MY MIND WEIGHED DOWN WITH the disagreement Mammy and I’d had, I meandered past the boundaries of Livingston. I had been upset at Mammy for losing the will to fight. For giving up. But was she not as helpless to the cause as I at first considered myself? The burden resting on my shoulders was crushing. My perception of these incalculable transgressions consumed me. But guilt now devoured my thoughts. No matter my feelings, Mammy didn’t deserve my ill treatment, and I needed to make it right.

“Miss Willow,” a female voice called out.

I jumped, startled, and turned. Mary Grace was jogging to catch up to me. Her flowered head rag was a rainbow of color in the bright sunlight. I held a hand over my eyes to shield them from the sun and waited, smiling in response to her infectious white smile.

“Mary Grace, what are you doing off the plantation?” I asked her as she arrived, breathless. “Mammy will be fit to be tied.” I couldn’t maintain my stern face; I was elated to have her company.

“I was chasing you. I was in the woods on the plantation gathering these.” She opened her tucked-up apron; inside were various berries and wildflowers. “I saw you leave the grounds and have been calling out for you ever since.”

“I never heard a thing. I’ve been all up in my head. Mammy and I had some cross words, which I’m feeling right awful about.” My voice quavered.

“Mama will be understanding. You can talk it out. After all, you be her ‘angel gal,’” she mimicked, placing an arm around my shoulders in an attempt to comfort me.

I laughed at her teasing.

“I promise it will be fine.” She gave me an extra squeeze.

I smiled at her, cheered by her optimism. “Thanks, Mary Grace. You always have a way of dragging me out of my own head. For this, I love you more than before.”

She giggled and let her arm drop.

I peered around, realizing I didn’t know where we were. I’d walked a great distance from home. “Mary Grace, I’m not sure where we are.”

“You mean that?” She frowned. “When I followed you, I never considered getting back. I know the woods on the plantation like the back of my hand, but this is all new to me.”

“I was wandering around so aimlessly, I never paid attention to where I was going.” I’d never been good with directions. My anxiety rose. Keep calm, Willow! I drew a deep breath and took in my surroundings. If I panicked and we roamed around frantically, we would be lost for days, and I had no intention of letting that happen. I had ridden these hillsides and woods all my life, but the landscape looked a lot different from a saddle.

I led us back the way Mary Grace had come. As we walked, Mary Grace became skittish. At first I believed it was her unease at being off the plantation. This unknown territory, this adventure that didn’t lie in the pages of a book, was proving to be too much for a sheltered slave girl.

I soon realized it wasn’t just Mary Grace, as I got a case of the jitters too. I knew we were being watched. There was no doubt about it. Every fiber of my body shot warnings at me. I glanced around, trying to find the culprit or culprits whose prey we had become. “Something’s wrong, Mary Grace, I can feel it,” I said in a low, urgent voice. “We need to hurry.” Mary Grace looked at me, her eyes wide with terror. I didn’t wait; I grabbed her hand and dragged her along until she caught up and matched my stride.

I spotted them coming in from the left, the side Mary Grace was on. I opened my mouth to shout a warning but a whip cracked loud and encircled Mary Grace’s waist, pinning her forearms. The tip of it struck along my neck. I screamed, dropping her hand, and instinctively raised it to cup my injured neck. Mary Grace let out a bloodcurdling cry of terror.

Two masked men approached and circled us. One held the whip that had captured Mary Grace, pinning her arms to her sides. The taller one roughly grabbed my arm, restraining me. I struggled to break free, but his grip tightened, his fingers digging into my flesh, securing my obedience.

Mary Grace began fighting like a frightened wolf trying to free itself from a hunter’s snare. The shorter of the pair arrogantly sauntered up to her and pulled her head rag from her head. Her long hair bounced out and fell down her back.

“A pretty thing like you shouldn’t be looking like no nigger slave. You should be stripped down to your lady bits and paraded around like the rare exotic beauty you are.” A malicious laugh flowed from the mouth behind the mask.

Terror beyond anything I had ever experienced choked me. The short man turned to his burly, pigeon-toed accomplice and remarked, “Naked and a dog collar around her pretty little neck. What do ya say?”

The other laughed as the heinous idea appealed to him. The man who held Mary Grace captive took a fistful of her hair and jerked her head back.

“Stop! Release my nigger now.” I choked off the panic rising in my tone. I glared with unrestrained malice at them.

The smaller man moved to stand inches from my face. His eyes were hooded by the mask, but a familiarity tickled at my memory. “I suggest you shut your big mouth, nigger lover. White or not, you will suffer the same fate as your nigger friend.”

There was no way I could back down. My knees wobbled but I willed myself to call on an inner strength. I must try to save us from a dire fate. “I am Willow Hendricks, and I would suggest you, sir, release my slave, or my father will make you live to regret the day you were born.”

The larger, pigeon-toed man chuckled, rolling his head to his partner. “She is feisty like her mama,” he crowed. “Maybe she should suffer the same—”

“Silence!” the other man growled.

My mother? My brain seized on his words but I couldn’t allow myself to delve into his meaning.

“I’m sorry…I didn’t…” the larger man stammered to the other.

Seeing my opportunity, I swiftly reached up and pushed my thumbs into the holes in his mask, digging with all my strength into his eye sockets. His eyes squished and rolled under my thumbs as blood squirted out and ran down his mask in a crimson stream.

He screamed in pain and staggered backward. “My eyes!” he squealed, hopping around in a frenzy.

Catching the small man off guard as he stared at his mate, I sent a hard kick into his shin. He groaned and staggered away, loosening his grip on the whip.

I grabbed at Mary Grace, desperately trying to free her from the whip.

“No, Miss Willow, run!”

“I’m not leaving you!” I yelled, tears spilling down my cheeks.

The little man regained his balance and sent a punch to the side of my temple, knocking me off balance. The tall man moved into my line of sight and, fueled by my attack on him, he hauled back and sent a fist at my mouth. I choked off a scream as pain surged through my already pounding head. The blow split my lips and warm blood spilled over my teeth, filling my mouth with a metallic taste. I spit out a mouthful of blood.

“Miss Willow!” Mary Grace cried, struggling to get loose. Her captor yanked on the whip, sending her sprawling on the ground. She lay wrapped in the whip, her eyes wild with terror as the man turned to her. Her heels scrabbled at the ground as she tried to push herself away from him. Chuckling at her determination, he advanced, pulling on the whip to stop her from moving any farther. Kneeing and straddling her hips, he ripped open the front of her dress, exposing her breasts.

“No!” Mary Grace shook her head. “Please don’t!”

“Don’t you touch her! I’ll kill you, you bastard!” I shrieked. I broke free from the man and ran to her, but my captor looped his thick arm around my neck from behind and squeezed. I couldn’t breathe! I clawed at the arm like a woman possessed, but my vision blurred, and as he felt the fight leaving me he released my neck and shoved me to the ground. I struggled to sit up and clung to my throat with my hand, gasping for air.

“I’ll teach you, you stuck-up, rich wench,” he roared. Balling up his fist, he planted it between my eyes.

The impact rocked my head and slammed me flat on the ground. I lay there, crippled by pain. In seconds swelling set in around my eyes and he became but an obscure object in my narrowed vision. I tried to move to fight him off as he lifted my skirt.

“No, not her, only the slave,” the other man bellowed. Without the sense of sight my hearing sharpened, and I recognized the voice of Mary Grace’s captor for the first time.

Rufus.

My world began to spin from the impact to my skull. The last sound I heard before I lost consciousness was the tearing of cloth and Mary Grace’s scream.