There were other children to play with here, and in the evenings everyone sat around the fire and passed a white clay pipe, smoking and laughing and sharing fantastic stories.

Jonah went to work building their new home with the aid of several young men. Clementine traded recipes with the other women as they cooked up the hogs and fowl that were either raised or hunted, or shucked the corn they were able to grow in the acidic soil, or gutted fish they caught in the rivers. Everyone pitched in, and they were glad to do so. The work, though hard, was happy, independent—all manner of things Meriday had never known. That work could be joyous, could be done for one’s own self.

Living alongside the colony was a Cherokee tribe that had been in the swamp for many years. It was from them that Meriday learned that the stones they used as tools had been refashioned out of Indian arrowheads, that some of their pots were repurposed from Indian pottery, that all they used here was either from the swamp or recycled from those old societies that had long survived in this mystical land.

While the house was being built, Meriday slept on the carpet of dead leaves that covered the island, enjoying this strange freedom, the naturalness of it, while her parents bunked on their makeshift bed of straw.

Several times she had caught her mother standing or kneeling on the edge of the island, staring out into the water and the creeping vegetation, her eyes glazed with unrealized tears, and she wondered if her mother was crying.

Yes, Clementine was crying. Of course she was. Not from something as simple as sadness, though; until now, her body had been owned, had been possessed, by someone else. This power structure had defined her life, had defined the very way she perceived her own body. But now she was taking ownership of herself. She was reclaiming herself. In a world that would seek to control her body, this body was hers; in a world that would seek to silence her, this voice was hers; and she vowed, in that very moment, kneeling on the bed of the creek with tears breaking loose from her eyes, that she would never be possessed by anyone ever again. She would rather die.

When Meriday dared to break her out of this reverie and ask what was the matter, she took the girl into her arms and said, “Nothing at all is the matter, Merry child.” Clementine brushed a hand over her eyes and said, “Go on now. Go on and play. I hear Mr. Charles is making a flute. Would you like to hear him play it when he’s finished?” Meriday nodded. “Go on, then. Perhaps you can offer your help. Make yourself useful.”

Meriday nodded again and took off, glancing back only once to see her mother kneeling on the ground, a hand over her mouth, staring into the hanging vines with divine wonder.