On the contrary, there aren't ENOUGH slave stories

Never forget. Never stop resisting. First Chapters: The Wicked and the Clever

Enslavement in this country lasted for centuries. The damage wrought on Black American people cannot be overstated. There is no day of remembrance for the hundreds of thousands, the millions of people this country tortured to make it a world power and the ripples of its affect can be felt today. Some families were devastated by enslavement only to be wrecked by Jim Crow and then limped right into the crack epidemic. Still, there are people who are tired of hearing about it. Others say it wasn’t that big a deal. Right now the DJT administration is issuing executive orders to remove books that talk about slavery, and drop funding from schools that teach about it.

I will never stop talking about what America has done to my people.

But what about Black joy? There’s not enough about Black people, period! Our joy, our pain, our culture. Part of the reason some people, including Black people are tired of slave narratives is because they show the suffering without the ingenuity, the pain without the triumph. I also write stories that don’t have anything to do with trauma, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to erase centuries of our history. I always want to know more, because there is so much more to know. I came across a story about William and Ellen Craft. It inspired me so much I wrote a historical romance about it.

Maybe I didn’t execute it well enough. Maybe the public is just too weary of slave stories. Whatever the reason it was left on the shelf.

In my “First Chapter” series I promised to include the query and first chapter for books that I wrote that were not picked up by large publishers. And here is my second installment, THE WICKED CLEVER

QUERY

Eighteen year old Ptolemy Freeman is a mechanical genius living in Boston with his ne'er do well brother during the worst winter he's ever experienced. It's an unforgiving place but to a freed slave it seems like an Eden of opportunity. It’s also a far cry from the South Carolina rice plantation he’d been born on. But even with everything he’s ever wanted just within his reach he can’t stop thinking of the girl he left behind.

Seventeen-year-old Sarah Morning has never met anyone whose skin she didn't get under. She's turned keeping people at a distance into an art and even though she can recite Homer’s Iliad in English, Greek and French she's still a slave, and skin as pale as the women she serves won't change that. So she works quietly, serves diligently, and tries every day to turn her aching heart to stone. But when her mistress receives a mysterious letter from the boy she can't seem to forget, everything changes and she starts to do the most dangerous thing she’s ever done…hope.

Follow Ptolemy and Sarah through secret letters, a heist, and two jailbreaks as they battle slave catchers, their own families and each other in order to be together again.

THE WICKED CLEVER is an 85,000 word YA historical romance based on a true story. It will delight fans of Nicola Yoon, Sharon Draper and the movie Sinners. Please see a five page excerpt of the novel attached as per your submission guidelines.

First Chapter

Part One

“What’s Past is Prologue” - Antonio, The Tempest by William Shakespeare

1 Sold

Sarah

Charleston, 1849

It wasn’t a long walk from the holding cells. Just past the post office on Chalmers Street, a great crowd had commenced. Sarah Morning was tired, cold, and though she’d once dreamed of seeing Charleston for herself, this was not how she’d imagined she’d see it. She could feel every eye upon her flesh just as solid as if they’d been fingers as she made her way to the block, but she refused to bow her head.

Aunt Dite squeezed Sarah’s hand, letting just a bit of warmth pass between them for comfort. The coastal wind bit into their skin and the smell of bodies pressed close stung their noses.

“I knew she’d do this,” Sarah mumbled as she cursed her mistress in a thousand ways she wouldn’t dare give breath to, not even then.

Aunt Dite shushed her. “Hush! Just do as I told you,” she whispered. “Smile, but not too much. No teeth. Look them in the eye but don’t flirt. You ain’t pretty, but a good look in the eye will let them know you friendly and you smart. That’s all that matters.”

