1836- Hell Charity ran into her tiny cabin isolated in the depths of the slave quarters, slamming the door behind her and latching it. She pressed her back against the hard wood, chest heaving against the gauzy, white material of her work shirt. She remembered her sleeping daughter on the makeshift bedding across from her and gathered her composure as best as she could. She did not know what to do next. Instinct told her to gather up her child and run, but fear overrode her imminent voice to escape Hell. Charity crossed the small room and sat on the stool she usually used to block the door. She watched her baby sleep. She rocked back and forth, feverishly running her hands across her forehead and cheeks. She began humming to herself. All she could do now was wait. Wait for tyranny to come slamming through her door… __________________________________________________________ Master John Tuck, III was livid. He had just learned of the weekly meetings Charity held every night in the quarters, her carefully mapped out plans to help numerous slaves escape his plantation. Charity was certain that one of the women slaves made Master Tuck privy to her activities. Despite her attempts at valiancy, some of the other women on the plantation, did not like Charity. She was always too "high yeller" or "too much up unda' massa Tuck." As far as the other women were concerned, Charity's fair skin, long, wavy hair, and thin protuberant nose, made her the enemy. When Master Tuck insisted that Charity work in the Big House, contingencies disintegrated for her. The fact that she cleaned up the wounds of the men who worked tirelessly in the fields and that she brought them water when the overseer was preoccupied, didn't account for anything. Charity was still a half-bred whore, in the other women's eyes. She had tried to offer these women the same courtesies, but they'd cut their eyes at her, scoffing and sucking their teeth. She wished she could make them understand how being confined to that planatation divided them. ... Make them understand much she suffered in that big house. Being in there was not a privilege . They didn't see how Master Tuck forced himself on her when his wife wasn't around. Charity's own mother was raped by a Tuck patriarch. Those women didn't see the way Master Tuck spat in her face when he was through violating her... calling her vile names. When Charity became pregnant mistress Hilary Tuck knew. She knew. Her mistress would stare at Charity with pure venom in her eyes. She'd reduce Charity to humiliating tasks in that pronounced southern accent of hers... voice dripping with icy repugnance; "Charity, I told you to scrub every tile individually. I'm having guests for tea, and they can't come here with this filth on the floor." Hilary would demand this of Charity, trekking mud on the floor, knowing that it had been scrubbed moments prior... "Charity, Mr. O'Connor just stepped in horse manure in his haste to deliver the mail, would you kindly clean his boots for him while he waits?" After she had her child, mistress Hilary insisted that Charity keep "the vile piece of nigga trash" out of the Big House. Mama Sugar, the primary housekeeper and mammy to the rotten Tuck sons, served as midwife, delivering Charity's child just as she'd helped deliver Charity years before. Sweet Mama Sugar was a welcome and guiding force in Charity's (and everybody else's) miserable existence in Hell. The young children who lived on the plantation and most of the adults would congregate around a fire one evening a week, late at night, in the slave quarters, while Mama Sugar told them tales of magic, talking animals, and African Utopias. Charity would gather her baby daughter in a blanket and sit outside the perimeter of the storyteller's circle. If she got any closer, the other women would eye her up with disdain. Mama Sugar would console Charity. Mama was the driving force behind those secret meetings. She served as Hathor for Charity, for she had no one else to consult with. For as long as she could remember, Mama Sugar would tell Charity stories of a recurring dream she had. She dreamt of mountains and trees... sparkling blue water. She would tell Charity of this Utopia where they were all free. How they all had big, black wings and flew to their destination, right there before Master Tuck's eyes. How powerless he was at trying to stop them from their ascent. She relayed to Charity, how Hell had burned to the ground as every slave on that dreadful plantation soared high above the clouds. She told her about the big, black birds that came to their rescue, offering them a reprieve from their misery, taking them higher and higher. Charity used the Tuck library, teaching herself to read (a crime surely punishable by death). She read of magical kingdoms, where people lived like human beings. During one of her secret forays into the Tuck library, she came across a big black book. The gold lettering on the front read: OLODUMARE The edges of the pages were gold, but worn. Charity did not know what the title meant. She sounded out the word, running her hands across the cover of the book, wiping away a thin sheet of dust. She opened the book, holding her breath as the binding made a soft, crackling sound. A warm gust of wind hit her in the face. Charity felt a sudden wave of joy fill her body. She closed her eyes and exhaled deeply upon looking at the very first page of the book. The book's internal cover had the same title etched across the top, in red