Illusion:Bound Across Time

Chapter 3: The Salt Water Shore

​ Cudjo looked at the horizon, the smile fading from his face. He looked older then, the light in his eyes replaced by deep, heavy shadows. "Maybe I'm tired of seeing people broken," he said quietly. He stepped closer, making sure Sarafina was busy sorting the fish.

​"I've seen you, Emily," he whispered. "I've seen the way you look at the sky. You don't belong to this island any more than I do. You have a fire that Nzinga hasn't managed to stomp out yet. That makes you dangerous. And it makes you us alleful."

I narrowed my eyes. "Useful for what?"

Cudjo leaned in, the scent of sea salt and something like cedarwood clinging to him. "I have a proposal. One that requires a girl with a stubborn heart and a name that sounds like the wind."

​"Talk," I said, my heart starting to race.

​"We should run away from this island," he said, his voice barely a breath. "I have a plan, but I cannot do it alone. I need someone who can convince others. Someone who hasn't forgotten what freedom feels like."

I looked at him, and for the first time since I’d stood at that kitchen window in the wind, I felt a spark of something I thought was dead. Hope. It was terrifying.

​"You're crazy," I whispered.

​"Perhaps," he smiled. "But wouldn't you rather be crazy and free than sane and a slave?"

I looked at the fish in the basket, then back at the man who knew my real name. "Tell me everything."​Returning from the shore with a full basket of fish didn't buy me peace; it only bought me time. Nzinga didn’t thank me when she saw the silver catch. She simply grunted, her eyes lingering on me with a suspicion that made the hairs on my arms stand up. She knew something had shifted. She could smell the change in me, a scent sharper than the sea salt clinging to my skin.

That night, the hut felt smaller than usual. The air was stagnant, heavy with the smell of the palm oil lamp and the unwashed bodies of four girls who were tired of existing. Anika and Polle Allen were already on their mats, their breathing shallow and rhythmic. They were experts at disappearing into sleep, using it as a shield against the reality of our lives.

But I couldn't sleep. My mind was a chaotic theater, replaying Cudjo’s words over and over. “We should run away from this island.”

It sounded like a dream—the kind of beautiful, fragile thing that shatters the moment you touch it. How could we escape? This island was surrounded by the Atlantic, a vast, hungry beast that didn’t care about our yearnings for freedom. And yet, the alternative was staying here until I forgot the sound of my own name, until I became the "Harriet" Nzinga wanted me to be.

I sat up slowly, my joints complaining. I looked at Anika. She was roughly my age, maybe eighteen, though the lines around her mouth made her look forty. She had been here the longest. She was the one who followed every rule, who never looked Nzinga in the eye, who had accepted her fate so completely that she was more like a ghost than a person.

​"Anika," I whispered. "Are you awake?"

She didn't move at first, but then I saw her eyelids flutter. "Go to sleep, Harriet," she breathed, her voice barely audible. "The morning comes early, and the cane doesn't care if you're tired."

​"My name is Emily," I said, my voice firm despite the tremble in my hands. "And I'm not going to be here when the morning comes much longer."

That got her attention. She rolled over, her eyes wide in the dim amber light of the dying lamp. "Don't speak like that. If she hears you..."

​"She’s asleep in her own hut, dreaming of ways to break us," I snapped, though I kept my volume low. "Anika, look at me. Look at your hands. Look at your life. Do you want to die here? Do you want to be buried in this sand without anyone ever knowing who you really were?"

Polle Allen sat up then, too. She was quieter than Anika, more observant. "What are you saying?" she asked.

​"I met someone," I said, leaning in so our heads were close. "A man named Cudjo. He has a plan. He knows the tides, and he knows where the boats are kept. He wants to leave this place."

​"It’s a trap," Anika hissed, her face pale. "Or madness. Many have tried to run. The forest eats some. The ocean takes the rest. And those who are caught... you saw what happened to the boy from the neighboring village last month."

​I shuddered. I had seen. Nzinga had made us watch as they tied him to a post in the center of the village. The memory of his screams still echoed in my nightmares. But I pushed it down. This was where the "sassy" Emily had to become something more—a leader, an actress playing the most important role of her life.

​"I know the risks," I said, my voice dropping into a low, persuasive tone. I channeled every bit of drama I’d learned from watching movies back home. "But look at us. We are already dying. Every slap Nzinga gives us, every day we spend grinding that corn until our fingers bleed, a little piece of us vanishes. Soon, there will be nothing left to save."

​"We are safe here," Polle whispered, though she didn't sound like she believed it. "We have food. We have a roof."

​"Is that what you call this?" I asked, gesturing to the cramped, mud-walled room. "In my world—the world I come from—people choose their lives. They go where they want. They love who they want. They aren't pieces of furniture for a woman like Nzinga to move around."

​"Your world is a story," Anika said bitterly. "A dream you brought with you from across the water."

​"Then let's go find that story!" I urged. "Cudjo is brave. He’s strong. He wouldn't suggest this if he didn't think we could make it. But he needs us. He needs people who can handle the supplies, who can act as lookouts. He needs a crew."

I looked at them, searching for a spark of the rebellion I felt in my own gut. For a long minute, there was only the sound of the wind rattling the thatch above us. Then, Polle Allen reached out and touched my hand. Her skin was rough, but her grip was surprisingly strong.

​"Nzinga told me I was nothing," Polle whispered. "She told me my mother gave me away because I was a burden. I want to know if that’s true. I want to see what’s on the other side of that water."

Anika looked between us, her breath hitching in her throat. Fear was a physical thing in the room, thick as the smoke. "If we are caught... Harriet, if we are caught, she won't just use the cane. She will end us."

​"Then let’s not get caught," I said. I felt a surge of adrenaline, a cold, sharp clarity. "We have to be smarter than her. We have to be more disciplined than she is. We play our parts perfectly for the next few days. We obey every command. We work harder than we ever have. Let her think she’s finally broken us. Let her go to sleep feeling powerful and secure."

Anika looked at the door, then back at me. Slowly, painfully, she nodded. "What do we do first?"

​"We start gathering things," I said, the plan forming in my mind as I spoke. "Small things. Bits of dried meat, extra water gourds, any sharp metal we can find. We hide them in the old hollow log by the washing stream. And we wait for the signal from Cudjo."

​As I lay back down on my mat that night, I didn't feel like a victim anymore. I felt like a conspirator. My heart was still racing, and my cheek still throbbed from where Nzinga had struck me earlier that day, but the pain felt different now. It was no longer a reminder of my weakness; it was a reminder of why I had to win.

​I closed my eyes and pictured the kitchen window back in Lagos. I imagined my mother’s face. I realized now that when she called me stubborn and ungrateful, she didn't know that those very traits—that stubbornness, that refusal to be what others wanted—were the only things that were going to keep me alive.

​I wasn't just Emily anymore, and I wasn't Harriet. I was something forged between the two worlds, something that Nzinga and her island were never prepared for. I was a girl with a plan, a secret, and a neighbor who knew the way home.

​"Sleep now," I whispered into the darkness. "But dream of the ocean. Dream of the wind."

​Outside, the Atlantic roared against the shore, but for the first time, it didn't sound like a prison wall. It sounded like an invitation. I just hoped that when the time came to sail, my courage would be as deep as the water we were about to cross.

​We were 110 souls in the making of a destiny, though we didn't know it yet. All I knew was that the illusion of my old life was gone, replaced by a reality that was brutal, beautiful, and finally, beginning to move.