Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [2]
1 John 2:10–11 NIV
Chapter One
Richmond, Virginia 1853
The first scream jolted me awake. The second one chilled my soul.
I sat up in bed, searching for Tessie in the darkened room, but the pallet where my Negro mammy usually slept was empty.
“Tessie?” My voice trembled with fear. “Tessie, where are you?”
Rain drummed against the windowpane, keeping time with my heart. Beyond the shuttered windows, the day had dawned dark and dismal. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Then the heartrending cries broke the silence once again.
“No . . . please!”
The tumult came from outside, just below my room.
“Please don’t take him, please don’t take my boy from me, please!”
The voice, barely recognizable in its anguish, was Tessie’s.
I couldn’t believe it. For all of my twelve years, as far back as I could recall, Tessie had been a happy, carefree presence in my life, always humming or singing as her elegant brown hands dressed me and brushed my hair; cheering me when I was lonely, chasing away my sadness with her laughter, her smile lighting up her dark face. Mother was the one who had “spells” that caused her to weep and pine away in her room for days on end, but I’d never once heard Tessie weep before. And these were such horrible, anguished cries.
“Please don’t send my boy away, I beg you, Massa! Please!”
Then Tessie’s son started screaming as well. Grady was nine— just three years younger than me—and I hadn’t heard him cry since he was a baby, sleeping in the wicker basket in the kitchen beside the fireplace. Tessie had let me play with him as if he were a living baby doll, with plump brown cheeks and a giggle that made me laugh out loud. I remember being fascinated by his little hands, with their tiny brown fingers and soft pink palms.
Outside, the begging and weeping grew more distant. I climbed from my bed and hurried to the window that overlooked our rear garden. It took me a moment to open the shutters because I’d never done it. That was Tessie’s job every morning.
Two strangers tramped down the brick walkway and through the wrought-iron gate, dragging Grady, screaming, out of the safety of our backyard. They were rough-looking fellows, dressed like laborers, and I watched as they lifted Grady into a wagon waiting at the curb. The wagon was packed with Negroes of all ages and sizes, some in chains and leg-irons. The men prodded the slaves with whips, shouting at them until they shifted themselves around on the wagon bed to make room for Grady.
Daddy stood watching near the back gate, his arms folded across his chest. He was already dressed for work, and rain darkened the shoulders of his overcoat and the brim of his hat. Big Eli, our stable hand, stood in the middle of the walk, struggling to hold on to Tessie as she screamed for her son.
“No! Don’t take my boy! He all I got! Please! No!”
I turned away from the window and ran downstairs in my chemise, not bothering with slippers or a dressing gown. As I raced outside into the rain, Esther, our cook, spotted me from the kitchen, which was a separate outbuilding behind our house. She ran outside and grabbed me before I could reach Tessie, then pulled me into the kitchen’s smoky warmth.
“Whoa now, Missy . . . where you going in you nightclothes?”
“I want Tessie,” I said, squirming to free myself. I tried to dodge around Esther and make a dash for the door, but she moved surprisingly fast for a woman her size, blocking my path with her broad body.
“No you don’t, Little Missy. You not be going outside in the rain dressed like that.”
“But . . . but Tessie’s crying. And Grady is, too. Where are those men taking him in that wagon?”
“Massa Fletcher not be telling me his business. Hear, now! Stop you fussing, Missy!”
Esther held me as I struggled to break free, but she cast a worried eye on the ham she’d left frying in the pan for our breakfast. I could hear Tessie