Some people can experience their entire lives without ever encountering anything supernatural. Many may have one instance in their lives to experience a supernatural being, such as a ghost or demon. While there are others that experience supernatural occurrences on a regular basis or almost daily. In my lifetime, I have experienced demons and ghosts regularly. A stigma. No one wants a curse visited upon them, because you constantly ask why. Why me? Especially if you were born into it.

One night, I looked into the eyes of a real Jumbie. This was not my first encounter with a Jumbie, this was just the first time I can recall looking a Jumbie in the eyes. Jumbies or Jumbees originate from Caribbean mythical. They are creatures or supernatural entities, ghosts and demon manifestations that can appear to an individual as any being in any form it choses.

Late one night, I was roused by a light touch under my right foot at the bottom of the bed. Before I became conscious to the touches, I rubbed my eyes from sleep and half sat up. At the bottom of my feet was my mother. Now, I was not confused in my child’s mind this was my mother, though there were suspicious clues that alluded to something amiss. To describe what squatted at the bottom of my bed, which squatted and had not sat upright as my mother would if she entered my room through my bedroom door. Though the face was familiar, the bulging, watery eyes of this entity was wide and strange, almost too amused at the sight of me. It had all the soft features of my mother’s face and yet, was not my mother. The large teeth shone from what moonlight mixed with streetlights outside my window. But that grimace of a smile, held something wicked and sinister. Much more than I could comprehend at the time.

The creature, which I am convinced now was a Jumbie, began to engage with me as I asked it questions. I asked it, “Mammy, why are you here.” It replied, with it’s bright wide eyes and ominous white teeth grin, “I came to give you this.” Then, it turned to look in it’s left hand, which had a blue plastic hair comb. I turned and looked at that left hand and saw that my blood was on the hair comb. I had not felt a thing! There was a scratch on my toe, it seemed as though the entity gashed my big toe with the hair comb and it drew blood. I cannot remember what happened after looking at the blood on my feet. Not sure what happened directly after I realized that I was harmed in any way, but I must have fallen back into a slumber, one which was deep and wonderous. I did not fight against this being nor did I protest.

When I woke up that morning, I was eager to ask my mother about the encounter I thought we had. First thing though, I examined my right foot and saw that there was a visible gash on my big toe from the hair comb. The blood was dried but from a fresh cut. In seeing this, I got a chill down the narrows of my back to think that this was all true. Was it? The Jumbie can be a trickster. Why would it need my blood though? All of those thoughts fell away, as I asked my mother in my childlike sing song voice, “Mammy, were you at the bottom of my bed last night?” She stopped what she was doing immediately and answered confused, “Well, no…I had not been in your room at all last night.” As I suspected, it wasn’t my mother at all! But was it a dream or nightmare or spectral of my imagination? I suppose I will never know…