The man waiting in the parlor was not what Amara had expected.
She'd imagined someone brutish. A thug with a permanent sneer and a whip coiled at his belt. The stereotype of a cruel overseer from every plantation drama she'd ever watched.
Horace Grimes was none of those things.
He was perhaps forty-five, with thinning brown hair and a weathered face that might have been called handsome once. He stood when she entered, hat in hands, and offered a small bow—the deference of an employee to an employer, carefully measured to convey respect without submission.
"Mistress Custis. I trust you're feeling better?"
His voice was quiet. Almost gentle. That was somehow worse.
"Much better, thank you, Mr. Grimes." Amara chose a chair near the window, positioning herself so the light was at her back—a trick she'd learned from years of office politics. Make them squint at you. It was a minor advantage, but she'd take anything. "You wished to speak with me?"
"Yes, ma'am." Grimes remained standing until she gestured for him to sit. "There are some matters concerning the plantation that require your attention."
"Such as?"
He opened a ledger he'd been carrying—a different one from the household book she'd found upstairs. Larger, with water stains on the cover.
"The planting is behind schedule. The late rains delayed us, and now we're struggling to catch up. I'd like to extend the workday by two hours until we're back on track."
Two extra hours of forced labor in the fields. In May heat. For people who are already exhausted.
"No."
Grimes blinked. It was a small reaction, quickly suppressed, but Amara caught it.
"Ma'am?"
"The answer is no, Mr. Grimes. We will not extend the workday."
"Mistress Custis, with respect, if we don't catch up on the planting—"
"Then we will catch up some other way." Amara kept her voice steady, channeling every confident professor persona she'd ever developed. "Exhausted workers make mistakes. Mistakes cost money. I would rather be a week behind on planting than lose a valuable hand to heatstroke."
Grimes stared at her. She could see him recalculating, trying to reconcile this response with whatever he'd expected.
"That is... not how we have typically operated, Mistress."
"Perhaps it's time for a change."
Silence stretched between them. Amara held his gaze, refusing to flinch. This is a test. The first of many. If I back down now, I lose everything.
Finally, Grimes nodded slowly. "As you wish, Mistress. I'll make other arrangements."
"Good." Amara relaxed a fraction but kept her guard up. "Was there anything else?"
"One matter." Grimes's face shifted—became harder, more certain. "One of the field hands. A man named Elias. He's been causing trouble."
Elias. The name from her mental outline snapped into focus. The blacksmith. The escape attempt. The scar.
"What kind of trouble?"
"Insubordination. Refusing orders. Trying to stir up the others." Grimes's lip curled. "He's been a problem since he came back from his... excursion three years ago. Branding wasn't enough to teach him his place. I believe it's time for more serious measures."
"Such as?"
"Thirty lashes, publicly administered. To remind him—and everyone else—who's in charge here."
Amara's stomach dropped, but she kept her face neutral.
Thirty lashes. That can kill a man. Or leave him crippled for life. And this piece of shit is asking for my permission like he's discussing the weather.
"No."
Grimes's eyes narrowed. "Mistress—"
"I said no, Mr. Grimes." Amara stood. She needed the height advantage, even if Martha's body was shorter than Grimes's. "Bring Elias to me. I will speak with him myself."
"That is highly irregular—"
"I don't care what's regular. I care what's effective." She stepped closer to him, close enough to see the broken capillaries in his nose, the tobacco stains on his teeth. "You say Elias is causing trouble. I want to understand why. Bring him to me."
Grimes didn't move for a long moment. His jaw worked silently, and Amara could see the conflict playing out behind his eyes—the urge to argue, to assert his authority, warring with the knowledge that she was the mistress of this plantation and he was just an employee.
Finally, he nodded. A single, jerky motion.
"As you wish, Mistress. I'll fetch him."
He left without another word. Amara waited until the door closed behind him, then let out a shaky breath.
That was either very brave or very stupid. Probably both.
She crossed to the window and looked out at the grounds. The rose garden. The manicured lawn. And beyond that, barely visible through the trees, the slave quarters—a row of small wooden structures that housed the human beings who made all of this possible.
Elias. The man who tried to run. The man they branded for wanting to be free.
He's about to meet the woman who owns him. And I have no idea what I'm going to say.
Twenty minutes later, the parlor door opened again.
Grimes entered first, his face carefully blank. Behind him came two other white men—lower-level overseers, Amara guessed, from their rough clothes and nervous expressions. And between them, hands bound in front of him, was Elias.
He was taller than she'd expected. Broad-shouldered, with the muscled build of a man who worked with his hands. His skin was dark—darker than Amara's had been, back in her real body—and his face bore the evidence of a hard life: a scar running along his left cheekbone, old lines of pain etched around his eyes.
But what struck her most was his expression. Or rather, the absence of one. His face was utterly blank, empty of any readable emotion. The survival mask. The shield you built when showing your true feelings could get you killed.
I know that face. I've seen it in photographs. I've seen it in my own mirror, some days, when the microaggressions piled up too high.
"Leave us," Amara said.
Grimes stiffened. "Mistress, I don't think—"
"Leave. Us."
Her voice cracked like a whip. Even she was surprised by the authority in it. Grimes's face reddened, but he jerked his head at the other men and they filed out, closing the door behind them.
Amara and Elias were alone.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Elias stood in the center of the room, hands still bound, eyes fixed on a point somewhere past her left shoulder. Not meeting her gaze. Not challenging. Not submitting. Just... waiting.
He's waiting to see what kind of monster I am.
"Sit down," Amara said. "Please."
