She looked at me for a long time, like she was looking through me. Like her mind was wandering round places the sun never seen.

‘Is the memory sickness,’ she finally said. ‘Follow me from cross the seas.’

Was the first time Calla ever talked bout her past. ‘Evil doings. Best forgotten,’ is all she used to say.

I think that evening going be no different, but then she said, ‘Build up the fire, little Will. Put on a yabba of water,’ and she handed me the leaf from the passionflower vine to throw in. ‘To calm the heart, to give peace to the soul,’ she told me.

Finally, after she changed her dress and wrapped her long head-tie tight, she came outside, sat beside me on one of the stools old cripple Jonnie made. Sat quiet for a long time sipping on that tea. I had to wait till the waning moon start to go down before Calla finally start to speak. Had to listen close. Her voice was no longer strong, it had a little tremble, and I came to know I was listening to the voice of a woman turning old. After that night, I finally understood why she didn’t like to look back to them days.

‘Back in me village, is late at night. Everybody peacefully asleep. The sound of gunfire! Father push me out the hut. Tell me, “Run!” Me don’t listen. If only me did. Wanted to hold me mother one last time. She big with child, can’t run. By the time me reach the edge of the village compound, is too late! The slavers already there and they grab me up.’

Suddenly the glimmering burst open in me mind and I saw Calla the little girl alone, frightened, crying, tied up sitting in the dust of the village compound.

‘The village chief, him have one rusty old gun. Old and rusty just like him. Can’t do nothing. Is the first to be killed, him spirit drifting off, troubled cause nobody going be left to give him a proper burial. They end up wounding me father, almost killed him. Him fight dem too much. Mother, she like a young woman turn old when they lock the shackle dem tight round her neck. Was the last time me see dem. Spend a long time tied up listening to the cries of the wounded. The wailing of mothers. The old men and women weeping in the dirt.’

Calla memory sickness didn’t just come from that memory. It also came from the time she chained up inside the slave boat.

‘We chained up so close together. The sickness. The shit. The piss. The blood, got sucked back into me lungs. Got sweated out through me skin till what was on the outside become part of the inside. The smell of wounds, sores, bodies turned rotten. Suffocating me.