The Monster’s Continued Appetites
You should not expect a monster to change, even at the end of a fairy tale. For in a children’s story, the monster must be killed. If he remains alive, his nature will be limned. There is no gentling of an abomination.
In the months following Nick’s absconding, Samuel made a flyer on a small press he had acquired for his general store. The press had been idle, as there were no new goods that needed advertising. Seed was seed. Cloth was cloth, but Samuel had been proud of his runaway flyer, offering a reward for Nick, until he had overheard some of the yeomen laughing at the sketch of Nick, the white skin, the blond hair, and the light-colored eyes. The yeomen had chuckled that Master might as well have put up a runaway flyer asking people to return his own self, as much as the sketch resembled him. After he heard the phrase “nigger by-blow” tossed about, Samuel took down the runaway flyer that he’d placed up in the general store and sent through the region.
He began to mope about, and when the New Year arrived, he wrote to the son of Lancaster Polcott, Hezekiah, requesting information about purchasing a new Young Friend. By then, Lancaster had passed away. Of the men that Samuel had known in the county during the time of the land lottery, he was the only one still alive. He was in his sixties but felt vigorous and energetic. He did not think of death. Indeed, Samuel believed himself to be akin to one of those men in the Bible. He would live hundreds of years, for wasn’t he blessed by God? A modestly rich man, Samuel did not have to worry about the upkeep of his slaves, who were self-sustaining and increased his wealth. Nor did he fret about the size of his family, now that Victor had taken a wife. Samuel expected legitimate grandchildren, sooner or later. Even with Victor’s hesitance with Grace, it would only take one or two instances of congress: one thing the Franklins actually did right was fill a house with offspring.
The child Samuel purchased in the New Year was named Leena. Her skin was the color of a French crust made with butter. Shiny black ringlets the width of a garter snake fell down her back, and she had large, dark eyes. Generations of breeding had made her a testament to rape, compulsion, and smudged currency. The child’s mother, a quadroon, had succeeded in compelling miscarriage four times, but before the fifth, her owner had said that any living new issue would be freed. The owner’s true intentions toward the quadroon were unclear, for he died. To satisfy the codicil of his will, the quadroon was mortgaged for a loan, and by the time the owner’s wife, a lady who was irritated with Negresses’ siren magic on decent white men, began preparation to sell the quadroon, the wife’s son had taken a shine to his father’s leftovers. Thus, the quadroon decided it was time to slit her wrists.
When Leena’s front teeth fell out, she was sold to a man living on a country plantation deep in the Louisiana bayou. This man used children, and he gave her to a slave woman, a caretaker who tutored her in finding that internal place that countless other enslaved folks had cultivated, a pleasant numb location in the mind. That owner died, too, and his wife sold Leena once more, though that particular wife had no rancor against Negresses. She just wanted the money. Leena was sold one more time after this as well, before Hezekiah Polcott sold her to Samuel. And at each auction, no one questioned why a child would be sold at all, let alone for such despicable use, instead of nurtured and loved.
Like her predecessors, when Leena became a Young Friend, she was denied contact with other slaves, except those responsible for her comfort and imprisonment. Near dusk, Venie would come to the left cabin to feed, bathe, and dress Leena a second time in fresh clothes down to the skin. After evening fell, Pompey came to trim the flowers and pluck the weeds inside the fence. He carried a lantern to light his way. Another gardener would have come during the daylight hours, but Pompey did not like to see the Young Friends. Their presence made him feel guilty and he did his best to never interact with them. Yet in the year that Leena was purchased, Aggie had spoken to Pompey and told him to engage Leena in conversation. And Pompey, a man whom Aggie had tended when he was a child with a mouth full of milk teeth, began conversing with Leena through the gate.
The Love of Rabbit
Nick’s other child had been grieving his absence, too, in the five years that passed since he had escaped. Rabbit was the more sensitive twin, born smaller, with a tender shell and a feeling heart. Her limbs shook with revulsion of the outside world. Her bald head had shined with just a few strands of reddish-brown hair, and her skin had darkened to match her mother’s.