There’s no knowing about the light that being free brings you until you lose it. - P374
Freedom was the only thing my body understood. - P374
Twinkling stars danced around my eyes and I started to fall back. - P374
Sanzi looked at the matches and arrows in her hands. She could do it. With pieces of cloth from her shirt, she wrapped the arrows, then struck a match. She lit the arrowhead, pointed it toward the tent, and fired. The arrow swooped high in the air, then arched down toward the tent’s top. She lit another arrow and fired again. - P377
Delicate baby’s breath petals were set aflame. - P379
Anna did neither. Instead, she watched as fire rained down from the sky. - P379
The fruition of this made her certain that even more precious dreams could be fulfilled this evening. - P385
This time Nora didn’t use any words—instead she ran at him. Perhaps it was surprise, or the whiskey maypop water that finally set in, that slowed his response. Regardless, he froze. Nora rammed her body into him, and his hand let loose of Anna’s dress. - P386
Shocked by their effectiveness, they looked at each other, for a moment sharing something in common—a sense of relief. - P386
In a flash Anna saw Stokes, the man beneath her, turned into a big bug. Ugly but smashable. Anna looked to her left, and stretched out before her was an illuminated golden path headed right into the tobacco fields and toward freedom. - P386
Anna stood up and ran, but not before grabbing the two cloth bags. - P386
Nora looked down and perhaps she also saw Anna’s vision because suddenly the man that had scared everyone at Southerland looked small. Small enough to sit on. So Nora did. - P387
Anna looked at Nora. For the first time Nora saw true happiness in her eyes. - P387
Anna carried two cloth bags on her shoulder and a piece of paper in her hands, and she was smiling as if finally things were as they should be. - P388
She rubbed the scar on her arm, then she waved her paper in the air and ran for the tobacco fields. I waved back. - P388
But Sanzi, being Sanzi, wouldn’t move. - P388
Enslaved souls of Southerland and McGrath plantations, having witnessed the unthinkable in the midst of chaos, saw a window of freedom open. Some stayed, but many ran. - P389
The dizzying, boisterous effect of the maypop water and whiskey wore off, and in its place finally came the outcome Anna had sought, sleep. Like a heavy blanket, drowsiness descended on the guests as they sought out their carriages and horses to ride away from the disastrous wedding. - P391
They worked until exhausted and the buckets of water felt too heavy to lift and their eyelids felt even heavier to keep open and, apart from Nora, sleep overcame all of them right where they stood. - P392
They worked until exhausted and the buckets of water felt too heavy to lift and their eyelids felt even heavier to keep open and, apart from Nora, sleep overcame all of them right where they stood. - P393
As if it were natural and meant to be, Homer, Billy, Juna, Ferdinand, Sanzi, and Ada all helped the ten new souls run for freedom. - P393
Ferdinand cut walking sticks for each traveler to use as they made their way through mud. For the first time Billy stopped imagining his hunter and led the way to opening the hidden door on the water. Juna and Sanzi swung their slings to hunt food for everyone when they sought refuge in Suleman’s tree den. Homer didn’t hesitate when he led them zigzagging through the field of wooden stakes, and all the while Ada told them about how to fly on the sky bridges. Suleman watched it all. - P393
She had envisioned this moment a million times, but now dreams of her heroic speech and recounting tales and adventure faded from her memory. She was proud, but not in the way she’d always imagined. - P397
I’VE NEVER FELT FREER THAN I DID CROSSING that sky bridge in the pink sunrise. Ada was flapping her arms in front of us as she made her way to Big Tree. Mama was wide-eyed. - P398
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