It seem like Stella stand on the little platform for a long time. And I feel how the heat of the day start to rise and know that heat going rise, again and again, to heat another day. Another day when she no longer going be in it. No longer have to get up early, to work hard. To pray. To worry bout us, if we going get enough to eat.

I feel Stella looking at me. Wanting me to look at her. To look in her eyes so she can tell me she sorry. I don’t know where I get the strength from, but finally I look up at her. See how she look into the face of death with dignity. See her eyes, they like loving pools of light and she must be come to know, I find it in me heart to forgive her.

Finally, the time has come. The time I been dreading.

It happen so slow, like it happening to me. I feel the rope coming down over her head like it coming down over mine. Feel how them pull it tight round her neck. Hear backra call out the sentence. Hear it from far away. Hear and feel her heart thumping. Start to race, like the beat of wings against a cage. Beating. Beating. Louder. Louder. Louder than the crowd that shout and whistle, throw stones and rotten food at her.

Then all of a sudden the beating stop. Everything silent. It seem to last a lifetime.

I just stand there, see Stella, me mother, hanging from a rope.

But then I feel her spirit fly from out the cage, feel her mind open up as she start to tumble. Tumble back through all the things she live through. Back, back, towards a well of gentle darkness. A darkness that start to shimmer and shine, till it become like a mirror. And in that mirror, Stella see the faces of our Ancestors. All of them lined up in a row, one behind the other, going all the way back to the first of us. And she wonder at the sameness of us, but also the differences. And the face closest to Stella, the one standing right in front of her, is the face of her mother. The face she never see looking out for her, because she die when Stella was a pickney. And she say to Stella, not in words, that is time for her to come and join her. Join in a big celebration with all the Ancestors.

And in the glimmering, I come to know that for the first time Stella going no longer feel afraid. No longer feel the shadow tugging at her guts. She is finally free, like William the Second, her spirit circling in the cloudless blue sky, high up above the world of slavery.