The Means of Escape by Lauren Elizabeth (the unexpected everything .TXT) 📕

The silver August moon seemed to cool the scorching earth beneath it. The rows upon rows of pine trees visible gently danced to the music of the soft wind that shook them. A grand white house stood in the distance surrounded by oceans of fields foaming with cotton. Leftover over droplets from the past evenings storm shone like crystals as each diamond star reflected off them. It was a peacefully breathtaking sight.
The irony was all Arella could think about as she took one last look back at the hell behind her. She still had miles upon miles to travel to freedom, to the foreign country know as Canada. It’s where Jacob and Elizabeth had set off to. As far as she knew, they’d made it; at least, they never returned to the Georgia plantation. What happened to Jacob and Elizabeth was anyone’s guess really, but A liked to think they had reached a place where the “land of the free” could not extend its arms with the chains of slavery. A place where there was land for everyone, not matter what shade a person’s skin might be, a true land of the free.
This was it. The end to a nightmare hopefully awakening her to a reality that was much less harsh than the one Arella had been living for fifteen years, the last two years especially. Arella’s life was far from tolerable, but Mama and Tyler had gotten her through it. They held on strong together; no matter what the three faced during the day, the family was able to regroup in their small shack at night. Everyday after working in the sweltering southern heat, Mama would come home and tell her children that “there ain’t nothing, that they can do to break us apart. No matta what, we gonna be together.”
Arella wasn’t sure if it was the memory of Mama’s voice that had made her shiver, or the sudden rush of cool air as a rare chilly wind flew past. She had believed Mama back then. Youthful ignorance had kept her blind to the realism of the statement. It wasn’t possible. A knew that now. She knew that the second the man with the horses came and took Mama away as the poor woman yelled and called to her children. She knew that when Tyler started running a fever shortly after Mama was gone, and became sicker and sicker, until one day, he just didn’t wake up. And, finally, the falseness finally registered when Arella realized that she was on her own. She was in no man’s land: too young to really care for herself, but too old for any other family on the plantation to take her in. An outcast in an out casted community, Arella had nothing.
That was when she remembered deciding having nothing, meant having nothing to lose, and maybe like Jacob and Eliza, she could make her way to freedom and find something too live for. It had taken about four months planning, stashing away small amounts of food, and listening to hopeful chatter of the North from the adults. Every word spoken by her elders was absorbed. She learned there was some kind of railroad, one that would help her reach her destination without being caught. All A had to go was walk ten miles to a red and white Ms. Nancy’s house with a black roof. Ms. Nancy was said to be a religious lady who “took no pride in slavery” and helped those looking to escape. Arella also picked up on some gossip that once she reached a place called Pennsylvania, she was as good as home free because according to Milly, the old cook in the kitchen, “there no slaves in Pennsylvania. As long as you lay low and give no slave catchers a chance to see you, you free.”
So here she was. Looking back at a place that Arella could not wait to forget. She had dreams and hopes, and not one of them involved this dungeon. A turned her back to the plantation and began to walk the said road to Ms. Nancy’s. It was a long hard road to freedom, but it had to be better then what was here. As she walked the road to, all she could think about was all the Master’s food in the kitchen she had never been permitted to try, and how she only had one dress. That would be the first thing she did, when she was free. Arella was going to have a freeman’s dinner and a new dress. Maybe she’d even have that dinner with Jacob and Eliza if she ever found them. It was all she could think about as Arella walked up to the red and white house with the black roof, and knocked on the door.

Publication Date: 08-18-2010

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