The Loom (38 page)

Every pull of death pushed her closer to life.

With tears, Lydia pulled her way forward through the black night. Scuffed, battered, and soiled in her white gown, she moved through the maze of oak and hickory, through the path of pines, over stubble, patches of worn blue grass, fallen twigs, moss. The beauty of the things that bred around her, these natural wonders she had first come to recognize as a child, she could now see. She knew them like she knew her own flesh. Through the wiry thicket she ran, her breath catching in her chest until it rose to her lips in a soft pant.

With every step forward, Lydia was freed. She knew it, even now. In the midst of her flight, she knew she was finally unleashed from all she left behind. Every cruel word, every hateful glare reserved for a slave, Dr. Kelly’s hands, her father’s blood, Lou’s death, the loss of John, from all of it, she was loosed.

Lydia swatted past oak limbs and evergreen branches, no longer bound.

Only minutes had passed since she soared through the window toward freedom. Her heart thumped at the thought of that first move, the decision to fly, that choice that brought her here alone scrambling through the forest once again. Already she was at rest against an oak, bark crumbling over her shoulder as she glanced up at the Virginia sky. A full moon and a blanket of stars lit the night. Everything in the heavens guiding, leading her. Every sparkle, every glimmer on her side.

She knew she was moving slowly, moving easily through the dark. Her breath, she could hear her breath, flowing from her.

She was stirred, compelled, drawn to something that pulsed boldly through her veins, pumped her very heart.

Tonight Lydia was ready to live. Life would surely come. Not a life of nothingness, but one rich and full that blossomed beautiful in her hands. It would surely come. Life soared through souls, filling the earth with love and a force so strong it changed the world. John had taught her of this love, had walked it out, breathed it into her, and now she carried his seed.

And so it was, every price had a prize. For everything she didn’t want, there attached to it like the rose of a thorn was the thing she did. But the loss was worth the life, no matter what the risk.

Lydia smoothed the folds of her dress against her chilled skin and looked around. The sound of night creatures and the crunching of leaves reminded her that inside she carried the words, the music, of a people she loved.

She slowed her pace and began to meander, loose arms and knees swinging softly. There was no pressing, no pulling, just the gentle sound of her own breath. Oh yes, she could breathe. She was breathing.

The night’s wind and the salt of her tears soothed, healed, as it streamed down her cheeks.

As the night passed, she grew stronger. Arms that had months before swung with vigor rose to swat tree limbs with grace. She was fearless. She was found.

And then she saw it.

One small round, dim light. High and far away. She moved toward it, focused and resilient. She floated toward it. When she was close enough to see the circle did not grow in size, she was touched by the hands of a man.

“John?”

“Yes.”

“John, where did you come from? I didn’t hear you.”

“I was watching, waiting for you.”

She ran to him. Clung to him. Finally, loved him with everything.

He kissed her scar.

“You came for me.”

“I did.”

“Where were you? Where have you been?”

“Preparing a place.”

He tugged at the cord around his neck, yanking a small leather pouch free from the inside of his shirt and coat.

“What is that?”

“Papers. My papers.”

Lydia hadn’t even noticed he was holding something in his other hand. In the bright night, she could see a dented copper rectangle with hinges.

Slowly, he opened the box and unwrapped the creased folds of a document. “And yours.”

She looked at him, waiting.

He handed it to her. Slowly, she read the words.

“You’re free, Lydia.”

“John…”

“You’re free. You’ve been free since the day you walked away. Lady, you’re free.”

She froze.

“Live. Live. Live,” he whispered. Like a dream.

She felt something rising, lifting in her. Her spirit flew high above the night sky. Flying free for Isaiah, for Lou, for Lizzy. Free.

She lay against his chest with his arms wrapped around her. She had flourished, a single black rose among lilies.

She looked into his eyes. It was him, her love.

It was Midnight.

At midnight, I will rise to give thanks to You.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The tale of a fair-skinned woman “passing” into White culture is not unfamiliar to the African-American community, but the first time I heard it had occurred in my own family, I was a teenager. And like many legends in a family’s history, the words were breathed in hushed tones over the passing of plates. But a couple of years ago, I decided to inquire further. I discovered that it was my great-grandmother who had walked away from her family. Relatives claimed they had seen her living years later as a white woman up North, far from her home state of Mississippi. There wasn’t much more I could learn, but this story became the basis of my book. Though this topic has been covered in other writings through the years, I wanted to tell the story from a different perspective. I wanted this to be a love story that explored the question: Is what is gained worth what is lost? From this premise, the theme of The Loom surfaced, revealing a story about discontentment, a desire to find freedom at any cost for a character who, much like any of us, fails to realize that she already possesses the very thing she is striving for.

