Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
Dum spiro, spero ("While I breathe, I hope").
-- state motto of South Carolina
Why did the mistress want to see him?
Never in all the thirteen years Michael had lived in the slave quarters of the big house on Tradd Street had Mrs. Lautrec asked for him.
Had she sold him? Was she sending him to her son's plantation, Sotherfield, to sweat in the rice fields?
The questions echoed through Michael's head. He stopped swabbing the floor and looked out from the highest arcade of Saint Michael's Church, far above the red rooftops of Charleston. Mrs. Lautrec sent him to the church every morning to help Mr. Fitzhugh, the sexton. Swabbing the steeple balconies was his favorite task. Usually the sight of the vessels below him in the harbor was enough to let him forget the past months.
Early-spring breezes caught strands of his long, dark hair, worn, as a seaman's would be, tied with an eel-skin thong at the back of his neck. Michael moved to the railing.
He could see all of Charleston, not just from the Cooper River to the Ashley River, but way out to the islands, where Papa had taught him fishing and the ways of the waters, and to the sea beyond. Michael blinked away tears. Papa had drowned in last September's terrible hurricane. The swelling cargo of rice filling the ship Concord had burst the vessel's seams open and taken everyone aboard down with it. That same day Mama had been crushed when high gales knocked the chimney of Mrs. Lautrec's house through the roof. In one day that storm had taken both his parents.
He reached into his pocket andtook out the small, smooth wooden fishing boat Papa had carved for him when he was small. "Every boy, no matter he be a slave, should have a toy," Papa had said. And what Michael had wanted more than anything else, even then, was a boat. He had played with that boat constantly until he was old enough to know toys were only for little children, and had hidden it under his straw-filled pallet. After Mama's and Papa's deaths he thought of it again. It comforted him to feel the smooth wood under his fingers; it made Papa and Mama and the days when he had been a child seem closer. It reminded him that he had been loved.
Michael looked out again at the harbor. How could anyone live without being close to the sea? Masted vessels filled the harbor, their sails like the great wings of angels, carrying people safely from one shore to another. Tall ships under sail had the power to take you to other worlds. Most days the sight of them brought him hope. Today it reminded him of what else he could lose.
"Boy! Come down here this minute! There are other chores to be done!"
It was Mr. Fitzhugh. Michael shoved the boat back in his pocket and picked up the bucket of dirty water and the mop. Mama would have been proud of him, keeping his namesake clean for the Lord. He took one last look seaward and then scrambled down the steep stairs, slipping on the damp steps and spilling some of the dirty water from the pail as he came.
What did the mistress want with him? Sirrah, the cook who had replaced Mama, had said Mrs. Lautrec wanted to speak with him after dinner. The waiting would make for a long afternoon.
Copyright © 2003 by Eleanor Wait
