A few more seasons pass. Busha Annand still send me out jobbing, but now him job me out further and further away. Make it easier to meet up with Aurelia when the job done, attend a church service where Sam Sharpe is preaching. Always keep me permission slip close at hand. Over time though, things start to change between Aurelia and me. Maybe the passing of James strike me heart too deep. Maybe is her. We always glad to see each other, but whatever holding us together, start to untangle, lose its power. And no matter how hard I try, the light in her eyes no longer glisten when she see me. They turn dull and shy away. Old Mister Braithwaite sell up, move back to the Mother Country and she get sold to another massa. One who seem to favour her, like to keep her close. Now she one of the church sisters, singing in the choir in Black River. Is sweet to listen to her sing, remember that shining face, a face she no longer show me. Is lost to a younger self we both left behind, a long time ago.

One night, after a late-night service, when people finally start to depart, many with a long trek ahead of them to return before the early-morning muster, Daddy ask for some of us to stay back. We gather in the speaking room in the back of the church. And over time, I join him inner circle, a group of head drivers that him come to trust. Join Gardner from Greenwich, Dove from Belvedere, Johnson from Retrieve Pen and Taylor a saddler from Montego Bay. And he talk to us different than when him preaching in church. In the backroom, he turn quiet, get all serious. Gradually me ears and eyes open, and I start to put the understanding together that him teaching us not just about the scriptures but teaching us to think not like a slave, but like a man.

‘Backra loves to talk bout the fairness of the law,’ him say. ‘But backra has one law for himself and one law for the slave. This is how them keep us in bondage. And this so-called law did not come down from the Lord. It came up from men, and we are men. So it reasons that we are free to try to change the law.’ Sharpe hold up him hand like him giving a blessing and we bow our heads. ‘Let it be known from this day forth that our place in this world can be made anew. Change is what we have to fight for, and the time for grasping at that change, the time for our freedom, is now.’

The Plan