Spirit Ran Free
Chapter Two / Page Three

Lyakena's eyes took on a kind of sad, lonely expression. She got up from the chair and hugged Priscilla tightly.

"Ain't this something. Nothing but a little baby doll. Lord, just like I was when they take me from my mammy. Honey, I's just wonder if you know you gonna have a baby," Priscilla fussed, rubbing Lyakena's stomach. "Sure as I know my name, child, you be having a baby come soon. A ba-by."

"A bu . . . bu? A ba-bu?" Lyakena stammered. But finally, she got it right and spoke her first English words. "A ba-by?"

"Yeah, honey child, a baby. Somebody done knocked you up. Poor little slave thing. I just hope you done took up with one of them Dahomey boys before you done gone and got in this here master mess. Then maybe you be having a real African child, none of this mixed up stuff like I is."

During the next few days, the little princess learned a lot from Priscilla. Above all, she learned that she was carrying her husband's child. Lyakena was so excited about her baby, she wanted to go home and tell her mother. Slavery, however, was moving her further on toward her destiny. Lyakena hugged Priscilla goodbye and tried not to show her fear, but she knew that wherever she was going, she would never forget Priscilla.

Young, innocent and pregnant, Princess Lyakena inhaled the sheer beauty of Savannah, Georgia, with its Spanish moss streaming from the live oak trees. There was something quite intoxicating about the bright azaleas and the colorful whistling birds. Savannah seemed so oddly suspended somewhere in a quaint atmosphere--in a time of its own.

Cont. / Page 4

the author


Forest Hairston