“Of course I believe it. The new ways here, it’s where the people are free. We cannot be a nation if we don’t have gods in our own image. They made these gods—do you understand? Just as your mother made her place and you made your own. They go further, where we need to. We will never be free until we do as they do.”

“You would believe in magic?”

“I would have us serve the spirits.” He dipped back in the water then, almost gone under, but then I saw he was pulling himself out, to look at me.

“I had thought you would understand,” he said. “I wish my father would understand. I think Ella, in her own way, does understand. It’s why she is so frightened of it all. She knows there’s power there, but she isn’t sure what kind. I believe we will not become a people until we have gods that understand us.”

“You speak in riddles.”

“I have told you from the beginning. This is my ambition. I can bring what I have learned in America and help the people here, with what they already have. I am building a new world. In the new world”—he curled his hand around my wrist, under the water—“we will be equals, you and I. We will be who we wish to be. There will be no limits on what we can dream or what we can do. You believed it when we married, and nothing has changed. Do not let this business with Ella make you think it is not possible.

“I was not forthcoming about Ella, this is true. I worried she would mean you wouldn’t marry me, that you wouldn’t marry into a family with people who were unwell. But everything else I’ve told you about myself should let you know I love you enough to chart new gods for you.”

When we left the rock pool, I was still shivering. Emmanuel walked ahead of me, his back strong and straight, his shirt soaked through. I could just make him out as the night reached up to hold us.

Manman Poul grate, grate jouk li jwenn zo grann li

Mother Hen scratched and scratched till she reached her grandmother’s bones

Libertie,

I was too angry to write again for a long time. I wrote you many letters and burnt each one, because Lenore said they were too harsh.

I am still angry, to think what I have lost and what has been ruined.