Guarding the plantain walk is the best job for me. Is easy and I know what to do. Is not that I don’t like learning new things, but none of them stick. I learn too quick, then me get fed up. A slave not supposed to get fed up, much less show it. We must just do what we told. Bow down, say, ‘Yes, Massa,’ keep you mouth shut. Underneath, though, them mosquitoes still buzz and buzz. Sometimes have to work hard to stop them stinging. Make me do something I wish I didn’t do. One time, I get so angry, I shouted back at Busha Davis, ended up spending whole night in the stocks. Must be careful. It start to happen often and Stella get mighty angry with me. Mean she have to bow and scrape even more, to save me from the cut of the lash. So I learn how to keep meself to meself, follow me own path. Live in the world, but not of it. Was it Calla that mark me out, when she look pon me as a baby? Or was it fate that settle himself round me like a shroud? Many a time I open up to the glimmering, but I get no answers. No answers at all.

As to Stella? She long time gone from this part of the plantation. Long time gone from living in the slave village. Now Stella live in a small hut close to the Great House. Massa make Winston build it special for her. Nothing fancy, but the floor is a proper mud floor, not just earth. And the bed is a bed, not old cloth and rags to cover straw, piled up on top of pieces of wood.

She finally done her duty. Birthed two more pickney for Massa. A boy him call James. A girl them call Eliza. Stella and Calla happy too. Massa done him duty. Did what other massas did. Paid them silver coins since James and Eliza didn’t die when them was babies.

Little James still young, eight years old, slipped into the world without a murmur. Stella always saying was the easiest birth she ever have. And talk bout smart. Was like him get the best of Stella, the best of Massa. A real dreamer, like the way I used to be. Quiet, don’t say much, just him big eyes looking, tilting him head and listening, listening. Busha Davis send him off every morning to do the weeding round the Great House.

One Sunday, I come cross him using a little twig. Drawing something in the dirt. I look close. Is a funny-looking face.

‘Who that?’

‘Busha Davis! When him shouting at you.’

I look closer and is true. Make us laugh.

‘What else you draw?’