Just then Busha Davis come out, so I move off. Later that night when I tell Stella what me heard, it make her worry and fret like she never worry and fret before. If Mistress Caroline have her way, she going lose her children. And for all of Mistress Caroline talk bout how much she care bout slave children, she never think to ask the mother of the children what she think. She only talk to Massa, the one that own them.

Time soon come for the cousin them to leave and everything is a hustle and bustle in between the packing and goodbye dinners. I notice Stella get quieter and quieter, sadness clear cross her face.

‘Mistress Caroline not understand the way things is,’ Stella tell me, quietly, because the night have ears and we sitting outside the hut. ‘Not understand how much Massa listen to me.’

‘What you mean?’ I ask her. ‘Is you decide what going happen?’

‘No,’ Stella say quietly. ‘Massa done something right by me this time. Him ask for me blessing.’

‘Who dem going take?’ I ask. Feel me heart lurch when she look pon me and shake her head.

‘Dem taking James, me baby boy James,’ and Stella moan deep, like a wounded animal, from the pain of it. And I stay silent, knowing there is nothing I can say that going take that pain away.

A few days later, Stella, Eliza and me standing beside the verandah steps, watching as Massa and Mistress Margaret say goodbye to Master Jack and Mistress Caroline before them go sit inside the carriage, then the servant them climbing up to sit outside beside the driver. Massa shaking James hand like him a grown man. Then letting us gather round and hug him up, before him climb up to sit in middle of the cousin them, just like him is already part of a new family, no longer part of ours. It seem to happen so fast, the driver cracking him whip and the horses starting up. Suddenly the three of us start running behind, waving, hoping James going look out, but him don’t. The driver push the horses into a gallop and we stand breathless, watching till the carriage turn out of the plantation entrance and disappear.

After James gone, it take a long time to get used to the grief that fill up our shadows. James being taken away leave a big hole nobody can fill, a tear in the family that feel like it never going heal.