The hallway outside the bedroom was dark despite the morning hour. Amara moved through it slowly, one hand trailing along the wall for balance, trying to make sense of her surroundings.
This is White House plantation. Or maybe Six Chimneys. One of the Custis properties. She dredged up what she knew about Martha Washington's early life. Daniel Parke Custis died in 1757, leaving Martha a widow with two children and a massive estate. She was twenty-six years old.
Amara paused at the top of a staircase, gripping the banister. Below, she could hear voices—the high chatter of children, the lower murmur of adults. The sounds of a household waking up.
A household run on slave labor.
She descended the stairs carefully. The nightgown was too long for her—for Martha's—shorter frame, and she had to gather the fabric in one hand to keep from tripping. Every step felt like walking on a tightrope. One wrong move and she'd fall, and everyone would see that something was deeply, impossibly wrong.
The staircase opened into a wide entrance hall. Sunlight poured through tall windows, illuminating polished wooden floors and furniture that gleamed with beeswax. A grandfather clock ticked in the corner. Portraits stared down from the walls—Custis ancestors, probably, their painted eyes following her with aristocratic disapproval.
A small body collided with her legs.
"Mama!"
Amara looked down. A little girl—two, maybe three years old—clung to her nightgown, face blotchy from crying. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Chubby cheeks wet with tears.
Patsy. Martha Parke Custis. She's going to die at seventeen from an epileptic seizure.
The knowledge sat in Amara's chest like a stone. She knew this child's future. She knew the date. She knew there was nothing 18th-century medicine could do.
"Mama, Jacky took my doll!"
Amara crouched down. Her body—Martha's body—did it automatically, a mother's instinct embedded in muscle memory. She placed her hands on Patsy's small shoulders.
"It's all right," she heard herself say. "We'll get your doll back."
We. Us. As if I have any right to call myself her mother.
"Patsy, come away from your mother. She's unwell."
A Black woman appeared—older than the girl from upstairs, perhaps in her late thirties, with a stern face and capable hands. She scooped Patsy up with practiced ease, settling the child on her hip.
"Mistress, you should be in bed. You've been feverish these past two days. Doctor Warren said—"
"I'm fine." Amara straightened. "I feel much better this morning."
The woman's eyes narrowed slightly. It was a tiny movement, almost imperceptible, but Amara caught it.
She knows something's wrong. She's spent years—probably her whole life—learning to read white people's moods for survival. She can tell I'm not acting right.
"If you say so, Mistress." The woman's voice was neutral. "Shall I have breakfast brought to the parlor?"
"Yes. Thank you." Amara paused. "I'm sorry, I—the fever has confused me. What is your name?"
The narrowing of the eyes again. Sharper this time.
"Sally, Mistress. Same as it's been these twenty years."
Twenty years. This woman had been in the Custis household for two decades. She probably knew Martha better than Martha knew herself.
"Of course. Sally. I apologize." Amara pressed her fingers to her temple, miming disorientation. "The fever has left my head very strange."
"Yes, Mistress."
Sally carried Patsy away toward the back of the house. Amara watched her go, noting the straight line of her spine, the controlled economy of her movements. A woman who had learned to navigate a world designed to destroy her.
I wrote a chapter about domestic enslaved workers in my book. The 'house slaves' versus 'field slaves' distinction. How proximity to white families didn't mean safety—it often meant more surveillance, more expectations, more opportunities to be punished for tiny infractions.
And now she was the white family. She was the surveillance. She was the danger.
"Mother?"
Amara turned. A boy stood in a doorway to her right—four years old, maybe five, wearing the miniature frock coat and breeches of a colonial gentleman. His chin was lifted at an imperious angle.
Jacky. John Parke Custis. The son who'll grow up spoiled and undisciplined, who'll die of camp fever during the Revolutionary War, leaving behind four children for George Washington to raise.
"Good morning, Jacky."
"You look strange." The boy's voice was petulant. "Your face is all wrong."
Amara's heart stuttered. "What do you mean?"
"You're making a strange face. Like you don't know who I am." He scowled. "Are you still sick? Mr. Mosely says I don't have to do my lessons if you're still sick."
"I'm better now." Amara forced her lips into something like a smile. "And you'll do your lessons regardless."
Jacky's scowl deepened. He spun on his heel and marched away, every line of his small body radiating offense.
Amara exhaled.
These aren't my children. I don't know how to be their mother. I don't know how to be anyone's mother.
But they'd lost their father. Their real mother was—where? Dead? Erased? Sleeping somewhere in this body while Amara drove?
I need information. I need to understand what's happening. And I need to stop talking to people before I give myself away.
She found her way to a small parlor, guided by some instinct that might have been Martha's or might have been lucky guessing. The room was decorated in muted greens and golds, with tall windows overlooking a formal garden. A writing desk sat in one corner, its surface covered with papers.
Amara closed the door behind her and went straight to the desk.
