What Eliza say is one big surprise. Not only what she say, but how much wiser, smarter she is than me. After that day, is like me eyes open. I start to see the world clearer. I start to stand up for meself, for Eliza, and many of the slaves on the plantation come to me for help. Is like I take on the strength of Stella, the wisdom of Calla, and I come to understand what me purpose is. I look back at me younger self, see how far I come. I reach a time in me life where I belong, not to a place, but to be in kindred spirits with me people. No more hiding behind the wait-a-bit fence, sitting, shrouded in aloneness.

A few seasons pass and big excitement catch us. Word come down that we get a letter from James. Sammy heard bout him from one of the visitors him serve. Wrote him a letter, sent it cross the seas and James wrote back. It take a while before Sammy finally get permission to come visit Ginger Hill, bring James letter with him.

After the working day over, we sit together outside the hut Eliza and me share. Drink bush tea, sit and talk bout how fate shape each of us. Talk bout Stella, hope she hear James letter that Sammy reading out, the words crossing over, drifting towards the Ancestors.

Dear William, Sammy and pretty Eliza,

Perhaps I should have written long before this, but I confess I have been in two minds about doing so. My life is so different now, and in my telling of it, I did not want to create hurt for you, my family of old. It will be as hard for you to imagine it as it becomes increasingly hard for me to imagine what my life would be like if I were still there. Still a slave.

The ‘cousin them’ have treated me well. They sent me to school and the world of letters and numbers is no longer a mystery to me. I have taken up the skilled art of draftsmanship and am apprenticed to a master architect, designing homes for the very wealthy. I also paint landscapes, some of which have started to sell. Can you imagine me, little James, a gentleman, with servants to do my bidding?

The news of Stella and what took place hit me very hard. The cousins had hoped to spare me, but the trial was reported in all the newspapers and I read them a thousand times over. With all my heart, I wished it not to be true. I still can’t believe that Stella had a hand in killing Father. I was not there, so I cannot judge. For a time, the cousins and I became estranged because of it, but that is now in the past.