and began taking in his every detail: JV’s big eyes, dark-brown irises, and long lashes; high cheekbones and round chin; low afro with its unfortunate zug on the right side; and his height that was just below average for a twelve-year-old. JV squirmed, imagining that this was how his coin would have felt under Pa Gregory's intense scrutiny if it had feelings.

Tell me what you know about this coin. Where you got it?

Umm…

Granny B prodded him gently in the ribs.

Someone gave it to me.

Granny B gave him a sharper prod. Jason, stop wasting time! Tell Pa Gregory everything you know.

So, JV began. He told him about Papa Bois and noted that Pa Gregory did not react on hearing that the Protector of the Forest was real. He recounted what the Protector had said a little more than a month ago: how he had witnessed JV being abandoned in the Oscuros Forest as a baby, and that the woman who had left him there hid the coin in the folds of his blanket; that she had whispered the words 'Akin Dawar' in his ear before she had fled crying; and that Papa Bois had taken the coin in order to protect JV from the danger that it supposedly attracted.

JV described his fear and confusion when Papa Bois gave him the coin on that July afternoon, saying that JV had proved himself ready to have it. He shared all that he knew, leaving nothing out. But when he had finished, Pa Gregory just stood there staring at him and, had his jaw and hands not begun to tremble again, JV would have thought he had transformed into a statue. Unnerved by the silence, JV was about to suggest to Granny B that they forget the whole thing and be on their way, when Pa Gregory finally spoke. There was no mistaking the enthusiasm in his voice.

This was the only thing Papa Bois gave you?

JV nodded.

You sure? He didn't take anything else when he found you? Pa Gregory studied him carefully.

JV had