Currents (8 page)

“You can brings that little corncob baby doll with you. Too bad she can't carry water, too.” Queenie laughed at her little joke.

Bones nodded, chasing behind the wagon up to the pump house to fetch the water gourds. Just outside the kitchen door, Master's dogs lazed by the back steps, waiting to be called to run with the horses. They ate the same meals as the slaves, only the dogs were served first. Bones wrapped the strap around the back of her neck and the two gourds hung down on either side of her chest. She headed down to the river to begin her water brigade, which would go on all day again today: Fill the gourds, go to the fields. When a man or woman raised their hand, she would rush to give them water. When the gourds were almost empty, she would head back down to the riverbank to refill them.

The safest place to collect water from the James River was a small finger of land dotted with scrub pine and dwarf oak that dangled out into the river just below the fields. Currents swirled in a shallow pool on the inside crook of the finger, so a person could easily catch the water here without slipping into the faster-moving river and risk being carried downstream.

Bones's body was in the fields that day, but her mind was drained of all thoughts save for the bottle hidden under the cabin. There was only one name on that page in the bottle—AGNES MAY BREWSTER. There would be no mistaking who had torn it from its place. And she could not bring herself to destroy it. She was someone. It said so on that paper. She was more than just someone's little old belonging. She would have to get it off the plantation. As she crouched down, filling the gourds with the cool river water, she hatched her plan.

The dinner bell rang that evening, long after the sun had gone down. Some of the men were still straggling back from the fields, their shirts drenched in sweat, as Queenie's wagon rattled up with huge pots of dinner. The smell of salt meat, cabbage, potatoes, and shortbread drifted above her creaky wagon. Pulling her mussel shell out of its place in her cabin, Bones was the first in line.

“Well, well. You must be hungry from runnin' back and forth between the river and the fields. Lots harder than fannin' flies away from Miss Liza,” Queenie teased.

Bones ignored her. She ate the scoop of food and returned the wooden tray to the wagon.

“Don' be actin' like you can't hear me. With them big ole flappy ears the Lawd gave you, I knows you hears everything.” Queenie clucked her tongue. “Get a good night sleep. Need you to carry water again tomorrow, Bones.”

“It's AGNES,” the little girl shot back.

“What you say?” Looking down, Queenie laughed at the little girl's fierceness.

“I said, it's Agnes. My name is AGNES!” Bones was practically shouting.

Queenie laughed like this declaration was the funniest thing she had heard all week, rolled her eyes, and sniffed. “Well, yes'm. If that's what you say.”

“Agnes May,” said Bones hotly under her breath. “I am Agnes May. I am a someone.”

T
hankfully the wild turkeys were as tired as everyone else that night, and they stopped gobbling early. Lying between Mama and Granny, Bones listened until she was sure Granny's snoring and Mama's gentle seesaw breathing meant they were fast asleep. She needed to be sure. She had been too nervous to chew her supper well, and now it stuck in her chest like a stone.

She took Lovely, with her black button eyes gleaming, off her neck and left the doll tucked safely between Mama and Granny. She slipped off the sleeping pallet from the end so as not to wake the women, and peered out the door, looking up the row of slaves' quarters. She was grateful tonight that theirs was the last cabin, closest to the fields and the river. The primitive door sagged against the floor when opened wide, so she took care to open it only partially, and she squeezed out the narrow opening. Barefoot, she tiptoed around back and crawled, snakelike, under the cabin. She moved slowly, crouching, with her hands in front of her, feeling along. In the blackness of the night, her fingers finally wrapped around the neck of the bottle. She sucked in her breath.

The moon was growing bigger every night now. Soon it would be a full harvest moon, but tonight it showed only half of itself behind shifting clouds in the inky stillness. She didn't dare run at full speed for fear that she would fall and the bottle would break. With light, sure steps, Bones hurried down the path alongside the now-quiet fields, past a pile of peach-tree wood waiting to be stacked the next day. She hesitated. For an instant, she thought she saw something move by the woodpile, and she strained her eyes. Nothing. She tried to keep her mind off the eerie night noises coming from the forest. A bear would be nothing compared to Old Mistress Polly if she were caught. A lantern glowed on the back porch of the big house like it did every night. It helped to keep prowling animals away. No one in the big house was awake as she slouched along, undetected under the big sky. If someone were restless and awoke and stepped onto the porch and saw her out in the middle of the night, there would be no explaining.

