The Jumbies opens as 11-year-old protagonist Corinne La Mer runs through the woods in pursuit of an agouti that has her mother’s stone pendant necklace tied to its leg. Corinne recovers her necklace, but suddenly becomes fearful, remembering stories about jumbies, terrible supernatural creatures that hide in the forest. Corinne hurriedly follows the wind to make her way home; she believes something is following her, its glowing yellow eyes peering at her from between the forest leaves.

Corinne meets her father, Pierre, who asks what she was doing in the woods. She tells him that two boys had tied her mother’s necklace to an agouti, and she had to retrieve it. As she speaks to her father, Corinne spots the boys with a frog at a nearby dried-up well, but they run away before Pierre sees them. Pierre is impressed that Corinne was able to catch the agouti but reminds her to stay out of the forest because of the wild animals. He realizes she is frightened and playfully asks her if she saw a jumbie in the forest. Corinne tells him she did not and laughs at her earlier fear. Corinne puts her mother’s necklace back on, and she and Pierre begin their walk to the graveyard to visit her mother’s grave.