Opening the door, I step inside, quiet, like when Busha Annand used to call for me to come stand outside him office. The room is silent except for the ticking of the grandfather clock. It don’t know no one but me is round to listen to it beat out the rhythm of time behind the big glass cover. The clock have gold hands moving, moving, step by step, like all the moments that added up to this one. I, standing inside the Great House, and Busha Annand, tied up in the slave hut. Him always eager to put a slave in the stocks or in the bilboes where them spend all night tied up, getting bitten by mosquitoes. And here’s me, inside backra’s home, backra’s kingdom, standing in the front parlour, not in the kitchens in the back.

I start to tiptoe towards the clock, then stop meself. Still acting like a slave. I straighten up, walk over, open the clock cover, like I seen Busha Annand do when him wind it. The ticking get louder and louder like a pounding in me head. Before I know what me doing, I reach out, hold that gold ticker, feel it push, struggle against me hand as I stop it from moving. Stop it ticking forward. Maybe if I can stop the ticking, I can hold things up, slow things down. Step into a place between what me bout to do and what going happen next. And the price I know me going have to pay for doing it.

The gold ticker start to cut into me hand. Me bout to let it go, when I remember Stella hanging from a rope and something inside me snap. I twist and twist, until that gold ticker get all bent and, with a final beat, stop ticking. Then the Great House is truly silent, only filled up with the sound of me breathing. Even the sounds of the rebels outside seem far away, like part of another world, another time. I close the glass, seal the moment.

The rebels start calling out that Sam Sharpe getting closer. Him have one hundred and fifty rebels with him and we must be ready to make a move as soon as him come.

I move quick cross the parlour into the dining room, discover a table laid out made ready for a meal. A scrubbed white linen cloth, set with china plates ringed in gold. Painted teacups, silver spoon and knife and fork them, gleaming beside crystal glasses waiting to be filled.