Something flickered across his face. Surprise? Suspicion? He didn't move.
"I'm not going to hurt you," she said. "I just want to talk."
"With respect, Mistress." His voice was deep, roughened by years of smoke and shouting. "Talking is not usually why we're brought before the big house."
"I imagine not." Amara gestured to a chair. "Please. Sit."
Slowly, watching her like she might attack at any moment, Elias lowered himself into the chair. The ropes around his wrists pulled taut as he moved.
"May I?" Amara pointed at the bindings.
He didn't answer. She took that as permission and stepped forward, working at the knots. The rope was rough, the knots tight—whoever had tied them hadn't cared about comfort. It took her nearly a minute to get them undone.
Elias rubbed his wrists. His eyes found hers for the first time—really found them, looked at her instead of through her.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because you're not an animal. You don't need to be tied up like one." Amara stepped back, putting distance between them. "Mr. Grimes tells me you've been causing trouble."
"Mr. Grimes says a lot of things."
"Such as?"
Elias's jaw tightened. "I told Marcus—one of the younger hands—that he didn't have to take Grimes's beatings lying down. That he had rights. That he was a man, not a mule."
"And what happened?"
"Marcus stood up for himself. Grimes didn't like that. So now I'm the problem that needs fixing."
Amara sat down across from him. Her heart was hammering, but she forced herself to appear calm.
"Elias. I'm going to ask you something, and I need you to answer honestly. Can you do that?"
He studied her face. Looking for the trap. Looking for the angle.
"I can try, Mistress."
"What do you want?"
The question seemed to catch him off guard. His brow furrowed.
"What do I want?"
"If you could have anything. If things were different. What would you want?"
Silence. Elias's hands clenched on his knees, then slowly released.
"Freedom," he said finally. His voice was barely above a whisper. "I want to wake up one morning and know that nobody owns me. That I can go where I want, do what I want, keep what I earn. That my children—if I ever have any—won't be born into chains."
Amara's throat tightened.
"I can't give you that," she said. "Not today. Maybe not ever. The law won't allow it. Society won't allow it. If I tried to free you tomorrow, you could be re-enslaved before you crossed the county line."
Elias's expression hardened. "Then why ask?"
"Because I want you to know that I see you." Amara leaned forward. "I see you, Elias. You're not property to me. You're not a line in a ledger. You're a man who deserves to be free, and the fact that you're not is a sin—not yours, but the world's."
He stared at her. For the first time since entering the room, real emotion broke through his mask: confusion, disbelief, and something that might have been hope—or might have been fear that hope was being used as a weapon.
"Why are you saying this?"
Because I'm a Black woman from the future trapped in your owner's body. Because I've spent my whole life studying the evil you're living through. Because I can't fix everything, but maybe—maybe—I can fix something.
"Because it's true," she said instead. "And because I'm going to need your help."
"My help?"
"This plantation runs on fear. Grimes keeps order through violence because that's the only tool he knows. But there are other ways. Better ways. I want to make changes—real changes—but I can't do it alone. I need someone who knows these people, who they trust, who can tell me what they need."
Elias laughed. It was a harsh, bitter sound.
"You want me to spy for you."
"No. I want you to be my ally." Amara met his eyes. "I won't pretend we're equals. The law says I own you, and nothing I feel about that changes the reality. But within this nightmare, I want to make things better. I want fewer whippings. Better food. Families kept together. Small things, maybe, but—"
"Small things." Elias's voice was sharp. "Easy for you to say. You're not the one being whipped."
"You're right. I'm not." Amara didn't flinch. "And I'm not going to pretend I understand what you've been through. I can't. But I can try to make sure it happens less. That has to count for something."
Elias was silent for a long time.
Finally, he spoke. "Three years ago, I tried to run. Grimes caught me twenty miles north. He brought me back and held me down while they pressed a hot iron to my face." He touched the scar on his cheek. "You know what he said while he did it? He said, 'This is for your own good. Now you'll remember who you belong to.'"
Amara's stomach turned.
"That man is never touching you again," she said. The words came out fierce, almost savage. "I swear it, Elias. Whatever else happens, that man is never putting his hands on you again."
Elias looked at her—really looked at her—and for the first time, she saw something other than blankness or hostility in his eyes.
She saw the faintest flicker of belief.
"Why?" he asked again. "Why do you care?"
Amara thought of her grandmother. Her great-grandmother. All the ancestors whose names she'd never know, whose stories had been erased, who had survived this nightmare so that she could exist.
"Because someone should have," she said. "A long time ago, someone should have cared. And since no one did—" She spread her hands. "I'm trying to be that person now."
Elias stood slowly. He was still watching her, still assessing, but something had shifted between them.
"I don't trust you," he said. "I can't. Trust gets people like me killed."
"I understand."
"But..." He hesitated. "I'll watch. And if you're telling the truth—if you actually do what you say you're going to do—then maybe. Maybe I'll help."
It wasn't much. It was almost nothing.
But it was a start.
"That's all I ask," Amara said. "Now go. Before Grimes gets suspicious."
Elias moved toward the door. He paused with his hand on the handle.
"Mistress?"
"Yes?"
"You're not like you were before. Something's different." His eyes searched her face. "I don't know what happened to you during that fever. But whatever it was..." He shook his head. "Be careful. The people here—white and Black—they don't like change. And they don't like mysteries."
He left.
Amara stood alone in the parlor, heart pounding, mind racing.
He noticed. Of course he noticed. Everyone's noticing.
I'm running out of time to figure out how to be Martha Custis.
And in two weeks, her husband is coming home.
[End of Chapter 4]