Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

calloused heart and I do nothing to heal those callouses when I reject the largesse his riches allow him to bestow. But how can I do otherwise when his gift is a human soul?
    Andrew stood there, holding a young mulatto woman by the hand. Plainly written across his face was a naked desire for me to spread my blessing over his sin. I had never seen such untrammeled rage as he displayed when I rejected his gift. He wheeled around and fairly jerked the girl off her feet. Fearing that he would break her arm, I called for him to stop. “Give me the girl,” I said. “I will take her.”
    I stood between them. I believe she would have crouched down and covered herself in my skirts if her dignity would have allowed it. I asked her name. Her quavering voice was clear enough, but she said only, “Julia.”
    “Julia,” I said, “you belong to me now. I set you free.”
    It is a perverse tribute to my son’s love for me that he did not strike me. He merely bellowed, “She is yours to use as you like, but she is not yours to free. You know that, Mother,” and walked out of my home. The Christmas sun shone on the golden curls that still tumble down his neck like they did when he was my little boy.
    Journal entry by Mariah LaFourche, recorded 3 February, 1840
    I know now why Julia has had so little to say over these past months. A woman’s moods are not predictable when she is with child, particularly if the father is absent. After all these years I remember that. I would have shared Julia’s heartache, but she would not even tell me the man’s name. Andrew owns so many slaves now that I could not begin to guess the culprit.
    I was greatly saddened by Julia’s mental state, because her companionship has been a treasure since Andrew had the audacity to give her to me. Julia and I quickly dispensed with the nonsense of ownership. Somewhere there exists a paper giving Andrew absolute power over her existence, but my position as his mother shields her from this, or so I thought.
    In our fantasy life here in my cabin, we are two women of independent means, free to live as we choose. We do up the housework together and if Julia, with her younger body, has found that her share of the burden was heavier, well, I hope she has found the learning I give her to be appropriate recompense. Her reading is improving apace and, though she is not yet ready to begin reading French, she speaks it quite prettily.
    I looked forward to the birth of Julia’s child, because I felt assured that she would be herself again once the necessities of maternity were behind her. And yes, I longed to hold a sweet-smelling infant again. My son is more than forty years old and I have been too long without a baby to love. I caught Julia’s daughter with my own hands today, cut the cord, wiped her squalling face, and I knew. In the curve of Cally’s cheek and the shape of her tiny hands, it was clear that Andrew had at last given me the grandchild I have so long desired.

Chapter 17
    It would be no easy Thursday morning task to find Faye—she was a very bright woman and she didn’t want to be found—but Magda had made a career of finding things. She flipped thoughtfully through the archaic filing system in the departmental library, an activity that was perversely appropriate. Archaeology was by etymology the study of the archaic, now, wasn’t it? No quick computer search would answer her questions, but Magda had always found value in the kind of slow, mindless research that freed the mind to ponder more important things.
    This was the wisdom of a woman who had done her time shoveling sand and sifting it for tiny clues. She had learned never to waste the minutes spent waiting for sand to fall through a fine screen. At such times, the mind opens wide like a loom opening to receive the next thread. Intuition is released and it can no more be crushed back into its home than Pandora’s troubles can be replaced in her box.

    Faye dropped Abby’s necklace into a jar of dilute formic acid, hoping it would soak clean without too much rubbing. She’d hate to scrub off a layer of silver with the dirt. Douglass’ father’s pocket watch hadn’t cleaned up easily, either. Maybe a visit to the library would enhance her jewelry restoration skills and she’d have better luck, or then again, the watch might already be as clean as it would ever get. After thirty-something years underground, dark and pitted corrosion might now be its natural state.
    She filled a