You are going to reach freedom. And when you do, you are going to build a life for yourself and your child. A life where no one owns you, where no one can take your children, where you are fully human under the law. That is what we are fighting for.
That is why we risk everything. So take the money, take your freedom and live. Dinina felt tears she could no longer hold back streaming down her face. She embraced Brennan, this stranger who had saved her life.
This man whose real name she had learned only yesterday. This person who represented everything good that could exist, even in the midst of systematic evil. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for seeing me as human." Brennan held her for a moment, then stepped back.
Now go, hide yourself, and do not emerge until Porter tells you it is safe. Dinina climbed into the small space behind the crates. Porter arranged the boxes to conceal her completely, leaving only a small gap for air circulation. The darkness was absolute.
She heard Brennan and Porter speaking in low voices, heard footsteps on the ladder as they returned to the deck, heard the sounds of the ship settling around her. Then silence, broken only by the creaking of wood and the distant sound of water against the hull. She was alone now, truly alone, hiding in darkness, trusting her life to people she barely knew, carrying a child who would either be born free or born into slavery, depending on whether this desperate plan succeeded.
The ship departed at dawn. Dinina felt the motion change, felt the vessel begin to move, felt the gentle rocking that meant they were leaving the dock, leaving Georgia, leaving behind everything she had ever known. For the first two days, the voyage was uneventful. Porter brought food and water as promised, stale bread and dried meat and warm water that tasted of wood.
He spoke little, simply handed her the provisions, asked if she was managing, then departed. The space was unbearably cramped, and Dinina's body ached from the inability to stretch or move freely. Her pregnancy made everything worse. the pressure on her bladder constant, the need to shift position frequent but impossible. But she endured because endurance was all she had ever known, because enslaved people learned early that survival meant tolerating the intolerable, that freedom was worth any temporary suffering.
On the third day, the weather changed. Dinina heard thunder in the distance, felt the ship begin to pitch more violently. The storm hit with full force that afternoon, transforming the gentle rocking into violent heaving. The cargo hold became chaos, crates shifting with each massive wave, barrels rolling, ropes swinging.
Dinina pressed herself into the corner of her hiding space, her arms wrapped protectively around her stomach, praying the crates concealing her would not shift enough to expose her or crush her. The storm lasted through the night and into the following morning. During those hours, Dinina experienced fear beyond anything she had known before. She had survived rape, had survived the sale of her child, had survived being sold herself for 19 cents.
But this was different. This was nature itself trying to kill her. Water and wind indifferent to human suffering, to human law, to human evil. If the ship sank, she would drown in this hold, trapped behind crates, unable even to attempt survival.
Her child would die with her, both of them erased as thoroughly as the seven women Thornton Graves had murdered. When the storm finally broke, when the motion of the ship returned to something resembling normal, Dinina waited for Porter to appear with food and water, but he did not come. The morning passed, then afternoon, then evening. No food, no water, no contact.
Dinina's throat burned with thirst and her stomach cramped with hunger. She tried to remain calm, tried to tell herself that Porter was simply delayed, that the storm had created problems requiring his attention elsewhere on the ship. But as the second day without provisions began, panic started to set in. Had something happened to Porter?
Had he been injured during the storm, or worse, had he been discovered helping her? Had the crew found out about her presence.
On the third day, without food or water, Dinina began to accept that she might die here. She was weak, lightheaded, her lips cracked, and bleeding. The baby moved less frequently now, as though it too sensed the approaching end. She thought about praying, but to whom?
To a god who had allowed her to be enslaved, to be raped, to be sold like livestock? What god would sanction such a world? Then she heard footsteps on the ladder, heard someone moving through the cargo hold. Please let it be porter, she thought.
Please let it be help and not discovery. The crates in front of her hiding space shifted and light flooded in painful after days of darkness. A face appeared, but it was not Porter's. It was a younger man, perhaps 25, with red hair and a sailor's weathered skin.
His eyes widened when he saw her. Sweet Jesus, he whispered. "There is actually someone here." Porter said, "There might be, but I did not believe him." Dinina tried to speak, but her throat was too dry.
The sailor, his name was Michael, lifted a canteen to her lips. "Small sips," he said. "You have gone too long without water.
You need to drink slowly or you will vomit." Dinina drank and the water was the most beautiful thing she had ever tasted. "Where is Porter?" she managed to ask. "Dead," Michael said.
His voice was grim. "He fell during the storm, broke his neck. We buried him at sea yesterday morning. Before he died, he told me about you, told me where you were hidden, told me I needed to keep you alive until we reached Wilmington.
So, here I am." "You are going to help me?" Dinina asked, disbelieving. Michael shrugged. Porter was a good man.
If he thought you were worth saving, that is enough for me. Besides, I have no love for the system that makes people property. My father was Irish, came to America to escape famine, worked himself to death in factories. I know what it means to be disposable to rich men.
So yes, I am going to help you. We reach Wilmington tomorrow. Until then, you stay hidden. You stay quiet and you stay alive.
Understand? Dinina nodded. Michael produced food from his coat, hard biscuits and cheese. Eat slowly, he instructed.
Your stomach needs time to adjust. Then he repositioned the crates, concealing her once more, and departed.
The ship reached Wilmington the following afternoon. Dinina heard the sounds of docking, of sailors shouting instructions of cargo being unloaded. She waited in her hiding place, every muscle tense, wondering if Michael would return, wondering if Thomas Garrett would actually be there, wondering if this final stage of the journey would succeed, or if she had come so far only to be captured at the last moment. Hours passed.
The sounds of activity diminished. Finally, footsteps approached, and the crates moved aside. Michael's face appeared, and beside him was another man, older, perhaps 60, with kind eyes and a calm demeanor. "You are Dinina," the older man said.
"I am Thomas Garrett." Jacob Brennan sent word that you would be arriving. "I am here to take you the rest of the way north." "Can you walk?" Dinina tried to stand, but her legs would not support her weight. Days of confinement and dehydration had weakened her beyond what she had realized.