lettering. There were also black stick figures in various postures, drawn underneath the OLODUMARE title. Charity flipped through the pages frantically, taking in the sweet smells that emanated from within. Flowers, oils that smelled of nasturtium, fresh water, incense... Her eyes darted across every page, greedily absorbing the contents... green trees, the sun... these shadowy, black, stick drawings partaking in various activities. On one page, Charity saw a drawing of a broader figure sitting amidst a circle of other stick bodies, all situated around a fire as the broader subject seemed to be relaying some type of message to them... perhaps a story of some sort. The drawings in that book seemed to play themselves out like Mama Sugar's dream. Charity would sneak into the library as often as possible after having discovered that book. She never understood the written contents inside. Just to hold that book and flip through its pages were enough for her. At odd moments, Charity swore she could see those figures moving, right there on the page. If she was really concentrating, she was certain she could hear them speaking in a dialect, foreign to her. When Master and Hilary discovered that Charity had been in the library, they both punished her, respectively; Hilary had her cabin stripped of the makeshift bed sheets and the one cot she slept on, forcing Charity to have to sleep on the dirt floor where numerous insects crawled in the middle of the night. Mama Sugar took her baby in for the night, and insisted that Charity take her up on the same offer, to no avail. Master gave her 39 lashings with a thin, but thick piece of leather, leaving tree-like scars on her back. When Charity was in that library, holding that book in her hands, time ceased to exist. Mistress hunted her down one afternoon, demanding to know why she had not started folding the day's laundry, and there, she found Charity sitting on the floor between two shelves, hunched over that book. Charity quickly leapt to her feet upon hearing Hilary's horrified gasp. She was greeted with a stinging slap across her face. Hilary swung at Charity again, knocking the book from her hands. After punishing Charity "accordingly," Hilary had begged her husband to send her out to the fields with the rest of the "heathens," but he was adamant about keeping Charity in the main house. Unable to be in possession of that book caused Charity to withdraw. She became lethargic and slow in performing her duties, receiving even more slaps across her face. The secret meetings she helped spearhead, became sporadic, if at all. She didn't even respond to Mama Sugar, who was always able to make Charity feel better. Charity would perform her duties, and then retreat to her cabin to care for her baby. Mama Sugar tried to read Charity's behaviour, to no avail. One evening after Master and Hilary retreated to bed for the evening, Mama Sugar sneaked back into the Big House and slipped into the library. She saw the black book lying on the floor where it had been knocked, weeks prior. She slowly stooped to pick it up, and slipped quietly out of the library, book held tightly to her bosom. ________________________________________________________________ ... Charity did not have to wait long. The devil kicked in her door. Her sanity had already been compromised, so she did not feel the pain and agony of her tragic fate. She stood outside her body and watched... detached from the violence of the act... emotionally, however, she'd be attached forever. Standing outside her body, she hovered over the pitiful white devil as he hacked away at her with a machete, one of the same ones the field hands used to cut their way through the plantation's thick brush. As Master Tuck chopped away at her lifeless, mutilated body, Charity's subliminal life lifted the sleeping child from the cradle bassinet Mama Sugar wove for her, and drifted out the door... ______________________________________________________________ Mama Sugar sat rocking in a chair listening to the horrible noise coming from Charity's cabin. Tears dripped from her eyes. She hated herself for feeling so helpless. She heard light tapping outside her door and opened it just as suddenly as she'd heard the sound upon it. She cautiously stepped outside, noting several lanterns flickering in neighboring cabins. Other's had undoubtedly heard the racket as well. She looked down and there, was Charity's child, sleeping soundlessly, wrapped in a patchwork quilt. Mama Sugar gingerly lifted the child. She knew that it was now her job, to protect this baby as ardently as she had tried to protect Charity when she was a child. Mama promised herself that she would not allow this young, baby girl to go head to head with the devil. She quiety retreated to her cabin, sleeping child in arms. After the racket of the violence had ceased, Master Tuck, III went screaming through the slave quarters like a madman. His face, hands, and clothes were saturated with Charity's blood. His eyes were primitive, breath heavy. "You niggers see that!! See what happens when you disobey!!?! You all will learn... Yes, you will leearn... NOT. TO. UNDERMINE ME!!" He screamed, swinging the bloody machete wildly above his head. Many of the flickering lanterns were blown out after Master Tuck went screaming through the quarters that night. Mama Sugar's remained burning, however. After Charity's murder, the fires of Hell would scorch the minds and hearts of everyone on that plantation, even more.