stewed okra and sweet potatoes. We had greens and baked shad. There was salt pork and apples. Some type of bird stuffed with rice and mushrooms. Bread. Pudding. Dumplings. Black cake. Ale. It was the most indulgent meal I’d ever had, but more incredible than the meal was what happened after.
Corrine rose first and then the others, and all together they began to clean the dishes and reset the dining room. It was an incredible sight. There was no division. Everyone moved together, everyone except me. I tried to help but was refused. When the clean-up was done, they all retired to the parlor and I watched as they played blind man’s bluff late into the night. It occurred to me both by their jolly nature and their stray comments that this was not the usual evening, that something had changed warranting this celebration, and that the something was me.
I stayed that night in the house, in what was the guest chambers, sleeping long and late into the afternoon. I had never engaged in such luxury, not even during Holiday. I washed and dressed and then walked downstairs. The house was quiet. On the kitchen table there was a pan of rye muffins with a note next to it directing me to indulge. After devouring two muffins, I cleaned my dish, walked out the front door, and took a seat on the porch. From the outside, the house was modest and quaint, covered in white clapboard. There was a garden out front, filled with blooming snowdrops and bluebells. Past the garden there was a bank of woods, and then in the distance I saw the majestic peaks of what I knew to be the western mountains. I surmised that I was likely at the border of Virginia, most probably in Bryceton, Corrine’s family stead, the same manse where she’d told me, months ago, she would have me delivered.
In the distance, I saw two figures emerging from the woods. They walked toward the house and I could soon discern that they were two white men—one older, one younger, a father and son perhaps. When they saw me they stopped. The younger one nodded in greeting, but the older man grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back to the woods. I sat there for an hour looking out and at some point fell into a daydream and then, obviously more fatigued than I thought, into an actual dream. And I was back in my cell again, but this time with Pete and Thena, and when the men pulled me out to the front parlor Pete and Thena laughed, and I could hear their laughter through the entire ordeal as men inspected me, violated me. I could not at that time yet see this as such—as violation. It took time to learn how to speak of what was done to me directly, to tell the story of my time in Ryland’s Jail as it was, and not feel my manhood fleeting from me. It took time for me to see that the story really was my greatest power. But back then, when I awoke from the dream all I felt was a burning anger. I had never been a violent boy. I did not have much of a temper. But for years after this, I found myself randomly filled up with the most destructive thoughts and feelings, and unable to truly admit to why.
I was awakened by a door closing behind me. I looked back and saw that it was Amy. She walked out and stood on the porch for a moment, looking out as the now setting sun fell over the mountains. She wore neither a mourning gown nor black veil, but a gray hoop dress with a white apron across the front. Her hair was pulled back behind a bonnet.
“I am supposing you have questions,” she said.
Yes. I had many. But I offered none of them. It was my feeling that I had asked enough already, by which I mean I had told them enough already, because I’d learned in my first life that interrogation is never one way. Until Amy said, “All right. I understand. I must suppose that were I you, right now, I would not be much for talking myself. Nevertheless, I’m talking. Because there are things about this place, about this new life, that you should know.”
Out of the side of my eye, I now saw her looking at me. But I held