As I wrote, I kept thinking about a biblical passage from the book of Ezekiel. Chapter 16 depicts an unfaithful lover, representing the children of Israel’s waywardness. I was also drawn to the book of Hosea, in which the prophet’s wife Gomer walks away from her marriage. Although my character Lydia does not stray sexually, she doesn’t become one with her husband John in mind and spirit until their final time together before they are reunited in the epilogue.

I imagined John as the faithful and forgiving Hosea, and like the biblical character, wanted him to represent a type of Christ.

So inevitably, I wanted the antagonist of the story to represent evil. I wanted a character that was beautiful to the eye, much like the Lucifer of the Bible, who would cloak himself in kindness to lure and deceive. Jackson offers Lydia the chance to gain the whole world but lose her soul.

Another character inspired from the Bible was Abram. He was a spiritual father of many, like the biblical Abraham, but I formed him with Samson from the book of Judges in mind. He, too, was a man of strength who loses his power (and his hair!) and begs the Lord for one more victory, which the Lord grants for Abram with Ruth’s healing. The scar in his hand was more for Odessa, who thought of him as her savior, a snare I find many married women fall into regarding their godly husbands.

But many times the people or the problems in the story were inspired from my own life. One of the characters in The Loom Room I sketched from an image of my aunt, who suffered an eye injury as a child that resulted in a blue, blind eye. Thus, the character Ruth.

Lydia’s scar is mine. I have had reconstructive knee surgeries and have gone through several periods of concealing my scars since I was an adolescent. At times, I have been ashamed of the injuries instead of seeing the blessing of mobility the operations allowed me. I now reveal what I often hid.

I wanted many of the characters to have the same initials: John, Jackson, James; Lydia, Lou, Lizzy. This is rarely the case in novels. Generally, writers are encouraged to avoid doing this very thing for the sake of assisting you, the reader, in early character recognition. However, I wanted to show that there was little difference between these souls. All of their lives were intertwined. As much as John was free, Jackson was bound. Many of the characters, both Black and White, were gripped by something, whether it was slavery, hatred, marriage, discrimination, or money. As Annie states, we are all slaves to something.

Of course, to write this book, I needed to not only glean facts from the Bible and my own life, but to spend an ample amount of time studying history.

From a set of history books I won years ago as a pageant winner, I stumbled upon several references to a loom room and became fascinated with the idea of this place, this space where expectant women and elderly slaves spent their time weaving when they were no longer productive in the fields. It was this latter group in particular that stimulated my imagination. Who were these folk, and what would they feel knowing that their arrival to The Room indicated their days on earth were few? What was shared in this place for the dying? I was simply intrigued. In the book, I used the loom room as a place of no escape to add to Lydia’s desire to flee the world of slavery.

John’s copper box filled with his inheritance was another sweet nugget I found in my research. Slaves in Emporia, Virginia, buried and later retrieved such treasure chests. But the most fascinating fact I discovered was that of a slave named Francis “Free Frank” McWorter, who became a leased worker, earning more than fifteen thousand dollars over the course of his life. With his savings, he bought the freedom of sixteen members of his family in the early 1800s. Amazing.

Lastly, I colored The Loom with symbolism. Light and dark images prevail throughout the pages, in the sky, in the skin, in the pearls, and in the velvet. One find you may or may not have noticed was the fact that Jackson’s bad tooth was a metaphor for Lydia.

“Completely black,” Dr. Kelly informs him. The poor man is plagued the moment she arrives, much like Pharaoh in Genesis 12, when Sarai, Abram’s wife, is under his roof. In addition, there are many references to flames. A fire builds, literally and figuratively, in Lydia’s desire to flee so, inevitably, the story ends up in smoke.

The wedding and Emma chapters were two of my favorites to write and to read aloud (which I do for every scene). I would love to hear which scenes you found the most memorable. Please feel free to share this and any other comments at shellagillus.com.

It is my hope that you enjoyed The Loom as much as I enjoyed writing it. I am grateful you took the time to travel this journey with me. God bless!

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Author’S Note