WHEN I OPEN my eyes the next morning Hannah isn't beside me. Alarmed, I sit up and scan the fort. I crawl out into the open and call her name. My shout is welcomed only by a deadly silence, then soaked up by the damp air.
Beginning to panic, I look around for signs of disturbance: marks in the dirt, rustled leaves.
Nothing.
Maybe Amos took her back to the cabins.
I start to walk towards the pond and finally I see her, hunched on the bank, staring into the water. Her clothes drip with mud. Her knotted hair hangs limply over her forehead, shielding her eyes.
I help her to lie down on the hot bank, leaving her hand dipped in the water. I can feel the sharpness of her bones under her shirt.
I feed her some bread soaked in peach juice. She looks up at me. The dark waters of her eyes reflect pain and grief, and they seem to tunnel into her soul, like two inescapable abyss's of misery. The flame that once shone with hope has faded into a circle of smoke in her iris.
She looks peaceful for a moment, and then her body jerks and she wretches, spitting the bread out of her mouth.
I spend the next three hours coaxing food down her throat and trying to stop her from vomiting.
Amos arrives at midday with a torn sack slung over his shoulder.
"What's that for?" I ask.
He hesitates. "More people's leavin' today. I's helping 'em pack."
"Why's you here, then, in the woods?"
"Tryna fin' some food. Berries or somethin'. Is Hannah doing ok?"
"She's doin' real good, ain't you Hannah?" I put another piece of bread in her mouth. When I look up Amos is staring at me.
"What?" I ask, but I know what. We both know. Hannah's getting sicker and sicker. And it's like I've fallen into the truth. And the truth is a thick, sticky bog that I can't get out of.
Hannah's not going to make it.
I think Amos can see that I want to be alone because he leaves silently. I hold Hannah's head close to my heart. I put my hand on her wrist, terrified of feeling her pulse because I know that at any moment it could stop.
I'm about to go back to the cabins when I hear a rustle in the bushes near me. I jump up, suddenly afraid that it's a Union soldier who has returned to kill the rest of us.
It's not, but still my heart skips a beat when I see her face.
Julia.
"You ain't dead," is all I can say. As she walks closer I can take in the full severity of her appearance. Half of her hair is missing. Her skin is dry, almost flaking. She shakes as if she has no sense of balance.
"Where's... Amos?"
"Um... at the cabins I s'ppose. Well, what's lef' of 'em."
"Ok." She nods.
"Is... Is you ok?"
"No," she says, walking straight past me.
I want to run after her, before she slips away through the trees, but I know I have to stay with Hannah.
I wait for hours for her to return. Every time a twig snaps, I hope to see her face. Eventually, long after the sun has set, a figure emerges from the darkness.
"Julia?"
"It's Beckey." She squats down next to me and picks up Hannah.
"Oh. Where's Julia?"
YOU ARE READING
Mind Of A Slave
Historical Fiction"The life we're living is the easiest of the difficult." Cass Jinney Jackson is a Louisianan slave girl. She has recently moved to a plantation near the woods, but her life there is far from ordinary. Growing up as the civil war rages on, she finds...
