Free Sweetsmoke by David Fuller

troubles in a great paroxysm of violence.
        Sometime
during the second week, he asked Emoline why, with her knowledge and gifts, she
told the fortunes of whites but never of blacks.
        She
acted as if the fact that he had even asked such a question was a wonderful
sign, because any interest in a topic outside his anger meant he was improved.
Her explanation was delivered in her familiar, self-assured voice: She told
only white fortunes because the future must not be predicted nor anticipated.
She would not bring false hope to her people. Their lives were hopeless enough
without packing them with lies. She was more than happy to take money to
manufacture white fortunes, sewn out of whole cloth and presented in a pretty
package, and wouldn't you know, the odder her predictions, the more her clients
desired them.
        Emoline
left her home on occasion to visit these clients and she carried her tools with
her, as she would not have others in her home while Cassius was healing.
Cassius knew that Hoke sometimes visited her for conjuring, and wondered if
during those weeks she ever ventured to Sweetsmoke.
        By
the second week, Cassius discovered he had less pain. He sat up. Emoline taught
him the alphabet. He learned quickly, filling his aching, empty, hungry brain.
By the end of the week, he recognized words. By the third week, he read
sentences.
        Somewhere
in the second week, Cassius noticed a distraction in Emoline's eyes and he
wondered about it until Hoke sent the first messenger. At the knock on the
door, Cassius rose to his feet in defiance, his back bristling. Emoline pushed
past him and opened the door herself. The messenger was one of the grooms from
Sweetsmoke, saying that Master Hoke was anxious to have his man back. She sent
the messenger away without explanation. A few days later, another messenger
arrived, this time William, the butler. To him she said simply, "Not
yet." But for all her certainty, Cassius continued to identify a nervous
energy in her demeanor.
        She
could heal him physically, but his mental healing followed a separate path. For
this she could only offer tools, and she knew her time was limited. She was
pleased to see him learn words and sentences, and this new ability, this
ability to read, reshaped his mind. For the first time in his life he
experienced a nugget of personal power that was not a gift from his master. He
did not know what might come of that power, but he knew it was greater than the
strength of his arms, the power owned and benefited from by the Master. Reading
was his secret power, and through it he recognized the small budding cancer of
hope.
        By
the third week he was moving well, and in between her reading lessons, she put
his skills to work. He built for her a false panel between the hearth and the
perpendicular streetside wall. She did not say why she desired a hiding place.
He assumed it was to protect her money and her free papers.
        When
the false wall was finished, he knew it was time to return to Sweetsmoke and he
was able to pretend to be mentally recovered.
        The
citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia marked time from that day, January 16,
1857. But more to the point, slaves living in the Commonwealth marked that day.
Many slaves did not know their birthdays, but they remembered the day of the
Cold Storm that blanketed the state and brought everything to a halt. It snowed
and then it snowed. Snow waves crested under eaves and rolled up against doors,
where they froze in place. People did not leave their homes. Cassius could not
leave for the plantation, so he stayed another week with Emoline Justice, and
his reading improved and his comprehension grew.
        He
would return to Emoline's home many times in the ensuing years, and she would
give him a Bible of his own to read, the book currently hidden in his cabin,
and he would return with questions that she attempted to answer. But it was that
last week, with