Part 2. The Original Woman

When he opened his eyes again, the sky was yellow. Jim looked around in panic. And then he saw her. Crouched a few feet away. Her body covered in leaves like Eve, the woman from the Bible stories that an old slave used to tell him when he was a boy.

She was slender with uncombed hair and eyes like a baby deer- dark, round, and full of careful curiosity. Jim slowly eased himself to his feet. The woman moved backwards, gracefully, and on all fours like an animal. Jim stared at her and she held him with her almond gaze until he looked away. She was not an African, but her skin was too dark for the planter class. She was one of the Original people. Those who had been in this place before the Planter’s family found it, before Jim’s grandparents were stolen.

He heard stories of the Original people. They were olive-skinned, with eyes that were as wild as the forest that used to belong to them. But they were almost all gone now. He had never met one before. And she was beautiful.

He raised a careful hand and moved towards her. She did not move away this time and instead she took his hand into hers.

‘Come’ she said the word carefully, like speaking it was not natural to her. Suddenly he was afraid. Was this a trap? Law hired all kinds of people and who better to return a runaway than this beautiful olive-skinned woman.

She saw the fear in his face and pulled his hand to her chest. He felt her heart beating. It was steady and strong and familiar.

‘I am a friend.’ She whispered softly. He hesitated again.

‘Friend,’ she repeated, still softly but with urgency, ‘Friend. You have to follow me.’

Her chest was warm under his callused hands and he followed her because her heartbeat sounded like the rhythm of machetes he had grown up with. He had to struggle to match her pace, she was fast and he was hungry and still tired. She was small but strong and she pulled him through the trees, her grip keeping him from falling. Eventually they reached a river and she stopped.

He tried to lower himself to the floor but his legs buckled and he fell face first into the wet mud. Jim could hear her shuffling and his face burned- she was laughing at him! He used the last of his strength to pull himself upright and glare at her. But she was not laughing at all, she had found a hollow rock and was filling it with water.

Jim watched her drink. This slender, long-haired Original woman with eyes like a deer. The leaves of some tree artfully sewn together to cover her body, the rest of her shining and dancing like the fire his mother used to light in the corner of the room when he was young. Her wide eyes met his and he looked away.

He did not meet her gaze when she lowered herself to share the water with him. He gulped it down and ignored her warm breath on his neck.