hands and there were the usual pleasantries. I felt a deep relief at having completed the small task of walking to Bland’s home unmolested. And having done that, I was now aware of a gnawing impatience to set upon the work of freedom for Lydia, and thus, in turn, freedom for Sophia, my Sophia. She existed in my mind not as one with her own notions and ideas but as an idea herself, a notion herself, so that to think of my Sophia was to think of a woman for whom I possessed a true and a sincere feeling, but, too, was to think of my dreams and my redemption. It is important that I tell you this. It is important that you see how little I knew of her dreams, of her redemption. I know now that she had tried to tell me, and I, who so prided himself on listening, simply could not hear.
At all events, this was the spirit, anxious and rash, that I brought to Micajah Bland, so that no more than five minutes after taking my seat I said, directly and abruptly, “So how we gonna do it?”
“Get to Sophia?” Bland asked.
“Well, I was thinking about Lydia and the kids. But we can start with Sophia if you like.”
“Sophia is the easy one. I have to prevail upon Corrine and marshal some resources, but it will be done.”
“Corrine…” As I said her name, my voice trailed off. “She’s the one who left Sophia there.”
“It is her station, Hiram. She deserves notice, and more, deserves consultation.”
“Corrine…” I shook my head.
“You know the full story on that woman?”
“No,” I said. “Except that she has left Sophia down in the coffin.”
And now something happened, something that I was not aware of at the time. I do not know if it was a kind of possession, but I know that I felt an anger rising in me, an anger related to me, related to my violation, related to the jail and what had been done to me. But it was not my anger. And the voice that now spoke was not mine so much as one recently imprinted upon me. And the voice now said, You know what they did to us back there. You done forgot? You don’t remember what they do to the girls down here? And once they do it, they got you. They catch you with the babies, tie you to the place by your own blood….
At that moment, the usual calm repose of Bland’s face broke and gave way to something in him I had never seen before and never saw again—fear. And then the walls fell away and in their place there was a great and borderless nothing. The table and chairs were still there and they, along with Bland himself, were wreathed in a now-familiar blue. I was aware of myself, and aware of a deep anger—but more I felt a low guttural pain—one that had been with me since the day I’d left Maynard to the deep. Most important, I was, for the first time, aware of exactly what was happening as it was happening, so that I now thought to try to steer it, direct it, the way you might direct a dream. But the moment I did this, the moment I attempted to directly affect my surroundings, the world reverted back. The great nothing shimmered, until the outlines of walls returned. The blue faded and I saw now that we were seated again, except that we had changed places and I had taken Bland’s seat while he had taken mine. I stood and touched the walls. I walked out of the room, stumbled into the foyer, then leaned against the wall. There was that same disorientation, though the fatigue was less. I returned to the dining room and took my seat.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” I said. “That’s what Corrine wants.”
“Yes, it is,” he said.
“Have you seen it before?”
“Yes,” he said. “But not like that.”
For long minutes, I said nothing. Bland himself now stood and left the room, and I took this as charity for it seemed to me that he knew that I needed a moment to collect myself. When he returned, his sister Laura was with him. She mentioned that it would be time for supper soon and asked me to stay.
“Join us, Hiram,” said Micajah Bland. “Please.”
I agreed.
After the meal, we took a walk together, silently strolling through the evening Philadelphia streets. And then I