Sarah huffed. “Friendly” was never something anyone who knew her would say about her. But she agreed no one had ever called pretty. Her forehead was too high and if she was just a bit taller she might have been said to have a nice shape, but as it was she was just round. Her skin was so pale she burned in too much sun and her lips rested naturally in a scowl. Still, Aunt Dite was right, she was smart even if she was ornery, but she had a right to be. She decided then to bury the real Sarah Morning under the shiny veneer of her representative. Her petticoats were starched and gleamed whiter than a dentist’s wife’s teeth. Her headscarf matched her petticoat and each hem of her skirts was so expertly sewn you’d have to use spectacles to see the stitchwork. She could speak as well as any of the Master’s children and could converse in French better than she’d ever dare let anyone know. And thanks to a Master with an affinity for the classics, she could recite the Odyssey and the Iliad from memory in English and Greek. She’d been treated well and fed even better.

You’re the strongest person I know.

A churning storm of resentment and affection coursed through her as she heard his voice in her head, the boy she’d never see again. She shook it free and pasted on a practiced not-smile that made her look agreeable. She was already emotional. Don’t think on him. Not now. She needed a clear head to make it through this, not regrets. She put her shoulders back. She could step up on the platform and charm the finest Master deception could coax if she really tried.

But..

But misfortune paid too much attention to orphans that day. With a straight back and a determined air, Sarah took the second step and tripped. Before she knew she was falling she cracked her face on the stone platform with a hard smack.

Just get up when they knock you down.

I don’t want to.

You have to.

The remembered conversation rang in her ears, his voice bloomed in her mind, as strong arms lifted her up on her feet and held her apron to her bleeding nose. Someone kind fetched her a cup of water while the girl behind her went ahead. Pain blinded her for minutes on end until a bit of ice was fetched for the swelling. If God were merciful her sale would be postponed.

God works in his own time.

Aunt ‘Dite’s words rang in her head as she wiped the blood from her lip. His own time. It wasn’t an hour before she was walking back up on the block, even more eyes upon her in the bright afternoon. This time her apron was no longer gleaming and white. No, it was covered in blood and wrinkled from its use as a compress. Her face was swollen and black from the fall, and even though no bones were broken she saw her fall from grace in their reflected stares.

“Yes, yes, gentlemen. She’s the last of the lot for today. This here’s a young nigger wench. ‘Spite her appearance she’s just fifteen, ready to breed and worth a fine price. Good for general housework and is an excellent seamstress with the most docile demeanor, if not a tad clumsy.”

The crowd laughed.

“Is an excellent hairdresser and lady’s maid. One half in cash and the rest in one year secured by bond and mortgage. What say you gentlemen? Goin’ at…$1000, 800 is 500. Going at 500, quick or I’ll knock her at 500.500,500,550...”

The first man wore a top-hat that had seen better days, but his mustache was oiled. Sarah tried to offer a small smile, but it presented itself as a grimace as blood from her previous injury showed plainly on her teeth. The man winced audibly and moved on. The next man grabbed her arm and pulled her close. She could smell the rot from too much tobacco chewing spill out from between his teeth. The black liquid leaked out from cracked corners of his mouth and dribbled down his chin before he wiped it away with his sleeve.

“You knowed a man, gal?”

She had to coax the words from her brain, teasing them out like an errant stitch. “Excuse, me?” Sarah managed to choke out.

“I axed if you knowed a man yet. Bore any chillun?”

“N-no, sir. I am not married.”

The men around her laughed, looking much like a pack of dogs after a wounded rabbit. The third man looked to be more prosperous than the last but not as well off as the first. He asked no questions but stuck his finger in Sarah’s mouth just as if she were a horse. She gagged. His skin was rough and tasted of dirt. Her nose pinched and pain shot through her face in the split second it took for her to forget who her representative was and in a flash the real Sarah Morning was resurrected just in time to bite down hard on the invader.

“Gotdamn’ you!” he roared and raised his hand to smack her. The speculator who found the whole scene amusing caught his arm before he made contact.

“Move on, Mr. Bucklater. No bruising the fruit, the merchandise has been damaged enough.”

