I feel hands lifting me up, away from damp sheets, propping me up on a chair, gently changing me clothes. The wet ones, for the dry ones. Close me eyes, listen as the voices and hands change the sheets before picking me up, putting me back in the bed. Everything is dry now. No more wet. No more light. No more dream.

I smell the broth. See the bowl. Hands feeding me broth with a spoon. A silver spoon like the one Massa have back on the plantation. Like the one I bury so very long ago. I must find it. Dig it up. Make sure it safe. I try to rise, get out of bed, to find that silver spoon, but the voices and hands in the room won’t let me.

‘Eat,’ the woman say.

‘Yes, eat,’ the man say. ‘It will do you good.’

Spoon after spoon, the hand come to me lips, and spoon after spoon, I gulp it down. It taste good, going help the sickness to go away.

When the spooning business done, I lay back, try to see the faces of the hands that been helping me, but it take too much effort. The creamy whiteness seem to blend one into the other, and I can’t remember who them is. The only thing I can do is accept the kindness. The kindness of hands and faces as them get me to lay back down under the clean, dry sheets.

But then, I cough and suddenly, me body betray me. I start to heave. Lean over the side, retch, vomit back up the good broth. All I can do is clutch at the bed sheets as me stomach empty itself into the wooden bucket resting on the floor.

‘Perhaps the broth is too rich,’ the man say.

‘Yes, perhaps too rich,’ the woman say. ‘But, if I make it any plainer, there will be little nourishment left.’

‘No matter, we must try and keep on trying,’ the man say.

The woman wipe me mouth and face, make me take tiny sips of water, before the man’s hands lower me back down, pull the sheets up round me.

‘Sleep now, William,’ the woman say.

‘Yes sleep,’ the man say. ‘We will not lose you.’

The door creak closed. Footsteps on the wooden floor. The room return to silence.

Alone again.

Is how it must be, for just a little while longer.

I must lay in this dry bed and lower meself down into sleep. Sink into a stillness so wide, so deep, memories going creep softly back to the colour of the living, the colour of life. And when them memories jump cross the line, I going see them, grasp them, hold onto them tight. Follow the journey them make from memory to dreaming, from darkness into light.

Part One

Parish of Saint James, Jamaica, 1800

Omens