Reaching the edge of the river, Bones crouched down and crept out onto the same finger of land where she had gathered up water for the field slaves earlier in the day. The moon shot glittery streaks, radiating along the surface of the James River. She remembered the map of Virginia on Liza's wall and imagined the river's cool, deep waters rolling along for miles before emptying into the Chesapeake Bay and then pouring out into the Atlantic Ocean. It seemed to her a fine place to set her name free. She allowed herself a long moment to imagine where it might go. Her name and her heart. If only she could squeeze herself and her Mama and Granny into the bottle—they could all float away.
They can own me and beat me and sell me, but a part of me will forever be free
, she thought, the thrill of the idea racing through her.
I'll live forever knowing that.

Kneeling low to the water, she carefully tossed the bottle out into the stronger currents where it was immediately picked up. It bobbed for a moment before being swallowed up in the blackness, rushing away under the moon to begin its magical journey.

B
eginning in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the James River flows east past a series of rapids and waterfalls until it passes Virginia's capital, Richmond. If the bottle had entered along that part of the river, it would have been less likely to survive. But the plantations were built farther east, on the Lower James, where the waters were calmer. So the bottle traveled under the moonlight, past tall trees where bald eagles roosted, down the historic waterway—the James was the first American river to be named by the colonists.

Reaching the river's mouth, the bottle passed into the southern portion of Chesapeake Bay, which had been the gateway for the first black slaves brought from Africa. Bones's great-grandpappy, a king in his African homeland, had arrived here in shackles to be sold in the Baltimore slave yards.

In the chop waters where the Chesapeake weaves into the Atlantic Ocean, the bottle was swallowed up by the Gulf Stream current and sped along the underwater highway across the sea.

T
hursday afternoons are definitely the best part of my week
, Lady Bess Kent thought as she picked her way through the sunflowers, lavender, bluebells, and cowslips trailing along the hillside that led down to the dock. The oldest of the fishing boats moored on the northern tip of the Isle of Wight was the
Land's End
, which belonged to Chap Harris. Short in stature and bow-legged, Chap's dark skin contrasted starkly with his crown of unkempt, silver curls and one crystal-blue eye. The other one had been lost in a fight with a pirate or when Chap was stabbed by a jealous girlfriend or in a hand-to-fin battle with a man-eating sea monster. Bess knew the story changed often, and depended on whether or not Chap had consumed a pint of ale with his lunch at The Song of the Sea Tavern. But what she was most curious to know about were the scars that ran around his neck and circled one wrist. The rough marks were much lighter than his skin, and they puckered where the wounds had obviously been left to heal on their own. She wanted to ask him how they came to be, but he acted as though they didn't exist.

It made him all the more interesting to Lady Bess. “What does your father the duke think of you keepin' company with an old salt like me?” he had asked her once.

“Chap, he thinks I'm at the library,” she'd answered, laughing.

“You shouldn't be telling tall tales to your father,” Chap had admonished.

“Oh, I'm not.” She had held up a bundle of books neatly tied together. “I go to the library every week. I just haven't mentioned that I stop here on my way home.”

The old man's tales of his exploits and foreign travels were spellbinding, and Bess found them far more entertaining than learning needlepoint or how to properly pour tea.

“There is no doubt that I will be an explorer like my father when I grow up,” Bess announced confidently on this Thursday. “And there is still a good bit of this earth left to explore. I just hope that people don't get to it all before I'm old enough to discover some places on my own. I'm only twelve years old, so I'm afraid I still have to wait a few more years till I can begin my explorations.”

“Ah, yes, that's so,” Chap nodded. One of the qualities Bess most appreciated in him was that he took her at her word. “I don't doubt you, but you live in such a grand house. And exploring is a hard life, Bess.”

“Hmm.” She frowned. “Grand, yes, but not awfully happy, I'm afraid, in the years since my mother passed away.”

“I'm sorry for that,” he said, then returned to the first subject. “If it's an explorer you're aiming to be when you're grown, I can teach you some things that will be useful. For instance, do you know how to tie a ship's knot?”