The man snatched his arm back and descended the stairs in a hail of curses. Some in the crowd chuckled while others spat out curses in solidarity. What was clear and what they could all agree on was that Sarah Morning was not a worthy investment. Her price steadily fell and the emotionless veneer she’d tried to keep up began to crack under the weight of the possibility of not making a good sale. Bids flew in slowly and her eyes began to search wildly for a fine gentlemen to lock eyes with. She would smile, break Aunt ‘Dite’s mandate and flirt. She couldn’t be sold down deep South. She wouldn’t be sold to a no ‘count one mule farmer. It would be a death sentence.

“550, 600, 600, 600, 625. Worth three times that gentlemen! Get lively, look at her. Prime for breeding. Let me get 625. 650 once.”

You’re the strongest person I know.

Sarah looked for the man who’d given his nod to bid and her eyes locked with Bucklater. It couldn’t be. His eyes scanned her from head to toe.

“650, twice!”

She swallowed the iron taste of blood and let her fingers graze the doll she’d rather die than give up in her left pocket and the bag of herbs Aunt Dite insisted she sew into her skirts in the left. Just in case, she had said. Just in case the worst.

Don’t let them win.

“Last, bid! Last bid for a fine wench. Gimme 700! Last bid!”

Revenge and something she’d never seen, something that made her want to hide was laid plain on the man’s face. The herbs. God, would it come to that?

“Alright, 650 at last and…”

“$1000!”

All heads turned. Athena Williams Carragan had a hog calling voice that could saw through wood and thank God for it. “$1000! Cash.”

The crowd gasped and some shook their heads. The auctioneer smiled and shrugged his shoulders at the visibly angry Mr. Bucklater.

“1000 going once, going twice….SOLD!”

Sarah snatched her hand away from the hidden places on her dress and found the face of her savior. Red faced and ragged, sweating and breathing hard in widow’s black Athena had never looked worse, but to Sarah she was as radiant as an angel.

It appeared that God did work in his own time.

2 A Letter to My Former Mistress

Personal letters of Mrs. Charles Finneas Williams

Property of The Daughters of the Lost and Noble Cause

Published in 1919, Letters from the Left Behind

January 7, 1849

To My Old Mistress, Mrs. Charles Finneas Williams

Madam: With a heavy heart I offer to you condolences on the death of your husband, Mr. Charles Finneas Williams. He was a man of great conviction if not faithfulness and his loss will forever be felt. I apologise that my most hasty departure robbed me of the opportunity to express that sentiment earlier, but the execution of the will was immediate and I had scarcely a moment to collect myself before I was boarded on a train. Please forgive me if I do not divulge as to the train’s final destination.

The dear and intimate relationship that we have held from the day of my birth to the day of my departure has left me with no malice towards you. On the contrary, it fills me with gratitude for I have been granted good health and skills that have made me much desired as a tradesman in my new home. You may, perhaps, have been concerned about the welfare of your former servant and my brother, Caesar, as well. Please rest with the happy thought that we are well and well cared for with friends to share our dreams and failures with and the freedom to pursue them, though that freedom had been denied us for some time.

I want you to know that I did not dictate this letter. I have been able to read and write for sometime, defying the general thought and accepted edict of Reverend Patterson that Negroes cannot learn and thus are placed by God under the responsibility of good white Christians. I have learned to read, write and understand French and some Italian since I was a child tasked with attending to Glenn as he visited in the winter months. I am sure your sister will be most happy to know that her private tutors had been so proficient in instructing her son.

I could not be happier in my current state and I wish you the peace that I would wish upon my own mother in her twilight years if she had lived. My heart holds only gladness for you as I hope you return. I am writing you not only in thanks, though I know it was you who denied my mother the doctor’s visit that may have saved her life. I also hold nothing but warmth in my heart for you though I know it was you who insisted that my mother remain a slave, even after Miss Mary Shoreland offered to buy her in gratitude for saving her daughter’s life in childbirth. If she had been released from that bondage I might have enjoyed a childhood of learning instead of the years spent in the forge and a chest scarred from molten lead that can at the right temperature fly just as high and freely as water. No, I write to you only in gratitude for my current state and in inquiry, for there is only one thing I ask of you in return for sixteen years of faithful service please tell if Sarah Morning still lives, and where I can find her.

Sincerely,

Ptolemy Freeman

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