“What are you crying for,” demanded Calvin. He looked at Denmark, too, who was only just beginning to dry his eyes.

“You too strong a wind for me,” said Gullah Joe. “Oh, my people, my people, go home!”

Calvin lurched toward him a couple of steps, then fell to the floor. “I’m dying, Margaret,” he said. “My body’s too far gone.”

“He be dying, that save me the trouble of killing him,” said Denmark. “All we done for our people, he just undid it all.”

“No!” cried Fishy. “He be setting us free! All our rage tied up in that net, that be the bad jail of all. We be slaves then, right down to the heart. Give up ourself so we can hide? From what? The worst thing already happen, when we give you our name-string.”

Margaret knelt beside Calvin’s body. “You have to heal yourself,” she kept murmuring to him.

“I don’t know where to start,” Calvin whispered. “I’m filled with corruption clear through.”

“Alvin!” cried Margaret desperately. “Alvin, look! Look at me! See what’s happening here!” She rose to her feet and began forming letters in the air. H-E-L-P. C-A-L-V-I-N. H-E-A-L H-I-M! “Look at me and save his life, if you want him to live!”

“What you do in the air, you?” asked Fishy. “What you waving at?”

“My husband,” said Margaret. “He doesn’t see me.” She turned to Gullah Joe. “Is there something you can do to help all those lost names return home?”

“Yes,” said Joe.

“Then take your friend Denmark and go do it.”

“What are you going to do” asked Denmark sullenly.

“I’m going to try to get my husband to heal his brother. And if he can’t, then I’m going to hold Calvin’s hand while he lies dying.”

Calvin let out a deep moan of despair. “I ain’t ready to die!” he said.

“Ready or not, you’ll have to do it sometime,” Margaret reminded him. “Heal yourself, as best you can,” she told him. “You’re supposed to be a Maker, aren’t you?”

Calvin laughed. Weak and bitter, the sound of that laughter. “I spend my whole life trying to get out from under Alvin. Now the one time I need him, it’s the only time he isn’t right there under foot.”

In the ensuing silence, Gullah Joe’s voice came, soft and low. “They do it, them,” he said. “They finding the way back.”

“Then you’d better go out into the street and spread the word through the city,” said Margaret. “They’re filled with rage long pent up. You have to keep them from rising up in a fruitless rebellion as soon as all their strong passions come back.” They did nothing. “Go!” she shouted. “I’ll take care of Calvin here.”

Gullah Joe and Denmark staggered out into the street, going from house to house. Already the sound of moaning and singing could be heard all over the city. In Blacktown, they collared every black person they could find and explained it to them as best they could, then sent them out with the warning: Contain your anger. Harm no one. They’ll destroy us if we don’t keep to that. The taker of names says so. We’re not ready yet. We’re not ready yet.