Letters. Ledgers. A commonplace book filled with recipes and household tips in neat feminine handwriting. She rifled through the papers, searching for anything that would confirm the date, the place, the reality of what was happening to her.
A newspaper. The Virginia Gazette, dated May 12, 1757.
Two years before Martha marries George Washington. Seventeen years before the Revolution. Thirty years before the Constitutional Convention.
Amara sank into the desk chair. The newspaper trembled in her hands.
I know everything that's going to happen. I know every battle of the Revolutionary War. I know who wins, who loses, who dies. I know the compromises they'll make over slavery, the Three-Fifths Clause, the fugitive slave provisions. I know how it all plays out for the next three hundred years.
But knowing doesn't mean I can change it.
She set down the newspaper and picked up a ledger. The cover was plain brown leather, worn soft with handling. She opened it.
Names. Dozens of names, written in columns:
Old Jenny, age 45, cook
Breechy, age 23, field
Mulatto Jack, age 30, field
Beck, age 18, house
Julius, age 12, house
Doll, age 8, house
Suckey, age 6, house...
Amara's throat closed. She kept reading. More names. Ages. Jobs. Monetary values written beside some entries.
Beck, age 18 — £35
Julius, age 12 — £20
Children. They were assigning cash value to children.
And at the bottom of the page, a neat total: 84 enslaved persons, combined estimated value £2,847.
Amara closed the ledger. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely manage it.
Eighty-four people. I "own" eighty-four people. Children. Old women. Families.
She thought of her grandmother, who'd grown up in segregated Alabama. Her great-grandmother, who'd picked cotton until her hands bled. Her ancestors whose names had been erased, whose stories had been stolen, who'd been reduced to entries in ledgers exactly like this one.
And now I'm on the other side of the ledger. I'm the one with the pen.
A knock at the door made her flinch.
"Mistress?" Sally's voice. "Breakfast is ready."
Amara wiped her eyes. When had she started crying?
"Thank you. I'll be there shortly."
She heard footsteps retreating. She stayed in the chair, staring at the closed ledger, trying to force her brain to think strategically instead of emotionally.
Options. What are my options?
One: I'm hallucinating. I hit my head, I'm in a hospital somewhere, and this is an incredibly detailed fever dream. In which case, nothing I do matters.
Two: I've actually traveled through time, and I'm trapped in Martha Custis's body. In which case—
In which case what? What was she supposed to do? Free all eighty-four enslaved people? In 1757 Virginia, where freeing slaves required legislative approval and freed Black people could be re-enslaved if they stayed in the state too long?
I could run. Take some money and run north. Leave all of this behind.
But Martha had children. Two small children who'd just lost their father. Could Amara abandon them?
And even if she ran—she'd still be in Martha's body. She'd still be white. She'd still be living a lie.
I can't fix everything. I probably can't fix anything. But maybe—maybe—I can make it slightly less terrible for some people. Maybe I can use what I know to—
To what? Plant seeds? Nudge history in a marginally better direction?
It sounded pathetic. It sounded like the kind of excuse slaveholders used: I'm a good master. I treat my slaves well.
There's no such thing as a good master. The system is the problem, not individual behavior within it.
But she was inside the system now. She was the system.
Amara stood. Her legs felt steadier than before, her mind clearer. Not calm—she wasn't sure she'd ever be calm again—but focused.
Okay. First step: information. I need to learn everything about this household, this estate, these people. Who has power, who doesn't, where the leverage points are.
Second step: small changes. Things I can do without drawing suspicion. Better food. Better working conditions. No whippings unless—
She stopped herself.
No whippings. Period. I don't care how suspicious it looks.
Third step: long game. If I'm really stuck here—if this is permanent—then I have decades to work with. I know George Washington is going to come into my life. I know what he'll become. Maybe I can influence him. Maybe I can plant ideas.
It was thin. It was probably hopeless. But it was something.
Amara smoothed down her nightgown—she needed to get dressed, she couldn't walk around the house like this—and opened the parlor door.
The girl from earlier was waiting in the hallway. The young one, sixteen or seventeen, with the careful blank expression.
"Mistress." She dropped a curtsy. "Miss Sally sent me to help you dress."
"Thank you." Amara hesitated. "What's your name?"
Something flickered across the girl's face. Surprise? Wariness?
"Oney, Mistress. Oney Judge."
Amara's heart stopped.
Oney Judge. Ona Judge. The woman who escapes from the Washingtons in 1796, who runs to New Hampshire and lives free despite George Washington's attempts to recapture her. One of the most famous escaped slaves in American history.
And she was standing right here, a teenager, waiting to help her mistress get dressed.
"Oney," Amara repeated. The name felt sacred in her mouth. "Thank you, Oney. Please—lead the way."
The girl turned and walked toward the stairs. Amara followed, her mind spinning with possibilities.
She's here. She's real. And I know her future.
The question is: what am I going to do about it?
[End of Chapter 2]