"What’d you hear exactly?”
“Are you- are we ever goin’ home?”
     She gasp a bit, quiet, an’ twist her body ‘till she my mirror, her arms pressed tight to ‘er sides- like my own. Her face is a ghastly pale against the little light of the moon, an affect that make her beautiful ghost,  blessin’ me with her presence. Even the dress holdin’ ‘er body is that color, a golden brown. A white. Angel wings. Even when I remember I hate her- she look the same.
     “Why?” She so quiet, jus’ a small whisper, a tremor. Her hands shake- a flutter of wings, an’ she fall back- half her face in the light of the window, half lighted by the fire. The candle’s fire. “Why would you wanna go back there? That place-”
     “It ain’t cause a the place.” My voice sound sharp even ta my own ears- but I don’t apologize none. Even when she look like she been kicked, the stron’, angelic Misses now jus’ a child- cornered. But I keep my tongue. She don’t got no right to do this- none. I ain’t stayin ‘ere. “What ‘bout my family?”
“You mean yous daddy?
      I stand, an’ jump away from her. Do she really think that? I wanna go back ‘cause a daddy- cause of him or Mista Johnston or Lloyd. She don’t kno’ me. She don’ kno’ me at all. Why she here- why she messin’ with my mind? She shoulda jus’ let me be- that the way it was before. “I-“
     “Can I tell yous a story?” At my face, lighted by the flames, orange an’ black an’ angry, she add, “Please.”
     She still got that kicked look etched into her features. An’ she so beautiful- like. I jus’ can’t stand ta hurt her… No one can, really. That why she where she is. I dunno if it actin’ or no- but either way I fall fo’ it an’ suddenly I ain’t angry no mo’. I’m tired. I sit back down, an’ fall back into the blankets.  I’m so tired.
“Is it a bed time story?” I ask, referrin’ to those tales of knights an’ princess that they tell ta us to fall asleep. It should be mother who does- but fo’ me it was only a slave. But I don’t think of it that way, I think I was lucky with Cecile- she’d do the voices of them characters, an’ together- some nights- we’d stay up real late makin’ up our own.  “No.”
“Well I real tired…” An’ sick a fightin’ an’ hearin’ stories an’ thinkin’. I real sick a thinkin’.