47

I screamed and threw Eighty-four and John off of me. I rose to my feet and raised my hands to the heavens. All around me were lights of every hue, many that have no names in any human tongue. A billion billion little rainbow people tittered in a place far away and long ago and even far into the future.

And then everything went black.

"Forty-seven," Tall John from beyond Africa said in a booming voice.

I was lying on the ground next to the stone bed where I had lain. I was naked and confused. I wanted to rise but there were so many thoughts going through my head that I couldn't manage to get my legs working.

"Ain't I dead?" were the first words out of my mouth.

In the back of my head I could hear the chatter of a thousand beings. I didn't understand what they were saying but I was sure that they were talking to me.

"In a way you are," John said. "Your body will no longer age, no longer will it experience the processes of a normal human being. From now on you will be the age you were when we met."

"What did you do to him?" Eighty-four asked. There was wonderment in her eyes but no fear. I realized that her love for him somehow expected his power. It was no surprise to me that her passion was even more powerful than his light.

"I gave him my cha, or the child of my cha. The infant that will grow to be a full soul within Forty-seven."

"I don't know what you mean," I said. I managed to stand.

I felt different when I stood next to Eighty-four. After a moment I realized that the difference was that I was looking at her eye to eye. I had grown more than a foot. I had trouble standing because my legs were so much longer that I didn't know how to move them.

"The essence of everything I was given to fight Wall has been planted inside your heart and mind," John was saying. "One day you will know everything that I know. You can use that knowledge in your war against the Calash."

"When will that be?"

"So many years from now that everyone you know will

be long dead."

The idea that all of my friends would be dead saddened me.

"Even you?" I asked.

John looked away at the sky and Eighty-four put her arm on my shoulder and said, "You growed."

"His body has caught up to his years," John told her. "Flore kept him away from meat and milk so that he would stay small and Tobias wouldn't send him into the cotton fields. My cha has brought him to his full physical potential and beyond."

The chattering in the back of my mind was subsiding. The pain of my lashes was gone. I reached around but could find no sores or even scars on my back.

"So I'll never grow any older than I am right now?" I asked.

"That's right."

I was happy that I would never have to grow old and sad like the men and women I had known among the slaves. I didn't know what I'd be missing. I'm still not all that sure.

"Not nigger but man," my mouth said the words but I wondered where the elocution came from. Then I wondered about the word elocution. I knew that it meant the way words were said but I didn't know how I knew that. All I knew for sure was that the word nigger felt like my enemy; an enemy that would grind me into dust and let me blow away on the breeze if I didn't oppose it.

"Champ and Flore stood up for us," I said to John. "Mud Albert gave his life tryin' to help Mama Flore. If I didn't he'p'em then how could I do anything else worthwhile?"

The words came from me and the feelings did too. But I could feel the little creature of light in amongst them. It was as if the hero that I always wanted to be in my heart was set free by my friend and now I would never be a nigger again.

I went down a small path to a pond and looked at my reflection in the water. I was taller but not so tall as a full-grown man. My body had filled out some too but I was still of a slight build. And on my shoulder was stitched the Number 47. The scar of slavery would never be gone from me. And as long as I lived that memory would be alive.

19.

We waited until nightfall before John and I made our way back to the Corinthian Plantation. We left Eighty-four behind because John was going to use a second sound machine he'd found in his yellow bag and that would put her to sleep along with the rest of the plantation. He didn't tell her that, though. He said that two could move around better than three. She didn't argue. I think that Eighty-four had made up her mind never to step foot on the master's

estate again.

It was nigh on midnight when we entered upon the main yard in front of Tobias's mansion. John walked onto the porch with impunity but I was more timid. Even though I had seen his machine put everyone to sleep before I was still nervous that if a sound could put someone to sleep then maybe another sound could wake them up. And if I made that sound then they would awake to see me sneaking around the white man's rooms.

Flore had been the center of my life and she stood up to protect me when my twelve lashes were announced. She was mother to me and I would have done anything to save

her life.