Dinner was an ordeal.
Amara sat at the head of the long table—Daniel's seat was empty, waiting for his return—with Jacky on her right and Patsy on her left. Sally and another servant moved silently around them, serving courses, refilling glasses, anticipating needs.
Every dish was beautifully prepared. Roast pork with apples, just as Cook had planned. Fresh bread. Green beans cooked with bacon. Apple pie for dessert. Enough food to feed a dozen people, served to a family of three.
How much of this will be thrown away? And how much will go to the quarters, where people are probably eating cornmeal mush and whatever scraps they can salvage?
"Mama, I don't like beans."
Jacky was pushing his green beans around his plate with the theatrical disgust of children everywhere.
"Eat them anyway," Amara said automatically. "They're good for you."
"Papa lets me skip the beans."
"Papa isn't here."
Jacky's eyes narrowed. He was testing her—five years old and already skilled at finding weak points in adult authority. This kid is going to be a nightmare as a teenager.
"Eat. The. Beans."
Something in her tone must have convinced him because he stabbed a bean with his fork and shoved it into his mouth, glaring at her the whole time.
Patsy, meanwhile, had gotten gravy on her face, her dress, the tablecloth, and somehow her hair. She beamed at Amara with pure toddler joy.
"Mama! I ate all my pig!"
"Good girl." Amara leaned over to wipe gravy from Patsy's chin. The little girl giggled and squirmed.
She's going to die in twelve years. Epilepsy. There's nothing I can do to stop it.
The thought hit her like a punch to the gut. She'd known it intellectually—had known it since she saw Patsy's name in the history books—but sitting here, watching this bright-eyed two-year-old smear gravy everywhere, knowing exactly how and when she would die...
Amara set down her napkin.
"I need some air. Sally, please see that the children finish their dinner."
She stood and walked out of the dining room before anyone could object.
The garden was quiet in the fading light.
Amara walked among the roses, breathing in their scent, trying to steady herself. The evening air was warm and heavy with humidity, and somewhere in the distance, she could hear frogs beginning their nightly chorus.
I can't save Patsy. I can't save her any more than I could have saved my own grandmother from the cancer that killed her. Some things are beyond changing.
But that wasn't entirely true, was it? Medical knowledge in this era was primitive, but it wasn't nonexistent. And Amara knew things that doctors in 1757 couldn't possibly know—about epilepsy, about triggers, about management.
I can't cure her. But maybe I can help her live longer. Maybe I can give her more time.
It was a thin hope. But it was something.
She found a stone bench at the edge of the garden and sat down, looking out over the grounds. From here, she could see the slave quarters—dark shapes against the darkening sky, with thin trails of smoke rising from cooking fires.
What are they eating tonight? What are they talking about? Are they afraid? Angry? Just tired?
"Mama?"
Amara turned. Jacky stood at the edge of the garden path, his small face uncertain.
"Jacky. You should be inside."
"I finished my beans." He came closer, stopping a few feet away. "Sally said I could find you."
"Did she?"
Jacky nodded. He looked younger in the dim light, less like the imperious little would-be gentleman and more like what he was—a five-year-old boy who'd lost his father (or would soon) and didn't understand why the world had suddenly become strange.
"You're different," he said. "Since the fever."
"I know."
"Are you still my mother?"
The question hit her harder than she expected. She swallowed against the tightness in her throat.
"Yes, Jacky. I'm still your mother."
Liar. You're not his mother. You're an imposter wearing his mother's face.
But what else could she say? Sorry, kid, your real mom is gone and I'm a time-traveling history professor from the future who has no idea how to raise children?
Jacky moved closer. His hand found hers, small fingers wrapping around her palm.
"I don't like it when you're different," he said quietly. "It scares me."
Amara squeezed his hand.
This child is going to grow up spoiled and undisciplined. He's going to make bad decisions and die young, leaving behind orphaned children. History says he never amounted to much.
But history was written by people who didn't know him when he was five years old and scared and reaching for his mother's hand.
"I'm sorry I scared you," she said. "I've been feeling strange since the fever. But I'm still me. I'm still here."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Jacky leaned against her side. Amara put her arm around him, feeling the warmth of his small body, the trust he was placing in her.
I have to do right by these children. Whatever else happens, I have to try to give them better futures than history wrote for them.
Jacky doesn't have to become a dissolute failure. Patsy doesn't have to die at seventeen. I have knowledge. I have time. I can try.
"Come on," she said, standing and taking his hand. "Let's go see if there's any pie left."
That night, after the children were in bed and the house had gone quiet, Amara sat at the writing desk in her bedroom and stared at the ledger.
Eighty-four names.
She'd added notes of her own now, in smaller handwriting beneath Martha's neat entries. Oney's mother was Betty. Breechy's real name was William. Old Jenny had been here thirty years.
Small details. Human details.
This isn't enough. Making notes in a book doesn't change anything.
She thought about Elias. About the hope she'd seen in his eyes when she'd promised that Grimes would never touch him again.
I made that promise. Now I have to keep it.
But how? Grimes is the overseer. He has authority over the enslaved workers. If I fire him, I'll need to replace him—and whoever I hire might be just as bad, or worse. If I don't fire him but try to limit his power, he'll resent me, and resentment leads to backlash.
And in two weeks, Daniel comes home. Daniel, who hired Grimes in the first place. Daniel, who presumably approves of his methods. Daniel, who will expect his wife to defer to his judgment on household matters.
The candle on her desk flickered. Outside, an owl called into the darkness.
One thing at a time. Tomorrow I'll talk to Grimes again. Set clearer boundaries. Make it explicit that physical punishment requires my approval first.
It's not abolition. It's not even close. But it's something.
She picked up her pen and began writing. Not in the ledger—in her own private journal, a blank book she'd found in the desk drawer.
May 12, 1757. I don't know if this will ever be read by anyone, including me. But I need to write this down, if only to prove to myself that it's real.
My name is Amara Johnson. I was born in Washington, D.C. in 1990. I am a professor of American history at Howard University. Three days ago—or two hundred and sixty-seven years from now, depending on how you count—I collapsed during a lecture and woke up here.
Here is Virginia, 1757. Here is the body of Martha Dandridge Custis, a wealthy widow who will one day marry George Washington and become the first First Lady of the United States.
Here is a world built on slavery. And I am one of the builders.
I don't know why I'm here. I don't know if I can go back. I don't know if the "real" Martha is gone forever or just sleeping somewhere inside this body, waiting to return.
What I do know is this: I have knowledge. I have power. I have access to people and places that could shape the future of this nation.
And I have eighty-four human beings whose lives are in my hands.
I can't free them. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I can try to make their lives less terrible. I can try to plant seeds that might grow into something better, long after I'm gone.
It's not enough. It will never be enough.
But it's what I have.
She set down the pen.
Through the window, she could see the stars—the same stars that would shine over a nation that didn't exist yet, over a war that hadn't been fought, over a Constitution that hadn't been written.
George Washington is out there somewhere. A young militia officer, ambitious and flawed and destined for greatness. In two years, he's going to walk into my life.
And when he does, I'm going to be ready.
A soft knock at the door interrupted her thoughts.
"Come in."
Sally entered, her face troubled. "Mistress. I'm sorry to disturb you, but—"
"What is it?"
"It's one of the field hands. A woman named Ruth. She's in the kitchen, and she's—" Sally hesitated. "She's begging to see you. Something about her child."
Ruth. Amara's mind raced through the ledger entries. Ruth, age 22, field. Value: £40. Note: one daughter, age 2.
A mother. With a child the same age as Patsy.
"Send her in."
"Mistress, it's not proper for—"
"Send. Her. In."
Sally's mouth pressed into a thin line, but she nodded and withdrew.
A moment later, the door opened again.
The woman who entered was young—early twenties, dark-skinned, wearing the rough homespun of a field worker. Her face was streaked with tears, and in her arms she clutched a small child who was crying softly.
"Mistress." Ruth fell to her knees just inside the doorway, the child still pressed against her chest. "Please, Mistress, I'm begging you—"
"Stand up." Amara crossed the room and helped the woman to her feet. "Tell me what's wrong."
Ruth's eyes were wide with terror. "It's Mr. Grimes, Mistress. He says—he says he's going to sell my Bess. He says she's going to the auction in Williamsburg next week. Please, Mistress, please don't let him take my baby—"
The child in her arms—Bess—looked up at Amara with huge, frightened eyes.
Two years old. The same age as Patsy. And Grimes wants to sell her.
Something cold and hard settled in Amara's chest.
"Where is Grimes now?"
"In his quarters, Mistress. He told me tonight. He said—he said I should say goodbye to her because she'd be gone by Sunday—"
"He won't touch her."
Ruth's voice broke. "Mistress?"
"He won't touch her," Amara repeated. The words came out steady, certain, edged with a fury she barely recognized. "Bess isn't going anywhere. Do you understand me? She's staying here, with you."
Ruth stared at her. The hope on her face was almost unbearable—because hope, for people in her position, was the most dangerous thing of all.
"I need to speak with Mr. Grimes," Amara said. "Tonight. Sally—"
The older woman was hovering in the doorway, her expression unreadable.
"—have someone fetch Mr. Grimes. Tell him I require his presence immediately."
"Mistress, it's late—"
"I don't care what time it is. Get him. Now."
Sally disappeared.
Amara turned back to Ruth, who was still clutching Bess like the child might vanish at any moment.
"Listen to me," Amara said, keeping her voice low and firm. "I don't know what's going to happen when Grimes gets here. But I promise you—I promise you—your daughter is not leaving this plantation. Whatever I have to do to make that true, I'll do it. Do you believe me?"
Ruth's tears spilled over. "Why?" she whispered. "Why would you—"
Because I have a mother who would have burned the world down for me. Because there are two little children in this house who deserve to grow up with their families intact. Because I am trapped in this nightmare and the only way I can live with myself is by fighting it, even if the fight is impossible.
"Because some things are wrong," Amara said. "And this is one of them."
Footsteps in the hallway. Heavy. Male.
Grimes appeared in the doorway, his face flushed with irritation and something that might have been drink. His eyes swept over the scene—Ruth with her child, Amara standing protectively beside them—and his expression shifted.
"Mistress Custis. You summoned me?"
Amara stepped forward.
"We need to talk about Ruth's daughter. And about what authority you think you have in this household."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
Grimes's eyes narrowed.
"I see," he said slowly. "So that's how it's going to be."
[End of Chapter 6]